Tenure

OO.net is going to Scotland! Details to follow.

I'm all up for Athena's recommendation, the Scottish Revolution. Everyone else?

John, I am only one man, and there is only so much I can give the women of the world!

khaight, sounds good, but it's a bit inconvenient for me, being 01:00 GMT. Madkat, Athena, I as well want to avoid Objectivist literature. I think we've all read widely and enough of that. It depends on our collective tastes. I like books on the Arts, on psychology, on philosophy and history. I also like layman's books on science. A few I'd be up for doing: The Red Queen (although I think a few of you have already read this book) Aristotle's Ethics (Nichomean) Titus Groan (fiction) The Russian Revolution 1917-1932, by Fitzpatrick (supposed to be a very good book giving an introduction to the topic, though might be a bit too pedestrian and not deep enough for a group reading) Markets Don't Fail Shane (fiction; a rather brief read, but a good 'un) I'm quite easy - any recommendations?

I am quite interested in doing this - even having just two people reading the same book would be very good, from my perspective. I get distracted when reading a book, by another book, and another. Having to reach a target, like, say, "Read Chapters 1-4 by Thursday" and then having the reward of being able to actually discuss all the stuff in it by the time of that target, would really encourage me to read and to be a better reader. If anyone else wants to do this, I'm up for it. Let's do it.

Sweet, I want to get my mits on that book. Give us a good review when it's done. I read Beenfeldt's (an Objectivst Philosophy Graduate at Oxford) paper on Heterophenomenology, and got the impression that the whole theory just begs the question of how one justifies all the 'data' that Dennett wishes to treat materialistically. From my understanding, the whole thing is very silly. How have you found his theory? Does it have any merit whatsoever? I have had several aborted attempts at trying to read this. How have you found it?

I don't have my tape player here as well, so unless you suggest me post me that as well...

Hey kids, it's Mac Daddy Brook and Bad-Ass Ghate -- they gonna lay down some slick axioms for y'all! Check out the rims on those!

They also cost £44 which I'm not sure I can afford.

I got that lecture at OCON this year but I've left it at home as well. I can't remember what he said on there about metaphysical sex. I'll have to listen to it when I get home. I only ask because I know very little about this topic beyond, "Sex is based in values", which isn't very helpful. More importantly, we're discussing Sex at philosophy society next week, and I need some intellectual ammo and preparation for the general onslaught on objectivity that is going to ensue.

I left my OTI lectures back home and I didn't finish them before I left for Uni - the one I was just about to start being the one on the metaphysical nature of sexuality. So, I was wondering if anyone here has any recommendations on stuff to read about sexuality and its metaphysical status? I'm not sure there's been a lot written on this, but anything you can point me towards would be appreciated. Cheers.

Andrew: I think it gets back to a point I saw raised on the Harry Binswanger List, where there was a discussion of the phrase 'Greed is Good' from the film Wall Street. It developed into a discussion of whether or not we actually want to use catchphrases to advertise Objectivism, the point being, that this is just typical of current pragmatic trends, and just encourages this kind of bad thinking. Whether or not we have a good philosophy, if the philosophy we use to educate people is poor, it won't encourage them to study our ideas, it will just encourage them to think, "Cool. Selfishness and free trade. Sounds good", and they go off and become anarcho-Libertarians, talking about how Ayn Rand had "a few good ideas" but was "wrong on many points".

Precisely. You can argue with reason; you can't with authority. If you start saying, "a is true because of authority X", then you're totally relying on something that cannot be reasoned - you're lying on another argument which still has to be proved, that the authority can be trusted. So, you might as well get on with reasoning.

