Boydstun

Pretty nice. One misrepresentation: "But the core of her belief system is quite simple: Individuals are inherently "heroic," while governments only restrict human freedom, potential and happiness." No. The core of her philosophy, even the human-value part of it, is not anything political. And within the political, it is false that Rand held that all governments "only restrict human freedom, potential and happiness." That is someone else's political view, not Rand's. On this point the author was doing the usual of distorting Rand's views to suit his own or his boss.

Historical Background to Reductionism in Biology – Philosophical and Scientific https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reduction-biology/#HistBackPhilScie

Religion in Human Evolution – From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age Robert N. Bellah (Harvard 2017) https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674975347&content=toc Start with chapter 7 for your interest in Ancient Greeks and their prelude. Jump back to earlier material in the book for needed wider layout and the terminology (use Index). The Beginnings of Western Science – The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450 David C. Lindberg (Chicago 2007, 2nd edition) https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo5550077.html 1. SCIENCE BEFORE THE GREEKS What Is Science? Prehistoric Attitudes toward Nature The Beginnings of Science in Egypt and Mesopotamia 2. THE GREEKS AND THE COSMOS The World of Homer and Hesiod The First Greek Philosophers The Milesians and the Question of Underlying Reality The Question of Change The Problem of Knowledge Plato’s World of Forms Plato’s Cosmology The Achievement of Early Greek Philosophy 3. ARISTOTLE’S PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE Life and Works Metaphysics and Epistemology Nature and Change Cosmology Motion, Terrestrial and Celestial Aristotle as a Biologist Aristotle’s Achievement . . .

A straight line (also, humor) https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3510975262474684&set=p.3510975262474684&type=3

Infra, yes, provided we do not neglect rationality—concerning the world, others, and oneself—as essential to virtue of any agent. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Infra, I've not seen this ballet, but it bears your name, and I thought you might like this pas de deux. It is a favorite of mine: https://www.facebook.com/stephen.boydstun.1/posts/pfbid033XddBVx3dFdAC4Sdm8dFh5wUKGXBX8nCGP51ya1YjtZz54msqSqEzwHRccaeUL1Pl

Ethical egoism is false, where by “ethical egoism” one means the honest definition: Justifying all of the virtues one accepts as ethical purely in terms of one’s own rational self-interest, where self-interest means both self as agent of the act and as well as beneficiary of the act. That is, I do not think Rand succeeded in justifying ethical egoism in this sense (and for the matter of that, I don’t think anyone subscribing to Rand’s morality [including Rand] of pure rational self-interest has ever actually fully succeeded on that beneficiary part in their own behavior [which is to their credit], notwithstanding equivocations and non sequiturs they use to rationalize their behavior as purely self-interested.) https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/40734-honesty/#comment-385243 That oneself be the primary beneficiary of all one’s chosen actions is not something Rand took as fundamental in her ethical theory, but something to be argued for, as she explained in the Preface to her book The Virtue of Selfishness. Nevertheless, this aspect of her ethical egoism is essential to it being her distinctive theory of ethics and to her philosophy of Objectivism. I agree with Rand about the virtue of selfishness. That means I agree there are things routinely called selfish, which are not selfish and which are not virtuous. More importantly, I agree with her also that there are things routinely called selfish that genuinely are selfish, which are routinely denounced and in need of defense. The virtue of selfishness does not amount to ethical egoism. I agree with Rand also in her distinctive revolt against the virtue of self-sacrificial altruism. There are many things on which I agree with Rand philosophically, including not distinctively Objectivist affirmations such as perceptual realism and one’s original with Rand, such as the only setting of value being life and the possibility of analyzing (many) concepts under the scheme of measurement omission. The latter idea is not essential to Objectivist philosophy, though it is definitely a part of it. That value presupposes life, is of course, an essential. I agree with Rand on individual rights and nature of government. Obviously, we disagree about the propriety of same-sex relationships, but sexual psychology is not an essential of her philosophy (or a basic to any philosophy worthy of study by me).

