RadCap

"...what would stop people from commiting crimes. I explained what morality was, how it derived from reality, etc, but they kept asking me what would stop the criminals (as in they stopped commiting crimes themselves) if they rejected rational reality." Um - what would stop the criminals if they rejected irrational mysticism? Or even better what would stop the criminals if they rejected morality completely? And what bearing upon that philosophy or morality does their rejection have? (hint - none at all) In other words, the question they present is: if a man does not accept a particular idea, morality, philosophy etc, what can FORCE him to accept it? Obviously that is an absurd question - and you need to point that out instead of trying to answer it. There is no answer because there is NO way to force a mind.

Remember that recreation is, by definition, a break from the activities one engages in for survival (which is why golfing is recreation to some - and a means of survival to others). And remember that such a break takes time AWAY from that means of survival - of creating futher prosperity or wealth etc for ones self - of BENEFITING one's life - now and in the future. So WHEN you decide to engage in ANY activity - recreational or not - it DOES have a QUITE SPECIFIC impact on your entire life. That many don't treat it as such reveals a fault in them - not a fault in those recognize this fact and act accordingly. So just as you have a reason for pursing your specific means of survival, you better have an equally valid reason for pursuing a break from that means as well. Otherwise you are wasting your life because you are throwing away the time that you are alive and what you can do to maximize that life and the enjoyment of it - not just in the range of the moment, but over the entire SPAN. Put simply, you must be as rational when it comes to your recreation as you are when it comes to all the other parts of your life. If you are not, then you are pursuing anti-life principles. You are pursuing death (which, btw, is something an indestructible/immortal entity simply cannot do).

BW You are engaging in troll-like behavior now. Spewing spurious personal accusations of evasion and blanking out - and attributing emotional motivations instead of reasoning as the cause of these supposed behaviors - is NOT tolerated on this forum. Your question HAS been answered MULTIPLE times now. Fred had the best answer for you: that your premise is a FALSE ALTERNATIVE - ie it is a LOGICAL FALLACY to begin with, and is thus IRRATIONAL. This is the same false alternative as presented in the saying "Better red than dead". People spewed this scenario - saying that man's choices were either choosing communism or choosing death. But those are NOT the only two alternatives available to man. Other alternatives are BLANKED OUT - specifically LIBERTY - which is what made that example - and YOURS - FALLACIOUS. So it is YOU who have engaged in EVASION - and you have done so in order to create a situation in which man is DAMNED - as you EXPLICITLY put it - no matter what action he takes. THAT suggests a VERY malevolent view of reality. Now I and others have politely tried to suggest that the premises which make you proceed from such a logical fallacy need to be addressed and corrected. Instead of even attempting such introspection, you have added to your first logical fallacy another logical fallacy - ad hom. Such behavior will NOT continue here from you. Consider this your first and LAST warning. Now, your demand that we choose an ethical solution to an ILLOGICAL statement instead of identifying and DISMISSING that logical fallacy, demonstrates that REALITY is not your concern here. It appears your concern is to try to find some "flaw" in the ethics of Objectivism so that you may then dismiss it. Sorry - aint gonna happen. So you might as well either accept that reality - or move on now. -- To tommy - your analogy is flawed. A satellite maker plans for the things he believes are possible as well as likely. He does NOT plan for the improbable. Ex - he does NOT plan for the space shuttle to crash into the satellite, and thus reinforce the sat. to withstand that impact. He does NOT plan for aliens to take control of the sat. and use it to conquer the planet He does NOT plan for the rocket to careen wildly out of control and thus build a secondary rocket system to take over. ETC ETC ad nausium. IF your fantasy sat builder even attempted to 'sketch out' responses to all these and more IMPROBABLE scenarios, the sat would NEVER get built. Not only that, but no one could afford to build such a sat. In other words, focusing on such absurd scenarios would waste his time and his money (ie his LIFE) and the productiveness of the satellite would NEVER be achieved. THAT is the WASTE being referenced here. I am SORRY you fail to grasp that fact.

