[Robert Nozick]

I don't understand why some Objectivists object so much to "libertarians."

I think what Objectivists object to is actually Libertarians, or the Libertarian Party. "Libertarian" with a lower-case "l" is to vague a word to be objected to on any grounds more specific than that it's a word that doesn't really mean much of anything, besides a claim to advocate "liberty," which is left undefined (outside of a context).

There are several threads on why Ayn Rand rejected Libertarianism, which should not be difficult to find in a search. Here are some quotes from her on the topic, from ARI's website.

[How Do I Spell-check?]

Hm, it still doesn't underline misspelled words in red anymore for some reason.

Well, now the red underlines have inexplicably reappeared, too! Now I'm smart, again! : )

[How did the feminists miss this one?]

How did the feminists miss this one all this while? The little stick-figures in the lights at pedestrian crossings are all male!

Well, not for school crossings..

[The Eternal Return]

johnclark sent me a PM asking to please tell everyone that he wanted to reply to this thread, but can't, because he's on some kind of probation. (Dunno, just passing it along). I'm posting this primarily because I don't think it's honorable for me to come off looking like I had the last word, when it's not that the person I was debating was stumped, but blocked from posting (I'm not condemning or condoning the mods' decision, which is not my business). So, that's all.

[How does this garbage make the news?]

Right on the main page of Yahoo, I find this crap amongst the headlines: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061214/od_nm/...ogy_driving1_dc

This came from Reuters. Is it just me, or is it getting more and more acceptable for the media to outright lie, rather than just slant, when it comes to "spirituality"?

My rates better not go up for this. ( ::is an Aquarius:: )

[Three questions for you]

2. Unions

It is expressed that the most undeserving and repulsive members of society are the unproductive citizens who 'leach off' of other people's efforts. How do you regard unionized laborers however, who are clearly productive, though whose economic views you disagree with?

There is an interesting letter that Ayn Rand wrote to a fan in 1964, that might help you better understand Ayn Rand's attitude toward unions.

To Deborah A. Baker, a fan

September 3, 1964

Dear Miss Baker:

You seem to be mistaken in your approach to [the issue of labor unions]. You ask: "Do you feel these employees are making demands that shouldn't be made? Or do you feel they also are the contributing factor to the success of big business in this country—and are deserving of certain privileges from the company they work for?"

Any competent man, who does his job well, contributes to the success of a business—but that is not relevant to the question of unions and it is not an issue of "privileges." It is an issue of individual rights. All men, whether employers or employees, have the right to earn their own living, to pursue their own interests and to deal with one another by means of discussion, persuasion, bargaining and voluntary, uncoerced agreement, to mutual advantage. Employees have the right to form unions, if they do so voluntarily, and to go on strike. An employer has the right to negotiate with them, if he chooses, or to hire other workers. In case of such disagreements, it is the free market that determines who will win and whether the employees' demands were fair or not.

But today, under our labor laws, both employers and employees are forced to act under government coercion.

Employees are forced to join unions, whether they want to or not—and employers are forced to bargain with unions, whether they want to or not. Therefore, today, the whole field of labor-management relations is unfair and unjust, in basic principle, and violates the rights of all those involved.

You ask whether it is proper for you to represent an employees' union. Since you have no choice about the labor situation, it is proper for you to take part in union activities and to do the best you can under the circumstances—that is, be as fair as you can, always remembering the rights of all parties involved. The principle to remember, in this context, is: just as the employees do not work for the sake of the employers, but for the sake of earning their own living, so the employers are not in business for the sake of providing jobs, but for the sake of earning their own living, which means: their profits.

You mention that a representative of Mohawk's management told you that if you agreed with my philosophy, you shouldn't be the "representative of a union arguing the cause of employees." This sounds like the statement of a fool. Apparently, he sees economic relations as a class war in which one must fight either "for businessmen" or "for workers." This is a view which my philosophy rejects and opposes in its entirety. My philosophy upholds the rights of individual men, on any economic level—not the special privileges of any "class" or group.

There are also some interesting letters between Ayn Rand and various political figures regarding unions--she was opposed to both the liberal's and conservative's approaches to unions.

3. Humility

As a materialist, Ayn Rand felt that valuable objects were to be cherished by productive citizens. These may include expensive cars, large houses, jewels, high-tech gadgetry, ect. This view is one that people should be encouraged to enjoy and display their wealth, as it reveals their accomplishments, and the objects are able to convey a sense of love or value. If a man gives his wife a grand piece of expensive jewelery, it is a strong measure of value. What is your opinion of those that prefer to live more humbly though, considering your profound view of expensive commodities.

