dream_weaver

While a thing is what it is, you would need to go deeper than "red is red" or "hot is hot". The referent of what is red, or what is hot demonstrates what in reality to what you are referring to that is red or that is hot. It might seem on the surface that if it were this simple, there should be no dispute, but your observation should tell you that there is plenty of dispute, not so much about stuff like pencils, podiums, chairs, tables, hammers and nails, but as you try to identify things other than the stuff you can point to and say "By this (pencil), I mean that (pointing to a pencil)". To take your last construct - reason is the process - an identification of the steps required - to move from the undisputed identifications of things such as hammers and nails, to broader abstractions that do not have a simple entity to which you can point to as you refer to what you are conceptualizing, such as what we are discussing here, epistemology, the science of understanding how we know what we know.

I would say the reality is objectively (as opposed to subjectively) demonstrable. Reason is man's means of deriving this. Other philosophies like pragmatism, utilitarianism, relativism or just pain arbitrariness are not examples of negating reason, rather they are the product of trying to use something other than reason as the basis of their derivations.

What is the difference? How many objectively demonstratable realities are there?

I'm having difficulty with the first criteria, funded exclusively by the government, since government's only source of funds is John Q. Public, . . . With that in mind, Disneyland on the Potomac is funded exclusively by John Q Public, demonstrated itself to be very expensive, and is nearly a complete waste of money and unprofitable, but I would be hard pressed to cite an example of either personally. On a more serious note, I would submit Public Education. Sadly, it also has to be one of the most destructive institutions. The conceptual faculty of most exposed to it tend to lend nearly unquestionable support to its funders, and cite the necessity of its continuence....

From what I heard, listening to what was selected to be video taped, the Christians sounded rather civil. I also know that discussions revolving around religious points can stir the emotions. Knowing a little Muslim history, I have to ask how prudent it is to put yourself in the middle of a throng of people that the behavior demonstrated is not entirely historically unprecedented.

I would have to say, in light of several other points raised, I fell prey to some sensationalist spin on this one.

World Net Daily. Muslim mob stones Christians – in U.S.! Dearborn, Michigan. At the 2012 Arab International festival over Father's Day weekend, "tarting at the 9:00 mark and continuing to about the 10:30 mark [22 minute video clip available], the crowd – reminiscent of a rock-throwing “intifada” scene from the Middle East – can be seen hurling a dizzying barrage of objects at the Christians standing passively with their signs, causing some injuries."

Dennet's analogy between peoples expectations regarding any explanations dealing with consciousness and writing a book on magic at 7:53 is canny.

It appears that they take silver and platinum as well. On a broader point, they are paying you FRN's for the stuff. Unless they have a printing press in the back, I would warrant that they use it to raise FRN's to further their enterprise.

You are touching on what is the move from the Federal Reserve Note (FRN) moving from a perceptually tethered concrete to a "floating abstraction"/"stolen concept". One dollar was 0.715 troy ounce silver. Honest money does not demand that silver or gold be the basis, but it does recognize that "money has to be some material commodity which is imperishable, rare, homogeneous, easily stored, not subject to wide fluctuations of value, and always in demand among those you trade with." Gold and silver are continually mined, even today. This inflates the supply of gold and silver available in the markets. Does this preclude lending gold or silver fractionally to the mining industry (or any other industry)? Or does it regulate the lender to properly assess the credit worthiness of the borrower based on the credibility of their claims?

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Perhaps because it goes against the principles you have earlier outlined and currently referenced me to. It has to be far better, thus more compelling, to develop a fuller grasp of all the facts knowable that demonstrate determinism.

Thanks. That helps put into perspective that Objectivism isn't necessarily monist in this regard to this issue. Isn't the other error taking place here that it leads straight to reductive determinism? Determinism has no room for knowledge to be evaluated as correct/incorrect. Even if physics should some day demonstrate that there is some fundamental particle of which existence is entirely comprised, doesn't the deterministic argument still fail because of the fact that error does, in fact, exist?

On page 263, in the last full paragraph, responding to possibilities one should consider from the paragraph before (and I would have to add from earlier portions of the book as well) Krauss iterates the following: These are open questions. However, unless one can come up with a good reason for excluding such configurations from the quantum mechanical sum that determines the properties of the evolving universe, and to date no such good reason exists that I know of, then under the general principle that holds everywhere else I know of in nature - namely that anything that is not proscribed by the laws of physics must actually happen - it seems most reasonable to consider these possibilities. This captures the crux of what is wrong with aspects of science today. Unless one can come up with a good reason for excluding a postulated possibility, then it seems most reasonable to consider these possibilities. If anything, this lays the groundwork for why distinguishing between hypothesis and theory is crucial in science. Hypothesis is the arena where possibilities are examined for contradictions with all other known facts. Hypothesis is the arena where good reasons are validated and used to move the hypothesis into theory. Expecting a good reason to excluding a postulated possibility is tantamount to being expected to prove a negative. Show me that such and such does not exist. At the beginning of chapter 9, Krauss identifies Newton as perhaps the greatest physicist of all time. He points out that "the most important contribution he made was to demonstrate the possibility that the entire universe is explicable." Newton did not try to prove that the other possibilities should be excluded,rather he demonstrated his possibility by demonstrating how it connected back, step by step, to the relevant observations.

Metaphysically is confusing to me in this. Shouldn't it be epistemologically poisonous?

