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Your response to Featherfall indicates you think that one or both actions are immoral. If smoking is a moral choice, and adultery is less moral, then adultery is immoral; "less moral" means immoral to some degree. If you mean to say neither is immoral, okay, but why did you yes to Featherfall when he used the phrase "less moral"? If you meant to suggest one has greater moral consequences, that doesn't make sense. Generally, how one treats relationships have more impact than how one treats smoking. So, I don't know what you are trying to say. That's why posters are reacting as though you think adultery is immoral - your response to Featherfall indicates you do.

"The question of IP is not whether a given mp3 is protected property or not -- it absolutely is -- but whether the information encoded by an mp3 (i.e. the "idea" of it) is protected." Okay, then what about an mp3 is validly protected? An mp3 only exists as encoded information, so I don't know what about an mp3 you say is property. I want you to be explicit here. In fact, a lot of justification regarding IP involves how an mp3 is property and only as encoded information. Can you clarify? As for joking that you believe in a world without rights, that's not what I did. I'm saying you don't think that at all, but I wanted to be clear that I think you don't believe that (unlike Thomas earlier on). And no, I don't think you're a Marxist. I think of you as Franz, and Sergei is the communist. Sergei is claiming he owns the piano. So, if you are Franz, how will you respond? I think you're response is that by contract, Franz has the right to dispose of the pianos. I have time next week to write up Sergei's response to you as Franz.

