Neurosophist
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Posts posted by Neurosophist
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No, they are not equivalent. (Or, at least, as a minimum, the former was not meant to be equivalent to the latter.) The phrase "grounds for banning" was meant to supply justification, but not as something that necesarily is automatically acted upon. This leaves some leeway for judgment by the moderator as to the sense and severity of the infraction.
My own assessment of Hal is that he most probably was unaware of the distinction we draw between Objectivism and the likes of Kelley, and even if he had an inkling of it he most probably did not know that that particular site was run by people who are avid Kelley supporters. So, if I were a moderator, I would consider Hal's apparent innocence and just give him a warning, alerting him to the Kelley/Objectivism distinction that he should become more aware of.
Perhaps there should be a moderator's oligarchy for situations such as this
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I think it's important to emphasize that the underlying psychology is a scientific issue which is still in development (which may be the source of the apparent softening by her on this issue as time went by). The issue being: is sexual orientation chosen, and how, and to what degree?
Then, if it is chosen, is any particular choice rational or irrational? And therefore right or wrong?
In the meantime, I think that acceptance - of their right - should be the guiding principle.
I assume your basis for acceptance being the default is because you do not see it as in anyway impacting on any non-consenting adults, unless there should be any other reason...
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It is a bit impertinent to refer to Ayn Rand solely by her first name if you were not on a first name basis with her yourself. Out of respect for her, we usually use "Ayn Rand" or "Miss Rand."
Is the portrayal of this fellow's impertinence in referring by only the first name also as Miss Rand would have thought of it, a common policy among all objectivist devotees, or only a policy in this forum?
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That's nice to hear Betsy. In my imaginary version of the country I always saw California as the place that was so "liberal" that they would almost all hate Ayn Rand/Objectivism.
California, while recently becoming a bastion of at least democratic electoral power, was not always associated with liberalism. With such a broad area and such a large portion of the population, many different beliefs are represented in it. For instance, the Governator...
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No government should ban reality TV or any actual drug. If you disagree then take a look at Introducing Objectivism on the ARI website (specially the last paragraph on politics).
I think the statement made was merely facetious
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I am considering volunteering to be a moderator. I have hesitated for two reasons. First, I am concerned that the rules of behavior are not clear enough, specific enough, and intolerant enough.
I second the explicating, refining and bolstering of rules of behavior, they should be on the homepage.
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say that just about ALL Americans are ON DRUGS!
44% of Americans are on medication according to the recent cnn poll.
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The government shouldn't be printing anything on my money. It shouldn't be making money. But, if it's going to anyway, it should be imprinted with the weight and fineness of the gold coin, or, if it's paper, how much gold is backing it and where I can go to get it. And other than a pretty picture of an eagle or something that should be about it. Certainly nothing about make believe beings.
The pledge of allegiance should be eliminated, especially the "under god" part. It was written by a christian socialist named Francis Bellamy (without the god reference, originally)in order to promote Nationalism (not patriotism) - as in National Socialism. He was a big believer in his cousin's book Looking Backward: 2000 - 1887 and he wrote the pledge to bring us closer to it. Truly evil stuff.
Ah, looking backward, the work that at once introduced a rudimentary credit card and at the same time said that it would effectively be useless, as there would be so much plenty that no one could dream of using all their capitol.
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Yes, but that only distracts from the fact that it is somehow immoral to not send a chain letter. It would be rational to punish people if it were in fact immoral but it isn't. Unless you are referring to the one who deleted it and the one who only sent it to seven? In that case, maybe the writer considered losing a loved one worse than losing one's own life. But I think that is giving this email more thought than it deserves.
Perhaps you could actually take it as a threat, but since it is only informing you of some sort of case specific illusory correlation, perhaps you should ask the originator for some more statistically significant data on people who do and do not send on the letter. It is important to be rigorous when attending to probabilities. You could also simply thank the originator for giving you some free scrap paper as well as proving that the postal service is up to snuff.
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Hi Nick. Welcome to the forum.
You have expressed a serious interest in Objectivism, so permit me to alert you to one thing. It is a bit impertinent to refer to Ayn Rand solely by her first name if you were not on a first name basis with her yourself. Out of respect for her, we usually use "Ayn Rand" or "Miss Rand."
Why Miss and not Ms.?
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It seems noteworthy to point out that non-voluntary is a somewhat rare instance, in that it is difficult to determine whether a person will regain function, 'pull through', or in the long run, some means of retrieving them from their coma will be made available, a la 'awakenings'.
Also, it is difficult in cases where you must resort back to the patient's original beliefs, where they are not strictly stated (besides the fact that what one says months or years in advance may not correspond with their thinking in the moments or situation where they become incapable of voicing their choice).
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Galt's Gulch comes to mind when I read this thread.
Galt's Gulch, being hypothetically the most Objectivist society possible, didn't have a government. There didn't seem to be any need for one. Granted, it was newly-developed and only a small number of people lived there. Still, if nobody in the world ever did or ever would violate anybody else's rights, the only government function needed would be a Supreme Court- to oversee private arbitrators.
Why even a supreme court?
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I think that is a good idea. I seem to recall that that is suggested in one of the policy write-ups for the forum, but a means to enforce it strictly would make sense.
