Plasmatic

One more thing: Philosophy most importantly specifies that physics be consistent with Philosophy.

Why the constant form of affirmation then denial in your posts? Like, "Yes, I disagree". Your statement is a completely different "if-then", that would be a contradiction of the one your quoting. Why not just state your contention for why the previous conditional is false? Edit: Notice that my initial comment to SN leaves open the question at issue.

Dustin, Ms. Rand repudiates the concept "egotist" in The Virtue of Selfishness. She makes a sharp distinction between rational egoism and hedonism, as well as "predatory egoism".... You would do well to look these up. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html

Software, if Dustin is trolling, then by his own comments, he was encouraged to do so by a moderator "privately". I would hope that gives you a cause to reflect on both your Mods and Dustin....to be fair.

SK said: Being is a concept. The referents of that concept is metaphysically all the entities that exist. (All other "existents" are epistemically isolated from entities) edit: but your criticism of Louie is correct in that context. Metaphysics is about what exists apart from epistemic relations (cognitive neccessity). That is why epistemic "fundamentality" as regards "similarity"-essentiality, is not about causal priority.

Grames said: Could you give examples to clarify what you mean here? Because, as stated, I don't recognize this notion as anything Oism holds. If the hierarchy of knowledge is a ladder then what is philosophically fundamental is below what is physically fundmental but what is fundamental in physics will always be a species of what is philosophically fundamental. It is an iterative process. In ITOE Rand does make a metaphysical vs epistemic fundamentality distinction where the metaphysical is referring to the causal, or "by means of which" (to use Searle's terminology) , the characteristics that give rise to or make the most others possible. Ms. Rand herself called this sense of entity the "primary" sense in the appendix while discussing metaphysical vs epistemic "priority". There, "society" can epistemically be called and entity but is in fact metaphysically dependent on the individuals that comprise it. Edit: Are you simply meaning that epistemic fundamentality is about what is "most essential" to cognition and that may be any given characteristic, which doesn't really have to do with hierarchy qua logical invariance across all concepts? How would physics fit into that?

I don't think that either Harriman or Dr. Peikoff claims that there was a question of whether there could have been a non-entity as a cause of what we know as atomic weight.

Louie said: No, you need to review your own sequence of comments. You made one post and I asked for clarity. You clarified you were referring to your "last paragraph" after "Plasmatic". You stated "I explained the issue with what you said" in your next post following the "Plasmatic" paragraph and then you asked for me to "clarify". In that sequence of posts I already did clarify what you asked about. I'll address the rest tonight.

DW said: Do you happen to know where this is claimed in either reference, that the axiomatic concept entity had to be induced as relates to the instantiation of it in atoms? The very idea is ridiculous. Imagine If one said we have to run an experiment to verify if atoms have identity.....

Philosophy does dictate to physics however, that it cannot violate metaphysical principles. What is meant by "fundamental entity" is not a physics question. What qualities those fundamental entities have, is a physics question. Notice that quote does pressuppose that what is "apart from mans form of perception", is "objects".

SK, the referents of all epistemic primaries are metaphysical primaries. Louie doesn't understand this. All "perceptual" primaries are the result of metaphysically given facts. The fact that there is nothing mind independent but entities. There is nothing optional about first level concepts. That part of epistemic hierarchy is metaphysically constrained.

You keep playing this game. I already did "clarify" that I am not referring to "abstraction" by saying "No Louie, integration is here a metaphysical term.". Your "sounds like abstraction" is a question about what I meant by "integration". You require no more clarity than my express denial of what you thought it "sounded like". I have quoted the relevant other excerpts many times over the years and you still respond as though you have no idea what Rand has to say on metaphysical primaries! Shall I point you to the many posts where I have pointed out the direct quotes about metaphysical primaries that you keep pretending doesn't exist? What does "observer based metaphysics" mean? Edit: What more can I say about metaphysically irreducible than "not made as a result of integration of other entities into a new whole."?

I don't understand what the above is saying.

Objectivism considers entities as the "only metaphysical primaries" and the cause of action. You are simply not taking the whole context of what Oism says about entities as primaries and that is the cause of your many year long confusion of metaphysics and epistemology in relation to entities.. EDIT: Entities are perceptual primaries because there is nothing else to observe! Even regarding the discovery of fundamental constituents Ms Rand agrees you have to bring it back to the perceptual.

No Louie, integration is here a metaphysical term. Ms. Rand used the terms "welded together physically" to refer to the singular status of being a "whole" as against a collection of "parts".

The answer is found in the meaning of the concept fundamental. That means irreducible, not made as a result of integration of other entities into a new whole. Both fundamental entities and rocks are instances of "1" regardless of whether they resulted from integration. Your previous error was precisely treating fundamentals as "0" ("nothing"). 1). If it the kind of entity that does have self generated action (LIVING ORGANISM), certainly. Do other entities act on themselves? Depends on how broadly you define "self generated action" 2). See above 3). That is called an "interaction" 4). This is the reason Aristotle developed different causation types. To attempt to deal with these types of contextual questions. 5). That is difficult to answer due to the ambiguity possible because of the axiomatic nature of the concept "existence". They both "exist" but actions are entity dependent, causally.