Ayn Rand wasn't a materialist.

[How Do I Spell-check?]

But: remember to actually select English as your language, in the box that pops up when you right-click.

Oh, that was it--it got set off of English. Thanks! Hm, it still doesn't underline misspelled words in red anymore for some reason. But at least it finds them if I do the right click thing.

[How Do I Spell-check?]

I use Firefox, and I did have spell check--until a couple of weeks ago. It just suddenly stopped working, and I don't know why. The abc icon is still on my tool bar, and I can still right click in the window and click "check spelling," and the spell check program will still come up, but it always says that no misspelled words are found on the page, even if I type pure gibberish. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Personal Trading on the Stock Market]

That's hard to say, since I'm not a rich guy looking for a sound system like that. I tend to be a DIY'er, so I have never relied upon, nor could imagine myself relying upon someone else's expertise.

A couple of years ago I catered a party at a wealthy gentleman's home, and I overheard a discussion between the host and a guest about how much they'd like to have someone come in and do exactly what you're describing--customize an audio system that would work throughout his house and be discrete and out of the way of things (all the wires hidden, etc). I know there is a market for that sort of thing, at least in Houston.

I know there are installation companies that do this sort of stuff, and I've read about them in those fancy magazines that showcase the $2-5M homes, but I think those companies have a prestigious reputation.

Have you thought about going to work for a company like that, that already has a reputation and clientele? Or you could research and find out how they got so prestigious and try and do the same (or different, if you think you can improve on the idea, better yet).

Also, when you say that you build speakers, do you mean that you assemble speakers from kits that you buy, or do you design and build your own speakers from scratch? If the latter, have you thought about selling them online, or to music stores?

[The Eternal Return]

Why Uranium turning into Thorium without a cause is less random that it turning into a pizza without a cause eludes me.

If Uranium turns into Thorium, that means that a change has taken place, and that change must be consistent with the identity of Uranium--It must be in Uranium's nature that it can turn into Thorium. That means that it is causal. It does not mean that the cause is known, or even that it can be known, but to be causless is to be contradictory, which is the impossible thing. It is not in the nature of Uranium to turn into a pizza pie, so an event such as that would be causeless. Only an impossible event could be causeless, because causeless events are impossible by definition.

I would have thought that was obvious, a random event is an event without a cause. If it had a cause you could predict it and it wouldn’t be random.

I still don't understand why you assume that if an event has a cause, one would necessarily be able to predict it. Do you believe that something can exist without being known?

If this is not what you mean by “random” I would certainly like to hear what you mean by the word.

I mean different things in different contexts, but the best definition I can think of for this context is something like, an event in which the cause is not specified or has not been determined. But I think the word has a slightly different meaning in the context of volitional acts, or, let's say, a computer that's been programmed to generate "random" numbers--which could be a process the causes of which are fully understood.

> It would be a non-sequiter to say, if the cause

> is not known, then there is no cause.

I hope you don’t think this is a new argument.

Yours or mine? I think it's as old as Aristotle vs the Presocratics, if I'm following your referent right.

Quantum Mechanics started in 1900 and by 1920 it was largely mature. Ayn Rand was not, she was only 15.

..?

But proving the Bell Inequality is untrue does not prove causality is non local, it proves it is non existent or non local and there is very little difference between the two. This lightning bolt was caused by a butterfly in Nigeria that will flap its wings 5 billion years from now, and the butterfly did that because a Hydrogen atom in the Andromeda galaxy 3 billion years ago jiggled to the left instead of the right, and the atom did that because an electron in the Virgo cluster 6 billion light years away went up instead of down and the electron did that because 19 billion years from now….. You get the idea.

Does the Bell Inequality really show that lightening bolts can be caused by butterflies flapping their wings?

Mr. Harriman says “non-locality poses no threat to causality” and he’s right provided you redefine the word to mean something very different and much stranger than what the man on the street means, or even what philosophers for thousands of years have meant.

But it is not I, he, or Ayn Rand who has redefined causality. We use the definition provided by Aristotle over 2000 years ago. If anyone redefined causality, it was probably the physicists who insisted that local interactions were synonomous with causality. If local interactions have been refuted, that means merely that they were incorrect in equating local interactions with causality, not that causality is refuted.

