dream_weaver

And where does this core motivation come from? Is this a prime mover? Is this something some people just decide to do, and then seek out a philosophy to rationalize it? Are such people even spread across the humankind? Is this what you have done as well, with Objectivism: except that your core motivation is positive?
Does it follow that people of one age had the inquisition because they had different core motivations from modern Europeans?

Funny. I consider myself as spiritual, and am also unsatisfied with traditional (or even untraditional) religious organizations. Nor is a focus on 'Higher Causes' required beyond a more thourough understanding of causality as it established by the relationship between identity and action.
 
Analogies can be constructed between many systems of apparent compatible values without establishing the veracity thereof. An analogy is not a substitute for the application of logic to the process of reasoning.
 
The distinction between faith and belief might be better served as the distinction between faith and reason. Beliefs can be established by faith or reason. To the extent beliefs are established by reason, faith is powerless to undermine them. To the degree beliefs are based on faith, reason may or may not undermine them depending on the practitioner's understanding or disregard for a logic based process of reasoning.

There’s a lot wrong in the world, and, here in the United States, where government is expanding its rights-violating activities, lovers of liberty can easily become pessimistic. But, with a series of 30 charts, Rob Wile of Business Insider promises to “restore your faith in humanity.” The good news he conveys reminds us to appreciate just how great the world has become. Consider a few examples:
Whereas nearly three-fourths of the global population was enslaved or held in serfdom in the mid-1700s, today around one-tenth are. That’s profound progress. Whereas, in the late 1800s, people in the United States and other industrial countries worked around 3,000 hours per year, today they work less than 2,000—and during the same time leisure spending has skyrocketed. Life expectancy increased in the United States from 47 in 1900 to 77 in 1998. Gun-related violence in the United States has declined substantially since the early 1990s. Between about 1930 and 1950, the incidence of death in childbirth in the United States declined by about 85 percent. Although several of Wile’s charts are a bit out of date, and although some of them are questionable (for example, his chart showing a decline in illiteracy does not account for degradation of literacy), he offers a welcome reminder that, in myriad ways, the world we live in is the best that anyone has ever lived in. As we work for better futures, let us not take for granted how good life is in most ways for most of us.
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Related:
The British Industrial Revolution: A Tribute to Freedom and Human Potential Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves

Link to Original

Red said:
 
 
 Let me help you with the obvious. First, I didnt quote anything and thats why you you didn't see any quotation marks. Second, you are at a forum dedicated to Oism. Thats capitol O. I am an Objectivist. I agree with Objectivism because I am persuaded by its content. When I quote Oist literature It is because I agree with it.  You should read the forum rules concerning this topic.
 
 
 
Yes, I know you advocate a form of Platonism. But "non-material" is mystical nonsense and so is any variant of the Forms. However the mental nature of invalid concepts is a reality.
 
 
 
 
Of course, you reject the foundational nature of philosophy.
 
 
Complete nonsense. A complete disintegration of subject and object. Its becoming clear that your here simply to spread non Oist ideas. 

 

The young ronin was not seeking death. He was trying to exploit something he had heard.
 
The house he went to, in essence used the code of bushido against the young man. They played on the letter of the law, so to speak, and used his code of ethics to destroy him with.

Thanks for keeping this thread running. 

Could you elaborate?
Red Wanderer said that materialists were asserting that life can arise from nonlife (correctly) and demanded proof.  I know I had read about such a thing, somewhere; someone had taken soap (because it has one hydrophilic end and one hydrophobic one, just like organic lipids) and created artificial cells from them, or at least they were trying to.  But I read this years ago and couldn't find anything about it online, so I didn't mention it and ended up just throwing out the Ventner article.  (slightly off-topic but not worth fixing)
But there is a great article about the concept, itself:
http://www.livescience.com/10531-life-began-research-suggests-simple-approach.html
 
And as it so happens, while life from nonlife might seem counterintuitive, in 1953 a pair of scientists named Miller and Urey successfully synthesized amino acids from inorganic protein by applying an electric shock.  (It's ALIVE!!!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment
 
And this is just really cool.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/science/in-a-first-an-entire-organism-is-simulated-by-software.html?_r=0

Isn't this more a case of mis-usage of an operating mind vs. a disease, which prohibits the mind from operating in some fashion?
 
