Plasmatic

@dream_weaver
 
"What is it that make rationality possible in the first place?"
 
Dogs and cat's exhibit rational behavior.  We see them learn from their mistakes and modify their behavior accordingly.  This is true for a great many animals. Most, if not all, mammals must learn how to live by interacting with others of their kind.  If you drop a young wolf into the forest, he will die without guidance.
 
We don't really begin to see what we would identify as irrational behavior until we reach the primates.  The greater the intellect, the greater the capacity for irrational behavior.  Correlation many not equal causation, but if I were the Man-from-Mars, I'd sure take note.

More and more I see the essential trait of the left as a desire to escape responsibility. From scepticism to altruism.

Bill said:

This whole premise of yours is a position on the causal efficacy of volition or intentional causation. What in your view is the difference between the cognitive endeavor of coming to the conclusion that intentions don't lead to desired outcomes and the choice of market actors interacting according to their own values in trade? That is, what in your view enables you to achieve the causal efficacy of choosing to grasp the causal connection between intentional actions and the failure to achieve them that is not present in intentional causation in the market? Why are you exempt?

There is nothing in Kahneman's book that you cant learn yourself via introspection. A summary if which could read:

Would kindly provide the source of your Rand quote. I've never run across it in any of her published works, letters, or journals.
 
Thank you!

Louie, do you honestly think that anything in that quote supports the ridiculous notion that entities are epistemological? Everything I'm saying is about the claim that boundaries would disappear if all consciousness was gone being a failure to grasp what she meant by "objective rules and facts."

SL said:

I agree and would add that "physical entities" is redundant... But I whole heartedly accept that this makes me a type of "materialist", just not the kind that eliminates consciousness .....

Exactly. Just like digestion.

One of the premises behind Rand's criticism of psychologism is that one cannot access the intentional state of others. I'm referring here to the intentions or motivations behind why someone does or says something.

I haven't read much of this thread but what I did read made me think of this.

One of the premises behind Rand's criticism of psychologism is that one cannot access the intentional state of others. I'm referring here to the intentions or motivations behind why someone does or says something.

I haven't read much of this thread but what I did read made me think of this.

Startsev said:

"Forget about Marxism. That integration will not work. What I am trying to integrate Objectivism with is Society. So far, I have no idea what the future global and unified society will be called. Let's just call it Society then with a capital letter. Socialism and Communism do not work and did not match Marxist theory of history. History worked out differently once we got to capitalism. What's next after capitalism - that's the new question."

Ok so we are abandoning the topic of this thread for a new one. Any late comer to this thread should take note then.

Startsev said:

I consider it to be the truth that all truths depend on.

Grames, thanks for responding, your response is a good foil for my clarification. I figured that my post appeared as a strawman. The stolen concept involved is not obvious.

Ms. Rands reduction of the concepts society, groups, etc are an excellent foil for this whole thread.:

"Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. A group can have no rights other than the rights of its individual members."

"Collectivism holds that, in human affairs, the collective—society, the community, the nation, the proletariat, the race, etc.—is the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as part of the group, and value only insofar as he serves it."

"Modern collectivists . . . see society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members."

"The philosophy of collectivism upholds the existence of a mystic (and unperceivable) social organism, while denying the reality of perceived individuals—a view which implies that man’s senses are not a valid instrument for perceiving reality. "

The above reductions demonstrating the stolen concepts involved, like individual rights, depend on the existence of the individuals AS individuals. The basis of all rights is the ontological fact that men are individual living entities. True, the relationships man engages in make, or cause dynamic effects not possible to the individuals alone. But these effects depend on the attribute the individuals posses that make the CONCEPT of society meaningful, consciousness.

Likewise relationships are not some super-entity apart from the entities relating. Society exist, groups, exist, guitars and pianos exist, and yes, concertos exist, but concertos are effects of the dynamically interacting individuals. A great concerto can cause an emotion but your previous comments on ontology lead me to think you mean something different by relations being causes, something ontologically relevant to the "patterns and configurations" of Campbell's paper. Something leading you earlier to claim that "not even an entity ontology" can be claimed. No?

