AMERICONORMAN

One of several things that I am reading at the same time is Aristotle’s Metaphysics. I would like to post something in the near future about the immovable mover. But here’s a poem I dug up that I wrote about seven years ago; I now feel nostalgic about my earlier youth. The idea had caught my attention back then and I had connected it to the idea of love and “the hardest to conquer”. It is not a good poem; it’s okay. But maybe someone will find it sweet or at least amusing. Moving The Mover I Subsuming reality Are ideas with words As symbols, Useful -- potentially -- To make you believe. Mine are on paper After perfection, But slower. Yours are a dialogue In space -- Processed by reason, Stored in memory, And deduced into action, Yet scattered By the objects of your will -- Howling Paraphrases With improper syllogism, But subconscious revelation Without introspection -- Imperatively subtle, Masterfully skilled, Hidden Where most fear to peer into. II And they rarely ask “why?” And find no answers To questions they dare not ask. I accepted the dare, Asked the questions, Peered into my heart of darkness, And inevitably saw the light: Found catch phrases With no starting points, With cloudy implications. I saw ends with no means, And means with out ends. I saw my dreams replaced By your style And your theme, Unanalyzed, No judgment, “All good!” Though I wasn’t mistaken, I couldn’t find answers. And in search of reason I stumbled on fear. And then what would happen: A state of confusion. Hiding behind visions And thinking with dreams. III Fortune in constant persistence, though, After a new theme, Gradual courage, And momentous serenity. When I realized your theme And developed my own. You were constantly testing, Searching for truth, A sense of security; Jumping from whim to whim -- stone to stone -- Hardly getting wet, A masterful skill. I had started my quest And couldn’t engage In the worship of whims; And then came my theme. To understand what I see, And accept what I must, And work for the answers. IV I found what had moved them: An immovable mover, With a multi-faceted integrity In guise; Who moved me to introspect, And display what I found, And portray what could be, To assure what should be. Introversion, as the essence Of this immovable mover, Who indulged in the actions Of pseudo-introverts And many extroverts. In Retrospect I found, That to be made, The “we” must be earned, And the “I” must be found. Free will is the key, Strong will is the force; The guide in pursuit Of the immovable mover; To acknowledge the metaphysical “I” And to love the man-made “we.” An Ironic effect When the immovable mover Peers into his soul To discover he was moved -- As he moves others -- By the honest will of another And all the truth it entails. And so I lusted to move You Immovable mover.

No, I’m not saying that we could prove God’s existence. When you say that god is outside of reality it implies that there is a place other than the reality we perceive. God is not part of reality, at all. What I’m saying is that god falls in the category of concepts that don’t represent some real thing. Therefore, it is useless and even dangerous. That’s all. I think that I implied, mistakenly, that at some point in scientific achievement humans will be in the position to answer god’s existence. I just mentioned the only rational approach that I could think of to try and prove it but it’s impossible because of the nature of the anti-concept. Discovering which planet came before which is different than finding the first cause of everything that exists. But if you’re going to endeavour to find the first cause, you will have to first discover such facts first. Americo.

Winston: Carlos, I’ve decided. I’m not going to leave this city because there is too much here for me—you’re one of the values I want to keep. It would be a sacrifice for me to go to New York right now. Carlos: I won’t say “thank God” because there is no God; I’ll just say I’m glad. Winston: How can you be so sure there isn’t a god? Carlos: For one, there is the emotional aspect. No concept hurts as much too think about than “God.” I’m sure you know what I mean—you must have experienced the vice-like compression of your brain? Winston: I know what you mean but we never argue with emotions. What’s your rational argument? Carlos: “God” like any word we use is an idea. Almost all the words we have refer to something that exists. The word “table” refers to the table in front us, to the one in your home, to the one in mine, to every one that does exist, will exist, and has existed. But “God”: there is no object to represent with that concept. But people use it too much and so it has a common usage. What is meant is a being that is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, ineffable. It is taken to mean: the creator of the universe. God is certainly not human since humans don’t know everything there is to know, and we make mistakes, and we have physical form and we are mortal. We certainly haven’t created the universe. Now what do we mean by “universe”. We mean existence as such; everything that exists. This planet, the milky way, the hundreds of galaxies that surround us, everything that we can’t see and never will see. We can discover the origin of one human by regressing to the parents, their parents, and so on. We have trouble with the first man, the missing link between men and apes. This should be of bigger concern for us than “god”. But to go to origin, or first cause, of everything that currently exists, is impossible. We would have to be able to go back in time. And we would have to determine which galaxy came before the other, which star before the other, which planet before the other. In principle this can be done since they are physical objects, and we can’t only because science has not reached the stage to be able to do so. But “God” means the first cause; we can only come to that by going backwards step-by-step. In order to say that God created the universe as a whole we would have to know everything. But human knowledge does not proceed like that. We know aspects of the universe but not everything. We may know physics but we do not know everything there is about physics. We know philosophy but we do not know everything there is to know about philosophy. We are not omniscient. I know that many philosophers have lamented this fact, but it is part of our glory. Our endeavor will never end; there is always something to learn, and always something relevant to learn. When one starts to look at the nature of our knowledge we begin to see the absurdity of the concept. A concept is an integration of two or more units of perception. God cannot be perceived and so it is an anti-concept. Imagine if I were to tell you that there is a conspiracy of people in this city trying to kill me. How do I know? I just feel it. I see it in the way people look at me, my life is not successful, I was sick 10 times this year—that has to be the answer. Well this would be arbitrary unless I had much more evidence. Since humans have perception, we have ample evidence to know that something exists. Since we have concepts we can begin to discover the causes of things. We can build systems of descriptions, causes, and explanations. We can integrate biology, with psychology, and physics, and engineering, and medicine, and philosophy—but not all at once, only over time. We wonder how the universe began. But how do you know that it began at all? You know it exists. Since it exists now, it existed last week, and a millennia before, and so on. Time is just a concept that men use to advance in life. There is no time without humans to measure motion, and their need to do so. Without humans, existence is just one eternal moment. To say that god created the universe, is to take a giant ARBITRARY leap. The arbitrary is that which is neither true nor false. To take this leap is to reject the nature of human knowledge that brings humans so much happiness. So the answer is that at a certain point one has to consciously define one’s axioms. One has to consciously define rules of thought. One of those issues of human thought is “the arbitrary”. Besides, the onus is on the declarer of the arbitrary to prove his position. Is this a satisfactory explanation, Winston? Winston: Wow. I don’t know... I know that I need a drink, though. ------- Brien, by the way, Rand says that the best proof so far is Aquinas'. Americo

