dream_weaver

What, aside from the active process of differentiation and integration (of percepts), do you think is missing?

Thanks. That's what I was struggling to recollect. It is not perception alone by which we reach the laws of logic. It is perceptions, as processed by a volitional consciousness.

Technically, Jacob86 is correct. We cannot perceive one another's perceptions. Technically, we cannot even perceive our own perceiving of things. Perception is the form by which we apprehend reality. The broader point that we are all perceiving the same reality, and can objectively arrive at the same conclusions provided the proper methods are discovered and implemented is accurate. edited to add: As a side note: Harry Binswanger did a lecture some time back entitled "Conscious As Identification" that burrows into or "chews over" the various views on perception rather nicely.

I should have probably included the preceding referencess prior to the following.

This, if accurately stated, is where the law of identity has its perceptual roots. It is the perceptual basis for A is A, This is the fundamental root of logic. When you state: "If Oism teaches that "you don't reach the laws of logic by perception alone" then "perception alone" is not the only source of knowledge. One or the other." the question comes to mind "Where does Objectivism teach that you do not reach the laws of logic by perception alone?"

You can't choose to start your own business?

It stirkes me that while you agree with what it says about concept formation, you are trying to segregate it from epistemology. Miss Rand did not find it necessary to re-establish the entire field of logic, only to "repair" the foundation - to show how concepts are a relationship between the objects and the mental concretes by which we hold our understanding of them. In the case of first level concepts, the test of the idea is by the word "dog", the concept "dog" is a mental integration of the similarities I observe between this collie, dashound, greyhound etc. that is different from all the other concretes that I observe. In the case of abstractions from absractions the test is the same, but involves longer heirarchal chains, multiple steps, to demonstrate the relationship to the perceptual level. Animals involves being able to trace it back to dogs, cats, man, lions, etc, being different from rocks, trees, clouds. Logic is the fundamental concept of method. In essence, it would be the process of concept-formation - the art of non-contradictory identification.

The looter is evading reason. Man, qua man's means of survival is reason. The looter has abdicated his reliance on reason for survival by relying on others to use reason that he may survive. Indirectly Indirectly, his means his means of survival is reason, because the means of survival is reason. Still not sure how to reword that. Try: His means of survival is reason, though he is relying on others to do the reasoning for him, because reason is the means of survival.

That makes fallibility sound like a disease, rather than a recognition of a fact that underscores the need for understanding the cognitive processes and how to apply them properly if knowledge is the desired result.

It does not give me knowledge that there are necessarily other X's, only that if there are, I will recognise them as X's because they will be similar to the X's I have observed before.

I perceive X to the point I conceptualize X. Later I perceive another X, similar to the X's I formed the concept from. I have perceived something which I had not previously perceived which is similar. Later I perceive yet another X, similar to the X's I formed the concept from as well as the X I described earlier. Later I repeat this again, and later yet again. I look back at these perceptions and notice (perceive) that this not only occurs with not only with X, but Y, Z and many other things as well. While it does not give me knowledge of "the unperceived", it gives me knowledge that there are other X's, Y's and Z's that I have not perceived, and that I can apply what I know from before to any of them should and when I come across them. This gives me knowledge of identity, or more informally, universality.

I (we) can only build my (our) knowledge based on what I (we) have perceived, and draw from the continuum of the application of older perceptions the similarity with and to the new perceptions that there are other things which I (we) have not yet perceived which would also qualify as similar. Based on this knowledge I (we) can recognize that this continues to be a recurring phenomenon within my (our) consciousness. Or in other words, there are things which I have not yet perceived that are like (similar, identity) to the things which I have perceived.

Perception is not the sole means of knowledge, it is the sole source.

"Be the best you, you can be." The philosophy was one of Budo, essentially the way, or the path, "Kenson", or humility, "shinri" or truth, "kunren" or practice-training-self discipline/effort, "wa" or peace/harmony just to touch base on a few. Every class involved some aspect of history or a basic principle over and above the physical training. Sensei's focus was always mind and body. Karate meant "empty hand" not "empty head".

□ □ □ Simple similarity given in squares. ○ ○ ○ Simple similarity given in circles Δ Δ Δ Simple similarity given in triangles. Less obvious, but still perceptually given is the small, medium and large size of each representation as well as the columnar and row arrangements. Memory of previously observed geometric figures allows me to apply the concept integrated from the previous examples to this case deductively. In so doing, I can recognize that I have applied a previously observed similarity to an instance which up until now has remained unperceived. After repeating this application a number of times, seeing more circles today, yesterday, last week, etc, I can recognize that previously unperceived instances continue to share the same attribute of similarity, and at some point understand that it applies to every circle (square, triangle, row, column, ect) that I have ever seen, or will see, and by extension - even the circles out there that I will never experience, they too, would also share that similarity.

Why is it by perception alone? Perception alone, gives you nothing except what you see. By perception alone, you can know nothing. What role does the mind or consciousness play in conjunction with perception? How do you reduce "universally"? By "universally" aren't you implying that knowledge of X applies to every X you have observed, every X is that is, was and will be? Is "universality" an invalid concept? While I cannot isolate precisely why, this line of reasoning reminds me of the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. Your assessment is one that is essentially comes across as empiricist in nature.