Edit: we do NOT perceive forces! If we did the whole ontological debate over abstract/theoretical concepts in the scientific realism debate would be meaningless. We perceive the EFFECTS of one entity upon another with no observable intermediary. Conceptualizing the ontological facts making this possible is the whole problem of the scientific realism debate over observation language vs abstract language.

Great. The way to be an "Anarch"-Objectivist is to produce as little as possible, and steal from the great producers of the world because they dare try and profit from their creations.
 
While you're at it, steal the name Ayn Rand chose for her philosophy, tag it on to the end of everything she hated, and then have the gall to show up here and expect us to listen to what you have to say.

All of the posts Ive read of his reminds me of the "man is the head" garbage I heard in church for so long.

SL, in fact many times now after reading Labagola's post It has given me pleasure. Just watching the intellectually honest journey, the constant attempt at integration, the intelligent questions that come out of it, Its refreshing.

SL, in fact many times now after reading Labagola's post It has given me pleasure. Just watching the intellectually honest journey, the constant attempt at integration, the intelligent questions that come out of it, Its refreshing.

I guess the Oist defending the black hole unicorn are ok with the idea of an existent with infinite density?

Edit: The real black hole war:

"The notion of black holes voraciously gobbling up matter, twisting space-time into contortions that trap light, stretching the unwary into long spaghetti-like strands as they fall inward to ultimately collide and merge with an infinitely dense point-mass singularity, has become a mantra of the scientific community, so much so that even primary school children know about the sinister black hole, waiting patiently, like the Roman child’s Hannibal, for an opportunity to abduct the unruly and the misbehaved. There are almost daily reports of scientists claiming black holes again found here and there.

It is asserted that black holes range in size from micro to mini, to intermediate and on up through to supermassive behemoths. Black holes are glibly spoken of and accepted as scientific facts and that they have been detected at the centre of galaxies. Images of black holes having their wicked ways with surrounding matter are routinely offered with reports of them. Some physicists even claim that black holes will be created in particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider, potentially able to swallow the Earth, if care is not taken in their production.

Yet despite all this hoopla, contrary to the assertions of the astronomers and astrophysicists of the black hole community, nobody has ever identified a black hole, anywhere, let alone ‘imaged’ one. The pictures adduced to convince are actually either artistic impressions (i.e. drawings) or photos of otherwise unidentified objects imaged by telescopes and merely asserted to be black holes, ad hoc.

No Escape

The alleged signatures of the alleged black hole are an infinitely dense point-mass singularity and an event horizon. Scientists frequently assert that the escape velocity of a black hole (from its event horizon) is that of light and that nothing, not even light, can escape the black hole. In fact, according to the same scientists, nothing, including light, can even leave the event horizon. But there is already a problem with these bald claims (black holes are also alleged to have ‘no hair’).

If the escape velocity of a black hole is that of light, then light, on the one hand, can escape. On the other hand, light is allegedly not able to even leave the event horizon, so the black hole has no escape velocity. If the escape velocity of a black hole is that of light, not only can light both leave and escape, material objects can also leave the event horizon, but not escape, even though, according to the Theory of Special Relativity, they can only have a velocity less than that of light. This just means that material bodies will leave the black hole and eventually stop and fall back to the black hole, just like a ball thrown into the air here on Earth with an initial velocity less than the escape velocity for the Earth. So the properties of the alleged event horizon of a black hole are irretrievably contradictory.

What of the infinitely dense point-mass singularity at the heart of the black hole? It is supposed to be formed by irresistible gravitational collapse so that matter is crushed into zero volume, into a ‘point’, a so-called ‘point-mass’. One recalls from high school that density is defined as the mass of an object divided by the volume of the object. If the mass is not zero and the volume is zero, as in the case of a black hole, one gets division by zero. But all school children know that division by zero is not allowed by the rules of mathematics. Nonetheless, black hole proponents are, by some special privilege, somehow permitted to flout the rules of elementary mathematics and divide by zero! No, the scientists too cannot divide by zero, despite their claims to the contrary.

Einstein Violated

Furthermore, black holes are allegedly obtained from Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. It is called the General Theory because it is a generalisation of his Special Theory of Relativity. As such, General Relativity cannot, by definition, violate Special Relativity, but that is precisely what the black hole does.

