Eiuol

1) Jonathan admitted to being wrong, not lying, 2) a forum is not a place to go on about your dislike towards a forum member, 3) if it's a genuine issue to resolve by someone, bring it up to a mod. And if there's no reason to talk to a liar, then let it be. Even if he was lying, that doesn't make him wrong about the facts. It's by far more useful to stick to facts than get caught up in emotion.

Depends in what sense you mean that. It's not a philosophy free for all, but it is fair and relevant to discuss your thoughts regarding aesthetics. Although, it is a thin line and other places online are more catered to philosophy in general. Similarly, many philosophers, like Aristotle, can be talked about without being dismissive while applying your thoughts to that philosophizing in terms of existing problems and unique insights.

Welcome vickster. Weird, I was reading an article on black holes earlier today and specifically mentioned Leonard Susskind, who I totally forgot about until today. And speaking of Through The Wormhole, I'm really fascinated by some idea mentioned a few episodes back about perception, reality, and how to grasp all that. Plus something on the holographic principle. I don't want to start out with a tangent, but I want to convey that I have thought about these details in order to write a short science fiction story about it. If anyone is interested, I'll send it to you. I'll leave criticism of what you mention about black holes to those more savvy in cosmology than myself, but I see no philosophically unsound premise mentioned. For one, I don't see why it's a problem that black hole horizons are utterly unique entities. Everything is utterly unique, so I don't know what you mean. Now if you mean the sheer amount of information/energy/anything else is unexplained by mathematical models, you're right that it's a problem to be solved. Possibility 1 is probably unlikely, but you can't start off with saying that what's in a black hole is never coming out. Of course, looking for the "magic" equation can be fruitless if scientists assume what a black hole is - and black holes as a concept almost have no explanation, so it's all uncertain. Possibility 2 I have no special comment, except it sounds more amenable to current lack of knowledge. Now, I don't see what this has to do with deism. I don't even detect a hidden or implied premise that a creator is part of it at any point. Nothing so far suggests a god, let alone a simulation, and certainly not any kind of intelligent design with less power over the universe. You didn't even pull the "it's so complex so of course god did it" argument. So, I'm not seeing a connection. I started to read that link, but it's confusing to me. I think it basically means "where there's smoke, there's fire". That is, if you see smoke, you can in principle know there is a fire, and if you're observant enough, where the fire is, how hot it is, and so on, basically figuring out the state of something earlier in time. In that sense, everything has information, except when (according to some) black holes destroy information preventing you from figuring out the earlier state of something. So, deterministic process; reversible in the sense of thinking if A-> B, then I know A came before B in all cases; and operators as in how all that is manipulated (whether it's quantum gravity as vickster said, or anything else).

When you look at an apple, you are aware of it in a certain *way*. The red color, round-like shape, shine, etc, those are all part of the form in which you are aware of the apple when integrated automatically. The form itself varies depending on sense organs of a particular species of creature, but its a form in which one is aware nonetheless. Percept is not an invention of mine, although what I label it doesn't really matter. I'll stick to "perception" (as the noun) and "process of perception" though for our discussion. As for definitions, they are necessary but not sufficient parts of a concept to which a word refers. Insofar as your perception of X is an integration sensations, it says nothing of the nature an integration of sensations. Sure, it's entirely true therefore that sensation and perception are related, but that alone won't say to you that the integration requires that a person can consciously access the all the components of perception. And breaking down perceptions into sensations doesn't happen anyway, the nature of concepts indicates that any "breakdown" of perceptions is a mental process that's cognitive / conceptual. You actually described an "if and only if" statement, and is what I meant by "something is a perception if and only if it is a an integration of sensations". (Just to add, what you mean by definiendum is what I mean by a referent, i.e. the "thing" which we're talking about).

