WhitneyFisher

I went to five stores, including 2 Barnes & Noble stores before I found this book by Jennifer Burns. I had to ask for assistance from one of the clerks; the inventory check said "in stock" when I looked it up and it was supposed to be located in the Philosophy section of the store--- I had already checked, but the clerk went back with me to double check. When it wasn't there and he ran to find it, he said it was laying in the store room a bit hidden underneath incoming boxes of other new titles; this was a week ago. It had been sitting in the store room for almost a month, "buried under the surface." That was a bit awkward to me, seeing as how prevalent Rand is becoming each day. So I've read "through the book"... First of all, there was absolutely nothing in its context for it to have been placed in the Philosophy section of the bookstore. I honestly would even go so far as to place in it the History section, if not in the New Biography section. Anyway, my excitement to read it diminished rather quickly upon reading the first few pages. While I admire Burns for her intensive research on Ayn, I felt that the context of the book spend more time tending to the political arena in which Ayn lived rather than on the "Goddess of the Market" herself. I understand the importance of the political and social environment of which she lived, but I had hoped to have learned less about history and more about the woman who coined Objectivism. It is a "Randwich" filled with a lot of fluff but not enough Rand. In the last sentence of the introduction, Burns makes a comment about her life being "not a triumph, but a tragedy of sorts"; perhaps this sets my personal tone as to why this book was buried in the back storage room somewhere. It seems to me in direct contradiction to all Rand has taught us; one who uses "Goddess" to describe Rand in the title, while commenting that this goddess lived a life of tragedy, would be the number one objection and a direct contradiction to all of Rand's work. I would rather have read a very well-written book, but as biased as all hell, in absolute objection to Objectivism, than a book resembling a research paper on the history/social conditions during industrialism, and throwing Ayn Rand's name in with a semi-intimate fact about her life every once in a while. This is not to bash Burns on her status as an author, for she writes well; and clearly, she is not living in a fog somewhere, for she took the opportunity to capitalize on a name that screams capitalism-- many of us will have invested in this book. It was impeccable timing in our current political/social climate for one to put Ayn Rand's name on something--- I just don't think this relatively sluggish "biography" would be the way Ayn Rand would want to be written about today. The only way to get to know Rand is to read Rand. Lesson learned.

Thanks. Observe the "Novice" description under my name--- I am still learning how to navigate this site and all that it offers. Excuse me if I'm not up to paar. I will get there.

*** Mod's note: Merged with an earlier topic. - sN *** Production is rumored to be started of an adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" called "The Tourist." Who would you want to see play the characters of Dagny Taggart, John Galt, Hank Rearden, and Francisco D'Anconia? Do you think that it should be big names, or should the roles go to people who are virtually "unknown" actors? Just pondering the topic....

I understand what you are saying--- do you understand what I am? To BELIEVE that something exists beyond and outside of our control. The universe-- infinity. How far can science take us until we can perceive ALL that there is? There is always going to be a neverending quest to PERCEIVE what we currently cannot. It's a wonderful thing to believe in something more, just not yet have the scientific knowledge to take us there, above and BEYOND WHAT WE CAN PERCEIVE. In the case of religion, no--- it is NOT wonderful to believe and base your life upon some unknowable "higher power" and live to die--- MAYBE to see it in the future. I'm talking now, here on earth. It is wonderful for myself to believe that there is something beyond what I can perceive, here on earth, not in the "noumenal" world, and the continual quest for knowledge and discovery is a wonderful thing. Neverending discovery, infinite possibilities, is exciting. If we l,ook at that even deeper, we could even say that believing in something, that something is POSSIBLE yet not discovered, is a pretty strong basis for life as we know it. Having set a goal and moving toward it, believing in nothing else except that it is possible to bring into reality through YOUR creation, YOUR mind, YOUR belief in your MIND, painting a picture when your eyes are closed and making it a reality through nothing more than your vision. It's a belief beyond what you can perceive in physical reality, at the moment--- but that little belief in something is the motor within a person to create reality. Am I babbling? I tend to do this quite frequently--- let me know if I'm not making any sense, seriously. I love learning from others and listening to how preposterous or on point I sound. Exercising the brain among others who actually exercise theirs---- ahhh 'tis I beautiful thing. Thank you, Objectivism Online. The start of everything "Beginning in 1917, Einstein and others applied general relativity to the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. The leading cosmological theory, called the big bang theory, was formulated in 1922 by the Russian mathematician and meteorologist Alexander Friedmann. Friedmann began with Einstein's equations of general relativity and found a solution to those equations in which the universe began in a state of extremely high density and temperature (the so-called big bang) and then expanded in time, thinning out and cooling as it did so. One of the most stunning successes of the big bang theory is the prediction that the universe is approximately 10 billion years old, a result obtained from the rate at which distant galaxies are flying away from each other. This prediction accords with the age of the universe as obtained from very local methods, such as the dating of radioactive rocks on Earth. According to the big bang theory, the universe may keep expanding forever, if its inward gravity is not sufficiently strong to counterbalance the outward motion of galaxies, or it may reach a maximum point of expansion and then start collapsing, growing denser and denser, gradually disrupting galaxies, stars, planets, people, and eventually even individual atoms. Which of these two fates awaits our universe can be determined by measuring the density of matter versus the rate of expansion. Much of modern cosmology, including the construction of giant new telescopes such as the new Keck telescope in Hawaii, has been an attempt to measure these two numbers with better and better accuracy. With the present accuracy of measurement, the numbers suggest that our universe will keep expanding forever, growing colder and colder, thinner and thinner. General relativity may be the biggest leap of the scientific imagination in history. Unlike many previous scientific breakthroughs, such as the principle of natural selection, or the discovery of the physical existence of atoms, general relativity had little foundation upon the theories or experiments of the time. No one except Einstein was thinking of gravity as equivalent to acceleration, as a geometrical phenomenon, as a bending of time and space. Although it is impossible to know, many physicists believe that without Einstein, it could have been another few decades or more before another physicist worked out the concepts and mathematics of general relativity. " ====================== Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/relativity/

