Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Mindy

Regulars
  • Posts

    463
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

Everything posted by Mindy

  1. I wasn't complaining. Feel free to find fault. But, I still don't see it. -- Mindy
  2. I said that was the purpose of the food assimilation, said it twice, I believe. But though you may be in "good company," in crying representationalism, there is nothing nearer to that in Aristotle's metaphor than the position that sense-perception is a causal interaction between subject and object. Aristotle does not say that we assimilate the form of something, then we observe the form we have assimilated. He says that in seeing the object we are assimilating its form. The assimilation is the action of consciousness. That is not representationalism. -- Mindy
  3. Now, you must explain how I was unwittingly ironic. My summary position is that reason is so powerful, and man's nature as a thinker so hard to fully corrupt that where there is enough cooperation to stay on topic and be responsive to one another, very little else is needed. (Yes, I know the Obj. Communication tapes, and establishing the audience's context is important, but we do most of that by reflex.) So, I find an orderly dialogue that stays on topic succeeds by its own lights. -- Mindy
  4. I'm interested also. Were you thinking fiction or non-? I know of a terrific art criticism book, it might be an old textbook ART AND THE ART OF CRITICISM. Can't lay my hands on it right now. Very well thought-out and sounds a lot like Objectivism. It is a big read, though. I haven't found any good new fiction in a long while. -- Mindy
  5. I am compelled to chime in with a strong suspicion that an ignorantium has been committed here. If the "seem to be" assertions do indicate evasion, say so. If not, it's ignorantium. How do any of us know we are motivated by what it seems we are motivated by, and not some hidden, evaded, dark, and despicable purposes? -- Mindy
  6. The question before us is what underlies our attainment of the concept, "knowledge." Like all concepts, what underlies "knowledge" is something more primitive than that concept. You appear to be objecting to my searching for the most basic grasp of "knowledge" we can identify. -- Mindy
  7. Response: Are you saying there can be answers to how existence exists, and why? -- Mindy
  8. Yes, his position is that consciousness "assimilates" the form, but note that that form is the form of the object. And what is not assimilated is the matter of the object. And no object can have one without the other. When you imply that Aristotle has erred by not saying "consciousness holds...the object itself," you are speaking nonsense. We do not take the objects we are conscious of into our bodies. If you would attend to the distinction Aristotle made, and which I have repeated here, you would see that the assimilation of matter is a process akin to digestion. The apple you see stays outside you. The apple you eat enters within. Now, you need to defend your assertion that my view amounts to representationism. -- Mindy
  9. I think the biggest problem in polarized discussions is staying on topic. The most important way to stay on and keep the other person on topic is to spend time up front making sure you are both clear on exactly what the topic is. The best way I know of to secure this clarity is to give a few examples of both sides of the issue. If the issue were altruism vs. selfishness, you would want to come up with three or more cases you both agree are altruism, and three or more cases you both agree are selfishness. If you can't state your case in one sentence, you probably aren't ready to argue it. Each time you make your point, consult that one sentence, which keeps you on subject. Each point the opponent makes, relate it to their initial claim. You ought to be able to see immediately if it is on point, or digressive, (though associated.) Don't allow digressions. Require that each of you responds to what the other has actually said. Truth isn't that hard to substantiate if you both stay on the subject. Getting your opponent to do so is the real work. -- Mindy
  10. This doesn't add up. Men do respond to character, virtues, and ability in a woman, even if she isn't glamorus. Here's a suggestion: go ahead and lie together. Do a Heinlien and just lie with her, naked, under a sheet, and talk. Don't plan to have sex, and don't try to. Do this several times. The other is assess who is more "in love" with whom. Is she more in love with you, or do you, deep-down, think she is? Have your earlier relationships been of the pattern that you went after a girl who had to be "won?" If so, you may find a woman who doesn't have to be "won over" nothing to get excited about (forgive the pun.) What makes you desirable? Your looks, and professional success, it seems, what else? Do you find in her what you truly value in yourself? If you don't, principally, value character and virtue in yourself, her chracter and virtues will leave you cold. You appreciate her intellectually, but not as reflecting the essential "you." If she doesn't give you powerful psychological visibility, you won't fall in love with her. This