"What is true of literature and drama's clear intelligibility and communicative nature has never been true of any of the other art forms." The reason I think it's not true is because abstract thought in general that isn't linguistic is often, from my experience, is often explained in metaphorical terms. Now, I'd take your point as right in the sense music and abstract art *cannot* be put into the same terms as literature. Similarly, principles of mathematics are a lot more sensible without using any linguistic type of semantics! So, as long as the discussion is in terms of how you react, music is all subjective. If music makes you think of happy memories, that's really irrelevant, and if that's the only meaning music has, well, it's subjective and against what Rand argued for regarding literature. My point is that a case for music as objective and art as communicating can be made, provided that it goes along with principles much like math. Just because people talk about music in especially subjective *terms* doesn't necessarily mean there isn't objectivity people just don't know how to describe. That's the best I can say now given my limited music theory knowledge. Those quotes are interesting - I'm going to guess the first two are Rand, the last three are someone evaluating abstract art? You didn't say they all were quotes by one person. I rather like the next to last one, I evaluated a piece of artwork in a similar way for a college assignment several years ago. It was for a Japanese woodblock print, so it wasn't even abstract, but it could have been. In general I don't agree entirely with Rand on art. I think she was onto something though, so to speak. As I said before, concretization of abstraction is a fundamental point of art, and I'm not aware of anyone besides Rand who made that point.

"Obvious" is not an argument or reason. That's what's "wrong" here.

Therefore you would argue that there is no such thing as a valid infinite set. Which is fine; that's what Aleph is asking about. I've had ideas though of how an infinite set can be valid, though, but I'm not clear enough on several points. I need to research more before I can state my case. Still, the axiom of infinity applies to sets, and intuitively, it would seem that *of course* sets can't be infinite because they have cardinality. And as far as I've seen, that is why Aleph thinks that infinite sets are metaphorical dragons.

Before I explain my thoughts, I want to say that I don't think Rand explained music well enough to fit it into her aesthetic theory. A lot of what is "abstract" art is equally as sensible as music. I'm not sure if Rand ever addressed cases like surrealism or cubism or any actual evaluation of how to classify what is difficult to think about because of how unique it is. I'm saying that Rand is not making an exception, she just didn't explain well enough, formulating opinions about *certain* artists based on some weak explanations. What Rand thought about certain artists isn't necessarily equal to her aesthetic theory per se. The main idea I get is "concretization of abstractions" which implies intelligibility to the degree the abstractions make any sense. SL says there is an inconsistency, I'm saying there is an extreme lack of explanation by Rand enough so that I think there is seemingly no good account for music at all. Okay, but you still need to explain "meaningless" better. You already said a Mandelbrodt set reminds you of Bach's work. Doesn't that imply that there is meaning exactly to the degree a pattern is being concretized? That is an argument *for* music as meaningful. Paintings are like "nothing else", not any more than a guitar sounds like a person crying. Meaning and intelligibility aren't purely about specifically what you experience daily. There is even re-creation of reality in the sense reality is *re*presented. So if you want to say Objectivism implicitly denies music as art, get more specific about "meaningless". That somewhat goes to you too, Jonathan. Why doesn't music present intelligible subjects? That is, why is it that you think music has no intelligible subject? There's a such thing as implications of what one says, as opposed to what one literally says. Interestingly, the ancient greek word for music describes what you are thinking of. They didn't mean music per se as we think of it, but various types of creativity. Anything related to the Muses was considered music. I don't know if they had a word for art even. Begging the question. For example: Is that intelligible? Yes. Why? Because it's music. Why is it music? Because it's intelligible. Instead of being pedantic and rude, explain what "deep meaning" is. If all you need to note something as music is to be a competent listener, then by what standard are we to deem a listener competent?

I agree with your first part, but I don't think "giving her a chance" comes into play here. The girl is still a child, and given the type of relationship that has existed iffyboats has had with her, I think it implies being in her life until she's an adult. I'd bet Iffyboats probably thought this already, and is probably posting to get some outside thoughts. Mdegges' questions are a good way to think about this.

