monart

As Bishop Baron voices it (referenced in my previous post "speaking of God"): "We are all sinners". Christians don't believe they can live in perfect selflessness. Guilt from their unavoidable selfishness is their proof of their devoutness. So in practice, they strike a "balance" between selfishness and selflessness, moralizing that their selfishness is in the service of selflessness, as reason is placed in the service of faith.

Could Mr. Brunton be trying to maintain his balance on his unstable platform by regarding "God", like some Christians sometimes do, as if it were like "Existence", the axiomatic concept of Objectivism, but personalized (esthetically) into a "Galt-like" figure? His belief in Jesus Christ (and his sacrifice) as the incarnation of God is another part of his unstable hemisphere. Yes, the radiance of "nonsacrificial agape" love has its source and meaning in the human self's striving for joyful life, and not in God, as the Christians believe. Christians believe in sacrificial ,which they call agape, as theologically and morally superior to eros, the love of oneself.

Thanks. I'll accept your recommendations.

The local university library has a copy of the Norton 2021 book, so I'll do a reading of it. I'll also read your "Induction on Identity" paper. Thanks.

Christians are many, Objectivists are few. But a very few Christians are friendly to Ayn Rand, studying and citing her work, along with Peikoff's. Are they the better or the worse Christians? Are they to be scoffed away as deluded walking contradictions and exploitive hypocrites, or be regarded with some serious respect and be shown how to go all the way? Selfish Christians Citing Ayn Rand Apparently, not all Christians are altruistic. There are the very few who advocate rational egoism, studying and citing Ayn Rand’s proofs and formulations as justification and corroboration of “the Classical Christian principles of reason, rational self-interest, individualism, and individual rights” [!] – yet, not accepting full autonomy, believe in the need for God, “the Galt-Like…Egoist God”. As an example of Christian Egoism, the following excerpts are from a website, For the New Christian Intellectual (the name adapted from the title of an early essay of Ayn Rand's and the Atlas logo refers to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged). ======= Why Christians Should Reconsider Ayn Rand https://christianintellectual.com/reconsider/ Everyone loves to hate Ayn Rand—even, and sometimes especially, Christians. … Whatever the cause of the animosity, I want to suggest that it is unwarranted. In fact, I want to present 6 reasons that Christians should reconsider Ayn Rand. 1. She Had a High View of the Mind . . . 2. She Promoted Spiritual Values—Even Above Material Ones . . . 3. She Worked Hard at Integrating the Spiritual & the Physical . . . 4. She’s Had a Lasting & Growing Influence on the Culture . . . 5. She Is Our Best Ally Against the Rising Tides of Postmodernism & Marxism . . . 6. She Will Help You Worship God More Fully . . . It’s no secret that Rand raged against the morality of altruism. It’s one of the primary reasons she is so maligned—especially by Christians, who think that the Bible teaches the morality of altruism unequivocally. While I think a closer reading of both Rand and the Bible would reveal more similarity on this issue than most expect, I don’t think you have to be convinced about Rand’s morality of rational self-interest—for human beings—in order to see the value of it when it comes to thinking about God. Scripture is absolutely unambiguous when it comes to God’s ultimate motivation for everything He does: “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” —Isaiah 48:9-11 (emphasis added) There’s simply no getting around the fact that the God of the Bible is an unabashed egoist. But when egoism is seen as the prime example of evil, that causes problems for Christians. Is God evil for being an egoist? Is the God of the Bible a moral monster? Many have concluded that He is, and have rejected Christianity as a result. Most Christians, however, find themselves with a severe case of cognitive dissonance. They want to affirm that God can do whatever He pleases (that sort of comes with the territory of being God), but they avoid like the plague the follow up question: why is God pleased by the things He is pleased by—namely, His glory? And is it morally right for Him to have His pleasure rooted in such a self-oriented, egoistic, fashion? Most Christians do not have a satisfactory answer to this question, because they believe that self-interest, as such, is inherently evil. The result is a hesitation to look too closely at the nature and character