JuleBrenner

Hey folks, sorry for letting this wait for almost half a year, I thought I had lost my Vista partition with my membership password stored in the Firefox profile, and I didn't know the password of the email-address assigned to my account here anymore, either, so I couldn't even ask for resending my forum password, either. But finally, and after also completing my university project that sucked up much of my time, I have somehow rescued my Vista partition and thus regained access to my account. Well, hopefully, we can still resolve this thread within this year, or maybe even one year, if we make it till December 22nd, the date it started back in 2008 :-D Why the latter? Two ways to go wrong about what? Wrong about not choosing to live? That would make the second error just a tautology. As for the first error, I think there are ways of not choosing to live without embracing a contradiction of facts, faith, or conformity, as I will point out below. You seem to imply that there are only the following reasons why one might not choose to live, i.e. to accept the goal of living as the primary goal: An inability to do so ("bovine indifference"), or an error/a bad method (conformity, faith). However, the urges I am talking about are NOT related to any bovine indifference about anything. If there is an interest in pursuing something particular, one could not call that "inability to care about anything". I also don't see conformity or faith as a reason for those urges, since a lot of people may pursue things completely at odds with social conformity and without any faithful backing, but just because of the positive experience they have made with pursuing and achieving their goals, following their long-term urges. I see those urges as a primary, which I hold to be possible because I haven't seen any contradictions to that. We have talked about fundamental natures, and how identifying natures of objects is result-orientated. To me the observance of life as THE THING OF ALL THINGS we should note down as the result of our actions, remains pretty much arbitrary, or at least less founded, to me. What we are doing here, is to look at a human being and observe the qualities and attributes of the outcome in which he is able to feel long-term satisfaction. The question is then: WHAT qualities and attributes of that outcome are important/worth mentioning? The answer is then, that theoretically, this could be pretty much anything. So one must look at each and every single human being to answer that question particularly. There's no telling why a particular person is so much striving to win the Super Bowl. Maybe it is because it somehow supports his self-generative processes. Maybe in the case of someone else, it doesn't, but still that striving may exist. How would one know whether by winning the Super Bowl, that particular entity is "trying to survive", or whether that entity is foremostly trying to win the Super Bowl for which it uses self-generative processes to support that goal? Well there's only one way of telling that, namely experimental inquiry: Ask him, what he would actually be prepared to forego: If somehow winning the Super Bowl was known to be detrimental to his health for various reasons and that it would slowly but surely lead to the destruction and the end of his life, would he still decide to win the Super Bowl if he could somehow due to his enormous talent suffer it through and make it, win it, and then die? If his answer was "yes", then this would be a clear indicator that his fundamental goal is winning the Super Bowl, not life. If "no", then we know that life is his fundamental goal. Then the question, why does this particular outcome always occur?, i.e. why does person A fundamentally want to win the Super Bowl, while person B fundamentally wants to live?, can only be answered by pointing at certain dispositions which that particular human being randomly happens to have by chance, be it genetic or otherwise. Although there is nothing in genetics, nor in neurology, nor in brain science, that explains how the mental aspects of the outcome to be explained are possible, since up to this day we cannot even explain consciousness itself, so in essence, one cannot really explain this next level today. I have seen in this thread, that people seem to attempt to give a different approach in identifying fundamental goals than the instances of which I have tried to provide you with through the aforementioned "experimental inquiry". However, at last, I still don't really see how this approach achieves to identify anything: Somehow the point would have to be made that what you call "fundamental", namely that which is the reason behind all the other reasons, which you in every case want to equate to life, cannot be ( A ) required by anything else and at the same time ( B ) be made a prerequsite of OTHER PROCESSES, i.e., in both directions. I have named the "pursuance of particular experiences" as my idea of what constitutes the fundamental nature of a particular human being. Let's give "the pursuance of particular experiences" the name of X. Obviously living is a prerequisite of X. At the same time, X is a prerequisite of living, in case non-occurence of X leads to suicide. So the fundamentality of life has not been established. Unless you equate X and life to the same thing with just different aspects of it, those aspects being expressed through the concept of life and the concept of X respectively. Whereas the concept of X may be more useful and in touch with the subject, the human being, meaning that X is directly concludable to him, while life is not. There seems to be a basic thinking among readers here, that the Universe consists of two basic things/processes only: Those of which self-sustaining functionality can be observed, and those of which it can't. The former is called the animate, or human beings, the latter is called the inanmate. At the same time, you are not implying any teleological striving towards life, so it's all really just functionality, not some super-consciousness providing us with an objective goal of life for us to pursue. This being so, any such observed functionality of self-sustainance could at any time and in any case be overruled by some other conflicting functionality within that object that drives the object towards other results (results being our ONLY basis of identifying objective goals), possibly reducing the functionality of self-sustainance, but at the same time supporting other functionalities instead, possibly at the expense of the self-sustaining functionality, possibly not. And even if that other functionality could not take place without the functionality of self-sustainance (the object will always have to pursue that additional functionality with SOME amount of the self-sustaining functionality), that doesn't mean that it cannot reduce the functioning of the self-sustaining functionality. There might be some amount of funcionality A, but at the same time some other functionality B with some negative impact on functionality A in it, just like 10 * A = 100, but with some (-3) * B it may very well become 10 * A + (-3) * B = 50 only. So it's just a random mix of various functionalities with a particular, highly individual end result. The self-sustaining functionality is just one of many. So choosing life looks like focusing on just one functionality and ignoring and potentially supressing all the others. Well, I think I've been doing a lot of thinking in this thread. I'm definately not conforming, though. Not to Rand, nor to any other person on this forum :-D Currently, I'm valuing achieving an understanding on the fundamentality of my nature, whether any can be pointed out or not. Why would it necessarily be a product of social conformity, only because it is not faith-based, or based on "bovine indifference"? As I mentioned earlier in this post, indifference about life as a primary goal does not mean indifference about anything. Yeah, but does that mean he is conscious about this keeping him alive, or isn't he rather conscious of the joy it brings to him? And in the latter case, does it mean he is joyful because it keeps him alive or is he simply joyful because of the achievement as an end to itself? What does it mean to "choose to live in an indefinite form"? What do you mean by "choosing natures"? My point is that one might possibly DISCOVER natures not fundamentally rooted in self-maintainance and THEN choose to act on them, but read my other comments on this in this my posting.

