Leonid

Stephen, I concur. Awareness of existence precedes self-awareness and " I am" precedes " I think" Consciousness is corollary of existence, more precisely-it is an attribute of life. (Rand 1963, 19). Life is a process of self-initiated and goal-orientated action. The emergence of self-consciousness turned this process from the automatic to volitional, allowed choice of goals and conceptual thinking. Therefore man's consciousness qua man starts with self-awareness. The exact mechanism of self-awareness is not known. Roger E. Bissell maintains that introspection is as valid and self-evident as perception. He wrote : (Mind and Will as Objective Phenomena The Ontological Status of Introspective Data) Regardless what the mechanism of self-awareness may be, it is obvious that awareness " I am " is a foundation of human consciousness. When sundry collectivists deny "I" they in fact deny volition and mind and bring human consciousness to the perceptual level of an animal. When reductionists deny axiomatic nature of self-awareness they do the same.

I think that concept-formation and induction are two different cognitive processes.Concept designates an essential common denominator between two or more entities. The process of concept-formation is a process of omission of non-essential. Induction as like as deduction is a logical process. If "A" then "X". Both processes are based on observations and concept-formation is prerequisite of both. Induction is essentially a process of anticipation. Robert Rosen defined an anticipatory system as follows: "A system containing a predictive model of itself and/or its environment, which allows it to change state at an instant in accord with the model's predictions pertaining to a later instant."( Anticipatory Systems, Robert Rosen, 1985, Pergamon Press). It is a vital process for any living organism, since it allows to project goals into the future and to act upon them. Animals have build-in mechanisms for this purpose, but man uses volition and conceptual cognition. Induction, thus, is an anticipatory process on conceptual level.

Volco "When I am asked whether I am Jewish, I reply as follows: No. I was raised Jewish but I do not consider myself Jewish; I am an atheist." In order to answer such a question one first should answer " Who is a Jew?" According to Jewish law (Halacha) the answer is very simple: A Jew is everybody who was born by Jewish mother or converted to Judaism in accordance with Jewish law. Period. From this definition follows that: 1.The fact of being a Jew has nothing to do with religion. This is just biological fact. Such a person could be Christian, Muslim, atheist,assimilated, or what you have-from the Jewish point of view he is a Jew. 2.A conversion to Judaism is obviously religious procedure, but it is not reversible. It's one way ticket. The convert may decide that he doesn't want to be observing Jew anymore, but he or she remains a Jew nevertheless. If converted woman gave birth after conversion, her children are Jews, her observance notwithstanding. The ethnicity or religion of the father is irrelevant. That why you may have Jews from every race and tribe. It is clear that Jewishness is not religious but ethnic and cultural phenomenon. Since Judaism is non-proselytizing religion and the process of conversion is long and complicated, and aspiring converts actually discouraged by rabbis to convert, Jews preserved common genetic heritage, as recent mitochondrial DNA studies confirmed. Jews even have their own genetic diseases. Non-ethnic Jews are tiny minority. One may claim that he doesn't accept the definition above. Alas, there is no other. Besides, I think it is only fair that Jews would be allowed to define who is a Jew. Jewishness is not only ethnic but also cultural phenomenon. Jews share common language, history, rich written and oral culture, traditions, customs which are not necessary religious. One of such a traditions is reverence for learning and mind in action. That maybe explains why among Objectivists so many Jews.

Boydstun "Consciousness precedes identification of itself as consciousness in the course of individual human development. Consciousness is never without object of consciousness (however vague the latter) throughout the life of the individual animal, human or other." That's true. Human and animal consciousness starts as an awareness of existence. But consciousness is not an end in itself. It is a tool of survival which facilitates self-initiated and goal orientated interaction with environment. For an animal the mere awareness of existence is sufficient to activate inherent mechanisms of such an interaction. But human consciousness operates through volition on conceptual level, and therefore its prerequisite is self-awareness. Man defines his goals and the ways to achieve them by choice. Choice presupposes self-awareness. Your time table is a precise affirmation of the fact that human conceptual cognition is developing together with self-awareness. One cannot exist without another. Self-awareness in essence separates the man from the beast. Contrary to Descartes, there is no mind-body dichotomy and your example is an ample demonstration that self-awareness starts as association of "I" with one's body image. In "Anthem" the protagonist developed the concept of "I" in full only when he saw for the first time in his life the reflection of his body in the water.

JayR "Again Im not sure why you say "starts with" Because humans don't born with conceptual thinking and self-awareness. They develop these qualities, and this is volitional process. Volition presupposes self-awareness, and chronologically this is the first quality which infant develops- at age of 7-8 months. The ability to form concepts comes later. Animals are not mindless automatons, they do possess "internality", though better term would be intentionality, aboutness. However their consciousness operates on perceptual level. Moreover, all living beings operate through self-initiated goal-orientated action on all evolutionary levels. Low organisms have build-in cellular and self-organization mechanisms for that purpose, more developed organisms use inherent knowledge (instinct) and acquired knowledge, humans use volitional conceptual thinking. But essentially it is the same process.

