dream_weaver

Now that's one graphic relationship.

It is blatantly unconstitutional, but the SCOTUS rejected the constitution a long time ago. Roberts has done nothing fundamental here. Before Roberts, the Feds can send men to die in battle; the Feds can make people pay more tax because they do not have kids; the Feds can make you pay more tax if you want to buy something from a foreigner instead of from a local (something that was true even at the time of the constitution),
The actual people who bring this to us: the democratically-elected Congress and President. People voted for Obama knowing that he wanted desperately to bring more statism to health-care. I do not believe people voted for him thinking "He will do healthcare, but without a mandate". The real people to blame are the folks all around you who do not take the time to understand the issues, and instead pine for more statism, and vote for it too.

ARI had a presentation by Pat Corvini entitled "Achilles, the Tortoise, and Objectivity in Mathematics".In this presentation, she related the story by Zeno to a dirt track with two starting block a set distance apart. Selecting two different speeds, one for Achilles and one for the Tortoise, she began marking the distances as they progressed by placing pins in the dirt to represent the progress. Eventually, the pins become separated by a grain of sand. You can no longer proceed because the grain of sand prohibits you from sticking a pin into the track.
Repeating the scenario with high speed digital photography, even the resolution of the digital photography eventually resolves down to two pictures which are indistinguishable from one another due to the size of the pixel representation..

Mathematics, a humanly contrived system for measurement, allows you to solve for all intents and purposes without regard for resolution. Math can "stick the pins in the grain of sand" or "resolve the equation beyond the pixel resolution.

Another interesting experiment you can mathematically do for yourself is to start with a millimeter of length. Divide it by two. Divide the result by two. Repeat until you reach the size of a Planck unit. Take that same millimeter and multiply it by two. Multiply the result by two. Repeat until you reach the alleged size of the universe (Keep in mind, we calculate galaxies to be ~14.5 billion l.y. away. If that is a radial estimate from earth or our Milky Way Galaxy, that would establish a diameter of 29 l.y.) What you will discover is that within 100 repetitions either way, the mathematics is providing you with results to which there is no known referents to represent. The power of mathematics is the ability to resolve without regard to resolution. The power of the mind allows you to grasp this fact when presented with something like Zeno's paradox.

Imagining your savings being moved around actively to maximize its value? This sounds like trying to play the arbitrage game. The relative trading ratios between the instruments being analyzed for what is deemed the most advantageous positioning at the moment. If you perform this evaluation yourself, you are rewarded/penalized for the accuracy of your assessment. If you delegate it to another to do for you, you are still being rewarded/penalized for the accuracy of your assessment of the individual/organization selected to handle it.

In the end, it comes down to quantifying it. Money is the abstraction. What can money be objectively reduced to? Dollars, euros, yen, in the case of fiat systems, commodities such as corn, wheat, gold and silver have been used to assess various aspects dealing with this very inquiry. Without a standard, determining an accurate measurement of maximized value or worth with money amounts to comparing the results taken from rulers that expand and contract while you use them to determine a specific length.

Another lovely article the internet has graced us with on Ayn Rand I came across....
http://lfb.org/blog/name-your-favorite-ayn-rand-flaw/

Right. Your post about how a God no one ever saw or talked to is an almighty Egoist who is incapable of contradictions and created everything out of himself, is meant to demonstrate how out of touch with reality I am.

