Bold Standard

Actually, the reason I picked those two as an example, is that I've heard people who have "Antisocial Personality Disorder" (which is what they now call the mental illness most serial killers are supposed to have) usually do good in jobs as used car salesmen and politicians, for some reason. You seem quick to make generalizations. You know, mere coorelations don't prove causality. It is true that the absence of a nurturing parent figure in infancy can actually cause physical damage to the brain, which often causes neurological/psychological problems when the child gets older. But still, it doesn't follow from that or a hundred thousand other examples of problems due to emotional abandonment that that is "the worst possible trauma a child can suffer." Are you really suggesting that a "distant" or unatentive mother, who provides for all of her child's material needs yet neglects him emotionally causes more trauma than being molested, raped, beaten, abused, degraded, constantly threatened?... What I'm getting at is, aren't there countless types of "attention" that a parent can give to a child that are worse than emotionally abandoning him? More importantly, don't human beings have free will? Couldn't a kid with a happy childhood choose to become a criminal, even a serial killer, for some some reason of his own when he's older, if that's what he wants to do? Haven't such simplistic strains of determinism as this been refuted time and again in psychology? Why does it keep showing back up?

Axioms can't be proved, but they can (and must) be validated (see chapter one of OPAR for a concise validation). But, of course, proof is not applicable to them, since they are the foundation for proof.

My understanding of AR's theories on art apply mostly to art as a profession (I can look up some of the parts of RM that give me that impression, if you want). Creating "art" for your own pleasure, for your friends, or decorating your apartment, etc. would, I think, fall under a somewhat different category of standards than "art" as an official representation of your metaphysical value judgments to the world. That being said, according to the standards for valuing art that AR lays out in The Romantic Manifesto, open attacks on values and perception, such as her example of the otherwise beautiful woman with a horrible blemish in plain display on her face, would still be immoral for the creator, and properly offensive to anyone who sees it. Would you disagree with that? As to the relationship thing, are you implying that your relationship was miserable because your girlfriend refused to compromise on moral principles? Or are you just saying she was stubborn and inconsiderate in general, and if so, how does this behavior follow from Objectivism? What other code of morality would provide the antidote, and how? To what extent should the two codes be "mixed"? When is it appropriate, in your view, for Objectivism to resume its position as one's primary ethical code, and by what standards does someone choose when to be an Objectivist, and when to rely on antithetical premises?

Oh yeah. He was wrong about that part (See AR's article "The Metaphysical vs. the Manmade" for her correction to this mistake). [Edit: You can find that article in The Virtue of Selfishness.] Right, fundamentally speaking. But the different types of soul result in different manisfestations of causality (which is defined as entities acting according to their nature). But I would argue against using the term "determinism" in this context. It's too much of a misleading word, because it has connotations both of implying "causal" (which human-actions are) and also of implying mechanistic materialism (which is a violation of the axiom of consciousness, therefore invalid as a concept). Using "determinism" instead of either "causal" or "machanistically determined" lends itself too much to the temptation to conflate the two ideas, which leads to disaster.

