Jake
-
Posts
349 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
7
Posts posted by Jake
-
-
I can't even imagine how I would talk to the me of 10 years ago. I've changed enough that I can barely identify with that person. That Rand quote from OPAR where she talks about a philosophy of undigested slogans, etc. - that was me. I was coldly rational in every aspect of school/science, but full of fuzzy ideas about life/philosophy. One thing I can say is that I've always had an aversion to faith, so my transition to Objectivism was pretty smooth.I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience? -
For those of you with a spouse, do you share finances or keep them separate, and why?
My wife and my finances are completely combined. This is mostly because I didn't think enough about sharing finances before getting married, but also because my wife has quite a bit of grad school debt. If I had it to do over again, I would probably opt for a system of sharing just those monies necessary for paying shared bills (rent, utilities, groceries, etc.), the rest belonging to whoever earned it. Of course, I would adjust the agreement when my wife takes off work to have our child. If, in the future, we decided that she should not work at all, then I would adjust the agreement accordingly (stay-at-home mom is a job in itself).
Anyway, having been married 2 years, I would say that at least some amount of money needs to belong solely to each person in the marriage. When you completely combine finances, every small purchase can become a serious discussion (read 'argument'). It's not fun having to screen the use of money I earned through some else's standards.
-
That would be a very motivating story to read. Do you know of any written works by one of those activists?Did you know that the general attitude toward slavery in this country was changed by a few vocal and outspoken activists within TWENTY YEARS?! -
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
I don't know of an inalienable right to good returns on real estate investments.
I lived in a community with such an ordinance. If you let your yard grow taller than some arbitrary standard, the city would cut your grass, then bill you for it. If cities were private entities, and your purchase of property owned by the city was contingent on you signing a contract promising to maintain your yard, then I think it would be right. I don't believe it's right for a government organization to protect real estate values.
Maybe someone else could answer this: Other than fraud, is there any way of causing a person to have a reduced return on an investment that would be considered a property crime from the Objectivist/Capitalist view?
-
What is your argument against this statement?
I think you took him just a bit out of context. Here's the whole paragraph:
Also, the argument goes, failure will have a "domino effect". If the government does not bail out Bear Stearns, the confusion that could ensue would bring down much larger firms. Then, one might be faced with the government bailing out someone much bigger, say Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Oops, they just did, anyway!I understood him to mean that the government was trying to justify one bail out by claiming it would prevent a larger bail out. In fact, the larger bail out has happened anyway. I don't think his stance on the truth of the "domino effect" can be determined from this paragraph.
That's the pro-intervention argument.I would say he's against government intervention (means), regardless of whatever it's supposed to prevent (ends).
-
Also, why is it a bragging right to be the "Anchor Man"?
From this website, referencing Faith of My Fathers by John McCain:
[At the end of my Naval training], I sat amid a sea of navy whites, fifth from the bottom of my class. I remember wishing at one point during commencement that my dismal performance at the Academy had earned me an even lower place in the class standings. In those days, only the first one hundred graduates in the class were called to the dais to receive their diplomas from President Eisenhower. Graduation was conferred on the rest of us by company. The midshipman who graduates last in his class is affectionately called the anchorman. When the anchorman's company was called, he was cheered by the whole brigade and hoisted onto the shoulders of his friends. Eisenhower motioned him up to the dais, and to the crowd's loud approval personally handed him his diploma; both President and anchorman smiling broadly as the President patted him on the back and chatted with him for a few minutes. I thought it a fine gesture from a man who understood our traditions.Also from another website:
The anchorman is the midshipman who graduates lowest in his or her class by order of merit at the Naval Academy. Contrary to popular belief, it's actually an honor (albeit dubious), as the winner customarily passes his or her cover around the graduating class, all of whom traditionally put in a $1 or $5 bill. As a result, the anchorman makes around $1000 or $5000 for the right to receive their diploma last and flirt the closest with being separated and returned to the fleet as an enlisted sailor. -
It's the same for a man. The benefits of being ranked highly among peers or receiving recognition are quickly rendered null by the pain of dealing with people who don't understand you, carrying their dead weight, and general frustration at having to fight them to accomplish anything.For a woman (and possibly a man--AR and I both can't speculate on that because we aren't men), living in a world with no equals is HELLISH. -
He never replied.What was his defense?
