Leonid

What is purpose of Objectivism? This question is amount to the question " Philosophy, who needs it?". Ayn Rand wrote a book with such a title and I strongly recommend it. In short the answer is that man, been volitional being without inherent automatic code of behavior needs a guidance in the form of explicit comprehensive view on existence. This is philosophy and as such it's not an intellectual game like chess or linguistic analysis, but essential requirement of man's survival. Since contradictions don't exist, philosophy based on inherent contradictions and false premises is a tool of destruction of mind and body. Man operates on conceptual level but lives on earth. To live and thrive he needs a guidance which based on facts of reality and their non-contradictory integration into concepts, including the most broad abstractions like existence, mind and good. This is Objectivism.

The difference between implicit and explicit concepts is that explicit concepts could be retained and communicated by means of words which designate them. The child who is learning to talk may notice and remember that certain objects like chairs have something in common. When he learns the word " chair" he will assign this word to this similarity simply by emulating others. However it is impossible to him to learn, retain and use the word which designates nothing for him. This is the task for a parrot. The cognitive development which allows concepts formation and learning of language is a simultanious process. Feral children which had been raised by animals never learn to speak or think, in spite that their brain is intact.

There is an incredible amount of confusion in regard to animal "rights" . Some people make their utmost to erase the difference between humans and animals. Would like to know what is their agenda?

Ownership means right to use and dispose at will. You alone cannot occupy and use the whole island, unless it's a very small one. Been right ownership also means a freedom of action in social context. Since you are alone and want to maintain your solitude ,the concept of rights and ownership is inapplicable to your situation. Solitude is not an ultimate value, your life is. Happiness is also not an ultimate value, it is an effect of your living your life qua man. The evil is not what you consider to be evil but what is objectively prevent you to live such a life. Finally, contradictions don't exist and rational people have no conflict of interests. If you found such a conflict you should check your premises. In your particular case the premise that solitude is an ultimate value is wrong.

I thought that religion is separated from the state. Am I wrong?

Free Will is an ability to choose on the conceptual level of self-awareness. To paraphrase Ayn Rand in order to say " I want" one should be able first to say " I". Animals don't consciously form societies, this is an instinctive trait. Rights is a freedom of action in the social context which animals evidently don't have. Does lion respect right to live of his prey? The question of animal rights doesn't exist in the animal kingdom. It's only pertain to humans. As for infants, they are humans, in spite their rights are very limited.

In fact you claim an ownership rights on the whole island. I don't think that you have a basis for such a claim. You may claim an ownership on the limited space you occupy and actively use-your house and surroundings, your fields, maybe part of the beach in your vicinity. Even small island can accommodate two and more people. Rights means freedom of action in social context. if you don't respect such a freedom of other people how do you expect them to respect yours? There is no conflict of interest between rational people and a simple agreement between you two could solve the problem without any need of killing.

No. Animals have no self awareness. Dog doesn't know that he is a dog. Animals don't act on conceptual level. An ability of preferential behavior is not a Free Will, otherwise you have to grant Free Will to plants who follow sun. And to use concept of "respect" in regards to animals is to empty it from any meaning.

Rights is freedom of action in social context. It presupposes existence of free will and conceptual mind. Advocates of animal rights see no difference between animals and people. Since they cannot bring up animals to the level of people, they effectively degrade people to the level of animals. The notion of animal rights is another assault on mind.

One can debate with a person who at least shares the same basic premises. A debate with Chomsky would be completely fruitless. They simply don't have a common ground to start any debate.

"However, what I don't understand is why Brook wouldn't debate this guy."-maybe he doesn't have a strong stomach and could vomit on stage.

Onyx doesn't describe the updated situation. The socialist party lost political power in Israel about 35 years ago. Today Israel is a mixed economy with large element of crony capitalism but also has many small and medium independent companies which are world leaders in the field of Hi-tech innovation. I suggest to read the book " Start-Up Nation" by Saul Singer and Dan Senor.http://www.kalahari.com/Books/Start-Up-Nation_p_34177957?gclid=CJC72dTo_LsCFSKWtAoddDEA4w Even in kibbutz the socialist ideology is not a supreme ruler anymore. The economical relations in kibbutz are not that of socialism but rather similar to that of extended family. The place where leftist ideology is still ruling in Israel is mass media and academia, like in the rest of the Western world. As for military service, yes it is compulsory. But for the most of israelis the military service is a source of pride and honor. The elite military units in fact have more applications to enroll than they can absorb, which makes the service voluntary. However if Onyx feels that Israel doesn't deserve to be defended and Hamas should take over, he should emigrate ASAP. In America he wouldn't be drafted to Army, but would be submitted to such an amount of rules and regulations that Israel would be like Galt Gulch by comparison. However Israelis in America make great phalaphel too, so Onyx is welcomed to join.

Perception is a process of active interaction between sensory input and information which has been previously stored in brain and modeled by it. In other words we have ready templates of percepts which interact with sensory input. This for example makes the process of recognition of objects very quick. But templates are not identical with sensory input and that why brain has to compensate.