Mental illness and mental imbalance suggests something is fundamentally wrong outside of the sway of volition.
Choosing to believe something without regard to proper epistemology, does not suggest that a proper epistemology can't be learned and nurtured.

Isn't this more a case of mis-usage of an operating mind vs. a disease, which prohibits the mind from operating in some fashion?
 
Mental illness and mental imbalance suggests something is fundamentally wrong outside of the sway of volition.
Choosing to believe something without regard to proper epistemology, does not suggest that a proper epistemology can't be learned and nurtured.

Dale Carnagies book says to listen and try to understand before one speaks.
Rand encourages the art of philosophical detection.
 
While both of these can work synergistically together:
 
When your opponent does not respond to a question derived from the principle of  philosophical detection, it still seems to disolve into a pointess debate - even if you can sidestep the conflicts of personality, and the same unproductive destination seems to be the port of call.

It's a figure of speech.
 
So you acknowledge that DNA serves a specific chemical function, which is vital for all biological organisms to live.  You're just upset that I took "arbitrary" to mean "arbitrary" instead of "intentionally designed by someone".
DNA functions the way it does because of the laws of physics.  If you want to fundamentally change that, you're talking about changing the laws of physics; in which case you're discussing something totally and completely outside of this universe.
 
Which actually brings us back to the anthropic principle.
Existence exists.  The world is real and so is everything we see and know of.  To discuss the reasons FOR the universe is to discuss a time before time and a space beyond space which is pointless, futile and irritating.  The entire discussion (why does this universe exist, instead of a different one?) is meaningless.
I'm sorry, but getting sick from a virus actually has everything in the world to do with junk DNA.  Viruses work by injecting their own DNA into their host cell's nucleus and forcing it to manufacture duplicates of them.  This usually kills the cell, but not always, and when they don't the viral DNA stays there forever.  (and is inherited by each daughter-cell, every time the parent divides)
Endogenous retroviruses are huge patches of our DNA which are broken, nonfunctional viruses from millions of years ago.  Hence the connection between catching a cold and junk DNA, my ultra-futuristic friend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh/2011/MB_cgi?mode=&term=Endogenous+Retroviruses
This is only one form of junk DNA, but here you have it.  If you've caught the common cold before, anytime in your life, then you DO have junk DNA inside of you, right now.
And this for your ENCODE:
http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/20/gbe.evt028.short?rss=1
 
Your response is revealing.
I was saying that if you try hard enough and for long enough, you could find a pattern to anything.  You turn around and insist that a CODE has nothing whatsoever to do with a PATTERN.
And incidentally, you never did respond to Genetic Entropy.  Did I find the "books" singular you referred to?
 
So DNA is a code and codes aren't physical objects.  Ergo DNA isn't a physical object which obeys the laws of physics, but rather some supernatural, phantom molecule; possibly where the soul resides.  Yes or no?
The reason I don't get it is that, like most Objectivists, I don't consider "physical" and "real" to be two separate categories.  But maybe I could come to understand, someday, I don't know; Pisces will be in the house of Mars tomorrow and my DNA's tingling.
 
Your argument is based on the premise that DNA doesn't have to be DNA; it could've been mRNA, tRNA or Spaghetti-o's, if your mysterious architect had wanted.  As above, you're ultimately questioning the reason for the entire universe in which case you've floated beyond reality.
CCG does resemble Alanine, chemically.  If it didn't then there would be no possible way for it to create Alanine, which is why you're so positive that it couldn't possibly "just be chemistry"; it's an excuse to believe in magick.
You've agreed that changing someone's DNA will change their physical body, and yet you're so adamant that it's an arbitrary relation without cause or reason for it.  If so then genetic engineering would be tantamount to black magick. . . How do you feel about genetically-modified people?
 