of God, in order not to discover how much of a moral monster He really is—or, a hesitation to think too consistently about moral principles, in order not to discover that it really is one or the other: either God is a moral monster, or egoism—as such—is not inherently evil. The good news is that egoism is not inherently evil, and Ayn Rand is the best resource for seeing how and why that is so. More than explaining, philosophically, why egoism is moral, she painted vivid portraits of the beauty and glory of egoism in the characters of her novels. I challenge any Christian to read Anthem, The Fountainhead, or Atlas Shrugged, and not to see glorious pictures of the moral character of the God of the Bible reflected through the heroes of those stories. Our culture is overrun with reasons to think that God’s egoistic moral character is ugly, twisted, and evil. In order to look at God in full, worshipful, adoration, Christians must learn to see the staggering glory of God’s moral character—of His egoism. And the writings of Ayn Rand—particularly her novels—are the best resources available to help the Christian do just that. Join Us in Reconsidering Rand Believe it or not, there are a lot of Christians who have benefited from reconsidering Rand—but many of them feel the need to hide it. We’re working to change that. And we’re working to help Christians understand Rand’s thought in order to take full advantage of the potential value hinted at above. In fact, we’re starting a course to explore Rand’s ideas from a Christian perspective. ------ Jacob Brunton: Bachelor of Theology, Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, MN. M.A. in Philosophy, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX. ----------------- Ayn Rand and Christianity? https://christianintellectual.com/ayn-rand/ … So we want to be very clear: Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, as an integrated philosophy, is not compatible with Christianity. We do not call ourselves “Christian Objectivists.” We do not believe that such a thing is possible. Nor do we select which parts of her philosophy we accept by arbitrary whim. Our commitment is first and foremost to the truth, discovered and validated by reason. We are convinced, on the basis of reason, that historically orthodox, Protestant, Christianity is true. We are also convinced, on the basis of the same reason, that Ayn Rand got a lot of really important things right about the nature of Man and his life on earth. We don’t think those things are in conflict. We are fully convinced that those ideas in Rand’s philosophy which are truly incompatible with Christianity are also incompatible with reason. The things which we embrace in her philosophy, we embrace both because we are rationally convinced of their validity and because they are taught (or assumed) by Scripture. In summary: We are orthodox, Protestant Christians with a great appreciation for Ayn Rand’s thought. Rand has done more than any other philosopher (Christian or otherwise) to point out key categories, questions, and concepts needed for a rational philosophy. We do not agree with all of Rand’s ideas. But we believe Rand was onto something important. (See John Piper’s article The Ethics of Ayn Rand.) To make our own viewpoint clear, we found it helpful to title our project For the New Christian Intellectual. This is a reference to Rand’s first non-fiction book. Anyone familiar with Rand’s work will also recognize the Atlas figure in our logo. It is a nod to Rand’s masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. While we believe that our perspective is fully Christian, we give credit to Ayn Rand for her role in helping us develop our own philosophical perspective. While there are some similarities, the views we express are not the same as Rand’s. We speak only for ourselves. We encourage our readers to explore Ayn Rand in her own words, starting with her novels. Rand did not invent political freedom. But she has been its best defender. The same is true for other topics of importance, including the four ideals we explicitly advocate: Reason—Rational Self-interest—Individualism—Individual Rights … Many within the Christian tradition will view our project with skepticism. That can be a good thing. Let the skepticism lead to careful questions of discernment. Find out why we believe as we do. If we are mistaken, make sure you know why. If you find dissonance within your own ideas, do the work. Do the thinking. As Ayn Rand would say, “Check your premises.” Cody Libolt: M.A. in Worship Leadership, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville KY. Marketing Consultant & Copywriter (For business inquiries, email [email protected])