A is A -Perception is indeed very complex. In your example we are dealing with interaction of different light waves reflected from the different surfaces and with background light. Nevertheless each of them reflects certain physical reality of the objects and sources of light. If you illuminate a surface of object which absorbs red color with red light, you will not see anything since there is no reflection. But even the absence of perception in such a case will pertain to the structure of the object. You would be able to make certain conclusion in regard to this object. But suppose you are living in the world in which the only source of natural light is red. All objects which absorb red wave lights would be invisible. Does it mean that you will never learn about their existence? Evidently not. We have other means of perception except vision and could create artificial sources of light which is not red.

Fraud is a species of deception where man's property rights violated by means of lying. Most of transactions are performed in good faith and based on trust since there is often a gap of time between payment and delivery of goods. People also use cheques or letters of credit as means of payment. In both cases there is a pledge to pay or to deliver goods taken on faith. When such a pledge is not honored, the guilty part initiates force against his victims by retaining goods or money. In principle there is no difference between fraud and theft or robbery. However not every lie is initiation of force. In the most of the cases lie is a moral, not legal issue.

No. What I said that properties of diamond cannot be explained by reducing them to the atoms of carbon. If that were the case than these properties would be undistinguished from that of coal or graphite. All 3 are made of carbon atoms but have different structures which define their properties. As diamond is not just collection of carbon atoms, so living cell is not just collection of chemicals. It has certain structure which defines its emergent properties and which cannot be reduced to intracellular elements. Life starts on the level of cell as a whole.

The concept of color pertains specifically to perception. The perception however depends not only on the object but also on the means of perception which could vary insignificantly. If your perception doesn't provide you with a valid knowledge about object of perception, then why do you need it at all? The physical structure of the object is a such that you perceive it as red. The task of science is to explain why?

Actually weak reducible emergency is a misnomer. Protein folding is a self-assembly process, doesn't produce completely new emergent properties. The property of enzyme activity is not emergent, the active sites of protein exist in the protein molecule and simply became exposed during the process of folding. Therefore the enzymatic activity could be reduced to these previously existed sites. However the process of crystallization does. The structure of these objects is responsible for their properties rather then their molecules. So the physical properties of these objects cannot be reduced to their parts. Coal and diamond have different properties in spite that they made out of the same molecules of carbon. The same applies to the assembly of balls from the half-balls.

The concept of color presupposes perception. If one asks how atomic structure of this particular object looks like the answer would be- it looks red.

There are 3 elements in perception 1. object of perception 2 media ( light waves, sound waves etc...) 3. organs of perception. Percept is a combination of all 3.

sSrictlyLogical "What would be meant by saying in this context: "The emergent property 'rolling' exhibited by whole balls, which are composed of half balls, is irreducible to the half balls" Yes that true. However the concept of causation is applicable to interaction, not to entities. So instead of "Half balls in the proper arrangement together cause the property rolling." I'd say that interaction between half-balls causes emergence of the new entity, a ball with the property of rolling. The examples of weak emergency when new property could be reduced to parts are numerous. For example spontaneous folding of protein molecule which causes activation of enzyme, formation of cell membranes etc... For full review of biological self-organization see http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/philbio/readings/edelmann.biologicalselforganization.2007.pdf

Law of causality applies to actions, not to entities. " The law of causation states that entities are the cause of action-not that every entity , of whatever sort has a cause , but that every action does; and not that the cause of action is action, but that the cause of action is entities." . ( OPAR pg 16). it is a corollary of the law of identity. Not sure what you mean by "undeniably single valued" Volition is not an exception to the Law of Causality; it is a type of causation. ( ITOE 110) In many instances the identity of entity is a such that entity can interact within itself. This is a case of self-organization of matter. "a process in which pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from numerous interactions among the lower level components of the system. Moreover the rules specifying interactions among the system’s components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. In short pattern is an emergent property of the system rather than being imposed on the system by an external ordering influence.’’ Camazine et al. (2001) In other words the interaction between parts of the entity is a cause of self-organization and emergent properties. From this definition follows that emergent property of the new system cannot be reduced to its parts. Consciousness and volition are emergent properties. Their cause is self-organization of the complex biological system, self-causation.

StrictlyLogical-I already gave an example of emergent property which cannot be reduced to the properties of the parts. But I'll repeat it. Think about many half-balls which can randomly interact with each other. None of them has a property of rolling. Suppose that flat surface of these half-balls is adhesive. When these two half-balls interact they create a new entity, a ball which has an emergent property of rolling. In this example the cause of emergent property is a process of self-organization of half-balls which creates a new entity, a ball with the new property, rolling. In spite that half-balls are parts of the ball, its property of rolling cannot be reduced to them. Law of causality is Law of identity applied to action. An emergent property is a property of the new object with identity which is different from the identity of its parts. In Ayn Rand words, man is not a collection of chemicals, and neither any living object. The new identity of the living objects defines their new causality which is self-causation. Btw, you are wrong when you assume that in Objectivism nothing is causeless. Existence as a whole for example has no cause. Read OPAR by Dr. Peikoff.

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And yet the whole system can possess the properties which none of its part possess. Try to reduce the movement of the hunting lioness to the Brown movement of molecules in her body. You won't be able to do that and not because of epistemology but because metaphysical difference between living and inanimate objects. it couldn't be reduced even to the biochemistry of the muscle contraction and the flow of ions in the synapses of her brain. Such biochemical events could lead to any movement, epileptic fit for example. But there is a great difference between such a movement and goal orientated action, like hunting or writing post. The metaphysical difference is exactly in the different identity of the living and dead.