Leonid
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Posts posted by Leonid
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All statements about proving or disproving god are floating abstractions. By definition god can’t be defined and therefore proved. If someone somehow will ever prove god , he will strip him from his divine qualities. He will become an object , one among many which could be observed, studied, explained but not worshipped.
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Morality is a code of values accepted by choice. Where is no choice there is no morality. All actions which are performed under duress, use of force or threat of it therefore beyond the realm of morality.
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Like in the previous discussion this a claim ion primacy of consciousness. And this claim has been thoroughly refuted now and again. So if scientists arrive to such a conclusion they first must check their premises since this claim leads to irresolvable contradictions
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Mind is secondary to existence since mind is a faculty of awareness. To be aware one should be aware of something. To deny existence is more than to deny mind. It’s a contradiction in terms since the process of denial is an action of mind. If there is no existence than there is no mind and one can’t deny anything.
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"The error in sensationalism is reification: the fallacy of taking an aspect of a thing, grasped by mental analysis [color, brightness, roundness], as if it were an entity capable of separate existence." Ayn Rand never claimed that.
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"Individual rights are an absolute, not to be "balanced" or limited by anybody. (And don't answer me that an individual's right to murder, for instance, is limited. Such a right never existed in the first place.) It certainly is not the government nor society that "sets up rights for an individual or group." These rights are not "set up" (nor "rigged up" nor "framed up"). They are inherent in the nature of man. Man is endowed with them by the fact of his birth." Ayn Rand
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tjfields-In fact you ask-why man cannot initiate use of force to sustain his life? The answer is that man has to live qua man. The man's tool of survival is his mind, not force and this is fact of objective reality. If man lives by force he lives as an animal, not as a man. However, objectively he cannot do that. If he does, he forfeits his mind and his life.
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rowsdower "You could only think I imply the latter by assuming that words are concepts."
In a sense you are right. Words are not concepts, they are audio-visual symbols which designate concepts. Without concepts words are simply sounds. If your words don't designate concepts, you will speak like Mad Hatter ": 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe." -Is that what you mean by language?
Words are means to retain concepts, but concepts themselves initially are pre-verbal.One doesn't need a word to notice similarity or common denominator between 2 or more units, but needs a word to retain it.
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Some context from psychology, there is emotional empathy, and cognitive empathy:
Modern psychology doesn't recognize connection between emotions and cognition and this its major problem.
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A while back I read a book of essays on Ayn Rand and some academic was complaining how she didn't just go the distance and equate words with concepts. (The book contained many other mistakes, wish I remembered the name.) I thought, how ridiculous this is! But then I found the quote: "With the exception of proper names, every word we use is a concept" (aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/concepts.html).
Well, this simply isn't true. Consider the sentence:
You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
"You" is a deixis (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/deixis) and isn't quite a proper name or a concept (okay, this one is nitpicking and You can consider it a proper name if You want to.)
"are... to be... by" rearrange the sentence. It is grammatically equivalent to "Likely, a grue will eat you.". (We can do this deductively without considering the meanings of the words rearranged.) The sentence isn't really about what you are (where "are" is the concept of being).
"a" grue distinguishes it from "the" referred-to-before grue, but the only concept describing our entity so far is "grue". You might say, "but I distingish it from a group," but then realize that you had to say a group. It's just grammar.
Similarly, you certainly have concepts about the use of these words. But this does not mean that the words are concepts. I have a concept of a period, and a period aids in transmitting meaning, but it is not itself a concept.
Don't go thinking grammar is bound in a well-defined way to meaning, as our very own page (wiki.objectivismonline.net/Concept) seems to. Grammar is a fickle mistress and will confound you at every step.
P.S. If you choose a random entry in a dictionary, you will almost certainly find a concept.
P.P.S. If you found this post too easy, try and count the concepts in "It would have been done earlier had it not been delayed until later by what he had been doing to it."
You, I, he, she etc...refer to person or some times to animals and rarely to objects. You claim that they are not concepts? Are, is , be, am-verbs of existence. You claim that existence is not a concept? By-concept of relationship. Cannot see where is exactly your problem?
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Empathy/ compassion to whom and for what? Altruist morality presupposes that we should feel empathy to each and every man regardless. Before they supported their claim by religious commandments, today they use social evolution theory for that purpose and therefore see no difference between apes and men. But empathy of course is not a religious imperative, nor it is a social instinct. Like friendship and love it is an emotional response to values. Only such an empathy could be sincere. And man's emotional response depends on his basic implicit or explicit premises. Therefore dichotomy between mind and empathy is a trade mark of altruist. No man could fully internalize altruist morality and live. The requirement of this morality to feel empathy to just every man on earth is simply impossible to accomplish.