Dustin said: Given the above statement and your stated desire to defend the homeland from "their collective" with no alternative but "our collective" you appear to be saying rather clearly that "if your not for "us" your against "us" ". It's interesting your point about "moderates" enabling extremists. Folk's like Hanoi Jane coddled the reprehensible evil that was the communist advocates of such great immorality as the force wielding North. Leonard Peikoff admonished against the "Kissinger's of Philosophy" in the 1976 lectures. I recommend anyone here who values Objectivism to read "The Anatomy of Compromise" by Ayn Rand I consider you every bit as extreme as your "their collective" and that is not a "moderate" position.

This is a very confused statement. All reduction terminates in perception, which is always of particulars. Second, why do you think scientist are looking for "gravitons"?

I have no idea how you got this from what I said. Yes, but you are questioning both for the same reasons. You don't see how gravity is differentiated from anything because you see it as ubiquitously present in everything you can point at. (blue sphere or a cup makes no difference) First, axiomatic concepts are not formed the same way as other concepts and that is the type of concept you were struggling with how to form previously. You see what appears to you a similarity with gravity. Second, It is you who are making a logical error. If you need epistemology to tell you if gravity is a valid concept you cannot use gravity to tell if your epistemology is valid because you need to know what a valid concept is first... Gravity is not an empirical claim? You are more confused than I thought. Even philosophical concepts are empirically based. What on earth is your definition of empirical then? All concepts are open to philosophical scrutiny concerning validity. Its the availability of the facts that differentiate a concept as related to one science or the other, because the methods used are necessarily different, given the availability of the facts. But you cannot determine if gravity is valid without knowing what the standard of validity is! How do you not see the self refuting nature of your statement? Heh, this is a refutation of your repeated claim to embrace the special vs general distinction between philosophy and science! "Relativity says these concepts are causes so the philosophical science that is responsible for defining what constitutes a valid cause is out of luck" I think I'm wasting my time here...

Questioning is good, when your questions are valid ones! Your questions are indeed the result of your current skepticism-rejection of the very things I mentioned. Your comment: Is indeed a reiteration of your earlier claim that ostensive definitions are not sufficient for defining metaphysical concepts because they don't reduce to perception Those two, skepticism and questioning are not mutually exclusive. I don't think you know what I meant by a hierarchy inversion. You have to use the science of epistemology to discover any fact. You don't use a discovery of special science to question epistemology for that reason. The question you are asking doesn't even depend on the theoretical conception in GR, or of gravity to be asked. The question "are there concepts that are valid but do not reduce to a base in perceptual entities" does not depend on any special science knowledge whatever and there is no special privilege granted to any special science concepts that exclude it from philosophical scrutiny. Edit: "Does gravity reduce to perception"? a special science concept, particularly one involving theoretical objects could fail to be a valid concept and still not answer the philosophical question "are there concepts that are valid but do not reduce to a base in perceptual entities". On the contrary, I have done quite a lot of thinking on the Philosophy of Science and Physics. It's one of my favorite subjects. Enough thinking to know that neither "events", nor "space", nor "time" constitute special science concepts and that none of them qualify as "causes"... Whatever the particulars that possess mass interact with, it isn't any of those three. See above. I only mentioned mass because I don't recognize the rest as qualifying as causal agents. (Even here there is a question for me because the Ricci tensor is 0)

You are reiterating what has already been dealt with in this thread. Entities are an integrated whole making them "one". You keep making the "pin cushion" error concerning entities. Attributes are not "parts" of an entity, they are the entity. Entities are not empty vessels that contain attributes.

Its instructive to note how the skepticism of both ostensive definition and a reduction of a concept that applies to all contexts, is being reiterated here just as it was laid out in the "foundation of physics" thread. The concept of gravity was a rhetorical device, a foil for the rejection of the reduction of fundamental concepts to perception. "Either reject gravity or reject your epistemology" is a rank hierarchy inversion. Edit: SK said: This is not true anyway. Look up the relationship of mass to GR for the Consensus view of gravitation.

SK, aren't you simply trying to discuss the ontology of forces? Your question about gravity is essentially asking, "what do I differentiate gravity from to form the concept if it is universal", right? Edit: SK said: No, the meaning of an abstraction is its units, past, present and future. Abstraction qua abstraction is a cognitive process. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/unit.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/meaning_(of_concepts).html Edit: SK said: This is all correct. Now, does this mean that you are claiming that the theoretical concept gravity is philosophically vetoed by an epistemic or metaphysical violation? It sounds like you are....? Another edit: I guess your question in the OP about "floating abstraction" answers the above.

I'll consider the notion that that is an instance of politeness. I havent considered it as such before, in a forum context. It seems to go without saying that there is no onus to post.

When one has sincere premises and questions they don't rush to meet others expectations, because they are products of a personal value hierarchy. I do only what I want, when I have nothing better to do. How others interpret the time frames involved doesn't matter to me.