How close does Harriman's book come to validating induction (for Physics)? How close does it come to validating induction in other fields like Psychology or Ethics? What would be a complete, successful validation of any method of induction? Do you know of "someone yet-to-come" who could extend Rand's "measurement structure"? Do you yourself have some ideas about how to go about it? Have you written any overview of your philosophy, how it complements or expands Objectivism, or generally the ways in which Objectivism as a philosophy (or as an intellectual movement) could be developed further?

Thanks. I can follow much of what you're saying, mainly because of my previous readings of Rand's, Peikoff's, Kelley's, and Harriman's writings, even if I don't have any comments to offer now. And I assume I'm being prepared for your upcoming explanation of "necessity-for' and necessity-that"

Who are they, who are so many? They, who are all around us. They, of whom some of us may still be recovering from having been one of them. Who are they? What do they believe? How is it false? Know your enemy, know yourself. Speaking of God Most of the world's population, 85%, reportedly believe in a God, over 6 billion people –- including 2.4 billion Christian (1.4B Catholic), 2 billion Islamic, and1.1 billion Hindu – all preaching and practicing selfless service to God and the needs of others. Why? Why so many? For an overview of the beliefs of the largest and most influential of the Christian group, the Roman Catholic Church, here is an interview of Bishop Robert Baron, a Catholic prelate, author and popular speaker, interviewed by Lex Fridman, a popular podcaster. Some quotation/paraphrasing from the interview: …… God is everything and no thing, everywhere and nowhere. God is immensity and infinity: immeasurable and undefinable. God is pure being, whose essence is being itself. God is existence with no identity. God exists not in reality and reason. God exists in heaven and faith. Faith in God is not infra-reason. Faith in God is supra-reason. --- Why so much evil and suffering, if God exists and is infinite goodness and love, all-knowing and all-powerful? God gave humanity freewill for good and evil, and his purpose is beyond our understanding. That there is evil and suffering is not proof of God’s malevolence, indifference, or non-existence. It just shows we don’t know God’s greater plan and how the evil and suffering is for a higher good. --- Christ is God incarnate. Christ is he who is perfectly pleasing to God. Christ and God are each the other’s perfect love. God through Christ redeems the sins of humanity. Christ through his love, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection shows humanity the way to Heaven. ----- The meaning of life is to seek a purposive, loving friendship with God by following his incarnate son Jesus Christ – to act like Christ, to be Christian. To be Christian is to devote one’s life to God, Christ, and the needs of others. To love is to will the good of the other, for the other. Pride for oneself is the source, and the worst of all sins. We are all sinners, some more than others. ----- Equality and rights are grounded in and given by God. Without God, there are no rights and tyranny reigns. Freedom is not self-determination. Freedom is the choice to love God. ---

They are many, we are few -- so? They control us through the welfare state. So? We can refute and resist them. We know truly and can speak clearly of this: Self-Defense in a Welfare State You the welfare statist government say you are here to “help” and “serve” us with “welfare” by taxing, licensing, and regulating us. We the individualists are here to repudiate you the welfare statist government and your electors. . . . . . To reject and remove from you the power to violate our rights and so restrict you to your proper role of just protecting individual rights. We do not need or want your false help. We choose to truly help and live for and by own selves. We are self-sufficient, self-respecting, autonomous individuals. We own and support our lives by thinking and working for our own purpose and profit. We defend our rights to our property, liberty, and the pursuit of our happiness. We reject your welfare statist tyranny and refute the self-sacrifice and self-immolation of the altruism that spawned you. We recognize and uphold the supremacy of reason and reality, not the faith or force of the rights-violating State. We trade and associate with each other freely, without coercion, for mutual benefit with mutual consent. We don’t violate anyone’s rights and won’t accept any violation of ours. If we help each other in times of misfortune, we do so voluntarily, based on value not force. We value each other as individual free agents, as fellow humane, reasoning beings, living productive and proud lives. We seek each other’s benevolent company and appreciate each other’s unique, singular sovereignty. And we stand together against any tyranny with the full moral, rational certainty of our individual rights. So, we neither want nor need your welfare statism, your taxing and regulating our conversation and commerce. While we may comply when we are forced by law, we will not be martyrs or willing victims. We will resist, protest, and seek restitution where provided by law. You tax, license, and regulate, but you must also grant subsidies, relief, insurance, pensions, exemptions, deductions, and all such “welfare services and entitlements” so as to maintain the pretext for your statist tyranny. Where we could and care to, we will make claims on such “welfare” as a form of restitution, in self-defense, but without either agreeing or supporting your welfare statism. We will not vote for any member of any of your welfare parties of any color. We will vote only for legislators who stand for individual rights, and for the ethics of reason and reality that’s its foundation. These individualist politicians will oppose and seek to repeal all welfare statist laws and reform the constitution to affirm explicitly, definitively, the supremacy of individual rights, and to remove the government’s power to violate them, in anyone’s name, not the State, Society, or God. Meanwhile, we will continue to live and let live, to make the best of what’s possible to us, even in this welfare statist tyranny. There are and have been other worst states of tyranny than here now in the US-Canadian America, where it's still, overall, the freest in the world. But being the freest is not yet being all free. There's still a long way to go, but it will be soon enough. The legacy of Aristotelian Enlightenment is still a strong source of philosophy against any tyranny, especially when fortified by the rational individualist philosophy in our own times formulated by Ayn Rand. That the Ayn Rand Institute teaching her ideas of Objectivism continues to grow, 35 years after her death, and that her books continue to be bestsellers, is a positive cultural barometer of the progress of a rational, romantic civilization. More and more, there are politicians who acknowledge Ayn Rand’s positive influence on them. As we live on in the frontiers of freedom, we will avoid, as best we can, your welfare statist interference and distraction from our pursuit of our noble purpose, which, ultimately, is our own happiness. We will keep strengthening our understanding of the philosophy of reality, reason, rights, and romance – seeking continuous self-realization and self-betterment. There’s always a better way, as we’ll teach our children, a better and benevolent way through self-knowledge, self-sufficiency, and self-defense. Our children of liberty are the mothers and fathers of freedom’s future. With truth, courage, and love, we cheer them on. You, Welfare State, your days are numbered!