My point is the common use of the term-- in reference to something beyond our control, some "higher power"--- sure, many people use it objectively in the case of cause of effect, but it is usually used when someone can't answer an event that has occured, who doesn't stop to ponder, to use their mind efficiently, to explain why things are happening in their life... they simply shrug and say "well, everything happens for a reason." Absolutely, it does... but you were the cause and what happened was the effect... not some unknowable. RationalBiker, you are totally on point as to where I am going with this--- that same person who asks "why did that lightning strike the tree in my backyard?" is the same who will have a spouse or a friend to answer their question: "Well, maybe it's a sign. Everything happens for a reason, ya know." They don't know what reason means. Castle stated it best: "Sure, everything happens for a reason in the sense that cause and effect is valid. People that say that usually don't mean it that way though. "

The common phrase: "Everything happens for a reason" is, indeed, a positive statement; however, its true context is ever-so frequently applied (INCORRECTLY) when speaking about something that is of "non-reason" (non = NEGATIVE)... a faith, a whim, something unknowable. Why is something of "reason" so often correlated with something "non-absolute"? Why can't those who use-- and, ironically, probably coined-- this term NOT notice the essential contradiction between the truth of this statement and the way that they use it?

In what I'm sure is the 2043249th time seeing this phrase--- For the fact, the REALITY, that "EXISTENCE EXISTS." It's there. The next time someone you come across poses the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" the answer should be a rhetorical question: "How can there be nothing rather than something?" Think about the absurdity of the question we were asked. As Homer Simpson would say... "Dohhh! Uh... because I said so" would be the typical response from anyone (scary enough, a LARGEEEEEE ass portion of society as we know it today) who has lived under a rock of non-existent existence for the entirety of their life (insert non-absolute prattle here; ie life "here on earth", etc.) DISCLAIMER: I do not disagree with anyone who has a faith is a higher power, I think it is wonderful to believe in something beyond what we can PERCEIVE, but to live your life in expectation of an intangible faith-- that no one has been able to prove exists-- and nothing more is as good as being 6-feet-under. This could lead to a complete tangent, so I will have to start a new topic so I don't start the tangent here. Believing in something beyond what we can physically perceive in the present moment could be a GOAL, a direction, a PURPOSE of one's existence. A goal, direction, or purpose of one's non-existence, beyond physical reality, is unrealistic, unproven, lazy, and wasteful unless one has accomplished all goals necessary while LIVING (ehh, still questionable as to whether goals just STOP completely or whether one is accomplished and another begins to be sought.) Existence exists, my friends. Aristotle taught us logic, that "A" can not be "Non-A"--- we are here; if we weren't, the question could never have even have existed--- the words in the question could not have existed--- "nothingness" can never replace "something"--- as long as something was created, nothing can NOT exist. If the real question is why are we here, consider how far the human intellect has come--- the technology, the thoughts, ideas--- our history. We started out WITHOUT dialect and vocabulary, and throughout time man has CREATED words, phrases, into LIFE. Words and vocabulary, art translated in language, any DIALECT was created POST-"man"... Men were the cause, language was the effect. We can only go as far back in time as science permits us. The truth EXISTED, it created us, but THEORY can only take us so far back. The reality of what existed prior to us is incapable of answering at the present time; science has yet to advance far enough to be able to retrace far enough back. Theory, baby, theory. Whatever you choose to be yours, make sure it is backed up-- I'm gonna need you to PROVE it to me.

The notion that a man has ideas that he would be willing to die for, if with proper reason and knowledge of his highest standard of value, is not a sacrifice. Rand believes that sacrificing anything to what you do NOT hold consistent in your values is immoral, is evil. A man has to live for his values. If a man who steps in front of a bullet for the person whom he holds as one of his highest, selfish VALUEs, then it is not a self-sacrificial act; if he is protecting his highest value against something that threatens it, as a fight to keep that value alive, then it is not a sacrifice. This is a bit of an extreme example of the difference between sacrifice and achieving life. A man should only exist as a rational being; he should NOT sacrifice any of his values at the expense of someone or something else's. Whatever one holds as their highest value towards achievement should stay consistent, which means; live for it, fight for it, and in its most exagerrated sense, die for it rather than sacrifice oneself to that which he knows to be evil. A life of self-sacrifice is a life of self-torture, the end result being self-destruction-- each being the effect of that which YOU sacrificed towards something irrational. A rational man should never have to sacrifice himself and a rational man should never ask for someone to sacrifice themselves. Notice in life how many personal relationships are based upon compromise; notice the anger and resentment one may feel for giving up something they truly held valuable to themselves for someone else's sake; notice they have sacrificed their values to someone else who did not hold the same values, and this is supposed to create a harmonious balance in a relationship, but creates nothing but an eventual hostility between the two parties. You have sacrificed your MIND to another; watch how the other party allows that initial compromise be the jumping off point to "milking you for what you're worth." Sacrifice is not only the slow self-destruction, but also the destruction of what could have been a perfectly rational relationship had one stuck to their own morality.