Okay! Sorry about the long delay in response. I've been busy the past week without enough time to write the long post I want to write. First, I want to bring up specific points of yours that my post will revolve around. This is a long post, but the essential question is at the end. I could write more, but I've been writing this for several hours at least. I agree with you certainly that IP, and tangible property are different. Land as property is also different from both. What you wrote I read as: "Because IP and tangible property are different, then they both can't be property. To hold both is a contradiction. In this way, IP is invalid." The issue is that while I agree these subcategories of property differ, they share the same genus, or stated differntly, they share the same parent concept. My claim in the first place is that IP is legitimately a subconcept of property, meaning instances of IP will have their own unique considerations compared to land or tangible goods. At the same time, IP has essential characteristics of property. I don't want to argue by means of definition, but this is clarifying my position and what it's based on. I'm going to use the definition Rand gave for property, the one you provided: the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values. I also include some important but not essential characteristics, which are legally definable, with a reasonable limitation of scope. I will also add that property is a right to what one creates through their labor and thinking. Creation is impossible without both thought and labor - people are not automatons nor are they phantoms. This much I think we agree on, so we don't need to rehash reaching these conclusions. I'm focusing on if property can include intellectual goods (patents, copyrights, etc), as well as tangible goods (computers, cars, furniture), and land (a plot of land for your house, a vacation home in another city, farm land). How these differ is less important than how these are all the same. Difference points out how to subdivide the concept property, but similarity points to whether or not IP belongs to the category property. IP does apply to disposing of material values. Tangible goods as property means that I have a right to dictate how my piano may be used. IP means that I have a right to dictate how people may build or create a specific type of piano. A piano is a material value in both cases; the creation of a piano results in a material value as a consequence of the method used to build it -- that consequence is what I have a right to in terms of IP. While ideas are part of the means to do this, it's not precisely ideas that are being owned. In this context, knowing how to build the piano is no issue or violation. But when the idea integrates with the activity of creation in the external way (act outward instead of inward), that is where there is ownership. Let's say there is a piano builder named Franz in the 1750s. Franz is the best piano maker in the known world, so it's essentially moot for IP to come into play. No one is good enough to make a piano as good as Franz, even with the blueprints. There's something about specific techniques he used he perfected through years of practice. No machines that can build pianos exists. His pianos generally are sold or given to someone else. Once he sold a piano to his friend, Wolfgang. Franz, as creator of the piano, is disposing of his property as he wishes by giving Wolfgang full ownership. Transfer of ownership is possible here since Franz has already created the piano, and Franz's existence has no bearing on the piano still existing. The piano will always be there until it rots. Wolfgang is the new owner, so he is now able to use the piano as his own property (of course, only so long as *that* specific piano exists). The story of Franz is straightforward, and I would think you agree about the use of property here. Franz makes money, Wolfgang has a new piano. IP didn't matter as much back then. Property couldn't exist except in totally 100% tangible ways, as opposed to some non-tangible ways. Mp3s, torrents, ebooks, easy copying of data, software, etc, didn't even exist. Of course, each of those is exactly what IP is about. That is, IP matters a lot more in 2013 than in 1750. Not only can you attain all these things easily, none of them are tangible. So much of the world exists only in IP terms (all the mp3s in the world are not tangible) that if we reject IP, we'll live in a in the digital sphere without ownership, with ownership only in the directly tangible sphere. I'm not arguing based on "aha! You want to live in a world without rights!", I'm only saying that this is a concern to think about. Are property rights invalid concepts for digital (non-tangible) goods? Moving on from a potential tangent... I really don't grasp why it is you're saying Rand ever was saying the IP is *idea* property, especially since in the same essay she talks about how discoveries about the world, which is an idea, is not and cannot be property. As far as I'm aware, she repeatedly talked about how intellectual property must be embodied. The embodiment of ideas is what IP protects, and the italics on idea to me is related to the same paragraph, not the previous paragraph. First she talks about ideas. Then talks about material things. Then she emphasizes idea again to keep up with the relationship with real, material, things. IP protects an idea, and is in some sense idea property, but it's not a bodyless idea that can be owned. In other words, calling it idea property is dropping the context that IP is supposed to apply to only *specific types* of ideas. You take *idea* property to it's logical conclusion, but that's exactly why embodiment is critical here. "To treat property as alone the work of the mind, ignoring the physical labor equally necessary to create that property, is to mistake what wealth is, why it is necessary and a right, and how men come by it in reality." I agree. But, I also add that ignoring the intellectual labor is just as bad. Perhaps you aren't ignoring it, but the indicator of when something is property is only when something is made. So, let's go back to Franz, this time in 1867, and think about what it would be like if we only look at the material aspect. So, everything about Franz is mostly the same. He's still a brilliant piano maker. This time, in 1867, he is capitalist and owns a factory thanks to the industrial revolution. He has quite a lot of money for machines to build his fine pianos with a method he developed. That means he also has laborers to work the machines, and pays them fairly. Wolfgang wants to buy a piano from Franz, so a piano is sent down the production line. Sergei is working there today, using the machines to build the pianos. This machine is not easy to operate, so to some degree, Sergei uses his mind to create. Still, the piano is based on Franz's blueprint. Sergei builds the piano, then Franz tells him that it needs to be sold. Today, Sergei feels indignant, frustrated that this whole time, he owns the pianos he built with his hands. Ever since reading Das Kapital, he's been this way. "Why should Franz own these pianos? He only has some stupid blueprints", he thinks. So, Sergei says to Franz: "No, I won't sell the piano for you. I know I agreed to labor for you, but this piano is mine since I put the work into building it. You are exploiting me, denying me the fruits of my labor!" Perhaps Sergei is too dramatic, but *he* built the piano. All Franz did was draw up some blueprints. How should Franz resolve this? Or is Sergei right that the piano is his own? Franz could say "too bad, you agreed to the job", but Franz is a man of principles - he'd rather demonstrate to Sergei that it is just of him to determine how the pianos may be sold and used even if he never built them.

Okay, but what if the parent thinks you are wrong and claims (as a non-expert) that insulin injections are only a net harm?

I don't understand though how we're reaching the same conclusion when I'm saying the opposite as you as my premise. You're saying here now that coercion can restrain an aggressor. That's kind of my point. The only way to control a person is with force, and using that force is bad because as you said earlier, coercion prevents a person from controlling themselves. This, in turn, stops the person from living life according to means of reason.

I don't understand this point. I'm saying because coercion is ultimately a form of control, it is improper to coerce people into making moral choices. You seem to be saying it's improper because coercion backfires. But, it's not like coercion is only bad when it backfires, no?