Thank you for your comparisons between Rand-Peikoff's and the others' rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, the latter of which I knew little about before. I'm just beginning to browse through your prolific work on philosophy llisted on your profile. And I'm looking forward to further postings from you on this topic of necessary truths, and to your explanation of necessity as "a compound of necessity-for of life and of living mind in grasping fact, the realm of necessity-that".

Motivation is a key to human action, to its initiation, sustenance, and completion. Based on one’s values, motivation comes in many forms, such as financial, legal, ethical, promissory, logical, intellectual, and esthetic. At its core, motivation is emotive, i.e., e-motion: that which “-moves out”, that which is the motive power of action. An example of esthetic motivation is the following. Motive Power The motive power of life is the engine of directed motion, the generator and creator of life’s ambition, driving actions forward in life’s continuous sustenance and realization. In music, as in life, there’s a motive power that pulls music outward, a keynote that carries the flow of melody in harmony on a constant beat toward resolution and arrival. In literature, as in music and in life, there is a motive power that draws out the words and names the concepts that inform and inspire thought onward to envision real ideals. The source of motive power, in literature, music, and life, is: integration – it’s choosing to clarify and unify words, tones, and actions with integrity and purpose, all aiming for the climax, crescendo, and ecstasy that await. As three models of motive power, behold: In real life is the person and character of genius and benefactor Ayn Rand (see 100 voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand and The Letters of Ayn Rand, In music and literature, are the following two complementary works: one a motion-picture in sounds, the other, a motion-picture in words; the music “Collision” may be heard as a short prelude to the scene from Atlas Shrugged. All models are worth repeated visits for reflection and re-motivation. ===== “Collision”, by John Mills-Cockell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiIe3PjiYp4 And his other similar earlier works from 1970s, such as “Melina’s Torch”. “Tillicum”, “Aurora Spinray”, “December Angel”, "Appaloosa and Pegasus" – all can be heard on Youtube. Also, especially noteworthy is his 2004 Concerto of Deliverance, commissioned as a tribute to Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. http://www.starshipaurora.com/concertoofdeliverance.html ===== Dagny riding the John Galt Line (especially p. 245-246, Atlas Shrugged😞 She felt the sweep of an emotion which she could not contain, as of something bursting upward. She turned to the door of the motor units, she threw it open to a screaming jet of sound and escaped into the pounding of the engine's heart. For a moment, it was as if she were reduced to a single sense, the sense of hearing, and what remained of her hearing was only a long, rising, falling, rising scream. She stood in a swaying, sealed chamber of metal, looking at the giant generators. She had wanted to see them, because the sense of triumph within her was bound to them, to her love for them, to the reason of the life-work she had chosen. In the abnormal clarity of a violent emotion, she felt as if she were about to grasp something she had never known and had to know. She laughed aloud, but heard no sound of it; nothing could be heard through the continuous explosion. "The John Galt Line!" she shouted, for the amusement of feeling her voice swept away from her lips. She moved slowly along the length of the motor units, down a narrow passage between the engines and the wall. She felt the immodesty of an intruder, as if she had slipped inside a living creature, under its silver skin, and were watching its life beating in gray metal cylinders, in twisted coils, in sealed tubes, in 'the convulsive whirl of blades in wire cages. The enormous complexity of the shape above her was drained by invisible channels, and the violence raging within it was led to fragile needles on glass dials, to green and red beads winking on panels, to tall, thin cabinets stenciled "High Voltage." Why had she always felt that joyous sense of confidence when looking at machines? -- she thought. In these giant shapes, two aspects pertaining to the inhuman were radiantly absent: the causeless and the purposeless. Every part of the motors was an embodied answer to "Why?" and "What for?" -- like the steps of a life-course chosen by the sort of mind she worshipped. The motors were a moral code cast in steel. They are alive, she thought, because they are the physical shape of the action of a living power -- of the mind that had been able to grasp the whole of this complexity, to set its purpose, to give it form. For an instant, it seemed to her that the motors were transparent and she was seeing the net of their nervous system. It was a net of connections, more intricate, more crucial than all of their wires and circuits: the rational connections made by that human mind which had fashioned any one part of them for the first time. They are alive, she thought, but their soul operates them by remote control. Their soul is in every man who has the capacity to equal this achievement. Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, because that is the power which keeps them going -- not the oil under the floor under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again -- not the steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of shivering savages -- the power of a living mind -- the power of thought and choice and purpose. She was making her way back toward the cab, feeling that she wanted to laugh, to kneel or to lift her arms, wishing she were able to release the thing she felt . . . . =======

Note the etymologically, mutually related synonyms of "starship", "astronaut", "photon", and "light-being" or "being of light". For those interested in further reading and reflection on aspects of "Project Starship", one philosophic, the other poetic, here are: Starship Astronaut as Rational Egoist Starship Being Light

The doom-criers of "overpopulation" are still going strong (moving among the carbon-neutral crowd) and rebuttals of nonsense are always valuable.