Also, I think someone has attempted to redefine causality to mean predictability--maybe that's you, or someone who's influenced you, but no men on the street or philosophers who's views on causality I'm familar with use it that way. I can imagine maybe Hegel holding a position like that, since he thought "to be is to be known." But that's just a guess.

It sort of reminds me of atheists who are willing to abandon the idea of God but not the word “God” so they redefine it in such a nebulous way that nobody could say its untrue. It just becomes another of those ideas (like free will) that is so bad it’s not even wrong.

There are some philosophers who have used the word "God" when they really meant "nature." Spinoza did that, although he really was a pantheist, not an atheist. My answer to them is always, "why not just say 'nature,' and not be confusing?" But I think a word like "God" is fundamentally different from "causality" and "free will."

Causality works pretty well at the scale of human being, and that not surprising as that’s the scale our brains were evolved to understand and survive in. But it is not universal, at the scale of the very small or the very large things behave quite differently.

Your talking about Aristotelian causality now? How do you know that it abdicates at small and large scales? Do atoms and stars act contrary to their natures?

And that is precisely the problem; the idea there is a strict dividing line, the idea that a philosopher can be ignorant of science because science can teach philosophy nothing.

I assume you don't mean "the problem" ...with your argument? Philosophy deals with truths that are more fundamental than special sciences. But both are derived from experience.

[The Eternal Return]

> And maybe to do so at unpredictable times.

> This would be a causal change.

No. And there is no “maybe” about it. If it is unpredictable then it is random and if it is random that means there is no cause.

You seem to be equivocating between the metaphysical and epistemological here. It doesn't follow that if something is unpredictable then it is random. Random would be Uranium 238 turning into a pizza pie. As far as I can gather (being a complete layman about physics), the only aspect about U238 turning into thorium-234 that you're even claiming to be random is the time of the event. Even if that were true, how would it follow that one stochastic parameter in the process makes the whole event random and causeless?

Furthermore, it doesn't follow that if something is random then it doesn't have a cause. Maybe it would help if you define exactly what you mean by "random," but the way I use the word, it usually means that the cause is unspecified or unknown. It would be a non-sequiter to say, if the cause is not known, then there is no cause. It is possible for something to exist and not be known. And, if you accept the definition of causality that I use, which is the principle that entities must act in accordance with their identities, then it can be known with certainty that everything must have a cause, if it is an entity and it is acting, because the opposite would be a contradiction. Under my definition, a causeless act would literally mean an entity acting in accordance with its opposite, or an entity behaving in such a way that such an entity does not behave, which is impossible. I don't understand why you equate causality with predictability--you must be using the word differently than I do (and I've done my best to define and explain how I use it, and how I understand it to be used by other Objectivists and Aristotelians).

And by the way, we know with certainty the Bell Inequality is untrue, it’s been measured in the lab, that means the sort of causality people have thought about for thousands of years, local causality, cannot be true.

Here I'm in way over my head, and this is definitely a scientific rather than philosophical issue. But it may or may not interest you that the most famous Objectivist I know of who's also a physicist, David Harriman, agrees with you about the Bell Inequalities demonstrating non-local interactions. Here's an excerpt from an article by him:

The scientific argument for non-local interactions consists of two major elements: the derivation of the Bell inequalities and the results of DDC experiments. [...]

[N]on-locality poses no threat to causality. As a principle of metaphysics, causality states a universal truth graspable by any man in any era, independent of the prevailing state of scientific knowledge. Philosophy says nothing about the nature of the physical stuff that fills the universe (except that it exists and has a nature). Interactions between physical entities may propagate faster than light; on this issue, the law of causality is silent. Furthermore, if an action at location A causes a change at location B, metaphysics alone does not tell us that there was a time delay while something moved from A to B. It is not the function of metaphysics to answer questions such as: when one sits on a teeter-totter, does the other end simultaneously rise?

The axioms of metaphysics serve the purpose of delimiting our thought to the realm of reality. They do not allow us to deduce the nature of reality. To attempt such deduction is to follow the method of Rene Descartes, not that of Ayn Rand.

[:)]

Hello. Welcome to the forum. Any plans on what you want to study in college?

It's true people can only change if they want to. But it's also true that people have to think in order to survive. I was Xian/deist when I was 17, and I'm glad for the encounters I had with atheists at the time. Even though none were Objectivists, and I didn't become an atheist until I discovered and began to understand Objectivism, I did think about the arguments I heard against God--and I do think they helped move me in the rational direction. Not that the same would apply to anyone you know, but it does happen sometimes. : )

[What is Objectivism?]