Marsha Enright’s representation of Harry Binswanger’s situation of teleological concepts within modern biology and modern physical science more generally is erroneous, as I said above. I’ll be writing more about his book shortly, and post it in a pre-existing thread: https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/3614-biological-basis-of-teleological-concepts/#comment-83343. (Beginning is here: https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/38490-theory-of-mind/&page=3#comment-393337). There is another important error, which is in her treatment of Aristotle’s four causes (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FourCaus). The error is in her conception of formal causality. She treats it as “shape or configuration (such as a helix or a feedback system," and on that error, she concludes that modern science recognizes Aristotelian formal causation as at work in nature outside the operations of consciousness. That picture is incorrect. Aristotle’s formal causality is intimately related to final causality. Neither is put to work in the course of contemporary physics, chemistry, geology, or other sciences outside of biology and psychology. “Substance is on the one hand, matter, on the other hand, form, that is, activity” (Metaph. 1043a27–28, A. Kosman translator) Shape, such as shape of a bronze statue, is not all Aristotle means here by form. For Aristotle explanation of substance (which is most fundamental thing among beings) requires both matter and form in his sense, not in common sense or in scientific knowledge. Like most all moderns, and certainly all modern science, Rand and Peikoff reject Aristotle’s fundamental form/matter division of all beings. (See chapter 5 “Aristotle’s Theory of Form” in D. Bostock’s Space, Time, Matter, and Form – Essays on Aristotle’s Physics; chapter 3 “Form” in K Koslicki’s Form, Matter, Substance; Michael Frerejohn’s Formal Causes: Definition, Explanation, and Primacy in Socratic and Aristotelian Thought; J.G. Lennox’s “Form as Cause and the Formal Cause – Aristotle’s Answer” in Neo-Arisrtotelian Perspectives on Formal Causation.)

I was surprised to learn that Charles Koch has donated significantly to the ADF (2020). That does not bode well for what sort of candidate the Koch Network might be willing to back in the Republican Primaries. The ADF has the repeal of my same-sex marriage in its sights. https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/samesexmarriage-adf-pamphlet.pdf ADF states: "ADF believes that all people are made in the image of God and that everyone is worthy of dignity and respect. While ADF takes legal and policy positions that are informed by a biblically-based understanding of marriage, human sexuality, and the sanctity of life, we respect the human dignity of those with whom we disagree and win legal cases that also protect their freedom to express and advocate for their beliefs." Well, thanks for the sop, but I'm not an idiot. Legally unequal is legally unequal, and that goes not only for equality under laws that prohibit or enjoin, but for laws that confer legal powers. "The Charles Koch Institute also gave $275,000 to the anti-LGBTQ, Christian litigation powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, a first for Koch, according to CMD's tracking of his funding. Designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom is a major pusher of so-called “campus free speech” legislation and in recent years has been an active litigant in cases seeking to upend LGBTQ rights in the name of "religious freedom." Hopefully, that report about Koch is false. https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/11/29/koch-spent-nearly-150-million-2020

EC, it seems all fine, at least today. It looks just like the original book. There is not an entry in the book for Benevolence, but one for Benevolent Universe Principle. There is not an entry in the book for Right to the Pursuit of Happiness, but for National Rights; Individual Rights; Rights of the Accused; and Life, Right to.