Special Relativity forbids infinite densities because, according to that Theory, infinite density implies infinite energy (or equivalently that a material object can acquire the speed of light in vacuo). Therefore General Relativity too forbids infinite densities. But the point-mass singularity of the black hole is allegedly infinitely dense, in violation of Special Relativity. Thus the Theory of Relativity forbids the existence of a black hole.

Non-event on the Horizon

What now of the event horizon of the black hole? According to the proponents of the black hole it takes an infinite amount of time for an observer to watch an object (via the light from that object, of course) fall into the event horizon. So it therefore takes an infinite amount of time for the observer to verify the existence of an event horizon and thereby confirm the presence of a black hole. However, nobody has been and nobody will be around for an infinite amount of time in order to verify the presence of an event horizon and hence the presence of a black hole. Nevertheless, scientists claim that black holes have been found all over the place.

The fact is nobody has assuredly found a black hole anywhere – no infinitely dense point-mass singularity and no event horizon. Some black hole proponents are more circumspect in how they claim the discovery of their black holes. They instead say that their evidence for the presence of a black hole is indirect. But such indirect ‘evidence’ cannot be used to justify the claim of a black hole, in view of the fatal contradictions associated with infinitely dense point-mass singularities and event horizons. One could just as well assert the existence and presence of deep space unicorns on the basis of such ‘evidence’.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein

It is also of great importance to be mindful of the fact that no observations gave rise to the notion of a black hole in the first place, for which a theory had to be developed. The black hole was wholly spawned in the reverse, i.e. it was created by theory and observations subsequently misconstrued to legitimize the theory. Reports of black holes are just wishful thinking in support of a belief; not factual in any way.

Another major and fatal contradiction in the idea of the black hole is the allegation that black holes can be components of binary systems, collide or merge. Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that black holes are predicted by General Relativity. The black hole is fundamentally described by a certain mathematical expression called a line-element (which is just a fancy name for a distance formula, like that learnt in high school) that involves just one alleged mass in the entire Universe (just the alleged source of a gravitational field), since the said distance formula is a solution for a space-time allegedly described by Einstein’s equations in vacuum (or, more accurately, emptiness), namely Ric = 0.

One does not need to know anything at all about the mathematical intricacies of this equation to see that it cannot permit the presence of one black hole, let alone two or more black holes. The mathematical object denoted by Ric is what is called a tensor (in this case it is Ricci’s tensor, and hence its notation). The reason why Ric = 0 is because in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity all matter that contributes to the source of the gravitational field must be described by another tensor, called the energy-momentum tensor. In the case of the so-called vacuum field equations the energy-momentum tensor is set to zero, because there is no mass or radiation present by hypothesis. Otherwise Ric would not be equal to zero. So the alleged black hole can interact with nothing, not even an ‘observer’. Ric = 0 is not a two body situation, only, allegedly, a one body situation (and hence quite meaningless).

One cannot just introduce extra objects into a given solution to Einstein’s field equations, because his theory asserts that the curvature of space-time (i.e. the gravitational field) is due to the presence of matter and that the said matter, all of it, must be described by his energy-momentum tensor. If the energy-momentum tensor is zero, there is no matter present. Einstein's field equations are nonlinear, so the ‘Principle of Superposition’ does not apply. Before one can talk of relativistic binary systems it must first be proved that the two-body system is theoretically well-defined by General Relativity.

This can be done in only two ways:

(a) Derivation of an exact solution to Einstein's field equations for the two-body configuration of matter; or

( Proof of an existence theorem.
There are no known solutions to Einstein's field equations for the interaction of two (or more) masses, so option (a) has never been fulfilled. No existence theorem has ever been proved, by which Einstein's field equations even admit of latent solutions for such configurations of matter, and so option ( has never been fulfilled either. Since Ric = 0 is a statement that there is no matter in the Universe, one cannot simply insert a second black hole into the space-time of Ric = 0 of a given black hole so that the resulting two black holes (each obtained separately from Ric = 0) mutually interact in a mutual spacetime that by definition contains no matter.

