TheEgoist

What exactly is wrong with counter culture? Counter culture got us here today.

Farva!

Okay, I am usually against all this Utopia building non-sense, but I am all down for this.

I swear to God I'm gonna pistol whip the next guy that says shenanigans.

As if this will change or makes Obama special.

You're a pervert for liberty. Wait, was that what you said someone was gonna say? Who knows. I wonder, of all the big-talkers that say they're moving, how many actually do it. I'm gonna say 0, because moving to another country is way harder than yelling on the internet about how the new president stinks.

Strictly speaking, many of these are not themselves logical fallacies, in the colloquial sense of the term.

That cat's grammar is hardly serious.

Grames, do you think Rand's treatment of concepts was exhaustive? By which I mean, do you think she covered every kind of true conceptual class? I know she said she considered concept formation only a hypothesis to be tested,, but by applying it to all various kinds of concept classes such as concept of entity, of consciousness etc, do you think she got every concept class that could exist? If not, does this mean trouble for the theory? Basically I'm looking for a necessary link between concept and measurement omission. Why must a concept be built upon measurement omission? This seems to me to be an empirical question, since it deals only with human cognition. As Peikoff and Rand have said, concept formation is specifically about how WE form concepts and not how an altered sort of consciousness might do it. (The latter half of the conjunction is my own, but I assume it follows necessary from the former) In regards to Hawkins, I don't have time to investigate too much right now. Just a brief question. Does Hawkins' theory of hierarchy queue with the Objectivist hierarchy, i.e from perceptual data to first level concepts and further abstraction from there? Also, is there any aspect of measurement omission in his theory?

Rand's entire system of epistemology and theory of universals is based on the proposition that man is born with cognitive capacities, abilities and most importantly, limitations. Genes do not carry knowledge, they carry inherited traits. Traits are not knowledge, and genes that may effect our mental lives are more dispositional than anything. They are capacities we have to a certain mental process or action, but they are not knowledge. We form concepts in particular manners. The way we class objects is certainly natural and based in neurobiology, but that does not imply innate knowledge. Steven Pinker is a famous Psychologist who fails to grasp this simple fact. A non-human consciousness may be distinct in how it gathers knowledge in some way, but the essence of tabula rasa is that it must be gained by some kind of experience. I think this can be applied across the board from the nature of the concept "knowledge" as we know it.

I agree with Binswanger that CCD is implicit, which is why I would not presume to just go on accounts of young children, and there is evidence that most humans have already reached the conceptual stage of consciousness before they can even utter coherent words. A proper study would probably deal with object recognition. Most purely philosophic theories are more metaphysically based than epistemologically based. Nominalists still take up the realist fallacy that in order for something to have a universal property, there must really be some such "universal" out there, in the world. So, most nominalist theories are not terribly interesting to us. I've pointed out before that Peter Abelard has a similar method for identifying universals as Rand, though neglected measurement omission, which of course is key. Conceptualism in general is very similar to Rand. I would say that Rand was wrong for rejecting the school of thought entirely. Concept formation exists within cognitive science and often bares results closer to that of Objectivism than any philosophy. Just doing a search for concept formation in Google, you come up with this Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_learning

I agree kids have concepts. But Rand developed a method that she said was the way children, generally, formed early concepts. My question is how do we know this particular method is correct? It's seems that, prima facie, people recognize distinct entities and form concepts. How do we know they do it via measurement omission and integration via CCDs? Thanks, cause this is at least helping me form my question better.

So then how do we establish the proposition that children develop concepts in a certain way, as opposed to another way? Your argument begs the question. It assumes the Objectivist theory of concepts. Rand seems to offer what is a description of how people do form concepts, and that this is the appropriate way to do it. She does say there is a right way and a wrong way to form a concept, but that humans will naturally come upon how to form them. Is there any evidence that the way a child forms early concepts as length is by measurement omission? We may be able to introspect ourselves and see that this is a good way to form concepts, but Rand claims more than that.

