MinorityOfOne

Agreed. I think the more limited version of the term amounts to a frozen abstraction: it takes the "hard sciences", i.e. those which are quantifiable, and then tosses the rest out. The rest get packaged-dealed into "non-science", which would include anything from philosophy to psychology to astrology -- implying that there's no use for distinguishing between those fields have integrated bodies of knowledge logically acquired from perception and those which are guesswork or pseudo-science. Also, I suspect the change to this use of "science" is fairly recent. I don't know this for sure, but here's why I'd guess that. When such fields as psychology and philosophy get tossed out from the category of science, psychologists and philosopers get annoyed. Of course they want to have a science! Psychology pretty much started in the 19th century, so I won't comment on that, but in philosophy the first attempts to reduce the field to quantification started, at the earliest, with the early Rationalists. There were historical attempts to use a geometrical model, like with the Pythagorians and Spinoza, but they were largely aberrations. As the frozen abstraction usage of "science" became more widely used, you find such things as the "hedonic calculus" and, more recently, Bayesian epistemology entering into the mainstream.

RadCap, Still mulling. I've seen "science" defined by Objectivists as "an integrated body of knowledge", but I don't know if that comes from Rand or not. The definition Peikoff used in OPAR was "systematic knowledge gained by the use of reason based on observation." So if you buy those definitions, philosophy is definitely a science. I think I recall Rand describing ethics as a science, too. But I don't have a source on hand for that.

P.S. I agree with you re: facts. I was off on that one.

RadCap, I actually had the precise phrase Rand used in mind when I objected to your distinction between what exists and what "actually exists". I just looked up the term in at m-w.com, and it lists "in actuality" as a synonym for "in reality." So maybe it's just that I've studied too much Aristotle and I have a non-standard concept of actuality in mind, but what I had in mind is this: actuality is usually contrasted with potentiality, which is not the sort of contrast you're trying to get at when distinguishing between what exists in reality and what exists in consciousness. You can use "exists in reality", but I don't think that's ideal either: the contrast to "real existents" is "unreal existents", and that's not an accurate description of consciousness either. I don't have an ideal word in mind, but I think either of these would be in a sense an improvement, though they both have problems. "Concretely exists" is probably the best I can come up with. (Incidentally, anyone know of a source for a definition of the meaning of "concrete" as used in Objectivism?)

They're abstractions, so numbers per se don't exist apart from consciousness, if that's what you mean. Ron Pisaturo has done a lot of work on this topic. I read his articles in The Intellectual Activist on mathematics a long time ago, and found them interesting, though I'd have to reread them again to say much about them. Here are a few links you might find useful. Pisaturo's summary of his theory: http://www.cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2003-M...rch/006313.html (Not directly related to your problem, but the solution lies in applying the Objectivist theory of concepts to mathematics. Here, he gives an indication of part of how it's done.) Some brief excerpts from Pisaturo's essays on math: http://pages.prodigy.net/rpisaturo/MathExc...cerpts.htm#FOM1 (Again, you'd have to get the actual essays in order to get much from this.) An article by Travis Norsen on (among other things) how bad ideas in mathematics are related to bad ideas in physics: http://www.apor.info/articles/tn_mathematics1.htm (Also not directly related to your problem, but it might help indirectly.) Also, take a look in the appendex to ITOE. I think Rand had some comments on this in there.

Yep, I'm all done with this. I wanted to point out why the air around us can't be property, and I think I did that. Now let's get back to important issues, like whether or not a remake of The Fountainhead should cast Carrot Top as Roark.

No, it doesn't *require* a choice. It just can be affected by choices. You're trying to treat breathing like it's somewhere between automatic and automatized. They're totally different categories, though. What you can say about breathing is that it's an automatic action which can be subject to a certain degree of conscious control. (I say a certain degree, because there's a limit to how much control you can exert over it. For example, you can't really just stop breathing. You'll pass out within a few minutes and your brain will take over the process.)

