Eiuol

You are right in the sense that it is better to promote good ideas in general. But Oist ideas are the ideas that Rand wrote about. You can't promote Oist ideas completely divorced from her fiction, because those absolutely part of core understanding. That isn't to say the only correct way to talk about philosophy is to talk about Rand and no one else. What I'm saying is don't bother promoting "the philosophy", that's not what's important. Not everyone has to make a deep dive, and you can understand good ideas without reading a word of Rand. I don't think the analogy works, existentialism is pretty much against systematic philosophy. Still, if you want to understand existentialism, you can't get by with not reading Camus. If you don't want to do it, then you won't understand existentialism. Of course, an existentialist might promote what they think are good ideas, and they can recommend related literature about existentialism that would discuss these good ideas. But if they want to promote existentialism specifically, they have to promote Camus. Or at least, only by reading Camus would you be learning about existentialism (or any of the other existentialist philosophers who called themselves that). It really does sound weird to have an existentialist promoting Camus explicitly and as the only way to understand what is true. (Would an existential even say that truth is objective? Well, you get the idea!) In the same way, I think it's better to think about promoting philosophy in a way that doesn't involve mentioning Rand very much. I will certainly mention where I get my ideas from, but I don't actually mention Rand much. Promoting good ideas involves promoting many kinds of people.

Beginner like starting college studying game design, or getting more involved in that kind of work after being in another field? I'm pretty curious, what you mentioned is something I used to think a lot about when I was very new to Oism.

If by insurrection you mean where everybody involved is working together in a concerted effort in the same plot, then no, it was not. But no one was trying to claim it was a single concerted effort. If you want to get pedantic, then anyone who entered the capital was engaging in insurrectionary activity. But we don't need any kind of apologism, everyone who bothered to break in was doing something treasonous or insurrectionary to some degree. Of course, some people are more liable than others. Just don't fall for the trick where you get something like "it wasn't a giant organized effort led by Trump, so it really wasn't anything more than excited people".

What's the point of that argument anyway? Does it matter how "nice" some trespassers appear? Not really, the intent wasn't to just have a look around and nothing else. Does it matter if he was escorted or not? Not really, that doesn't mean the cop wasn't acting with bad intention (or not using his position of authority to support bad intentions). It's more fascinating that Tucker Carlson has tried to make a thing of it, after having it revealed that he is really all about ratings rather than truth with those publicly revealed text messages.

I don't know man, any Q-liever like yourself doesn't have very much ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

Okay, but I take that as humorous rhetorical flair, a style that I personally enjoy. I say this because in many of his lectures, he says things that are straight up hilarious that nevertheless make the point he's making very clear. Anyway, OPAR I don't think is the best example of analyzing the premoral choice other than presenting that viewpoint. Tara Smith goes on about in a much more in-depth way in Viable Values. Got any examples? I agree with you, but I don't know if any such camp exists in the first place. What or who are you arguing against? You seem to be arguing against something that isn't happening in the first place.

None, emotions themselves are not volitional. It's hard to answer your question because you aren't giving an example. In general, you are responsible for your emotions to the extent that you get yourself into situations where you feel particularly emotions, or to the extent that your rational judgments can lead to feeling different emotions (feeling fear is quite different than feeling sadness). Your thought experiment example is a matter of reflex, not really in emotion. Pain is not an emotion. If you feel social anxiety in a situation like your real life situation that you gave, it would be your own fault for putting yourself into the situation, and it is your own fault if you lack the skills to deal with social anxiety. You can say that your volition was compromised in some situations, similar to how people with addiction really do have their volition compromised. But sometimes it's your own fault for getting into that situation. There are almost always precautions that you can take. I mean, in some way someone with bipolar experiencing a manic episode spending their entire year's salary is not responsible. This is not what they do when they are in a stable state of mind. Perhaps if it is their first episode, they can be absolved to an extent. They didn't know they were bipolar, and bipolar is not something brought on by one's own actions. But there are precautions they can take in the future to prevent that from happening. Anything ranging from minimizing the symptoms of manic episodes with medication, or using hard spending limits for your credit card.

