eficazpensador
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Posts posted by eficazpensador
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Morally, you either act in a way that supports your life or you don't, and therefore are moral or immoral, so I can still say that you are doing something wrong, irrational, etc. so long as I have a valid epistemological base.
Morality tells man what he should or shouldn't do. If man can't make choices, of what use is morality?
But the process by which someone goes about gaining knowledge if they had volition is precisely what you would expect a computer to go about doing something, it follows from the simple statement "you can make errors." From that statement, and the law of noncontradiction (and the other axioms), you can say that you have to integrate all your knowledge into a noncontradictory whole, and then check over it to make sure you didn't make any mistakes (and check any new information for problems, often by something similar to the scientific method). Then maybe have other people look at it, and always be on the lookout for evidence you may be wrong (and right too of course). Volition isn't necessary for that, because any assertion that a statement could be wrong simply because its deterministically drawn can be rebuffed with "what evidence do you have other than the fact that people can make errors? Do you see an error? If not, then be quiet."You've got this wrong. Let's suppose that Man is determined: I'm sure you admit that man can make errors. So let's say you come to the conclusion that 2+3=4. You conclusion is just a product of your environment. Unfortunately, since you're determined, you don't have the ability to choose what information you regard as logical and which information you think is illogical. Your thinking would be automatic. And since it is possible for you to come to an illogical conclusion (such as 2+3=4), there is no way for you to objectively know any facts -including the idea that man is determined.
Volition isn't necessary for that, because any assertion that a statement could be wrong simply because its deterministically drawn can be rebuffed with "what evidence do you have other than the fact that people can make errors? Do you see an error? If not, then be quiet."Such a statement is not enough. If you are determined, you will automatically hold certain ideas. Perhaps you are just programmed to believe that 2+3=4. There would be nothing you could do about it. The same is true for all other ideas you have. How could you tell which ideas are true and which ideas were false (but you were programmed to believe them). As I've already said, man is fallible and doesn't automatically apply reason without error.
Or, alternatively, and I think more realistically, it is a result of Rand's limited experience with physics and a holdover from mysticism that even she couldn't shake off. I guess a world without a little man inside her head somehow above and beyond the rest of reality was too scary, and so it gets dismissed immediately as silly, arbitrary, etc.If you assume that man is determined, what happens to the concept of justice? Would it be fair to lock up criminals if they couldn't help it? You should really rethink your position on free will.
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That was extremely entertaining!
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What did they take? They took an idea? You can't take an idea, just as you can't declare war on an idea.
So say I design and build a motor that runs on electrostatic energy. If someone takes my designs without my permission- that would be taking an idea. But you say this isn't possible?
Intellectual property is legitimately defined as property by a contractual agreement only.No, intellectual property is defined as property because the creator has a moral right to it. Intellectual property may not require physical effort but it still requires mental effort.
You may have worked hard to accomplish some sort of intellectual or creative achievement, but once it is created for the world to see, you've immediately unleashed the potential of its copy to the rest of the worldI suppose. In the same way that a man who creates a physical entity has unleashed the possibility that a thief may steal his property. The possibility of theft doesn't make it right.
Nobody is being treated unfairly by the government or by competing private interests until fraud, lying, or other acts of aggression take place by some other party.Is stealing (ie. taking another persons property) not an act of aggression?
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It takes labor to steal money from a bank. Do you think the robber earned his money?
Intellectual property is still property. You took something that wasn't yours.
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I think the wings are great. They're quite beautiful. I'd love this statue in the front of my house. Centered on my nicely mowed lawn.
Here is one last picture just so you can see the actual size of it.
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SweanyLike I said, the fallacy of free market capitalism is the belief in self-regulation and the primacy of the people's will. The market might correct things given time, but history shows its timeline is neither expeditious nor too concerned about the consumer. If not for the government, would Philip Morris or RJ Reynolds have ever self-regulated? Thank God the government kept its hands out of the automotive business in the early 20th century, allowing domestic carmakers to buy up and liquidate all the light-rail manufacturers just so they could dismantle a country's entire mass-transit infrastructure and force Americans to buy cars. Phew! What would we ever do without these humble corporate sematarians in our daily lives?
The people who have blind faith in free market capitalism are just as naive as the people who have blind faith in the government. Both have had their bright moments, and both have had their dark moments. The solution is somewhere in the middle.
First, I think you should point out that you are vehemently against faith. You base your support of the free market on reason.
Although I have never heard of this whole car makers/light rail thing, I can immediately tell that it is bullshit. Domestic car makers could not force anyone to sell their light rail company to them. Remember that the only reason a rail company would sell to a car manufacturer is that it is profitable for them. Even if car manufacturers did buy up rail companies to liquidate them, other rail companies would be formed. Especially since the car manufacturers would be offering a new incentive to start up rail companies: immediate and profitable buy outs. If I saw car companies buying out rail companies, I would simply create a new company and aim to sell it to them. And then I would do it again. and again. Does this really look like a profitable move for the car manufacturer? Of course not.