Ah, I misread this, and I read it several times even. =X Fair enough, but I wonder if court documents/proceedings only focused on missed doctor appointments. My line of reasoning is based off if it is legitimate to say the mother is fundamentally a negligent parent. If she is not negligent, then I generally agree. But when it comes to a court of law, and when determining what is legitimate, the court should trust a medical expert who has received specific education. In general disagreeing with a doctor is insufficient to prove negligence, though the court must use experts at some point to make its decisions, otherwise you'd have legal experts making decisions medical experts should make. There is certainly a point where ignoring a doctor is negligence. An example may be not giving a kid with diabetes insulin shots on the premise that insulin shots are inferior to a mystical psychic with healing powers, or even the premise that natural is better. In that case, I think legally requiring parents to give the insulin shots is appropriate. Now, is this case an example like that? I am not sure. Expert advice is needed by a court, yet at the same time, of course doctors are fallible, and sometimes parents may be paying better attention to symptoms than a doctor. Hopefully, the court demonstrated, objectively, that this mother was being negligent, so a medical expert is better in the meantime. It is legally appropriate to judge if a parent is negligent. If the court did not make a decision about the mother's parenting, and instead only focused on two missed appointments, then that would not be objective.

We don't know the court proceedings, we only know that making no attempt to schedule a doctor appointment was *one* reason of probably many. No, the antiretrovirals are not the reason - I'm going by what the articles you linked *say*. There is no mention that not giving the kid AZT and antiretrovirals is why the mother was taken to court. "I don’t believe in appointing a doctor to make parenting decisions for someone who is in control of their faculties, like this mother." That's begging the question - the court case is about whether or not she is even able to take care of a kid. We can't assume she was or is until we see court documents, which you and I will probably never see.

No. I mean when it is the case that there is likely negligence to such a degree that a parent is being taken to court, choices must be made with regards to the court of who should make medical decisions. I don't know if taking custody is appropriate, but assigning a doctor is appropriate. I am not saying she is negligent because she didn't do what a doctor said. I am saying her basic responsibilities for having a kid means she is negligent. Because a court has deemed her negligent or her responsibility has been legitimately questioned, a medical expert should be the one to make the medical decisions for now. Nothing in the article said the court thought she was negligent for not giving her kid AZT. AZT wasn't even part of it; AZT is irrelevant to the court proceeding. Please re-read what I quoted, even in the same article, AZT isn't cited as the reason custody was taken or why the mother was taken to court.

AZT isn't the issue, nor was refusal to take AZT the cause to the legal case. From the article: "The case began in January when a court order for Mower County Health and Human Services to take Rico was issued after a petition mentioned Rico’s parents missed two doctor’s appointments. John and Lindsey testified that they thought those appointments were optional, that they sought a second opinion and tried to reschedule those appointments. However, Wellmann’s decision indicated the Nagels never tried to reschedule the appointments and didn’t return doctors’ phone calls. Doctors also testified that Lindsey didn’t take prenatal medications that could have reduced her child’s risk of getting HIV to 2 percent; however, Lindsey said doctors never discussed such medications with her." Basically, negligent parent gets taken to court. This parent is negligent of giving a child some kind of treatment to prevent HIV, and also failure to get proper follow up after birth. Like in a case of child abuse, some intermediary must be used to oversee a case before a trial is over, so it is fair in this context for the state to say "do what doctor X says until this is worked out". Apparently, the doctors think AZT is best. Pretty simple. Keep in mind we don't know how the court proceedings went down.

Why is violating rights wrong then?

This still misses how force *literally* controls a person. If you shove a person, they will fall regardless of what they had planned to do. Indeed they might react after the fact, but shoving would still be force. I suppose some fancy footwork prevents crashing to the ground, which doesn't change the fact that outcomes are being controlled. Furthermore, a chosen act of force is different than an act of nature to the extent that reasoning is based on how the world works, but reasoning under force is based on how the initiator wants the world to work. Going into examples like a gun to your head, physical means are being used to control outcomes regardless of your thoughts and regardless of the state of the world as it is. If you walk away, you'll be killed, no matter what you think or reason about. Although your entire rational faculty has not been disabled, your "sphere of freedom" has been reduced. There are still options. Peikoff gives a good explanation in a very full way about force in one of his "Objectivism Through Induction" lectures. "Moral Rights and Political Freedom" by Tara Smith is excellent as well.

