dream_weaver

And that observation would certainly top the little distraction that it served as.

Eternal applies to that which is outside the province of time. Leonard Peikoff commented on time here. Harry Binswanger in Selected Topics in the Philosophy of Science stated something to the effect: time is in the universe, the universe is not in time. True. Reality is the source of data we compile into knowledge of it. If we do not consistently relate our knowledge back to the source, the result is not knowledge by error. Reality is inescapable in that regard. If you take the effort to induce the material that gives rise to this observation in OPAR, on page 210: Just one more observation, if you continue to spend your time belaboring this point with assertions that are dismissed out of hand in this venue, it cannot be utilized in pursuing the validation and actualization of your trans-human desire, if indeed you intellectually, honestly believe it can be validated and actualized.

Nice analogy. That is the author's prescription. We're doomed. Accept it, there is nothing that can be done about it. If it makes it to the local flea market DVD reseller, watching it may then be an option. Just the trailer you linked to. It sets up an 'imagine, what if', and then proceeds to concretize it according to the film producers metaphysical-epistemological value judgments. A restatement of the author's prescription again. "There is no escape. We're doomed. Accept it." A defeatist mentality, writ large on the silver screen with the advantage of being able to bypass the viewers cognitive processes. Our population has increased to the point it is because of the application of reason to the problem of survival. While oil plays a remarkable role in all of that, it is only one of a myriad of variables in the mix. You might also find this article by George Reisman interesting as well. Mining for the Next Million Years

Many years ago, a local talk-show radio host, Mark Scott, did a broadcast in which part of it addressed "Why are teachers underpaid?" I do not have a transcript of the show, nor do I recall many of the items touched upon, but the summary essential stated: "Teachers get paid the least (among comparable other careers requiring similar amounts of education) because they do the most damage." Damage in this case was delineated along the lines of 'conceptually crippling' our young. Now I realize this is a blanket statement, and that there are notable exceptions out there, but when you read headlines over the weekend about an individual who calls 911 because the prices at the pump are higher than he thinks they ought to be, or about inner-city conflicts over designer clothing, or conflict resolution by shooting the individual who borrowed an outfit without asking, grant you, it is not strictly the teachers fault. Still, within the public schools, providing reasoning skills is not a K-12 curriculum. I vaguely recall from the late '60 early '70's the topic of philosophy coming up in a class. It was too early in my life to really get into it, and so little about it was covered that I can only remember the word was mentioned. This morning I awoke before the alarm went off. While I was getting ready, a thought popped into my head. 'Overpaid' Businessmen. Well, given the validity the underpaid teacher show left me with (again, minus many details) the overpaid businessman engaged a couple of gears. Risk vs. Reward. The businessman, in addition to the natural market risks that are out there, have the addition of the media being against them. The media in turn, generates those who will call 911, because he has been led to believe by the same, that this is an affront to him in some vague way. The judicial system, with an arsenal of ambiguous laws from anti-monopoly, price-gouging and others may be called one day to determine his fate. Just to name a few here. If the teacher is underpaid for turning out sub-standard product, the businessman is overpaid for the additional risks taken, over and above the natural chance to fail that nature offers him. After the businessman thought popped into my head, the comparison to the vague recollections from the teacher show came to mind.

So, we are discussing the application of morality, not to life, qua life, but to the arbitrary qua sapient man-made machine, essentially, a 'computer' which can 'think'. "Whatever he was—that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love—he was not man." Please note, that in building Ayn Rand's robot - she did qualify that it was amoral.

It would still be considered a "stolen concept" as 'volition' is also an integral aspect of the concept of 'morality' as well. And it is still necessary, if you consider that The next three paragraphs go on to clarify this distinction, contrasting with plants, followed by animals, and returning again to man.

It could also be a more generalized 'we' as in America, as a whole.

That was painful to watch.

Starting with the choice of what you consider as the most important values in life. Moving into the historic basis and fundamental issues underscoring the moral principle of the tea party that is symbolic of the course of this great country. A quick dispelling of democracy - contrasting it to the constitutionally limited republic and moving directly into the moral principle of rights it was based on, and illustrating the misuse of rights which muddy the waters out there. Limited government, by trying to understand the principle and state it clearly as: life, liberty, property (which is the pursuit of happiness) Focusing on individual rights, by distinguishing the difference with entitlements - the wholesale attempt to whitewash theft, and the redistribution of wealth, as an affront to the right of the individual from whom that wealth is being deprived. While touching on social security and identifying it as a sensitive issue, he moves right back into standing up for principles that are worth standing up for. The fight for freedom, liberty, the sovereignty of the individual, which summarized into individual rights. Beautiful Yaron, eloquent and powerfully stated. Thanks for making this available CS. edited for spell check.

About all I can add to this conversation is some exposure to a clarification made by Harry Binswanger in Selected Topics in the Philosophy of Science where he stated something to the effect that entropy has been usurped by religion and misrepresented for their ends. Essentially it boils down to: that which is most likely to occur, will.

And it is on this basis why you are encountering such resistance to the acceptance and adaptation of your assertions. It is the fact that human beings face life/death as the fundamental alternative that give rise to the moral. By obliterating the life/death alternative removes the criteria upon which the concept of the moral is based. No life/death alternative, no concept of the moral. In Objectivist terminology this would be identified as a stolen concept as you are using it.

The thought of the universe as the perpetual motion machine, has occurred to me over the last couple of days following this thread.