I ran across a funny quote about the "creation of the universe" once.. just found it while searching for something on my computer. (I haven't read the book this was from, I just recorded the quote from a website because I liked it.) "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded." -- Terry Pratchett, _Lords and Ladies_

WHOA. Somehow I missed the post you put up, Radcap, in which you discuss the relationship between proper nouns and concepts. I think you're way off there, but I'm not sure I understand you properly, so lemme ask you a few questions to clarify. 1. Do you think that all proper nouns are also concepts? Or do you think that concepts and proper nouns are separate categories? 2. Do you think that identifying something with a proper noun presupposes having already discovered a concept into which it fits? 3. If your answer to 2 is yes, then why do babies say "mama" before "woman"? Do you think they couldn't label their mother "mama" without having first at least some implicit concept of woman? 4. You say that even if it's true that there is a proper noun usage of "universe", that you would still be required to form a philosophical concept for "universe". (At least, I assume this is what you were getting at: otherwise you probably would have said "existence" -- which is the position I'm leaning toward.) Other questions from later posts: 5. Do you really think there's a distinction between what "exists" and what "actually exists"? I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying, but you need better terms here. 6. I don't think you're quite getting the point of the discussion in ITOE. The point is that "fact" is useful to distinguish error from knowledge, not mental entities from physical entities. That's a whole different point. For example: it's a fact that I have a concept of dogs. It's not a fact that I've met a unicorn. So I don't think your analogy (existence-existent:universe-fact) works.

Hah. Good point, Ash.

You're arguing from one circumstance to all circumstances. In this case, it doesn't work. Here's another example. A large percentage of the oxygen in the air comes from plankton (I think, or something like them). If they were to disappear, you can bet we'd start acting to gain or keep them, assuming that nothing else adjusted to make up the difference. (And assuming that the difference is significant, which as I vaguely recall, it would be.) Does that make them a value in *this* context? Nope -- their existence and beneficial effect on us requires no action on our part. There may well be things that are required for our existence that we're not aware of: things that are beneficial to us without requiring anything of us. Something's being beneficial doesn't make it a value.

Pfft. You know exactly what I meant. You concrete-bound, rationalistic, Attila-loving non-angular-faced hater-of-the-good-for-being-the-good! (see what happens when you disagree with me?)

The other point to be made there, and it's a crucial one, is that property results from productive effort. Here's one example. On earth, air cannot be considered property, because it requires no productive effort. It's not an economic value. (Nor is it a value in *any* philosophic sense, because it's not something you act to gain or keep.) Now say somebody sets up a base on the moon. It's a free-market base, so all of the basic functions are privately run (putting aside the issue of government.) This includes air: since it's not there naturally, somebody has to create it or import it. That person owns the air, in that case, and can rightly have a claim against anybody who soils it. The specifics of this would of course be dealt with contractually, since some degree of effect on air is unavoidable -- we don't exhale the same mix we inhale! (I know this doesn't address the issue of pollution on Earth in particular. I'm not getting into that conversation right now.)

RadCap, Still thinking this through somewhat. One question, though. Your argument is that the universe is a concept which, roughly, integrates all existents, abstracting away all characteristics other than that they exist. Right? So what makes it different from the concept "existent"? (I know there's an obvious difference between the universe and the concept of existent. But I don't see how *your* idea of the universe is different from it. The difference can't be in the "all", because the concept entity integrates all entities too.)

I didn't mean that no nouns are concepts. That's obviously not true. But proper nouns aren't.

Radcap, I'm familiar with concept-formation, thanks. On further thought, though, I think I may have been more on the right track at the beginning when I expressed doubts about the universe being an abstraction. It seems more like an all-inclusive mass noun than a concept... By comparison: the solar system refers to a group of entities. It's distinguished, as you mentioned re: the universe, from other groups of entities. But that doesn't mean we have a concept of the solar system, nor that the solar system is an entity in itself. (Except in an extended sense, and I don't see off the top of my head why the same extended sense couldn't be applied to the universe as a whole.) Anyway, I still have to think this through more, and I'm very backed up with work for the next few days at least. Feel free to respond, but I won't be posting much for a little while. By the way, Radcap, I notice you've been cutting back on the caps. Thanks, it's definitely making your posts more clear.