One cannot simply assert by an analogy with Newton's theory that two black holes can be components of binary systems, collide or merge, because the ‘Principle of Superposition’ does not apply in Einstein's theory. Moreover, General Relativity has to date been unable to account for the simple experimental fact that two fixed bodies will approach one another upon release. So from where does the matter allegedly associated with the solution to Ric = 0 come, when this is a statement that there is no matter present? The proponents of the black hole just put it in at the end, a posteriori and ad hoc, in violation of their starting hypothesis that Ric = 0.

No Solution

Finally, the fundamental solution to Ric = 0 is usually called the "Schwarzschild solution". Despite its name, it is not in fact Schwarzschild’s solution. Schwarzschild’s actual solution forbids black holes. The frequent claim that Schwarzschild found and advocated a black hole solution is patently false, as a reading of Schwarzschild’s paper on the subject irrefutably testifies. False too are the claims that he predicted an event horizon and that he determined the "Schwarzschild radius" (i.e. the alleged ‘radius’ of the black hole event horizon). Schwarzschild actually had nothing to do with the black hole, but attaching his name to it lends the notion an additional façade of scientific legitimacy. "

http://www.thunderbolts.info/thunderblogs/archives/guests08/061108_sjcrothers.htm

In post #76 I said:
 
 
When others failed to keep context, I further elaborated in #79:
 
 
Others further dropped context by claiming I was stealing, reifying, or mystifying the concept "right", and proceeded to demand I break down all of their related errors of knowledge concerning Oism. (for me, a quote from someone who I thought held one idea directly contradicting that idea, is enough stimulus to go do my own homework...)  I explained further in  #81:
 
 
 
Since I am in a forum, the context of which is Objectivism, it is proper and reasonable to post in a way that is consistent with that context and expect others to realize that context is the standard. In other words here it is necessary to state if your view is not in agreement with Oism, because it is a forum dedicated to it. If I were in a forum dedicated to Kantianism I would have to post in a manner that respected the purpose of that forum and identify my self as a non-Kantian, because it is not the pretext for that forum. The only way to demonstrate that my points are consistent with Objectivism and others points aren't, is to quote the only author of Oism. (The issue of my own validation of those ideas is separate from this ! (fans of psychologism take note!... )
 
1. I maintain that Objectivism holds that all rights are individual rights, derived from the right to life, and that this is the condition for any other right, as well as the precondition for any society and government. Just as rights presuppose life and value, government presupposes the individual possessing that right and is the reason governments are formed to "secure" them.
 
   Ayn Rand said:
 
 
 
 Ms. Rand illustrated the fact that the individual right to life is not granted to one by society in Anthem by having Equality 7-2521 derive the concept of the individual introspectively within a social context that did not possess a concept for it.
 
Edit: Equality 7-2521 does not feel guilt because of there own introspective sense that the socially dictated "sins" were anti-life.  

 
 
The Island dweller can not escape the requirements of his own existence. He must discover the values required to live as man. His values must be in accordance with the full context of his life. This extends beyond mere metabolic requirements, man is an integration of mind and body.
 
Ayn Rand said:
 
 
The island dweller needs only know his own conditions for life as man, to grasp that he should not value murdering the unconscious man, and that the man has a right to his own life. The consequences for murder are not exclusively or primarily the destruction of others value and rights!
 
The importance of conscience in Objectivism is tremendously overlooked by many of its proponents. Psychological harmony/integration is essential to mans life and therefore plays an important role in Oist literature. The harmony of Galt's actions and premises with his own life/identity derived values, showed in his body/face. Rearden's path to inner integration required him to realize the he "placed pity above [his] own conscience" etc.
 
The selfish value of a man who lives with integrity, is because of what violating what one knows to be "right" does TO HIMSELF,  to his own conscience.
 
When a rationally selfish man doesn't cheat on his wife when no one would find out, it is primarily because HE would know!
 
EDIT: Fixed sentence below
 
The unconscious mans right to life is not predicated on his value to the island dweller as such. The island dweller doesn't violate this right because of the island dwellers value of himself! As a secondary he will rationally derive the respect for life in general from this knowledge.
 
 
As to the question of the hypothetical being a social context, the idea that it isn't is so obtuse I refuse to debate it further.