Well, I hope I'm not giving anybody a headache here.

Sorry for returning so late. Hmm...sorry, I think I might have formulated it the wrong way. I still find the question meaningful the way I actually meant it, so let me rephrase it: The thing that I am "fundamentally striving for" is the set of events I want to happen within the span of my expected lifetime in order for me to say that I want no more to happen, this is the optimal set of events there could possibly be, after comparing that set of events with all other possible sets of events that could have been. To me, this seems the only possible way of putting it into language without making any restrictions that I might later regret. How is it possible to pick "certain things"? Well, I guess that's what you just know from experience. Gathering an ever growing amount of experiences, their evaluation stored in form of emotions. Some emotions are unpleasant, some pleasant, some very pleasant and some even feel like heaven. It is not easy to assign values of negativity or positivity to these emotions, but something like that can be indirectly done by reconsidering the set of emotions so far experienced, letting your memories pass through your mind. That's how you come to conclusions like "hey, that thing I did that time was great, greater than that other thing, but not as great as THAT thing before that" etc. You can set up your own priority levels for each event to pursue that way and decide - on that basis - what to pursue to what extend. So you come to the conclusion "This is the thing that fulfills me the most". Namely a specific set of events to pursue. Specific to each and every human being. The only way that this is "life" is due to the fact that it may be the only aspect that all humans will have in common pursuing their specific set of events. The only "common denominator" that can be established, observed among mankind. Doesn't mean that a particular human sets life as a goal. Nor that the purposeful pursuance of that goal necessarily makes him happy. You ask "Why does it fulfill you?". Well, I think the way I rephrased my idea of "fulfilment" earlier in this response by putting the emphasis on events rather than on static achievement, makes that question rather pointless, doesn't it? If "fulfilment" for a particluar human being IS exactly that set of events, then you could only answer "because that is my nature". And that values ARE ultimately those events pursued, it is then needless to ask where they come from, because they ARE what they ARE, particular to each human being. How come this and that human's nature is the pursuance of this and that set of events you might ask? Well, how come every human beings' nature is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action? Again, both are just actions, aren't they? Be it self-sustainance or the pursuance of a particular set of events. Well, I do realize that life is not static, but dynamic. As for "materialist", well, yes, the immediate idea of the goalsetting of living implicates mainly biological processes. A lot of other urges remain unexplained to me when trying to accept the root of all values in life itself.

So? Any new thoughts? Hope I didn't miss anything...my inbox showed me "1 New Messages", although I didn't find anything in my inbox, maybe there's something wrong with the programming.

No problem. Take your time. I will be glad to resolve this ;-)

Hmm...including the choice to notice that direct orientation towards the goal of survival might not always lead to just that, may it be due to a lack of available data. In this case, an orientation towards an experience-based goal-setting, as described in my previous post would rationally seem more appropriate, wouldn't it?

