dream_weaver

Let's concretize the situation:
 
The concept of an Axiom, involves the idea that they are necessary but not sufficient for one to claim any and all knowledge.
 
Validation of the Axiom involves observation that the Axiom applies (is necessary) to each and every part of the totality of your knowledge, and in fact upon integration of all that knowledge, observation that it applies to any possible knowledge.
 
The Arbitrary is a claim to something for which no evidence has been observed.  Claims to the existence of an omnipotent spaghetti monster or the Devil fall into this category. Arbitrary claims fall short of the meaning of "possible" for which at least SOME evidence must exist tending to show the thing claimed to be a possibility.  I.e. unless some probability backed by evidence can be shown something has the status of Arbitrary, meaningless, and not possible.  When all of your knowledge contradicts an Arbitrary claim, I would say the Arbitrary claim should in fact be deemed "impossible". 
 
It is BOTH
 
1. an arbitrary claim; AND
2. a claim to the impossible
 
to claim that it is possible that some special scientific knowledge will be "discovered" which invalidates an Axiom (an axiom which has already been independently validated as necessary for the totality of all of your knowledge) thereby invalidating all knowledge we have heretofore possessed... and incidentally thereby invalidating the special scientific knowledge...(transforming it into mystic intuition or revelation?? after all knowledge no longer is valid...)
 
The claim that the discovery of such special scientific knowledge is possible is of on the same epistemological level as claiming the possibility of God, or that the Universe will end tomorrow, or that existence, identity, and consciousness are illusions... (nonexistent illusions of what non-consciousness neither of which are what they are?)
 
 
Keeping context: The analysis is not an empty rationalisation regarding some unknown unspoken Axioms of arbitrary origin.  We already have a set of Axioms we are confronted with and must take into account when speaking of Axioms. 
 
 
The Axioms discovered to be necessary for the claim to any and all knowledge include:
 
Existence
Consciousness
Identity
 
 
Keeping it concrete:
 
What possible nature and or type of special scientific discovery, i.e. what special knowledge could be "observed" for which we would suddenly exclaim knowledge is impossible?  Do not doubt this would be the logical result you would have to accept.  Think about it.  Without looking to any specific type of scientific discovery, which one of these Axioms is it "possible" could be controverted by "special knowledge" without actually invalidating all knowledge?
 
Some of you will see the black empty zero forming in your mind... a conceptual black hole or perhaps some amorphous undefined conceptual fog... and while staring into this void you will still have some sense or a FEELING that there is something there...     In the end these things do not amount to it but you will be still tempted to sheepishly say:
 
"It's possible..."

Mikee said:
 
In the book mentioned by Dante, Mills a System of Logic, Prof. McCaskey and his colleague said:

 
Now think on frank's comments:
 
And then relate this to Dr. Peikoffs words:
 
And then read Prof. McCaskey's comment on his blog:
 
Meaning, logic, language, conceptualization and induction are all inseparable....

A better definition: the sum of all factors conditioning one's perspective.

Illya said:
I claim that your categorization of mysticism is not mine and that makes you waste time beating strawmen. Your essential characteristic of mystic is not mine, and you don't understand the generative context of differentiation that the units of mysticism and religion presuppose and this makes you a context dropping misintegrater on this issue. You have made these units synonymous with the difference that made them necessary and that they presuppose.

Illya said:
You have come to a forum based on objectivism after reading Ayn Rands works and you are surprised by the boldness of an Oist expression of that same philosophy? You don't even seem to have grasped my claims. The fact that your response is completely lacking a response to the relevant charge of strawman is evidence of this. And boldness on a particular issue is not synonymous with , or evidence of the belief that one is omniscient. Another strawman.... The solid ground is that Ms Rand clearly was talking about something different than you are criticizing.

Illya said:
What you fail to grasp is that the context of differentiation that mysticism and religion presupposes cannot be a source of "overlap" because difference is antithetical to similarity. What's more is you are ignoring that Ms Rand's criticism of mysticism is one that presupposes that difference. I gave you that basis already, the difference in the method of justification.

Illya said:
I already did the work but you have your eyes on a strawman.

Illya said:

Your point?


Illya said:

Beg the question much? Oist don't separate fact and value and the quote you opened this thread with should have told you that you and Oist don't agree on the relation of emotions to facts... Until you figure this out you will never understand why "HeartMath" is nonsense to Oist.


Illya said:
You love to create strawmen based on your own equivocations and impute them to others condescendingly. Its pretty funny really. Civilization and industry are not synonymous. The rest is you affirming the consequent of a nonsensical strawman.

