StrictlyLogical

and beyond that, identifying what are the essential fundamentals of what is at the core of the concepts. I had a fellow tell me that he was not sure how to think about a toy elephant... "It is a kind of toy, and its a type of elephant.. "Toy elephant" is in some ways equally toy and equally elephant... its like some kind of paradox.. what is it? Both" This of course is ridiculous. What are the essential and fundamental attributes and qualities of a toy, as applicable to all toys generally? Something you play with, usually something you can lift and move around, man made for a purpose etc...What are the fundamental attributes and qualities of an Elephant... well tons of biological material, eating and crapping living and dying, sentience and self-caused action... clearly the little plastic thing was a Toy in the shape of an elephant... not an "elephant" in the "form of a toy" (which is quite incoherent). What are the fundamental essentials of living things? Its complicated but something about genesis and eventual decay, directed purposeful action towards utilization of energy and matter in the environment to procreate and to grow and or develop or continue. What are the fundamentals of consciousness? Non contradictory identification, processing of information, experience, awareness, volition (this may not be necessary but perhaps it is) etc Coincidentally, SOME living things are conscious, and consciousness has so far arisen on Earth only by way of evolution in biological systems , i.e. living things. The only question is someday when an artificial (non biological) consciousness is manufactured by man or when we encounter a similarly artificial extra-terrestrial consciousness, one which serves to perform noncontradictory identification, processing of information, and can have experiences, awareness and volition, and yet which does not have a natural built in process of genesis and decay, nor any directed and purposeful action towards utilization of energy and matter in the environment procreate to grow and or develop or continue... will we call it life or not? I suppose we are lucky we wont likely be faced with a real issue in our lifetimes and we can safely arm-chair argue the niceties with little worry of it being of any practical concern.... By the way I am NOT kidding about the toy elephant comment... SO ridiculous!

Heh... thanks!! I totally get the part about "sort of reading" while about to fall asleep,,, s'all good.

vickster: Do black holes in their current theoretical form conserve all physical quantities other than "information" as such? If so why was something theorised to exist in a particular way which violates conservation of physical quantities? What permitted such theorization?

CrowEpistemologist: After thinking about what everyone has said here I think practically AND morally speaking the best approach to advocating Capitalism is to approach it from both an economic and moral viewpoint focused on the individual. See if you can show, and I think you can (or Rand already did) that Capitalism leads to the greatest prosperity possible to an individual in the context of that individual's capacity and their choices. No system can make a person be what they are not, or provide a person escape from the consequences of the choices they make, or force them to make particular choices, if reality and justice are respected. As such the individual in conjunction with reality and justice determines the potential prosperity of that individual. A capitalist system, by not interfering with the individual, allows maximization and encourages the reaching of this potential prosperity. It is this allowing of maximal prosperity of an individual, consonant with his/her abilities and the choices he/she makes that can be proved and is the most persuasive (and moral) reason for Capitalism. Some people will NOT choose to be prosperous, this is not a reflection on a system which in no way forces that choice upon them. But for those who choose to live, choose reality and justice, independence, honesty etc. capitalism is the system which allows them the greatest possible benefit, the most they can achieve, which is exactly what each person morally deserves. Note: the above is ONLY a sketch. Also, and unfortunately, one cannot persuade a collectivist or a statist of the goodness of something which is solely based on and whose sole benefit is for the individual. One also cannot appeal to justice and reality when dealing with an altruist or a mystic. This sort of limits the argument's effectiveness, but then again you cannot persuade the morally bereft or the morally corrupt of what is proper on the basis of actual moral principles and virtues.

That does not flow logically from anything I said. I was trying to say "good for the collective" is in some sense an incoherent concept and in fact is morally irrelevant.

Emphasis Added Eioul the above in bold is the single most SCARIEST thing I have seen written by an Objectivist on this forum... please tell me you er... misstated something here? The stuff underlined is counter to my understanding of her entire philosophy. Capitalism's status as the most proper system FLOWS from the moral requirement of benefiting the individual. If any system fails to be the most proper and moral system, it does not change morality for the individual, it only means the individual needs to find/form a different society/system. That said the identity of what morality is and what Capitalism is, happens to be such that Capitalism IS the most proper/moral system for the individual.

