StrictlyLogical

The point regarding rationalism, i.e. jumping into a rabbit hole of logic not strictly imposed by the original question versus approaching things from the view of reality... was made. The completeness theorem, symbolic logic, and Bertrand Russell's infatuation with empty self-reference, are interesting, very relevant to abstractions and mathematical systems, but are not relevant to reality itself, except perhaps in that they can all be illustrative of errors of thought.

HD Just to clarify: you are a strict universal determinist correct? i.e. the universe and everything in it is a clock work and will proceed inexorably along a single line of possibility determined from the very start. i.e. you cannot influence the future away from its current "path", you and all your actions are already determined as part of that path i.e. "possibility" and "if" even when used to refer to the future are words which are meaningful only in respect of ignorance or incomplete knowledge not in a metaphysical uncertainty of how the universe will evolve.

A human being, with volition and free will according to Objectivism qualifies as an "identityless entity" according to your definition.

Thought experiment. Suppose "free will" means an exemption from causality I don't claim this but for your exercise I will assume it. I assume free will is exemption from determinism. and that, contrary to determinism, human actions are fundamentally uncaused. again ... I disagree but will play along. Determinism and causation are not the same thing. Causation states there are causes and effects, determinism is a claim that limits the nature of causation, i.e. the kind or type which can occur, in a particular instance if we are talking about a deterministic process, and everywhere in the universe if we are talking about the philosophical notion of mechanistic determinism. If so then as in your symbol-selection experiment, anyone could choose X or Y with equal liberty, correct? Applying your claim of causelessness I could agree X or Y outcome could be arbitrary... I do not see where "equal liberty" comes from. Now imagine the pilot of a jumbojet, with his hands on the throttle. In accordance with the symbol experiment, he could choose to contract any of the muscles in his hands that he pleases, correct? By definition yes If so then as he controls the aircraft it has approximately (I'm not familiar with the precise internal arrangement of the hands) a very minute chance of suddenly rolling, turning, ascending or descending- all absolutely randomly. This assumes what he pleases is "all absolutely randomly", if you equate what he pleases with choice , with causelessness then this would be your conclusion yes If so then all things considered, the aircraft has about a 50% chance of entering a fatal nosedive and a 50% chance of stalling with its nose in the air, and a miniscule chance that anyone could possibly survive. If your stated premises this would seem to be a valid conclusion. Now, if all of this is correct and if the original concept of volition stands, then we should go to an airport sometime so that I can put some cashy money on those odds. According your premises you would bet with "equal liberty" and "randomly" which strategy would not likely yield a return. ........................... I do not think that actual human beings exhibit this "choosiness". When a certain practice should be a virtual death sentence in theory, but is almost completely safe in practice, your theory is wrong. I'm all for the specifics and I think that knowledge, values and subjective experience (etc.) absolutely must be emergent properties; metaphysically deterministic properties. I do not see the logical connection between a concept of "choosiness" which is here taken out of context, and the rest of this ... it is a bald assertion and it restates the conclusions (I already know you have reached) founded on "I know not what"

StrictlyLogical, on 12 Nov 2013 - 3:59 PM, said: Are each of these unquantifiable? i.e. is it meaningless to try to state "the number" of all frequencies, "the number" of all amplitudes, etc?

Plasmatic Do all (the totality) of frequencies in the E-M spectrum exist? Do all the amplitudes a buoy undergoes in a rise and fall on the ocean AS IT RISES AND FALLS exist? Do all the frequencies a guitar string undergoes while being tuned exist WHILE it is being tuned?

The logical argument that "infinity" is not a number, or that "a quantity" cannot be identified as "infinite" because it would no longer be a quantity, is true. How does this apply to quantification of existents? I think it applies thusly: If something in reality is quantifiable, it has quantity and we can determine its quantity and that quantity has identity. If something in reality is not quantifiable then we cannot ascribe a quantity to it, it is nonsense to attempt to do so, for such an "alleged" quantity would have no identity. E.g. Quantifiable: Number of parking spots in a parking lot. Number of marbles in a bag height of a building Unquantifiable: Number of frequencies in the E-M spectrum Number of amplitudes a buoy undergoes in a rise and fall on the ocean. Number of frequencies a guitar string undergoes while being tuned. If there are a finite number of particulars in the universe, then enumeration of things has a quantity which of course has identity, if enumeration of all particulars is not possible and hence is unquantifiable, then there is no identity to such a thing (i.e. it is meaningless) as "the number" of all particulars in the universe would not exist.

Perhaps we can shift the issue to these 2 questions: 1 is there in reality a finite or infinite volume spanning all entities 2. is there in reality a finite or infinite number of entities

"You had the choice... you've made those choices" Q: Could I have chosen otherwise? If so what would that mean for reality, the law of causality? Showing or validating choice is one thing, explaining it in terms of other things which give rise to it, is another. that's the point of my bringing up the fallacy (I think it is one of composition?) We need to get down to specifics here. My point is if we want to explain choice acting in a natural system we need to be prepared to explain it with configurations, arrangements of things and sub-processes, which themselves do not possess or exhibit "choosiness".