Illya said:
You can make whatever arbitrary differentiation you want but that doesn't make it correspond to facts or provide you with the ability to define a concept in a way that makes the generative context the units were abstracted from valid. What essential characteristic of your categorization makes "mysticism" responsible for these alleged goodness's?

Illya said:

No, you do not know how to identify when your units are not someone else's when you address their comments.(context dropping) A connection is a connection, neuronal or not. There is no such thing as a unidirectional connection neuronal or otherwise. Are you actually claiming that organs are not connected to the rest of your body? You confuse the difference between cells and organs with the difference between a connection and autonomy and therefore create more strawmen! I never claimed that the heart doesn't have neurons!
Try again?


Illya said:
Some physical theories are unscientific and their age has nothing to do with that! This cute little century stawman is meaningless. Truth is timeless. My view of controversial issues in science is in the category of novelty and a recognition of the differences between fact and theory. Try again?

Illya said:
Already have...
Illya said:
Newsflash, there is no other kind of evaluation! Appealing to the values of consensus is simply a failure to evaluate on that issue. Again you fail to address the Oist justification-position for judgment-sanction. You gonna enter this fight?

Illya said:
You clearly don't understand what Sheldrake said that I am referring to. His nonsensical view that things don't do what they do because of what they are but because they currently have that "habit" is a rejection of the law of identity as it relates to causality. A habit is something you can fail to do, is contingent, Identity is not something that can fail to obtain.....However the differences between you, Sheldrake, the heartmath nonsense and Oism is indeed centered around Ontology. The graph in this videos snapshot
Shows the essential problem with this difference. The video is full of instances of making false differentiations based on terrible ontological distinctions.

Illya said:

Quote me stating any such stupidity!

Illya said:
It would help if we had the same criteria for evidence, Illya. This is central to our differences and the debate you are failing to engage in.


Illya said:

Nowhere did I claim that mystics are not men. What's more is these are two different units nonetheless! You are mixing your to's and from's all together in your equivocation on concepts-units=misintegration.

ITOE said:
Edit: I want to add to the essential trait of mysticism the treatment of emotions as tools of cognition. This is implicit in the use of them as justifiers in the "pure conscious experience" notions of mystics... (And the heartmath bullshit)

Somewhat related: This 'hit piece' on Walmart (and Starbucks) appeared in the NY Times (The Corporate Daddy)
 
Not content to let things go, Walmart had a response (Fact Check: The NY Times "Corporate Daddy")

Consensus is merely a general agreement shared within a group. A fact of reality does not care what the consensus of a group of people is. A fact of reality does not care if we connect philosophy to the scientific consensus or vice versa. Philosophy is the science that studies reality, man, and man's relationship to reality. A man is a member of a group. The group he is a member of is mankind. If the consensus of the group of men is "a fact of reality does care what the consensus of the group of men is", this does not alter the fact "a fact of reality does not care what the consensus of a group of men is."
 
Trying to grasp this by using the scientific consensus on climate change does not make this any easier, nor does it change it one iota.
 
Facts are what they are regardless of what any individual may think they are. Here, the question becomes: Are you looking for a method conducive to the identification of facts that takes into consideration the nature of reality and the nature of man's means of apprehending reality? Or do you plan on flitting among the vast array of conflicting consensus' out there - struggling to guess which ones may be true, and where they may lead?

Rhetoric carries a lot of negative overtones in with it. Merriam Webster cites it as being: language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable.
Older usages leave the dishonesty and unreasonableness out by stating: the art or skill of speaking or writing formally and effectively especially as a way to persuade or influence people.
 
Atlas Shrugged has been cited over the years as the second most influential book in America. Acceptance of this claim as true would easily qualify under the second sense of this term. Miss Rand did not use the term often in her writings. She wrote of one of Mr. Humphrey's biggest campaign problems as undisciplined rhetoric. She also cited Hugo the thinker's (contrasting against Hugo the artist) characters' speeches were "not expressions of ideas, but only rhetoric, metaphors and generalities."
 
A co-worker loaned me Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which was the first book of hers I read cover to cover. Her thoughts on how concepts were formed harkened back to two conversations I had when I was about 10 years old. Shortly after that, I had read most of her non-fiction works. There was also a talk show radio host in the area that ran a three hour show, Monday through Friday that applied his knowledge of her works to the daily news, in interviews with authors of books, during interviews with politicians (until the politicians discovered the interviews did not help their PR ratings), as well as fielding calls from listeners in the area that would call in to agree as well as disagree with him.
 