Bob the Intelligent Designer creates the Universe:
People who claim that the earth is younger than it is (4.54 ± 0.05 billion years) tend to do so for two reasons: either because they claim the evidence points to it or because it was created recently but made to look as it were old. Considering that all the evidence shows the universe to be 13.75 (± 0.11) billion years, a claim that it is literally millions of times younger requires massive ignorance of obvious observations – such as starlight or canyons cut into bedrock. But let’s consider the other common argument – that the universe was only made to appear young. Perhaps the stars were put in place with the light beams already in progress. That is an interesting philosophical question. What are the implications of an Intelligently Designed universe?
To avoid taking sectarian sides, let’s call our creator Bob the Universe Builder. How would Bob’s universe-creating activity change the way we look at the world? Let’s consider a few scenarios:
Some people believe that Bob “got things started” via the Big Bang or some other mysterious event, and then let things run on their own, much as they would in a purely naturalistic universe. In that case, cosmology would certainly be different, but biology could generally be left alone. This view was plausible until recently, when physicists and cosmologists
for how the Big Bang got started and why the laws of nature are what they are. Suddenly the starting point is not so mysterious as to need a supernatural explanation. What is the creation theorist to do – retreat once again to the next frontier of scientific discovery? Perhaps we can make a more general argument.Whether the universe was created 13 billion or 6 thousand years or yesterday, we can generalize the creationist argument and make some conclusions about it. Suppose we grant that the universe looks as if it evolved purely by natural laws, but in fact some intelligent agent created it more recently. What would that imply?
Let’s first consider the universe going forward. If the universe is naturalistic from the present onwards (gravity causes rocks to fall, horses don’t become unicorns, etc.), then we can assume that it will remain so in the future. So as far as our understanding of new phenomena around us, the existence of a non-interventionist creator makes no difference. But what about the past? If we assume that all the evidence points to a natural universe (for example the stars look billions of years old, even if they were only put up there yesterday), then it makes no difference whether the universe only looks natural or it really is natural.
Before he could create the universe, Bob would have to calculate the precise makeup of the universe on his computer (which could be his “brain” – the details are irrelevant) to determine the initial state of his Creation. For example, if he creates the universe after the Triassic period, he will have to figure out where to place all the dinosaur fossils. If he wanted to maintain the pretense of age, he could not place them just anywhere. He would have to carefully arrange sedimentary layers to simulate geological processes.
The only way to do this consistently would be to simulate the entire history of the observable universe on his computer. There is no way to shortcut the process. So, for example, if a dinosaur fossil is 200 million years old, Bob must calculate its gravitational effect on every atom and subatomic particle in a light cone expanding to 200 million light years over 200 million years. Alternatively, consider the implication for evolution: even if did not happen in “real” reality, to create a plausible explanation for the variety of life on earth and their fossil predecessors, Bob would have to calculate the form of every ancestor by playing out the life of every plant, animal and bacteria in his “virtual” earth to derive their fossils and their present form. Because the present state of any object in the universe is the total of all the interactions of that object with all the other objects in its sphere of influence, and there is no way to know the sum of all these states without calculating all of them sequentially.
To avoid glaring inconsistencies from being discovered by scientists, Bob would have to calculate the interaction of every entity in the universe with every other entity in its causal sphere to the minutest level of detail. And given the sub-atomic perspective granted by modern science, that detail must be very fine indeed. This would mean that there couldn’t be any observable difference between a simulation of the universe and the real thing. Whether the universe was ever a simulation in someone’s “imagination” or is simulation today makes no observable difference and this has no relevance to our understanding of reality.
My conclusion from this chain of thought is this: There is no essential difference between “Young Earth” Creationism and the more “respectable” theory of Big Bang Creationism. Neither is there any point speculating about a perfectly simulated universe (aka various theories that the universe exists “in the mind of God”.) The only logical conclusion is to regard the universe as always having been purely naturalistic.


Original entry: See link at top of this post

Clearly ideas are important to you. Just wanted to say that I respect this.

Since the topic of this thread is objectivity, I'm not going to discuss Islam much further, as it is definitely a non-objective system of beliefs. Yes, Islam mean "submission" and that is actually one of the more evil aspects of it, quite aside from physical jihad against infidels and honor killings. Even if Islam did not aim for world domination through force (Caliphate), it would be evil since it is not based on a rational grasp of the world and is anti-man and anti-mind. The acceptance of Islam practiced fully leads a man to turn away from reason as an absolute, to submit his own rational judgement to that of the religious leader, to make him submit; which is evil.

By contrast, Objectivism understands that the mind is individual and that we are not to submit to either Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff or to any other man who claims to be an intellectual leader. One has to think things through on their own, judging the truth or falsity of an idea or a system of ideas by his own rational effort. And Dr.Peikoff has come out and stated that one does not have to agree with him on every topic, that neither he nor Ayn Rand sought blind followers. Yes, he is an authority on Objectivism -- the one most knowledgeable about it and what Ayn Rand taught; but the individual must come to understand Objectivism by his own rational, logical, and fact-based effort.