I mean, you made the thread about doubting some claims in Oist metaphysics, except I don't see what claims you are doubting. It seems that you want to say that you agree with idealism on some points in opposition to Oism, but are watering it down to say "well, it's not completely unhinged." When basically all your posts are about idealism, it's hard to see what your point is, especially when your so called disagreements are mostly addressing bad arguments against idealism. When I see bad arguments from Oists, I think it's usually because they don't get what Rand's position actually was. Rand seems to address idealism by saying that the fact cognition is active and perception as well to an extent, doesn't make it harder to "access" reality. In fact, that's what we would expect. Sure, it might look like her claims are nothing more than "your eyes work, therefore idealism is false, you stupid moron". And yes, I think she oversimplifies her hatred of Kant. But the meat of her ideas goes deeper than that, into the nature of perception being unified such that any disjunction in access to reality just isn't coherent.

What do you have to say though about doubting Oist metaphysics? You seemed to present yourself as diverging somehow, but I really don't see it.

I took the point to be that there are some senses which are meta-representational. Memory, for example, is entirely meta-representational. Having senses is enough to say that existence exists, but claiming direct realism is true requires some more reasoning. Rand is absolutely clear when she says that awareness is an active process. Awareness, for her, is largely the act of perception, so when she says awareness is an active process, perception is too. The perceiver is interacting with the perceived. No, the perceiver and the perceived are not the same thing, but as perceptual acts are concerned, the perceived and the perceiver are nothing more than different perspectives on the same perceptual act. The perceptual act only exists because both the perceiver and the perceived are unified, and any separation of the 2 eliminates the perceptual act. In other words, they are part of the same thing in such a way that the thing (the perceptual act) exists because of both of them operating in unison.

1. What do you mean by claim independence? If your point here is that some truths are independent of what somebody claims but are nonetheless dependent on something about their mind, that seems to be exactly what Rand thinks about emotions, and any kind of judgment that involves emotion. 2. Consistent with how Rand thinks knowledge ultimately comes from induction. 3. In what way would Rand disagree? I would not say she said anything explicit about this, but it looks fine. 4. Actually, even the claim about how consciousness is an axiomatic concept affirms how Rand sees introspection and extrospection as a form of sensing. 5. Sounds great, it's only a doubt to the extent that I don't think Rand said anything about this one way or the other. 6. I think that Oist review one perception is that percept and object is unified as far as the act of perception is concerned. That flows from the Aristotelian nature of what Rand says about perception. He was quite explicit about the unification of the perceiver and the object being perceived. 7. Not sure I see the objection. 8. Your doubts seem to be coming from a strawman by now. Yeah, you are trying to preempt an objection, but who would come up with that kind of objection? 9. Seems consistent with the way Rand argued against God. Just because reality coheres in a certain way doesn't mean that it had to come from a creator. I know that's not what you're addressing, but the form of the argument is the same. 10 & 11. These are the only doubts that I think even count as doubts. But it is such a minor doubt, it's more of a semantic disagreement. 12. This is the only substantial doubt you've listed. Most of it is stuff that is entirely consistent with Oism, and the people you're disagreeing with probably are not thoroughly versed in Oist epistemology. Then again, I find that there is some kind split about views on the nature of consciousness within the Oist community. The question "can AI ever become conscious?" shows it just about every time. It's not that the answer to the question itself is what makes a difference, but it's a quick way to get a sense of their underlying views.

Me.

Sure, I'm only getting at what primacy of consciousness means in the most extreme form, in the way that Rand means the idea. That's what Frank was asking about in large part, about a scientist who would say that "science proves that consciousness produces existence." There is nothing about the way she defines primacy of consciousness that has to do with making determinate claims about the operations of consciousness. It might, but it doesn't have to. Apophatic theology is still the notion that consciousness produces existence, but to such a logically consistent level that it will admit that there is a realm of nothing, and that nothing produces something. You are using primacy of consciousness as a synonym for idealism, which is incorrect if you are using terminology in the same way as Rand. It's not just to be mean to Kant, it's especially a critique of God and so much more religious mysticism.