I can't really isolate any specific arguments that "won me over". I was looking for explanations that some key individuals provided. Objectivism was a common denominator between them.
 
If you want to know the rhetorical method used by Objectivism, then seek to understand its fundamental concept of method, the one on which all other concepts of method depend: logic, the art of non-contradictory identification.

Mark Scott was a radio talk show host that premiered in Detroit, Michigan back in the 80's. Local radio politics derailed the show here, and Mark took it on the road, first to New York, then to Disneyland on the Potomac (Washington DC) before returning to the station it began with. Moving to the Internet when the radio station had a change of venue, he broadcasted for a few years, returning to radio just prior to health issues bringing about his demise.
 
Unbeknownst to Mark, his broadcasts on the radio where recorded and rebroadcasted on the Internet. This website, appears dedicated to trying to gather many of those broadcasts into a local repository.
 
Mark was the first time I encountered the ideas of Ayn Rand. What struck me was not his references to Ayn Rand, but the ability of this individual to articulately undermine seemingly plausible arguments in a way I had never witnessed before. By the 1990's his connection to Ayn Rand had been clearly established in my mind. I had attended a couple of rally's he had organized, taken some photographs from one of them that he sincerely complimented on his radio show, after his return to the Detroit area.
 
For now, take a gander at the his abbreviated recommended reading list (I wish I knew where my explicit, more detailed copy is), and a newly compiled list of Mark's internet bookmarks, two more feathers in the cap of this unexpected undertaking.
 
Mark,
The world ended the day you died. Excelsior!

No, there is no bomb that will kill only adults. Nor a bomb that will only kill the guilty and spare the innocent. I'm resigned to the fact that these bombs, which will kill indiscriminately, must be dropped in times of war. I'm even resigned to the innocent dying and children, too, though I account such as tragedies and argue that they should be minimized as much as reasonably possible.

But our specific point of departure is a question of whether or not it is moral to *target* the innocent.
 
I would ask that you try to start thinking of people fundamentally as individuals, not as "populations." I think that it will help you to treat them as individuals, which is what I believe justice demands.
 
Innocence is not "inconsequential"; it is that which makes the crucial difference between the initiation of force, which is immoral, and the use of force in self-defense, which is moral. Your conflation of these two states, and subsequent dismissal of it as being unimportant altogether, is what *I* believe lies at the heart of our disagreement.

"Kill them all, and let God sort them out," is not, in my view, a moral sentiment. Kill the people who deserve to die, and only those, is.
 
This does not sound simple to me at all. This sounds like a huge contention (or number of contentions) packed into a very small sentence, possibly reductive to a dangerous degree, lacking utterly the explanation, evidence and discussion needed to understand all of what it might mean and imply.

Here's a small quote from Rand on "war," with a curious aside on the nature of dictatorship:
 
Generally speaking, do we regard the citizens of a dictatorship as slaves who must be liberated? Or as the true monsters who must be crushed? If you find these questions complicated (as I do), and not easily answered, and not answerable at all without recourse to specifics and real world context, then perhaps your "simple fact of war" is not a simple fact of war.
 
And again, this is just a tremendous statement. The "entire history of war"? That's... a lengthy history, you know?

I'll assume that you don't mean that the entire history of war supports bombing civilian populations; bombings, such as we're discussing, being still rather a recent innovation...

But do you mean that we can expect that the intentional slaughters of civilian populations have been required throughout history to achieve the removal of "a threat"? And truly with respect to "any war," as you've proposed? What does "the removal of a threat" entail, anyways? Are we talking about salting the earth, like Rome did for Carthage? Was the American Revolution successful on these terms, in throwing off the royal yoke? Or not, given the War of 1812? What about thereafter? Did we need to perhaps decimate London to achieve our just ends at that time?
 
I don't know whether I've accurately identified the point of our disagreement, whether it remains hidden, or whether there are several, but I can tell you that I do not consider the life of a two-year-old in Iran to be "diametrically opposed to my own."

Please think about what you're saying; think about it critically, as befits your handle, and deeply. You're saying (or at least so it appears to me) that my life requires the death of some two-year-old somewhere. That it's either him or me. This is not true. It is not only a horrific sentiment, but it is (thankfully) false.
 
Someone does indeed have to die: those who initiate force, as here through warfare, must pay for their crimes. But I do not achieve this end by targeting the innocent. Will innocents die regardless, whether by collateral damage or accident or the aggression of the initiators of force? Absolutely. That's why war is disgusting. But I do not punish the guilty by attacking the innocent. I only make myself guilty as well. (It is by attacking the innocent that we come to recognize the guilty.)
 