Is building orbital island habitats in space like moving mountains? Yes, the construction would be preceded by moving mountains, the mountainous asteroids from which come the needed materials (preceded by materials from the Moon).

A politically-autonomous, militarily defendable, economically prosperous, culturally nourishing, free Objectivist society -- a Galt’s Gulch Atlantis constituted on the absolute protection of individual rights based on rational egoism, and capable of protecting its citizens from violators, domestic and foreign -- this ideal country: What's more likely to happen, happen sooner, and be more viable? 1. On Earth, the United States (and/or Canada) ratifies a fundamental amendment to its Constitution and revises/repeals its political/legal system based on the absolute protection of individual rights. (Or, in a region of US/CAN becoming so?) 2. On Earth, but on the ocean, on a self-sustaining artificial island (located possibly somewhere in the Doldrums?). 3. On another planet, in this or another solar system. 4. In orbital space, in an artificial, earth-like, self-sustaining satellite-habitat.

Is Bacon here expressing an aspect of what Rand calls "the metaphysical vs the man-made"?

That's right, given the continual innovations in science/tech, not only is there plenty of land (and ocean) on Earth for habitation, as any orbital views of Earth show -- but also plenty of petroleum to be tapped, inexhaustible according to the claim of the abiogenesis of petroleum rising from deep in the Earth. But whether or not overpopulation is a real problem and moving into space is a solution to it, living and working in space is a positive advancement in civilzation, not only an escape, just as the settlement of America was.

Yes, why leave the comforts of Earth for a spartan life in hostile space? Not many would, if that is the only choice. But another option is to live in space in earth-like habitats, with sunshine and birds, with music and merriment, with all the wonderful pleasures, conveniences, and security available here on Earth. Indeed, the earth-like habitat may be a politically autonomous, Objectivist free society, free from the failures, tyranny, and misery of altruists and collectivists. In either case, whether one wants to live in space or on Earth, it's still a starship one builds and lives in, from the perspective described in the essay, "Project Starship".

Yes, if in line with the focus of the essay, "Project Starship", the discussion here would be more on the inspirational/aspirational and philosophical aspects. But some discussion of the engineering-tech aspects may help keep it concretized, even if a separate thread may spin off.

No need to "colonize" other planets here in this or other solar systems, not when artificial, earth-like "planets" in the form of rotating pressure vessels containing conducive ecosystems large enough to include prairies, rivers, lakes, hills, mountains, clouds, sunlight, and scheduled weather (even with random weather scheduled in.) Voyages to the outer planets in this solar system or to other stars need not only be in the usually-depicted submarine-like ships with warp-drives. The artificial-earth habitats, with solar/nuclear power plants, are less-rushed, far more comfortable starships in which to live and travel, even across multiple generations

When I watched the movie Elysium I liked the well-produced, standard action story and the individualism of the protagonist, but not the usual anti-capitalist, rich vs. poor setting. The CG rendering of the space habitat added to the visual appeal.

The O'Neill-type orbital habitats are in the vacuum of space, yes, but they are giant rotating pressure vessels containing air, forests, rivers, lakes, hills, even mountains -- orbiting the Earth-Moon system, absorbing the rich solar light for energy, and benefitting from access to variable gravity (centrifugally simulated). Mars' toxic atmosphere is as unbreathable as vacuum, its gravity is unchangeable, its solar light is far dimmer, and its colonists would be as nearly planet-gravity-bound as on Earth.

"Prometheus" - the Bringer of Fire and Light - a noble name. Mine is Starship Aurora - "Aurora", the Golden Dawn. So you possess the knowledge to build advanced starship tech? And you're being persecuted because of that? How have you been protecting yourself? Have you been able to document your knowledge, maybe to file patents? With such valuable knowledge, have you tried getting onboard with Jeff Bezos' company, Blue Origin? Mr. Bezos was inspired by Gerard O'Neill's vision and plans for building autonomous orbital habitats for private citizens. Stay away from Elon Musk and SpaceX, whose aim, in contrast, is a planet-bound Mars colony for science/tech specialists. Hostile and dead Mars - compared to which, Antarctica is paradise.

What kind of help have you been asking for, and from whom? At this point, I don't know yet how I can help, until I know more. But I do want to help in some way.