I just posted something, but I'm going to nuke it and think it through further. I had thought of what you posted and dismissed it, but I'm not sure my reasons were very good.

Oh, and re: your style... I understand and agree that it's a pain to use the bold/italic buttons. That's why I don't. The *'s don't distract me at all, but the caps do. The reason for it is that, generally, when caps are used online they're read as a shout. I can try not to read them that way when you use them, but it's pretty automatized. (I suspect this is the case for other people, too. I recall somebody else mentioning this once, but I don't know who or exactly what they said.) If you must use them, could you at least try to be a bit more sparing with them?

Now I'm even less clear on what you mean. You say my position was invalid because I didn't provide a differentia. What do you think the genus of the universe is? (I don't see how it can have one. And if it doesn't, it can't have a differentia either.)

Tom -- Maybe I wasn't clear on this. The idea isn't that the only thing Mary is ever exposed to is information on neurology, etc., which she somehow magically manages to understand. It's assumed that she gets some sort of education while in there. You can change anything you want in the scenario, as long as you don't change one thing: she never sees color until after she learns everything there is to know about the relevant scientific fields. (Yes, there IS an impossible claim there: it assumes that she achieves omniscience within a particular field. But it's not the sort of impossible claim that invalidates the point being made, any more than Rand's use of an intelligent atom invalidates her point about the objectivity of knowledge.) Here's one alteration to the scenario that might make it more palatable for you. Some mad scientist genetically engineers a baby, Mary, to have eyes without cones. (The cones are responsible for color vision, but the baby could still see in black & white due to the rods.) Mary then has a *totally normal life*; not much more unusual, overall, than a color-blind person. Just a bit more so. Now toss in the relevant parts of the original scenario. She learns all the relevant facts in all the relevent fields, etc, etc. Then he abducts her again and implants cones into her eyes. Does that work better for you? You asked: "Are you implying that the concept of "sight" can be formed by one who does not possess the faculty of sight, that the concept "color" can be formed by one who does not perceive "colors"?" No -- I'm not. I think that's the conclusion the physicalist is driven to, though. If color perception *just is* a bunch of physical facts, then knowing about all those physical facts means that you know everything there is to know about color. I'm saying that's precisely untrue. I don't know of any good sources on emergent properties off the top of my head. I think there's an online encyclopedia of philosophy, maybe on the Stanford website, that might have some info/links. Try a google search on it.

I take back what I wrote in that last post. This is *not* just an issue of selective focus; that was a pretty stupid thing to say. I'll think this through some more and get back to you.

I don't think you intend to disconnect the concept "universe" from its referents, and as I said, I had some trouble picking out exactly what you meant. (Your use of capitalized words makes your posts difficult to read. It makes you come across as perpetually agitated, so it becomes difficult to see exactly what you mean to emphasize. Seriously, please use italics, and not so damned many of them.) I intended to warn against doing so accidentally. Maybe I didn't need to. The main difference between what I'm proposing and what you're proposing, I think, is this. You take the essence of "the universe" to be that it refers to all things. I take the essence of it to be that it refers to things by virtue of their existence; that this means all things is obvious, but secondary, because it's not where you get the cash-out value of the concept. (See above for that.) Look, let me put it this way. The concept "man" refers to all men. Does that mean that "man" is fundamentally a concept of quantity? No -- it just means that, because of what it refers to, it *has* to mean all men. All concepts refer to "all" of something, but that's not enough to make their essence quantitative. I think it might help to remind you one way in which I think this concept is related to existence. With existence, you're not dealing with a measurement, but with isolation: you're dealing with a characteristic that all things have, so it's an issue of selective focus. I think it's the same deal here.

