Eiuol

I think you misunderstand "a priori" here. It isn't referring to inborn knowledge. It is referring to what you can figure out from logic or purely abstractions, without reference to the real world. So any disagreements or revisions are a matter of correcting logic, or coming up with new types of abstractions separate from observations in the world. "A priori" is still spooky, but your arguments don't apply. So I'll give brief comments on John's 6 points. 1. Sense experience can and does provide the basis to know what '2' and '4' mean, even what '+' means. To know addition, you need to know what a single entity is and about what happens when you combine them. The incompleteness theorem doesn't deny that math concepts can and are built from other concepts, it only denies that a system of math can prove itself with its own methods. 2. You are only talking about fallibility here. For Objectivism, knowledge is not about universality, and induction is about gathering information about existents, not forming propositions that apply at all times in all contexts. ALL knowledge for Objectivist epistemology is contextual. 3. Their thought experiments are based on knowledge and facts from experience. The thought experiment doesn't "materialize" from the abyss. 4. This is a standard argument of skepticism, Hume style. The best answer I can give to this briefly is to refer to 2 again. 5. I don't get how simple mechanics are "clearly" intuited a priori. People easily come up with answers to simple mechanics, and maybe intuitively, but why is that necessarily a priori? 6. I wouldn't use the term "a priori" here at all, but I think I agree with the gist of this point.

Not really... "my understanding that the police are allowed to get aggressive when people show resistance like that." Like what? Lifting his arms as a reflex to being touched and getting upset at being arrested? Perhaps it is allowed. It shouldn't be. It's wrong for being over the top. Of course people will resist a little, doesn't mean that people of questionable health need chokeholds to apprehend. Garner was in no way a threat. The only reply I seem to get is "it's legally permissible". Is that reasonable/rational, though? "It sounds like you're trying to deny that garner's size represented a greater threat than your average Joe's." I am.

What's your point? That guy isn't obese, and doesn't look obese. He's big, that''s all. Garner looks obese in many ways. Do you really mean to say it's hard to tell the difference between obese and a big football player? Garner isn't resisting violently or anything, either.

Yes, those things co-occur with obesity. It is easy to eyeball a person as obese, and know it comes with health issues. Do you mean to say distinguishing an obese person from an NFL defensive tackle is difficult?! He wasn't even trying to run away!

Okay, but that makes it sound like officers don't need to evaluate a person's visible health issue. If an officer can't tell that a certain type of force is necessary to apprehend a suspect, then he'd be blameworthy of ignorance and shouldn't be apprehending suspects. Imagine a suspect had to use a walker, then an officer grabbed the walker thinking "perfect, now he can't get away". The suspect says "I'm gonna fall", but no one does anything - they all watch. Then, the suspect falls and hits his head badly. En route to the hospital he dies. Did grabbing the walker directly cause death? No! Would a normal person fall? No! Is the suspect normal? No! I see the Garner case as the same, I see no key difference. At some point, we have to acknowledge officers are EXPECTED to know better, otherwise, force will NOT be used appropriately by some people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus_of_negligence The link is meant to show that negligence matters legally in the US. We can hold people accountable for failing to know basic information that leads to harm/damage. I am not aware that negligence was taken into account here. If existing law allows an officer to make decisions without needing to worry about going too far, then I'm saying the SYSTEM itself is a bigger problem - there is a such thing as "too much force".

I'd go with DonAthos' post regarding arguments about this part for most of what I'd say. I suppose a normal person wouldn't die, but Garner was visibly not normal, as in obese. It'd be like saying "A guy who is in a wheelchair and visibly quadrapalegic was resisting arrest, so I put him in a chokehold for only 13 seconds. He happened to die later from complications of the chokehold." That'd simply be... an unreasonable action, and less likely to end normally than if he was totally able bodied. Even if Garner was only unable to breathe after, that only means the chokehold did something to make that happen, there's a causal relation initiated by the officer. I'm not asking police to be medical experts, but we're talking about someone with visible issues. If it wasn't clear, I sincerely question an officer's ability to think and make sound decisions. Is it really a stretch to say an officer should be able to decide what is necessary force, not only what a normal person is able to handle?

It's not the grammar - I've never heard the word "charged" with a person. My speculation after is looking at what Wilson means, what people mean is never MERELY what they say. If it is typical, just not in my region, then I didn't know. Anyway, as tad corrected me, Wilson himself didn't say it, so it doesn't really matter. "Is that why it took half a dozed grown men to bring him down?" I'm not speculating. I watched the video. He didn't need 6 people to take him down. He wasn't going to get away, he wasn't even running away.