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Leonid,
As I stated before, it appears that you did not fully read the original post. In the original post, the second paragraph of the scenario reads:
"I think that a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep and that the ultimate value, that which is the final goal, or end, to which all lesser goals are the means and by which lesser goals are evaluated, is my life. Because my ultimate value is my life, that which furthers my life is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys my life is the evil."
I have not substituted, as you claim in post #33, a subjective value for an objective value. In the scenario I laid out what I value starting with my life as the ultimate value, followed by the pursuit and obtainment of the basic necessities that allow me to live, followed by the pursuit and obtainment of solitude, followed by the pursuit and obtainment of luxuries and means of entertainment. This is my hierarchy of values. While these may be just some of my values, I have determined that they are the most important to me.
You claim that my values are subjective but you do not explain why they are subjective. Please provide an explanation.
Objectively the lack of solitude is not a threat to your life and solitude is not a necessarily requirement of your life. Your hierarchy of values is arbitrary and subjective. This is the source of contradiction.
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Leonid,
In post #29 you wrote, "If your life is an ultimate value then you'd protect it by recognition of right to live. By committing murder you forfeit this right."
I recognize that my life is my ultimate value and that I have to act to protect, further, and fulfill my ultimate value. Committing an act that allows me to fulfill my ultimate value is good. I do not forfeit my ultimate value by acting to fulfill it.
You also wrote, " As for ownership question, you should explain how you use and dispose on the whole island single handed?"
Since this seems to be a sticking point for you, I will add a line to the next version of the scenario that states something to the affect that the island is small.
But I will also address the ownership issue now. Based on your previous comments, it seems that you think that it was wrong to kill the man on the beach because the man and I could have worked out an agreement to share the island, or come to some other arrangement. If this is not correct, please let me know.
I will state that the ownership question is an irrelevant one when determining whether killing the man on the beach was right or wrong. When the man came upon the island it was not possible for me to fulfill my value of solitude and therefore my ultimate value. I acted to preserve and achieve my ultimate value. Because my action furthered my life, my ultimate value, it was good. The availability of alternative actions does not mean that the action I took was wrong, rather, it just means that there were alternatives. Maybe the man on the beach could have moved to the other side of the island, or built a raft and left, or done something else that would have allowed me to achieve my goal. Just because these alternatives may have been available, and even if one or more of these alternatives allowed me to achieve my goal, it still does not mean that the action I choose to take was wrong.
By using your argument I can claim that physical beauty is my ultimate value and on this ground I can kill the neighbor next door because he is ugly. Your fallacy is that you substitute objective value-live with your subjective value-solitude. This is a philosophy of subjective irrational egoist. For him the ultimate value is anything which he wish to be. Even if you claim that your very life depends on your solitude, it won't give you a moral right to kill since such a claim has nothing to do with objective reality. Feelings are subjective and wishes are not fishes. As for question of ownership-you can own the whole island if you legally acquired it-bought, inhered etc...But as I understood this is not a case. If there were a case, you wouldn't need to invoke any other reasons except ownership. You would have a right to remove an intruder from your property by all legal means available, although in such a case killing is not an option as long as your life is not in danger.
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The practice of domestication already provides many object lessons in swapping goods for services, where having a mutual respect for animal life actually enhances the benefit to both parties. And I've already included this in a prior comment to you... post #26
Having a right to life doesn't entitle a murder to murder... we already agree to this. Your comments have to do with how to deal with transgressions against a right to life; which we can't even begin to approach until some common frame of reference is established.
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Edit: I'll return later to respond to any serious discussion of why animals don't have a similar right to life, according to their particular abilities and behavior, that humans entitle themselves to. For now I'm going to bypass the bench and head straight to the showers... I feel a need to get clean...
If you live on deserted island alone, the question of rights doesn't even exist. This is a need of protection of your life and property from initiation of force against you brings up the whole concept of rights. But animals live by force. Therefore the whole concept is inapplicable to them. In regard to the treatment of animals one should talk not about rights but compassion.
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Leonid,
In post #17 you wrote, " In your particular case the premise that solitude is an ultimate value is wrong."
It appears that you did either did not read or did not thoroughly read the original post. In the original post I clearly state that the ultimate value is my life. I state this many times. Solitude is a value I pursue because solitude contributes to the fulfillment and enjoyment of my life, the ultimate value.