I agree that one cannot know anything about reality by reading what the Bible says.

Maybe I'm just being way too literal, but isn't knowing what the Bible says in itself learning a fact of reality? The Bible does exist in reality. I disagree that there is no way to distinguish true sentences from false sentences in the Bible (although I grant that they are not explicitly labeled, and that they are sometimes intentionally equivocated). I do it the same way I distinguish true sentences from false sentences in Norse proverbs, the writings of Confucius, or the New York Times--a heavy dose of independent critical thinking, comparing the statements to my own knowledge derived from percieving reality, never taking anything on faith.

[The Eternal Return]

It’s just that I don’t find A=A to be terribly interesting; but the Identity of Indiscernibles, the fact that if you switch two objects and there is no change to the system then they are identical, well, that can lead to far more remarkable things.

When you say that you don't find A=A to be "interesting," does that mean that you don't regard it as controversial? Meaning you can see that it is obviously true? Or does it mean you simply don't understand what consequences its truth or falsehood would have?

As I understand it, the question of identity is essentially, whether there are stable, enduring entities or not. Prior to Aristotle (although the law of non-contradiction was implicit in Socrates), philosophers following the influence of Heraclitus and Parminedes thought that change implied a contradiction. This led Heraclitus and his followers to conclude that existence is riddled with contradictions, that no entities endure, that A=non-A, or to be more acurate, that everything is and is not what it was and was not, and what it will and will not become. If you apply this principle to your thought experiment--well, as soon as "you" step into the "chamber," there is no more "you" and there is no more "chamber." Everything is flux. In an attempt to answer Heraclitus, Parminedes and his followers agreed that change implies a contradiction, and so concluded that there is no such thing as change, and no separate entities but that everything is one. However, this was a very unsatisfying answer, since separate entities can be observed and seen to be changing all the time.

Aristotle's solution was to say that there are enduring entities--A=A, but that A cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same respect. That allowed for change without contradiction--the rule is, contradictions cannot exist, but an entity can become something it's not and it can be different things in different respects.

It's only in this context that Aristotle's view of causality can be understood. And his is much closer to the Objectivist view of causality than the mechanistic determinism advocated (admittedly, hopelessly) by some modern thinkers. Aristotle's view was that the actions an entity can take are determined by the nature of the entity. In Ayn Rand's words, "The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action" (Atlas Shrugged, pg 954). This is the process by which entities can change without ever embracing contradictions--a boy can become a man, because that's his nature, but he can't become a hurricane. An acorn can become a tree, but it can't become an octopus.

I haven't studied physics or chemistry in detail, but to bring up your example, "An atom of Uranium 238 just turned into an atom of thorium-234." It seems plausible to me that there is no way for a man to determine exactly at what time a change such as this will occur in an atom. But I don't see how this is a violation of the law of causality, as I've stated it above. It would seem that, assuming Uranium 238 has been observed to turn into thorium-234, this would mean that it is the nature of Uranium 238 to turn into thorium-234 (and maybe to do so at unpredictable times). This would be a causal change. Show me an example of Uranium 238 turning into a pizza pie, or a ballerina, and I'll question causality! (Actually, I would question my sanity first).

...the Identity of Indiscernibles, the fact that if you switch two objects and there is no change to the system then they are identical, well, that can lead to far more remarkable things.

Thought Experiment:

You step into my matter duplicating chamber. The chamber is symmetrical. You stand 5 feet from the center. I turn on the machine. A person who looks just like you seems to appear 10 feet away. He's staring at you.

Questions:

1)Are you the original or the copy?

2)What experiment did you perform to make that determination?

3)Does that other fellow agree with you?

4) If it turns out you're the copy would there be any reason to be upset?

The Identity of Indiscernibles tells us these are the answers:

1) It doesn’t matter.

2) There is none.

3) Probably not but I don’t care.

4)No.

John K Clark [email protected]

I'm not sure I understand the Identity of Indiscernibles properly.. I can see how it would be legitimate to say, if we cannot distinguish between two entities, then they would be interchangeable as far as we know, but isn't it a little presumptuous to assume that they are completely identitical in reality, even those attributes we have not observed?