A general 2,000 miles away from the front may plan a bombing run and then go out at night for a steak dinner. I do not think that in describing emergencies, such as one's immediate scramble to escape a burning building, Ayn Rand meant to include professionals who make decisions in an air-conditioned office and then dine at Outback.

But let's say you're right. Should this same rationale not also apply to police action? Since police chiefs are making decisions which deal with the life and death of police officers, then perhaps there are no reasonable moral limits on what police officers might do, per policy, in the name of justice?

But no, this is not what's meant by "emergency" -- not in Rand's use, and not in reason. It's not "anything which has to do with life and death, even remotely, and even if these general situations are commonplace and eternal," as both crime and warfare are. Though specific situations may well arise, for police officers and soldiers both, which are legitimate life-or-death emergencies -- true lifeboats, where moral reasoning no longer applies -- the initial policies and conventions, strategy and tactics, that we adopt in order to fight back against the guilty and protect the innocent are not formed under emergency conditions.

Thus we have the time to consider the consequences of our decisions, and we may (and must) consider their morality. We institute things such as warrant protections and limits on searches and seizures, and we forbid ourselves the use of certain torture methods, and we prescribe treatment for prisoners of war, and so forth, because we recognize that even while acting in self-defense -- against domestic criminals or foreign combatants -- we must act morally, for our own sake.

May I also add, as perhaps an aside which you'll not find relevant, but I find this compelling myself...

Here's Rand on the draft:
 
Consider this if you would? Here is war as a "metaphysical emergency" in its starkest form, is it not? This is not alone Korea or Vietnam or either of the Persian Gulf Wars, where we could perhaps argue about whether US involvement was strictly justified. This is a "free country attacked."

And yet, Rand presumes that those so attacked still do not have the right to violate the rights of others. Being attacked in the manner of a war does not give the injured party some sort of moral carte blanche. It does not render any action they might take in response "moral," and it does not give them the right to violate the rights of others, not even under the guise of "self-defense."

Marc K. had it right when he said:
 
But he might have done even better to include the word "only," which is a word Ayn Rand appeared to be fond of when discussing retaliatory force, as for instance here (from "The Objectivist Ethics," emphasis in original):
 
If we mean to use physical force only against those who have initiated its use, does that include targeting innocents such as the two-year-old child who happens to live in the wrong country? I do not believe so.

Ok, I guess I'll play the "let's state the obvious" game. When someone is silenced, that means force was used to prevent them from talking. ARI, on the other hand, does not use force, and the people they ask to conform to the conditions of their employment are free to refuse.
I didn't mean "shut up about it" literally, I just meant "don't publish articles/speak publicly" about it.
If someone paid by an organization to publicly promote their agenda publishes views that contradict that agenda while "off the clock", that clearly undermines the job they're being paid to perform. ARI is right to set conditions that prevent its contributors from doing that.

The evasion of reality it must've taken to get to this conclusion is mind blowing.

Do any of these examples demonstrate that hardened resistance due to unprovoked attack ultimately led to victory?  Vietnam perhaps, and if one concludes that the Vietnamese prevailed in a practical test of doing unto others against the Americans, then one might have a strong argument for the Golden Rule.
 
Many will recognize me as one of this forums strongest advocates of ethical reciprocity.  However I don't think of it so much as a basis for rights, as a means of justice.  Whatever rights exist, one ought to allow others an equal share of the benefit of having them, as Ayn Rand suggests with:
 
"The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man’s right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It means that Man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness." ~ ARL, Individual Rights

Do animal cognition researchers claim that animals can form at least some rudimentary concepts just as man does? If so, how can animals do that without language, either spoken language or audible sounds or sign language of some kind? (True language, not just approximate communication of percepts or states of agitation or contentment )
Do animal cognition researchers use the term "concept" in the same way that Objectivism uses it? How does their understanding and usage of "concept" compare and contrast with the Objectivist understanding of it?
Do animal cognition researchers understand the phenomena of "perceptual association" and "perceptual generalization," and how those processes differ from concept formation?
 
"Never underestimate the power of the perceptual level of cognition in animals that are constituted to live on that level in a correspondingly conducive habitat. The perceptual level is more effective for those animals than man may have hitherto assumed. Both the recent experiments and the vast array of past observations of animals historically have amply demonstrated this. Those observations do not demonstrate, however, that animals are using human concepts, or functioning on a conceptual level at all, as that form of cognition is understood by man."

