Vik

For Grames: 1. Do you think that life is at the base of man's knowledge in the way that "existence", "identity", and "consciousness" are? 2. What do you think makes a concept implicit? 3. It is my understanding that Rand's formulation of "life" was about distinguishing living things as *living* things. You seem to want to focus on the fact that they are living *things*. Could you clarify what you're trying to do here? 4. What do you think makes something an irreducible primary?

One can define ANY entity ostensively. Why do you think that the definition can be dispensed with?

If we include in our definition of value that what we act to gain or keep is what we *ought* to gain or keep, then what is the objective basis for the standard? However bad men may become, we need some word designating something true of all men.

What would qualify as an "anti-value"?

A word is a perceptual-concrete symbol for a concept. Grammarians say that a sentence embodies a complete thought. What does a phrase do? Does a phrase name a subset of existents falling within the bounds of a concept? Does a phrase reintroduces some aspects that were omitted during concept-formation? I've been reading some books on logic from the late 19th century and very early 20th. They speak of a process called "judgment", whose result is a proposition. It seems to me that a proposition is to a concept what a sentence is to a word. If these are controversial lines of approach to the nature of propositions, I need to know.

I need a word or phrase to describe what this table does. linguistic element, "mental existent", mental process word, unit or concept, concept-formation phrase, subset, narrow the set of considered existents verb phrase, predication, apply ontological category sentence, proposition, judgment paragraph, unity, horizontal integration

It's been a few years since I've had to explain a mathematical proof. It's been longer since I've done a mathematical proof. I've regained an interest in mathematics after some recent discussions with some friends of mine, and it occurred to me that many abstractions are introduced to students without proper foundations in previous knowledge. It's fine and well to study mathematical induction after studying discrete math, but I had to have a sense of mathematical induction when I was learning series and then again when I was dealing with proofs of some methods in linear algebra. Had people talked about discrete math first, it would have been too much of a learning curve. I take no issue with *understanding* something less abstract by means of something more abstract. But I want to clarify how what is more abstract depends on previous knowledge of what is less abstract. You seem to suggest that there is nothing to do besides the step by step learning between what I already know and discrete math.

I am looking for how to to validate abstract concepts of method. I am particularly interested in how to validate the concepts of method by which we validate other concepts. Consider: it would be improper to validate deductive proof by means of a deductive proof. You must resort to other kinds of validation. My questions were aimed at integrating an idea with its referents by attending the levels of abstraction in the reverse order of what was needed to reach the knowledge. My purpose was to clarify the abstract idea beyond what a mere encyclopedia entry would describe. I'm happy to mine encyclopedias to obtain a definition, but I don't normally do mathematical proofs as part of my day. Without that context, I would end up sketching loose associations among ideas only to find out that's I'm missing something very important for knowing that mathematical induction "works" and must work. > question 7 I did not literally mean measurements. Higher levels of abstraction omit details as if they were measurements. Concepts of method pertain to the products of consciousness and are formed by retaining the distinguishing characteristics of the purposive course of action and of its goal, while omitting the particular measurements of both.

1. To what does the concept of mathematical induction refer to in reality? 2. What facts give rise to the need for such a method? 3. What did we need to discover before we could form the concept? 4. What systematic course of action is designated by the concept of mathematical induction? 5. What goals does this method help achieve? 6. What is the role of the subconscious? Are there any psychological actions necessary for successfully doing a mathematical induction? 7. What particular measurements are omitted? They are measurements of the purposive course of action and its goal. But what are they?

http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5631.0;wap2

I once had a classmate who didn't want to read a textbook for lack of time. He also didn't want anyone to give him the fundamental principles because he had no context for understanding them. Yet he expected that asking questions and working through examples would be enough. He didn't do very well in the class.

You don't want a summary. Ok. You don't want to borrow a book from someone. Ok I already pointed out the problems of relying on a limited format such as Q&A I'm not sure what you want.