Observe the consequentialist test in respect of "good economic consequences", as connected to morality, is only in respect of or from the perspective of the proper beneficiary, the individual. Insofar as the individual IS moral and takes voluntary action consonant with reality the economic consequences in capitalism are maximised. We here know that taking morality, consciousness and other concepts applicable to individuals and trying to apply them to aggregates, communes, collectives... is generally not effective, proper, or perhaps not even rational. If "goodness or "goodness for" and equally "consciousness in" is defined for an individual does it make sense to even try to think of a collective having "more goodness" or "more consciousness" simply because there are more individuals? The proper moral evaluation is on an individual basis.. on an individual level,,, as a noneconomist I ask is this the level of economical analysis?

"jumps up and down"!

I agree in this sense. If you take prosperity as a broader concept than pure economic or fiscal prosperity, something like "moral prosperity" then certainly M (or C) is the most "prosperous". This concept of prosperity however, depends so much on morality (for example no economic or fiscal gain can fall within it unless it is also morally achieved, or equally we label such a gain as "anti-prosperous" or as a loss if immorality were involved) that we quickly see that only insofar as that prosperity originated from Capitalist elements in a system is it truly "prosperity" and hence the most prosperous system automatically becomes Capitalism. I do agree morality IS the most important argument to make for Capitalism, and appealing to pragmatist arguments only increases pragmatism which would be an immoral thing to aim to do. Also Rand's stance is one firmly on the moral high ground and appealing to "end results" dilutes her moxy. BTW: Thanks for at least addressing my hypothetical C+dx and M+dz systems in comparison with perfect capitalism C or M. I am left somewhat shocked that no one else has made any attempt at commenting, on the basis of reason, in favor or in disfavor of the validity and implications of what I have raise. All of my posts here have been met with silence... (queue crickets chirping) So, in a very real sense I thank you for being courageous? In any case thanks for engaging!

Now we are getting to the root of it (no pun intended).

sN any thoughts on the systems M versus M+dz and their comparative beneficence morality prosperity? I am trying to get some rational, logical insight to what these different systems could result in?

Just curious: In the two step process: a. explain and agree what a definition of morality (right and wrong ) is. b. apply that definition to the particulars of the hypothetical. what stage is this thread currently at?

Certainly "legs" was a bad term to use here, as the fundamental essentials of biological legs are vastly different form the support we call a leg of a table. In my example extract away from both and simply replace the word "leg"with the word "support", the scope and meaning of that word in the context of animal and table are now the same.

Eioul: I respect your opinion. I was wondering if you have any thoughts on the possible economic systems M and M+dz I mention above: whether they differ in resulting prosperity and whether my assessment of one as moral and the other as not is valid?

To the extent that the "a perfect constitutional republic with perfect capitalism" is "perfect" and for that matter to the extent that it is a "constitutional republic" and "capitalist" it will be immune to being ruined by "the great mass of poor immigrants", as well as any great mass of backward, religious, pragmatist, or undereducated domestic individuals... as such although the parties wouldn't exist the lobby pressure felt by both the Democrats and the Republicans would simply be ineffectual. A perfect constitutional republic with perfect capitalism would not succumb to the political pressure based on any form of wealth redistribution... that kind of "pressure" would amount to the ramblings of a mystic, wholly incoherent and irrelevant to society and government.

If well-being in a moral system is multifaceted, i.e. freedom, safety, and economic prosperity are all linked to it, then the state of these facets in that moral system has a particular identity, i.e. a particular moral balance resulting from the laws and freedoms of that moral system. I think is it clear that a non-moral system, if it is not opposed to all facets well-being, may sacrifice one facet at the cost of another, and as such one facet may be increased over and above what is properly attainable i.e. resulting in the moral society. e.g If a paternalistic system sacrifices (in even limited and specific ways) freedom to safety and sacrifices freedom to economic prosperity, I would say although overall well-being is decreased, specific facets of well-being have been increased. It is easy to imagine a perfectly unfree society that is perfectly (to the limits of natural human decline and mortality) safe. In this sense CrowEpistemologist is correct regarding the morality of Capitalism and specific outcomes with respect to specific facets of well-being..

I am very interested to hear your thoughts.

In fact take whatever system you propose as maximising aggregate prosperity M I vary that system by having the government of M (assuming the society is not an anarchy but some form of minarchy) choose 1 person each decade, that person qualifying as above and perhaps also showing strong signs of imminent suicide (irreversible loss of an economic resource), and rehabilitated that person as outlined above. In doing this the system is now M+dz Even this economically infinitesimally different system would produce a measureable (possibly vast depending upon the accomplishments of the person prevented from actual suicide) increase in prosperity. Again this M+dz is not the moral society, ONLY Capitalism can be the moral society and no other.