You also wrote, "You alone cannot occupy and use the whole island, unless it's a very small one." This seems to be a statement of fact however, in the scenario I do occupy and use the whole island so either it is a very small island or your statement is not statement of fact. If you meant this statement as some kind of universal or fundamental law that 'one person cannot occupy and use a whole island' then please explain, in objective terms, how this statement is derived and why it is correct.
If your life is an ultimate value then you'd protect it by recognition of right to live. By committing murder you forfeit this right. As for ownership question, you should explain how you use and dispose on the whole island single handed?
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The practice of domestication already provides many object lessons in swapping goods for services, where having a mutual respect for animal life actually enhances the benefit to both parties. And I've already included this in a prior comment to you... post #26
Exactly how a caw benefits from the slaughter?
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Then a lion does too, and by the same source. Bear in mind we aren't talking about government securing rights. Positing a right to life is nothing more than the recognition of actions that are behaviorally correct and proper according to ones nature in order to claim ownership of ones life. That is the source of this fundamental right; ones nature, not ones legislature. Does a lion claim ownership of it's life? Try to wrestle it away from him and observe what happens.
Man can recognize a right to life, but doesn't create it by recognition or cognition. Like reality, this fundamentally right behavior is the action necessary to live shared by all living creatures; it is reality in motion. And it exists independently of man's recognition or denial of it. You might argue that man has a more advanced recognition of a right to life than a lion, but you cannot dismiss the lion's right to life without undermining your own. The right to life is inherent and inalienable by observation of reality, or it's simply a nice idea without foundation.
Ones life, as property, begins at birth and cannot be transferred or stolen. Murders and theives cannot collect lives by taking them. That is the meaning of inalienable; alienating one from ones life means death. This is an observational fact of reality, and not at all unique to the human animal. Jumping over this fact by equating conceptual recognition of life as a property, with the enactment of some right to it, will not persuade any member of the animal kingdom to relinquish their right to life. They will defend their right to life with tooth and claw, and slime you if necessary.
If rights are social permissions, then man needs to learn to play nice with those animals he interacts with.
Edit: One final thought... Were it possible to behave with a unique right to live, would that entitle one to inflict pain, suffering and death on "rightless" others? It would be a curious kind of right to life to promote that kind of anguish, would it not??
The concept of rights and ownership on life presupposes an existence of self-awareness and Free Will. Lion doesn't possess that. Moreover, lion doesn't act on conceptual level at all. Therefore to apply these concepts like rights or ownership on life to lion is to turn them into stolen concepts. Using this argument one also could object to the treatment of malaria, since malaria parasite also has " right" to live. But of course you can try to explain to hunger lion who attacks you that you also have right to live and he has to respect it,
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By claiming that metaphysically given is contingent they in fact claim that existence has volition on its own. In other words they assert primacy of consciousness.
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I never claimed that I intend to re-write Objectivism. My purpose was to highlight certain points, in particular the self-causation of consciousness.
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A long semicircular vat of water, (or a complete circle) could easily be constructed such that it WOULD be perfectly symmetrical to the perception of an ass. Place the ass at the center and we could watch in reality which portion of the water it would approach to slake its thirst...
Oh but no it will die of thirst since it would be paralyzed from indecision.
Only a certain "kind" of "philosopher" (notice the quotes) would believe that in actual reality the animal would be paralyzed. Science... biology? What's that?
Raise your hand if you feel thusly: Reality "should" (ideally) behave according to my theory... if it doesn't (in practice) .. reality be damned. (Rationalist much...?)
Even so it's impossible to make all conditions exactly equal. For sure an ass will reach the water in the straight line sight-which he directly perceives.He cannot see the whole circle.
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It's pretty much impossible to test this theory... No two haystacks could be EXACTLY the same
Exactly. That why it's thought experiment.
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Dearest Leo, pages 20-25 in VOS already explained all that, eloquently. Is there a new idea here? If so, please assert it in one, blunt sentence, as if Hemmingway turned Objectivist.
I never claimed that I intend to re-write Objectivism. My purpose was to highlight certain points.
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Does a human?
Yes. Human is a rational being and as such he developed concept of rights which no animal ever did. Of course man is a volitional being and may choose the path of violation of rights. He may maim, kill, rob or live as a parasite by fraud. Such a man who forfeits his conceptual mind in practice is not different from a wild animal. That why we cage them in prisons, or some time even exterminate them, exactly like animals.
Science of Philosophy vs. Science Science?
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
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To prove means to define, to limit, to put boundaries. That all completely impossible to apply to infinite, omniscient omnipresent omnipotent eternal being. Not to mention that all these qualities are also floating abstractions.