Words like "dash" would make sense. I haven't heard anyone say "he charged me", it just sounds very weird and sketchy when used for something besides a bull or something like an ostrich. Seems to me a euphemism for big black guys running, or at least for Wilson it might be. If it's a normal term for people, I never heard it. "It was reported that one of the reasons he was not given CPR by the police was that he was still breathing while he lay there." The guy REPEATED "I can't breathe". Was he breathing normally? Barely breathing? If it was because he was "barely breathing", then that's plenty actually, and that's why he died - died from a choke indirectly. Why do the chokehold? Garner was obese. Seems like a case of "whoa, big black guy! Scary." He was an obese guy. He wasn't going anywhere...

I think the point is that in both the Ragnar case and the Brown case, what the enforcer knows about them is the same. But somehow, altering the adjectives makes Ragnar justified and Brown unjustified, adjectives known only later. Say mafia, oh, how horrible to be harassed! Say officer, oh, now it's all okay! We can't say this is reasonable when either way, a grave injustice has been committed. Or a reason to investigate at the least - it's not really doubtful that a bad thing happened and Wilson did it. Brown being a shoplifter being rebellious to cops or Ragnar ignoring the mafia is irrelevant as to evaluating the level of moral blame to put on the enforcer. What I'm getting at is that although 2046 is basically an anarchist, that's not what the thread is about. We can ask not only if Wilson followed training, but if existing procedures allow for proper checks on authority.

I haven't listened to his lecture yet. If you wanna talk about it, post in my Nietzsche thread that I made several months ago.

No, that's just a distortion of Nietzsche by postmodernists. He's not all over the map. I'm telling you, the topic here is just like ressentiment.

More like inability to follow his training judging from some of your earlier posts.

They'd have more reason to follow strict protocol and not make error upon error and then "have to" kill in order to survive. I find it questionable that Wilson was performing the job asked to be done. He got himself into a situation that he shouldn't be in. I'm seeing a system failing to evaluate what the job Wilson should be doing, or possibly abuse by Wilson knowing he could eventually kill Brown without worrying that he went too far or did his job properly. I did read up some more, and I'm still not seeing how Wilson wasn't at least truly commiting negligent homicide due to incompetency. The worst thing, looking at Wilson's testimony (which shouldn't be part of a grand jury process) I can't make heads or tails of what "charging" is. Bulls charge, not humans. And anyway, grand juries don't determine guilt.

I never experienced that personally. Rand's criticism of this sort of thing is not new, she seems to be talking about what Nietzsche called ressentiment, a French term used by other philosophers as well. Try this: by Stephen Hicks. I don't think Hicks always gets Nietzsche right, but this is pretty good. So, I think if a person was really indifferent, they'd be repeating a cliche or bromide and don't really mean it - which is bad for different reasons. If they really meant it, then it's resentment of the good. Something rooted in feeling inferior to others, taking personal failure and rationalizing it.

"As if my refusal to inform you somehow gives your arguments some kind of validity." Questions aren't arguments. I asked questions. People have made claims of what happened here with words like "charging", that's all I asked. Then you start totally evading my question and go on about how ignorant I am. Stop arguing about ignorance, which is irrelevant. I want to know facts. "That's despite me making it abundantly clear that I don't plan to help you." What are you trying to accomplish? Leave me alone if you don't want to help.

Yes, I'm suggesting that the fact "no case can be made" is ridiculous. Give reasons this makes sense or is reasonable, don't just say "the jury said so". They aren't supposed to determine that Wilson is innocent! Brown was killed. Wilson did it. How it all went down is not obvious. The facts may prove innocence, maybe, but that's not what a grand jury is supposed to do. Is there literally no reason to think there was probable cause? http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/grand_jury http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/26/3597322/justice-scalia-explains-what-was-wrong-with-the-ferguson-grand-jury/ Nicky, please be helpful for once. I was asking a question. I do not know THIS fact, so I am asking. No, it's not your fault, but you are refusing to inform me despite saying I need to be informed. Makes no sense.