This is fine, as long as you understand that it's an abstraction that only has validity in the way of expressing a logical relationship or the manner in which actual things change. The tree that an acorn might become doesn't exist yet, but you aren't trying to propose or imagine a "nonexistent tree". But the sort of nonexistence that God is, in the way that Aquinas and other Christian thinkers before him thought about God, really does reify 'nothing'. That realm is basically pure consciousness. I don't think it helps much anyway, "primacy of consciousness" is not simply a synonym for "idealism". In some ways idealism does fit primacy of consciousness, in some ways it does not. But I find the clearest way to consider primacy of consciousness is not the way idealism goes wrong, nor scientists suggesting that consciousness produces existence ex nihilio, but negative theology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology As for the stuff about scientific consensus and scientistism, I don't have anything different to add.

A contradiction is a type of statement, which exists, but a contradictory entity itself does not exist, and is not even conceivable. "A tree that is not a tree" does not even exist in your imagination, partly because by referencing anything at all, you are referring to existence. That's why the most intense believers in primacy of consciousness not only believe that there is a God with aspects beyond human comprehension, but that God himself has no form of existence except as pure action. Quite literally, they think that nonexistence is real.

Maybe you didn't intend this but it sounds like a form of substance dualism. Seems like you are saying there is the realm of existence, and the realm of consciousness, and existence came about first. I might be misreading you. But it goes more to the point if you say "existence is all there is". That's not quite what happened. What happened was mostly that to the extent 2046 was pushing you to think harder about what you described as academic technicalities, you were not receptive to engaging him on that level - even though that is your level of engagement on these topics. Not trying to start anything here, just be aware that most of the time, people do engage with you about topics of substance. Sometimes your points aren't clear, which happens with anyone, so yes, people will sometimes miss the purpose of what you say. Kyary I think is right about the way that Oist arguments against primacy of consciousness don't always at the mark. Really, the best way to think about things is that Oism on a metaphysical level says that existence is all that there is, and there is nothing besides. When we talk about anything, we are already talking about the way that it exists, its manner of existing. To say that objects only come into reality as tangible/physically real things because of consciousness would be to say that there is something distinct from existence underlying everything that is. This isn't an answer or argument, but it might help to consider this: can you actually conceive of nonexistence? Whatever you say about consciousness, no matter how new age-y you get, you will have to be talking about existence. But to go full primacy of consciousness would be to say that there is a realm of being besides existence, and that a realm of nonexistence is conceivable or thinkable. Sure we can toy around with different ideas, come up with bizarre thoughts, come up with contradictory ideas, but they all have to do with existence. Really, science would not be able to say if objects could exist independent of consciousness. That relies on an underlying philosophical premise that precedes science in the first place.

He also had a quite a knack for being an asshole towards anyone who dared offend his sensibilities. You seem to remember people disliking his "style" but that style was often a form of poisoning the well. That's what a moderator is for usually, to find ways to minimize that kind of behavior, going as far as to decide when disobeying the rules of civility qualify as toxic. Sometimes it is okay to outright disallow/ban any promotion of different alternative views. Q-anoners would qualify, communists, Nazis, ethnostaters, people like that. Then you go a little less extreme for some things, for example saying that RT is only acceptable to link in certain contexts. Mostly these days discussion goes on in Discord servers, so a ton of effort isn't usually worthwhile for a website like this. There is one stupid thread, the Ukraine one, but the rest is pretty much business as usual.

I'm saying that they aren't offenses that need to be acted upon through post deletion or anything like that, that's the sense tolerance of tolerance I'm talking about. But you can be intolerant in the sense of calling it out, and saying those kinds of claims are bad, or demonstrate how the claims in question aren't valid.