Hi Steven, I am not a psychologist, and I do not know you personally, but consider the following possible explanation for this event. Suppose, prior to this experience, you had been severely repressing certain emotions. It could be, for some reason, you had acquired a defense mechanism which would not allow you to experience the full spectrum of your natural emotions. But, you describe the onset of your spiritual experience as a "moment of brokenness." Could it be that what had "broken," was in fact, the process of emotional repression? Could it be that the ensuing flood of emotions you experienced was, in fact, your own previously buried emotions, engulfing you with such intensity, and from such long forgotten or hidden areas of your psyche, that you experienced it as though it came from an external source (i.e., God)? Could it be, also, that whatever deeply rooted fears caused you to repress your emotions initially, are to this day forbidding you to claim ownership of the experience, and to acknowledge its origin from within you? Is it possible that your defense mechanism has made a shift from repression to projection, and that this "God" is an entity you have created in order to project your threatening feelings away from yourself, and onto Him? Your description of the spirit descending "upon me and into me from behind, as if superimposed in my mind and body," creates a very violent mental image. Perhaps this "behind" is a metaphor for your past. That's just one explanation that seems at least as plausible to me as the idea that you've been visited by a Heavenly Ghost. Again, I'm not a psychologist, and I wouldn't attempt to make any diagnoses of psychological disorders. But just because you were so dismissive, and almost defensive about the suggestion of seeking professional help, or the possibility that you might have been delusional, I thought I'd look through the DSM-IV myself, to see if I could find anything that sounded similar to what you've described. Consider the following entry from the section on Schizophrenia (starting on page 299), with the bolds being my own addition, and an ellipsis in brackets added wherever I omitted text. (And I'm not trying to make an argument that you have schizophrenia, just that your experiences have at least some similar features to one type of psychosis, and that you really might should consider talking to a professional about it). Of course, even if I were a psychologist, two posts on an internet message board probably couldn't provide enough information to make any kind of diagnosis. But, if it's true you are a person who has studied psychology deeply, I'm sure that you are aware of the seriousness of schizophrenia and similar disorders (Mood Disorder With Psychotic Features, etc), and how important it is to get something like that diagnosed as quickly as possible if you are showing anything even remotely similar to the initial symptoms. Don't think it couldn't happen to you. Imagine if John Nash had only discovered it early on-- how much of his life could have been saved! I find it extremely disturbing that you have sold all of your possessions, lost interest in what you previously valued, subjecting yourself to homelessness and awefull privations. I really hope that you are able to sort this out and come to your senses. I hope this doesn't come across as an ad hominem answer to your "argument," I'm really genuinely conscerned. Best Premises, David

Who has been advocating that a viewpoint is right based on its popularity? And which viewpoint were they refering to? I don't see this discussed in the thread anywhere. Aren't you answering your own question here? As to "who cares," wouldn't it be you, since you're the one who asked it? No one is advocating bestiality here. Are you reading the same thread I am?

LOL. Wow. Care to give.. even the first lead to a shred of evidence for this assertion? Or maybe some definitions for your terms? For instance, what is a "criminal"? Anyone who breaks the law? What if it's a bad law? What is a "happy childhood"? Is one instance of trauma enough to turn a kid into a future mass murderer, or is there a certain ratio of trauma to happiness that a child can endure, and maybe just become a polititian or a used car salesman instead? Is it a certain type of trauma, or will any trauma do the trick, as long as it's "severe" enough?

The argument is that soliciting sex from someone who is too young to be capable of making a rational decision on the matter is a form of rape, or abuse, which is a violation of the child's rights.

I think David was using "predetermination" in a special sense here. There are many usages of "determinism." Human actions are, as everything else, subject to causality. But volition is a specific type of causality which is different from "mechanistic determinism" which is a causality that applies only to that which is subject to the laws of mechanics. In ancient Greece, Democritus originated the idea that everything, including human action, is subject to mechanistic determinism, which is sometimes referred to as "billiard ball metaphysics" because everything would then be more or less a chain reaction caused by atoms bumping into each other. It was refuted by Aristotle, who defined causality in terms of the nature of the entities that act. Aristotle argued that human actions are "teleological," or goal oriented. Volition is a result of man's nature as a rational being. It is a causal process, by which a man focuses or unfocuses his attention on certain facts (that's the primary choice), and selects a course of action to obtain the goal he's set for himself. The difference between human and non-human action is that, while humans act according to "final causation" (teleology), the material world opperates by "efficient causation" (every event is the result of antecedent causes). You could say, in a certain sense, humans act "because of the future" and inanimate nature acts "because of the past." In short, the "proof" for the fact of human action being different from non-human action derives from the fact that only humans are capable of reasoning, and therefore making plans and setting goals. The fact that humans do this, can plainly be observed. And there is no reason to think, as Democritus (and his followers to this day) suggested, that this is merely "an illusion."

This type of law is necessary, though, in order to punish (even if it doesn't disuade) real child predators. Perhaps the laws require some fine tuning, so that the rare (assuming it is possible) case of an apropriate relationship between a legal adult and someone below the age of consent is not unjustly misconstrued. But there has to be some type of law in place to protect those who are too young to consent from those who are trying to exploit them. And I think statuatory rape is a valid concept, which is an initiation of force and should be retaliated against by the law.

And it's worth pointing out the phenomenon that, before child labor laws, it sometimes worked out that an unusually advanced young man or woman of 13 would have already left school, been working, and well on their way to a successfull career, with more life experience than today's average 20 year old. Would such a person as that have been incapable of choosing whoever they wanted as a romantic partner?]