Frank said:

We have a concept for that, its pity, not love. Imagine a valentines card where you could substitute "pity" for the word love.....No thanks!

I've just finished my first reading of the book.  I say first, because I'm reading it a second time, more closely, to really study it.  This book I take very seriously and regard it to be among the very finest and most important books one can read in Romantic Realism today.    Though I do not know who exactly Pandora is, I think the name holds some kind of important significance to the series itself, as being a reference to the Pandora in Greek mythology. I think they use it, because it suits their expression.    There are 46 chapters in the first volume in the Work of Art Series. Pandora includes the first 7 chapters to the second volume in this book, as well. I was delighted to see that, and as soon as I did, thought of it as "the encore."  Certain things in the book made me laugh, though it's no comedy. The seriousness is all-pervasive. I adore Pandora. They take ideas and writing very seriously. But... Who is Pandora? Who is the writer behind the words?  And why the use of that name? That myth can hold different meanings, depending upon one's reference, interpretation, telling, recontextualization of it.    One of the main focal points in this book, is education. A progressive education of the Academy, which is a public school (read: Government school, government education) contrasted with that of the School for Self-Esteem, which  based on the Montessori Method, but in the book it's referred to as the "Miranda method".  It also reminds me of the VanDamme Academy way, the pedagogically correct way, etc. But anyway, in the book, it shows the result that each said approach can have on each child, on individuals. There is much more to the plot, than just education, though.    The story is engaging, the style I quickly warmed up to, the plot and characterization all handled masterly, it is so well-crafted. As I said, I will be studying it further. There are many quotable parts throughout the book. Let me share a few, to give you a broad sampling of the text:   Excerpts: (the first two go together, don't know why it's separated in the middle of the quote)  
Professor Vandemeer thought that it seemed as if the workshop were not a part of a school - but that it were part of a temple. He thought that the children seemed happy, as if happiness came from work that they were doing. They were proud, as if pride came from how well they did their work.  They weren't striving to outdo their peers, but as if they were trying to outdo themselves; from a standard or a measurement that did not come from a teacher, not from the others, not from external surroundings - but that came from within.      
   
   
   
   
   
  You can read the reviews it has already received, and can try a free sample of the first chapter for yourself. I highly recommend it. I'm going to attempt to review it. It will be a 5 star review, that's for damn sure.

ARI has an audio course called Objective Communication.. It was the first time I had purchased any of their materials. It came on a set of cassette tapes. From the outset, it was made emphatically clear that the course was about objective communication, not Objectivist communication.
 
This writing is going to take into consideration three points.
1. Consider the demographics of your audience.
2. Raising issues that can’t be easily addressed.
3. Selecting the essential element to respond to.
 
When expressing an idea, if it is important enough to make, it should also be important enough to consider your audience. Whether you are speaking to a group, or an individual – what do they know? What can the be expected to know? What do you want to accomplish?
 
In most cases, talking to an known individual, past history provides some of the answers to these questions, varying from individual to individual. What you broach and talk about can be vastly more diverse than in most cases with a total stranger.
 
When communicating with a group, the same considerations apply. Are you using a megaphone to speak to anyone that happens to be in the area? What about a group of businessmen or scientists? What about an Internet forum?  What about this forum?
 
If you are directing your communication to an Objectivist audience, it is likely there is familiarity with Objectivism. If you are direct your communication to individuals not familiar or not as familiar with Objectivism, how might the form of the message need to be altered?
 
This can transition into raising issues that cannot easily be addressed. Objectivism takes time and effort to grasp and apply. Different issues can be tackled, depending on the scope of familiarity of the participants involved.
 
Raising a point can raise legitimate questions. Sometimes raising a point can generate a question not anticipated. In such a case, it may need to be looked into to come up with an appropriate response.
 
Often, topics get raised here that participants get passionate about. Rather than delineating responses into narrower addressable form, a dozen points may get raised in a single post. Depending on the level of passion, a response to each point seems mandated.
 
In such a case, it may be prudent to sit back, evaluate the material in front of you, and try to isolate the essential point. If the essential point is identified correctly, it can address several of the issues raised without having to break down each one independently.
 
According to the communications course, addressing these issues usually involves moving hierarchically in the philosophy’s structure. Political points rest on ethical ones. Selecting the right ethical principle can reveal the epistemological principle underlying it.
 
Once the philosophic root is exposed, how it is dealt with should help to ascertain what should come next.
 
Thank you for reading this.