And by the way, if Genetic Entropy were an actual phenomenon, it would take the form of junk DNA.  And if junk DNA doesn't exist then neither does mutation or, ultimately, evolution of any kind.
Your argument consists of finding an error in the theory of evolution, any error that you possibly can, and demanding that we scientifically acknowledge that only God could ever possibly account for it.  It's not new and it's an affront to anyone who actually wants to understand the world.
 
 
 
You aint nothin' but a hound dog, crying all the time.

Red asked:

"Where does the concept of "geometrically perfect circle" come from? If you believe that it comes from observing and "integrating" a bunch of actual physical circles — all of which must, by necessity, be geometrically imperfect — then you'd be wrong. There is no incremental progression from the "physically imperfect" to the "geometrically and ideally perfect" in percepts; in fact, the very idea of "physically IMPERFECT" already relies on the concept of the "PERFECT" (i.e., the IMPERFECT is that which is NOT perfect). I'll wait patiently as you think of an answer and post it."

My answer is...... Geometry is not Philosophy.... But interestingly enough Ms. Rand answered this type of question during the QnA of the very lecture you claim to have attended. She classified in this way:

"this is a perfect example of rationalism at its rediculous stage" and admonished that the word "perfect" is a "very mystical concept" and when applied to " cognition and epistemology" ( as opposed to ethics) where "perfect correspondance" usually is thought to require omniscience about the object of cognition.

The Philosophy Of Objectivism Lecture 6 116:24 - 126:15

Where you write 'deduces' is where I disagree with your identification. Noticing a common element and focusing on it, omitting every other characteristic of every existent having that common element is an act of abstraction. Abstraction is not deduction.

Integration and abstraction are two components of thought that are more fundamental than logic. Logic is demonstrated, its referents are shown. In the Objectivist jargon, logic is validated.

Logic cannot be used to derive or prove logic itself without falling into the logical fallacy of circular reasoning, A.K.A. "begging the question" or assuming itself.  As deduction is the use of logic, the phrase "deduces the laws of logic" is  fallacious.

Actually, the opposite of what you say here is true -- that's the entire point, the entire notion of an axiom. An axiom can't be explained away, rather it is something from which explanations follow, or on which they are based. In this case, you or other things must exist before anything else can happen -- deduction included. Every idea and action assumes that there is something which exists to have an idea about, and perform an action with. How could you deduce without things existing to deduce about? You can't explain existence, because then you are ahead of yourself and would have needed to exist first before you could figure out an explanation. Thus, existence is axiomatic.

Ah yes. The story that tries to focus in on a single aspect while ignoring the full context within which the aspect takes place.
If the progression of time is ignored while focusing in on the distance, or the limited discrimination of perception is ignored while the focusing in on the precision made available by the language of mathematics, does the paradox that seems to arise reveal the futility of rationalization or of the failure to consider the full context?

Madness, I tell you. Inputting text into an electronic device should take no more than two buttons: a dash and a dot.
Sure, it would take a while to write a novel in Morse code, but the simplicity would be worth it. Because simple is good, and complex is bad.

"Fullness" and "Richness" and "Purpose" are all achieved through human values, things like inventing iPhones and playing video games and going on a trip with friends. Only a poor substitute for meaning is achieved by being mostly concerned with something other than yourself, wrought with eventual emptiness, bitterness, and confusion. How could you give your life meaning without actually affecting the particulars of your life?

Speaking as an ex-Christian, I can tell you that the religious solution of god and altruism don't produce their professed results, and once you give that crap up and start sinning instead, you begin getting that meaning you're after. Someone else would probably be better than me at guessing why religion and altruism have managed to keep such a stronghold on civilization.

Considered the nature of evidence.There can be no evidence for something which in fact does not exist.
If something, in fact, does not exist, there is no evidence to provide.

This lies near the foundation of the onus of proof principle.

To prove something exists, one need only provide evidence. Proof is the step by step presentation of the evidence to support a conclusion which exists.
Attempting to prove something does not exist, is attempting to provide evidence which does not exist.