The problem with this is that the cognitive development which occurs between 15 and 20 is (in the vast majority of cases) far more substantial than the development which occurs between 18 and 30. Not even to mention the lack of life experience of a typical 15 year old. I agree, especially considering that, increasingly, it seems that children are becoming more physically mature at younger ages (just from personal observation, though I haven't read any real studies exploring this alleged phenomenon). At any rate, sometimes I have a hard time telling a 13 year old girl from one who is 22, judging by her appearance alone. And I'd say it's uncontroversial to say that merely seeing someone for the first time is enough to stimulate a physical attraction. On the other hand, there are certain types of psychosis (and I don't think they know at this point whether or not these are sometimes biological in origin) which compels adults to seek out children, or young adolesents specifically. Psychologically, it is likely in most cases that they are looking for someone whom they can manipulate and control, adolescents being an easy target. But, as a psychological disposition, this has proven extremely difficult to "cure." Maybe it is something biological which is driving people into this type of moral dementia. I agree there is absolutely nothing innate in turning 16 (or 18, I think, is the legal age of consent in Texas) which makes a person suddenly capable of rational consent. Also, I would think that there is no real guarentee that just because someone is 20, that they are emotionally mature enough to date people their own age. What if they have the mind of a 15 year old? I don't know. I can see, from a legal standpoint, why it is necessary to have some criterea by which to establish that a person is just too young to give consent. But, morally speaking, I couldn't imagine it actually working out to be so simple, in real life, as saying, "You're eighteen. Now you're an adult." Or, "You're thirteen, therefore you are incapable of making decisions for yourself."

I found it. It's being published by George Reisman, edited by Dr. Linda Rearden. Only the first five (out of twenty four) lectures have been published so far, though. They're selling them for 14.95$ per lecture, or all five for 54.75$. At the Ayn Rand Bookstore, you can get the first twelve lectures on CD for 425$, the second twelve for 405$, or all twenty four for 695$. So, looks like the book version is a lot cheaper.

A-ha, I found it. And by mistake, too, while I was looking for something else. : ) It's being published by George Reisman, edited by Dr. Linda Rearden. Although only the first five lectures have been published so far, the 54.75$ price tag for those five is significantly less intimidating than the 425$ CD set, which contains twelve lectures.

Are there actually companies that give away products as expensive at TVs, in exchange for a free trial? With no catch? I want a widget. Where do I sign up?

I thought you guys might be interested to see this thread from the same forum I posted from above, in which Stephen Speicher argues against cosmologies which endorse expanding universe theory. And an old Objectivism Online thread wherein Mr. Speicher criticizes the Big Bang theory.

I think that this is exactly the point MisterSwig was making: try and provide concrete scientific evidence to disprove invisible, alien leprechauns. The problem with doing so is that figments don't leave evidence of their not existing-- evidence is the product of things that do exist. As long as your concept is free of internal contradictions, the positing of its existence in the absence of evidence and the challenging of your opponent to prove that this nonexistent thing doesn't exist is something that can only properly be answered by an appeal to Aristotle's "onus of proof" principle. In fact, the Christians have historically cheated in this game all along. Every time a philosopher points out a glaring contradiction in the concept of God, a theologian comes up with a brand new concept, which in almost no respect resembles the old deity, and which lacks the old contradiction, but just as arbitrary as the old one, and he says the old God was just the result of a mistake in interpretation. But isn't it more likely that the old God was the result of an active imagination, as is the new one? Furthurmore, the concept of God is not necessary. A unique, anomalous universe is just as plausible as an orderly universe designed by a unique, anomalous deity. Don't multiply entities beyond necessity-- that's just shifting the focus away from the issues at hand. Oh, so you're advocating the opposite of what I thought at first. You're saying that the primary difference between the natural world and God is that God is infinite, so that means that the natural world is "in" God, not the other way around. But, then, I don't understand why you reject pantheism. Wouldn't that lead to the same type of pantheism expounded by Spinoza? Do you propose that God has (analogous) sense organs with which to observe things? No, I don't find that odd. Aquinas was so much the opposite of Augustine or Tertulian on so many crucial points that I think an argument could be made that his theism is almost a superficial aspect of his overall philosophy by contrast, and that he was closer to being an Objectivist (therefore an atheist) than he was to being a pre-Thomistic Christian (in terms of essentials). And, on behalf of Western Civilization, "thank God" he was. Few would argue that Aquinas was not the turning point which paved the road for science, the Renaissance, freedom, and atheism (he even explicitly defended atheism, in discussing his notion that "the erring reason binds"). "Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God." -Martin Luther "Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his reason" -Martin Luther "[F]ie on you wherever you be, you damned Jews, who dare to clasp this earnest, glorious, consoling Word of God to your maggoty, mortal, miserly belly, and are not ashamed to display your greed so openly" -Martin Luther Lutherins, belligerent? Lutherins, name-calling? Lutherins, irrational? How inconsistent!