> My goal is to "scientifically" break down Objectivism to see what it's made of and how the pieces fit together; I'm doing it to get some closure for myself. If you want to do that, one of the things you need to do is grasp its foundations in metaphysics and epistemology. You're asking some questions about logic, which is a small part of that step. But if you do not know what the non-fiction books have said about the metaphysical and epistemological foundations, a series of questions and answers won't be enough. There is material across thousands of pages to clarify, connect, classify, explain, unite by means of concepts, assign level of importance to. For any idea in an abstract system of thought, you need to know examples, problems, identifications of factual relationships, identification of corollaries, integration of new knowledge with a familiar context, and what conditions any attempt at applying the idea to reality. A definition may help clarify the content but only after you have the content. A series of syllogisms may give you some sense of organization but only after you have something to organize. What you need is context. You say: > that a small summary or quotation will not do. That is because you wouldn't have the context for understanding or judging the summary or quotation. The only way you can understand Objectivism without spending money is to obtain a copy from someone who has one. If none are conveniently available, I don't see a way to resolve your conflict.

I bought this at $22.99 Now it's selling for more than $69.66: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0962533602/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used I have two questions: What happened? Would anyone like to buy my copy?

https://estore.aynrand.org/p/506/writing-and-thinking-hardcover There are many exercises in this book, but there are no sample answers. It would be nice to compare my results with the results of others. I think this book will be helpful in gaining as much as possible from what I read as well as in conveying my thoughts to others.

I want to emphasize that I am not talking about unsound arguments (where a premise is ambiguous or false). I am talking about arguments where the premises are true, the conclusion is a consequence of the premises, but the conclusion is false. For those unfamiliar with the distinction between horizontal integration and vertical integration: Vertical integration is a process where facts are integrated along the hierarchy of knowledge. example: when you subsume a new fact under an established genus to produce a minor premise, e.g. Socrates is mortal. Horizontal integration is the integration of a fact with the rest of one's knowledge. Examples: identification of a corollary of some principle, i.e. as an implication rather than a theorem spiral learning — integration of new knowledge with familiar context (i.e. new knowledge about previously known something) explanation of an effect in terms of what is known grasping an existent as part of a system

I am looking for examples of deductive arguments where: the premises are true the conclusion can be "deduced" from the premises if you forget the rest of human knowledge the conclusion is false Units fitting these criteria would help me distinguish good applications of logic from bad "logic" (e.g. context dropping)

Actually forget about the 2nd and third recs. You wanted the *best*. Minto has some problems in his foundations. And I thought of Taylor only because he mentions a process that sounded like integration. Aside from that there are problems with him too.

H.W.B. Joseph's intro to logic gets a lot of attention. It's very comprehensive. But if you're interested in specific details like what it takes to formulate a proposition or the role of integration, you might want to consider these works: http://www.gutenberg...6-h.htm#page131 This has some interesting stuff about "judgment" http://openlibrary.o...lementary_logic This has some interesting stuff about "apperception". Taylor defines "apperception" as "the process of relating a present fact to some past experience which explains it as its class, ground, cause or reason..." He goes on to say: "We find it everywhere in the intellectual processes — in sense perception, conception, judging, and reasoning. Without it our separate sensations would not be moulded together into the individual things that constitute our sense world; our class-notions or concepts would not take the judgment form; nor would our judgments unite in the final logical procedure of reasoning.. Whenever a present experience engages our attention it forthwith challenges the mind's relating activity to build it on to any phase of previous experience that is discovered to have some bearing upon it." ~William J. Taylor, Elementary Logic, ch1 "Introduction", pg 9