You’re poetry certainly expresses your intelligence. If you want my personal opinion, I’ll give it. I like poetry that rhymes. And though I love many poets like, Kipling, Tennyson, Byron, Shelley, Browning, Schiller, etc., I am bothered by the minority of poems with benevolent themes. These poets and others are geniuses but too many times their theme is desperate. Your poetry gives me the image of someone walking alone through the forest and allowing his mind to just flow. But the poetic process is bigger than that. If it’s any consolation, your poetry reminds me of Nietzsche’s poetry, I think they are called Dithyrambs of Dionysus. I don’t think your poetry was great but you have potential. Keep on writing. I didn’t study the poetry, I just read through them quickly but if a poem doesn’t grab me immediately then I move on: this is the importance of rhyme and rhythm. Your poetry I can’t say is Objectivism: there’s too much disappointment, longing for the impossible, sadness, uncertainty, lack of confidence, i.e., malevolence. Americo.

I classify worldly students into 4 categories: the political social; the philosophical; the artistic; the scientific. For the latter I have little advise except to learn Aristotelian logic and take a look at David Harriman. For the political type I have little advise too. But make it your purpose to understand the nature of individual rights, the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism, and back it up with economics (Von Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, Say, Smith, etc.). For the socially spirit, politics will help you with the boredom of dealing with everyday people. I say this because I’m of a more deeper type and most people have little interest in what I’m really about. For the philosophical, learn logic. Motivate yourself to do this. You can go a long way with just focusing on Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the pre-Socratics and Ayn Rand—at the start. This will give you confidence in understanding what philosophy is as such. It will introduce you to the major problems that have plagued philosophers up ‘til now. You will better understand ethics if you try to reconcile Aristotle and Ayn Rand. Aristotle’s approach to thinking is remarkable and extremely helpful. Look at Nietzsche only as a modern challenge but you can’t really understand him if you don’t familiarize with the problems that philosophers from Descartes to Schopenhauer were dealing with. I wasted a lot of time looking at the moderns first. I’m learning so much more focusing on Aristotle and the Ancients. Now for art. I’ll just list by category. Fiction: Hugo (’93, Torquemada, Hernani, The Man who laughs, Toilers of the sea, Notre Dame de Paris, “Les Mis” [there’s an abridged version that sounds good]); those Rand recommends in Romantic Manifesto; Dramatist: Schiller (Don Carlos), Rostand (Cyrano, Chanticleer, etc.), and those taken up by Peikoff in “Eight Great Plays”. And of course Henrik Ibsen (Enemy of The People and many more). As you delve into the world of Romantic literature, you’ll find many gems. But, the philosophical importance of reading this type of literature, is that it is a lesson in Ethics, or rather morality. The bible does a lot for the Christian ethics. I now feel like a tyrant giving a prescription. But this is what I know based on my experience. I often wish I knew five years ago what I now know. But the experience was fun and I amassed a wonderful book collection. As for Nathaniel Branden, that someone asked about. No matter what people say about him, you won’t know if you don’t see it with your own eyes. An objectivist intellectual that I respect once told me that Branden has become a mystic in his later years. And this is fascinating because when you read Branden, this is hard to see: I would like some day to answer this question—how mystical is he? What a lesson in mysticism that would be! I’ll say that his first book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem is the only Objectivist textbook on psychology that I know of. As for his memoirs, I see it as a novel, I’m too young to know the real facts—but it is certainly dramatic. That’s it. Americo.