Objectivism:The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
Chapter 2—Sense Perception And Volition
pg. 55

The actions of consciousness required on the sensory-perceptual level are automatic. On the conceptual level, however, they are not automatic. This is the key to the locus of volition. Man's basic freedom of choice, according to Objectivism, is: to exercise his distinctively human cognitive machinery or not; i.e., to set his conceptual faculty in motion or not. In Ayn Rand's summarizing formula, the choice is: "to think or not to think."

So I just finished "Humor in The Fountainhead," from Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and its caused me to think some more about humor, a subject I hadn't given too much serious thought to. My purpose here is just to share some thoughts and hopefully hear others' thoughts on the subject.

In the essay, Rand is quoted as making the following two statements:





Upon first reading these, I found myself disagreeing strongly with both of them. My opinion is and has been that the ability to laugh at oneself demonstrates health and good-naturedness. In thinking about it, and reading through the essay and a few more of Rand's statements on humor, I find that these views are actually very easily reconcilable with my own. Consider this statement by Rand:



In the essay, Robert Mayhew distinguishes between benevolent and malicious humor. Benevolent humor is basically humor aimed at objects which deserve scorn and ridicule, while malicious humor is aimed at objects which deserve respect and reverence. Thus, benevolent humor belittles the metaphysical importance of bad things, while malevolent humor belittles the importance of good things. Now, humor which is aimed at one's own achievements, or more generally one's own positive values, is obviously malicious humor. Laughing at oneself in the sense of laughing at these things is indeed bad. However, in thinking about it, that is not at all what I picture when I think of 'the ability to laugh at oneself.'

Consider someone who slips and falls, or misspeaks in some absurd way, or makes an obvious error in a presentation. In all of these situations, I am inclined to think of the person who can 'laugh it off' as good-natured. I would contrast this with the image of the person who, when something like this happens, blusters and attempts to 'save face.' Obviously, this second person is primarily concerned with others' impressions of him rather than the actual error or accident. Such second-handedness is clearly not an appropriate attitude.

But what is the first individual doing? First of all, he is acknowledging the reality of the accident or mistake. Furthermore, he is (in Rand's characterization) belittling its importance by laughing at it. Self-deprecating humor, in this case, is not aimed at ones values, but rather at one's mistakes. This form of humor is indicative of genuine self-esteem; the person in question is acknowledging the reality of his own thoughts and actions (an essential first step for genuine self-esteem) and is able to casually dismiss errors with a laugh. There is no attempt to pretend for the sake of others' opinions that the error was not made; rather, it is acknowledged and then moved on from.

In my experience, the majority of instances of self-deprecating humor fall into this latter category of laughing off a mistake. Thus, while it is true that actually cutting oneself down with humor also undoubtedly occurs, the everyday understanding of 'laughing at oneself,' (at least what I think is the prevalent understanding of it) is a healthy practice, one which should be celebrated.

Thought’s Living Existence

This essay is a companion to “Your Love of Existence.”* We saw there that for Aristotle the true or false “is in the same province with what is good or bad” (DA 431b10–11). I want to add to what I said there about how this general state of affairs is reconceived by Ayn Rand.

Rand proclaims that the root of her moral code is “the axiom that existence exists. / Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists” (Rand 1957, 1015).

What is the sense of exists in the phrase “that one exists possessing consciousness”? Immediately it is that one is an existent among other existents in general and that one is an existent conscious of other existents. On the following page of Atlas Shrugged, we are told that consciousness is identification. So exists in “that one exists possessing consciousness” means furthermore that one exists as an identifier of existents. This much goes to the side of us concerned with the true or false, or the cognitive.

There is a further sense of exists in the phrase “that one exists possessing consciousness.” That sense has been prepared by text preceding our quotation on 1015. In the preceding pages of Galt’s radio speech, Rand had outlined the place of the mind in human survival and in moral virtue. This outline had been dramatized in the final scene between Rearden and Tony just before the radio-speech scene (Rand 1957, 989–95). The sense of exists in the corollary axiom “one exists possessing consciousness” is living existence. One is implicitly conscious of oneself as a living identifying existent in one’s grasp of the statement existence exists (see also Rand 1969–71, 252). The normative side of us is joined to the cognitive at the deepest level of our conscious existence.

Grasping the statement existence exists is the grasp by a mind mature enough to be understanding Atlas Shrugged. Therein such a mind can learn that life, living existence, is the metaphysical foundation of normativity, of values.