To unravel God as an invalid concept, is to become familiar with the uses and misuses of the concepts that God is supposedly anchored on. Valid concepts are those which are properly abstracted, i.e. makes proper use of the evidence available to integrate without contradiction into the sum of one's own knowledge. This can be challenging enough to do for one's own self, and more so to guide someone else through the process.

"God doesn't need anyone's belief."
 
Went looking for Who mourns for Adonais, in "which the Enterprise picks up signals of an unknown life form near the planet Pollux IV of Beta Geminorum system. This turns out to be the God Apollo - a man-shaped entity with an extra organ in his chest, through which he could channel extraordinary energies. After retiring here from Earth, Apollo missed the adoration he had from the Greeks. He tries to force the Enterprise crew to worship him as a God. When they refuse, he dissolves himself into the wind." when this quote was stumbled upon. "They were Gods once, but their worshipers either died out or were converted to the worship of other Gods. They wail and flutter around the edges of reality without substance or even thought. All they have is need. ... We go out of fashion, Sparhawk—like last year's gowns or old shoes and hats. The Powerless Ones are discarded Gods who shrink and shrink as the years go by until they're finally nothing at all but a kind of anguished wailing."
— The Goddess Aphrael, The Hidden City, David Eddings
 
In terms of the power of a god determined the by quantity of its worshipers, Allah of Islam is a success story in this time. To see what it brings about by behaviorist rather than a doctrinaire, one only need look to the middle east to observe what abiding by Allah's "good", because it is "good" for them to do, and what "rewards" are heaped upon them for loving what is "right" enough to do.
 
Yes, moral law is exactly the same for everyone. And just like the law of gravity, it can be discovered and validated by objective observation. In this way, Rand is akin to Newton in identifying what the roots of morality rely upon, firmly entrenching them in the soil of existence as it pertains to the maintenance and flourishing of consciousness.

"God doesn't need anyone's belief."
 
Went looking for Who mourns for Adonais, in "which the Enterprise picks up signals of an unknown life form near the planet Pollux IV of Beta Geminorum system. This turns out to be the God Apollo - a man-shaped entity with an extra organ in his chest, through which he could channel extraordinary energies. After retiring here from Earth, Apollo missed the adoration he had from the Greeks. He tries to force the Enterprise crew to worship him as a God. When they refuse, he dissolves himself into the wind." when this quote was stumbled upon. "They were Gods once, but their worshipers either died out or were converted to the worship of other Gods. They wail and flutter around the edges of reality without substance or even thought. All they have is need. ... We go out of fashion, Sparhawk—like last year's gowns or old shoes and hats. The Powerless Ones are discarded Gods who shrink and shrink as the years go by until they're finally nothing at all but a kind of anguished wailing."
— The Goddess Aphrael, The Hidden City, David Eddings
 
In terms of the power of a god determined the by quantity of its worshipers, Allah of Islam is a success story in this time. To see what it brings about by behaviorist rather than a doctrinaire, one only need look to the middle east to observe what abiding by Allah's "good", because it is "good" for them to do, and what "rewards" are heaped upon them for loving what is "right" enough to do.
 
Yes, moral law is exactly the same for everyone. And just like the law of gravity, it can be discovered and validated by objective observation. In this way, Rand is akin to Newton in identifying what the roots of morality rely upon, firmly entrenching them in the soil of existence as it pertains to the maintenance and flourishing of consciousness.

I wouldn't bother. He already made it clear that he rejects reason as the means of acquiring knowledge. Whatever evidence you provide, he'll just reply with the arbitrary assertion that God's behind it.
If you prove to him that evolution is a natural phenomenon, he'll just arbitrarily state that God engineered it to be that way. If you challenge that, he'll just conflate rights with reason and reply that his arbitrary opinions are just as valid as your logic, because he has a right to them.