I for one do not like this idea. It might seem too much like an inquisition rather than a welcome to the forum. I do not think this forum has a problem of being overrun by the wrong sort of people, but rather the wrong sort of people are permitted to stay longer than they should. I think it is enforcement of stricter rules, not better qualification, that is needed.
It seems that without at least some form of posting of the 'rules', you can expect many more of the 'wrong sort of people'.
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don't send it
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Until the baby is physically independent from the mother (instead of a biological parasite), the embryo is lacking a very important trait necessary to achieving personhood, and does not deserve any right.
And yet, there are still requirements of the mother in terms of respect of life and consciousness. The mother, were she to neglect the child's needs, such as the need not to be administered excessive amounts of alcohol, would again be found accountable for her actions. Personhood, as you call it, deserves certain rights, but so too do certain aspects of civility on the part of the benefactor.
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A computer search of the Citation Database, which includes science, social science, and the arts and humanities, representing some 32,525,372 journal papers from 1945 through 2004, showed exactly zero journal articles that contained the words "generativeness" and "language." In fact, out of the 32,525, 372 aforementioned journal papers, only four even contain the word "generativeness," and none of their meanings coincide with yours. So the fact that you described the issue with that word in your prior post, without even bothering to provide us with your meaning, demonstrates the bizareness of the world that you live in. Go snow someone else, somewhere else, someplace where neuro sophists are appreciated.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition
Generative, adjective, Linguistics. Able to generate, generative grammar, A (generative) grammar of a language is a theory or set of statements which tells us in a formal and explicit way which strings of the basic elements of the language are permitted, A generative grammar is based upon certain fundamental kernel sentences, out of which the language builds up its elaborate structure by various techniques of permutation, replacement, addition and deletion
You focus on the most meaningless of quibbles and avoid at all the possibility that your theory of animal attributes can be confronted. I'm sure you'll have some impressive database which will aid you in discounting this too, so you need not reply.
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What can be said? We all cower in fear of the clarity and depth of your arguments. I mean, afterall, who could possibly argue with the precision of your "dynamic, generativeness and displacement," not to mention the forcefulness of your "determinism is a comprehensive system." Clearly we all know when we have been outclassed.
Dynamicism= The ability to add new words to language
Generativeness= The ability to utilize syntactic structure to create novel sentences
Displacement= The ability to abstract utilizing language
The latter half of the Determinism is comprehensive argument you conveniently left out was that which said determinism can not spontaneously become undetermined, one can not go from actions which are caused by prior events to actions which are not cause by the past.
If you would like to dredge up past arguments, how about the evidence you once proposed as valid, that action precedes neurological activity? Care to expound that for your audience?
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Beyond quips, I see that none dare respond to anything I have said regarding animal capability toward language, nor volition's origins.
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Why do you say "subjectively decide" rather than "objectively decide"?
In this forum, "objective" has a very definite meaning. Are you using the terms in other ways?
I'm using it in a very lay way, ie, last night I subjectively decided that I should sleep at 12, my body/the conditions surrounding my sleep decided objectively be more like 1.
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Point of order, I told you that you should know that everyone is accountable for the fact that they are not working towards 'curing' death and that it should be at the top of everyone's list, if indeed life is as good as you say it is.
My point however, was that determinism is a comprehensive system- if a system is determined at time 0, you can't presume that it will become undetermined at time 1, much as you are positing with life. So either show me how we all 'grow a soul' or otherwise explain this instantaneous creation of material (either within the brain or wherever you are going to posit this volition lies)
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I think BurgessLau is onto something. Motivation to be awake.
I went through a period of fairly low self esteem and depression, and of course I slept and slept and never felt like getting up...
After doing a 180 on my my selfesteem, happiness and motivation levels, I now have no problems getting up at 5.30 eager to see what I can acheive and improve on.
Motivation is all well and good and certainly how well you're feeling determines when you subjectively decide you can/will get up, but people definitely have set points for the amount of sleep their body prefers which are not easy to alter. You also get microsleeps during days in which you stay up, which are sort of waking states when your brain waves look as if they are sleeping. Consider that we could just as well be sleeping 1.5 hr intervals 5 times a day, its not feasible mainly because of the diurnal cycle. A tactic many people try is to get an hour or so nap toward the middle of the day when body rhythms have slowed down. When this is done regularly you could reduce the amount of sleep you need at night, in one sitting, which would be required to be awake in any substantive sense of the word.
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Explain how animal behavior (completely deterministic supposedly) can EVOLVE into human choice (not at all determined apparently)
If language is an example of a conceptual faculty then the dynamic, generativeness and displacement of many animals' use of language would most certainly qualify them for abstraction and thus volition
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A "sexist" is a person who thinks that a man ought to act like a man, and a lady ought to act like a lady
Interesting
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If gender (note, not sex) is a social construct, meaning that society tells you in what capacity you can act in regards to your sex, then wouldn't one's own concept of how much of a valuer or someone who was being valued also be determined by society? Could not a female become such a valuer and therefore qualify for the attributes you say are necessary to a president?
Your thoughts on "In God we trust?"
in Questions about Objectivism
Posted
Too true, touche