Getting into this sort of practical discussion gets to be quite tedious. If I were you, I'd focus on the more fundamental parts of his argument.
He says "the fallacy of free market capitalism is the belief in self-regulation and the primacy of the people's will." Free market capitalism does not require a belief in self-regulation. Fraud is illegal as are other uses of force. Capitalism is the only social system that outlaws the initiation of force. And Capitalism is not about "the people's will." That would be communism. Capitalism is about the individual.
One more piece of advice, don't fight for capitalism by claiming that it is the greatest good for the many. Fight it by supporting the individual rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Hope that helps.
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How come that first guy owned the property?
Because (presumably) he applied his labor to the land. He either farmed it/settled it or something to that effect.
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"Golden Boy" is my favorite sculpture. Here are some more pics:
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I will be taking Aerospace 245 at the University of Michigan in the Fall. I'd like to get a head start by reading the textbook but they do not have the required textbook listed yet. Does anyone know of a good/cheap textbook that would be pertinent to this specific class? The quote below explains what the class covers:
An introduction to the aerospace field. Introduces students to steady motion of aircraft and spacecraft and to methods for evaluating performance of aircraft and spacecraft systems. Students learn basic aerodynamics, propulsion, and orbital mechanics. Involves team projects that include written reports. -
My point of contention is that when you make your decision, that you could have behaved differently.
Do you understand what it means to make a decision or to choose something? To choose is to "select from a number of possibilities." If I select an option from a number of possibilities, I could have very well selected a different option.
The definition of "automatic" in the above seems to be "that which functions without thought", and the definition of "volition" is "that which thinks." I think those terms imprecise and ill-defined, but if that is all Objectivism thinks on the issue, then I too am a volitionist.Yes those are ill-defined but remember that it was you that defined them imprecisely. Those are not Rand's definitions. Automatic means "occurring independent of volition." Volition is "The act or an instance of making a conscious choice or decision." These definitions are from dictionary.com and fit well with the passage you quoted.
Still, that does not preclude the possibility that he could not behave a different way (more importantly, it doesn't mean he somehow changed the outcome of whatever random event in his brain might have been the deciding factor).Once again, to choose means to select an option from a number of possibilities.
Where, in the above, does it imply that he must be able to have behaved differently given the conditions for it to be valid. The means by which you gain knowledge obviously have to be learned, but that doesn't have anything to do with volition.Yes it does. Free will is axiomatic: Man is not infallible as evidenced by the fact that man can make mistakes. You believe in determinism. Therefore you believe that you don't have the ability to choose what is logical or not. Your ideas (you believe) are the result of "random events" in the brain/your environment. If this is so, how are we to know that your belief in determinism is objectively true and not just a series of random brain events? You would have no way to reject determinism as illogical. You're going to believe in determinism automatically. You have no choice in the matter. Thus it is impossible to know if determinism is really true. Determinism is self defeating.
Being "free to focus or unfocus" one's mind doesn't have anything to do with epistemology or ethics.Of what use are ethics without free will? Why bother studying "a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions" if man can't choose or even control his actions.
My problem is with the idea that a person could have decided to unfocus rather than focus his mind. That is my point of contention, and I have seen nothing in any of the stuff on the Lexicon or in any of the books of Rand's, or on these forums, which makes me see why that assertion is necessary for any of the rest of Objectivism to remain perfectly intact.Without the ability to choose between the logical and the illogical, there would be no way to know anything. Do you understand now why volition is a prerequisite for objective knowledge (and therefore Objectivism)?
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However, clearly, nanite is arguing against the Objectivist conception of volition, which is synonymous with free will, which is requires multiple possible futures, indeterminacy, and the mystical brain-force.
Why do you make silly assertions like this? Objectivism explicitly rejects mysticism on every level. Why don't you try to quote some Objectivist literature and point out any mention of this so called "mystical brain force?"
Closing comments: This thread has highlighted that Objectivism as a philosophy still relies on some rationalistic, unnecessary concepts and mysticism when it comes to the human mind. (This is not surprising considering that Rand herself didn't even acknowledge evolution as certainly being the way humans came into being.)"Objectivism as a philosophy" (as opposed to Objectivism as something else?) does not rely on mysticism. You're clearly not familiar with Objectivism. Maybe instead of telling everyone that they can't understand your argument because they lack "understanding of emergent behavior of complex systems," you should actually learn Objectivism's position on free will and stop offering uneducated opinions regarding its validity.