ARI has an audio course called Objective Communication.. It was the first time I had purchased any of their materials. It came on a set of cassette tapes. From the outset, it was made emphatically clear that the course was about objective communication, not Objectivist communication.
 
This writing is going to take into consideration three points.
1. Consider the demographics of your audience.
2. Raising issues that can’t be easily addressed.
3. Selecting the essential element to respond to.
 
When expressing an idea, if it is important enough to make, it should also be important enough to consider your audience. Whether you are speaking to a group, or an individual – what do they know? What can the be expected to know? What do you want to accomplish?
 
In most cases, talking to an known individual, past history provides some of the answers to these questions, varying from individual to individual. What you broach and talk about can be vastly more diverse than in most cases with a total stranger.
 
When communicating with a group, the same considerations apply. Are you using a megaphone to speak to anyone that happens to be in the area? What about a group of businessmen or scientists? What about an Internet forum?  What about this forum?
 
If you are directing your communication to an Objectivist audience, it is likely there is familiarity with Objectivism. If you are direct your communication to individuals not familiar or not as familiar with Objectivism, how might the form of the message need to be altered?
 
This can transition into raising issues that cannot easily be addressed. Objectivism takes time and effort to grasp and apply. Different issues can be tackled, depending on the scope of familiarity of the participants involved.
 
Raising a point can raise legitimate questions. Sometimes raising a point can generate a question not anticipated. In such a case, it may need to be looked into to come up with an appropriate response.
 
Often, topics get raised here that participants get passionate about. Rather than delineating responses into narrower addressable form, a dozen points may get raised in a single post. Depending on the level of passion, a response to each point seems mandated.
 
In such a case, it may be prudent to sit back, evaluate the material in front of you, and try to isolate the essential point. If the essential point is identified correctly, it can address several of the issues raised without having to break down each one independently.
 
According to the communications course, addressing these issues usually involves moving hierarchically in the philosophy’s structure. Political points rest on ethical ones. Selecting the right ethical principle can reveal the epistemological principle underlying it.
 
Once the philosophic root is exposed, how it is dealt with should help to ascertain what should come next.
 
Thank you for reading this.

I agree with almost all of what you said except for ... "restoring reason in a world..."
 
In some sense it may partly be true .. politically and economically compare now to the founding of America, but in the entire scope of mysticism, ethics, etc. this is not so much about "restoring" it as popularizing its recent profound consistent discovery and application... Rand's work.

Critical thinking skills are an acquired ability to distinguish between clear and unclear expressions of thought. An ability that comes in handy is the ability to evaluate a statement with regard to how others might perceive it. A statement may seem clear at first, in the context of what was being considered when writing it, and lose that clarity when reviewing it at some point in the future.
 
Objectivism is a philosophy that touts reason and logic underpinning the five basic branches, and the host of factors that give rise to its hierarchy and structure. Understanding it, like understanding anything, is not automatic.
 
Imagine an outsider with little more familiarity to Objectivism, than hearing it is the solution to all the problems in the world. While this is an overstatement, Objectivism posits solutions to understanding key issues in ethics and politics that run askew to anything tried during the course of human history.
 
The internet has more materials than anyone could possibly process in a lifetime. People need to allocate their time when using the Internet, just like anything else, and seek out what they esteem of value. A forum offers the opportunity to discuss and share ideas that fall under a common theme. People interested in understanding more about math, can find a math forum. I consider a forum like Freethought and Rationalism as a showcase for what advocating any and every idea as possible and plausible leads to.
 
Objectivism advocates the adherence to a method in order to establish if an idea is possible, possible and ultimately as certain. Ideas that do not meet these criteria are deemed to be arbitrary. Critical thinking skills are honed by arriving to a conclusion of the ideas position along this continuum.
 
While there is a place of being critical of others, it is usually accompanied by making a strong case supporting it. Folks who come here to read these threads are hopefully interested in what Objectivism is, and how it can benefit them. They can argue willy-nilly at home, work, school or favorite social club.  Objectivism identifies the role that philosophy in the course of human events. If rational discourse with a sincere respect for logic is to return to the culture at large, where is it to start?

This just yet another example of so-called critics that don't honestly grapple with what they are critiquing.

1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived. By the standard used with regard to Kant, no. The raw quantity of lives she has affected is still very small.

2) "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world. No, based on the lives affected standard. Speculatively, the Objectivist philosophy as a whole is better than Atlas.

3) Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth. No, see her own essay "Who is the Final Authority on Ethics?"

4) Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth. Hasn't been in the past, why would it be in the future? That is, if subsistence agriculture is the standard for surviving. If you want something better, Objectivist epistemology will be of value.