> We think the sun will rise because it always has, but there's a chance it might not. Chance? calculated by what means? in reference to what facts? Note that such facts must be known with absolute certainty in order to use the calculation in the first place. Probability and statistics are concerned with situations involving limitations on knowledge about the cause. When we have insufficient information for inferring which particular outcome will happen next time, then it can be useful to employ probability and statistics. We know with dead certainty that a coin can come up heads or tails. Or it can land on its side, but those situations are rarely stable. We know something about *how* the coin behaves in various situations. Probability and statistics provides tools intended for precisely those situations where we DON'T know enough to generalize to the next level of abstraction. So while probability and statistics have their uses, they should not be confused for means by which we generalize. > I asserted that in order to function in the world we needed to have certainty and absolutes. He acknowledged this but said we still could not "prove" that the sun will rise in the same way we could form a deductive proof > The fact that the sun rises is not a proof for anything in itself. WHY do we see the sun rise? The sun gives off light. Light will not reach a location if the light's path is blocked by something else. The earth rotates. And so on. We have knowledge about entities, identity, causality. We form concepts about what's out there in the world, what they do, how they're related. These concepts are open-ended. They are not the result of listing examples. Your concept of a coin includes not only all the coins you have seen but all the coins you will ever see. This is a very important point so I will stop here to let you think about it.

Absolutely. The physical invasion violates the right to disposal. My question was what more was needed to properly identify the nature of the rights violation. This is interesting. Isn't freedom from interference broader than right to disposal? Does "nuisance" touch on an aspect that the four I mentioned do not cover?

I know of four aspects of property rights: the right to any benefit from the property the right to the disposal of the property the right to exclude others from the use of the property the right to transfer or sell the property 1. Are these enough to cover rights violations such as damage to another's property? 2. How should we classify impact to the private owner's ability to enjoy the property, e.g. pollution?

There are many types of integration. There are integrations of units, which are involved in concept-formation. The new unity classifies the input material. There are integrations of facts where you arrive at an abstract principle. The new unity is more general than the starting input. There are integrations where a new fact is filed under an establish genus, such as a minor premise. There is demonstrating that a previously formed proposition can be deduced from some wider proposition. The unity recasts the starting material as a theorem. For example, Galileo's law of fall was arrived at through induction but can be deduced from Newton's laws of motion. There is identification of a previously known proposition as a corollary of some principle, as an implication rather than a deduction. For example, causality is a corollary of identity, not a deduction. There is spiral learning, where you grasp new knowledge about an old something There is a very simple form of integration where you identify what is related to a given fact. There is explanation, where the new unity is said to cause the referents of the starting the material. In these instances, the new unity either classifies, grounds, causes, or provides a more general reason for the starting material. Last night Bluecherry pointed out that ground, explanation, and reason relate the input to reality, whereas classification tells you where it goes in the filing system. The former are about serving as a basis. The latter is about recognizing hierarchy. What exactly is it that a unity does for input material? What action is the genus of all those actions?

The claim you posted to start this thread CANNOT be true. In order to know whether a proposition of interest is true, you have to know something else by means of which you judge it to be true. If you want to know whether a beam will support a roof you have to know something about the materials and how they are arranged. In order to proceed from what you know to what you don't yet know, you have to employ logic. A person who permits contradictions in their thinking violates this basic condition for truth. Furthermore anything that exists is what it is. It cannot be otherwise. There can be no contradictions. Therefore there can be no gods who allow contradiction. If there were gods, they would have to be constrained by the laws of logic and other basic facts about the nature of things. Axioms forbid creation ex nihilo, supremacy of consciousness, actual infinities, and many other things implied by religious belief. That rules out all forms of theism except one: a being that arose out of the chaos of nature to rearrange given material in accordance with the Law of Identity and become master of forces. But then what you have isn't theism.

If a person doesn't apply the laws of logic to a subject, it is not possible to have a discussion with them about it. The purpose of discussion is to learn, to reach objective knowledge. At a minimum, you seek to understand the other's position. After all it is not possible to debate anything without that understanding. But how can they understand you without employing logic? Therefore no discussion is possible. What should be done with such a person? Sure, you could try to explain to them that they *need* logic. But they would have to choose to employ logic to understand you. Is it enough to say you disagree and leave it at that?