It's a great book, one of my favorites. The message is a lot to do with how money *alone* won't make you happy. It's not a happy book to be sure, but overall it is told from the perspective of Gatsby's friend showing how Gatsby ultimately ruined himself. If you live like Gatsby does, no, nothing good will last.

Considering you saw it on reddit, I think the comment is more like: "Objectivism claims to be secular and for reason, but it's more like a cult/religion and treats reason as a matter of faith". It's not really a claim about knowledge really. Something like Objectivism doesn't validate reason, just takes reason as obvious and therefore more like faith. Except, that's all wrong, and there is a lot of Objectivist literature on what reason is, why it's not automatic, why reason is a method that requires effort as opposed to flowing passively into your mind. As far as I can tell, many people see Objectivism as intrinsicism - intrinsicism *should* be rejected. As an example, people like Kant or Descartes and other rationalists believe in the supremacy of reason, but as intrinsicists ultimately, their form of "reason" is more like faith. That person on reddit probably has a good point, but is misapplying the idea to Objectivism (and if you so choose, you can educate that poster if you think they will listen). Then again, it's possible that it's just a trite phrase used to bash Objectivism like the cool kids are supposed to do, as opposed to an actual philosophical point.

I'd prefer if you stop bringing up Mossoff because 1) I forget his specific claims, and 2) I'm not scrutinizing Mossoff's arguments for IP or even agreeing, I'm using my own ideas/arguments. Also, not even tangible property is owned into perpetuity... So I don't understand your point about the rest. Dead people can't own anything, nor can collectives (leaving out for now corporations where legally it's not so simple nor should it be). Not only that, if your point is that IP and tangible property are not the same, well, that's nothing new. I already said not even land is treated the same as individual objects. IP is property for the reasons I stated earlier, even if you can still demonstrate that IP is not transferable (I can't pull patents out of my mind, Tesla couldn't either) and tangible property is transferable (here, take this television, it is now yours). So, I think Rand's only point is since you can't transfer IP like tangible property, limits need to be set in terms of time. That is, IP lives and dies with its creator.

About the Mercedes. I'm saying that the only way you could reasonably build a Mercedes is with a blueprint that may or may not say you can make and sell these Mercedes. Otherwise, try as you might, you will never create a Mercedes, so there isn't any IP to violate. To me, it's asking that if Martians came to earth with a duplication beam, gave it to you, then you start making copies, would that be an IP violation? It's just implausible. Now, if you acquired blueprints from an employee who scanned blueprints without permission and then you built a Mercedes, that would be an interesting discussion. ""In the case of growing corn, you might have taught yourself how to do this, and somebody else might have done, in parallel, the same. All of the ideas in your head are not property. However, you may choose to make a product, which is some tangible thing (even some bits on a server), and sell that thing (for any price, including no price)"" I think you misunderstood Crow's point. He's saying ideas in your head are not property, period. He's not saying that not all ideas are property. I believe the point is *no ideas* are property. As far as I saw, you're working on the presumption that intellectual property is *idea* property. Now I don't know all of what everyone else said, but I am keeping up with your responses to me, and Crow. There's just a lot of content. So at least stick to this line of reasoning. It's not the "in the head" that matters at all, but rather if your idea has a realizable form. Education usually involves providing information on discoveries, so sale is in the form of service. I think providing an economic good like a service is not a great example, since all you'd be doing by teaching is helping someone make discoveries. You aren't talking about a particular packaged, legally definable, application of an idea. Even tangible property has to be legally definable as an application of an idea, including how to make use of what's before you - also why you can't touch foot on Mars then say you own Mars. You cannot legally or objectively define all of Mars as one's property to the extent no one is able at all to make use of all of Mars. If you can't define a piece of property according to what a person can reasonably establish as property, then there's nothing about it to call property. The sense I get from you is that you say it's not possible at all to reasonably establish legal limits of IP, so there's nothing about it to call property. Arbitrary confines turns IP into a meaningless blob. I agree. At least, if I go on the premise that IP is idea property. But that's not my premise. IP is about a packagable, legally definable, application of an idea. Tangible property is the same, it's just that "legally definable" will vary, just as owning a computer is not treated the same as owning land. If anything, IP is closest to land property because you can expand it infinitely (I own the universe), or constrain it so much that you only own something when you stand on it (this patch of flowers is mine until I move). The only way to really reasonably constrain what one owns is to point to the (primarily mental) effort required to make a portion usable. For me, the difference is that IP is ownership of information space which is limited to what is usable in reality (you couldn't patent a time machine). By an information space, you can think of it like all the data on the Internet, except I'm referring to a very abstract idea where there is a limited amount of information in existence which can be reasonably divided according to what is usable, just like land. All property is to some extent division of reality according to use, so I consider IP and tangible property subsets of that. I'm not bringing up analogies here, I'm saying IP and owning land only differ in the form of space they take up. Information is abstract, sure, but so is land. I don't see the world divided as squares on a chess board. However, to make a claim on anything as property, some real result in reality must go with it.

