HaloNoble6

I am curious as to when and how you guys first began to explicitly think that God didn't exist. Personally, I actually can't remember ever believing in the existence of God, but I do remember for a short time thinking that His existence was possible. Here's what changed that. I was about five, with a terrible stomach ache, and this was the one and only time I had ever considered "praying to God" (and I only thought of it because this pain was so unbearable that I'd give absolutely anything a try). So, I prayed for God to relieve me of this pain. When, of course, it didn't go away, I knew (with as much certainty as a child of five could muster) that God didn't exist. From this age onward my thoughts on God were spent fleshing out the reasons why God couldn't exist. This process concluded when I thoroughly understood "Existence is Identity," a full fifteen years after my fight with a stomach ache. What are your stories?

Mr. Cobden: Discussing your hypothesis that FC's current argument is anti-scientific rationalization is one thing and is OK, but attacking a prominent Oist, along with anyone who respects him and follows his work, is not. Mr. Tracinski is not personally involved in this thread, not as a poster nor as an advocate of the particular ideas in play, and so I ask you to refrain from gratuitous attacks on him or anyone, for that matter. Furthermore, in general, attack the merits of an idea, not the merits of the character of someone you can't possibly know simply from a finite number of posts on a forum.

Those House quotes were hilarious; I laughed out loud a number of times on a few of them.

Not all professional psychologists are incompetent. Try Dr. Ellen Kenner, who is an Objectivist. I think she takes questions via email. Her site is here. Cognitive therapy is definitely in order. [Edit] Added last line.

Moderator's note: edited topic title for clarity and proper reference to Ayn Rand (originally referred to as "Rand").

Thank you, Bryan. Since I introduced the mind map and OPAR/Comprehensive-Objectivism-Study-Group idea, I suppose I'll take the reigns. Give me a few days and I'll try to put together a preliminary schedule and format, put it up here, take suggestions, finalize it, and then we'll move forward.

The purpose of the introduction section is to introduce yourself, not explain your entire life story or elucidate us with all your views on life. Typically, people do one or all or some of the following: state their name, how they found the forum, how they discovered Objectivism, what their general philosophic leanings are, and what they do in life for fun and money. There are other specific topic sections within the message board where people can raise particular questions, such as why you think Palestinians deserve a state. Here are some of the many examples of typical introductions:

That applies to any thread where you state particular philosophical positions. You would've been fine if you just said "I lean towards Marxism." But rambling off all your particular positions without explaining why you hold them is not welcome here.

It has come to my attention, GWDS, that you have not read the forum rules: That being said, the owner of this forum does not require that you advocate Objectivist ideas. This does not mean, however, that he allows you to openly piss on Objectivist principles without presenting a single argument that supports your positions. What I mean is, if you are going to state a position which obviously counters the principles of Objectivism, please support your position with an intellectual argument--do not waste our time by posting what amounts to senseless noise. After your first introduction was deleted, you should've taken the opportunity to read the forum rules. Since you apparently haven't, this serves as your first and only explicit warning. If you wish to spew your corrupt positions openly without the need of backing them up with facts, I'm sure there are other forums that fit your needs (the Democratic Underground comes to mind). Until you submit posts worthy of intellectual scrutiny, your posts will have to be approved by a moderator before they are published.

Right, I must have switched *existence* with *universe* in my head.

You're welcome. BTW, non-contradictor, check if I submitted correct answers to your blog post about that 3rd degree polynomial.

Oh, okay, in that case, let me explain. (By the way, I was joking about the hw, I don't expect dishonesty on this board!) Do you know what the graph of 36-x^2 looks like? It's an upside down "U" with the peak at y = 36. The zeros, or roots, of y=36-x^2 are +6 and -6. This is a symmetric, even function. Now, picture your two veritices on the horizontal axis, one at +x and the other at -x (symmetric to make it easy), and then picture two vertical lines emanating from these vertices. They will, above the x-axis, intersect your upside down U at two points. Where do they intersect? Precisely at f(x) or f(-x), because your function is an even function (f(x) = f(-x)). Now, how do you find the area of a rectangle? Base*height. So, in this case, your base is given by the distance between your two vertices, -x and +x, which is 2*x. What is the height? It is given by the point where those vertical lines emanating from x and -x intercept your function f(x), but this is precisely f(x) (or f(-x)! So base*height = (2*abs(x))*(f(x)), where abs(x) means the absolute value of x. I use this because x can take negative values, and you don't want a negative area! Let me know if you have further questions. I've included a graphic for your viewing pleasure! <center><img src="http://www.d-anconia.com/images/plot.gif"></center> Those two vertical lines emanate from +x and -x, and touch your function at f(x) and f(-x), which are equal.

The answer is not intuitive. Think in terms of *outcomes that are good* divided by *total outcomes*.

I hope I'm not doing your hw here... a) The function is given by 2*abs(x)*f(x) or for graphing 2*sqrt(x^2)*f(x) (base times height) b)graph it c) pull the max area off the graph. QED Tell me why the answer to a) is what it is. Edit: where f(x) = 36-x^2 Also, if you know how to differentiate, you can find the extrema of A(x) easily.

It may seem pragmatic, but it isn't. I am not advising you to refrain from specifying values, to act on sensation, wish, whim, or the range of the moment. I'm advising you to apply the values you've consciously validated through a process of thought in the past X years and apply them to this specific context, and ignore past contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. I'm advising you to apply your values to this moment in reality, not to drop your values and mold them to fit this moment in reality.

