iouswuoibev

Actually MIN_YEAR and DAYS_PER_WEEK should be preprocessor definitions, if you're following typical programming standards (all capitalized names are #defines).

Did you mean to say that? Because it makes no sense.

This does not explain why his main goal must be the higher value. You begin with: "If a man builds his central purpose on having or keeping a romantic relationship..." not "If a man holds a romantic relationship as his highest value...". By implication, you seem to be saying that holding something as a higher value means holding it as your central purpose. Is that what you are implying, and if so, why? I think love is a greater value than work, even though the latter is not possible without the former. Productive work is the cause, and love is the effect, but I do not see that this fact necessitates love being the lesser value to someone who has it. EDIT: Typo correction.

No, but you can control "what pops into your head". You can't control WHETHER something pops into your head, but you can decide how to deal with it afterwards, which is a form of control. What I was thinking of is where something has previously been judged to be of value, but in actual fact is not of value, and you don't want to invest any more attention on it because of that. I think to put it succinctly, staying in control of your thoughts is an act of context-keeping. If you think the thought is of no value, spell it out verbally in your mind each time that thought occurs, including why it is of no value. If the thought is of value, but you don't have the time or energy to pursue it, spell that out in your mind too. That is what I was speaking of when I said that I was able to "propell my thoughts away". Like I said, you misread what I wrote. I don't actually think any of these things. The rest of what you wrote might be useful to someone, but I already knew it (just not verbally). So I'd prefer it if you didn't make me the target of your observations, but just describe them as they apply to you. Here's a question that occurs to me: What would be a proper object of concentration when trying to fall asleep at night?

Another tip when studying programming is to read from as many sources as possible. Remember that passage in The Fountainhead where Wyndand stole a book and understood 1-quarter of it? You can do that when learning programming (preferably without stealing anything!). When reading about things you'll encounter a lot of concepts in the beginning that you don't understand; don't pay them any mind. As you read more and more you'll begin to fill in the gaps. The rate you learn will grow exponentially, and in the long run you'll learning a great deal in a very short amount of time, outpacing your academic studies. Persistence is the key. If you ask someone to explain something or look it up in a book, and you fail to understand it, that doesn't mean the information isn't valuable. Sometimes when you encounter a concept again explained in a different manner, it will suddenly become clear to you. Even reading a book that you barely understand at all can be valuable; your sub-conscious will absorb the information, and you'll end up with incomplete concepts floating around in the back of your head. Then when you keep pursuing different texts on the same subject, these concepts will fall into place and be understood with great rapidity. To put it another way, studying several different sources on the same subject works synergistically, as opposed to trying to force yourself to understand from one source. Of course, this method applies to studying almost any subject, not just programming.

I learned a lot from browsing cplusplus.com. It marks out the differences between C++ and C so you don't have to worry about learning the wrong language. Are you adept at any higher level languages?

In this case I'm refering to immitation without evaluation; i.e. second-handedness. Imitation by itself is irrational (a failure to use one's mind in order to determine whether the act should be immitated or not).

