Jerry Story
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Posts posted by Jerry Story
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The name is Branden, not Brandon. 'E', not 'O'.
For information about the relationship between Ayn Rand and the Brandens (Nathaniel and Barbara) you can read "The Passion of Ayn Rand" by Barbara Branden, and "Judgement Day" by Nathaniel Branden. There are two versions of what happened between Rand and Branden, Rand's version and Branden's version.
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Hemp seed is okay. Stay off the leaves.
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Reason is our only means of knowledge. Reason means sense perception plus inferences from sense perception. True? Sense perception means the traditional five senses--sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch--plus any other sense that we might have--hot, cold, gravity, whatever. All knowledge starts with sense perception. Then how how is introspection possible? Introspection seems to bypass sense perception and observe one's own mind directly. Is this a nonsensory means of knowledge? But there is no such thing as a nonsensory means of knowledge. Do you mean reason is our only means of knowledge about -the external world-?
In John Locke's version of epeistemology there are two starting points of knowledge: sensation and reflection. According to John Locke we have knowledge of the outside world by sensation, knowledge of our own mind by reflection. I take reflection to be the same as introspection. Is introspection a separate thing? Or can it be reduced to sensation?
How is introspection done? By sense perception? Or some other way?
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Bin Laden says that he has waged jihad or holy war against America as America is destroying Islam.
Now, America is not physically attacking Islamic buildings or Muslim people just because they are Muslim. This can only mean that it is the American values which are destroying Islam.
What is the difference between Islamic and American values?
Islam advocates submission, America advocates freedom.
Thus, Bin Laden is waging a war against America because he detests American freedom which is destroying the core premises of Islam.
Maybe Bin Laden and other Arabs see the US wars against Iraq and other Islamic countries as aggression against Islam. US denies this, but perhaps that's their perception. Maybe 9-11 was retaliation against US war against Islamic countries. Maybe 9-11 had nothing to do with hatred of freedom and hatred of wealth. I don't know. I would have liked to see Bin Laden's answers to direct questions such as:
Why 9-11?
Do you hate US freedom and US wealth?
What constitutes US attack on Islam?
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Actions speak louder than quotes.
Osama Bin Laden, who spearheaded the 9-11 attack against America, has communicated this very clearly through his heinous actions against us.
The action 9-11 does not tell me the motive.
Can anyone provide a quote from Bin Laden saying that his motive for 9-11 was hatred of US wealth and US freedom?
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From the above link:
This is as profound an evasion as I could ever imagine. It is the single worst example of blaming the victim that I have ever encountered in this age of blaming the victim (i.e., the United States). It completely ignores the fact that Muslim terrorists attack us because they hate us. They hate our separation of church and state; they hate our political freedoms; they hate our essentially secular society; and they hate our economic liberties, such as they are. They don't merely want us out of Iraq. They don't merely want us out of Israel. They want us off the face of the earth. This is not solely my interpretation. This is what they say; this is what all of their actions, time and again, imply; and this is what they are seeking to accomplish, bit by bit.Can anyone provide a quote from bin Laden or somesuch person saying that the motive of Muslim aggression against the US is that they hate US wealth and freedom?
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While we intellectuals might damn alcohol because it lessens our mental abilities, it is a healthy and enjoyable thing when done in moderation.
On the subject of alcohol in small quantities being healthy. Dr. Mercola pointed out a flaw in that study. The people who never in their lives tasted alcohol were put in the same category as those who used to get smashed and hit bottom and then quit, probably after they did some irreparable damage to their health. It should not be surprising that those who did no more than dainty wine tasting were on average healthier than those who wrecked their health and then quit.
A proper study would have separated those who never in their lives tasted alcohol and ex-alcoholics who now abstain.
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Today I was thinking for whom I was going to vote and why, and I came to the conclusion that either choice is a terrible choice. Either way I choose, I am still giving my consent for whomever I vote to encroach upon my life. The only difference is the method of their encroachment. The Republicans use morality and the Democrats use the econonmy(in actuality, both parties use both methods, they just use the stated ones a greater amount of the time). My question is: Isn't this the sanction of the victim? When we vote for a particular candidate, aren't we giving our consent for whatever they are going to try to get done? In a truly free society, where the government FOLLOWS the limits that have been placed on them, I would say no, but in today's government the possibilities of what power the government will assume next are endless. Neither candidate is looking to reduce the size and scope of the government. Does my voting tell them I agree with what they are doing?
