Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

visaplace

Regulars
  • Posts

    41
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Previous Fields

  • State (US/Canadian)
    Not Specified
  • Country
    Not Specified

visaplace's Achievements

Junior Member

Junior Member (3/7)

0

Reputation

  1. I loved the movie. Very styalized--great music-great direction
  2. My results are: 1. Ayn Rand (100%) Click here for info 2. Aristotle (92%) Click here for info 3. John Stuart Mill (81%) Click here for info 4. Aquinas (78%) Click here for info 5. Epicureans (75%) Click here for info 6. Plato (68%) Click here for info 7. Jeremy Bentham (67%) Click here for info 8. Spinoza (65%) Click here for info 9. Kant (61%) Click here for info 10. Stoics (60%) Click here for info 11. St. Augustine (57%) Click here for info 12. Jean-Paul Sartre (55%) Click here for info 13. Nietzsche (54%) Click here for info 14. Thomas Hobbes (54%) Click here for info 15. David Hume (43%) Click here for info 16. Prescriptivism (42%) Click here for info 17. Cynics (40%) Click here for info 18. Ockham (36%) Click here for info 19. Nel Noddings (9%) Click here for info Ash
  3. Interesting no one picked Canada. I am from Canada. Not a bad country relativley speaking---cold however and the taxes are out of control. I would of course pick USA for my country.
  4. ok now I am confused! Stephen do you think that the Big Bang is a creation event? If the universe is eternal, how can there be a "cretion event" when it comes to the universe? My view that if the Big Bang did occur, it was a cosmological event that too pleace within the universe perhaps changing stuff etc Michael
  5. Alex, This brings up an interesting point about axioms and the law of identity. Like existence (the Universe), consciousness also does not have attributes in the same way tables and chairs do. (Perhaps it doesn't have attributes at all) The existence of the universe and of consciousness is understood by us as axiomatic rather than through attributes. Consciousness can't be percieved via attributes but only indirectly through entities (with attributes) that are grasped by consciousness. In the case of consciousness, we identity it by asking what enables us to know the identity of these entities. The same can be said about the universe. It is grasped through regarding entities and their attributes and asking what is the existent makes up all these entities we know? The intellectual struggle to come up with attributes for the universe is futile. The universe is axiomatic. As such it is itself with without attributes. The best we can do then is to define but not describe the universe. We can say the universe is everything. The same applies to consciousness--consciousness is awareness. Michael
  6. Yes. I liked that movie as well. The book was even better!
  7. Alex thanks for the reply. It seems then that, epistemoligically speaking, the identity of the universe is known to us by deduction not induction--much the same way a "black hole" is known by deducing its existence from the motion of existents surrounding it. In the case of the universe we deduce its existence from the very existence of the multitude of entites with identities. So as the identity of a black hole is determined by the motion of entities casued by it, the identity of the universe is ascertained by the very existence of entities themselves--things which we can percieve and conceptualize. Metaphyscially, however, I am stilll confused about the relationship between entities (with attributes), natual laws AND the universe. I agree that the universe is not the container of all that exists. But is the identity of the universe itself "all that exists"? Is the Universe just a collection of entities and natual laws? If so the question to ask is: What is the metaphysicall status of a "collection"? I would hold that a collection is not an entity at all--it seems the same can be said of the universe. Epistemoligically, the concept "collection" helps us grasp the relationship of common entities like a collection of books. But a collection as such is nothing more than its entities. But the problem is that when talking about the universe, we tend to see it as metaphysical. Do collections exist? Yes. What charactistics do collections have? Their charactristics are determined by the identites of their entitiies. A collecton is large or small depending on the number of entities it sucumes. A collection can be valuable depending on the value of its entites etc. Now for the universe as a collection we can't seem to ascribe such characteristics to it in the same way as other collection. Since the universe is the collection of everything, then we can't say the universe is large or small unless there we other univserses we could compare it too which would be a contradition. All we can say therefore is that the universe IS everything and that is it. Michael
  8. Alex I want to say I really enjoyed your article. I understand the fallacy of composition as it applies to the universe. It has been made clear that the universe itself lacks characteristics of the entities within it. Now we know what the universe does not have, I want to explore what the universe DOES have i.e., what are its characteristics, attributes etc in the positive sense.? Is all we can say about the universe is that it is a collection of all entities but it does not share those entities characteristics other than the fact that it exists? This almost makes the concept of "universe" meaningless. The universe is subject to the Law of Identity. Then what is its identiy in POSITVE terms rather than stating what it is not Michael
  9. I have difficulty with the universe as just a collection of things. Isn't it more than that? Rather, it has to have some attribute that enables it to be the "container" of all things. To say the univerese is a collection presupposes that is has to be something specific apart and distinct from its identity as a collection of things I would think. Having trouble conceptualizing this. Michael
  10. RationalCop: This was a duplicate of post #1 when I merged two similar topics. For some reason, I was unable to delete this post or the first one.
  11. I read Silverman's essay, The Unbounded, Finite Universe. If the Universe is asizal and eternal, that is, without time and size, then what is it? If the Law of Identity applies then the universe as an existent, has to have an attribute i.e, something that makes it specific--to have identity. Can someone identify the attribute(s) of the universe which has no time, no bounds, and no size? I think this is an important metaphysical question. Michael
  12. I would be very sad and maybe terminally depressed because there are no values if life is immortal.
×
×
  • Create New...