Someone else replied though:
Actually in epistemology, whether or not A always equals A is open for debate 'A' can have multiple states depending on location, culture, language etc... take the case of someone asking if you want "tea." In America that A=A, in Australia that A=B (dinner or meal) language is a horrible horrible tool for communicating thoughts, but it's the best tool we have.My response to him:
You are context-dropping. "Tea" is a complex concept, and as such is dependent upon a number of other concepts/percepts. If two rational people share the definition for all of the concepts which are antecedent to understanding "tea", they will agree on the definition of "tea.""Tea" is a word used to refer to multiple concepts. One such concept is a drink, another is a meal, another is marijuana (I just learned this from dictionary.com). A thing is itself, it cannot be other than itself. Don't confuse two concepts being referred to by the same sound/word as being the same concept with two different definitions.
At this point I was a little agitated. The discussion stemmed from a post regarding the recent ACLU suit against the U.S. Naval Academy for its 'noon prayer' tradition. The communication in the thread had been as civil as it could have been for an atheist/theist argument, then these two guys started posting all sorts of Philosophy 101 nonsense. I believe they thought they were playing devil's advocate. IMO, there's a huge difference between 1) taking an opposing side for the sake of argument, and 2) distracting people by vomiting intentionally confusing ideas in a thread for the sake of being contradictory. The second action is just destructive and juvenile. Anyway, the thread died before they posted again.
Where is the thread-jack line? Did I just cross it?
-
That college would be the U.S. Naval Academy. His rank was low because of discipline problems. (Not that I'm a McCain fan)
Also, BTW, it's quite a bragging right if one can be the "Anchor Man" by being the lowest ranking midshipman to graduate.
-
Very funny.
It reminds me of a discussion I had with a prospective pilot on an aviation forum:
A is not always A.Of course, that depends on what your definition of 'is' is.If you're going to think like this, why bother exerting the effort to type?
When you fly your first solo, point the aircraft downward, and do nothing else... Then, come back and let us know if the ground is not always the ground. Just please don't submit anyone else's safety to this "A is not always A" mentality. The aircraft you want to fly are capable of doing so because existence exists, A is A, and numerous engineers and pilots in the past have acknowledged these facts (at least implicitly).
-
So all those black holes they tell us we keep finding? I don't understand how a black hole is a "contradiction in terms." Can you explain it to me then?
"Black hole" and "singularity" are two different concepts.
From the American Heritage Dictionary entry on "singularity":
- Astrophysics A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume, and space and time to become infinitely distorted.
- Mathematics A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point.
The mathematical/physical formulae used to describe a black hole predict a singularity at its center. An infinity cannot exist, therefore the formulae are incomplete, or the mathematical interpretation of the observable entities called black holes isn't wholly correct. He wasn't denying the existence of black holes, just the supposed existence of infinite energy density at their center.
I think black hole centers are a major sticking point in the effort to unite quantum mechanics and gravity.
-
I'll probably see the movie for the laughs (like Borat), but I'm not a fan of Bill Maher.
In this interview he says we need "a person of doubt" in the White House (as opposed to a person of faith). He also says Michael Moore is a genius.
-
On another note I was asking for personal subjective opinions on both Bach and Sergey.
Bach's Organ Fugues are my favorite set of classical pieces. I'm especially fond of Toccata and Fugue in Dm and Prelude and Fugue in Am. To use your term, I 'shiver' while listening to these. As much as I love a number of rock bands/songs, they never come close to having this effect on me.
-
Chains we can live in.
^ That slogan screams for a mock propaganda poster graphic.
-
Like many, I had an Objectivist "epiphany" after reading The Fountainhead about 8 years ago. I followed it up by reading every book in print by Rand and Peikoff. In the years since my reading spree, I have not been an Objectivist in the strictest sense. I believe this was mostly due to a lack of clarity in my philosophical understanding. I am most decidedly an Objectivist now.