1. Exactly, matter is matter, the living organism by virtue of the arrangement and functioning of the matter is animate. The organism as "living" can thus cease if the matter no longer has that arrangement and functioning. In all cases the matter is the same. 2. True. Sometimes I think too much hay is made over the hardware versus software of a functioning human system. The real issue with things like "intrinsic" or "innate" knowledge is the bald assertion and dark plunge into supernaturalism and mysticism it leads to. We need not be so worried about hardware/software issues, and we should embrace whatever reality has to tell us about what evolution has hardwired, simply as a fact of reality. 3. True. Someday he will hopefully have enough knowledge of reality to create another (perhaps silicon based but by no means "artificial") conceptually aware entity

... and yet governments, and laws can and should be judged against the standard of morality, if a man wishes to erect and/or live in a moral society.

What sorts of facts of reality can be ignored by philosophy? Can anything in reality be ignored as too "sciency" or properly the realm of "physics" and not metaphysics? Or is it really that all of reality and all "implications" of it must inform philosophy (without the conclusions of science or assertions re. knowledge interfering with philosophy) but that philosophy itself should not attempt to solve the problems of science? I have heard slightly contradictory conclusions regarding the division of labor, independence, and/or relationship between science and philosophy.

I think the fallacy is one of division. To look for choice among the parts begs the question. If the goal is an explanation of choice, explanation must be applied to the root choice which is made of no parts which are choosy.

insofar as you are correct, what you identify at play are the tribal, socialistic, affinities of certain people rather than the individualistic sense of life of other people... most of the latter of which likely reside in the U.S.

I realize now that wording the fallacy in the first person was a mistake... and our exchanges have gotten off on the wrong foot... and perhaps a few more feet. I agree with OPAR here completely. My choice of words was not perfect, I was trying to emphasize that explanation is identifying the nature of something as opposed to merely confirming its existence. Ignoring our misunderstanding, (and my resulting snarkiness...) do you have any opinions about the possible fallacies/errors in the above post?

It's on my reading list. It is SO SAD that someone like Dr. Peikoff has to waste his time dealing with such insane nonsense as the Analytic Synthetic dichotomy... but some people make careers of such work... and alas I need to live in a world where Dr. Peikoff exists (is that a brute fact?...) Necessary and contingent facts?? Oh the universe just "happens" to be this way, it "could" have been different?? Conceivable? Such insanity. Was this originated by Hume or one of his predecessors?

HD: WRT to your conclusion "self-determination is circular causation", I think there is a good deal of insight to one of the important factors in the freeness of free will and how individuals evolve as personalities. This, however, can only be part of the story, because it does not escape determinism. Your conclusions about physics (not metaphysics) is that objective probability according QM is not possible. I dispute the logical necessity of arriving at such a conclusion from the law of causality according to Objectivism because (as pointed out by Plasmatic) it (may?) is not restricted to single valued causation, but in any case, the result is that any and all functional ingredients for choice are thus determined, so free will is not possible in a world of your strict determinism no manner how convoluted, complex, or circular looping the system. Even chaos theory confirms no matter how nonequilibrium a chaotic pseudorandom process is, it is, if based on deterministic processes, deterministic, albeit ergodic and/or pseudorandom. Choice according to your physics is thus deterministic as is the entire of existence start to finish. I do not believe that the many body problem (which really is about analytic solutions) implies that an actual many body system (classical versus QM) could evolve differently given the exact same starting conditions, configuration and environment. Not quite Tada, but an interesting observation.

I will repeat... I am not trying to prove choice.. I assume its existence. Explanation is the "why" and the "how" not the what... I know the sun exists, and the fact that water boils and freezes, explaining why the sun shines and how water turns to ice or steam is explanation. To a hammer everything is a nail... I should like to ask you to look closer and see that we do not have such a nail here sir.

HD: I hate to admit it but sometimes I just don't get what you are saying or trying to say or implying... being more direct and/or explicit may be helpful for me. In any case I will try to read your posts later and respond. I think the main error (but there may be more) in the reasoning is the requirement/assumption of a functionally atomic unit which is itself choosy(BTW by functionally atomic I mean its function is atomic, i.e. no sub functions make it up.) In other words the error is setting out to explain something but require that it rely on an instance of itself as part of that explanation.

The "fallacy" was offered not to show what I actually think but as an exercise... i.e. identify the errors! More generally, the purpose is not to validate choice, in fact I assume its existence, I merely am exploring the errors that can crop up in the exercise of setting limits on formulating an explanation of choice given the nature of reality and what makes up the thing which has the ability to choose.