is the most probable scenario, given the little you've related. Assuming you want to be the man who does fall in love with her, you might have to practice tough-love on yourself, and review and re-assess your true values. One way to do that is to take the best characteristics about yourself, one at a time, and identify a handfull of people who share it. Don't jerry-mander the group, include people you dislike, if they share that characteristic. What strikes you about that group of people, as a type of person? Would you like to live your life in the company of such people? Do the same thing for her. Do you fit in those groups, would you like to live your life around those people? Obviously, I've not tried to spare your feelings. I do admire your effort to work this out, and wish you all the best. -- Mindy
  11. You are already satisfied with the answers you've gotten, but I will offer some different wording, in the hope that it will help. When your mother said, "Eat it, it's good for you," you understood perfectly what she meant (even if you didn't agree!) "Good for you," sets the concept in its proper context. It is what serves your welfare. Welfare represents the fact of life's being conditional. Since we do not identify what particular things or actions are good the way animals do (for the most part,) but by intelligent identifications and predictions, what a person takes to be the good might be mistaken. That's where bad things get called "good." So there are two "goods," there is "good" and "the good." "Good" is what is taken to serve one's welfare. Some people think altruism serves their welfare, so altruism is "the good" to them. Others, of course, think selfishness serves their welfare, so selfishness is "the good" for them. "What good is" is the same for altruists and Objectivists, but what is good differs drastically. -- Mindy
  12. Remember the old confusion of Phosphorus and Vesperus? The morning star and the evening star? They "appeared" to be different stars, though they weren't. Penetrating appearances is not a given, it involves a discovery. It is not some level of cognition. Science is full of discoveries of the sort. So the fact that cats do not realize TV is TV is irrelevant. (As far as I know, cats do know TV is illusion, but, like so many of us, they can interact entertainingly with that illusion.) Now, your claim that to realize something is an appearance requires that "...they are capable of isolating the characteristics of appearance as such," confuses the phenenomen with its conceptualization, and inverts the process of conceptualization. First comes experience, then concepts pertaining to it. Animals, some, at least, and infants operate with a notion of "see," and "hear," etc. if you want to understand how we come to understand knowledge per se, I think you need to embrace that evidence. "[A]cquiring knowledge means learning about the characteristics, properties, potentials, etc. of things." Isn't seeing acquiring knowledge? What are concepts, propositions, and reasoning, independent of their sensory roots? -- Mindy
  13. I brought Aristotle's metaphor up only to illustrate the impossibility of consciousness being conscious of nothing but itself. Aristotle brings it up to explain consciousness as a process of the assimilation of form. The wax assimilates the shape/form of the ring, but leaves the material of the ring (and its form, incidentally) unchanged. The comparison is to digestion. We assimilate the material of the food we eat, changing, not preserving, its form in the process. I don't know what Harry Binswanger's point is. The metaphor, like all metaphors, is valid in a narrow context. It is a metaphor. The relative passivity of the wax and the relative passivity of sensation are important to objectivity. If mental contents are entirely the result of an organism's activity, they cannot claim a causal connection with reality, and thus objectivity. However, the mind clearly is not a photo album. Parsing out the active and passive aspects of cognition is critical to defending the objectivity of knowledge. -- Mindy
  14. Telling someone they might want to familiarize themselves with Objectivism, in this context, is a clear insult. It says that what the poster has posted illustrates they fail to grasp Objectivism. Now, your "if I have the inclination to explain myself..." is not acceptable. You made the statement, an honorable man would explain what he said, including why he said it. You already made the judgment, you don't need to research the question, just explain and defend yourself. It is audacious that you say both that you only might substantiate your claim against my post, and then repeat your unsupported (and unsupportable?) opinion that my position is that of representationism. You need to put your mouth where your mouth is! -- Mindy
  15. Your instances of fragile and those of not-fragile each include mugs, glass, and concrete. Those groupings do not pick out fragility, but "having broken," and "not having broken." But the concept, "fragility" is not a synonym for "broken." Not everything that breaks is therefore fragile! Your instances should have reflected breaking under given circumstances, versus not breaking under the SAME circumstances. That is the difference "fragility" picks out. -- Mindy