Three other posts related to this, referencing "Objectivism Through Induction" by Leonard Peikoff Reduction of Objectivity (Aristotle) Posted December 29, 2010 by Roderick Fitts Induction of Objectivity (Aristotle) Posted December 31, 2010 by Roderick Fitts Reduction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand) Posted January 31, 2011 by Roderick Fitts

In a sense, we are subservient to the universe. It is reality we abstract from to determine the relevent facts to remain a part of the universe, thus deriving the aspects of morality pertainent to what is the relationship to that which exists I must observe to continue to exist. As to appreciating the universe to prevent its demise, I can only wonder what you have in mind that views the human specie as capable of destroying that which is eternal.

Liberty has a nice ring to it.

Which sidesteps the objective identification that knowledge is a value for man, precisely because it is a requirement of survival. Even if moving immortality from mythology into the realm of 'scientific inquiry' - you are implying that it is via the value of the knowledge gained from the study of 'immortality' we could then apply it to man. Just out of curiosity - what life form out there is immortal from whence we could study it and gain knowledge of it? What is currently being studied is mortal life, and the observations derived from it will be knowledge of mortal life.

At the root of value is choice. To ask "What is of value?" is to imply "Of value, to whom?" For the Buddhist to suppress "desire", is to suppress value, is to suppress choice, is to renounce the self, is to renounce the ego, is to renounce the intellect, is to renounce the mind. (I hope I have these in hierarchal order.) Edited to add: The self is axiomatic. It can not be proven per se, only validated. It has to be accepted implicitly to be denied explicitly.

Yes, man is born tabula rasa. The content, however, is provided by reality. The hardware (sense organs hardwired into the organ of consciousness) is metaphyscially given. It is up to each individual to write the software (philosophy). The question here what role does consciousness as a difference / similarity detector play in understanding human beauty, and to what degree does the philosophy one develops influence the evaluation of it.

Dr. Potter is played by Armin Shimerman? Who the heck is Dr. Potter? Characters from the novel included Dr. Floyd Ferris, Dr. Robert Stadler, Dr. Blodgett, Dr. Thomas Hendricks and Dr. Simon Pritchett. Dr. Potter held some undefined position with the State Science Institute. He was sent to try to 'buy' the rights to Reardon Metal Wikipedia entry is lacking. (fixed)

Observing the observable material (facts) is validation. The conclusion drawn is that existence exists, the validation is the observation of that which exists, that is, existents. Proof is the method used to relate abstractions not directly percievable back to the given material directly observable by the senses. In essence, it reverses the process of concept-formation by identifying the steps required to validate the concept by taking the concept back to the observations (sense data) which gave rise to it. The question is not, is existence that which is eternal? To posit a 'cause' to existence is to leave the realm of existence, and then posit an 'existent' (at this point, a contradiction in terms, if it exists, by definition it is part of existence) as being the causal agent. Causality asks: What is the cause of action? The answer is entities. The confusion comes from substituting the question and asking: What is the cause of entities (or in some cases identity)? If an entity is one that is not eternal, what is actually being descibed is a process of its coming into or going out of being. The truth or falsehood of a proposition rests on the validity of the concepts used to formulate the proposition, as well as the proposition's relationship to the facts of reality.

To prove that something exists, esp. as an entity, is to demonstrate, via validation, that one or more of these conditions are met. If it has properties, then it has identity. Mass is a property, does it have it? Density is a property, does it have it? Does it use energy? Many things which exist do just that. Is it composed of subatomic particles? Again, if something exists, it is usually comprised of such. How fast does it travel? Again, entities are the cause of motion. Where is it located? If something exists, it is somewhere. How old is it? The universe or existence are all that are exempt from time to my understanding. How does it maintain its structure, if it has one? If something exists, it has structure, again, to my understanding. What was it doing before it created the universe? The question reverts again to "What is it that has always been?" If the universe expands forever, what might it do about this entropic doom? How does existence expand, into where that 'did not exist already?' Does this god have a purpose? This still presumes one exists without demonstrating the same. Where does evolution fit it? Evolution is the identification of causal connections. Not all of these questions integrate together to myself, but in general, to posit that something indeed exists, can be demonstrated, not just repeatedly asserted. To "demonstrate convincingly" is to supply answers to these questions. In short, supplying answers to these questions is validation. Anything short of the above in this venue is: Again from Merriam-Webster: Definition of SEMPITERNAL : of never-ending duration : eternal Definition of BLATHER intransitive verb : to talk foolishly at length —often used with on and easily construed as evasion.

From Merriam-Webster: Definition of CONCEPT 1: something conceived in the mind : thought, notion 2: an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances Keeping the second context in mind, consider the following: Those 'EXAMPLES' experienced, are the units. They are the referents. Even the concept of 'concept' has referents, examples or units available via introspection to be utilized as such. Without an actual instance of a thing, where would we get a concept? The two are synergistic. Since a definition of any concept is often formulated in terms of other concepts, the feedback loop is amplified by the logical and hierarchal interrelationships therein. Volition is choosing to maintain the relationship between a concept and its referents or not.

Darned if the quotation cannot be located that this is reminisceint of, but it goes something like this: The question is not whether to give a dime or not to a beggar, but whether you need to purchase your life back dime by dime from every passerby panhandler that asks.

Have you considered contacting your insurance agent to find out if they have a UFO clause, just in case you might not be able to get a hearing in front of an interstellar judicial system?