I think Jennifer was on the ball here when she mentioned a lack of control. I think the most important thing you can have in regards to self-esteem is control of your inner thoughts. When dealing with these people who make you angry, it is vital to stay fully conscious and don't get pressured into dealing with these people on their terms. I can't say whether this applies to you, but I felt anger at people when I was in highschool, and it was due to being helpless because I THOUGHT I was unable to use the only thing I had - my reason - in order to deal with them. I didn't understand what made everyone else tick. What I didn't know is that they didn't know either; they were acting by immitation and probably never once woke up to question why they acted the way they acted. A person of integrity would never allow themselves to immitate other people, and perhaps wouldn't conceive that someone could be so base as to let themselves do it. Yet, sadly, it is very common. The solution when dealing with these people is to stay on the conceptual level, and control your own INNER state. A person who is control of his mental faculties is in control of himself, and it will show. If someone starts being irrational, speak out! Ask them "How can you lighten up about something so serious?". Ask them "Why don't you take ideas seriously? Don't you take yourself seriously?". Show them that you are impervious to being reduced to their animal level; that you will always and only deal with them in rational, conceptual terms. They will then have no choice but to either engage you in a rational discussion or leave you alone. If they engage you, it requires an eternal vigilance on your part. Point out ALL their mistakes. Have no shame in telling them your exact thoughts as they come to you.Don't dumb your speech down to talk in "their kind of language". Take note of their demeanour: Are they acting like a cornered animal that has no choice but to resort to brute force, or are they nodding with avid interest and showing an indication of actual thought? Take this into account, and don't be defensive if you don't see them being offensive. If they resort to implicit threats of force (this is more likely in highschool than college), again, speak out: "Are you threatening me? Because if so, don't be a coward: tell me." You will hit them right where it hurts, because they ARE cowards. If they say "No." and you know they are lying, don't give up, say "I think you are. Why don't you be honest and tell me the truth? Are you so ashamed that you don't want these people to see that you can't deal with me by use of your brain, only by implied threats of violence? Why are you towering over me like that? Can't you be a man and sit down?". These people are afraid of using their own minds, and are afraid of you because you use yours. You can put them to shame by doing this. If they don't back down, just remain on the conceptual level. Verbally spell out any implied threat. Call them out on it. Don't give them permission for them to use their threats as the substitute of an argument. Don't be the man who is intimidated, the man who would respond to their animalistic posturing. I wish I had came to this knowledge in highschool. It was there the whole time, but I was so shamed out of using my mind that I never discovered it. There is an endless torrent of pressure demanding that I give in and conform, but you will only feel that pressure when you lapse in the use of your mind, when you fail to recognise that there is nothing wrong with using your mind 100% of the time in any situation. What makes a man like Roark - a man who not only doesn't yield, but seemed positively naive about the notion of yielding? The answer is: He remained on the conceptual level. Force and mind are opposites - when you remain in a conscious state, and never once abstain from the act of thinking, your mind will be impervious to force - or peer pressure.

Does anyone remember that scene in Ghostbusters, when upon summoning the Marshmellow Man by thinking the word "Yes", The character Ray pleads "I couldn't help it! It just popped in there!" ...? Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any means of controlling thinking what you want and don't want to think about. How do you prevent thoughts from "just popping in"? Has it never been a problem with you? Do you have an effective way of dealing with it? I myself have been having less and less of a problem with having my mind stray all over the place, though I'm not yet 100% sure what the exact cause of it is. I still get thoughts that "pop in" but I'm more effective in propelling them away from my consciousness when I don't wish to invest any time thinking about them. I'm hoping to bounce this question against people here to see what they can come up with, and I will do my own introspection in the meantime. EDIT: p.s. I couldn't decide which board was more appropriate: Psychology and Self-improvement, Metaphysics and Epistemology, or Miscellaneous. Hope I got it right. EDIT again: Seems my memory of the movie was addled. Ray didn't think the word "Yes", he thought of the Marshmellow man and that summoned it. But I digress...

I find reading to be an excellent method of "kicking back and relaxing". I don't think recreational activities should be just a means of "killing time". I don't think the concept of killing time is valid, since time can never be regained and should always be spent in the best way possible, even when you are at rest. Ayn Rand did stamp collecting, as is written about here. See if reading that gives you any ideas.

Yes, they are all complete, stand-alone novels, with the exception of Chainfire.