In post #76 I said:
 
 
When others failed to keep context, I further elaborated in #79:
 
 
Others further dropped context by claiming I was stealing, reifying, or mystifying the concept "right", and proceeded to demand I break down all of their related errors of knowledge concerning Oism. (for me, a quote from someone who I thought held one idea directly contradicting that idea, is enough stimulus to go do my own homework...)  I explained further in  #81:
 
 
 
Since I am in a forum, the context of which is Objectivism, it is proper and reasonable to post in a way that is consistent with that context and expect others to realize that context is the standard. In other words here it is necessary to state if your view is not in agreement with Oism, because it is a forum dedicated to it. If I were in a forum dedicated to Kantianism I would have to post in a manner that respected the purpose of that forum and identify my self as a non-Kantian, because it is not the pretext for that forum. The only way to demonstrate that my points are consistent with Objectivism and others points aren't, is to quote the only author of Oism. (The issue of my own validation of those ideas is separate from this ! (fans of psychologism take note!... )
 
1. I maintain that Objectivism holds that all rights are individual rights, derived from the right to life, and that this is the condition for any other right, as well as the precondition for any society and government. Just as rights presuppose life and value, government presupposes the individual possessing that right and is the reason governments are formed to "secure" them.
 
   Ayn Rand said:
 
 
 
 Ms. Rand illustrated the fact that the individual right to life is not granted to one by society in Anthem by having Equality 7-2521 derive the concept of the individual introspectively within a social context that did not possess a concept for it.
 
Edit: Equality 7-2521 does not feel guilt because of there own introspective sense that the socially dictated "sins" were anti-life.  

 
 
The Island dweller can not escape the requirements of his own existence. He must discover the values required to live as man. His values must be in accordance with the full context of his life. This extends beyond mere metabolic requirements, man is an integration of mind and body.
 
Ayn Rand said:
 
 
The island dweller needs only know his own conditions for life as man, to grasp that he should not value murdering the unconscious man, and that the man has a right to his own life. The consequences for murder are not exclusively or primarily the destruction of others value and rights!
 
The importance of conscience in Objectivism is tremendously overlooked by many of its proponents. Psychological harmony/integration is essential to mans life and therefore plays an important role in Oist literature. The harmony of Galt's actions and premises with his own life/identity derived values, showed in his body/face. Rearden's path to inner integration required him to realize the he "placed pity above [his] own conscience" etc.
 
The selfish value of a man who lives with integrity, is because of what violating what one knows to be "right" does TO HIMSELF,  to his own conscience.
 
When a rationally selfish man doesn't cheat on his wife when no one would find out, it is primarily because HE would know!
 
EDIT: Fixed sentence below
 
The unconscious mans right to life is not predicated on his value to the island dweller as such. The island dweller doesn't violate this right because of the island dwellers value of himself! As a secondary he will rationally derive the respect for life in general from this knowledge.
 
 
As to the question of the hypothetical being a social context, the idea that it isn't is so obtuse I refuse to debate it further.

Another quick post:

Before, I answer why one ought to value the unconscious mans right to life, even if no one but oneself would ever know, I have some socratic questions.



1. Does the law of identity exist before the man washed up? (even if no microscope is present??)
2. Did the self sustaining man exist as an individual before the man washed up?
3. Does the fact that the washed up man is unconscious mean he is not an individual?
4. Do the requirements of the self sustaining mans life arise suddenly because another man washed up?
5. Did the self sustaining man posses the faculty of introspection prior to the presence of the unconscious man or did it suddenly appear?
6. Why was Galt referred to as the “man without pain, fear, or guilt“?
7. What was the main weapon used against Rearden by the looters?
8. How could Equality 7-2521, in Anthem, discover the concept of “I” in a “society” that had obliterated it ?
9. Why didn’t Equality 7-2521 in Anthem feel guilt when he “sinned” ?

So, notice how Ms Rand uses "unit" here to refer to the primary entity or "1":

"June 18, 1959
(Hurried notes, which require hours and hours of further thinking.) Arithmetical numbers are taken as entities in any arithmetical calculation, which means: an arithmetical calculation is an action by which the relationship of certain entities leads to the discovery of a final entity, which is the goal and the stop of the action. A series of arithmetical equations involving action is incomplete until it has reached the stopping point of a specific arithmetical entity, e.g., a number.

