BucketHead

Please see my response to Groovenstein. Please excuse my indulgence in this thread.....no insult was meant.

We have irreconcilable opinions on this matter and I no longer consider responding to you on this matter as worthwhile...having said that, I haven't written you off as a fool or anything like that, but if the above comment is reflective of your attitude, then I feel as though I've reached a barrier which I haven't a hope of overcoming. I have no problems discussing Objectivist epistemology with people, but I feel worlds apart on these issues{and perhaps I'm wrong}, but I think this is the wrong forum for expressing my views in what I call the truthstakes, it's moreso for examining Objectivism's epistemology. I expect that some might take offense at this, but none is intended.

Being that I consider destructive tendencies, immorality and irrationality to result from child abuse/neglect....then I would want a restructure of society whereby we define a fit parent, and allow those who pass psychiatric tests to have children. I hardly expect that this would ever be accepted as most people consider themselves as owners of children, whereas I consider it a privilege based on parental competency. Btw, from my POV, there is the truthstakes, ie, that which truthseekers can discuss, and that which is practical, given the widespread irrationality....my ideas aren't practical at this juncture, but may or may not be of interest to certain truthseekers.

Ok, I'm wrong about that. I use serial killing as a graphic manifestation of a failure to care for all members of society regardless of age or socio-economic status, however, psychatrist's usually estimate that 3-5% of Western pops are sociopathic.....how do you account for that estimate? I assume that many people who study philosophy/science are from middle-upper middle class backgrounds, that's all I meant. It sounds like you consider that intensity a badge of honour. IMO, there's a turning point{impossible to predict, must be infered}, and once beyond that point, people become sociopaths as medically defined. It was obviously a figure of speech.

Aren't you anti the death penalty? Of course, but that doesn't prevent the abuse in the first place, this is the societal indifference I refer to, in that despite you being a law abiding citizen, you don't advocate any preventative measures and this prevalent mentality guarantees more madman{ as the evidence indicates, I'm not guessing} Ok. My contention is that people's ethics are "largely" a result of treatment, this includes education, IOW, you'd generally expect that the more intelligent and knowledgeable a person is, the more secure any ethical system or code they develop would be.

Fromm's "concept of man" is a scientific construct, Fromm claimed that it's aim was to try and determine human nature as a theorectical construct, rather than be it's premiss, however, if one consistently notices a pattern between abuse and later response, then we can infer in a scientific{but not absolute sense*}, that abuse is the driver{major factor} and that the elimination of abuse will diminish if not eliminate the desire to serial kill or to develop a pyschological profile known as sociopath. We can infer that there is a dynamic productive/destructive aka love/hate in play based on later observations and aided by a concept of man, the alternative would seem to suggest that human nature is just an endless list of activities. *science only needs to be superior to guesswork, and it's twin hallmarks are explanation and prediction, it doesn't have to supply every possible answer, every possible piece of info. This just decribes their mentalities, it offers no explanation for their mentalities. If you have the iron clad evidence that would condemn someone to death, then you have the grounds for permanent incarceration, thus eliminating another unecessary kill.

I would have thought that the basis for sympathy is empathy, ie, relating your suffering to others.....of course if you've had a privileged life{which I suspect most scientists and philosophers have had }, then you need to extrapolate somewhat, but in all seriousness how can people look at Charles Manson's{for ex} yrs of beatings/homosexual rapes and general neglect and not have some sympathy? If the general membership of this forum recognizes that the average person and even the average intellectual suffers from varying degrees of irrationality, then what hope does someone habitually tortured have comparatively speaking, IOW, I'm not ruling out exceptions, but many of the famous killers have histories of abuse, usually disturbing in content and duration....that being the case, it would seem that the abuse coupled with overall neglect including the neglect of intellectual and ethical developement would be a reasonable explanation for why some people kill strangers. I would just like to mention that I value truth and that it's quite likely that I've got some ways to go before I can say that I truly understand Objectivism in totality, but Ayn Rand is a genius by all accounts, her epistemology is superb and I consider Objectivism as the Strongest Philosophy. Anyway chaps, that's all I have time for today and I'm usually busy over the weekend, so I'll respond to all the other posts ASAP but probably late Sunday.