Interesting distinction. I'm not positing this as an argument against gods, rather just an extension of your observation here in my thoughts. Observing existence supplies us with information concerning that which has/is happening, it can tell you nothing about what could/will happen (except to those who discover it, somehow *think induction*). To arbitrarily assert a god |consciousness| exists |preceding existence|, is a has/is happening, not a could/will happen. That which has/is is available from observation. Could/will (in most cases, the man-made in Objectivist terminology, barring new discoveries-which are technically still man-made though they rely on has/is in order to be discovered) doesn't necessarily have to be, but once it is (man flew to the moon) it moves it from could/will to the has/is. That which has/is on a first-level basis can be demonstrated ostensibly. That which has/is beyond the first level in conceptual terms requires a methodology to induce it from first-level observations. The fundamental concept of method in this regard is logic - so even logic needs to be derived by induction from the observational level. While that which could/will happen may not logically be traced back to the observational level, that which has/is ought be - if validity in ones thought is the desired result. Technically, that which could/will happen still relies on the has/is in order for it to be discovered or induced. As to context, the knowledge needed to put a man on the moon had not been discovered 2000 years ago. The context needed to objectively distinguish between valid and invalid concepts did not either.

Wacko, Texas, and Randy Weaver come to mind.

When considering the concepts of possible and impossible, why it is necessary to preface them with logically? To identify what is possible, one only need look out to reality and see possibility after possibility. Possibility is that which has, can or will happen. Impossible is the obverse of that, or that which has not, can not, or will not happen. Logic is a derivative from that which has, can or will happen. Only after the rules of logic are induced, and then the logical connection back to the data which gave rise to them is disregarded can the declaration that apples are razors, that oranges are blades and that shaving with fruit salad comes across as a sweet application of a dull conclusion.. Logic is the means by which one can validate what impossible delineates. It relies on an understanding of what is possible in order to provide the groundwork for its antitheses, the impossible. Only by severing impossible from its logical relationship to possible can we arrive at the postulation that the impossible can somehow be logically demonstrated apart from its reliance on the possible. Proof, logical demonstration, and evidence are derived from that which exists. If something has not, can not, nor will not exist, no proof, logical demonstration or evidence is forthcoming by the nature of the relationships necessitated by all the various aspects involved.

"The first step toward mutual respect between theists and atheists should be the recognition that most people on Earth live in two different worlds: material and spiritual." What does this do to resolve the breech you've introduced between existence and consciousness, that is the breech introduced between body and mind? All people on Earth live in the same world, semantically divided by lack of an integrated, non-contradictory philosophy guided by adherence to the principles discovered by reason using the methods of logic.

Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule made a historic arrival at the International Space Station on Friday, triumphantly captured by astronauts wielding a giant robot arm. SpaceX is the first private company to accomplish such a feat: a commercial cargo delivery into the cosmos.

Nice concretization.

I just noticed one more point you made about their being "no way to even conceptualize infinity". ITOE identifies many different conceptual constructs. Concepts of entities. Concepts of motion, which presumes a concept of entity. Concepts of materials, which also presupposes a concept of entity. It also provides one that encompasses infinity, concept of method. Infinity, as a method, provides you with the instructions of what to do in a particular situation. In the case of the number system, infinity amounts to nothing more than to what ever number you have reached, add one more. If you try to conceive infinity as a number or an amount, it fails, it is the method of "adding one more". The problem I had initially with the concept of eternity, I kept trying to envision it as 'an infinite amount of time'. How ever much time I envision, I could always "add more time". Resolving infinity in this regard helped me to understand that eternal actually deals with the fact that in fact, time is inapplicable to eternal.

ARI had a presentation by Pat Corvini entitled "Achilles, the Tortoise, and Objectivity in Mathematics".In this presentation, she related the story by Zeno to a dirt track with two starting block a set distance apart. Selecting two different speeds, one for Achilles and one for the Tortoise, she began marking the distances as they progressed by placing pins in the dirt to represent the progress. Eventually, the pins become separated by a grain of sand. You can no longer proceed because the grain of sand prohibits you from sticking a pin into the track. Repeating the scenario with high speed digital photography, even the resolution of the digital photography eventually resolves down to two pictures which are indistinguishable from one another due to the size of the pixel representation.. Mathematics, a humanly contrived system for measurement, allows you to solve for all intents and purposes without regard for resolution. Math can "stick the pins in the grain of sand" or "resolve the equation beyond the pixel resolution. Another interesting experiment you can mathematically do for yourself is to start with a millimeter of length. Divide it by two. Divide the result by two. Repeat until you reach the size of a Planck unit. Take that same millimeter and multiply it by two. Multiply the result by two. Repeat until you reach the alleged size of the universe (Keep in mind, we calculate galaxies to be ~14.5 billion l.y. away. If that is a radial estimate from earth or our Milky Way Galaxy, that would establish a diameter of 29 l.y.) What you will discover is that within 100 repetitions either way, the mathematics is providing you with results to which there is no known referents to represent. The power of mathematics is the ability to resolve without regard to resolution. The power of the mind allows you to grasp this fact when presented with something like Zeno's paradox.

I'm not as well versed in this area. The distinction between moral and legal rights may stem from the political system implimented. If the political system is established objectively, it should flow from the facts of man as a moral being, at which point, would such a distinction be necessary?

I'm trying to determine the correct questions to ask to better understand and reveal the various positions I encounter.