Another thought here. I was going to comment before to the effect that there are two different uses of "universe", but for some reason didn't. Well, there are, and I think they're both valid in certain contexts. In physics, the universe is generally considered to be precisely what DAC (I think) said earlier: the total collection of all matter and energy, regardless of its forms. I don't see a problem with physicists using the concept this way, since that's their field of study. But it's important to know which way you're using the concept. If you're using it that way, don't expect your conclusions about the universe to apply to the philosophical conception of the universe. A physicist studies what is true of things by virtue of the fact that they exist as matter or energy. There is no philosophical reason to think that these categories are exhaustive -- and, I think, there are reasons to think they're not. Is my experience of contemplating a great work of art just matter and energy in a particular form? The *experience*? I don't see how. It can be related to it, it can result from it, but it can't *be* it. So again: two categories. The philosophical one is broader and encompasses the other, because "all things" is a hierarchically higher genus than "all things matter and energy". The conclusions of the former can be applied to the latter, but they're going to be few and very general, because they'll essentially be either axiomatic or directly derivative. The conclusions of the latter can't be applied to the former. The reason is *not* that it is a fallacy of composition: by saying that, you grant that the (philosophically conceived) universe is in fact composed as they say it is. I'd like to propose a terminological distinction for the purposes of this conversation. So that we can be clear on what we're talking about at a given time, could we refer to the philosophical conception as "universe" and the scientific conception as "cosmos"? (If there's some reason not to use the latter term, fine, but I think it's appropriate; a lot of what we've been discussing is more properly cosmology than metaphysics.)

Ok, but I still think your emphasis is wrong. You said that the concept universe identifies quantity and only quantity. That's not right, though. Maybe you mean that it *retains* only quantity? It's hard to tell from what you wrote. The concept "universe" identifies *everything* -- all things. The referents are the things. This is important, because I think it explains why you can apply some concepts to the universe and not others. You can apply basic philosopical concepts, because it would be an axiomatic contradiction for there to be anything that violates them. By their nature, they apply to everything -- they are true of something simply by virtue of the fact that it exists. You can't apply scientific concepts (like space, time, boundedness) to the universe as a whole, because the same is not true of them. They apply to things because they have specific characteristics, discovered scientifically. Nothing about the fact that something exists, per se, for example, says that it must have a specific location. (And, in fact, some things don't: mental entities.) The problems that arise from applying these -- the ones we've been discussing -- are a further development, an identification of the problems that arise if you do try to apply them inappropriately. It's very much like the difference between rejecting the notion of God as arbitrary, and then later relating it to a body of evidence to give positive arguments about why the concept leads to contradiction. It's arbitrary in the first place to apply such concepts to the universe as a whole; if you want, you can then go on to show what happens when you do.

This issue is often known as the "explanatory gap". Physicalists have a lot of trouble explaining consciousness. (I think it's impossible for them to do so.) Let's make it a little less abstract than consciousness itself: take concepts. You open a brain. You poke around, you pull things apart, you finally find the precise parts that are activated when one uses a concept. Does that mean you've found the concept? Or: take emotions, another mental entity. You find the exact neural structures that are involved in emotions. You find the ones that are activated when one feels love. You learn everything there is to be learned about them. Now here's the question: do you now know about love? Frank Jackson (I think his name was) wrote a famous thought experiment on a related topic. Take a girl, Mary. Put her, from birth, in a room where everything is black and white. (Make her wear black-and-white clothing, perhaps, or whatever you need to do to make the scenario complete.) Now give her a complete library of knowledge about the world. She learns physics, optics, neuroscience, psychology of perception. She catches on quick and has a lot of time on her hands, so eventually she knows everything there is to know about the physical aspects of perception. One day, you open the door and let Mary outside into the world. She sees colors for the first time. If you hold a physicalist position, that the physical world is *all there is* -- that consciousness is *nothing but* a brain state, perception is *nothing but* a brain activity -- you're in the position of having to claim that she learns *nothing* when she sees colors. But obviously she DOES. Even though she knew every physical aspect of color perception before, she didn't really know what it is to perceive colors. Now she does. (If you're not trying to make a reductivist claim, by the way, the above won't apply to you... it's not a proof that there's something immaterial about color perception, because you could just say that it depends on specific types of changes to the brain -- learning abstractly is different than experiencing. But I think, indirectly, it does show that. If you're not a reductivist, you either have to say that the mind is "the brain seen from the inside" -- in which case, you run into the "seen by WHAT???" problem. Or, you have to say that consciousness is an emergent property, and I've never seen a coherent account of what a physical emergent property would be.)