Actually, according to Jame's Valliant's interpretation of Ayn Rand's private diaries (although I haven't yet read his book, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, in which excerpts are published), it was Mr. O'Connor and Mrs. Branden's idea even for Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden to have the affair in the first place. (I wonder if they ever watched)...

So, your God operates as an agent within the natural universe? Is He like Plato's Demigod, who arrived in the Heraclitian disorderly universe, and attempted to bring order to the chaos, except a little more thorough in His work than Plato's was? It seems to me that your God's lack of potency or potentiality would be a limit on His omnipotence. But, since you limit your God's omnipotence to only doing what is in His nature, couldn't you just as easily limit His omniscience to knowing only Himself? I think the standard explanation is that, in knowing Himself, that type of God does know everything, because in him are all the complete, pure Forms of the universe, and the specific behavior of particulars can be deduced from these divine universal concepts, even though He doesn't observe them directly. In fact, as I understand it, that's how Aquinas' angels are able to interact with humans. They don't have sense organs to perceive us-- they actually look at God, and contemplate the relevant universals such as "Manness" and they deduce where they need to be and what they need to say in order to give us messages and so forth. That's one of the ideas that always fascinated me about Aquinas, and his detailed "angelology." If you know anything more about that, maybe we should start a new thread (because I think that idea has some relevance to Ayn Rand's epistemology, and I'd like to understand it better). Well, even though my disagreements with Christianity and religion are severe, I do think they got this much right: there is such a thing as "the sacred." There is a "soul." There is a "highest good possible." It's just, I think in making this Good unreachable, and unfathomable, and introducing concepts such as original sin, and demonic dominion of the material realm, they commit blasphemy against that which is truly noble in their philosophy, which is-- preserving the sanctity of the efficacious individual.

You're scrambling up the analogy a little bit. There is just as much evidence of Irish storytellers making up tales of leprechauns as there is of Hebrews making up stories about God and miracles. The analogy would be: "Leprechauns are to Irish folklore as God is to Christian mythology." Not: "Leprechauns are to Irish folklore as the religious Fathers are to world history." They're not so low at all when you consider every major religion has legions of followers professing to be witness to such miracles. To this day, there are Buddhists in Tibet swearing to have seen Monks levitating, and causing things to explode with their mind-powers and so forth. And, as someone who takes Christianity seriously, do you really think all the nutcases who drink rattlesnake venom and kooky evangelists who perform "healings" in front of huge auditoriums are the embodiment of God's power and presence on Earth? Are they even worth studying, beyond maybe a sociological or psychopathological interest? Someone might come away from a David Blaine show thinking they saw magic, but that doesn't mean a miracle actually occured. For many of the early "prophets" of religion, in the East and West, appearing to have super powers granted from God was part of their profession. And prior to science, the industrial revolution, and the printing press, it was (relatively) easy to dupe people into believing the impossible (even into believing in ghosts and leprechauns).

To elaborate on Proverb's question, I have a couple of points to ask you about regarding your definition of God. What is the distinction between "God" (in your view) and "the natural universe"? Can they be distinguished? Are they one and the same? Is God part of the natural universe, or the natural universe part of God? We know the natural universe exists-- why do we need this separate notion of "God," which seems to unite such disparate concepts? Does God possess a "consciousness"? Is he, as some have alleged, "pure consciousness," contemplating only Himself? Isn't God just an elaborate anthropomorphism, ascribing human consciousness to the natural world?