Options:
First choice: Libertarian
Second choice: None of the above
Third choice: Don't vote
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Anyway I received a book that was based on a tv series called "You Are What You Eat" written by nutritionist Dr Gillian McKeith.
In it contains a section warning of cooked food asserting that 85% of nutrients become unavailable and all enzymes destroyed. She also goes on to mention the same process pertaining to proteins and vitamins (mainly 50% lost).
She mentions a study of medical researchers where they found that a diet full of cooked food may cause brain reduction.
Her own study revealed that people who only eat cooked food have blood cells that appear to be in a constant state of alert, as if fighting an infection.
I'm sceptical of this as throughout the book she warns of the dangers of organic food, tells you to not drink tap water, and dangers of cancer from pesticide on crops.
I've read the Skeptical Environmentalist and all the warnings on organic food and pesticide is just scare mongering.
That said, can anyone verify her warnings of the dangers of cooked food or is it just scare mongering? also can anyone recommend websites and books regarding healthy nutritional diets.
Destruction of enzymes in cooked food is irrevelant. Plant enzymes are for the plant, not for digeston. The body makes its own enzymes for digestion.
I have a cassette tape of a debate between Vetrano, taking the view that the ideal diet is 100% raw, and Cinque, taking the view that sometimes diet can be greatly improved by adding some cooked food to it, no more than 20% and only starchy foods. A wealth of information was provided on both sides and the result seemed to be that both sides won the debate.
I avoid pesticides that work by killing motor neurons of insects, considering that more than 80% of my motor neurons are already gone. If there is a "risk" it is unacceptable to me.
Organic is not dangerous, but often over-rated and often over-priced. And much that passes as organic is not organic; you can prove this by reading labels. There is a lot of b***sh** in "health food stores".
It has been said that foods grown in the best soil can have dozens or hundreds of times as much of certain micronutrients as in the same species in average soil. I have not seen -convincing- evidence of this kind of extreme. But USDA data shows that amounts of nutrients in plants has decreased, probably because of soil. And certain individuals in the INHS discussion group have testified that cucumbers etc. grown in superior soil taste better than those grown in average soil.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has free data consisting of nutrient contents of foods. There are many computer programs based on that, some of them free, both Windows and Linux. The latest data is SR17 with about 6800 foods and more than 100 nutrients.
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geoff27: Actually from what I have read (can't remember where) Ayn Rand quit smoking on the spot when her doctor told her it was bad for her. (Remember that this was decades ago, when the evidence for harmful effects was just coming out.)
The version of that story that I read is that the doctor repeatedly told Ayn Rand that smoking is terribly bad for her health and she should quit and she defied the doctor to give her one good reason why she should quit and she didn't want to hear about statistics. The doctor showed her an xray of her lungs, showing cancer. Then she quit.
There was statistical evidence in Ayn Rand's time but she didn't accept it as valid evidence. But even without statistics, doctors even as far back as the 1800s were familar with the bad effects of smoking. I could list some of these doctors. Besides any person of common sense should know that breathing dirt is bad for lungs. If evidence is necessary, simple observation of what it does to oneself should be enough.
What puzzles me is, given Ayn Rand's reasoning, why did she quit? She got lung cancer, so what? That's only anecdotal evidence, even worse than statistical evidence.
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The following passage seems relevant to the discussion about vices.