I'm not suggesting that murders get off scott free, I'm merely expressing the reasons why I'm against the death penalty. If you choose to murder then you should be locked up and kept away from society. I'm just curious if people have a theory as to why people serial kill...it's almost as though you guys are saying, " well that's wrong, end of discussion".

Who said anything about not feeling sympathy for the current victim? And what about the fact that most madmen have been horrifically tortured? Exactly what would you say to appease them? Why is it ok for society{but specifically a handful of individuals} to abuse a child for years and then just expect that person to function ethically? What are your thoughts on preventing/mitigating the years of abuse that random children suffer? Have you ever been abused in an horrific fashion? You're demonizing the murderer, pretending that every other aspect of his life would be negative/immoral.....on what basis do you make this assessment? Based on my reading of ITOE and various other Objectivist material, I fully support Objectivists epistemology to the extent that I understand it. I accept man has free will, but what is YOUR explanation for those who serial kill?

I'm going to guess that "most" people have some form of sympathy or understanding when a domestic homicide occurs, not that the actions should be dismissed, but that the killer may have led an otherwise productive or non-violent life, so my focus is mainly on why people want to kill the savages, ie, Ted Bundy and co. IMO, these people are creations of society, IOW, between poor parenting and societal indifference, some members of society suffer years of varying forms of abuse*,.. this enrages them and leads to overwhelming destructive impulses which culminate in various hardcore crimes. I'm a supporter of Eric Fromm's "concept of man", which in essence says that just as a tree requires the right conditions for it's maturation and health, so does a human....IOW, human nature has a dynamic quality which fluctuates between two poles, one productive and one destructive.....and depending on many factors ,but primarily childhood, and specifically from birth to age 3, the seeds of destruction or production are sown. "If" we accept that our unwillingness to secure quality upbringings for all members of society regardless of age or socio-economic status is the cause of serial killers and so on, then it hardly seems appropriate that we kill the ones who go haywire on us. *the consistent theme of many true crime books is that of the killer having endured yrs of torture, often physical, sexual and psychological.

What if the convicted killer was prepared to accept permanent confinement? If killing is wrong in the first place, it's gotta be wrong the second time round.

Bobby. IMO, Ayn Rand, An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is a good start, especially as it's only 165 pages, which means you get a great overview{plus some hardcore explanations} which you could read over the weekend if you're keen enough. I've just ordered OPAR, 500 pages, so that should do the trick, IOW, once you've got the basic principles, you shouldn't really need endless examples, you should be able to duplicate many of the analogies/examples that Rand created herself. If you're a youngster, just ask your parents that you'd like them to buy you two popular philosophy books, I'm sure they won't object{hopefully, lol}.

"If you need firm and indisputable physical proofs of God's existence, that's too bad because you're not going to get them in this life" Here's what a theist said, LOL.

Madam, telling me that I have to ecologically qualify my statements amongst this forum would seem redundant to me. I said that our physiology is geared towards life, I didn't say anything about the intellectual quality of our life, ie, a child raised on a diet of food, exercise and minimal emotional/intellectual contact will still function physiologically, proving that we are geared towards living by virture of our physico/chemical properties. Objectivism will maximize the totality of one's life.

Can't say I entirely understand what you're saying here Bobby, but IMO the assignment of the right to life is a basic fundamental of any meaningful and automatically objective ethical system/doctrine, ie, once we've decided that humans have the right to life, we then have to decide the implications of that and cater to those implications{the right to freedom and productiveness}.

We use our knowledge of the human condition, IOW, we deduce that a right to life is a virtual absolute based on our knowledge of the human condition, ie, ALL mentally stable people want to live, our physiology is geared towards living. Knowledge of the human condition should be the basis of any objective ethics.

Oh I see, because it's virtually impossible to answer those sorts of questions, one is effectively forced into being reasonable and concluding that the only possible assumption is that the universe is eternal. Thanks.

Hello. What is an Objectivists answer to the question, "what created the universe"..?