What do you even mean? Do you mean everything held in consciousness in total? I mean, he certainly holds, or at least I would think he would hold, that the content of consciousness, in humans, is more than just awareness of the outside world. But he certainly has not said, and I think I can say with absolute certainty, that he does not believe that when we are conscious, our perceptions are not perceptions of the outside world. Could you explain more precisely what you mean, rather than posting these unhelpful, one-line, ridiculous assertions? Our point is that the mind begins tabula rasa. It starts to fill (and that's a very crude word to use for what I mean) with perceptions over time, and, eventually, the mind starts working with those perceptions using the method described in ITOE. I mean, that's a very rough description, but I just don't get what you're not getting. Are you deliberately trying to obfuscatory?

Hear, Hear!

Let me see if I understand your question correctly. "How can the outside world" - you mean external reality, right? "How can external reality -- which is the content of consciousness" - do you mean that a;; the content of consciousness is purely made of perceptions external reality, or that only some of it is, or that the outside world is the content of consciousness? "begin w/ content". I don't know what you mean to say. Are you sure you've read ITOE? Could you point me to the bit where she says the outside world is the 'content of consciousness', whatever that means?

Yes, I must ask, Trivas, since I remember you never came to anything conclusive on a previous topic which you started on Epistemology, in which a recommendation was given many times to read ITOE: have you actually read ITOE?

A blank slate is not a void. When we say a blank slate, we mean that we are born with no concepts, but that we are born with (at least, a developing) capacity for conceptualising. Just because contents of the machine are empty, the machine does not cease to exist. Why do you think mental contents, and the process which creates mental contents are the same thing, with regards to blank-slates?

But... Jesus feels good...

Damn it, got to this thread too late. I thought this was going to be some article where the clerics were in favour of the chocolate Jesus, but they thought it didn't taste very good.

Great. Parents expect their kids can buy this stuff from a store. They do not expect it to be sold in the school. I don't know about America, but kids aren't forced to go to a specific school here. They have to go to a school, but which school they go to is a matter of choice amongst the parents. And, there is a contract signed, laying down the ground rules of what to expect at the school, and vice versa, what the school expects of the student. Regardless, this is private property and you don't have a right to just do what you want on it, regardless of the law. Yes, the law does not apply if you don't want to.

I sat in on an economics lecture earlier in the term, and the lecturer said that there was a 'macroeconomic trillema' amongst the different types of money, which is that you can only have two of, but never all three of, the following: 1) Fixed exchange rates 2) The power of the government to expand the currency in times of depression and to deflate when there seems to be too much of a boom 3) Free capital mobility (I've written, "Increase foreign investment alongside NO increase in domestic saving", in my notes, but I don't know what this means). Now, his next point was that of Interest rates (well, he talked first about why the silver standard fell out of favour, and about Hume's 'specie-flow mechanism'*, which, if I understand it correctly, was basically the last nail in the coffin for the Mercantilist idea that if gold flowed out of the country, the country was necessarily weakened economically [a lesson the US and the UK would do well to learn]), which were a tool of managing the trade balance. Since gold and silver was not literally being shipped around on boats on a regular basis (possibly practical today, but imagine what would happen if a wooden boat sunk carrying just 10% of your country's hold inside back in the 1700s!), the central bank used the interest rate to encourage or discourage saving, relative to the value of the Gold. This was not the same as the fiat method now, where it is changed almost willy nilly - the central banks would be responding to the actual value of Gold, i.e. the economic reality of the country. Now, one of the major problems that crops up - besides the need to avoid war** and financial panics, which might lead to inflation or an emergency suspension of the gold standard - is that of the central bank. See, it has a pretty legitimate role, even by our standards, in that what it should be doing is altering the interest rates in regard to an objective view of the reality of the economy. The problem was, it was a government institution, and if it wanted to keep interest rates low when it should really have started raising them, it could do so.*** Another problem was the fact that if a country started raising interest rates to stem its flow of production relative to the actual gold-capital it had to produce with (i.e. if its liabilities were greater than its assets and its free capital was becoming diminished), this rise in interest rates could bankrupt debtors who owed the interest-raising-bank money. Finally, all economies needed to be strong. A weak, panicy economy in one part of the world could have very bad consequences for the rest, especially if it was one of the leading economies before it became weak and panicy (i.e. the US at the moment). *Interestingly, the lecturer sees it in reverse to Objectivist economists: he thinks the relatively peaceful period of the 19th century was a precondition for global capitalism, not an effect of it. ** Not that a private bank issuing currency couldn't do this, just that I think it would face a more immediate repercussion from other banks, although I'm not sure about this. Little help, any Objectoconomists? *** One thing he pointed out struck me: he claimed that the Great Depression was caused largely by the raising of tariffs by Hoover - a mercantilist approach to the economy - which stopped the market from correcting itself through the flow of imports and exports.