You totally misread my post. The society I dreamt up was not a moral one. I do not advocate prosperity as morally good in a vacuum. I do not advocate the creation of such a society in away way. I merely raised a hypothetical society to illustrate even prosperity as an end, does not justify every possible kind of means to serve it and certainly not immoral means. I did this by way of a perturbation or tiny shift in the free society, tiny from the view of economics, remember I see this perturbation as hugely monstrous morally speaking. Please note for accuracy the people are being forced into rehabilitation not forced to work... once rehabilitated the self-destructive person has become a rational producer who values life and is free to act voluntarily. Call a capitalist society C and a modified one C+dx Let me be more specific, all people in this new society C+dx are part of a free Capitalist system (this is C) except for one exception (this is the dx): people who are 1. severely and helplessly addicted to drugs (never sober), 2. self-destructive, barely functioning mentally and barely surviving (non-prosperous), 3. completely unwilling to seek treatment and will not be persuaded to do so... these people.. and only these are forceably taken to rehab, the drugs are cut off from them, they receive counselling for drug addiction and the psychological causes of it, until such a time as they are rehabilitated. These people once rehabilitated and rational are now free and signs a contract to pay back the efforts to rehabilitate them and a further amount as interest on the debt etc. These people now make it in the world, and produce, trade, invent, and prosper. Personally, this immorality is not the kind of price that should be paid for economic prosperity but the end result of C +dx is more goods produced, more trading, more life for society on the whole AND for the rehabilitated (certainly so). It was wrong to force this on the self-destructive person, do not misunderstand me... but if one measures the economic prosperity in total it is greater for C+dx than for C. What I am concluding from this is that prosperity as such is not worth throwing away morality. Capitalism is the most moral system, but it is not the most "arithmetic sum" economically prosperous. Finally, if I have structured my dx incorrectly, I conjecture there is a C+dy such that given the appropriate dy (similar to dx re. rehabilitation of some suicidal or self-destructive people), C+dy will be less moral and less free than C while at the same time more "prosperous". The thing to remember is that there will be self-destructive non-prosperous people in a free society, just as there will be mystics, criminals, and bad philosophers. I am open to discuss the merits and problems, effectiveness or defects with the dx I propose to illustrate this.

This unfortunately is not completely correct. There are those in society who are, for whatever reason, mysticism, bad philosophy, traumatic upbringing, persistent substance addiction, not fully actualized, fully functioning rational people. These self-destructive people, are those who stay undereducated, stay lazy or in despair, and to that extent are not productive in a free society and have chosen non-prosperity. To the extent they are free from force and also immune to persuasion or investment, they are lost, underutilized economic resources. I posit that simply by augmenting your free market economic system with state enforced rehabilitation (forced on the person being rehabilitated) of even if only a fraction of these self-destructives, could turn much lost resources into rational, self-fulfilled producers, and actually create more prosperity. These could pay back the investment made in them and in fact could go on to cure cancer or invent something amazing. The simple fact is as long as there are some people who choose to be non-prosperous, a free society who does not force them to be otherwise is not, on a measure of prosperity alone, the maximally prosperous society, as against a society which forceably rehabilitates them. Now, we know that such a society which forces prosperity would not be moral, perhaps even IF the rehabilitated persons were, once rehabilitated eternally grateful and had no regrets about being forced, the act of initiating force against them is wrong ab initio. we have all heard about the balance between safety and freedom in society.... i.e. balance of safety and morality. It is very possible that in the same way the most moral society is not the "safest" (imagine a silly society making all sharp objects illegal...) it is also not the most "prosperous"... certainly if we mean prosperous in absence of morality.