Omnipotence of alleged God doesn't mean that he is most powerful. It means that he possesses strength without limitation, a quality without identity. Since such a premise violates law of identity, it inevitably leads to contradictions. But contradictions don't exist and so the alleged God.

I think that animals possess awareness of existence, otherwise they wouldn't survive. However they don't possess self-awareness. Dog doesn't know that he is a dog. Self-awareness is precondition of introspection, free will and conceptual thinking. Animal who possesses self-awareness is necessary conceptual being, it should be able to form concepts, develop language etc...As far as we know they don't have these properties. One may argue about primates who apparently have some rudimentary conceptual thinking and self-awareness. Human conceptual consciousness starts with self-awareness. Before development of self-awareness the consciousness of infant is undistinguished from that of animals.

I noticed that and I hope that I clarified the issue.

"Existence exists. Existence is identity. All things have specific natures or are specific natures. A is A. Man is man. Consciousness is identification of existence" Consciousness is identification of existence, but animals also possess such consciousness. Human consciousness starts with self-identification and self-awareness. Paraphrasing Rand, to say "I think" one first should be able to say "I". Consciousness cannot be reduced to existence but could be reduced to the process of life since it is essentially biological phenomenon. Human consciousness is self-generated goal orientated action of man on conceptual level, when the goal is man's life qua man.

Free Will is also defined as volition and nobody talks about free volition, it would be a redundancy. The problem of volition could be resolved by invoking of the law of identity and causation. Obviously, for the reductionist, who views brain as collection of atoms, the problem is irresolvable. However, mind and volition are not an equivalent of the brain's physical structure. They are new emergent properties of the brain which emerged as result of self-organization of it physical parts-atoms, molecules, neurons. This new properties have new identity, the identity of living entity which is an ability to generate self-initiated,self-sustaining, goal orientated action. Causation is identity applied to action. Therefore every living organism is driven by self-causation, when the cause is the organism's goals projected into the future. Self-causation on the conceptual level is volition.

Here is another much simpler refutation of the omnipotence's concept. Can all-powerful thing create the rock so heavy than he himself he cannot lift? If he cannot he's not omnipotent, if he can he's not omnipotent again. Omnipotence is potency without identity, nothing in particular. There is no such a thing.

logicalpath :"When I was reviewing "Works of Aristotle" I could not find any mention of "The Law of Identity" nor could I find a specific outline of "A is A". " No wonder.The Laws of Aristotle are 1. The Law of Contradiction.2. The Law of excluded Middle. The Law of identity, A is A, had been formulated not by Aristotle but by philosopher Antonius Andreas in 12th century A.D. However, this Law obviously presents the same essential points of Aristotelian laws.

“What did God do before he created the universe? He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions.” In 1929 Edwin Hubble made the observation that distant galaxies are moving rapidly from us, in other words, the universe is expanding. This discovery brought the question of the beginning of the universe, the famous Big Bang. Here we have very clear demonstration of the philosophical void of our times. As it had been demonstrated in the “Rational Cosmology” and by other objectivists the notion of the beginning of the universe is contradiction in terms. For example if time didn’t exist before Big Bang and nothing was changing than how this alleged explosion took place? Time is a measure of the change and an explosion is very rapid change of the matter by definition. Philosophically Big Bang’s theory belongs to the category of concepts known as Primary or First Cause-like primary mover, intelligent design, God etc…First Cause allegedly causes everything of its kind or everything at all. However this concept has intrinsic contradiction. If Primary Cause is the cause of everything, then it has to be the cause of itself and that leads to infinite regression. If Big Bang is the cause of Universe then what would be the cause of Big Bang? Evidently it has to be another Big Bang and so on ad infinitum. Since infinite regression is logical fallacy, the concept of Big Bang is not valid. So why such a contradictory theory had become so widely acceptable? I think it’s because that Big Bang theory has strong religious connotations. The Catholic Church for example officially pronounced in 1951 that Big Bang theory is in accordance with the Bible. However astrophysicists were looking for some other non-contradictory explanations of the phenomena of expanding universe and background microwave radiation. For example nothing in the laws of physic or philosophy contradict an idea that total gravitational pull of the universal matter may cause compression of this matter and explosion like gigantic Super Nova star. But such an event doesn’t have to be the beginning of the universe or its end. The other possibility is the steady state theory which postulates that as the galaxies moved away from each other, new galaxies were continually forming in the gasp in between… And finally I’d like to quote the author of Big Bang theory himself. Stephen Hawking says in his book “A brief history of time”: “It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity” Singularity is contradictory mathematical fiction which describes entity without identity and which is prerequisite for Big Bang. Contemporary physicists are desperately trying to resolve the contradictions of their current theories by constructing more contradictory incomprehensive theories of alternative universe, parallel universes, multidimensional universe, string and superstring theories etc… This is vicious circle which can be only broken off by clear understanding that Existence exists, but contradictions do not.