5) Immanuel Kant is the most evil person who has ever lived. Very possibly, if you pile all of the 20th century atrocities on his doorstep.

6) Immanuel Kant deliberately set out to cause the Nazi Holocaust. Nope. But that doesn't excuse him.

7) Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are only slightly less immoral than Immanuel Kant. Not even close to Kant. Stupid question.

8) James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is a profound, brilliantly argued expose of the above. Haven't read it

9) Modern physics, such as Einstein's theories, are philosophically corrupt and must be urgently replaced by a new physics based on Ayn Rand's epistemology. Physics is based on observations and logic, and logic comes from epistemology. But perhaps what physics really needs is more observations, more context, more obvious unexplainable problems like the old "ultraviolet catastrophe." This is not a philosophical issue.

10) Words have "true" meanings that are only available to superior Objectivist philosophers, whose job it is to inform those in lesser disciplines, such as scientists, of these true meanings. Where these special true Objectivist meanings clash with conventional dictionary meanings, those conventions are false and corrupt. No, Objectivist philosophers use ordinary words, but it is not always possible to craft a careful argument with ordinary meanings of words due to the problem of equivocation. Many(most?) words have multiple meanings.

11) Ayn Rand invented a new, Objectivist super-logic which incorporates the standard bi-valent logic formalised by Aristotle, yet dramatically improves on it, solving among other issues Hume's problem of induction. No.

12) Ayn Rand is the only true Objectivist that ever lived, and will ever live. Everyone else is merely a student of Objectivism. No.

So I score 1 point due to the "Kant is evil" question. Yay?

Critical thinking skills are an acquired ability to distinguish between clear and unclear expressions of thought. An ability that comes in handy is the ability to evaluate a statement with regard to how others might perceive it. A statement may seem clear at first, in the context of what was being considered when writing it, and lose that clarity when reviewing it at some point in the future.
 
Objectivism is a philosophy that touts reason and logic underpinning the five basic branches, and the host of factors that give rise to its hierarchy and structure. Understanding it, like understanding anything, is not automatic.
 
Imagine an outsider with little more familiarity to Objectivism, than hearing it is the solution to all the problems in the world. While this is an overstatement, Objectivism posits solutions to understanding key issues in ethics and politics that run askew to anything tried during the course of human history.
 
The internet has more materials than anyone could possibly process in a lifetime. People need to allocate their time when using the Internet, just like anything else, and seek out what they esteem of value. A forum offers the opportunity to discuss and share ideas that fall under a common theme. People interested in understanding more about math, can find a math forum. I consider a forum like Freethought and Rationalism as a showcase for what advocating any and every idea as possible and plausible leads to.
 
Objectivism advocates the adherence to a method in order to establish if an idea is possible, possible and ultimately as certain. Ideas that do not meet these criteria are deemed to be arbitrary. Critical thinking skills are honed by arriving to a conclusion of the ideas position along this continuum.
 
While there is a place of being critical of others, it is usually accompanied by making a strong case supporting it. Folks who come here to read these threads are hopefully interested in what Objectivism is, and how it can benefit them. They can argue willy-nilly at home, work, school or favorite social club.  Objectivism identifies the role that philosophy in the course of human events. If rational discourse with a sincere respect for logic is to return to the culture at large, where is it to start?

Critical thinking skills are an acquired ability to distinguish between clear and unclear expressions of thought. An ability that comes in handy is the ability to evaluate a statement with regard to how others might perceive it. A statement may seem clear at first, in the context of what was being considered when writing it, and lose that clarity when reviewing it at some point in the future.
 
Objectivism is a philosophy that touts reason and logic underpinning the five basic branches, and the host of factors that give rise to its hierarchy and structure. Understanding it, like understanding anything, is not automatic.
 
Imagine an outsider with little more familiarity to Objectivism, than hearing it is the solution to all the problems in the world. While this is an overstatement, Objectivism posits solutions to understanding key issues in ethics and politics that run askew to anything tried during the course of human history.
 
The internet has more materials than anyone could possibly process in a lifetime. People need to allocate their time when using the Internet, just like anything else, and seek out what they esteem of value. A forum offers the opportunity to discuss and share ideas that fall under a common theme. People interested in understanding more about math, can find a math forum. I consider a forum like Freethought and Rationalism as a showcase for what advocating any and every idea as possible and plausible leads to.
 
Objectivism advocates the adherence to a method in order to establish if an idea is possible, possible and ultimately as certain. Ideas that do not meet these criteria are deemed to be arbitrary. Critical thinking skills are honed by arriving to a conclusion of the ideas position along this continuum.
 
