y_feldblum

Since the Kantian is opposed to conceptualization as such (insofar as he is a Kantian), and two opposite conceptualizations of some thing are similar to the Kantian in that they are conceptualizations and that he opposes them. But once one approves of conceptualization, there turns out to be no similarity between Objectivism and Intelligent Design. The Objectivist response to Intelligent Design is: "And you expect me to believe this claim, which you present arbitrarily (i.e., without reality-based evidence and logic), because...?"

I imagine that if robots were granted the "rights" to welfare, food stamps, unemployment "insurance", etc. (even if they had a Calvinist work ethic), there would be welfare-, food-stamp, and unemployment-insurance-collecting hordes demanding that production of new robots be rendered illegal and that existing robots be deported back to where they came from (to the end of the assembly line, which then proceeds to operate in reverse).

Note that it is the dominant ideas of a culture which is the ultimate determinant of a country's direction and the operation of its government. No form of government, however good, is sufficient to protect individual rights absent their sacrosanctity in the culture; and no form of government, however bad, is sufficient to crush individual rights when the culture holds them sacrosanct. In either case, the old government will fall (it will inevitably be felled), and a new one will be imposed consistent with the culture's dominant ideas.

Formal-logical implication is always ultimately, though usually not directly, reducible to identity and causality; and there are many different kinds of ways to reduce to facts the various different kinds of implication.

I'm no philosopher, and this may sound rationalistic. I would say that the purpose of production is the ultimate consumption of what one produces. The purpose of property right is the protection of what one produces so that one may consume it. IP is essentially the same as all other forms of property: it is either to be consumed, or it isn't property.

I'm going to assume that the meaning is: the part where he gets wrong every aspect of Rand's argument.

Then what possible motive can there be, without reincarnation of the soul, for an individual to design a non-hedonistic society?

Reincarnation? That old myth cannot advance an organization of society the motivation for which is, actually, reason. The two motives are opposites.

What kind of view of reality and of knowledge does he advance?

Is there any context? Such as.... "Hello. I am interested in studying Objectivism. I am under the delusion that Objectivism is a hodgepodge of answers to concrete questions, and here are three of which I am not sure." "Hello. I am interested in studying Objectivism and finding all its flaws. I am looking into these issues in the hope that I can find a gaping hole in its logic, and to prove once and for all that Objectivism is inherently contradictory." "Hello. I am interested in studying Objectivism and, although I think I grasp the principles of it, I am not sure how to apply them in complex situations. Here are some example situations in which the methods of applying the principles of Objectivism are unclear to me."

It's the care which a communist regime gives.

I suppose the question is: What is the primary end towards which living organisms act and towards which all other ends are subsidiary? Ayn Rand observed that living things constantly act towards the end of keeping themselves alive, and that it is this end which is most fundamental. Friedman argues that living things constantly act towards the end of reproduction, and that it is this end which is most fundamental. But that question really doesn't matter, compared to this: What is the primary end towards which you act, and towards which all other ends are subsidiary?

Ordinarily, other people are good. Having to kill thousands of people to protect one's own life means something is seriously wrong with the world. Perhaps it is this recognition, and the manner of it, which is potentially psychologically scarring.

With only an American sense of life to go on, but not an explicit American philosophy, the people of this country are at the mercy of whoever can disguise an anti-American philosophy in an American sense of life. The nature and size of a country's government depends on the philosophy governing the country.

Bias? You mean: upholding what one knows to be true? Because it sounds like you're implying that nobody can know anything, but we all have arbitrary principles stuck in our head, and we just stick to those principles regardless of the facts (at least until the facts become too contradictory).

By reading The Jolly Red Book, are you learning about reality? Are you learning all about Santa Claus, the elves, and the north pole, which are the description of reality given in The Jolly Red Book? True, by reading The Jolly Red Book you learn the specific fact that The Jolly Red Book says: <...> - but what one means by saying, "One cannot know anything about reality by reading what The Jolly Red Book has to say," is that the description of reality in that book is arbitrary and that all that reading that book tells you is that the book tells you arbitrary assertions. In other words, I think you are "just being way too literal"

"The identity of indiscernibles" is another way of saying "primacy of consciousness".

The most important problem with the government's numbers is that many of them are meaningless. In particular, the "National Savings Rate" is not the national savings rate, not even close, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Objectivity is a description of how knowledge is attained. There is no such thing as objective to whom? because objectivity is a universal method applying to all knowledge and to all people. There is no such thing as under what circumstances?, again, because either one observes reality in order to attain knowledge or one doesn't, whatever kind of knowledge it is and under whatever circumstances it is. The answers to those questions are always: to everybody under all circumstances. Optimality of a value is optimality of some value. The question of value itself presupposes the answer to, to whom and under what circumstances? An optimal life is one thing to a person hellbent on serving others, and is another thing to a person who loves his own life.

Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was a writer and a philosopher, and in her novels she portrayed heroes pursuing and achieving the extraordinary in the face of a society bent on eradicating everything great. She dramatized the scurrying nature of such a society, and how even in the face of it, the pursuit of lifelong goals and happiness is not only possible, but easy. She wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and I highly recommend reading both books, in that order. I recommend them primarily as great and inspiring fiction, as I would recommend Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, and secondarily as an expression of Ayn Rand's philosophy, which is expressed more completely in later books and essays. As a philosopher, Ayn Rand denounced the figures of ancient and modern philosophy who said that the world doesn't exist, or that even if the world exists, it's nothing compared to the supernatural world. She denounced those who said that people can't know anything at all, or that people are incapable of abstract knowledge, and those who said that even if people are capable of abstract knowledge, that knowledge has no connection to reality. She denounced those philosophers who said that you are evil regardless, or that the good consists of dedicating your whole life to the service of others, of people you will never meet, of your worst enemies, and even of animals or plants or rocks, and she denounced those who said that the good consists of robbing your neighbors blind every chance you get, of living by the sword and taking what you want without ever creating anything. She denounced socialism as a system of enslaving each man to those around him, instead of freeing each man to exist on his own terms. She affirmed that this world exists, and only this world. She affirmed that we are indeed capable of knowing about this world, and even of abstract knowledge about this world. She affirmed that it is actually good to pursue values and happiness, and that there is no call to throw one's own lifelong happiness out the window just because some dictator, or some beggar, wants you to. And she affirmed that capitalism is the only political system which permits people to pursue values. Yes, all Objectivists are atheists. ("Objectivist" is capitalized because Objectivism is a proper noun referring to a particular person's, Ayn Rand's, philosphy, not to a whole school of philosophy which just goes by a general name. This is comparable to calling someone an Aristotelian or a Platonist or a Hegelian or a Kantian or an Augustinian, instead of calling him a realist or a monist or a naturalist or an atheist or a deontologist.) Objectivists are atheists because they do not take anything on faith. They do not take the Bible on faith, or God on faith, or the flying spaghetti monster on faith. One cannot know anything about reality by reading what the Bible says. By Ayn Rand's philosophy, one can only form knowledge by observing reality and applying logic to one's observations.

Dude, get real! Rand would like sooo use those words!

Well, I want to live qua man. I would banish you from society by means of imprisonment or, if necessary, execution. If you choose to live as a dangerously feral dog, then I have no choice but to put you down. If you choose that kind of course, then it will lead to your death: either at the hands of nature or at mine. Or, if you choose to live as a meek, terrified dog, then I will simply not deal with you; and that course of action will lead just as well to your death.

Objectivity is a basic method of cognition, as opposed to the subjective and the intrinsicist methods, in other words, whim and worship (the three methods form the i-o-s trichotomy). Objectivity requires observation of reality and the application of logic to one's observations. There are no "levels" of objectivity. At any given moment, one's thinking is objective or it is not; over the course of one's whole life, one sometimes thinks objectively and one sometimes does not; and regarding a complex idea, one may approach some aspects objectively and one may approach other aspects non-objectively. Nobody has any sort of innately "limited" ability to reason, except those born retarded. A person who does not grasp the philosophical issues involved in discovering what kind of social, economic, and political system is the moral good, all the way from the concept of moral rights down to the concept of A is A, and all through the necessary implications of each system, and who has seen only the mixed economy but neither capitalism in full nor socialism in full, in all their concrete details, and yet advocates socialism because others have told him it is good and it makes him feel good and everyone else is doing it, is naive but is not evil. This is the kind of advocate of socialism you are talking about; such an advocate has not objectively come to the conclusion that socialism is good. He has accepted the ideas of others without thinking seriously about those ideas. The second example is an interesting twist on: Suppose a businessman is bound by a contract to take an unexpected loss. Now suppose the other party to the contract allows some renegotiations and alleviates a portion of the loss. The remainder of the loss is a loss, yes, but it is a smaller loss. In any event, remember Ayn Rand's definition of value: to act to gain or keep. Our businessman is now able to keep the alleviated portion of the loss, and that money is indeed a value.

Debt: There is a lot of debt --> MassDefault: People in general aren't paying back debt --> MassEvil: People in general are evil, so much so as to warrant excluding them completely from society. I'm having trouble with Debt --> MassDefault, and with MassDefault --> MassEvil, because you don't explain, at all, how you get from each idea to the next. Think you could explain each step?

It's absolutely stupid. If at any point one comes across 0/0, what one already does is either to take the limit or say "there is no answer", and both, in their contexts, are perfectly good solutions.