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dream_weaver

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  1. The Pro•me•the•us Dis•connection

    1. Show previous comments  2 more
    2. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      I'm finding it a little difficult to envision Prometheus carrying Disconnection itself down to the mere mortals. Would he transport it in a purse, strap it onto his back, or perhaps fill a new wine sack with it lest an old one burst?

    3. StrictlyLogical

      StrictlyLogical

      The pro me - the us disconnection ... I missed this on first reading.  There is no "I" in team but there's a "me" and an "us" in Prometheus.

    4. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      And it is close to the intriguing title of a book.

  2. History: Testimony provided via an empirical record that supplies incontrovertible evidence substantiating the law of causality's veracity.

    1. Show previous comments  1 more
    2. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      The curiosity is still peaked on this one:

      "To control the consciousness of others becomes his only passion; power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind."

      Why is "lots" pluralized?

    3. StrictlyLogical

      StrictlyLogical

      To emphasize the deficiency in multiple areas of personality: weeds each where rationality, valid premises, love of life, knowledge of reality, self-esteem, certainty, respect for others rights etc. all should be.  The weed of power-lust subverts warps or replaces (in its mental variant) what should otherwise be present in each "lot" of the mind, each aspect of an otherwise whole multifaceted mentality of a human being.

    4. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      I was stuck on trying to figure out how compartmentalize could make it work somehow. This makes more sense.

  3. Dagny placed the remnant of the motor into a vault in one of the tunnels; the vault had once contained an emergency electric generator, which had been removed long ago.

    —a thing that made me go hmm. Was it really necessary to bring up the prior content of the vault?

    1. StrictlyLogical

      StrictlyLogical

      Man’s mind or reason, his engine for life was also once used in ancient Greece and again during the Enlightenment, and in the face of bad philosophy is once more abandoned with nothing in its place... now another chance at restarting the generator of his life... a rebirth of reason.

    2. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      Atlas Shrugged, the Kelsae Sweet Giant Onion of literature. The chapter Wyatt's Torch just got more intricate.

    3. Grames

      Grames

      Rand is drawing a parallel between the broken "motor" she found and an electric generator.  Also, in a way what had been removed is now restored (although the "motor" doesn't work yet) foreshadowing some other restoration yet to occur. 

      A vault also keeps private, or keeps a secret, what is within it.  This is yet another foreshadowing of her discovery that John Galt has already secretly been working in the Taggart Terminal.   As the book goes on to show, Galt really has been Dagny's private motivation all along, even before she knew Galt existed.

  4. If the process of integration is replaced by and large with a process of association, what does it do to the process of conceptualization?

    1. Mindy

      Mindy

      Association presupposes enough familiarity with the elements associated that encountering one can lead specifically to the other.

      I assume by the process of integration, you mean chiefly concept-formation? If so, think of associated things such as lightning and thunder. One wouldn't think of them as being the same, just associated.

      Is that on topic?

      Mindy

    2. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      This was a rewording from Ayn Rand Letter: 'The Missing Link'. "In the brain of an anti-conceptual person, the process of integration is largely replaced by a process of association."

  5. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-needs-philosophy-philosophy-needs-physics/

    This is a limited article site, unless you are a subscriber.
    So far a very pro Aristotelian stance.

    1. merjet

      merjet

      The URL you show is correct, but the URL "behind" your link doesn't go to the page the article in on. 

    2. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      Thanks. I spliced it the first time. HTML can be unforgiving that way. :)

  6. What would you ask Dr. Tara Smith if you had the chance to exchange pleasantries with her over a cup of coffee?

    1. StrictlyLogical

      StrictlyLogical

      When can we anticipate being able to buy your next book, and what will it be about?

  7. Sun and Earth are closest for the entire year today. Earth is at a point in its orbit called perihelion, which means “closest to the Sun.” We are about 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) closer to the Sun than average.

  8. After getting clearer on where the weeds of power-lust grow, it becomes more obvious that those power-lusters are just pikers when it comes to what is "the most crucial and practical power in human existence."

    1. dream_weaver

      dream_weaver

      The difference between a heavy fog of passive disintegration and a heavy fog of desultory disintegration only seems to arise when there is a concerted effort to actually cut through the fog.

  9. Attractive woman: "Isn't it odd? When a politician or a movie star retires, we read front page stories about it. But when a philosopher retires, people do not even notice it." Francisco: "They do, eventually."

  10. "Social pressure cannot be used to defeat those who shape society" — Warden Lacedemonian

    The Golden Age — John C. Wright

  11. Daphne said, "Darling, I'm getting edgy. Nothing is beginning to make sense"

    — The Revolt Against Reason

    The Golden Age

  12. Miss Rand described a conspiracy without leader or direction in Atlas Shrugged, and went on to comprise the conspiratorialist as haters of reason.

    Leonard Peikoff is wont to say "follow reason" throughout OPAR on once in Ominous Parallels.

    Follow reason. Following reason leads to or away from the perceptual level, depending on the direction being pursued.

    A convoluted way of considering a conspiracy with reason as a sort of leader, and direction as her added-on bonus.

  13. Speak to the shoemaker

    Nice instructive piece featured on Aeon by Edith Hall, who is is professor in the department of classics and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King’s College London.

  14. Finished reading "Leave Her to Heaven", written by Ben Ames Williams in 1944.

    Saw the book for the first time in a "Little Free Library" box while visiting Curwood Castle (built by another popular author of the early 1900's), and the title reminded me of a line from For The New Intellectual's lead article ". . . leave them to heaven."

    Things that make you go hmm.

  15. Great line from the recently released movie Justice League:
    "Darkness, the truest darkness, is not the absence of light. It is the conviction that the light will never return."

  16. The Witch-Doctors of the past have by and large been replaced by the Which-Doctors of the present.

    Instead of the reliance of one's own mind as the final arbiter, encouragement to seek out the Which-Doctors is almost ubiquitous. Which career should I seek? Which house should I buy? Which foods should I be eating? Which set of answers should I be seeking to implement.

    When the Patients are ready, the Doctors will appear.

  17. If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

     

  18. Growing up, this adage was heard from time to time. "Your actions speak so loudly i can't hear what you're saying."

    Consider walking the walk, and just letting the walk do the talking.

  19. Properly understood, Objectivism is not a manual for what to think, it is an introductory primer for how to do so.

  20. [A] philosopher is one who, knowing all the difficulties involved in the problem of abstractions, deals with nothing but concretes. Given the track-record thus far, this just might be fun to find out if it is right as well.

  21. "I never thought that any plane would attempt to drop within seven hundred feet of the ground." — John Galt

    Terminal Airspace, Class E reference?

  22. Separation agreement reached with employer of 21.5 years, January 2022.

    (i.e. laid-off.)

    Spun-off division I had worked for, reaches out for assistance March 2023.

    (i.e. part-timer)

  23. [Phaethon] looked left and right. On shelves and in glass cabinets surrounding him were other memories. But the other memory boxes, caskets and chests in the Archive Chamber surrounding him all were clearly labeled, marked, and dated. They bore no cryptic riddles. — The Chamber of Memories

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