The REAL question here is WHY you are interested in situations which are bizarely improbable. What is the PURPOSE of your line of questioning? TO WHAT END do you pursue such scenarios? Or are you preparing for the day that you WILL possibly crash in a plane and have to resort to canabalism. If that is your premise - that one needs to know how to properly act in such absurdly unlikely situations - then there are a TON of other EQUALLY unlikely scenarios that you should be planning for as well. IF your premise is that they must be anticipated and planned for, then you can not stop at just ONE of them. According to such a principle, you must properly plan for ANY and ALL of them - no matter HOW ridiculous or improbable they are. Of course, as Betsy rightly points out, the time you WASTE planning for all these absurd situations is forever LOST to you - time you could and SHOULD be using to plan for your LIFE and the LIKELY events you WILL have to deal with. In other words, you are WASTING your LIFE here - your TIME here - with this perverse focus. Not only that, but you are wasting OURS as well. So the question remains - WHY are you wasting your life? WHY are you focusing on these improbable scenarios and NOT on what it takes to live your life and achieve your values and goals? What END do you think you are going to achieve with such a focus? What is your purpose in focusing on 'the no win situation'? Is that how you see life? Is that it? Do you consider reality to be malevolent - and thus you MUST prepare for these situations because existence is such that they WILL happen to you? Is THAT the reality you are trying to prepare yourself to live in? If it is, I would suggest you check a LOT of your premises. And if that is NOT the reality you anticipate having to face, then I suggest you RADICALLY shift your focus - shift it to the reality you DO anticipate having to deal with, instead of miring yourself in the malevolent one - the one in which, no matter what action you take you are "damned" - "damned if you do and damned if you dont" Life is not damnation. Put simply, as the quote goes: "I don't believe in the no-win situation". You shouldn't either.

Ive not been able to see this movie yet (for a number of reasons). But I thought others were anticipating this film. So Im surprised no one has commented on it yet.

Stephen, Thanks for the Wright suggestions. I was not aware how close the Civic Center was to the gallery. That is an excellent suggestion. As is the gift shop, which I would never have known about.

I'm hoping to get up to the gallery in the near future as well. Since I have never been to SF before, besides the gallery, can anyone recommend anything else to see or do while I am there (keeping in mind I cant do anything strenuous - or costly - of course. Free would be nice in fact. )

Stephen Thanks for explaining the other half of the equation. I briefly toyed with the idea of pursuing that line, but decided others could do it better (which is why I dealt solely with rc's characterizations of behavior in relation to the question of change). Thanks for proving me right.

Glad you are ejoying the site and the conversation. Not just that. Remember, when one hires someone else to do a job, one expects that they know how to do they job they say they are capable of doing and have agreed to do. There is no reason to tolerate those who claim to be capable of such work but in fact are not capable of doing so (which is preceisely why people are fired from their jobs). In other words, unless otherwise indicated, the job of an employer is not to teach an employee how to do his job. Yes, it is possible for someone to change their behavior - for better or for worse. And such a change would be the result of a change in premises (explicitly or implicitly). You provide an example of the type of current behavior of your mother, and characterize it in a way that sounds altruistic. So it seems you are suggesting (or at least she asserts) she was previously egoistic and has now become more altruistic - or from better to worse. Well, it is quite possible for someone to change their ethical base, for a number of different reasons (from faulty original premises to tramatic events resulting in reassessment of premises, etc). Since we do not know your mother, while we can say it is quite possible for her to have changed in the way you describe, it would be impossible for us to say what caused that change. Thus it is good that you are going to ask her directly, as you indicate below. Good luck with your search for answers.

