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Timbo

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    Swimming, skiing, software, project management/ adminstration on construction projects (how I make my living), how to build things (I'm an engineer), raising three girls (that wasn't exactly how I imagined it would work out), windsurfing, golf, fitness, reading, economics, working in teams.
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    Tim Kent
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  1. Defining your terms is definitely the trick to these types of apparent contradictory questions. An alternate angle to the OP is bioligical. The question offers two basic patterns of transition from a "non-chicken" life form to a "chicken" life form: 1) Non-chicken egg grows to chicken adult. 2) Non-chicken parents breed (or, at least, hatch) a chicken If you base the answer on genetics, the answer is 2. Parents (always) give birth to a child with different DNA via a number of different processes(*). Typically, the differences aren't large enough in a single generation to define a new species, but the root cause of evolution of chickens is: the (child) eggs have different DNA from the parent. The evolutionary cause ISN'T a fully formed child's DNA mutates and it grows up with altered DNA sometime during its life. If mutations happen, they only happen to certain cells, and these cells might grow and take over, but that's called often called cancer... Tim (*) DNA differences between the parent and the child occur from: a) normal reproduction a parent's reproductive DNA getting mutated prior to reproduction; c) DNA not joining quite right during reproduction; d) some sort of post-conception mutation occurring very early in the organisms lifecycle, passing to all cells as the organism grows. In many ways, the pattern is very similar to genetic engineering. The new life form needs its DNA modified at the single cell level so that the mutation appears in all of the life-form's cells.
  2. One point of confusion appears to be you are taking the word "object" above to be a noun, whereas in the context you have introduced these quotes it would be clearer to generalize the word to "objective". I say this because of the sentence: "Falling objects seem to act in a way which is directed towards an object (namely the ground)". Whereas, there would be no confusion about things falling to the ground having an "objective". This may not answer the whole question, but might be enough to clarify some issues. Tim
  3. Bingo. We have a winner. I might try to improve the last sentence with "Under these conditions whatever they do moral judgement does not apply", but, then, I might not :-).
  4. The tree-falling-in-the-forest question usually comes my way in an epistemological context, where the underlying premise of the first round of the discussion is something like "if no one is there to hear it, how do you know that THIS time when the tree falls down it actually generates pressure waves in the air that you would be able to hear? Maybe reality won't be the same this one time, and no one will be there to witness it, so how can you be certain of what will happen? " Once that is dealt with, the discussion either 1) dies as the other person gets stuck in the certaintly-is-impossible corner, or 2) we then move into a the general theme of this thread which is more about the understanding of the concept of sound.
  5. It does cut down the topics to a select few, eh? You know, like cold beer, touques and parkas, snow (all varieties), black flies, back bacon, the fur traps and ice fishing hut. Oh, and curling too, eh.
  6. ...and the Canadians in the group would have immediately thought the reference was related to hockey. Context is everything!
  7. Thanks for pointing out issues on the fractional banking system part of the link. I haven't wrapped my head around the entire issue yet, but there are definitely some strong arguments out there on the topic. Tim
  8. Here's one perspective on the topic, particularly about the history of gold and the banking system. http://blog.paulmckeever.ca/2008/11/05/new...n-rands-ethics/. Tim
  9. At least Don Corleone was explicit about there being strings attached!
  10. "Not collecting stamps is a hobby" resonates with me. Shows the silliness of how *not* being or *not* doing something offers no clues on what you *are* being or doing.
  11. Timbo

    Reality as such.

    I doubt anyones going to bite on this one. We could end up rewriting all of Rands works in this debate. You might want to narrow the scope a tad. Tim
  12. It sounded good, but, after these great comments, I'm definitely in. Me and the kids now have a plan for Sunday! Thanks for taking the time to spread the word. Tim
  13. I agree with KendallJ that Objectivism doesn't say our purpose is to simply survive. It does provide a powerful validation (paraphrasing, hopefully not too badly) that our purpose is to live our own life as fully and completely and wonderfully as our abilities allow us. The basis of this is simply without your own life, there can be no concept of purpose, or goals, or meaning, or a whole lot of anything else for that matter. Dead people don't have a purpose, or goals, or meaning. Life is the primary driver for man, and your life is the primary driver for you. Objectivist ethics holds life as the standard to measure what is good and what is evil, and your own life and that which you value as the moral benefactor of your actions. Why would one want to put "life" as the standard, vs "surviving", or even death? I put a form of this question to Dr John Ridpath and Dr Allan Gotthelf at a lecture in Toronto. After a lot of lively discussion, the fundamental answer was living can be "profound fun", and your purpose is to make your life just that. This is one of the major reasons I embrace Objectivism. It lays out in big bold letters that my life is mine, and the most noble thing I can do is live it to the hilt.
  14. Some other writers are hitting key philosophical points. I'll stick with a basic cross check on a key premise, like the above quote. Many significant undertakings have been funded privately through public corporations and capital markets, notwithstanding governments taking their pound of flesh before, during and after. To name one of many that come to mind, IBM spent about $5 billion making the IBM 360 in the 60's, (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/130429/computer/216063/Operating-systems) which is about roughly a quarter to fifth of what the Apollo program cost. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program, see Program Costs and Cancellation). Four or five IBM's working together to a common cause doesn't seem all that impossible to me, eh? Sadly, with today's government hell-bent on spending everything on anything, your assessment of what private people with private means may become more and accurate. But, that's a critique of another form of government, not an Objectivist one.
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