I think you're misunderstanding. Children, by nature of not being fully formed, aren't much comparable to adults but still have some important considerations to the extent they are at least human. Parents create a moral and legal obligation to a child by implication of having a child. The implication is to raise the child, take care of them, etc. That's where a parent's moral authority comes into play, on account of being responsible for that child. Pretty much, it's exclusively up to the parent how their child may use anything at all. Also, I'm not a parent, nor do I want to be. The responsibility is massive, so I choose not to. So, my perspective is uninfluenced by being or wanting to be a parent. I don't know where Statist society matters here. Legally, a parent has authority over any of a child's possessions and actions. Morally, the authority remains, but there are more specific ways to be moral besides merely being within legality.

Aleph is talking about sets, not series or sequences. An infinite set is different than an infinite series. So, Aleph is asking about how one could reduce an infinite set to reality in order to be a valid concept. You did it in terms of a series, great. Can infinity also be validly applied to sets? Your position seems to be no, meaning you agree with Aleph. I suppose one thing to ask is about the difference between a set and a series. A set is discrete, a series is continuous. When referring to a set (I think) you'd be referring to all the members, while with a series you're not necessarily referring to numbers per se only their progression. I'm still learning about all this, but thinking about these threads interests me.

The question doesn't help anything. Rights don't derive from self-ownership (I don't even think self-ownership makes sense as a concept).The idea is that children don't have anything to be stolen by their parents. So taking away your kid's bike, cigarettes, XBox, gardening tools, books, computer, etc isn't theft even if the kid acquired it via income from a job. A parent does have moral authority over their child, provided that a parent is not abusive or otherwise inflicting permanent *damage* on the child. It's really that simple. As much as it'd be convenient to say children have rights and just have an implicit agreement to do what their parents want if the child wants to stay in the parent's house, that's not how rights work anyway. I'm not sure what the argument is against? My position and Crow's seems to be that sure, you can make analogies with rent/agreements/etc, but that doesn't mean children do have rights in the full sense of the term.

And accordingly, children don't have "full rights" in the sense of having rights in some regards but not in the same way as adults. You are making Crow's point. If you say that this is why children have rights just as adults do, it's a weak analogy: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/wanalogy.html

Percept is a noun. I used it to be clearer when we're talking about memory. Perception could be a process or like a verb. I use percept to mean the form of which you are aware of entities. I could say "a perception" but then that's worse. Substituting definitions for concepts doesn't help either, a concept is not just its definition. I am saying the process of integrating sensations is not something you are aware of, but you're aware of the outcome. "Here, I think that we can agree that she identifies [integration] as [an active process]." No. It says consciousness is an active state which includes integration. That means consciousness requires integration, not that all kinds of integration are active processes. It says nothing about whether there are non-volitional processes of integration. You committed the fallacy of composition again. Just because consciousness is active doesn't mean everything that leads to consciousness is active. Well, not exactly the fallacy, since we're talking about processes here. If consciousness is an active process, and consists of two essentials, then grammar alone suggests that the two essentials are being qualified by "an active process". I almost feel like I am diagramming sentences now...

Something integrated is an integration. So, perception is the integration of sensations. Something is a percept if and only if it is an integration of sensations. By saying separation, I only mean that a process of integrating sensations is distinct from a percept. The process is not something you are aware of. There is the process of perception, and then there is memory of a percept. I have a larger post written up, I'll post it another time.

"Although, chronologically, man’s consciousness develops in three stages: the stage of sensations, the perceptual, the conceptual—epistemologically, the base of all of man’s knowledge is the perceptual stage." That's from PWNI, but I'm sure the equivalent is in ITOE. Plus it's clear she's saying that 1) sensations aren't retained, 2) perception is integration of sensations, so 3) a percept cannot be created after it is already stored. Perception is automatic, so it's no problem that you cannot remember/recall/make use of sensations consciously. Understand that there is a separation between peception and the integration of sensations, Rand is making a notable distinction in terms of stages, not that sensation is continuous all the way up to perception or even conception. Hume, for example, said that there is sensation, and conception.