No problem, I'll do the thread anyway, and you can laugh or apply the knowledge for your benefit. I have to do other threads on critical thinking and what I call hardcore reductionism, ie, the exact reason why otherwise decent and clever doctors can reject the "alternative medicine" rubbish. Keep up the good work anyway

You're in a position to know, and I'm glad the bulk of researchers are properly informed, but you would accept that the popular view of theorectical physics is usually associated with the kantians? This is curious, as it seems as though pure researchers have a privilege which somehow overides any concerns expressed by people such as yourself. It's my assumption that the bulk of laypeople and non-objectivist are grappling with the ideas of modern cosmology, and DON'T think it's absurd, but rather that they haven't fully understood it, eg, KIR/Zetica* message boards are full of people backing the big bang, and the admin is a big bang freak. *this is a popular science message board on ezboard. Without explaining it in this thread or within the next week{but within the coming months} I'll explain why cancer is a process and not a localized disease which must be removed surgically or chemically, as the body will remove it all itself given the right conditions, those conditions are maximum health, ie, the casual agent of "most" disease is the health status of the host.

Thanks for your answers Stephen. As for my other question, well it seems to me that the popularized view of modern cosmology is that the big bang model is fine and that theorectical physics{kantain mindset} is also a worthy pursuit, yet your view is the complete opposite, so I'm curious if other disciplines might be suspect, eg, orthodox medicine? The $30 billion war on cancer was anounced in 1971, yet traditional medicine still has no cure. It would seem to me that if our greatest science can be saturated with nonsense, then it seems quite reasonable to "assume" that other fields have they're own metaphysical peccadillo's, and that just as YOU and other independent scientists have determined superior truth, it would equally apply to other fields such as orthodox medicine.

Ok thanks Stephen. I intuitively suspected that space expanding was absurd, and knew it to be fundamental to the legitimacy of the theory, so I thought I'd sort that part out first. I get the feeling you and objectivists in general, posit an eternal universe, treat that as a brute fact and move on from there? I was wondering if you wouldn't mind answering yes/no to these quick questions, and we'll cover them in more depth in the future{if of any value to do so}. 1. Does a quark have any physical content? 2. If not, is it in anyway useful to particle physicists? 3. I assume that hyperspace has no physical content, but again curious if it has any value at all? 4. Does a Black hole have any physical content? 5. Considering that physics{theoretical at least} is relying on bizarrre thinking, do YOU suspect that other scientific disciplines have compromised the truth{coherent knowledge about some aspect of reality} because of metaphysical biases? Btw, I have tremendous respect for science, but little for dogma.

QUOTE] But this notion of space expanding or contracting is just what I warned you about up above, the reification of space. Space is not a thing that expands or contracts, it is a spatial relation between objects which exist. You can imagine a lot of things, but imagination does not make expanding space of physical singularities real. Stephen. One of my goals here and atm is to learn as much as I can about the plausibility of the big bang theory and related hypothesis. As Paul Davies{and presumably anyone who supports BB} says to consider space as a piece of rubber that is expanding like a stretched balloon and that it's not the galaxies that are moving{matter by itself}, but the expansion of space carrying the galaxies apart. Now obviously that's an analogy, but I was under the impression that HE actually suggests that we can legitimately visualize such a happening, and if so, he'd be saying/reifing space, but not just by analogy, in reality and visually aided by the balloon analogy and presumably "confirmed" mathematically. So is space expanding/unwinding just mathematically or actually? Well you know more than me, so I'll take your word for it. Thank you, I'm glad you're here helping us novices!

The totality perhaps!! Well it's just a basic thought experiment to try and isolate space. Obviously my thought cannot be but an imagining, so I'm curious what you get if you imagined a universe without matter/energy, regardless of whether current physics tells us that is impossible? My curiosity has a lot to do with whether space can expand/contract, so if space ALWAYS contains some matter/energy, then presumably when we rewind the cosmic movie, we would imagine the night sky shrinking into the hypothetical singularity. Sure, but the photon's source is within the atom, hence, I know of no examples where you can have forces/energy without matter. Thanks for your comments, I'll be back later on.

Yes Sir, I can accept that we need to define something in order to relate to nothing. I did a quick search for plenum and couldn't find anything helpful within that time period, but what I'm curious about is if we imagine the universe without matter and energy/forces, aren't we left with nothing, ontologically speaking? Just that all forces have matter as a source.