Self-confidence, self-assuredness, self-efficacy. While martial arts is not the sole source of these attributes, it can be a contributor. When you know how to take a baseball bat away while minimizing any injury that may be sustained in doing so, the look on the face of the guy with the bat looking into your eyes when he recognizes that you are ready to deal with him, I have seen him reconsider, and back down.

The same way you know that the knowledge you know to be true about cats, applies to every cat that is, has ever been, and will ever be, even though you have only formed the knowledge from the specific cats you have percieved.

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All knowledge, including the knowledge of the law of identity, ultimately comes from perception. All knowledge is held epistemologically, traceable ultimately to the evidence of the senses. A contradiction is an epistemological error, where the proposition cannot be properly related back to its perceptual referents via a properly validated process of cognition It is the identity of the existents, via a process of cognition performed by consciousness that establishes the identification of the existents. Consciousness is identification. It seeks to answer the question: What is the identity of the object that I am aware of? The law of identity is an epistemological recognition (identification) that the existent is primary, that existents are the referents upon which the epistemological process of identification is built. At the perceptual level, the concept is an integration that takes place when you notice a similarity of two or more existents, a process which is completed when it has been assigned a word, which then serves as a single mental concrete (or entity, if you will). Using the newly created concrete you can state: By this (word), I mean that (entity/existent). The entity/existent is the identity, the fact referenced by the process of identification performed by consciousness. This is the basic formation of a concept of entity. The process is similar for concepts of attributes, actions, relations, quantities, etc. The process can take into consideration any of these perceptual level terms look for similarities within them. This lays the groundwork for the process of abstracting abstractions from abstractions. To confirm the validity of a word, or the truth of a proposition – is to demonstrate that the process of identification utilized by consciousness can be reduced (to reverse engineer or reconstruct the essential elements of the process) back to the referents that serve as the basis or foundation or identity, without contradiction. To state that contradictions do not exist in reality is a recognition that the law of identity is grasped conceptually, a recognition of the fact that existence is what it is, a recognition of the fact that existence exists, a recognition of the fact that to exist is to be something, a recognition of the fact that to be something is what, in fact, identity is. Edited to set font size.

I spent 14 years across 21 years with a traditional Okinawan karate instructor. While I am neither military nor police, I've had occasions the skills acquired were used. I did not "remember" my training in such a situation. I just handled the situation based on how I had trained. Through training, you automatize your actions/reactions. As you acquire the techniques and execute them, by yourself, with a partner, through prearranged exercises, and extemporaneous exchanges, you discover what works for you, and more importantly what does not work for you. I think this is true of any style. There are no superior martial arts, only superior martial artists, and every superior (martial artist) has a superior (martial artist). Train hard. Train often. edited for minor typo.

How do you know that the "validity of logic, which you do not question" is applicable to this conversation, which you have not perceived yet? Is that bit of knowledge perceived somewhere?

It has been a while since I've listened to it, so I'm probably recollecting somewhat incorrectly.

Thank-you. Recalling from the lecture, Dr. Peikoff used "reason is man's basic means of survival". If you recall, he dismissed "basic" as a qualifier to wayside those who would suggest that man needs to breathe, have a heart beat, and numerous other distractions from the point that is being induced. Rephrasing the question he inquired "what is man's means of survival?" From this he parsed "means of survival" - at which point we look around for examples of "means of survival". The examples he presented were food, clothing and shelter. Your local grocery store should present you with plenty of concrete entities which should validate the concept of food for you. I had not considered my example as collectivistic, rather an extreme of a world where man operated strictly on the perceptual level, without reason, foraging for food and water. While some food grows wild in nature, the observation and connection between seeds and plants (an example of reasoning), gave rise to gardening. Farming implements, discovery and use of fertilizers, are more complex examples of reason, without which, man could not have grasped the connections between seeds and plants, the benefits of fertilizer or the time-savings of combine tractors. Every value produced by man can ultimately be traced back to an application of reason to the problem of survival. To state that "reason is man's basic means of survival" is applicable to mankind as well. Reason, practiced (even intermittently) by a minority, has made it possible for the population to recently surpass 7 billion individuals. The basic principles that should be induced would be "a value is that which one seeks to gain or keep", and "virtue is the action which one takes to gain or keep it". Personally, the economic corollary to this I like is: "you either raise your own food to eat, or you produce a good or provide a service with which you can exchange for it.".

Where did the material wealth come from that the most materially affluent historically referenced acquired. Human beings, as a species, must produce the values in order for them to exist. Once the material goods exist, they can be gained/acquired. What would the world be like without any production? Could 7 billion people even roam and scavenge the food and water needed for their survival? The induction is not how did this individual or that individual acquire material values, rather - what human activity makes the material values possible in the first place. Integrating this fact with facts derived from ethics can later illustrate the role productivity should play in the rational man's life.