["Project Starship" is a very young and serious man's description of a romantic and philosophic vision of the future – and of the present, too. It's dedicated to the heroic genius of Ayn Rand, upon whose work this conception of starship is largely based. It's an answer to my previous post here, "What Can One Do?" ] ---------- Project Starship 3rd Edition Monart Pon © Copyright 1976, 2001, 2023 Monart Pon The Starship (General) In the boundless universe of stars, in a small region called the Milky Way Galaxy, is one star called the Sun. Spinning around this Sun, on a planet called Earth, is an organism called Man. This man is tapping the energy of the Sun and transforming the material of Earth to build his starship, his starship to seek, hold, and give the beauty that brings him his happiness. The starship that man creates is an expression of his mastery over his own destiny, a mastery that breaks the circle of nature with a straight line, a line that reaches from this earth to touch the farthest stars. The structure of the starship is the product of man’s shining his cool, strong light of reason upon the wilderness of reality to tame it into the home that supports his life. Growing from this work of discovering and unifying truth, goodness, and beauty, the starship is a selective re-arrangement of various aspects of reality into those forms that further his well-being. Abstractly, starship is a complex concept, integrating the knowledge that leads to the success of human life. Concretely, the starship is an artificial planet, an earth re-created into a hierarchical unity of arts and machines, performing the functions of sustaining and enriching man’s spiritual/material health. Symbolically, the starship is a badge that signifies man’s ultimate purpose, his central activity, his highest achievement. The starship for beautifying man can inspire him on his quest for new arts, new machines, new adventure: on a voyage that blasts off from this port of Earth and shoots outwards to other ports of other worlds--outwards to the countless stars of the countless galaxies of the unbounded universe. The Project (Introduction) Project Starship is an adventure to the stars, a romance for the ideal of starship--a consecration to the ultimate purpose of creating a world comprised of all those things from which comes the experience called happiness. Project Starship grows from the acceptance and expression of one’s responsibility as a special kind of being, whose honor is one’s volition and whose glory is one’s starship. Project Starship begins with understanding these facts: a. Starship is the integrated structure of knowledge and processes, of arts and machines, of ideas, values, and inventions that, together, can nurture the continual growth of life and happiness. b. The necessity of starship is based on the volitional nature of human life, the rational process of one’s consciousness, and the unlimited capability of one’s actions. c. The starship’s vital core is one’s conceptual consciousness, one’s mind, one’s reason, the basic faculty that discovers and invents the ship’s knowledge and processes. d. The starship’s most basic and crucial knowledge is philosophy, the knowledge of fundamental principles, the knowledge that integrates and guides all other knowledge, the knowledge that yields an attitude of romanticism for the wisdom as summarized in this way: Man is a rational animal, whose existence in objective reality is sustained by the volitional operation of his conceptual consciousness called reason towards the cognition, evaluation, and invention of his starship to happiness. I. The Basis Man is a living, conscious, volitional being. Starship is an expression of this volitional nature. Man, like all living things, is alive conditionally upon his generation of a series of successful internal-external actions to fulfill the needs for his life’s existence. Like other conscious living things, man uses his faculty of consciousness, his power of being aware of reality, to understand the meaning of the information gathered by his senses. This consciousness is a power to determine the good, or life-enhancing, and evil, or life-destroying, aspects of reality. It is a power to guide the course of actions towards the production of the good, and a power to experience, through emotion, the resulting state of life called happiness. Unlike other conscious things, however, man has volition. He has direct control over the operation of his process of awareness, and, therefore, over his life. He can choose to be conscious and live, or to be unconscious and die. He can choose to be sharply or vaguely conscious: he can raise his level of awareness, sharpen its focus, enlarge its field, increase its cognitive efficacy, or he can blur, shrink, blank out and sabotage its processes. Volition begins with the choice to drive the mind to the highest achievement of successful life, or to leave it to stagnate to a rotting death. Born ignorant and naked, man is innately ignorant of what is good or harmful to life, and is inherently naked of the tools to achieve the good and fight the evil. He has no instincts, no fur, fangs, or claws. To acquire knowledge and tools, man has to discover them by means of his mind. To fulfill the needs for his life’s health, he has to earn them by directing his mind towards the understanding of reality, the detection of possible good, and the invention of those extensions and augmentations to himself that can achieve the good. To attain the successful state of life called happiness, man must accept and express his responsibility as a volitional being: he must deserve his honor as the driver of his own mind, the master of his own life, the maker of his own destiny. This honor and responsibility of volition grants man the freedom of a potentially unlimited capacity of awareness, a potential to know the simplest, or most complex, part of reality, a potential whose limit is essentially determined by man’s own choice and desire. At his command, man can enhance, elevate, focus, his level of awareness, from the automatic but limited, perceptual state of non-volitional beings, towards the virtually unlimited, conceptual field that