Four years later, we find Rand adding: “In what manner does a human being discover the concept of ‘value’? By what means does he first become aware of the issue of ‘good or evil’ in its simplest form? By means of the physical sensations of pleasure or pain. Just as sensations are the first step of the development of a human consciousness in the realm of cognition, so they are its first step in the realm of evaluation” (1961a, 17). The fact of the pleasure and pain mechanisms of the human body is essential to valuation on Rand’s understanding of the human being. Pleasure and pain are mechanisms necessary for human survival, and the experience of them is epistemologically foundational for moral concepts. To this view of Rand’s, there is a precursor in Aristotle. “To feel pleasure or pain is to act with the sensitive means [in contrast to intellectual means] towards what is good or bad as such” (DA 431a10–11; also 431b2–9).

Rand continued to elaborate the tie between the cognitive and the evaluative.

In Aristotle’s conception, “soul is in some sense the principle of animal life” (DA 402a7). Soul is “that by which primarily we live, perceive, and think” (414a13). Its relation to the body: “The soul cannot be without a body, while it cannot be a body; it is not a body but something relative to a body. That is why it is in a body, and a body of definite kind” (414a19–21).

Like Descartes and Spinoza and moderns generally, Rand held to the contrary that understanding natural life and its place in existence requires no appeal to soul or final causation, which the ancients had writ into life beyond the life that is thought-consciousness (a, b). However, Rand and we contemporary thinkers view the relation of thought-consciousness to the body as like the relation Aristotle had articulated in broad terms for the relation of soul (with ancient scope) to its animal body.

Rand’s concept of living thought-existence differs from Aristotle’s importantly in that Aristotle held it to be free of identity other than its capability of becoming identical with the thinkable identities, the universal forms and essences, of any and all existents (DA 429a10–430a26). Of course “it is not the stone which is present in the soul but its form” (431b29).

Though Aristotle conceived of thought as requiring imagination, and imagination bodily sense (DA 427b14–15), he held sensation to be yoked to the body, and in this, sensory perception is profoundly different from thought (429a29–b5). Then too, sensory perception “is of things in their particularity, whereas thought is of things in their universality” (417b17–27). He reasoned that if thought were itself tied to the body, its perfect identity with every possible intelligible object would be spoiled. The mind must lie ready to receive any characters, like a clean writing tablet lies ready to receive writing (430a1–2).

Grasping the characters the intellect has received, indeed becoming them, requires not only capability for their reception, but capability for an active internal lighting of them. This latter feature, which has come to be called agent intellect or active intellect, can exist separately from the rest of our cognitive system. It is in fact necessarily immortal and eternal. We cannot remember it as since always because with it alone a human being could have thought nothing. We cannot think anything without the passive, receptive, and mortal component of human mind (DA 430a10–26; see also Gerson 2004).

Intellective cognition is an immaterial reception of forms. In becoming in an immaterial way the forms and essences of its objects, the intellect comes to exist actually. It then is a type of being and truth. When intellect is thinking a form that is not a composite of still other forms, it has become a truth in which no bit of falsehood is possible. This is Parmenides’ existence view of truth incorporated in a circumscribed way into Aristotle’s system,* where it portends Plotinus’ identity theory of truth* (see further, Pritzl 2010a, 22–39). Parmenides had maintained: “The same thing is for thinking and [is] that there is thought” (F8L34, quoted in Gallop 1984, 71).

Aristotle said “being and not-being in the strictest sense are truth and falsity” (Met. 1051b1–2). With regard to incomposites in particular, it is not possible to be in error. “They all exist actually, not potentially; for otherwise they would come to be and cease to be; but, as it is, being itself does not come to be (nor cease to be); for if it did it would have come out of something. About the things, then, which are essences and exist in actuality, it is not possible to be in error, but only to think them or not to think them” (1051b28–32; cf. DA 430b27–33; An.Post. 100a15–b8; see further Pritzl 2010a, 22–39; Salmieri 2008, 71–122, 158–83, 201–18).

In Rand’s view, existence of thinking consists in the identity of thinking; it consists in the specific forms in which thought is a living identifier of existents. Rand held that thought functions by identifying existents and identifying as same existents and their identities, rather than as same thought and those identities. She conceived of identification by thought as having its distinctive forms: thought is conceptual and is capable of attending all one’s modes of consciousness (Rand 1957, 1015; 1961b, 17). She understood thought and conscious self, like all consciousness, to be supported entirely by mortal organic activities. “You are an indivisible entity of matter and consciousness” (Rand 1957, 1029).