It would have to be Roark with close seconds. I love the idea of novel writing because it is the closest a human being can come to being a god. One creates one’s own universe and one’s own heroes and one can see it vividly before one’s eyes. With Roark, Ayn Rand comes closest to giving us intimacy with a god. Galt is only seen through other peoples’ eyes—there is no Galt experience without other people. With Roark, sexually, Ayn Rand achieved more than Hugo did with Quasimodo. I mean that Roark is merely homely and yet extremely “sexy”. I love the part when all it takes is a few mean looks, and a slap in the face with a branch, and he knows his beloved so well, so soon, that he knows he has the right to take her. The experience of the entire novel of Atlas Shrugged is of a military nature. Galt is the commander-in-chief in a crucial battle. It is hard to want him romantically if one keeps the context of the entire novel. And then there is Francisco. He’s better than Cyrano. He is more like myself in spirit, not achievement. My sense of life is his. When I’m confident and happy I delight in being as daring as he. His irony and sense of poetic justice makes me melt. His utter passion for Dagny I can relate with. I love to meet the people of natural ability in my life and with Francisco’s example I realized that so much ability is possible even to me. It’s a matter of psycho-epistemology. And then there’s Prometheus. He’s so innocent, so beautifully souled. I may never have a son but if I did, I see him. He has so much potential and there is so much to teach him. The injustice of his situation is cathartic for our own experience of injustice by the collective. And then there’s Hugh Akston. I would love to be an expert on the Aristotelian Corpus. His endeavor is more closer to mine than all the rest. And then there’s Ragnar “Danish Gold”. A BEAUTIFUL philosopher. A concretization of “mind-body unity” and the “benevolence of the universe” and “eudemonia”. He’s even more fascinating because he’s a military man: how could one bare to see such a beautiful mind and soul risk his life in battle? Psychologically, I find fascinating Wynand and Mallory. Wynand because he brings Nietzsche into better focus, and over the years I have come to find this type quite amusing. Mallory because he represents a dilemma that I certainly have gone through: fear of the “hatred of the good for being the good.” Americo.

About Logic being started earlier. That would be great. And I’m impressed, Nas, by you and your family. I’ve never learned logic yet but I’ve oriented myself with it. I know it’s crucial. But I do have a good psycho-epistemology and people tend to be impressed by my explanations. Americo.

I'm not satisfied with the past experience memory explanation of Deja vu because my few experiences were too exact.... I’m not satisfied with the past experience memory explanation of Déjà vu because my few experiences were too exact. It wasn’t just location but people, dialogue, even my feeling. The explanation that I give myself is that The Déjà vu is certainly not a repetition of a past event: Eternal Recurrence does not operate in the universe. I doubt that it is a subconscious memory of a past experience. I don’t think that one’s dreams can forbode a future event so exact. What I believe is that the actual moment of Déjà vu is a split second repetition of the moment just previously. Certainly the subconscious is involved because it remakes the image of the event. But all that we are left with is the conscious feeling of wonder, curiosity, excitement. The only action I would say to take after a Déjà vu moment is to pay closer attention to that day and that moment and what is coming up. With a Déjà vu experience you are telling yourself something. What the message is, only your conscious mind can discover. Americo.

A person who practices a morality of sacrifice based on a conscious ethical system, is more of an Objectivist than a person who practices Objectivism on faith. Fortunately, Objectivism is not an esoteric philosophy and can be understood with reason and perception. From reading Romantic literature I have come to understand the importance of integrity in ethics or morality. It is dangerous to follow ethical principles if one does not understand them first hand. In today’s culture, it will take work and courage for a boy to understand that stealing is immoral. But if he refrains from stealing out of some categorical imperative, he will gradually sabotage his own mind. A person who does not own his ethical first principles, will have to refrain from many activities, not because they are immoral but because their status is arbitrary in his/her mind. Stealing, smoking, drugs, lying, promiscuity, may be unethical in fact, but if the person doesn’t know they are, then he is not immoral, just ethically ignorant. However, if the person has the opportunity and ability to understand such issues but has not, then he may be evading: evil. However, Objectivism is a philosophy accessible to everyone, and because of reason, easier than any mystical system to understand. One needs the right tool, logic, in order to advance successfully and with thrust. I think kids should be taught logic at twelve. So there is no such thing as be moral “always” without the ethical system being in the mind. It is only with the reference to one’s personal conscious ethics that one can be committed morally—“always”. Then there’s the issue of the contextual nature of knowledge. Americo.

Buy one or two bottles of middle ranged wine: California, Argentina, Chile, France, Italy, South Africa, Australia. Buy various types of cheeses. Buy various types of olives. Buy various types of grapes. Have your favorite poetry, fiction, music, painting, even your favorite philosopher. Have a friend who understands your achievement (optional). Maintain focus of the pleasure of your body. Be sensitive and accept the gradual heightening. Go to sleep. Have a good breakfast. Do some cardiovascular. Continue with your regular life. Or, have a coke if that’s enough. Congratulations, Americo