There appear to be two false premises being expressed here. The first is that somehow Dagny was being too 'harsh' with those she worked with. Specifically, Dagny is being characterized as impatient and intolerant and one who beats employees etc down with criticism. She is being depicted essentially as 'not nice' - that her actions to her employees and others are somehow inappropriate and distasteful. Put simply, the implication is that her actions are unjust - that they are *not* deserved. On what basis does one draw these conclusions? Do you have any examples of Dagny acting inappropriately to an employee - ie do you have any examples of where her response, her treatment of others, is not deserved by the actions or words of those others - and thus should have been different? This supposed distasteful behavior is then contrasted to the behavior one 'learns' when raising children. Acceptance of failure, teaching, niceness towards inability, tolerance for lack of intelligence - are all provided as preferable alternatives to the previously identified intolerant, mean, condescending behavior Dagny supposedly exhibits. (I identify these characteristics by the connotation of the words you have chosen to represent each of the attitudes. Dagny's attitudes are consistently identified by terms commonly held as negatives, whereas the childrearing attitudes are consistently identified by terms commonly held as positives.) Again, do you have examples of Dagny's behavior which you think should have been different? Are there instances you can point to in AS where she should simply have accepted failure? Are there instances where she should have tolerated the knowledge of those who knew less than she did? Are there instances she should have coddled those who could not perform as required? -- Now this false premise is created by another, more fundamental false premise: that rational adults should be treated the same as children whom have not yet fully developed their rational faculty. In other words, essentially one should treat a 25 yr old the same way one treats a 5 yr old. Obviously one does not properly do this. But why? The answer is equally obvious - one does not treat those in possession of a rational faculty as if they did NOT possess that faculty. Yet ultimately that IS the premise being asserted here: that the behavior of a parent to a child is 'better' or 'more appropriate' - ie more 'just' - than the behavior Dagny exhibits towards her employees. Put simply, the underlying premise here is that one should not treat adults AS adults, but as children instead. If you believe this is true, I would be curious as to your reasons why. If you do not believe it is true (as I suspect is the case, since I do not believe you treat 5 yr olds and 25 yr olds the same), then you need to discard this faulty premise, and the erroneous premises to which it leads. -- "While discussing the book,my mom (an engineer) said she used to be much more like Dagny, but having children has made her much more benevolent towards others." Have you asked your mother specifically why she now treats adults more like they are children than she used to? "I don't know if having children can have that much effect on someone's attitude." Apparently it can, since you report that your mother admits she has undergone such a change. The questions you need to ask yourself are: "why did the change occur?" and "are the reasons for that change valid?" So again, I would suggest you ask your mother why she treats adults differently now. After learning her reasons, you may decide for yourself whether they are valid or not. -- Concerning raising children in general, you asked a few interesting questions: "what would have happened if [Dagny] had kids? "Would she do favors for them, like cooking even if she was tired?" "Would she take off work to watch their sports games?" I believe Elle had a very good response to you. Raising children is akin to a job. It requires a long term dedication, specialized knowledge, and a love of what you are undertaking. The situation you posit is similar to someone taking on two jobs at once. Given that context, you may be able to grasp (and answer) your own questions better. "what would have happened if Dagny had taken on another job?" "Would she do what is required of that second job, even if she was tired?" "Would she devote herself to tasks in just to one job, or split her time between the two jobs she had chosen to do?" I think the answers to your questions are much easier to determine when you think of the proposition in this fashion (and of course I am not trying to say raising a child is exactly the same as doing one's job. It is not. But the principles involved are the same - as they should be with any action one takes. The difference is the degrees involved.) The choices one face when trying to pursue two careers at once can be very difficult. Trade offs will have to be made in both jobs. But, because one has *chosen* to split one's focus in that fashion, one has knowingly accepted the responsibility of MAKING those choices, difficult or not. That is why one does not choose to pursue such dual and/or divergent goals lightly. It is the same with raising children. By deciding to have a family, one knowingly accepts the responsibility of making choices between one's job and one's family. Of course the decisions are that much harder to make because the choices are between things of very great value to one's self. And again, that is why one does not lightly choose to pursue a career and a family at the same time. By realizing these facts - that one knowlingly chooses to pursue these two very demanding avenues - one realizes the time and energy devoted to each will not be the same as would have been devoted to just one or the other. One realizes that one will have to make difficult choices between the two in the future. But with this knowledge, one avoids the notion that one is having to 'sacrifice' one's family to one's profession - or vis versa. One avoids the idea that one is having to choose between being selfless or selfish, because one has selfishly *chosen* to pursue BOTH at the same time, with ALL the potential benefits and risks - profits and losses - that entails.

Wait a minute! Netscape and IE do not share files, so for the same thing to be happening with both browsers is VERY odd. Since the problem does not occur on any system exept Stephen's, that would indicate the problem is internal to his machine. And since it is occuring across multiple programs - programs that have separate files for this information - that would suggest a problem with Windows itself - OR a problem with the HD. Since this problem has arisen, has Stephen scan disk and defragged his system? It may be that there is a bad or corrupt sector on his HD where this info is being written (Swap file perhaps? XP still use those?). If that is the case, the defragging would shift things around enough that the problem might be resolved. If that doesn't do the trick, one of two things may be going on - there may be a virus causing the problem. Or windows may be corrupted. So he would have to run a good scan of his comp for viruses (there is a good - and free - site online which is completely up-to-date: trendmicro.com). If it turns out there are no viruses, or if they are not the cause, then Stephen may have to run the 'repair' function for windows (if such still exists on xp) - or do a reinstall. Given the facts, I don't know anything else which might cause the problem - and thus I don't know what else might be provided as a solution.

Then it is definitely a hiccup with the browser - IE I assume. Since you have cleared cache and cookies, reset the settings, then it would seem there is some sort of glitch with the browser itself. I don't use XP but, if you can, you might have to 'uninstall' and reinstall IE to resolve the issue (I know you could do that with 98. I assume you can still do that with XP).

Betsy - Can YOU log in properly on HIS machine? or do YOU run into the same problem as well? perhaps use of a new, valid login might force something to be reset and resolve the problem.