https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/2-2-psychodynamic-and-behavioural-psychology/ (Some of the things said about types of psychologists in this linked report are incomplete, too coarse-grained, and out of date.) Neuropsychologists study consciousness as belonging to brain processes. Tad, concerning epistemological v. metaphysical, the biological is what consciousness is. That likely means it is included under what you may mean by the metaphysical. I propose that when Aristotle talks of earth, wind, fire, and water, what one should now switch to for reality best we know it is the chemical elements and to states of matter such as gas, liquid, or solid. When he speaks of substance, what one should best switch to for best capture of reality is mass-energy and to matter & fields and to more modern-science aware metaphysics, such as in replacement of Aristotle's 'substance' with Rand's 'entity'. The biological is physical. Then too, the epistemological should not be something vaguely floating around the philosopher's armchair, but informed by modern cognitive psychology (including developmental cognitive psychology) and neuropsychology. Serious epistemology includes, these days, assimilation of results from empirical psychology research. There has been some work on how Freud's speculations and key concepts stand up under modern scientific research. Some of the things he drew attention to can be observed in one's own mental operations. If you come awake while dreaming, you therefore will be able to remember some of the dream. Look for your use of objects and events of the previous waking day that you have put into the dream story. Freud called that the day residue, and I find it there just as he did. I have shied away from Freud's "the unconscious" and usually use instead the less elaborate Objectivist concept of "the subconscious." The powers of Freud's unconscious have seemed to me a long time to have too much the character of a unified agent and one implausibly autonomous from the regular agent we call a person. When I was college age, I read Freud's On the Interpretation of Dreams during a period I had been without funds to continue school. Concerning Dreams I recommend also a book by Jonathan Winson (1985) titled Brain and Psyche: The Biology of the Unconscious. At the time Freud was writing Dreams, he was also writing Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, which I also found interesting.

Roark opens his own firm, builds a couple of houses, a service station, and a department store. Then, no clients appear. He walks past buildings under construction and feels “the few steps on the sidewalk that separated him from the wooden fence enclosing the construction were the steps he would never be able to take. . . . It’s true, he would tell himself; its not, his body would answer, the strange, untouchable healthiness of his body” (PK XIV 183). I suggest that Rand’s stress on the untouchable healthiness of Roark’s body is a matter of conferring an esthetic integrity on him and a way of saying that the base of life given to man by the earth is good. Roark is one who keeps that goodness. So do other Fountainhead characters, such as Heller or Lansing, so far as we are told. The character Roark is styled to reflect innocence never lost. I've known quite a few people who had certain beloved ambitious work in view when they were young, especially artists. They had some knack in the area and spent some years gaining skill, foregoing alternative lines of work where it is much easier to make a living and a better living. Well before Roark's 18 years of such struggle, they determine that though they are good, others are better or that what they produce does not strike a chord in a significant market or the thing they are aiming for has only a few seats, as in an ambition to become a concert pianist, and gobs of others like oneself, only more gifted and accomplished, are after those seats also. The fictional characters of an author get to have the highest level of capabilities among humans, and happy landings eventually, if the author merely desires that. But all along one's undrafted, still-in-the-air course of life, one is making entrepreneurial decisions, from choices in higher education or trade school to choices in pursuing and accepting job offers or in going into one's own business. Here is the proper ideal, here with one's own particulars, not the particulars of a fictional character. One's realism and rationality, taking into account all one's abilities and psychology, in one's course is a help and virtue. In her non-fiction writing, Rand encouraged people to not sell themselves short and give up too easily, and what she says under the virtue of Pride encourages development of rational self-confidence. One man in real life amazes me in his self-confidence, and that is Nietzsche. (The subjectivist self-confidence in salespersons or politicians is amazing, but I don't care about those careers.) In the 1880's, he is turning out hard-composition original books. Scarcely any are being sold at that time, yet he writes a treatise "Why I Write Such Good Books." He would not be mentally competent to see it when it came, but a decade later his books were flying off the shelves, and he had a cult following in Germany (larger and more ludicrous than any had by Rand after writing Atlas). I imagine he could see his books were good from an objective standpoint (and far better still in his characteristic subjective megalomania of that period) or at least good in hands of kindred spirits he thought to be out there but as yet unaware of his work.