Lol, then there's the pragmatists who try to keep to the "middle of the road" between the behavior of the status-quo dogmatists and the nihilist/anarchists. That way they don't "limit" themselves to one side of the fence-- they get the benefits and hazards of both. : P

Well, to give the Objectivist answer (based on Peikoff's essay) in a nutshell-- the original poster was incorrect to posit that "Ayn Rand and Objectivism say that all contingent truths are also necessary truths." Objectivism rejects the whole notion of contingent vs necessary truths altogether. The "analytic-synthetic dichotomy" is the ultimate culmination of a long history of epistemological theories. Since it's the most consistent version, Peikoff smashes the necessary/contingent distinction (which was its predecessor) by refuting the analytic-synthetic. But if you want a specific, detailed refutation of the "contingent truth/necessary truth" distinction, Peikoff offers just that in his lecture on Locke in his "Founders of Western Philosophy, From Thales through Hume" lecture series. Specifically, he gives a detailed acount of Locke's version of this distinction, along with a history running through the ages, and in the final lecture on Objectivism at the end of the course, gives the final refutation. It's a really good course, and I was looking earlier today to see who had published it in book form-- I know someone had at a certain point, but it might have been a limited time only type of deal. Anyway, just thought I'd plug that course one more time. In it, Peikoff answers (in the 60s) a lot of the arguments that Ayn Rand and Peikoff were "not aware of," according to popular accusations from certain academics. I wonder how he pulled that one off? And volition is just one type of causality (in the Aristotelian tradition of causality being entities acting according to their natures, not the earlier tradition of mechanistic determinism, which Aristotle provided the answer to).

That's funny. Just to avoid confusion, "subjective" is often taken to mean "created entirely by the subject" or "arbitrary." In that sense, the creation of concepts (in Objectivism) is not subjective. It's a response to what's really "out there," and, historically speaking, this is really where Ayn Rand introduced a brand new meaning for the word "objective." Traditionally, the argument had been on whether concepts were "subjective" in the sense I just defined, or "intrinsic," meaning that particular concepts followed necessarily from the object and couldn't be organized any other way. That's when Ayn Rand introduced her new concept of "objective," meaning that it's a rational response to sensual evidence. That's probably one of the more important "false dichotomies" of Western Philosophy (subjectivism/intrinsicism) that Ayn Rand (and later Piekoff) spent a lot of time refuting (although I don't know if I explained it in the clearest possible way).

Ah, I dunno. Sure, that kind of question from the person one loves might have someone hovering on the brink of destruction, but not someone like Roark. And in this sense, I'd say there are undeniably people who would have made the same decision Roark made. Imagine if Frank O'Connor had asked AR to give up writing. Do you really think she would have considered it for a second? Would George Washington have given up fighting the British if Mrs. Washington threatened to leave him otherwise? For someone whos ambition and ego is their life's calling-- ie, their career, love is always a secondary consideration. Because, for these people, it's obvious that they couldn't have the latter without the former. I don't think anyone has ever risen to greatness without relegating painful alternatives like this into the realm of the mundane. The reason a situation like this results in psychological destruction in weaker type personalities, is that they keep looking for some hidden solution where they can have their cake and eat it too. They might say, "Well, if I give up architecture for now, and marry Dominique, maybe I can convince her to let me do a little architecture now and then," or something, and when it doesn't work out, they're dissapointed. But for people who really think about their life and take it seriously, even though a decision like that would be painful, I think they'd have to do what Roark did-- bear it and move forward regardless. My impression is that Roark really had no choice but to wait; there was no one else he could love the way he loved Dominique-- just as there was no one she could love as she loved him. I don't see any evidence from the novel suggesting that if he did happen to meet someone, he would have abstained from a relationship on account of Dominique. That would be a different story, of course, but I mean based on his character as I understand it. And Ayn Rand said somewhere she liked the idea of fans asking themselves "I wonder what Roark would do" in various situations, because he was a moral ideal, besides being "just" a character in a novel. My take on it is that Roark didn't have to think about Toohey because he already understood him, as much as he needed to. On a certain level, people like Toohey are obvious-- ie there's something wrong with them, that makes them behave in a predictably dispicable way. Why take part in their mental illness? Roark didn't want to spend his time in a chess match with Elsworth Toohey, he wanted to spend it designing architecture. There is another theme that AR was relying on here, that she also quotes frequently: "You can't cheat an honest man." Roark knew that his integrity would be his best defense, against Toohey, or Wynand, or anyone who would oppose him. So he didn't have to understand them to protect himself, he only had to understand himself, and his own goals and values.