This is quite true. If you register what you're doing with the school, and make it explicitly clear to parents what is going on, then it might be alright. However, you're just setting this up, when people have already started sending their child to this school under a pre-agreed contract in which their children aren't sold things they aren't aware of (so basically, anything outside the cafeteria). I don't think you have any right to start changing the contract in the middle of the game. Sorry. It does sound like you had a lot of fun and good on you for a forming a successful business, but it seems pretty illegal to me, I'm afraid.

I think this is important. I think many Objectivists - myself included, and I'm working to correct this - equate being rational with dumping on everyone else - that is, they think it's insulting people, being rude, assuming that other people are incompetent, is the same thing as 'not caring what everyone else thinks and only caring about the truth'. People often read Rand's characters as these cold, harsh people, when in fact, they're incredibly benevolent. It's the Henry Camerons and Gail Wynands that try to act like ones emotional contact with other people does not matter. Now, actually, in consideration, Kendall, I think you might have a point there with which the show may be improving. House is not merely acting irrationally - people are actually calling him on it, and he's actually agreeing with them (on some level). Who knows - my hope, at the turn of Season 3, , that House will actually start to fix what's been haunting him his whole life, will actually come true.

Henry Cameron acted like a jerk because of how the world had treated him. He came to view the world as a malevolent place because it rejected him. House is not rejected. He is a successful doctor, he pulls in lots of money, he gets the cases no one else can do, he goes to exciting places - he even has friends who see a value in him despite outward appearances. And yet he is still miserable. Roark, by comparison to Cameron, knew that what he wanted was achievable, and there was no contradiction between his values and his achievement of them. Do not equate Roark's social demeanor with that of House's. Roark sometimes is cold, but only because he does not consider the irrational. House, on the other hand, thrives on it. He is always looking to make comments about everyone, to analyse them, to pronounce them as being driven by the memory of their dead husband, or by a fatal genetic disease or the want of a child. He belittles all their values and never sees any value in what he does himself. He achieves what he sets out to do... so why is he so miserable? As for the quote, why does it matter to him that he's right? What is so important about being 'right'? Because it gives him a chance to show that he's right, and that's all that matters, despite being such an outcast. And why is the Japanese guy such an outcast? He's outcast from birth, because of his parents. House on the other hand - his father was highly respected. House's life is a credit to his own ability. He chooses to be an outcast who then has to be accepted because he makes the right call. There is no reason he has to be an outcast, has to keep showing a complete lack of respect to everyone. House inflicts all the pain he suffers upon himself, by refusing to see any value in the work he does. It's just something he does, to do it right - like his father, who was obsessed with everything being perfect and good but never with it actually being of value to him (hence the fact that House hates him: his father made sure House was raised right, but never actually loved him). That same dedication to doing things right, but emotionally divorcing oneself from any meaning, gets carried over to House from his father. Look, I know you like House. I like House. He's entertaining, to a degree. But this is the same thing as that thread on '24'. I protested that it be considered Romantic. You want to see some heroes in art, so you're rationalising that House is this great guy, when really, he is an incredibly mixed case, who at times, shows actual humanity, but most of the time, just goofs off, hurting himself and others. He is not outcast by society; he chooses to outcast himself!