Means nothing. My first question was "If sexual emotions are the result of value judgements, what part of a value judgement determines its nature as being "sexual"?". By sexual, I mean the specific logical step of an evaluation that will cause it to to lead to sexual arousal, as opposed to our regarding it as just for or against us. You haven't yet answered this. You have merely said that there are physical aspects of mens and womens bodies that make sex possible between them. Coitus is not the only form of sex. It is just the method by which one makes children. There is no reason to think we should desire sex only in this way. If we are tabula rasa, the only differences we possess are physical differences, not differences in consciousness. Where then does the regarding something as sexual become an error? If we merely go by the physical aspects men and women have, then only the prospect of normal man-woman coital sex ought to be arousing, and nothing else. But why is it an "ought"? Just because I can make a fist with my hand that fits the requirement of punching someone to defend myself, doesn't imply that I ought to always use my fists over a gun. A metaphysical connection? As opposed to a man made connection? Surely then that means it is propogated by determinism, rather than free-will? I think you worded that wrong. So to be "implicitly aware" of something is a contradiction. Anyway, I certainly didn't know what sex was until long after I started feeling sexual arousal. I'd say they do, but they don't actually become "sexual" in the sense of triggering arousal until puberty. They still possess some quality within the evaluation that makes it sexual. In my experience, I've never onced had to perform a conceptual integration in order to regard something as sexual - certainly not after puberty, and certainly never consciously. I'd be interested to know whether you can recall performing a conscious integration prior to being sexually interested in females, and what the logical steps of it are. Even if it wasn't a conscious integration, you should be able to trace every logical step of the evaluation, if it is indeed a conceptual evaluation and not something determined by physical factors. Then, a homosexual only has to see why it is logical for him to prefer women, and over time he will, so long as he acts consistently on his conscious realization. I think that is impossible, since I think the object of attraction is pre-determined, but if you can anatomize and illustrate in detail the proper integration a man should make in order to be aroused by women, I'd be interested to see it. Well, I don't get aroused anymore at the mere sight of an attractive woman, but in my early teenage years I certainly did. This change, however, was due to a waning in my overall "libido" rather than the correction of a misintegration. I know I'm not the only one to have experienced this decrease in the initially extremely demanding sexual urges upon growing up. That being said, I can still get aroused by a woman without knowing anything about her, or even disliking her, e.g. if I am in close proximity with her. What I consciously evaluate proceeding from the arousal may intensify or decrease the arousal, but the arousal itself begins prior to any conceptual evaluation.

I don't think that a value judgement is occuring in emotions that trigger sexual arousal. I don't think, for instance, that there is any psycho-epistemological factor as to why a man ought to find a woman's breasts more arousing than a man's penis. Or even an inanimate object. If sexual emotions are the result of value judgements, what part of a value judgement determines its nature as being "sexual"? Why is a woman's body (for a man) a legitimate object of sexual desire, but another object, such as a man's body, is not? What psycho-epistemology must a man possess in order to prefer women, and vice versa for women to prefer men? And why will they or should they form these conceptual intergrations over any other, if they are not in any way determined to do so? Which "is" implies the "ought"? Consider that sexual attraction very often occurs before the child even is aware of what sex is. How is that compatible with the notion that these emotions are purely the result of conceptualizing, and are evaluated in some particular way so as to be "sexual"? How would a person know how to think, and what would they think, so as to regard something as "sexual" as opposed to just "good"? And what logical factor within this evaluation connects it to the proceeding physiological changes that produce the sensations and reflexes of arousal? I don't think sexual emotions are necessarily to do with valuing something at all. I can find a woman sexually attractive and not want to have sex with her because she's a horrid person. I think the value judgement is not within the evaluating something as sexual (and thereby triggering arousal), but only of the evaluation of that evaluation, i.e. by considering its context. Let me just clarify that I don't think that all sexual emotions are pre-conceptual. For instance, if a woman is intelligent as well as pretty I may find her more attractive. The emotions I am convinced are determined are in regards to what are the actual objects of attraction, rather than in how I evaluate those objects aftwards.

There are several threads related to that purpose. Try doing a search with the keyword "goodkind". Welcome.