Here is a logical fallacy: Intro That natural system when "working" has the capacity for choice and functions (is conscious) in such a way to make choices, but when its functioning (not its substance or matter) is caused to stop (consciousness ceases) by rearrangement of that substance (through squashing or scrambling) the natural system no longer has that capacity. Something cries out for explanation for on the one hand the system when functioning and conscious and arranged as so, it chooses, and on the other hand the system when not functioning as so (consciousness ceased) because of its rearrangement it cannot choose. What at the least must change to cause this transition, what constitutes the functioning or arrangement giving rise to choice? Fallacy I want to determine what gives rise to, causes, and/or an explanation for "choice" in a natural system. I see several possibilities which are combinations of various functions processes, each a functionally atomic unit reflecting the behaviour of the possible subparts which make up the system: some are deterministic, some probabilistic (perhaps objectively so (QM)). I then notice that each of these "functionally atomic units" whose arrangement I am trying to evaluate as to whether they can make up together the thing we know as choice has no inherent "choosiness", so I reject all combinations thereof. I conclude that the only explanation of choice must include at least one atomic functional unit which is "choosy" I conclude that choice, since it cannot metaphysically be made of a combination of non-choosy things, must either simply not exist OR must be created with at least one functionally atomic unit which is choosy, and since nothing physically known is choosy, I conclude either "choice is ACTUALLY mystical and supernatural" or there is a choosy teleological "functionally atomic" phenomenon in nature which we have yet to discover. Where is/are the logical fallacy/fallacies? Can one, according to Objectivism, require that "choice" be explained in part by constituents functioning in a manner which itself amounts to "choice"?

I, a minarchist in Canada, have noted that there is an undercurrent of the same sentiments in people who are primarily simply envious of the U.S.'s accomplishments. Others are, simply put, socialist and diametrically opposed to what the U.S. is supposed to stand for (or what it did prior to Obama, or Roosevelt, or at the time of the founding). These mealy mouthed bleeding heart tyrants next door like to think of themselves as "global" and interested in the "welfare" of the world... no doubt an individualist of the U.S. primarily concerned with his own life is "clueless" according to people of this ilk. Basically envy, and orientation away from individualism are the likely causes throughout the world for this attitude. In free countries the attitude will mostly be from envy, in leftist countries a large component will come from an orientation away from individualism. Right now Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are ranked as top 5 "free" on the 2013 Index of Economic Freedom by the heritage foundation.

Wonderful series of YouTube videos visualizing Galt's speech (by subject) with video clips and music. Really quite a wonderful piece of work. Currently unfinished but it is worth a watch. "John Galt Speaking" Series two on YouTube by Richard Gleaves http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL67D866897588DB8B I'm curious to know what you think!

What is the Objectivist accepted concept of "truth"? How is it related to reality, i.e. what part in the definition of this "truth" does reality play? Can such a "truth" be divorced completely from reality? If so, can it have any relevance whatever to existence? What is "rationalism" according to Objectivism?

For the purposes of discussion we defined "universal liar" as "a person whose every statement of necessity must be false" Starting with reality: 1. A person stated that he is X. The first question is whether X in reality is possible. The statement will only be true if Xs can exist AND he in particular is an X. If Xs are impossible the statement MUST be false. Granted, keeping it real I would say there is only an extremely tiny possibility that X would ever actually exist. Since it is not psychologically impossible that a person could always state only falsehoods, never truths, gibberish or anything else (perhaps some rare mental condition) I will state that at this stage the question is still open. Since it is (vanishingly?) possible Xs exist,there is a possibility that he "is an X". Be careful, we have focused our evaluation so far on reality, we will deal more with the statement and its relation to reality below. Already though the evidence weighs heavily in favor of the statement being false. 2. What is the nature of X? If X is possible, then the next question is what is its nature and can we tell from the behavior of the person whether he is one? A person who is X, i.e. as of necessity would only utter statements which are false would have to behave in the fallowing ways to fall under such a category: a. would need to keep silent about everything he did not know the truth or falsity of b. would only ever be able to make statements which were not meaningless (they must be false, not true and not meaningless gibberish) c. would only state falsehoods about things he could have determined are true All of these require a faculty of logic and very strict observance of whether a statement can be made false with a degree of certainty, etc. perhaps only ostensive truths could be spoken about "THAT is NOT green" etc. All of this weighs against the claim of being a universal liar. Such would be a rare and challenging abnormality. 3. What about the context of the statement? If the person were an X, he would know whether or not he was a universal liar. He would have a whole life of having to do 2. above and a whole life of making false statements and being quiet as needed. Why on earth would a universal liar ever voluntarily state he was a universal liar? This contradicts the nature of a universal liar. A universal liar would never utter those words. The person is therefore pretending to be a universal liar. The statement is false.