There's a balance to be had what to permit and not permit. My absolute hard limit would be Q-believers and anyone being on the level of an actual admitted fascist, or straight up racists. Those are the people that I think poison the well and you need no further proof that they will be acting in bad faith every time they open their mouth. Then there is throwing out the ban hammer just because someone said something that you thought was a really bad take. Not very productive to do that. It makes sense to have some toleration for those people with bad takes, but you can still inject influence into the discussion and actively encourage better and more rational thinking. Or more benevolent thinking.

This website effectively has no moderator. Or more like, all DW really does is clean up spam. I was a moderator for a while, until DW took that away for no particular reason because I disagreed with him about some topic a while ago. There actually isn't much to do, but being a moderator also means in some way influencing or impacting conversation to push it towards more productive or valuable discussion. You end up with goofy threads like this as some kind of elaborate joke about not moderating. "I'm not moderating? I will show you moderating! Look at me, splitting a thread for no reason. See how dumb this is? Now leave me alone." There isn't much to moderate anyway, there are not very many people here anymore. There isn't much need to direct the conversation. Although, it's not helping things when the moderator doesn't care anyway.

Yes, some people have an inflated sense of their understanding and buy into strange and bizarre ways of thinking. There are people who claim to have discovered the secrets of physics with a brilliant insight, when the reality is they have a rudimentary understanding of physics, are making an elementary mistake, and lack the training to come up with a meaningfully new theory. You can avoid being that person by broadening your knowledge, corroborating your knowledge with others that have been developing theories for a long time, and reflecting on your own thinking process. As far as Oism, these sort of things are actually encouraged. You can even find some corroboration with other thinkers, both ancient and modern. It's not like you're dealing with a philosophy that appeared out of nowhere with all its principles fully formed, like Scientology. For the most part, academics don't say anything about Oism. You will probably find that if you talked about it (and in a reasonable way without being preachy) you'll make sense and the other person will at least find the conversation engaging. I have noticed that if I don't mention where exactly my ideas come from (and that goes with subjects besides philosophy), people will engage with me, not with their conception of the entire theory from a birds eye view. Mostly. Or their judgment comes from seeing how the preachy types act, or those that talk about Oism in a very top-down and deductive way. As if reciting OPAR reflects a genuine understanding. Or they hear something about her personal life that rubs them the wrong way. If it were common sense, it wouldn't be so niche. I don't believe there is a such thing as common sense. Think of it more like Oism affirms the accessibility of reason to all people. You don't need to spend 30 years as a professor in math, or have a specific IQ, or spend years building up a skill to do it at all (like training to become an astronaut and land on Mars). Not only do you have everything you need already, but reason is part of what makes you human. To reach those points inductively, you always begin with the wild complexities of reality. It's not that she began with those points and then reasoned from there. The same goes with anyone who wants to understand Oism. "Existence exists" is the culmination of a lot of thinking. As a logical statement, it's inescapable. But that comes from looking at the world around you in the first place. The world around you where you see so many exceptions and regularities.

Saying "your posts sound like stream of consciousness" isn't psychologizing.

Honestly, Grames and necrovore at least make coherent points even if wrong, points that you can argue with. The psych ward (tad, JL and whyNot) just throw out stream of consciousness thoughts.

...resulting in its dissolution such that there is no Texas or Texan citizens to threaten in the first place. This would support my case even more.

No, it wouldn't be. It would be many things with regards to Texas, but provocation is not one of them. In the hypothetical, presumably Texas in some way or another abandoned its citizens, it isn't Texas that's being provoked. What you would have is a war internal to Mexico, and Mexico's problem. The case of Russia and Ukraine still doesn't fit the comparison, because the Ukraine hasn't been part of Russia in over 30 years. The people in question might be ethnically Russian, but they aren't Russian nationals, and never were part of the Russian Federation - the Russian Federation is not historically continuous with the USSR.