Perhaps one could perform an analysis thusly (for a non-economist average man): 1. Identify what are the "supposed" ills and drawbacks (flaws) to prosperity in a Capitalist system as identified by a Naysayer. 2. Attempt to get an admission that the Naysayer at least believes that Capitalism does promote overall prosperity generally, except for those "flaws" identified by the naysayer. 3. Try to show that the "flaws" are a consequence of reality and justice (the naysayer may not buy it...), proceed to get some sort of admission as to the personal interest the naysayer has in the ills being fixed (insofar as the naysayer has identified an "interest" in the drawbacks being fixed), 4. Address, identify, define, that personal interest in insofar as that interest is moral, advocate taking responsibility for that interest, and address the economic opportunities in that interest, as a freely acting individual. 5. Conclude that in a truly free capitalist society, multitudes of others with the same moral economic interest, will be able to freely address those ills and drawbacks, in a mutually beneficial way, while maintaining non-interference with the parts of Capitalism which are not ills or drawbacks to prosperity. You will note, this argument does depend on first showing Capitalism is mostly the most prosperous system, then showing that to the extent that it allegedly flawed, it is the "best" system for encouraging correction of those "flaws" in a moral way. The problem inherent in this approach is that it cannot counter Mysticism and Altruism as such and hence will likely not be effective with a mystic or an altruist. An example scenario for economic interest would be for example microloans to the potentially productive, for education and counselling, with a payback of interest (and gratitude) upon the persons gaining a life of productivity and rationality.

Greater aggregate prosperity is irrelevant. Focusing on the ends is dangerous with those (general public) already predisposed to pragmatism and justifying means (immoral ones) by the ends. Speaking of Capitalism in these terms makes us look like we are ALSO trying to justify the means (the system) by the ends - purported prosperity. In fact Objectivism is focused on the individual and which system is best most moral most just etc, for that individual. To name but a few principles, justice, honesty, independence are all something undermined by the concept of "aggregate" prosperity being a goal. Imagine a villainous hybrid system that allowed people of moderate to high moral and intellectual capacity to act on their own volition but forced people (I mean literally forced like some sort of involuntary rehab... not merely persuasion but force) of objectively low intellect and low motivated self-destructive people to educate themselves, to get healthy, to become rational, to reform themselves, and then to work. Such a system might very well lead to even greater "prosperity" than Capitalism but it would in no way be morally superior due to the use of force against the self destructive and hopeless. In a truly free society people are permitted to be self-destructive, to be irrational, to be non-prosperous. To the extent that the freedom of some people to be self-destructive and non-prosperous is interfered with (as in the example) "aggregate" prosperity can be raised. This however is not moral. Perhaps "potential for moral individual prosperity" is the kind of result of capitalism we should try to demonstrate.

From what I gather my use of the word "information", particularly in the context of Shannon and others treatment of information theory, is inaccurate. What I was referring to was what content is represented by, in the case of digital or analog communications, the bits or modulated carriers, symbols (Q and I modulation etc.), and not the stream of symbols themselves. My error. When we hear a Physicist talk of conservation of "information" as such, rather than physical quantities, I was understandably interested. What is, in physical systems, information? Surely it has something to do with physical states or arrangements. But why should one consider information to be a separate quantity that needs to be conserved? Is this from observation? Is it actually a physical quantity?

Eioul At one point I was attempting to highlight the very important difference between a morality and "feelings" of right and wrong based on faith and duty (mystical morality) and Rand's which takes into account chosen goals and the nature of reality. The end result was far from clear but I was trying to convey a "sense" of this vast difference... when I consider my former mystical self (things were "just wrong" or "just right" as if the very stuff of the universe declared it so) and the "feeling" I had which was morality, right and wrong, I can hardly fathom what those mental contents were (they were in a real sense directed and connected to nothing in reality)...only delusions... mystical imaginings ... anyhow, the journey from that "sort" or morality to the one of Objectivism is not insignificant in the differences of essential fundamentals of its nature. It almost becomes counterproductive in some sense to use the same word to describe these vastly different things. Most laypeople I have met (as opposed to ethicists or philosophers) actually determine Objectivist morality not to be a morality "at all" when described to them... and according to their kinds of morality it does not fit their mould. In any case I was hoping (and I do believe) a moderator such as yourself will do much better than I in helping tjfields to the extent that help is genuinely desired. -SL

I do not disagree with Grames. I just wanted to highlight the importance of causality. If information is to be about something, equally if information is to lead to knowledge (hence a knowledge of something.. one cannot have knowledge of nothing... ) that information needs to be somehow linked with reality ... and it seems that a causal link is what does it. I actually don't take the idea of randomness seriously. I was sloppy with my wording and for that I apologize. I thought up the ideas of the Monkeys to highlight the difference between coincidence and information. the Moneys do provide information about their chaotic aimless behaviour (not completely random) but the accidental Mona lisa or Shakespeare do not contain information. just an idea I had I thought someone might find interesting. Is there a distinction to be made between the concept of information/content and the method of encoding it or the form or simply the amount of that information? If we are only talking about encoding or magnitude of any pattern whether informative or not then I have probably brought up a complete irrelevancy and I apologize.