Would you respond to post #38 and #41? Crow's posts are pretty good to me and address different points. Also, I noticed something worth addressing. But in reality, I really have no idea how you would, by chance, make a Mercedes in your garage. To make a Mercedes requires specific knowledge of specific methods, so there is no realistic possibility that you would ever make one in your garage. Well, there are perhaps a couple ways to "make" a Mercedes. One is to reverse engineer an existing Mercedes, or build a car and claim it is a Mercedes even if it in no way functions as a Mercedes. When reverse engineering, that in itself is probably no violation to the degree you built it and at least *that* takes ability, but I would not say it is legitimate to go out and *sell* it. That is, if you didn't do something like modify it to fly, in which case it'd probably be a really good idea to partner up and *acknowledge* that you needed a real Mercedes to build a flying Mercedes. As for inventing pencil sharpeners, that is unrealistic. That is, it's more like a very minor example, and easy enough to make that I doubt there is much you can do to patent a pencil sharpener. It is so easy to invent a unique one that working out the few cases where a pencil sharpener violates IP is near impossible. Prosecuting every stolen pencil would be near impossible as well, no? Again, I'm mostly curious about any responses to Crow.

I find it interesting to note that studying the mind requires acknowledging that personal experience is a real thing. I think sometimes it's just lost in translation that the mind isn't a thing, but a process (hence Boydstun's use of feature rather than attribute). The stomach digests. The brain "minds". I mean, it's not like digestion is an "illusion" because there is no tangible thing called digestion "out there". You won't find a mind as an individual thing, yet just like digestion, it is measurable in terms of brain activity. Studying the mind is a study of processes, not merely the mechanics of the brain. Studying the circulatory system is a study of processes, not merely mechanics of the heart.

There's always Code Geass, and Full Metal Alchemist is another. Not movies, but anime may as well be a movie. I'd second Paparika, it's a rather peculiar examination of consciousness. Akira is about consciousness as well. And of course, every single Miyazaki movie. Off topic, I know, I should certainly see the one the thread is about. >_>

You said earlier that you are on the fence. You brought up some examples of IP that you think are absurd applications. That's good. Since you're researching it, what about some positive and just applications of IP? Otherwise, you'd just be biased here. It's not inappropriate to look at governments when discussing government, but you wouldn't want to stick to discussing ONLY totalitarian governments. I believe that would be an example of the frozen abstraction fallacy.

I misspoke, this is right. But still, bodyless mind... I'm just saying unless you have a *plausible* reason that there are bodyless minds, I don't see what the use is arguing against it. I don't need to prove that there are not invisible gnomes in my closet. Just because you can come up with some reply doesn't mean it is actually possible any more than imagining unicorns means it's valid to start theorizing about how to raise a healthy unicorn. I know Eccles' reasoning, and I think it's bad science, for various reasons. And Aristotle at least said the human mind couldn't be separated and exist apart from a human body, even though he posited a bodyless mind could exist.