<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-6278" title="Richardsears-young" src="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/_files/Richardsears-young.jpeg" alt="" width="216" height="281" />Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a modern American hero. He has put millions of products ranging from books to movies to clothing to groceries within easy reach of millions of customers. But long before there was Amazon, before there was an internet or even computers, there was the Sears catalog. As innovative as Bezos has been, in many respects he is following in the pioneering footsteps of Richard Sears.</p>
<p>In his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JMKSE2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000JMKSE2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=theobjestan-20" target="_blank">The Long Tail</a></em>, Chris Anderson tells Sears’s story. Sears, Anderson notes, was a railway agent in Minnesota. In 1886, a box of watches was mistakenly sent via the railway to a dealer local to Sears. Seeing an opportunity, Sears purchased the watches from their owner and sold them “for a nice profit to other railway agents up and down the line.”</p>
<p>The next year, Anderson continues, Sears moved his watch business to Chicago and hired Alvah Roebuck to repair broken items. Within a few years, the pair founded Sears, Roebuck and Co. to sell watches by catalog “to the rural farmers who were being gouged by local general stores and an army of middlemen.”</p>
<p>Soon Sears and Roebuck expanded to more products and opened a “forty-acre, $5 million mail-order plant and office building on Chicago’s West Side,” Anderson writes. It was the “largest business building in the world.”</p>
<p><a id="callout-subscribe-blog-int-l" title="Subscribe to the Journal for People of Reason" href="/subscriptions.asp?ref=blog_int">Subscribe to the<br />Journal for People of Reason</a>In 1897, the company released the Sears “Wish Book,” a 786 page catalog featuring 200,000 items, including everything from coffee to soap to guns to violins. Anderson writes, “This was mind-blowing stuff for a rural farm family.”</p>
<p>So, as you go check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JMKSE2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000JMKSE2&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=theobjestan-20" target="_blank">Anderson’s book on Amazon</a>, say a silent “thank you” to Richard Sears and his friend Alvah for launching the mail-order industry, which Bezos and others continue to revolutionize in the digital age.</p>
<p><em>Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/mailing-list.asp" target="_blank">weekly digest</a>. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal,</em> <a href="https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/subscriptions.asp" target="_blank">The Objective Standard</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Related:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-winter/patience-steve-jobs.asp" target="_blank">The Patience of Jobs</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/amazon-kindle-e-reader-brings-books-to-the-developing-world/" target="_blank">Amazon Kindle E-Reader Brings Books to the Developing World</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="font-size: 10px;">Image: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richardsears-young.jpeg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a></p>

Link to Original

What number of cases of personal irresponsibility are you referring to?
What number of cases did you expect based on recent experiences?
 
What data do you have on the rampant growth of government bureaucracy?
 
What is the comparison you have that shows the perfect tracking between personal irresponsibility and government bureaucracy? Is it merely correlative or do you think it is causal or something other?

What number of cases of personal irresponsibility are you referring to?
What number of cases did you expect based on recent experiences?
 
What data do you have on the rampant growth of government bureaucracy?
 
What is the comparison you have that shows the perfect tracking between personal irresponsibility and government bureaucracy? Is it merely correlative or do you think it is causal or something other?

Hold that thought for a moment, moralist. While that wasn't really my point, certainly you are right as far as it goes, but there are further levels. You identify what "doing that makes you into" (a predator or prey) as not good for you, am I right? In other words - not in your self-interest; or - unselfish. ??
Careful - if you continue your line of thinking, you'll conclude with rational selfishness as the only possible outcome..
Next thing, to mentally remove other people's judgments on one's self from the equation, and what remains as primary is that one has acted against a just outcome in reality ("faked" it) AND against one's knowledge and consciousness, therefore, immorally - to and of oneself. The predominant deception is self-deception: separate from, and before even taking into account the effects of this deceit on others - as likely unethical behavior alone.
Substituting the old oath -"As God is my only witness" - for - "As I am my only witness"- would complete the case for the ethics of rational egoism. Simplistically. (Highly.)

In the end, the OP's 'poser' is probably border-line, morally, so I wouldn't be as critical as I have above. Only not wanting you to misinterpret my earlier remarks.
As if you haven't already seen, with rational selfishness Rand turned the traditional Judaeo-Christian ethics on its head.