Validated merely by means of theorizing from first principles, let us say. We do not have to necessarily regard science when we form a principle in philosophy. My question is whether Rand's theory fits this description? Does Rand's theory of concept formation follow merely from philosophic observation of the world around us, and not into the realm of the special sciences? Granted, this is a notoriously hard line to define. It's even more so when Objectivists accept that inductive reasoning is not limited to the sciences. Still, it seems to me that Rand would have to be informed in some aspects of psychology in order to make her generalizations about how humans conceptualize, especially at a young age.

Not really. I think Rand's comments on perception are either strictly philosophic or irrelevant to the core of the philosophy (Sensation as an actual period of chaotic theater, for instance) My question relates to concept formation, to how we know this really is how children first form concepts.

A few basic questions here on concept formation and its empirical validation. If this topic has come up on here before, as I'm almost sure it has, feel free to point me in the right direction. I couldn't find anything on this forum. 1. Do you consider the process of concept formation one that can be validated merely by philosophy, or must Rand's theory be informed by the sciences that study the mind and early development of thought? 1a. If you say yes to the latter question, to what extent must it be validated by the sciences? Can Rand's theory be falsified by further findings within the cognitive sciences? 1b. If you answer yes to the former, defend your answer. Why aren't Rand's claims about concept formation, especially in regards to early development, not a matter that science can disprove? I realize philosophy can be informed by science, but many seem to claim it cannot be falsified by science, since this violates the hierarchy of knowledge. If the last proposition is true, and Rand's concept formation can be demonstrated as false by scientific demonstration, is it still philosophy? And an open question to either side: do you believe Rand'ss theory has been validated or invalidated to some extent by findings in psychology and cognitive science?

Far as I know, the Muslim neighborhoods are perfectly voluntary. The Muslims are simply cruel to those who might mock their social norms, but they don't have the authority to say "You must leave.". Again, that's as far as I know. As long as it is voluntary, I do not care. Also, the Muslim/Sharia "laws" people keep yapping about are cased in Private Arbitration court. All parties involved must consent to such private arbitration. Again, nothing involuntary or coercive here.

In regards to Objectivist Living, I find that forum to be a lot more hostile and mean-spirited. I've been there and they are generally rude to anyone who likes Peikoff and folks like that. They're often people who believe in the "open system" theory of Objectivism or don't consider themselves Objectivists at all, which is fine, except, as I said, they can be rather rude to people who disagree. This forum has certainly lost a lot of its intellectual heavyweights the past few years, mostly because the content went way down around 2008/09. Still, there are great conversations to be had on the forum from time to time and I respect a few chat members' opinions. The best conversations I've had on this website were in there. So who really cares if major Objectivists don't post here? I encourage them not to, and work even more on popularizing Objectivism.

Frankly, I consider the mods that keep this place running major figures. This is the biggest Objectivist community on the web, I believe. It's certainly one of the first results in Google. So, keeping this place up, you're doing a LOT for Objectivism. I understand what you mean though, intellectual leaders and such. I know Travis Norsen has made posts here before. I've always suspected some members whose identities are obscured are probably people who don't just want their name on every post they make here.

Of course it should exist. I would hope we would object to the mutilation of male genitalia as much as mutilation of the female genitalia.

Your link doesn't bring me anywhere, Avila.

Mind posting some sources?

Wilders is not admirable, nor is fear mongering about Muslims. Most Muslims are no more evil than the majority of religious people in this world. EDIT: I hadn't read this originally. This is truly a disgusting and disturbing position.

According to Pew, by 2030, the Muslim population of Europe will have risen 2% given current trends. http://www.pewforum.org/The-Future-of-the-Global-Muslim-Population.aspx?print=true This is hardly cause for alarm, even if you take the false premise that every Muslim is a danger to freedom in Europe. What needs to be done is not discrimination against Muslims in Europe, but the end of entitlements (as sN said already) and a strengthening of the line between church and state, which many European nations do not even recognize. End forced multiculturalism. The best way to maintain some semblance of freedom in Europe and the World is the roll back of state power, not the use of it. If you have a state that is firmly opposed to religious law, the radicals in the midst of Islam will have to look elsewhere to impose some form of Sharia. This is not a crisis. As pointed out earlier, the Muslim population is estimated to rise by 2% in twenty years. Then just imagine how few of those are going to be out there, being activists for the end of secular government.

Clearly none of you know about Chaplin's time traveler! There, proof positive that time travelers exist! Charade you are!