Contradiction with Regard to [Retain-ment of Sensations] The quote you gave up top, Rand is clear in stating that her position is that sensations are not stored in memory. You could say they are "retained" for a split second, but that's the strongest she is claiming that there is retention. That says nothing about a "group" of sensations because percepts aren't even merely sensations glued together. Sensations are only one stage of a process. For instance, it would be rather strange to say that after you bake bread, the dough is still there. The dough is actually in a completely different form. Perceptions aren't in the same form as sensations, even if you need sensations to make a percept. Contradiction with Regard to [Experience of Sensations] I see this erroneous and rather strange of Rand to say music is experienced as a pure sensation. It's more like an erroneous scientific claim I think. Really it only applies to music nor is Rand claiming even these sensations are retained in memory for developing concepts later. It's an issue for aesthetics to be sure, but you are not focused on aesthetics. Contradiction with Regard to [Memory of Sensations] Key word, integrated. See what I said above regarding bread and dough. "Questioner, try going into a darkened, soundproof room devoid of any aromas, and summoning the experience of blue or seeing blue, not just recollecting what it looked like last time you saw it." I'm not sure what you're pointing out here, DreamWeaver. I cannot summon the experience at all, not the same way. I'm not sure if that's what you meant?

No one has mentioned it, so I want to add looks like Questioner is committing the fallacy of composition. Another way to think of this is that percepts are an integration of sensations, sensations which are not experienced individually and separately, nor can they ever be. You wouldn't be able to split apart everything that makes up hearing a sound, for instance. The human brain automatically puts that together. You could argue that sensations are stored, but are not consciously accessible. But the relevant philosophical point is that a perception is at least a collection of integrated sensations that are used to make sense of the world. (It's not true that infants can only access sensations, I think any science would show that infants really do have percepts. But it's not such a claim I think that has implications for Rand's point, it's more like infants just have a lot less learned processes.)

No one said that Rand said that.

"No, really the onus is on you to show that you have read and understood what Rand said on this. So far it sounds like you have not." What does this do for the discussion? All SL is asking Nicky is his opinion/thoughts/ideas rather than just saying "Rand didn't say that". Don't turn it into a "who *really* understands Objectivism" discussion, because if you ask me, SL is asking for thoughts and criticisms. The whole OP isn't even a criticism of what Objectivism or evaluation of Rand's aesthetic philosophy. Back on topic... I wouldn't say music is arepresentational or literally meaningless. The way I take your idea, you're saying music has no semantic content? Sure, music is "meaningless" to the degree it is not a recreation of a concrete. But that isn't the full extent that meaning applies to! Plot, or use of color, or a statue of a person has a concrete semantics to it. Music, and by implication, mathematics, has abstract semantics to it. To make it clearer, semantics is not the form of what you are perceiving, that would be syntax or structure. Semantics is what information you can get from syntax in order to accomplish some understanding of what's in front of you, abstract or otherwise. The fact that you can't grasp music in the same way you do painting is not a reason to say there is nothing there to be understood. Like math, or any abstract field, the manner of grasping doesn't necessarily need to be put into words. Actually, I'd say all art is that way, it's only incidental that a plot is meaning in a linguistic way. There is still a representation of reality, it's just a representation of patterns; Patterns are not any less representational than a concept like motherhood. Arepresentational means lacking representation *entirely*. I expected to say more, but I'm seeing most of what you're saying follows from your claim that music has literally no meaning. You need to be more specific about "meaning". A lot of abstract art I think should be called art and is representational, just for the record (sometimes "abstract art" is a misused term, though).

Stop right here. This begs the question. You are saying that children have rights independent from their parents in your argument for that very idea. I really don't understand the idea of having property without possession, either. Nicky mentioned it, and its in your argument too. I'm basing my ideas off of how 1) parents in order to take care of kids properly must have full control of all possessions of their child (which is ownership) and 2) children don't have "full rights", hence the distinction of adult and child.