While there is a place of being critical of others, it is usually accompanied by making a strong case supporting it. Folks who come here to read these threads are hopefully interested in what Objectivism is, and how it can benefit them. They can argue willy-nilly at home, work, school or favorite social club.  Objectivism identifies the role that philosophy in the course of human events. If rational discourse with a sincere respect for logic is to return to the culture at large, where is it to start?

Critical thinking skills are an acquired ability to distinguish between clear and unclear expressions of thought. An ability that comes in handy is the ability to evaluate a statement with regard to how others might perceive it. A statement may seem clear at first, in the context of what was being considered when writing it, and lose that clarity when reviewing it at some point in the future.
 
Objectivism is a philosophy that touts reason and logic underpinning the five basic branches, and the host of factors that give rise to its hierarchy and structure. Understanding it, like understanding anything, is not automatic.
 
Imagine an outsider with little more familiarity to Objectivism, than hearing it is the solution to all the problems in the world. While this is an overstatement, Objectivism posits solutions to understanding key issues in ethics and politics that run askew to anything tried during the course of human history.
 
The internet has more materials than anyone could possibly process in a lifetime. People need to allocate their time when using the Internet, just like anything else, and seek out what they esteem of value. A forum offers the opportunity to discuss and share ideas that fall under a common theme. People interested in understanding more about math, can find a math forum. I consider a forum like Freethought and Rationalism as a showcase for what advocating any and every idea as possible and plausible leads to.
 
Objectivism advocates the adherence to a method in order to establish if an idea is possible, possible and ultimately as certain. Ideas that do not meet these criteria are deemed to be arbitrary. Critical thinking skills are honed by arriving to a conclusion of the ideas position along this continuum.
 
While there is a place of being critical of others, it is usually accompanied by making a strong case supporting it. Folks who come here to read these threads are hopefully interested in what Objectivism is, and how it can benefit them. They can argue willy-nilly at home, work, school or favorite social club.  Objectivism identifies the role that philosophy in the course of human events. If rational discourse with a sincere respect for logic is to return to the culture at large, where is it to start?

Prior to reaching his pedagogical technique, he had presented the primacy of existence as the first philosophic axiom (rather than the axiomatic concepts of existence, identity and consciousness) in the section dealing with why does man need a method of validating his conclusions. Having argued this point on many occasions, I often found myself on the defensive.
 
He covers the primacy of consciousness in OPAR, but the approach he outlined here turns the tables. By declaring that existence is has primacy over consciousness, expect to be countered with “How do you know this?”, “Can you prove it?”
 
The answer here is no. Proof presupposes the primacy of existence. In requesting proof, the challenge itself has cloaked within it the notion that your belief in the primacy of existence is not sufficient. If proof is requested, question “Why is the belief in the primacy of existence not sufficient?”
 
If an answer could be come up with, it would have to run along the lines that “One has to have some method of validating one’s beliefs. After all, facts are facts, independent of what anyone might think of them.” This satisfies the test of being an axiom. You have to rely on the primacy of existence even to try to deny it.

When it comes to understanding theory - others may be able to shed some insights, saving you the time of discovering it all on your own, by yourself. 
When it comes to putting something into practice - there is only one individual that can do it.
 
Isolate the theory. I said: My desire for the emotional value of happiness is satisfied by the rational understanding of what makes that possible - and then acting according.
My desire for an emotional value (love, happiness, enjoyment, fill in the blank) is satisfied by understanding what makes (love, happiness, enjoyment, fill in the blank) it possible.
 
To pursue love, identify the cause(s) of love. Love is an emotional response to a value we identify in another. Introspect. Identify what you value, in yourself and in others. Trustworthiness? Seek trustworthy people. Honesty? Seek honest people. Charitableness? Seek charitable people. A combination of the aforementioned? Seek those who exude those characteristics you value. When you encounter and identify those characteristics in others, you'll understand why you are drawn to and love them.
 
To pursue enjoyment, recognize when you are enjoying yourself. Assess what is going on, and what it is you enjoy about it. Pursue more of the same for more enjoyment.
 
Standing outside the record store and bemoaning you do not know what kind of music you like will not get you any closer. You need to go inside the store, put the headphones on and try listening to a variety of music. When you find something you like - make a note of it. When you find a number of things you like - see if there is anything in common among them - i.e., Jazz, Rock, Classical, New Age, etc.
 
The theory is, you have to step into the store and put on the headphones. The practice is whether you do it or not.