Rand rejected the idea that the intellectual essence of anything is received. Essential characteristics are found only by active thinking about differences, similarities, and causal dependencies (Rand 1966–67, 42, 45–48, 52; 1969–71, 230–31; Kelley 1984; 1988, 19–22, 39–40; Peikoff 1991, 97, 99–100; Gotthelf 2007).* All natures can be found out by mind with its definite nature (Rand 1966–67, 79–82).

As with distinctively human value, in Rand’s account, truth lies in a relation between subject and object. Rand’s most elementary sense of the concept objective is the sense of ordinary parlance. This is the sense she talked of when explaining why she had chosen Objectivism as the name of her philosophy. She credited Aristotle as the first to correctly define “the basic principle of a rational view of existence and of man’s consciousness: that there is only one reality, the one man perceives—that it exists as an objective absolute (which means: independently of the consciousness, the wishes, or the feelings of any perceiver)” (Rand 1961b, 22).

In 1965 Rand published two refinements of her concept of objectivity. Early in the year, she distinguished a metaphysical from an epistemological aspect of objectivity (Rand 1965c, 18). Later that year, Rand refined her concept of objectivity further. She introduced her distinction of the intrinsic, the subjective, and the objective. This was in application to her theory of the good and its relationship to other theories of the good (Rand 1965d, 21–26).

By the following year, it was clear that Rand envisioned a broadened role for the intrinsicist-subjectivist-objectivist way of locating her philosophic theories in relation to others. She applied the tripartition to the theory of concepts and universals. Rand’s conception of concepts and her conception of the good can be rightly characterized as (i) objective with Rand’s metaphysical-epistemological faces of the objective relation and, at the same time, as (ii) objective within Rand’s intrinsicist-subjectivist-objectivist tripartition. She remarked that “the dichotomy of ‘intrinsic or subjective’ has played havoc with this issue [of universals] as it has with every other issue involving the relationship of consciousness to existence” (Rand 1966–67, 53).

The thinker who innovated on Aristotle by defining truth as adequation of thing and intellect was probably Arabic. Thomas Aquinas adopted this as his preferred definition of truth. It stresses the mutual relation of thing and intellect in any occasion of truth (Aertsen 2010, 136–40; Milbank 2010, 279–84).

Rand writes “Truth is the recognition (i.e., identification) of the facts of reality. Man identifies and integrates the facts of reality by means of concepts” (Rand 1966–67, 48). Concepts are rightly understood as objective,
Identifications asserted in a proposition depend importantly on the identifications made by the concepts composing the proposition.*
“Truth is the recognition of reality” (Rand 1957, 1017). So it is, and so we are.


References

Aertsen, J. A. 2010. Truth in the Middle Ages: Its Essence and Power in Christian Thought. In Pritzl 2010b.

Aristotle c. 348–322 B.C. The Complete Works of Aristotle. J. Barnes, editor. 1984. Princeton.

Gallop, D. 1984. Parmenides of Elea – Fragments. Torronto.

Gerson, L. P. 2004. The Unity of Intellect in Aristotle’s De Anima. Phronesis 49: 348–73.

Gotthelf, A. 2007. Ayn Rand on Concepts – Another Approach to Abstraction, Essences, and Kinds.*

Kelley, D. 1984. A Theory of Abstraction. Cognition and Brain Theory 7:329–57.
——. 1988. The Art of Reasoning. Norton.

Milbank, J. 2010. The Thomistic Telescope. In Pritzl 2010b.

Peikoff, L. 1991. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dutton.

Pritzl, K. 2010a. Aristotle’s Door. In Pritzle 2010b.
——., editor, 2010b. Truth – Studies of a Robust Presence. Catholic University of America.