No evidence? A grand jury only needs to say a case could be made, not to determine guilt. There are questions, and someone DIED. If you see it as "no wrongdoing is possible", I have no reason to take your arguments as anything but unreasonable, emotionalist, and baseless. I mean, I'm not sure how to reply to this part, all you did is make an assertion as though if you tried to tell me any facts, I wouldn't get it, so all you can say is I need to inform myself. That doesn't mean I'll agree! You need to make an argument if you care to say anything valuable. I asked what "charging" meant. You quoted my post. You evaded what I asked by replying that if I informed myself, it'd make sense why Brown died. Why did I ask a question? I'm informing myself! Who says I'm holding onto a "false narrative"? I'm asking basic questions, not loaded questions.

What is "charging" here? Is it an officer being stupid with an improper assumption that being an officer gives total authority to enter any situation without regard to a proper set of procedures? That would make "charging" from Brown a matter of police competency, an inability to maintain law, realizing that there's more to enforcement than drawing a weapon. Or is "charging" a reasonable belief that Brown had a weapon, and Wilson was doing his best until that moment? Or was Brown just being aggressive yet not lethal? It really doesn't add up to me that Brown was a threat that had to die. I doubt you'd say all people who are going to punch an officer should DIE. If you go on to claim you KNOW how it went down, all I see is a belief that a cop is NEVER wrong, all without a trial or testimony in court.

Bad info then. My mistake. But I am not arguing against self-defense. I'm arguing that I know of no reason that killing Brown was required. Did Brown have a gun or a knife? As a police officer, was Wilson being responsible, or was he abusing his authority to go beyond what he's trained to do?

Then please explain how he in fact would risk his life to do so.

Yeah, totally, 6 shots in the head is logical... Am I missing something to think incapacitating him is plenty? You made it sound like the only other option besides letting him go is to kill him. Shoot the legs. Threat of eliminated.

There may be meaning of words, but the objective meaning would need intentions. A person can abuse language and etymology, even conventions, which relates to general or reasonable interpretations. Abusing that is ignoring what is true about language as well as any evaluations of the concepts behind the words. But what a PERSON means is all about intention. I'm not talking about what the word fire means, but what the person means or implies by saying fire. Yelling "fire" intends for people to run away, not just to say "a fire is happening". Is the intention to cause deliberate disruption? If yes, does that endanger someone else unknowingly? If yes again, then why is it a right of a property owner to say it's okay to do that?

If a government only provides the system of laws, well, clearly, it doesn't have a means to do anything. It requires money. Then you also add in the need of property for lawmakers to convene, acquiring weapons, etc, so that is past what a government is narrowly supposed to do. You're right, but the point is your answer doesn't resolve the issue of what the -precise- limits of government ought to be.

I know, and I disagree. I think those 4 are not -THE- fundamentals, though they are fundamentals.

"The other part is that maths will underlie and be relevant to some of those subjects you mention." Yes, but you didn't mention the rest as even considerations. Underlying doesn't on its own mean that it must get more attention, only a logical relation. In other words, Peikoff is right about foundational subjects, but it doesn't follow that you need a deep understanding before moving on. In terms of a general school curriculum, it is fine, but you're talking about self-education and your unique interests. "Given my education I tend to think of myself as this young child lacking concretes with which to integrate, especially when considering the next statement by Rand." Don't sell yourself short. You aren't like a child at all. Do you really think your education, both independent and school, has left you stupid? I suspect not. I assure you, you have basic knowledge. You seem to only need to decide what to do next, not start over. I see some dangers of short-sightedness showing, or at least, thoughts to be aware of which a deliberate logical order to learning everything and not straying from that order. ""a real (as in, a platonic form) man"... "real strong"" No, it's more like that a not-real man is a fake, a fraud, so a real man isn't evasive. If it is really a Platonic form the term means, you'd need to look up the equivalent Greek term or the relevant history of the word. To analyze that, you wouldn't just start at what you suggested. ""everything changes...we're always changing... always flowing" (Heraclitus)" This isn't a denial of identity, it only means there is no absolute essence, or that a "river" isn't literally engraved into reality. There are moments in time, but what does that mean? Calculus, cognitive science, photography, film, musicology, etc, are all ways to look at what change refers to. "academic number fixation originating from Pythagorean philosophers " What fixation? Patterns and numbers are cool, but it can just as easily be due to downplaying engineering, or views on beauty, or even the philosopher Frege. Again, angles of study not dependent on a strict order. Build on what you know. "My interests, hobbies are narrow and are not sciences where enormous abstractions are made and principles inducted. My approach so far is all over the place." Contradiction. Being all over the place isn't narrow. Sounds like you just have a lot of interests, so maybe you feel uncertain about what to do next. If by narrow you mean not enormously abstract, that's not a problem. Is there any reason you can't study it all?