Hey, easter holidays took me off for a couple of days. Well, I've read your replies and will go into them further at some time... ...meanwhile just some new important thoughts: Well, let us get into this. It is important to read the rest of this my posting as a whole from here, and not just start somewhere in the middle. Of course you are right there. And remember talking about "implicit concepts"? So, my "implicit concept" of myself is "me as a conscious thing that faces the choice to experience certain specific things or face dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction being an urge to discontinue my existence." Whatever that implicit concept may imply or not imply. Whatever it implies is not directly known to me at first hand. I wouldn't say that any such thing as "a process of self-generated and self-sustaining action" is somehow understood or grasped within that implicit concept of mine. So, having identified my implicit concept of myself, the next step would be to identify that which is fundamental about it. And with "fundamental" meaning "that which causes all the other aspects of its nature", plus looking at the nature of what my implicit concept of myself says, one lands at a dead end as to what else to detect as my "fundamental nature", other than - as already expressed in other terms in my implicit concept - a movement towards a state in which the urge to experience a certain set of things in my consciousness has been satisfied to the maximum extend. Period. In OPAR, Peikoff identifies the fundamental nature of us via looking at the result, right? What strikes me is, that the result HE gives most consideration to is the continuation of life. But I wouldn't know why one would - of all the possible results and aspects of results to mention - consider exactly THAT result to be important. The result I would confirm wouldn't be the mere fact that a biological entity continues the process of self-generated and self-sustaining action. More importantly, I would stress the result that my consciousness gets into a state in which the urge to experience a set of things in my consciousness has been satisfied to the maximum extend. What do you mean, "the broadest thing about action"? What is the meaning of "broad" in this context? You have to stay alive in order to experience certain things. But you can as well say that you have to experience certain things in order to stay alive, because otherwise your willingness to stay alive could vanish. Both "staying alive" and "experiencing certain things" are ACTIONS. So there is nothing, really, that makes the "stay alive" approach less arbitrary than my "experience this and that" approach, if you get what I mean. You could say, that both "staying alive" and "experiencing certain things" have something in common, namely: "Staying alive". And you could also say that what they have in common is "experiencing certain things" as well. Well, where does all of this land us? Right: "Staying alive" is equivalent to "experiencing certain things". But then again, since these two things are different aspects of the same thing, each of these aspects would entail a different aproach when setting goals: The "search radius", if you like, for pursuing the goal of "staying alive" is rather a biological one: find out everything there is to know about medicine, your organs and their functions, the effects of different foods and physical environments on your body, plus all the exercise necessary etc., to find out how best to nourish your biological organism. The "search radius" for pursuing the goal of "experiencing certain things", however, is: Try to make an awful lot of experiences, from climbing the Empire State Building to dancing salsa in the Carribean, from having the most bizarre and kinky sex in some exotic harlot to composing, singing and recording volumes of self-made music. After gathering all these experiences, pursue exactly that combination of those experiences that you will respond most positively to longterm. One would expect that both ways I have just described here should leed to the same result, since the two goals pursued are equivalent. But somehow I feel, they do not. And the reason why I think they don't is that the "search radius" for pursuing the goal of "staying alive" does - as of today - NOT provide us with sufficient data for achieving maximum success. Whereas the "search radius" for pursuing the goal of "experiencing certain things" much more often does. That's why, I find setting the goal of "experiencing certain things" much more practical. Moreover, that aspect is much more identical to the aspect of the thing that my implicit concept of myself refers to, which makes it even easier to pursue.

Hmm...Your remarks about consciousness make a lot of sense. I will go into them later. But in the mean time, I find my other question relating the issue most urgent: How do we know, that there has to be a fundamental goal about us, at all?

Well, all right, but I hope you got the point anyway. The thing is that, Objectivism is a philosophy that holds life as a fundamental goal and equates happiness to the successful achievement of life. Nothing else. This means that happiness is happiness, ONLY if it has something to do with the fact that the continuation of the biological process has been achieved. And this disqualifies many forms of enjoyment as happiness. It means: To smoke Mary Jane and enjoy emotional "highs" is NOT happiness, not matter how strong and enjoyably intense the feeling. Even if that enjoyable feeling is more intense than anything else you know, it is not happiness. You are called to sacrifice that intense an emotion for the goal of life, since this, according to Objectivism, is your fundamental nature. To enjoy a burger, without any conscious thoughts of its life preserving functionalities is NOT happiness. You should enjoy that burger only because of knowing the digestive consequences, the way that those nutrients will integrate into your biological organism, and NOT only because it tastes good. And since a burger most times isn't healthy, there is little or no happiness to be accepted from it, no matter how good and delicious it tastes. Unless your diet plan allows for some necessary surplus of fat once in a while, but then you are only to call yourself happy, if you are eating your burger because of THAT. For anything that feels good, you are supposed to find its meaning to life, i.e. the role it plays in preserving your biological organism. You are not supposed to just enjoy something, because it is "fun", or because you like it like hell. Any operation that does not consciously consider the mission goal of life, which is, I repeat, simply the preservation of your biological organism, is to be aborted brutally, until you have verified its relationship to that preservation. Only then are you allowed to say "mission goal accepted". Such uncompromizingly clear a goal setting (life) requires a very high level of certainty regarding it's rightousness, in the light of so many seemingly "great" experiences that this philosophy could potentially cause oneself to sacrifice. Willful indulgence in intense, spontaneous joy is therefore IMMORAL, because such a behaviour could potentially imply the waste of time or a missed opportunity to label such indulgences as "bad habit" for future reference and rejection. And there must be no doubt that this rejection is called for, as long as no relationship to life can be established. Even if there is doubt that it ever will. ESPECIALLY if there is doubt that it ever will. Even if it, in fact, never does. ESPECIALLY if it, in fact, never does. So given these strong conflicts that such a philosophy can cause, situation after situation, one better be sure, and that is, VERY sure, of doing the right thing. This is why it is so important to ask again: How do we know there HAS to be a fundamental goal, that is, ONE goal to "rule them all" at all?