I just finished my second reading of Dr. Peikoff's Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand. (Is OPAR the conventional abbreviation?) This time I made my best effort to really digest all of the arguments, and try to understand them. Regarding most Objectivist principles: I believe them, but I do not have the skills/knowledge to prove them, or to make fully defensible arguments of them. I don't want to be an avowed, but non-practicing Objectivist. One of my favorite aspects of Objectivism is that it demands understanding, not mindless adherence. I would like to be able to derive Objectivist ethics explicitly. I would also like to have a better mental arsenal for critically analyzing non-Objectivist arguments. Of course: If I wish to have these skills, I must work to build them.
So, I'm posting to ask:
- On which writings of Rand, Peikoff, or others should I concentrate?
- Should I include a study of logic. If so, are there any particularly good books? (I'm currently reading Logic by Wilfrid Hodges, 2001)
- If I am unable to have frequent conversations with an Objectivist scholar, is this goal unrealistic? (I'm in So. CA now, but shortly will be headed to Japan for 3 years.)
My background:
- B.S. Aerospace Engineering, including a year-long course of Honors Analysis (proving the square root of 2 is irrational, etc.)
- 2+ decades of choosing to think
(I'd like to put "chooses to think" on a résumé...)Thanks,
-Jake
-
Anyone interested in String Theory should read Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics.
I have only an undergraduate knowledge of physics, but I've always been bugged by some of the ideas and methods of string theorists. Smolin's book is a great case against String Theory and the process by which it was constructed. The stories of his personal interactions with some string theorists reminded of some of Ayn Rand's comments about irrational trends in Physics (I wish I could remember where she discussed this).
-
If two white entities appear similar to us, and therefore commensurable, what is it in the white entities that makes them appear similar? What is whiteness itself? How is it that this whiteness is in two places at once? Do the two white entities literally have something in common, like conjoined twins might have a common breastplate, or does each white entity have its-own-whiteness, a radically unique and particular whiteness that we, ultimately arbitrarily, treat as if it were commensurable with other conventionally "white" entities' own radically unique and individual whitenesses?
If a philosopher finally answers that she believes whiteness is real, that all white entities have something literally "in common," like conjoined twins have body parts in common, she is a realist. If she says that these characteristics-in-common do not depend on the existence of particulars (entities), then she is a Platonist or "transcendent realist." If she says that these characteristics-in-common do depend on the existence of particulars, she is an Aristotelian or "immanent realist" or "moderate realist." If a philosopher finally answers that she believes whiteness does not exist, that it is an artifact of some or other kind of naming convention, she is a nominalist.
Physically, 'white' is photons travelling from an object, by emission or reflection, and interacting with the cones on our retinae, producing electrical responses of similar enough strength from the red, green, and blue cones to be perceived as 'white'.
If I say that 'white' exists because a concsciousness perceives a 'white' entity, meaning there must be:
1) an entity to be perceived as 'white' and
2) a consciousness to perceive the entity as 'white',
am I a realist or a nominalist (or neither)?
-
I don't see how any honest person could continue to respect or follow that man after seeing that clip. I'm always suspicious of people who seem to enjoy wielding political power, but it's rare that you get to see them as they truly are.
And the lord sayeth unto me, "Thou shalt cut off the nuts of thine enemies." (I don't remember that bible verse.)
Prager's False Equation
in The Objectivism Meta-Blog Discussion
Posted
My understanding is that for something to be judged moral or immoral, it must involve a choice. A person must have the opportunity to choose the moral or choose the immoral. Are you judging homosexual activity or homosexual desires as immoral?
If you are judging the desires as immoral, what pscyhological and/or physiological evidence are you using for your premises? I seriously doubt you have a defensible case that being physically attracted only to the same sex is a choice, or a result of other antecedent choices. If you think you do, I'd like to see it.
If you are judging only the activity as immoral, are you suggesting that the only moral choice for a homosexual is to abstain from sexual activity completely, or engage in it with someone to whom they are not physically attracted? This activity doesn't impinge on anyone else's individual rights, and I don't see how it harms the lives of the people who choose to do it (societal prejudices aside). Obviously, a child cannot result from such a union, but the Objectivist value of sex is not predicated on such a possibility.
One's revulsion of a sexual act is not a reason to call it immoral.