Tad, I'd think that the unconscious mind and what Freud called preconsciousness are emergent with the emergent conscious mind insofar as they are supportive of the operations of the conscious mind, including its sanity, supposing the conscious mind is emergent. Which I do. I'd expect the conscious mind is emergent as a form of the emergent goal-directed behavior distinctive to any living actions throughout the five kingdoms. Ayn Rand thought that insects have some level of consciousness, and Christof Koch thinks they do also. I seriously doubt that. All the same, there are different degrees of consciousness between the different animal species possessing it at all. And the function any animal has for some consciousness and of its sort is the survival of its form of life, as Rand discerned. So, yes, I think it plausible that all forms and degrees of consciousness are emergent. The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts (1992) https://www.amazon.com/biological-basis-teleological-concepts/dp/0962533602?tag=aynrandorgcampus-20 In this work, Harry Binswanger rejects the idea that the ends-attaining actions of living things are the result of a kind of sui generis cause appearing in nature in living things and not derivative from the causes in play in inanimate nature. That is, he sets aside the vitalist view of living action; there is no vital force inexplicable in terms of complexes of inanimate forces. Actions in which there are ends-behaviors are indeed peculiar to living things. But at this stage of science, we profitably seek to explain these behaviors by physical and chemical processes in certain structures. The patterns of behaviors in living things—from unicellular organisms to plants and animals—that appear to be aimed at goals or ends such as survival or reproduction are, in Binswanger’s argument, to be conceived as emergent from inanimate processes. His general position, which I think correct, is aptly called emergentist teleologist. Binswanger affirms the reality of goal-directedness in living nature, even where no directing consciousness is in play. It is cognitively important, in Binswanger’s view, that vegetative teleological patterns of action be understood as causal, even though teleology in living nature (e.g. plant tropisms) is explicable in terms of inanimate forces of nature. “Explanation on the level of parts does not necessarily eliminate the need for explanation on the level of wholes, and vice versa” (23). We can understand some things in the form ‘A because B’ without the ‘because’ being causal. Let A be the fact that the three angles of any triangle in the Euclidean plane sum to two right angles (2R), and let B be all the circumstances invoked directly or indirectly in Euclid’s proof of the 2R theorem. No causal powers are essential to that ‘because’ and understanding. Binswanger is not making out vegetative ends-directedness, or vegetative teleology, to be a non-causal ‘because’, but a causal one. On conscious mind as an emergent property: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/#WeakVsStroEmerContPhen

David, I read these within the opinion: The First Amendment doubly protects your right to differ in religious belief. That term is minimized by the justices ideologically confederate with Ms Smith’s attorneys from ADF (a bigoted Christian advocacy group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_Defending_Freedom) perhaps to veil their eagerness to take such a case and rule on it from their interest in publicizing, since they have the bench, a religious tenet they and a minority of the citizens are fired up about. “Eagerness” – https://www.npr.org/2023/07/01/1185632827/web-designer-supreme-court-gay-couples

The purported intention of the woman was to add a feature to her business in which she wanted to serve only straight couples, expressly so, and the law in Colorado had been used previously to prohibit such commercial discriminations against gay couples. The majority opinion of the Court stresses that religious reasons purported by the woman for her plan to exclude gay couples was a requirement for them to rule in favor of the woman against the possible action against her based on the statute. (Frankly, when I was a child, millions of white folks believed they had a religious reason for racial segregation and white supremacy, because they believed that a son of Noah who had been cursed was the progenitor of the Negro peoples. I'm not kidding; I remember that religious belief invoked repeatedly in our home clear as a bell.) Additionally, the opinion of the Court notes the circumstance that gay couples are able to get service at competitors. (Then too, the subject of gayness does not need to be mentioned in a text, in Court document or any print whatever, for it to be a topic of what was written and pertinent subject of a response. In history of Objectivism, there was the text from N. Branden in which romantic love was defined and included a clause that romantic love was between a man and a woman (having given a psychological causal factor for inclusion of the clause). Romantic love between members of the same sex was ruled out without having to mention explicitly such an implied non-existent. When any Objectivist type today goes to the trouble of typing in the clause "between a man and a woman" in presenting their definition of romantic love, you can bet a Coke that's a bigot. I saw such a case of writing many years ago in an article published in a newsletter of David Kelley's organization. Sure enough, after the Webb came about, the author, and more, his dollars-contributing brother, showed on FB their bigotry in this regard.) I was told by friends who live in Colorado that business at the shop of the plaintiff in the earlier wedding-cake case had fallen by half after the case (that would be drop in demand from straight couples). He's been back in court again (and the statute come under challenge again) here: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/colorado-baker-loses-appeal-over-refusal-make-gender-transition-cake-2023-01-26/ (Expressiveness too weak for court.) David, you remarked also: "Should we defend the rights of Nazi and religious bigots to express their viewpoint because of rights, or should we oppose the actions of Nazis and religious bigots because they advocate potentially dangerous viewpoints?" We do not need to oppose by outlawing. We can both defend their rights as American citizens and oppose them and their viewpoint. Had the Nazis come through with their planned march in Skokie, where a number of Holocaust survivors lived some years ago, the counter-demonstration, a valid manner of opposing, would have been enormous (thank goodness). https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie

303 Creative LLC et al. v. Elenis et al. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf I certainly agree that everyone, under our Constitution, should have the legal right to use their business to express their ideology. Such, for a particular sort of ideology, is affirmed in this case. What is so queer to me about this case is that courts have allowed standing when the business is not actual, but hypothetical, and no one has been actually affected by a mere planning of the business. If one can have standing in such a case, and therewith effectively have statutes amended, then I have a long, long, list of suits to file. On the ground, concerning the proper noun Queer in this case, the decision is of no significance. There has been a cultural revolution concerning right behavior concerning diversity of human sexual relationships, and as consumers, we minorities in romantic love will find commercial services of all types on offer from entrepreneurs not militant bigots. Justice is alive on the street with respect to gay commerce, regardless of statutes aiming for social equality, and overall, money talks. And winning the Court podium for pronouncements of the ravings of fake Christians will only bolster the feelings of those evangelicals. It will do nothing to diminish the justice of the sane majority of Americans in conviction or practice.

Target for picking a not-Trump candidate for backing by Koch Network is in time for Iowa Caucus next January. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-conservative-group-led-by-billionaire-koch-set-spend-beat-trump-2023-06-29/

Eiuol, Your post reminded me of an episode that occurred in Rand's life in the fall of 1940. Except for the link and the square-bracketed text I added, the following is from Barbara Branden's biographical essay "Who Is Ayn Rand?" (1962), based on interviews of Rand by Mrs. Branden.

Tad, I probably should have put those two recent developments into two different posts. So far as I know, this candidate is of no particular interest to the Koch group. Also, that interview of him, which allowed him a lot of time to speak, did not contain much of substance. Since he was in the House for three terms, I expect his voting record would say more about what could be expected from him in policy. I don't care for candidates who do not promote making their first budget a balanced one. Though, from what I've seen, such a candidate would attract no interest at all from Republican primary voters (attention on culture wars). Such a Republican nominee might however win in the general election against a big spending Democrat, and like the Democrat, would have the attraction that he or she was not Donald Trump. My Democrat friends favor Trump for the Republican nomination, because they expect they can beat him again by an even wider margin. If the nominee is not Trump, they are not sure they can win. Why did you say this new contestant is a racist?

HM, good point.

Doug, I take TS to be not endorsing such a silly view but to be drawing it as an implication of writings of Rand. This he or she does by putting a purely intellectual sense to Rand's use of the word "recognition," ignoring recognitions implicit in behavior (and with no insinuation that the implicit recognition is something that could be made explicit in the mind of the agent), indeed ignoring the behavior context of these remarks on rights. It is not a square reading of Rand, only a stretching. That is too bad. There are serious criticisms of Rand's theory of rights that have been made and are very worthwhile to judge and perhaps defend Rand or offer improvements on Rand. On a more serious point, I'd like to dispute the whole idea that anyone loses rights by violating them. That error is by not knowing how the relation rights is constituted by a complex of interpersonal oughts* which so far as I've seen almost no one understands. (I realized the exact constitution sometime in the late 1960's; it is in that link.) Strictly speaking, it is liberties and powers that are restricted when a criminal is penalized.