The taste of the first drink, smoke or chew betrayed the poison. They scratch and bite when we first hug them but their strangling embrace is hard to break. It tightens til it threatens to choke out the vital spark, together with the resisting strength of their victims.There is no bane in the South American swamps, no virulent compound in the North American drugstores- chemistry knows no deadliest poison- whose gradual and persistent obtrusion on the human organism will not create an unnatural craving after a repetition of the lethal dose, a morbid appetency in every way analogous to the hankering of the toper after his favorite tipple. Swallow a tablespoon of laudanum or a few grains of arsenious acid every night; at first your physical conscience and nervous headaches warn you again and again; the struggle of the digestive organs against the fell intruder convulses your whole system. But you continue the dose and Nature, true to her highest law to preserve life at any price finally adapts herself to an abnormal condition- adapts your system to the poison at whatever cost to health, strength and happiness. Your body becomes an opium machine, an arsenic mill, a physiological engine moved by poisons and performing its vital functions only under the spur of the unnatural stimulus. But by and by the jaded system fails to respond to the spur, your strength gives way and alarmed at the symptoms of rapid deliquium, you resolve to remedy the evil by removing the cause. You try to renounce stimulation and rely once more on the unaided strength of the Via Vitae. But that strength is almost exhausted. The oil that should have fed the flame of life has been wasted on a health consuming fire. Before you can regain strength and happiness your system must readapt itself to the normal condition and the difficulty of that rearrangement will be preportioned to the degree of the present dissarrangemen; the further you have strayed from Nature the longer it will take you to retrace your steps. Still it is always the best plan to make your way somehow or other, for, if your resign yourself to your fate it will soon confront you wilth another and greater difficulty. Before long the poison fiend will demand a larger fee; you have to increase the dose. The delightful and exhileirating stimulant has palled, the quantum has now to be doubled to pay the blue devils off, and to the majority of their distracted victims that seems the best, because the shortest road the peace. Restimulation really seems to alleviate the effects of the poison habit for a time. The anguish always returns and always with increased strength , as a fire, smothered for a moment with fuel, will break forth again with a fiercer flame .
Dr Oswald
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why exactly do some people have 'bad' memories when others tend to have very good memories?
I have the following list of possible causes of memory impairment:
deficiency of folic acid (B9)
deficiency of niacin (B3)
deficiency of omega-3 oils
deficiency of thiamin (B1)
deficiency of zinc
excess of copper 15 mg
aspartame (nutrasweet)
chronic sleep deficiency
mercury
I'm sure this list is very incomplete.
Probably deficiency of magnesium should be added.
Brain diseases and brain injuries.
Genetic differences between people.
Etc.
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Perhaps the government exists in a vacuum and is not subject to the laws of reality and private property? Just kidding, I think your problem arises because of overly strict definitions. If you allow for the people to donate property to the government, then I think your contradiction will disappear.
If people donate property to the government, does that mean that government owns the property that was donated? If so, is the property that the goverment now owns privately owned property? Ayn Rand says that under capitalism all property would be privately owned.
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From "Ayn Rand Lexicon" page 57, under the heading "Capitalism":
"Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."
The above quote is from "What is Capitalism?" CUI, 19.
Question: If all property is privately owned, who owns government property?
Possible Solutions:
1. There is no government, and therefore no need for government to own anything. But government is necessary. Scratch that.
2. Government has no need to own property and can function without owning property. Perhaps government can use private property, for a price of course.
3. Goverment counts as an individual, so government owned property is privately owned. Then what is meant by "public property" or property that is not privately owned?
4. Perhaps what government owns doesn't count as "property". But that looks like a word game.
5. Are we allowing exceptions?
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Getting back to the original subject....
(Ayn Rand @ Ibid., 55)The formulation of a common vocabulary of music… would require: a translation of the musical experience, the inner experience, into conceptual terms; an explanation of why certain sounds strike us a certain way; a definition of the axioms of musical perception, from which the appropriate esthetic principles could be derived, which would serve as a base for the objective validation of esthetic judgments…
Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music…
No one, therefore, can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others. Where no objective proof is available, it’s every man for himself – and only for himself.
Ayn Rand says there is no way to judge music objectively. So for me, music is good or bad according to whether I like it or dislike it. Hedonism is valid for music.
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Is this modern material world, there is a constant obsession to have new and nice things.
The more intelligent humans become , the more they get bored and therefore have a greater demand to have more new things. But eventually we can get bored with those things aswell, and many of them becomes obsolete eventually which in turn cause us to continously go out and buy more things.
Most of dream of fortune, to be able to go out and buy major purchases, such as big screen TV, sports car, etc. But eventually we would get bored with that aswell.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Capitialism and Gobalisation and greater development in technology but can those "things" ever really fill the void in our lives?
There seems to be some suggestion here that life is about having or accumulating things. I always thought that life is not about having but about doing. Maybe I'm wrong, as I usually am.
I don't believe in God or religion, but King Solomon comes to mind. He had everything that money could buy and he said "All is vanity and vexation of the spirit." That's probably fiction, but a real case is the "poor rich girl" who at an early age inherited billions from her uncle and never had to work ever in her life. She was unhappy all her life. I figure the reason why is that life is not about having, but about doing. These people had the means of living a life, but didn't know what to do and therefore didn't have a life.