[Edit: spelling]

[The Eternal Return]

> And do you grant that there is, at least, a law of identity

> and law of non-contradiction in logic?

Well, I grant that there is The Identity Of Indiscernibles. The philosopher who discovered it was Leibniz about 1690. He said that things that you can measure are what's important, and if there is no way to find a difference between two things then they are identical and switching the position of the objects does not change the physical state of the system.

Leibniz's idea turned out to be very practical, although until the 20th century nobody realized it, before that his idea had no observable consequences because nobody could find two things that were exactly alike. Things changed dramatically when it was discovered that atoms have no scratches on them to tell them apart. By using The Identity Of Indiscernibles you can deduce one of the foundations of modern physics the fact that there must be two classes of particles, bosons like photons and fermions like electrons, and from there you can deduce The Pauli Exclusion Principle, and that is the basis of the periodic table of elements, and that is the basis of chemistry, and that is the basis of life. If The Identity Of Indiscernibles is wrong then this entire chain breaks down and you can throw Science into the trash can.

So, you grant only that there is an Identity of Indiscernibles, but not that there is a Law of Identity? Doesn't the Identity of Indiscernibles depend on the Law of Identity? It would be absurd to claim that A=B unless A=A and B=B, wouldn't it?

[Rational Sex]

Well Im trying to figure out if having sex with a lot of (rational) people is a form of hedonism. Having sex with a lot of partners who you love doesnt seem to go against what Ayn Rands depiction of what sex should be, but it might fit the definition of hedonism because all it really is is seeking short term joy. But what benefits would a long term relationship with someone give you as opposed to many short term relationships?

Hedonism is an ethical philosophy which holds that pleasure (in the short term, from the Greek hedone, as opposed to eudaimonia, which meant long term happiness or well being) is the appropriate standard for morality. Seeking pleasure is not necessarily hedonism. It's only hedonism if pleasure is the standard by which all of one's decisions are made.

I think it would be impossible to show that one could only be motivated to have sex with a lot of rational people as a result of hedonistic premises.

[What is Objectivism?]

One cannot know anything about reality by reading what the Bible says.

I think this might be somewhat of an overstatement as worded. What we call "the Bible" is quite a disparate compilation of documents spanning a considerably vast amount of time. At least, comparing with other sources we have from similar time periods, I think one can learn some real historical information from studying the Bible. And beyond that, like similar documents from other cultures, many of the proverbs and prinicples outlined in the Bible are true of reality (there is some common sense stuff in there). However, if what you meant is that it's impossible to study scriptures and then rationalistically deduce knowledge from it without observing reality, then I'd certainly agree with you. [bTW, interesting attempt at summarizing Objectivism, y_feldblum. A lot of info in those paragraphs.]

[What is Objectivism?]

I was drawn to this forum based on some neat comments about evolution and ID. After reading on, and looking on Wikipedia, as one of the discussions suggested, I truly do not understand what objectivism is. Are all objectivists atheists?

Here is a brief excerpt from a letter Ayn Rand wrote to US congressman Bruce Alger in 1963, which I think sums up her position on atheism nicely (italics in original):

I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion—I am fighting for reason. When faith and reason clash, it is up to the religious people to decide how they choose to reconcile the conflict.

Ayn Rand was primarily an ethical philosopher (qua philosopher), although her philosophy was systematic, and includes material in metaphysics, epistemology, politics, and aesthetics as well.

[Edit: Oops, I edited out something comparing the capitalization of Skepticism vs skepticism, comparing it to Objectivism vs objectivism, that David Odden has now quoted below. I didn't think anyone was watching. : P I'd just wanted to give another example where capitalizing or not capitalizing a philosophical term would make a big difference in the way the term is percieved.]

[Show Your Faces!]

I met a genie once, but I only got one wish. You see, he wasn't interested in trading, so I wished he'd leave me alone and then he disappeared.

Ah, so you released him from thousands of years in bondage trapped in a lamp for free? Generous! : P

[Ayn Rand interview with Donahue]

I see that some of you are suggesting that Ayn Rands personality or the way she speaks was altered by her old age and the fact she just lost her husband. So if you want to compare an older Ayn Rand to a slightly younger Ayn Rand, heres an interview she did in 1961:

http://www.americanwriters.org/archives/player/rand.asp (click on ayn rand interview)

This link should launch the video directly.

[The Eternal Return]

But hey, cheer up, I expect to be kicked of the list again very soon, then you can go back to your comfortable 19’th century world view.