This is a tangent, but speaking of stamps, I ran across an interesting site. Apparently you can get your stamps printed with your own photos, artwork, etc.. It costs more than just the 37 cents per stamp, but is good as a specialty item. http://photo.stamps.com/

The birthday is incredibly much closer than Xmas. But Ive been very selfish - so that makes me naughty by Santa's standard.

" especially the one about the time two nuns knocked on the door of Miss Rand's home in Chatsworth, California." LOL. I have the original VHS. I am now adding the DVD to my wishlist for the future.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions. They are all very good and creative. As it turns out, inspiration struck, and I ended up going in a different direction than above. Though I am certain, with 14 books to write, your ideas will come in handy.

Lol. I had been using that exact one. Or at least trying. The english side is not particularly useful. When I put in producer, it claims it couldnt find anything comparable in greek. Of course when I put in paragogos on the greek side, it listed producer right away. So unfortunately it is not too helpful to someone who doesn't already know the word they are looking for. Thank you for Paragogos though. I think you are correct - it may not be that great for a personal name. BUT - I think I may use it for a company name.

Thanks you both for the answers. While I would love to use a form of Demiurge (and had considered it previously), I am afraid it might be too confusing. In one sense, it comes close to they type of character I am trying to name. But Plato's Demiurge in some respects is the opposite of the character as well. And especially because of who he is going to be interacting with, the usage of that name would likely lead to wrong assumptions drawn about the character. And, while Ergates might have been interesting (as E.R. Gates perhaps), the word is apparently to close to just 'worker' or 'laborer'. It looks like 'Poietes' is probably the best version - a maker, doer, author, performer. Unless of course anyone knows of words in other languages which mean 'producer' or 'productive' or 'productivity' which you think might work as a name instead. Perhaps something more solid sounding - more masculine.

...the greek word for "producer" - as in one who produces or is productive? I know that such a word supposedly exists, because Plato divided up his "ideal" society into "Producers" "Auxilary" and "Guardians". Yet when I try greek or Ancient Greek online dictionaries etc they do not come back with a match for the word.

Thanks for all the kind comments. Here is a small update: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...indpost&p=52148

Thought people here might be interested in this, from Betsy Speicher's Cybernet (http://www.4cybernet.com/): -------------------------------- RATIONAL MAN CONCEPT ART ON EBAY -------------------------------- BRIAN SMITH has just put the first art work from his fantastic new series - "RATIONAL MAN: The Logic Chronicles" up for sale on eBay. If you are the high bidder, you can own an 11" X 14" drawing of superhero Rational Man or villainess Red Herring -- or both. Brian will inscribe a personal message to the winning bidder and will sign and date his creation. This is your opportunity to have a spectacular art work you will be proud to display now, a conversation piece for years to come, and a long-term investment. (What IS a first-year Superman or Spiderman signed and dated drawing worth now?) These drawings are the original concept art from Brian's series of illustrated books for young adults, ages 8-18, with a style that is a cross between children's illustrated storybooks and glossy graphic novels. The purpose of the series is to introduce the reader to the principles of logic and the logical fallacies by way of fictional adventures. In addition to the books, there are plans for merchandising, video games, negotiating movie rights, etc. The bidding starts at only $1, so have a look and make a bid. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=6114239109 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=6114239110 -- A very big note of appreciation goes out to Betsy here, not just for notifying people of the auction, but for planning and hosting it as well. She has been an invaluable help and inspiration for this and, in fact, the entire RM project. Thank you!

Not yet. (And I was more fishing around rather than looking for something specific)

Ok - and I understood this. Its just I couldn't be sure that was all you were referencing by the way you said the error was in the chemistry texts. As such, I wasn't sure if you were trying to say more than just that or not. So thank you for clearing that up for me - and thanks for the examples and the patience.

That is definitely a good example. Thank you. Let me see if I can accurately summarize what you are saying here (and forgive me if I screw it up royally. I had THE worst chemistry teacher in existence - heh): The idea is that order or disorder does not exist in the identity of the object. As such, the individual creates a false identity - it identifies the object inaccurately and in fact in opposition to its actually identity. Would you say that is an accurate summary? Two questions based on this: one - is entropy a valid concept then? If so, what is the (basic) valid concept, as contrasted with this invalid characterization? Two - what would be a chemistry specific example (as opposed to the card analogy, etc) of this error or contradiction? -- Now - to press my luck here - do you have any other examples of similar contradictions (though now not necessarily in either physics or chemistry, since I have one for each already)? Perhaps something similar to the blatant a=nonA of "it is a wave, but it is not; it is a particle, but it is not" example of light.