Granted one must HAVE some things in order to DO things: health, energy, education, tools, materials, etc., etc.
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Your assertion is that when you are listening to music you like you cannot discern what emotions it conjures?
If you can't discern your own emotions how do you even get to far as labeling your practices as hedonism?
I am simple minded. I put all music in one or the other of two categories. Either it is worth ripping or it is not. After I have it ripped and compressed, at a later time a few works are better than others so I might copy them to a "favorites" directory. All I know is good, bad, indifferent, and various degrees of good and bad.
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Music is an art form that makes a direct emotional connection, so to find out why you like or dislike a piece of music you are going to have to do a bit of introspecting about your emotions rather than starting with premises.
Work from your emotions on out. There are reasons and premises behind your likes and dislikes; you just might have to dig for them if you've never explorered that area before.
Start with: how does music you like make you feel?
I feel the same way with or without music, good music or bad music: with my hands.
If you mean emotions, I don't have a clue other than it's good or bad or sometimes nothing.
Does it matter? I still don't know what's wrong with hedonism as applied to music.
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Do you like music on whim, or have you tried to understand why you like the music that you do?
Also, what do you mean by "judg[ing] music" - ie, by what standard, according to what scale?
I like (or dislike) music on whim. I judge music by whether I like it or dislike it. If I like it, it's good; if I dislike it, it's bad. I don't have clue how else to judge music.
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I judge music by whether I like it. That's hedonism and therefore is irrational.
What is the rational way to judge music?
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Nope. I never once mentioned money.
Pleasure accompanies the activity of you striving to reach your values. So, if you place value in a certain song, or a certain composer, because of the value that this music fulfills-then by listening to it, you reach your values and thus gain some pleasure.
Pleasure is always based upon this activity however-it is not seperate. People try and seperate pleasure from activity for many reasons, and place pleasure as the goal that they are trying to reach, instead of the value. Because this type of pleasure is not rooted in anything, you will only get short bursts of pseudo-pleasure from what value system you have left decaying inside of you, but that you have either shunned or haven't identified.
Because you have not identified it, or shunned it, the pleasure doesn't last forever. Thus you don't know "what it was..I just liked it". Then you tire of it because you can't identify it, and move on. This is what I was talking about-and something that you see a lot today. "Oh I like this! I don't know why...I just do....it makes me feel good."
I hope that makes more sense.
To me, all this is as clear as mud. I have no idea what you could possibly mean by "place value" in a certain song or a certain composer, other than either money paid for it or enjoyment listening.
For several years I regularly borrowed music CDs from the library. I selected CDs that I thought were likely to have music that I like. At home I selected favorite tracks and made MP3 or OGG files out of them. Every now and then I had enough to fill a CD. I have a whole bunch of such CDs accumulated over a period of years.
I judge music simply by whether I like it. Doesn't matter whether it is popular or unpopular. Doesn't matter WHY I like it or don't like it. Doesn't matter whether someone else likes it or doesn't like it. (except when I burn a CD for my brother) Doesn't matter whether Ayn Rand like it or not. Obviously that's hedonism.
What's wrong with hedonism as applied to music?
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If I understand what you are saying, then yes. By severing pleasure from the value (ie. what value you place on the music to give you the pleasure), you have created pleasure based upon whim. Pleasure based upon whim thus is the pleasure that "sucks dry and moves on", ie "This is my favorite song!" and two weeks later, "No-This is my favorite song!", and so on. Because there is no base value, the quest will be a never-fulfilling and never-ending one.
I don't understand any of the above. Do you mean that I should judge music by how much money I paid for it?
I would think that the reverse would make more sense, that how much I am willing to pay for the music depends on my judgement of the music.
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Pleasure is a consequence of achieving our values, so pleasure cannot itself be the standard by which we choose values. If pleasure were the standard then we would be saying, in essence, that the specific things we value are irrelevant and arbitrary. To be selfish is not to take pleasure in whimsical values, but rather to discover those values which, objectively, truly in reality, serve the purpose of our life. Then, and only then, can the pleasure we take in achieving our values be deemed selfish.
Does this mean that listening to music for pleasure, without any reason for pleasure, pleasure for itself, is irrational?
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Capitalism Party. Is it consistent with Objectivism?
Teacher Compares Me To Hitler
in Miscellaneous Topics
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Why do people take courses that they don't approve of, and from teachers that they don't approve of?
Would Howard Roark do that?