And another thing: How do we know there HAS to be a fundamental goal at all, versus maybe several distinct goals? Distinct, but not fundamental, if fundamental means causing ALL the other aspects of the nature of a thing. After all, according to Objectivism, "goals" are result-orientated observations. So why not?

Now, back to one of my previous posts. What am I doing wrong if I am looking for that which must be fulfilled in order for me to say "I want no more there to be fulfilled, this is the best I can have", after comparing that state of fulfilment with all other possible states of fulfilments that could have been? To me, this seems the only possible way of putting something like "my ultimate natural striving" into language without making any restrictions that I might later regret. Shouldn't an investigation into what we are ultimately striving for be made via a comparative study of all the possible alternatives facing us, and on which of these possible alternatives produces the most positive emotional response upon imagining that path of continued existence longterm?

OK.

So what is supposed to be the difference between your definition of a circle and mine? Other than that you put it into symbolic terms C(O,R), and I put them into verbal ones?

The notion that everything that exists has identity simply means that nothing can be A and non-A at the same time. Why would this mean that everything must be definable? There would be an infinite regress of definitions. A definition identifies something via terms already defined. I would say that consciousness can only be referred to ostensively, not by means of definition. Why would any type of action performed by some living entities suffice as a definition? If you attempted this with animals or human beings, you would just have a circular definition. Because notion of man or animal, implies consciousness. So any attempt at saying "Consciousness is this and that action performed by an animal or a human being" would use terms that implicate consciousness as a definition, which is invalid. You will find this out by listening to your definition and continue asking "OK, and what is man? What is animal?". You produce some definitions for those, e.g. "Man is a living being that survives on reason.". Next: "All right, and what is reason?" Here we go. You might try to avoid the use of "consciousness" in your next definition, by circumscribing it with some other terms. But ultimately even these terms need to be clarified and you'll end up using "consciousness" in your definition. Which means, if we trace the whole story back, that: "Consciousness is...........................................................involving consciousness". So nothing has been defined at all.

You are right, but in this case, it would appear that the remembering occurs before the learning. One does not really gain anything new by first defning man, and then trying to define the fundamental nature of man. It is like saying: A circle is the number of points that all have the same distance to a specific point. And then asking: What is the fundamental nature of a circle? => Answer: The fundamental nature of a circle is that it consists of the number of points that all have the same distance to a specific point. It is not hostility to the possibility of knowledge, but doubtfulness of the point of trying to define already identified objects via the same aspect repeatedly. Sorry, maybe we had a misunderstanding. And also, already having definded man as a being that survives on reason, with all the established definitions of life, reason etc. inherent in that, would make the observations of self-sustainance (piercing bullet etc.) unneccessary, since that is information we already have in our definition of man. It means that we have already decided what the fundamental nature of man is, before even asking the question. So, I think it would be more proper to begin with less information and focus on a less comprizing view of ourselves and begin there. If the term "man" is already given away, then one could define "X" as a certain physical object (with certain visible extremeties) that we can observe, together with a consciousness. Don't forget: We are referring to "X" as those concrete objects of a certain visual appearance that we can OBSERVE, together with a consciousness, not to ANY such objects. This is important, because that way we are really just referencing concrete objects of which we don't pretend to know very much more about. So we are talking about a limited number, that we simply identify through their visual appearance, and their consciousness, without having any clue, initially, of what else their existence entails. And then we can ask: "What is the fundamental nature of THOSE objects?" An answer to THIS question would really produce NEW information compared to our consciously held information the question rests on. Provided, of course, the answer is not just a repition of the definition of X. And we would try to answer this question on the basis of ADDITIONAL observation of the X-objects. Hmm...I hope it becomes clearer now what I mean?