"I did it once, and that removes my right to complain about personal injuries." It doesn't make sense to withhold judgment of others simply because you've committed similar mistakes in the past. Maybe you have a special kind of understanding and can council them about how to correct their behavior, but this should not supersede the fact that they've wronged you and you should judge accordingly. I think your relectance to judge can be fixed by just focusing on the context at hand, not some past situation.

I'm not too familiar with how that phrase is popularly used, but David is right, if it means one must possess complete moral perfection to pronounce any moral judgment, then the statement deserves to be canned. It, in fact, would be an affront to morality.

Dr. Wood: Welcome to the forum! Maybe you can become our resident expert on art history! Anyway, looking forward to your posts. Felipe

Hey Megan: First, I think it's difficult to discuss personal matters in a public forum, so congratulations on taking that step. I think you're mixed up as to why you lack assertiveness in judging your own failures. It's not "a lack of assertiveness when addressing the failures of others" that causes this, instead it's the knowledge that you are living in a way you personally deem to be wrong. Combined with a sense of honesty, this knowledge inevidably inhibits your confidence to judge those whom are living in a similar way. Why is this? Well, moral judgments (like any judgment) must emanate from a credible source. Since moral judgments are judgments of particular actions, credibility w.r.t. a particular moral context can only be gained by having acted morally within that general context. Possessing knowledge of how to act morally does not lend credibility, acting morally does. For those who honestly struggle with living a moral life and are actively trying to improve their situation, a general sense of honesty should lead them to condemn any continued immorality on their part, while permitting only private condemnation of others who act similarly. Driven by a subconscious sense of self-hate, those who actively evade the fact that they are living immorally will more likely than not openly and consistently scorn those who exhibit similar behavior (I think there's a psychological term for this, something about "mirrors"). I think the quote you mentioned reflects the general principle involved in any act of stating a fact of reality: credibility. You could remake that statement: "Let he who is credible in the field of (substitute here physics, philosophy, logic, etc.) pronounce judgments on (substitute here physics, philosophy, logic, etc.)." Anyway, those are my own thoughts off the top of my head. I hope my own understanding of the issue is correct. I will further add that my advice is to carefully analyse why you think you are failing in a certain respect, address it if true, remind yourself that failures as such do not necessarily relegate you to the last rung in hell, and then the confidence to judge others will come naturally. Edit: cleared up some grammar.

You mean *the universe as we know it,* as in time elapsed after the big bang, right?

Hey Richard: Welcome to the forum! If you haven't already, take a look around, there are many quality posts made by many quality minds here. Also, check out the <a href="http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/Forum_rules">forum rules</a>, specifically those that discuss grammar and the insertion of links into posts. That being said, there is a certain level of formality that is expected and necessitated by the nature of the ideas discussed in this forum. Also, discussion of outside material, such as that of Mr. Goodkind, should begin with a meaningful characterization of his work prior to linking to his site (unless the subject is already well known to members of the forum), otherwise it seems like blatant advertisement ( ). Finally, we should all remember to recite the intellectual's prayer ( ) prior to every post (written by <a href="http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showuser=1">GC</a>):

Re: How do advanced students of Objectivism contribute and benefit from this study group I think the best way to do it is to have a reading schedule for which there is an alloted number of days to discuss any lingering doubts, questions, points of contingency etc. that each group participant might have in a particular section, e.g. have one week to discuss the first chapter in OPAR and then we move on to supplemental material. And so, If you consider certain material in the reading schedule basic, don't waste time reading it, just contribute by keeping track of the issues being discussed and chipping in when you think you've got some answers. As for how you will be able to benefit, as I said earlier, I think it would be a better idea to supplement OPAR with Miss Rand's specialized essays from other books and try to connect them with the basic material in OPAR, that way we'll rise above general and basic issues to more specialized ones that might be of interest to you. Has anyone ever heard of "mind mapping?" It's this technique some elementary school teachers use to help students to integrate the material they're learning. You start off with a basic concept, write it down in the center of a sheet of paper, and then connect other relevant concepts to it, making sure to briefly write the essential connection between connecting concepts along the respective lines that connect them. You also do this to the non-central concepts, that is, connect other concepts to the concepts you've connected to the central concept, and so on and so forth, until you've got a page full of interconnected concepts. My point is that I think it'd be neat to develop a mind of map of the concepts in Objectivism, as well as a mind map of sections in OPAR and all other essays. I think having this sort of thing will be of great use, since sometimes it's hard to see the forest from the trees.

Thinking about it, we could possibly have a study group that builds off of OPAR, supplementing it with the wealth of essays included in Miss Rand's other books, e.g. read the metaphysics chapter in OPAR and supplement it with "The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made" in Philosophy: Who Needs It. We should take a look at with what and where we could supplement OPAR. As for starting other study groups in general, I think someone should be leading each effort in the sense of keeping track of a general schedule, and I think people should be serious about participating, else the rest of the group suffers from lack of participation. That being said, I'm definitely interested in participating in a TBBoTC study group, if we could get another 2 or 3 I think we'd be fine.

Maybe we should discuss putting together an entire program of study groups that will slowly crawl through all of Objectivism, from the ground up. Going from book to book, we could flesh out all our thoughts on record and revisit them as needed in future study groups. What do you think?

Would anyone be interested in participating in a study group for Dr. Binswanger's The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts? I'm reading it for the first time and I'd like to discuss some of the more challenging concepts in this incredibly dense piece.