The Koch Network has raised 70 million dollars to place in the Republican presidential primary contest for some candidate or other not Trump. New Candidate in the Contest

Thank you. Save one, all of those ideas of Rand's are at least partly false. One statement is true. It is made by you, and it is claimed (correctly) for Rand: only human beings have rights (because if authentic, they are moral relationships possible only between autonomous agents). I'd not take "recognize" as so intellectual and so explicitly articulated as you do here in reading Rand using "recognize" in these right-action contexts. When Rand has passengers on a train killed through wrong conduct of train operators causing an accident, poetic justice is in play, not advocacy of the death penalty for people holding the mistaken views displayed in the minds of those passengers. The chorus of uncharitable readings of this scene notwithstanding (e.g., agree with Rand's philosophy or be sent to the gas chamber by those who do.) I'd like to reiterate what I said upstream: The people participating at this site have shown themselves to be independent thinkers, paramount for them is what is true and right, and they do not determine the answer by trying to figure out what Rand said on the issue. There are Objectivist-types like that (holding to a "hockshop of authority" contra Rand's counsel; I've encountered a few on Facebook), but they do not write here, at least not in the years I've been here. (I'm not an Objectivist, meaning there is at least one essential of the philosophy I think false, but like most others here, I have intellectual and personal-survival debt to Rand, interest in philosophy, including hers, and significant agreement with her on some issues significant to me.) The audience Rand indicates she thinks she is addressing in the Galt's Speech of Atlas Shrugged are not fully in agreement with her philosophy therein, because she is the inventor of it and is breaking the news of it. She repeatedly assumes all sorts of good and bad things in the audience of the radio speech, and she holds forth people's wrong bases for those things or only glimpsed correct bases for them, which she tries to diagnose and remedy out in the light. They do not have her philosophy, yet "whatever living moments you have known, were lived by the values of my code." They have and do authentic good without knowing her code. Rand did not take issue with the act requirement for use of lawful government force. Had she known the specific history behind the removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from the Southeastern United States in the 1830's to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), she might have faced up to the complications of such historical developments. Certainly, she should have. And she should have learned more about those land-takings before describing the historical facts behind the takings in the American history more generally. That was a crucial taking and removal of population I knew of from childhood and schooling out there, and I've been amazed how often people growing up in the Northeast don't know a blessed thing about it.* *

Evidence of Gravitational-Wave Cosmic Background Wider and More Understandable Report

TS, Exactly where did Rand write or even voice the idea that people who do not recognize individual rights have no rights themselves? I don't recall such a thing. Additionally: What Rand thought follows from the essentials of her philosophy does not relieve one from the responsibility of thinking out for oneself what follows from the essentials of her philosophy and how so. And it does not relieve one from the intellectual responsibility of independently assessing whether the consequent is true and right, which is a perfectly good thing to discourse on here. If one is not acting in immediate self-defense or invoking subsequent action by the law for retribution against someone who has actually initiated force against one, then using force (through law or otherwise) by way of preemption is itself an initiation of force. That was Rand's view and it is widely shared wisdom won by long bloody history. You guys let T.S. Elliot immigrate to your country. Freud also. Eliot turned RC. Might he have been fixing to help the Irish Republican Army? Might a Jewish guy like Freud join a communist cell bent on violent overthrow the government and its protection of the institution of private property in your country? Casting immigrants into your country as threats to keeping you free of force can become very irrational. Such would be not only the two farcical fancies I just mentioned. Blanket casting of people from certain countries or of certain religions as such threats is also irrational and unjust. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “What is your attitude toward immigration? Doesn’t open immigration have a negative effect on a country’s standard of living?” This is Rand's answer to that one (1974):