only he can achieve. The conceptual mode of consciousness brings into his grasp a vivid understanding of the nature of himself and his world--an understanding that can transcend the immediate moment and place around him, to ultimately span an eternity of time and an infinity of space. Given this kind of volitional awareness, an awareness unlimited in possibility of clarity, depth and scope, then the kind of actions possible to man is also unlimited. The sophistication of a conceptual consciousness can guide the most complex series of actions, the kind that can significantly alter the environment to suit human life, and that can enrich man’s health and extend his life-span. Man’s possession of a conceptual, volitional consciousness distinguishes his life as, symbolically, a straight line, an endless line transcending the immediate bounds of this Earth, of this Sun, of this Galaxy, to ultimately touch all parts of the vast realm of stars. To complement this volitional life, to clothe his nakedness and replace his ignorance, to glorify his honor as a master, to seek his happiness--man creates the starship. Starship could be the highest expression and achievement of human rational being. It is a ship of knowledge and processes: an integrated mobile environment that provides man with nourishment for growth, shelter against decay, and locomotion to explore his boundless realm. It is a starship because its primary source of energy and inspiration emanates from the stars. It is a starship because it is the kind of structure that can house and fly, comfort and move, man’s life on an astro-adventure. It is a starship because it can inspire man to be starbound, to seek new knowledge, new powers, new beauty--to seek his happiness and glory by sailing the endless sea of stars. II. The Constitution Starship is an integrated structure of the knowledge and processes, the arts and machines, the truths, goods, and beauties that, together, can enhance the continual growth of man’s life. The starship’s vital core is man’s consciousness called reason. Reason is the creator, commander, coordinator, of the starship’s every part. Reason builds, organizes, integrates and maintains the ship’s entire structure by forming ideas, values, and inventions. It conducts the long and complex process that begins with raw materials and energies of the universe and ends with pro-man products. Reason is the basic generator of man’s happiness and the starship’s potent dynamo. Reason performs the three general stages of starship-building: cognition, evaluation and re-creation. Cognition is the process of identifying the facts of reality, of discovering the properties and relationships of entities, of determining what is available for transformation. Evaluation is the process of detecting values and goals, the process of judging the possible good. Re-creation is the process of re-shaping, re-arranging, converting the raw elements of reality into those forms that can further life. The knowledge thus acquired, the ideas, values, and inventions, is integrated into the structure of the starship, constituting part of what may be called the starship’s intellect and spirit. Reason’s supreme power of creativity is made possible by its conceptual manner of perceiving and understanding reality. The rational, conceptual process is one of perceiving, identifying, and integrating the data received by the senses, condensing the multitude of observations into simplified groups called concepts. A concept is a mental unit concretized by a word and individualized by a definition. It is a condensed unit of knowledge formed by the differentiation and integration of essential attributes and relationships among entities. A concept reduces a multitude of facts about reality into easily grasped essentials, thereby freeing the mind from routine in order to study the new. Each concept thus formed is further combined with others to form larger concepts, or is divided into smaller ones, continuing this process of differentiating and integration indefinitely, bringing in ever-more organized knowledge, forever expanding the scope of man’s awareness. The starship’s knowledge may be divided into science and technology. Science is the faculty of facts, the faculty that studies what is. Technology is the faculty of fancy, the faculty that, based on the sciences, studies what could be. Linking the two is ethics, the faculty of morals, the department of philosophy that studies what should be. Directing science and technology is philosophy, the faculty of axioms and fundamental principles--the faculty that studies the basic nature of, and relationship between, man, reality, and the starship. Philosophy is the starship’s most crucial knowledge, the knowledge that unifies all the complexities of science and technology, the knowledge that gives a comprehensive framework of principles guiding and inspiring the conduct of all other knowledge. Philosophy identifies the underlying nature of existence, of that which exists, of what is real, describing reality’s meta-laws, defining the principles of reason’s conceptual process, and prescribing the basic principles of life-seeking actions. Two axiomatic concepts of existence that philosophy studies are “identity” and “causality”. Identity is the concept that an existent, any existent, if it exists, then it exists with an identity--with a set of characteristics that distinguishes it from all other existents, making that existent a thing, not a nothing and not just anything, but a something. Identity thus distinguishes the real from the unreal, the natural from the supernatural. Causality is the concept that an action or process is generated by specific entities, generated in a specific manner, resulting in a specific effect, according to the identity of the entity generating the action. Every action, every effect, presupposes an entity that generated or caused that effect. All of reality’s processes, including man’s, are accountable by certain properties or principles governing those processes. Causality thus distinguishes the kind of actions that an entity can generate from those it cannot, those actions that are explainable from those that are