Rand, A. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. Random House.
——. 1961a. The Objectivist Ethics. In The Virtue of Selfishness. 1964. Signet.
——. 1961b. For the New Intellectual. Title essay. Signet.
——. 1965a. The Psycho-Epistemology of Art. In Rand 1975.
——. 1965b. Art and Moral Treason. In Rand 1975.
——. 1965c. Who Is the Final Authority in Ethics? In The Voice of Reason. L. Peikoff, editor. 1990. Meridian.
——. 1965d. What is Capitalism? In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. 1967. Signet.
——. 1966. Art and Sense of Life. In Rand 1975.
——. 1966–67. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. H. Binswanger and L. Peikoff, editors. Meridian.
——. 1969–71. Transcript of Ayn Rand’s Epistemology Seminar. In Rand 1967–71.
——. 1975 [1971]. The Romantic Manifesto. 2nd ed. Signet.

Salmieri, G. 2008. Aristotle and the Problem of Concepts.*

This quote directly supports the conclusion that Rand held that existence is a first level concept because some of "... every entity, attribute, action, event or phenomenon (including consciousness) that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist" are possible percepts.

No one ever says "I see dog". They say "I see a dog" or "I see the dog" which simultaneously picks out a particular dog and identifies it as a referent of the concept 'dog'. Someone might say "I see deer" when referring to multiple animals that are each a deer (the definite articles 'a' and 'the' are singular and so do not agree with plural sense and usage of 'deer'), but the referent is still to the particular animals perceived in the line of sight not to all deer that exist, have ever existed or will ever exist.

As a proposition "I see a dog" is a perceptual judgement which David Kelley defined as "a conceptual identification of what is perceived." It is recognizing a percept as belonging to a certain type. Perceptual judgment is analyzed in terms of the two parts of the act: reference and predication. The linguistic expression of a perceptual judgment is a statement of the form "x is P". The questions that can be asked are: Why do we believe (predicate) "x is P" but not "x is R"? and Why do we believe (reference) "x is P" and not "y is P"? In the proposition "I see a dog" the reference is the object of "I see" and the predicate is "a dog". The predicate can be a word representing a concept and this never creates the claim or implication that the concept is perceived directly. What is perceived directly is only the object implied by "I see", the focus of one's perceptual faculty.

Systematically comparing terms in pairs will help combat the confusion.

"I see an existent" and "I see existents" differ in that the first predicate is singular and the second predicate is plural, and the number of referents differs.
"I see existents" and "I see existence" again differ in that the first predicate is plural and the second predicate is singular, but both have plural referents.
"I see an existent" and "I see existence" are both singular predicates, but the first referent is singular while the second referent is plural.

The grammatical singularity of 'existence' is because it is a collective noun not because it asserts only one thing exists to be a referent. This is Rand's reduction of the concept of existence to multiple units.

Existence is perceived is exactly the same manner in which an existent is perceived. The only way this could not be true is if it were only possible to perceive one existent at a time.

I think he's trying to emphasis or underscore the "Don't tell me anything is impossible; tell me you can't do it. Tell me it's never been done." (Just don't tell me it is impossible.)
Newton, and the periodic table are a couple of feats of doing in history that many may have thought were impossible. The refutation is Newton's laws and the periodic table.

As to not be certain of anything in scientific thinking, Both Newton's laws and the periodic table provide testimony to the contrary.

I think he's trying to emphasis or underscore the "Don't tell me anything is impossible; tell me you can't do it. Tell me it's never been done." (Just don't tell me it is impossible.)
Newton, and the periodic table are a couple of feats of doing in history that many may have thought were impossible. The refutation is Newton's laws and the periodic table.

As to not be certain of anything in scientific thinking, Both Newton's laws and the periodic table provide testimony to the contrary.

An artist is able to burn away all irrelvancies and present a picture that focuses only on what truly matters to the artist. In learning about Reardon, Roark, Dagny Taggart. D'Anconia - these Idealized capitalists are presented as pure examples -it is easy to see the pertinent traits. Reading biographies of the real giants capitalism, one is presented a complex picture of an individual... the important aspects of the person are often buried under many layers of useless personal information. There is value in reading and studying the triumphant caputalists, but one must dig for the timeless truths amid the trivia.

Rand's Idealized heroes present none of those challenges. It's like the difference between discovering gems in the jewelry store or in a gem mine - in both instances there are valuable things to be found, but in the former location one must merely recognize them, while in the latter one must dig through quite a bit of worthless material to discover each gem.