Does that chip on your shoulder make it hard to type? : P

And do you grant that there is, at least, a law of identity and law of non-contradiction in logic? That is: A is A and cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same respect? If not, what laws of logic do you accept?

[Ayn Rand's use of language]

I understand that she did it to prove a point, but still. I don't beleive any of them can be true ( with the exception of "We the Living") the most exaggerated was Anthem - come on! I was laughing when I finished that tiny book!

Are you aware that Ayn Rand was born in Czarist Russia, and lived there/escaped during the reign of Stalin [edit: that is, during the Communist period]? If you ever study what life is like in brutal dictatorships like Russia was at the time, you might be surprised how much like Anthem real life can be (and has been, and is, in some parts of the world). But more than that--Anthem serves a different literary purpose. The society portreyed in Anthem is the type of society that many people today and throughout history actually consider to be the ideal society. If you don't believe me (and are interested), try reading Plato's Republic, or Thomas More's Utopia, or even Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto for that matter. Every social principle and law at work in the society portrayed in Anthem can be found in one of those three books--even down to the thing about the mating rituals! So Ayn Rand's book works to show what such a society would really be like, and what it would mean for the people who actually matter (the heroes in the book).

[The Eternal Return]

Today virtually no working physicist thinks every event must have a cause and when you think about it there is no reason he should, no law of logic demands it.

Um, how about the law of causality? Why is this in this thread? If you don't want to talk about the Eternal Return specifically, why not start your own thread? (Is it futile for me to ask "why" to someone who doesn't believe in cause and effect?)

Well Nietzsche's aim was to replace the Christian metaphor of eternal life versus eternal damnation which caused the individual to consider their actions in the light of eternal consequences with a more secular metaphor.

So do you think I'm accurate in comparing him to Augustine on this point?

Though there are degrees of tragedy, and a self-disgrace that one must endure once is not so horrifying as one faced eternally.

Why should something that makes absolutely no consequential difference to anyone whatsoever be "horrifying"? This makes about as much sense to me as people who are extremely disturbed by the prediction that in some odd million years from now (I'm not sure what the estimated time is) the sun will go supernova and consume the earth. So what? None of us will be here then!

[Is THIS being greedy?]

The you explain how, in so doing, they destroy all that made those very cars, books, and houses possible in the first place and therefore make future such things impossible.

That sounds much more Kantian than Objectivist. It would be a legitimate example against Statism--meaning a good argument against legalizing cheating, stealing, bribery, and other rights violations. Because that really would (and does) destroy productivity and make future products impossible. But it's a worthless argument against one man cheating, stealing, and bribing his way to obtaining possesions. The simplest way that I can think of to answer the question is to explain that man must live on principles, and they must be the right principles, if he wants to be truly successful, and lying, stealing, cheating, etc, are not proper prinicples by which to live. Such a person as this would be dependent always on other actually productive people--why not devote his energy towards being productive? For one thing, all of the things you mentioned are illegal. Why shouldn't he make his money legally, and not have to worry about getting caught?

Luckily, there is still a very good lecture from Leonard Peikoff on "Why Should One Act On Principle?" available at the Ayn Rand Institute's registered users page (for free). In order to give someone who's not familiar with Objectivism a simple and concise argument for some specific subject dealt with by Objectivism, I think it's vital to understand it as well as possible, which means studying a lot more material than you would actually use in the arument. I think that lecture is a good place to start (Dr. Peikoff's arguments against Pragmatism in his History of Western Philosophy lecture course are also very helpful).

[Ayn Rand interview with Donahue]

Think about it. Have you ever made a point, or held a position in a discussion that you knew was unassailable, then someone interjected with a criticism that was either unimportant or of no relevance? What do you do? You don't get mad, you don't become stilted or self-conscious. You laugh. You are able to recognize the insignificance of that person's remarks.

And age has nothing to do with it. Some of the most confident people I've seen have been elderly.

Since there was absolutely nothing humorous in that lady's statement, I can't imagine that a person who responded with laughter would be confident or anything other than psychologically disturbed. I didn't percieve Ayn Rand's reaction as stilted, nervous, on edge, excessively angry, or self-conscious. She dismissed the person, and was courteous enough to provide a reason for why she was dismissing her. Perhaps Ayn Rand recognized a significance in that lady's remarks that you are overlooking, because AR took ideas seriously, and was aware of the disaterous consequences that bad ideas can have?