I don't understand. This is control over a person. To prevent the use of something to some extent is control. When reasoning with someone, there is no kind of control because the other person can literally respond in any manner they want. It simply doesn't make sense to say you are controlling a person by persuading/reasoning with them. Control means in this context that there is no choice but to act in one particular way. Skyscrapers are built with control, yes. But materials can't function independently. Other people, though, can. The rest I addressed in my first post.

If force is not control, then what is it? Just walk away if a gun is put to your head, you said it's not control. You are totally free to do so. The person what the gun has failed to control his or her environment with the only possible way - reason.

Read a little more carefully. Boydstun said feature, not attribute, and I suppose there is a reason for that. Further, he said the position is a unification of body and mind, so it's inaccurate to say Boydstun is saying the mind i an attribute in the sense that red is an attribute of an apple. All unification really means here is that mind and body is inseparable, and any experience of one's body *is* a mental experience. It is possible to discuss what someone means by body and mind as unique concepts, but a bodyless mind and a mindless body makes no sense, nor have I ever had a reason to suppose there are bodyless minds. Also, you are talking about eliminative materialism. It seems to me all your arguments come from the idea that Objectivism would suppose "strong" views on materialism are correct. Well, no... they're quite wrong. Do you by chance know what Aristotle said about hylomorphism?

That is not unique to Objectivism as compared to the Objectivist position on ethics, which is unique. Kind of a minor point though, as in principle I don't disagree with much. Still, it's important to distinguish between a pathology, and differences that may be good or bad. For a condition like the flu, it is easy to say that is a pathological condition - there are symptoms which are damaging. In this sense, you're saying anything with damaging consequences that affects the state of health is an illness. So, I get what you're saying. Objectivism in a sense is a form of virtue ethics, and virtue ethics in general is about acting in the "right way" because it is positive to mind and body; some eastern philosophy is like this. Being rational, selfish, all that, is good because it is healthy for the mind and body. The only problem is your use of the word "illness". There is a medical connotation to that, not just a harmful state of being. Perhaps a person is a little overweight compared to what is common. I wouldn't call that an illness, as even some variability in that is fine. Out of shape, maybe, but ill isn't the word I'd use. Illness should be more specific, more severe. The underlying problem simply isn't chosen. Being a little overweight can be chosen without any kind of underlying problem. Sometimes it's even healthy. On the other hand, there may be some condition that has a huge impact on that weight and could cause a loss of health. Also, because the underlying condition is not chosen, it can be cured in a literal way, by eliminating the gene/virus/etc that exacerbated other issues. Bringing in mental illness, there are fluctuations and even odd differences in behaviors. I think it is true that some doctors say anything that deviates from the norm a bit too much is an illness A lot of Asperger's diagnoses may be due to this, when I categorize it as a difference that is interpreted as opposed to some underlying issue that can be cured/excised. Illness would have to go further, where there is a wholly unchosen aspect with severe impact to one's existence. Of course, one could cause a break all alone while healthy... but the resulting break can't be cured by making better choices any more than you can cure a broken bone just make better choices after jumping off the roof of a building. Your point seems to be that epistemology has a stronger impact than ethical beliefs. I agree with that, and it does have a bigger impact on psychological health; "reality isn't REALLY real" is different from "I'm altruistic because it makes me happy". On the other hand, going too far on altruism can result in a break if one tries to separate "self" from happiness over years, but that also boils down to epistemology, regarding what the concept of self means or if a self exists. As I was suggesting before though, making bad choices or using a methodology that results in an illness doesn't mean the choices are a sign of illness or that bad methodology *is* an illness. To be sure, bad methodology can cause a mental illness, I just mean that having a bad methodology is not a sufficient condition. It might not even be necessary. Also, even a person who is very rational and thoughtful can be mentally ill. Schizophrenia for instance is a pretty severe condition, but it doesn't mean the person isn't really rational. What schizophrenia would do is make it that much harder to be rational because of whatever causes delusions or paranoia. It's not really a bad methodology even, it's just the content of their mind and non-chosen mechanisms are making things difficult. Being a zealot could plausibly be an illness, but religios belief as such is not, even if it is bad ultimately.