But the numbers themselves are composites. The only primary entity here is the unit—the concept of one (1). Every other number is an abstraction which replaces a certain repetition of ones by a single concept meant to stand for that repetition (1 1 1 1 means 4)."

From her Journal entry dated above.

I noticed that she sometimes used "unit" in this way, to refer to a particular. It is that sense I think she meant "unit" in regards to the crow. The crow sees this particular, that particular and the other one, but doesnt see them as three of a kind.

Read "The Missing Link" in PWNI. Ms. Rand concretizes how the anti- conceptual mentality disconnects one from causality.

I thought it was a forum rule not to spam the forum promoting non-Oist philosophy? Dont get me wrong, the threads that actually tried to relate pseudo-Popperian ideas to Oism seemed fine but......

Red said:
 
 
 Let me help you with the obvious. First, I didnt quote anything and thats why you you didn't see any quotation marks. Second, you are at a forum dedicated to Oism. Thats capitol O. I am an Objectivist. I agree with Objectivism because I am persuaded by its content. When I quote Oist literature It is because I agree with it.  You should read the forum rules concerning this topic.
 
 
 
Yes, I know you advocate a form of Platonism. But "non-material" is mystical nonsense and so is any variant of the Forms. However the mental nature of invalid concepts is a reality.
 
 
 
 
Of course, you reject the foundational nature of philosophy.
 
 
Complete nonsense. A complete disintegration of subject and object. Its becoming clear that your here simply to spread non Oist ideas. 

 

Red said:

"A nice way of arbitrarily defining away half of the universe."

Enough of this question begging! You are here in an Oist forum dedicated to persuit of Oism. If you want to oppose the epistemology of Objectivism, here, where it is assumed by those who are here because they are persuaded by it, YOU must present an argument against its epistemology particularly.

If you think Oist epistemology is arbitrary then start a thread were you lay out what in particular you think is wrong with it. Here you are the one who must do this. When you present more than assertions that Oism is wrong, or assumptions about others they dont hold, then I will have something to refute.

"Um, define for us, please, what you mean by the phrase "philosophically holding." If only "entities" (whatever they are!) exist, and if only entities therefore can cause effects, what sort of entities cause the effect you've just called "philosophically holding"? How can entities "philosophically hold" something? And isn't the "something" they hold itself composed of other entities?"

Um, I am the entitiy that holds the attribute of a conceptual consciousness. All the other questions pressupose your invalid assertion that concepts are entities.

Red said:

"And why should your entities in your physical material arrangements be called "right" and "true" and "correct" while other people's entities in their material arrangements be defined as "wrong", "false", and "incorrect'?"

Again, the criteria is correspondence between the mental and the mind independent. Again, concepts are not entities.

Red said:
"If you define away the idea of a non-material — i.e., existing independently of any possible kind of physical, material arrangement of entities — part of existence, then you simply do away with the idea of objective truth. By your lights, everyone has his own set of material, physical, entity-arrangements causing them to have certain ideas (the ideas are simply "effects" of those physical arrangements). Thus, there is no right, wrong, moral, immoral, true, untrue, etc. There is simply "my entity-arrangements", "his entity-arrangements", "your entity-arrangements", etc."

I have no idea where you get this nonsense from. You are the one who has "defined" into existence the concept "non- material". I cannot define away what I have not asserted to have abstracted from perception. You see, the onus is on you. Lay out your theory of concept formation and show why Oism is wrong.

Red said:

" 
And pretending to defend this sort of naive materialism by saying, "but I justify it according to principles of Objectivist epistemology, so it HAS to be right!" is absurd, as well as self-serving. What arrangements do material entities make when leading to the phrase "principles of Objectivist epistemology"? and why should those material arrangements of entities be "better" or "more true" than someone else's material arrangements of entities leading to the phrase "principles of Kant's analytic-synthetic dichotomy"?"

More of the same. Oist serve themselves as a moral ideal. You are here at OO where, by the purpose of its owners, Oist epistemology is the standard. It is YOU who have something to lay out. Stop making nonsensical assumptions about what others hold and demonstrate why Oism is wrong in particular.

What about entities being causal primaries do you repudiate in particular and how is your view justified?