Correction" and death shall have no dominion"

""THE WORLD WILL END"-epistimic world of consciousness

""I WILL NOT DIE"-means "AND DEAD SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION."

Boydstun: "I recall you have said that English was your third language, Russian your first. I do not recall where you lived in Russia nor your age there. Did you ever live in or visit Leningrad? Have you read We the Living? Your perspective on it could be quite fresh for us to hear, and anyway you might find this novel a real experience." It's amazing that you are telling me how Petrograd/Leningrad/Peterburg's dwellers love their city. I was born in Leningrad and spent first 26 years of my life in this city. Since I left Russia I've seen many countries and cities. Petrograd, or "Peter" as we affectionately used to call it, is part of my soul. Yes, I've read " We the Living" many times, and every time it caused me a paroxysm of nostalgia. I love this city passionately. But this is beyond the point. Petrograd is a monument to the spirit of man, but not the man who ordered to build it on skeletons. It is a monument to the spirit of architects and sculptors (mainly Italians) who created this marvel. It is also a monument to the spirit of Russian intellectuals, poets, composers and writers like Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Mandelstam and many others who created Russian culture as we know it and whose life was inseparable from "Peter".

To be a Jew doesn't necessarily mean to practice Judaism. It also could mean sharing the common genetic and cultural heritage, history, language, different cultural customs etc.. It is such a thing as a secular Jew. In fact majority of Israeli population is secular. I'd define myself simply as a Jew.

No, her focus is "[Petrograd] was a monument to the spirit of man." The question is who is this man and what is his spirit? If Ayn Rand meant Peter the Great, then the whole piece has not Hugo's but Nietzsche' touch.

"Petrograd was not born; it was created. The will of a man raised it where men did not choose to settle. An implacable emperor commanded into being the city and the ground under the city. . . . No willing hands came to build the new capital. . . . It rose by the labor of soldiers, . . . regiments who took orders and could not refuse to face a deadly foe, a gun or a swamp. (WL 226) [Petrograd] was a monument to the spirit of man. / Peoples know nothing of the spirit of man, for peoples are only nature, and man is a word that has no plural. (WL 229)" If Petrograd was a monument to the spirit of man, it was an evil spirit, the spirit which in the modern history could be compared only with that of Stalin. Stalin just loved Peter the Great, kept his picture in his office and ordered to create the full length feature movie about him. As Stalin sacrificed millions of Russians for sake of his "great" enterprises of the building of communism, so Peter the Great sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Russian peasants for the building of Petrograd. I doubt that this was the spirit which Ayn Rand admired.

dmastt "In the case of Milgrim's, the man with the electric dial had a CHOICE, and no physical force was exerted." This is exactly the point. The man with the dial became second hander. He completely submitted himself to the authority, without any coercion. He simply assumed that the teacher (and society, priest, parents, party, government etc...) knows better and his only role is to obey without any questions. One doesn't question authorities, especially if authorities present some highest usually altruistic goal-in this case the progress of science. Since the morality of altruism and sacrifice is the dominant moral philosophy of our time and age, the man with the dial, which could be any government bureaucrat, is always ready to sacrifice others and himself. From the Objectivist point of view, no psychological pressure equates to physical force or threat to use it.

Obviously poetic statement, but with deep philosophical meaning. "I" cannot die. As long as person is alive he possesses self-awareness, his "I". When he dead, "I" already not there. In other words, person cannot be aware that he's dead.

Even more interesting the question to what degree one may submit himself to the authority and to become complete second hander. In the Milgram experiment one group of students applied torture in the form of electrical shocks to the group of volunteers according to the instructions of the teacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/milgram_obedience_experiment.html They didn't know that they applied fake shocks and continued the torture in spite fake cries of their "victims". Following instructions the majority of participants increased the power of shock to the fatal level-simply because the moderator told them to do so. I think that this experiment tells a lot why our society looks as it is.

Steve D'Ippolito: "Also you DIDN'T accept her premise of indestructibility and immortality. You accepted a long-lived intelligence and decided that long-lived might as well be immortal--you made a point of not accepting the "immortal" part of the premise in fact." In fact I DID. I wrote " he will live as long as the Universe exists". To ask for more than that would be a violation of the axiom of existence. RationalBiker: "I recognize that as your claim, not that you have achieved that claim" I substantiated my claim by numerous arguments which never have been refuted yet.

Please, we discuss here a thought experiment, not the feasibility or technical details of trans-human being, although the advance of biological science may turn this possibility to reality sooner than you think. But it's beyond the point. Ayn Rand's robot is also belongs to science fiction. I just accepted her premise of indestructibility and immortality and showed that this is not an obstacle for morality. I've shown why and how such a being will necessary pursue values, and even on much greater scale than we do.