  16. Well, sure, it would be great. But it is unfounded. Neural nets do their thing, and it is termed pattern recognition. To say that that function explains recognition in the large sense must be supported. -- Mindy
  17. I'm willing to overlook your intended insult, so we can discuss whether or not my position is representationism. Please proceed. -- Mindy
  18. Really? And what Binswanger says is automatically Objectivism? I thought that issue had been specifically denied. If you want to make an argument against Aristotle's metaphor, or against my use of it, please do. -- Mindy
  19. "Pattern recognition" in neural nets is a constrained performance, under optimized conditions. It is more akin to information than knowledge. If you are using "pattern recognition" specifically as it is termed in the performance of neural nets, you do not mean "recognition." You seem to say it is needed, but not really. It's not material, though. -- Mindy
  20. Rand did not discover the hierarchical structure of concepts or knowledge! -- Mindy
  21. Au contraire! Take musical composition, for example. One can write with various degrees of explicit intention to express a meaning or message, but the fine decisions come down to how the music makes you, the composer, feel. Musical meaning is not easily put into words, in any case. Some of those legions of "interpreters" are making sense and enhancing the experience of their readers. -- Mindy
  22. You are being asked--nicely--to be specific. I could have called you out on suggesting that the basis for your single assertion was a whole 50 pages. If you mean that somewhere in that 50 pages, the answer lies, then you are being uncooperative and evasive. Why do you claim that powerlusters are principally after approval? Can you answer this or not? -- Mindy
  23. I agree with JayR. His later, deeper identification wouldn't contradict his initial one. The painting (or whatever) represented both. I guess the logical following question is How does an artist put meaning into his work without realizing he means what he is expressing? He had to possess the context that makes that meaning possible, from the beginning. However, he had not necessarily identified that deeper message to himself. -- Mindy
  24. It's not ideally "technical neuroscience" if it relies on the term "recognition," is it? I don't believe that term has a neuroscience equivalent, does it? "Practice, practice, practice" is not a new idea, either. The "immersion learning" is an interesting phenomenon at the adult level. It is limited to the sensory-perceptual in animals and infants. In adults, it is pretty much wide open. Have you seen the lit. on "unintentional learning?" Of course, there are things which no degree of familiarity makes automatic, so there will have to be an additional factor added to that "neuroscience" explanation. -- Mindy
  25. As the devil's advocate here: What if the woman were, in fact, very attracted to the man, even in love with him. She desired him sexually, but she would not act on that unless the possibility of a LTR were there, meaning he had to be jewish. Perhaps she believed, being told by him, he were jewish, when they first met. If she hadn't believed him to be jewish, she wouldn't have spent any time with him, wouldn't have fallen for him, wouldn't have let herself become aroused and excited by him. In every other way, he seems to be her dream-come-true. She decides to have sex... She spent her time and emotional resources getting to know this person, based on his fraudulent representation. She lowered her religion-based defenses to him. He told the lie in order to get just this opportunity. He valued her company, and enjoyed it by lying to her. He knew she would be disappointed, even crushed. He chose to do that to her. He knew she wouldn't spend time with him, much less have sex, if she knew he wasn't jewish. He specifically maintained that lie in order to have her submit to a sexual encounter. If the copulation were achieved without her informed consent, or through a trick, it was unwilling on her part. And unwilling sex is rape. He by-passed her will in the matter of having a relationship with him, including a sexual one. He prevented her from fighting him off by lying to her, knowing fully that she would be unwilling unless he lied. It seems like rape to me. A second point: The "'Til death do us part" statement in marriage ceremonies is not what you think. It is a declaration as to how long the parties intend the relationship to endure. Marriages are not for x years. The fact that their term is the life of the participants is what is being stated. If nothing else happens to alter their intentions, the marriage continues, no matter how many years go by. I think most people interpret it as you do, and I can't prove my contention, but under this interpretation, divorce doesn't reflect on the marriage vows so as to make the events of the marriage fraudulent. A man who promises fidelity in order to persuade a woman to have sex with him, marry him, etc., must live up to that claim. I do think it is rape if he cheats. It is rape and more.
×
×
  • Create New...