gabrielpm

When I'm thinking about concept formation and objectivism, "measurement omission" comes to mind. M.O. is a great way of understanding and explining concept formation for/in humans. Unfortunatelly, when it comes to computers, things are very different. Basically, people extract an abstract class of objects by their common properties, properties of particular meaning to men. It just seems to me that *identifying* properties comes naturally to men... omitting their measure to group objects into classes is secondary. If I were to teach a computer how to form concepts, my first problem would be how to have it identify, detect and define properties. Those of you familliar with Object-Oriented Programming know that contemporany programming languages work with classes and particular instances of those classes, objects. Basically, what the programmer does is define each class' properties and then operate with objects of that class. Particular values to those properties (measurements) are of secondary importants. So... how do people extract properties from the vastness of impulses out there, and how do you think a machine could do it? (since computers don't really care about measurements the way we do, but have serious problems with properties)

What other movements or thinkers are compatible on a political level with Objectivism? (even if they might differ on an epistemological or metaphysical level, they share the same ethics and politics) Do you know of any? What's the Oist attitude toward them?

When will we get a transcript of it? Someone must have kept the log! thx

In my previous topic, about having children, GreedyCapitalist made a very interesting and revealing comment for the Objectivism mindset, about how one shouldn't care if one's children share his genes. I can't seem to be able to get my head around this one. Maybe you can clear up some issues... If we are both mind and body, a union in a single entity of the two, which is what I believe, then it is logical to presume that both elements are part of our self-image, part of the *actual* self. In this case, I'd say that perpetuating your body, your genes, is as important as perpetuating your ideas, perhaps even more, since the drive to have children is deeply embedded into our somatic psychology, it's one of the basic instinct, especially since few people are that cerebral to actually hold ideas of their own and value them as something to be transmitted. I know that most objectivists don't accept the notion of instict, fearing that it is a form of pre-cognition, or a way to introduce a god or another. What I'm talking about here is automated, instinctual, behaviour, a complex one, but a behaviour none the less, a behaviour without any ideological load. The difference between the breeding instinct and others (breathing, defecating, etc) is that while other instincts foster survival, the breeding instinct survived because otherwise none of us would be here to ask that question. Breeding is what makes the mind possible. Now, seeing that we have this behaviour baggage of desires and needs to procreate, I suggest we embrace it and apply reason to optimize it. In a sense, what I'm saying is that if you really care about your children, then make sure not only to equip them with the best ideas, which they might eventually reject, but also with the best body, the best genes. I suspect that, in a sense, Objectivism's radical focus on reason, while being a great source of mental liberty and overall enhancer of civilization, sometimes leads to the rationalization of the non-intellectual in us, our instincts, our very nature. One doesn't have children because one wished to experience the joys of the process. One has children because it is in one's nature to do so, and one will do it fiercelly even in the most troubling moments of child care. Men and women have went to great lenghts to fullfil their nature and willingly accepted great suffering for it. From an Oist perspective, if a parent isn't receiving the pleasure he had expected from a child, we would be morally justified to abandon that child, or even killing it, since that child might not have intellectual faculties yet... only *potential* ones. While I do agree that one shouldn't accept to die for one's children, one will never the less accept great losses, which is somewhat contrary to the ideas that man ought to live rationally, for his own rationality, reason for reason's sake, in other words. I think that the attitude towards chilldren is only part of the process of accepting our nature, as thinking bodies. What's your take on it?

It seems to me that the decision to have children and its rational basis are somewhat under-discussed in the Objectivist community. If I'm not mistaken, the predominant Objectivist view is that one ought to have children if one enjoys it (i.e. finds it a positive, life-affirming activity, received pleasure by bringing up children) What is the rational basis for enjoying child-rasing? How many children ought one have, and how should one decide it? Do you think that children are a form of genetic survival, and if so, are we morally responsible to have as many as possible, in the context of our own survival? My view is that I am my mind. My mind is my body at work, in the context of the choices I've made. Therefore, my genes are very much a part of me. I tend to think that their influence is somewhat larger than that of my choice (you may choose whatever you want, but if you're not `equiped` for it, too bad). I think that children are genetical extensions of the self, the somatic self so to speak, and that we are bound by moral duty to raise a strong and prosperous family for very much the same reasons we are moral in fostering our own individual survival. This is not collectivism, or the dissolution of the self into the family, but a view on the genetics of the self. Please comment.

Not true. The basic requirements of survival are met by the consumption of goods. I admit that most goods must be produces, but that doesn't answer my questions: Why acquiring good by trade is better than by fraud? History provides anecdotal evidence that a mixture of the 2 was more probable to lead to prosperity. Why is this? If society doesn't offer one the environment required by trade, what is one to do? Do you agree that there are certain contexts where force is much more profitable than trade?

The basic requirements of survival and prosperity can be met via trade, force, fraud or a mixture of the 3. It is my understanding that the Objectivist stance is that trade `is optimal`, meaning that if trade were to be implemented, it would yeld best results (at an individual level, and secondarly at a group level, but as a side-effect). Another phrasing could be that `more a society relies on trade for its inner dealings, more it is prosperous`. Am I correct in this simple interpretation? I also think that it is quite clear that Ayn Rand held the view that the *initiation of force* is never justified. Did I understand her stance properly? Taking into account my understanding of Objectivist ethics, I have a few questions: 1) When force has been initiated, by the state or others, and the justice system is not rational, is one moraly justified to use force and/or fraud towards not only the entity which initiated it, but also towards the others? (How does a rational man act in an inherently socialist, corrupt and lawless society) 2) If fleeing oppression is impossible, due to lacking a safe-heaven (such as Galt's Gulch), is one justified to use force&fraud? 3) Why does Ayn Rand suggests that fleeing (implicitly abandoning posesions and property) is moraly superior to guarding your own by force and fraud? I guess you're seeing where I'm going with this: Under which circumstances, are fraud and force better than trade, for fostering survival and prosperity of self? Gabriel Mihalache http://www.individualism.ro/