I believe people are born tabula rasa in the sense that they are not born with any conceptual knowledge. However, I do not think that all emotions are a derivative of conceptual knowledge, and therefore, I do not think that people are necessarily emotionally a blank slate at birth. Why? In regards to sex, I find that, through introspection, some of my emotions are pre-conceptual - that they have nothing to do with any choices I have made in the past in thinking or failing to think - and no amount of thinking on my part has made, or will make them go away. The only free-will I have possessed so far is in how and whether I choose to act on these emotions. This leads me to conclude that either I was born with these emotional responses, or that I somehow picked them up from the outside world as an accident, rather than through the choice not to think. The latter could be because the origins of the emotions occur prior to my mind fully developing and advancing to a the conceptual level. Through experience, I strongly believe this to be the case, because I have a sexual "fetish" that began before the age of five (though there was nothing sexual about it at the time, it became arousing later on) without a trace of logic or reason behind it. Trying to eradicate this emotional response has been impossible. Observe that it is more difficult to learn something new the older you get. In reverse, something is learned, or "absorbed" easier the younger a person is. With this being true, it might also follow that some learned emotional responses are harder to eradicate the younger you are, just as in the reverse a person resists a foreign idea the older they are (they're "set in their ways"). A child has less of a conceptual framework to depend on, and is more likely to make errors and develop irrational connections and emotional responses. If such an emotional response is both irrational and developed at a very young age, perhaps before the child is fully able to deal with concepts, it might never be unlearned. Of course, I acknowledge that this is just speculation. I can only say that it corresponds with what I know about myself. In short, I think we are a blank slate in regards to knowledge, but not necessarily in regards to emotion, and nor am I convinced that all emotions are derived from the concepts we form as a result of thinking or failing to think. I believe that sexual emotions are exempt from this, as I have discovered from my own experience and introspection. And therefore, I think it is very likely that homosexuality is not a choice, nor the result of choices made. p.s. I recommend this book. I remember it having a whole section on homosexuality, and it presents a case for homosexuality being "biological" convincingly and objectively. Though I don't remember the exact details as it was many years ago that I last read it (otherwise I would mention more about its content).

No, they are regarded by the majority of people as being the two worst books in the series. Though I don't hate them, they don't stand up to any of the others. Why did you stop just because two books were bad, when you enjoyed the previous six? The odds are still good that the next book will be worth reading, and indeed, Chainfire is.

And now you just gave a hint away.

I encountered this a few years ago and solved it almost instantly. Now I have no idea what the solution is. EDIT: I just took another look at it after posting and solved it immediately.

I see the death penalty as a way of imposing a kind of metaphysical justice. When you play with fire you get burned, but fire burns automatically. Humans don't act automatically. They have to use volition in order to create consequences that ensure that man can not exist if he attempts to survive by the wrong method. Think of it this way. There are two opposing principles involved - justice, or pacifism. Justice, when practiced consistently, will result in the destruction of the murderer. Pacifism, when practiced consistently, will lead to the destruction of everyone.

"Greek, Rome, the United States" First word should be Greece. Or perhaps Ancient Greece?

I recall an episode of South Park where "Big gay Al" (the token gay character) was refused from being able to join the boy scouts. Then the authorities tried to force the scout leaders to accept gay people and fight their discrimination. Big gay Al then went and opposed this with an individual rights stance, saying that it is within their right to reject gay people no matter how wrong we think they are. At least I think that's how it went. It was several years ago.

Ayn Rand died before the means of capturing such an image was invented.

I think it means masturbating in each other's company, where each other's presence increases arousal. If that's what is meant then it seems no different to having sex, in any way that is essential to the argument.

If it was because of you, would that have been a problem? If it's a good idea then I don't see a reason not to do it. It's hardly plagiarism.

And you say you care about your reputation? You decided my statements were arbitrary, but I had reasons for stating each one of them. If you were interested in a constructive discussion, you would have simply asked me to explain. And yes, it was a viscious attack. Humour is destructive, and you certainly were aiming to destroy me in some way with your "humour" which if I were to find funny, would be laughing at myself. What other possible motive could you have? Even if my claims were entirely arbitrary, I would be entirely ready to retract my statements if and when I discovered they were inappropriate. You leave me no such oppertunity, because to reply to your post now would be sanctioning your behaviour. Hence, your humour has also been destructive to this discussion, and counter to the whole purpose of this forum. I am here precisely because I want to learn and advance my understanding of O'ism and other related subjects. The only thing I've learned today is that you are evil. That is all I have to say.