miraculous. These axiomatic concepts are the basis, integrator and compass of all other concepts of the starship, guiding the ship’s science and technology to study the specific identities of entities and their actions. Applied to man’s actions, “identity” and “causality” yield the ethical derivatives of “honesty” and “justice”. Honesty is the principle of being natural, of being true to reality, of perceiving reality as it is. It is the principle that since reality is objective and since man is a rational being, then to be true to nature, to be human, is to be conscious and conceptual. This means to pay attention, to understand reality with the clearest and fullest focus of the mind, with the widest context of knowledge, according to the law of identity. Honesty thus distinguishes the kind of thinking that man must perform to understand the nature and meaning of his life. Justice is the principle of being fair, of being true to man, of treating men as they are. It is the principle of men acting to seek, grant, and accept only the earned and deserved from each other. It is the principle that since every effect presupposes its causal agent and since one’s desired effects are not achieved without cause, then every part of the starship must be earned, earned by exerting effort in a specific manner according to the law of causality. Justice thus distinguishes the kind of actions that man must perform to achieve the happiness of his life. Honesty and justice form the basis of ethics, the set of principles (independence, integrity, courage, etc.) that guide the actions of the starship’s creation, the set of values that helps to unite the major faculties of science and technology, linking the facts of raw nature with the fancies of man’s desire. Science is the faculty that scrutinizes the kinds of entities and processes that exist. Science systematically analyzes the properties of existents, determines their relationships, defines the methods of measurements, and categorizes the results into ideas. Technology is the faculty that imagines the possible beauty that could come from the ideas of science and invents the techniques of re-creation to concretize the imagined ideals--creating the forms of artistry that enhance man’s spiritual life, and the forms of machinery that enhance man’s physical life. Thus, the starship is generally a structure constituted by the knowledge of science and technology, and by the products of arts and machines, integrated by philosophy for the purpose of man’s happiness. III. The Crew The crew of a starship is a society of individuals. Each member of the starship’s crew is guided by the principles of honesty and justice. He is a specialist in some industry of the starship for a certain period of time, trading his particular service for that of other members. Some may be scientists trading with technologists or philosophers with artists. Whatever the relationship, each concentrates his energy on some specific profession, and combines his effort with others in trades that yield industries too difficult for one man. Some benefits of this co-operation are the diversity of services and products, an amplification in the power of an individual to seek his happiness, and a more efficient, faster creation of the starship. The benefits of such a social starship are protected by an agency devoted towards the defense of a man’s right to his own life. This political instrument functions as a police and court to secure the individual from possible interference and destruction caused by the physical force of other men. It governs the retaliatory use of force to defend against initiated force, and may be called upon to resolve peaceful disputes. Today’s government at times protects the freedom of men to pursue their happiness, and yet, other times, commits (for the sake of cowards and parasites) the very crimes against which it is commissioned to fight. This legalized violation of rights causes injury, hardships, and unnecessary obstacles, and must be opposed morally and politically, in order to free man’s achievement of his starship to happiness. The Project (Conclusion) . Project Starship is a life-long purpose, an industry of philosophy, science, and technology, a career of understanding man, reality, and the starship--a study and practice of creating the starship’s basis, constitution, and crew. The first symbolic step in the starship project, for those who choose it, is the naming of one’s starship (e.g., Starship Pegasus, Starship Phoenix, Starship Prometheus). The name serves to symbolize and unify the specific stages of one’s project and serves as the banner of one’s quest, the emblem of one’s home. In the name of one’s starship, an introductory study of philosophy is undertaken. The study of philosophy begins with gathering the knowledge with which to understand such subjects as: the nature of objective reality, the nature of man’s mind and emotion, the principles of moral action, the preconditions of a rightful society, and the nature of the romantic spirit. This knowledge will aid in the identification of what the starship is, why man needs it, and how he can build it. The place to initiate the study of philosophy is Objectivism, the philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. Objectivist philosophy provides the principles for the starship project described in this article. Specifically, the starting point is Ayn Rand's essay, “Apollo 11", in which she wrote: "Nothing on earth or beyond it is closed to the power of reason. Yes, reason can solve human problems--but nothing else on earth or beyond it, can…. Let us hope that some men will learn it. But it will not be learned by most of today’s intellectuals, since the core and motor of all their incredible constructs is the attempt to establish human tyranny as an escape from what they call “the tyranny” of reason and reality….. If the lesson is learned in time, the flight of Apollo 11 will be the first achievement of a great new age; if not, it will be a glorious last--not forever, but for a long, long time to come." ("Apollo 11", The Objectivist, vol. 8, no.9, September, 1969; also in the anthology, Voice of Reason, 1989; also online ) ----------