"It follows that it would be legal for a parent to "strip his child of all his clothes, money, & other possessions, kick him out of the house, and send him out into the world with only the hair on his back the moment he turns 18." Doesn't sound right at all." It doesn't follow. Or at least, you put morality and legality into the same statement. Doesn't sound right to me either, but I can't offer you a legal solution other than too bad. Yeah, some parents are terrible people. "It is his property, just like it would be yours or mine. The only difference is that he is not an adult, so, when the property in question is worth millions of dollars, he cannot take possession of that property until he is 18." I don't understand. How can something be property without being a possession? Sounds like a stolen concept to me. The distinction between possession and property is not really incidental because asking about kids in the first place is exactly a borderline case. We can't talk about it like kids have rights in the same sense as adults. Now, it makes sense for a kid to have "their room" or "their TV", but no, basically, I've never heard of this being anything like property that transfers at 18. Being an adult usually is starting from scratch, but hopefully your parents are good people. Possession is a way to distinguish "having" and "the rights to X". The way I see it, you equivocated property rights and possessions. I'm pointing out a distinction that exists so it's easier to talk about this subject. If you want to get really weird about it, just say that kids "rent". I just think it's a bad term to use. You actually made that distinction, so it seems that your disagreement is kids having *the same* rights as adults. See my cigarette example. If a kid works enough to buy a pack of cigarettes, may the parents legally take them away?

Crow can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the point is that children in a moral sense have possessions, but not actual property. It's proper to distinguish between gifts and earned possessions in terms of morality. A parent should teach something about what earning means, so it makes sense for parents to let their kids act as if it were full-fledged property. Of course, if a child went and bought a pack of cigarettes, it would be proper I think to take it away and get rid of it. The distinction to remember is a possession (even dogs have possessions) versus property.

Probably better to point out weaknesses in arguments in terms of if B follows from A. As far as I've seen, rationalistic arguments are dependent upon a few premises, as well as ideas being based on a few. That's on top of the premises which are bound to be weakly founded at some point. A person can be rationalistic but still respond to facts of reality, so it's up to you to decide if discussion will be able to get anywhere. Rationalistic errors aren't always due to evasion, in cases where a person has no particularly well-developed way to reason well.

Two points. 1) I don't think this is any kind of evidence that chimpanzees have metacognition. There are still several possibilities I can think of to explain what happened. Keep in mind that what's happening here is the chimps are asked "What is at that location?" Certainly, that takes a lot of awareness about the surrounding environment, especially since the chimps are using symbols to identify a particular object. Symbol doesn't mean anything more than memorizing two corresponding objects, not necessarily a conceptual relationship. Most animals are good at having a sort of "map" of the area so it's not strange for the chimp to suggest what is in a spot. Presumably, the chimps saw what was hidden, so all they'd have to do is remember "the banana is behind the stump", which wouldn't *require* metacognition of considering the thought itself. Birds do this, squirrels do this, etc. When the chimps are asked what's at a location, but the chimps wouldn't have anything at all to say is behind a stump, meaning they have no information about the location. Metacognition isn't necessarily needed if an animal needs information from a location. Basically, it's just saying that indeed, chimps can forage and can at least identify what they found. Nothing indicates chimps are looking because they are thinking "oh, I don't know what's there, so I'm going to check it out". 2) Non-human animals are mostly not instinctual in the sense of stimulus-response, except perhaps single-celled organisms. As I was saying above, most animals, even insects, are able to develop a sort of "map", that is, they are able to represent/remember/access information about their environment, their location, and how to get to a different location. Bees, to give a good example, don't merely fly around and respond to seeing bright colors of a flower. Before leaving the hive, bees watch and mimic other bees in the hive walking in a figure eight. That pattern represents which direction to fly and how far. Bees aren't going to be able to say particular flowers, but with chimps able to memorize some sign language, it's not a stretch for a chimp to respond with what's at a location, and to look for what's at a location if it has no information. *Some* bee will eventually look for new information if flowers are destroyed, and I doubt anyone would say bees are using metacognition to make that conclusion. Now, you could say "instinct" as in animals won't have a reason for what they do. They just act, and don't even know how to think about *why* they did something. While I do think metacognition is why humans can reason, I don't think investigating an animal's access to environmental location is going to be useful for anything new.