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The moment you start introducing logic and fallacies and making a big deal out of it by responding with similar quantities of words, you're both granting them sanction for creating that verbiage in the first place and also putting yourself on the path to rationalism.
Thank you all for the great discussion. The quote above may be the best advice in this thread.
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You should really google it. Here is a good article explaining why you ought to be wary of any environmentalist B.S.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=New...ws_iv_ctrl=2457
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If someone wants to claim volition is illusionary, tell him you choose not to accept his statement
Yeah, I guess I'll just show that it is self defeating.
You'll have to come to understand this about philosophy professors, and then dismiss them, while at the same time regurgitating what they say so you can pass the tests.Ughhhhhhhhh.
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You don't need to make an argument for the axioms, so don't fall into that trap. Volition is directly observable introspectively, and is axiomatic regarding human consciousness.
Good point. I'll keep that in mind. I do still need to defend the axioms from attempts to disprove them.
And you don't need to convince him that either he or you have volition. You have free will, and that is all you need to know to be able to refute him.I don't plan on changing the professors mind, but rather the students who are listening to the discussion. I know I have free will for other reasons but I'll need more than that to shoot down this argument. It would also be nice to be able to refute this argument quickly since it's used so often. I'm also just curious about the fallacy of composition at this point.
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Whenever I discuss the topic of free will, determinists use the "the brain is made of atoms thus our actions are determined" argument. I understand that ultimately determinism is self refuting but this argument has always made sense to me (assuming I'm free to decide what's reasonable and what's not
) . Then I read about the fallacy of composition.I will be taking philosophy this coming fall and would like to be able to defend free will (presumably) from the professor in front of the class. This means I need to understand my argument inside and out. I looked up free will with respect to the fallacy of composition and found surprisingly few links to choose from. In "An Essay on Free Will" by Peter Van Inwagen (via google books) there is a quoted passage which it appears Van Inwagen is going to refute:
To say that if all the parts of a system are determined then the whole system is determined is not to commit the fallacy of composition, for determinism is clearly the sort of property that "carries over" from parts to whole.Unfortunately, this quote inside of the paper is at the end of the page and google books is missing the next page. This reasoning does seem sound to me. There has never been an example of a system (as far as I am aware) where determinism hasn't "carried over" from parts to whole. The fallacy of composition seems to arise from ignoring the relationships between the parts of the system. In this case, determinism is the relationship.
Is the fallacy of composition not a proper refutation of this oh so common determinist argument?
help.
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Jonathon Hoenig from Capitalistpig LLC is an Objectivist: http://www.capitalistpig.com/home.html
I just read Craig Biddle's interview with him in The Objective Standard. He has a newsletter you can subscribe to though I never have myself.
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Surely you can prove a negative?
Of course you can in some instances. I can prove that my pocket doesn't contain coins by turning it inside out. It is a rule of logic that you are never called upon to prove a negative. Something for which there is no evidence is not connected to reality. It's arbitrary.
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Read some Branden (and some Kelley, for that matter) and decide for yourselves.
Don't forget to read this: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...=objectivism_fv
"His statements make clear to me, in purely philosophic terms and for the first time, the root cause of the many schisms that have plagued the Objectivist movement since 1968."
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Just like anything else you learn in wordless form (like: how to ride a bike). Since books contain information only as words, you only need to be able to process/focus on the words. You don't necessarily have to integrate the information on the spot.
Riding your bike is a physical action. How would you learn from a history book using this method? The history would simply be stored in your subconscious in wordless form? Of what use is that?
Look, I'm no master of epistemology but this stinks to high heaven. A method of learning that doesn't require thinking is B.S.
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This sounds like B.S. to me. How can you learn any subject if you've learned it in wordless form? How do you bring it to your consciousness if it's wordless. Besides, I've found that to understand tough subjects like physics requires me to read slowly and explicitly integrate the ideas I'm reading.
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The underlying question is: what is the causes people to act to pursue values?
Man pursues values because of the fact that he faces the alternative of life or death.
I'd say socialism is driven by the need for food and health. The "thought" behind socialism is that, if some people aren't allowed to hoard the productive output of society, everyone will have their basic needs taken care of automatically.Socialism is NOT driven by the need for food and health. It is driven by the morality of altruism.
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Hell. At least he talked about PRINCIPLES tonight.
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Great! Makes perfect sense.
need advice on an unusual (for me) situation
in Relationships, Love, Sex, Romance
Posted
If your avatar is a picture of you, I can see why you've been having "bad luck" with women.
On a more serious note, it seems to me that you simply have reached a point where you have to choose between one or the other. I think you should weigh the options carefully and pick a girl. This doesn't mean that you have to stop seeing the other girl entirely. If you pick girl A, tell girl B that you're in relationship and would still like to be friends. Remember that staying friends with the girl you don't choose may not be possible for her or you.