On the objectivist morality of the trader, once internalized this gave me a framework with which to easily and effectively refute collectivists, socialists, and the merely envious who attempt to push guilt onto achievers. More importantly, it gave me the moral certainty of the righteousness of reaping the rewards of the wealth that I earn as a producer. This moral certainty is priceless, and makes me far more efficacious than I otherwise could be if I were racked with doubts of my own worthiness to produce wealth and keep what I have earned.

There are very few out there who deny the self-evident, and many of those people simply misunderstand what is being put forth as self-evident by Objectivists. Furthermore, I see no indication of anything like that in the OP; just someone who thinks Rand said a bunch of stuff she didn't actually say (contempt for the poor and weak, moral indifference to the suffering of others, and her demanding to be treated as a demi-god) and misunderstanding what 'closed system' means. Calmly and rationally arguing with such people is not always a waste of time; how else will misconceptions about Rand ever get cleared up? I do agree, though, that Youtube comments are not the place for it.

What we have today is what one might call "crony capitalism" where large companies jockey for government favors to get money, lucrative contracts, or directly smack down their competitors (including smaller innovative companies) via regulation--they can afford to comply but the smaller companies cannot. Smaller companies in turn join forces with anti "big" demagogues to pass other regulations. Even companies that _want_ to compete and do business without government "help" have to spend their time in defensive lobbying (please DON'T pass that rule, government!) and may even end up seeking favors because failing to do so puts them at a huge disadvantage.

To put it in bumper sticker form,

Both Objectivists and Occupiers see problems with this arrangement, but their diagnosis differs. Objectivists want to remove the "crony" from "crony capitalism" while the Occupiers want to remove the "capitalism".

When it comes to convincing people nothing talks louder than success, simply because demonstrating something explains it better than talking about it. So with a million dollars I’d:

1. Invest it/Start a business in something for which I’m passionate
2. Codify it’s rational principles in a value and mission statement
3. Hire the best minds as needed
4. Promote it internally and externally for it's ideas
5. Make no apologies for it’s virtues
6. Make money (ROI)
7. Let the example stand for those who see your success/happiness
8. Have an outreach program for those who want to learn more

Incidentally - I’ve done steps two through seven on a department and division level and have had success. Naturally I couldn’t promote Objectivism since it was not my business but using the values to create leadership principles then working with people on those principles can be very rewarding and the results amazingly.

Taking it to the corporate level then opening the discussion further would be tremendous.

I think this discussion took a rationalistic turn. It did for me at least. So I want to bring this discussion back to the beginning with a more inductive approach.

I have solved it.
Man must produce, because in the context of comparing to animals attaining values, the unique action taken by men is production. That is therfore the cause of attinment of human values.
My question at first was "But how do you deal with a person who steals? How does he fit into this?", and later it also became "How do you deal with a beggar, or a moocher? He who tries to get things without either producing OR stealing?". I didn't realize first that the coontrast with animals actually solves these problems.
The theif/looter is properly dealt with by dismissal; by realizing that whatever he does is causally irrelevant - because he acts like an animal! Thus whatever he can get by his own accord, 'long range' if we assume a principled manner of living, is what an animal gets. One can therfore see that he attains his values by some means other than himself or his own actions, by the mercy of womever person he steals from. i.e. he is not engaging in a method of survival.
A "moocher" is likewise irrelevant, but his actions are irrelevant not merly because he's unproductive, but because he's also ineffective. A beggar doesn't even give the appearance of successful living.

Thus the principle I talked about in the beginning is certainly not arbitrary. The reason why production is "long-range" I have understood is also based on the contrast, and is primarily because we are talking about principled behaviour. Nevermind that typical thieves get into trouble, they don't even on principle enact the cause which would get them values. So why would one assume they could achieve values over the course of years or decades? If they seem to do it, it's not because of their own actions, but because of something else; someone elses production and mercy at their behaviour.

So that's it. I'd like to hear your comments.

If a person threatens to press the glowing red tip of an iron poker against your face, would you stop to consider that perhaps it is only your "perception" that makes the iron dangerously hot?

No. You would protect yourself as needed each and every time.

Perception exists first and foremost as a necessity of survival. The moment human beings mastered nature and rendered survival much less difficult and time consuming, the human mind had more time to turn its powers of perception toward intellectual study.

If A can at any time NOT be A, this means that there is a probability that the glowing red iron might actually be cool and therefor non-threatening. Except you KNOW that it is not cool. It will burn you severely every time it touches your skin. No amount of Quantuum mathematical voodoo is going to convince you that the glowing red iron is anything but a threat to you.

The moment you create this song-and-dance about perception vs. non-perception, you lose the ability to reason. In a world where A could potentially not be A, there would be no valid cause to take any action because the goal you strive for today could change or completely vanish tomorrow. This is the point. If you are unwilling to accept that sensory perception is the path to absolute truths, than you condemn yourself to an unknowable chaos in which nothing has any meaning and no action can be validated or invalidated.

You're new to the ideas in Objectivism, aren't you? ;P Some key ideas in Objectivism you seem to not be familiar with yet are the three different categories of moral values as intrinsic, subjective, or objective and of absolutes as absolute within a context. What do these things mean? Most systems of morality believe values and morality are either built into reality entirely separate from whatever people need or want or think (the intrinsic view) or that these things are entirely products of the inner workings of the minds of people with no connection to the outside world (this is the subjective view), but Objectivism is the only one to hold that values and morality are a product of the interaction of the human rational consciousness with the world around us, that it is based on us using our rational consciousness to identify things in reality and determine what will aid our lives (there's more explanation for how this conclusion is come to though if you do a little reading into Objectivist non-fiction literature, just right now I wanted to give a basic summary of the unique position Objectivism has as neither intrinsic nor subjective.) As for absolutes being contextual, it means that in any given specific context, what is, is, basically. For example, we don't have absolutes without context like "killing is always wrong no matter what!" -- what we have instead is recognition of things in specific contexts, like "Choosing to kill an innocent person when nobody is initiating force against you is wrong" and in that context of lack of force against you and innocence of the other person, then choosing to do so is wrong, however if the context is changed to be the case that somebody starts trying to kill you and you hadn't tried to initiate force against anybody else to bring this upon yourself, then if you need to kill them to defend yourself it is ok. That's a moral application of the idea of contextual absolutes, but perhaps a simpler illustration would be to tell of contextual absolutes as related to the way the inanimate works. Some people try to say there are not absolutes because they think an absolute means it must be so regardless of other factors, so gravity would only be an absolute if objects *always* drew together, and since we have things like magnetic levitation, gravity must not be absolute. However, a contextual absolute here means that gravity always works under certain conditions and if you change the conditions to introduce something like magnets repelling each other upward, it doesn't change the fact that gravity exists and works certain ways under certain conditions. The idea of contextual absolutes arise from the recognition of causality as being rooted in the nature of objects and that Objects work in set ways depending on what exactly they are interacting with. A balloon is a balloon and will respond as a balloon would by expanding some in a little heat and contracting some in chillier temperatures, so it doesn't just always expand or always contract, but if you repeat the same basic conditions you will always get the same basic result because the nature of the objects and situations involved remain the same, they don't just start reacting in all kinds of odd ways, like sometimes the balloon will expand in response to a little heat and sometimes repeating the exact same scenario it will start barking.

So, morality can be absolute contextually too and we figure it out through the use of our rational consciousness to recognize the relation of ourself to reality, to see what is needed for a creature such as ourselves to flourish. Some things which all people have in common based on being people will remain the same, while other things will be different based on some differences in our personal lives. However, all the stuff, be it common to all people or unique to specific individuals, is not a product of exclusively the outside reality or just whatever somebody dreams up without regard to the rest of the world, it is always moral or immoral based on rational identification and response to the facts of both ourselves and the rest of existence.

So, as I expect you are not very familiar with Objectivism at all, what do you know of it so far for people here to get an idea of your existing knowledge base, so we can know what you may already know and what you haven't read/heard/seen which may be good to suggest to you. Have you read any of Rand's fiction or non-fiction works or anything else by any other Objectivist scholars or intellectuals? Have you just heard a little stuff second hand or in passing maybe through somebody you know? Or (guess based on your username) have you perhaps just gotten curious based on reading the Sword of Truth books and hearing the author supports Objectivism and come looking based on that without having yet looked into the original sources?

In the spirit captured by the OP, Merry Christmas

"The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . ."

In the spirit captured by the OP, Merry Christmas

"The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . ."

I know you are not un-educated enough to think that Jefferson believed the U.S. was a Christian nation. So, what idea are you trying to smuggle in here?