Nate T.

As much as I despise the man, these words are actually quite good.






... and you guys are also skilled at pulling rationalizations out of a hat ...

Not at all. I think most Objectivist are very well meaning people. They are just misinformed and misguided. So your claim that we are just trying to demonize you does not hold true for me. I'm saying when ideas start to fail in practice for someone, even if they are correct ideas, it can push that person, depending on their circumstances, into behaving in erratic ways. For instance, would the killer have shot up all those people if Giffords had lost re-election?

I'm not here to demonize you. I am here to say things Objectivism would interpret as blasphemous and then defend them. I think the basic edifice of Objectivism is based on certain untruths. Namely, that we are all "entitled" to the full results of our
"production" and no other adult is regardless of their situation. There are situations where you or I are NOT entitled to the full production of our "effort" regardless of how much we worked for it or how little others were involved in their acquisition.

I think this practice Objectivists are advocating of proclaiming the totality of everything they acquire from the Earth whether through inheritance or effort as "mine" is ego driven, not reality driven. The reality, again, being we are here to survive as a species and group, not just as individuals. We are a family. Families don't cut others off because they are unable to work (or even unwilling) to exert effort as we are. Work itself, employment by others, is a relatively newly introduced construct to the Earth only to be found in humanity. There is no "employment" in the other animal species and still in some pre-modern human tribes. They all, whether alone or in cooperative groups, just go about collecting what they need for themselves from what is directly provided by their natural environment. Humans are the only species that have corrupted this natural fulfillment of survival needs by introducing a "middle man" (a dependency) between ourselves and the natural world. This practice of going through a "middle man" to obtain what we once could acquire ourselves directly from our environment has overtaken the planet and, whether through corruption of the environment or corruption of our minds, has removed us as individuals further and further from direct contact with our natural supplier, the Earth.

I’m not attempting to justify a foregone conclusion.
Because God appears to me as Nothing.
God is to me the same of Truth.
In fact, there is not Truth: nothing is absolutely true.

So, I can not pray God, because it’s Nothing.

It is for this reason of that it is so important to me my faith in God.


My aim is to show how tricky it to say: “It exists”.

Matter and vacuum are to me just concepts, nothing to do with true “existence”.

Truly we can think that other concepts, like energy and space, will match existence?
That is, even if I’d start over, would be the question about physical world existence solved?

Saying that “matter is simply energy in it's cohesive state” it seems meaning that matter does not exist, because what really exists it’s energy. But so we put ahead the problem of existence without solving it.

Furthermore, does energy make sense without matter?


I do not have defined God. I only said that He has to be true.
Even if I don’t know what “true” really means. I don’t know because I don’t master the meaning of Existence.

Always mine it’s the responsibility of my choices, and... never I’m sure about Good or Evil. Always I have to do an act of faith in Good.

God (or Truth, or Good, or Justice because all them are the same) appears to me as Nothing. Is only a question of my faith if that Nothing is the source of infinite possibilities rather than the absolute Nothing.

Locals Protest Mosque That's Actually a Church
By Max Fisher | November 16, 2010 12:08pm



Some vigilant citizens in Phoenix, Arizona are up in arms over a domed church that they wrongly believe to be a mosque. The large building, still under construction along a busy interstate, is actually a nondenominational church. The backlash has been severe enough that the church's leaders have hung a giant banner over the dome: "IF YOU THINK DIFFERENT YOU ARE WRONG -- WE ARE BUILDING A CHRISTIAN HOUSE OF WORSHIP." The incident suggests that the widespread backlash against Muslim-American centers, which began this summer in reaction to the planned Cordoba House in New York, may still not have fully receded.

Phoenix's CBS affiliate KPHO reports, "People behind a new church in Phoenix are trying to stay ahead of any potential controversy or hate that accompanied the announcement of a proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York City."

Source

***Mod Note: Merged Topic***
-Dante

See review on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AEMX7VD1XBMT5/ref=cm_rna_own_review_more?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview#R345AGFRUNT8PJ

I haven't heard you condemn the murder of millions of Chinese peasants by Genghis Khan, lately. Mass murderer. If you ask me, you and your murdering buddy could've at least buried them properly, instead of building a giant pile out of their heads like savages. What kind of a person are you?

Or should I wait until you're dead before I call you an accomplice to every crime you didn't know about, to make sure you can't correct me?

Also, the movie Gigli. Did you publicly condemn that pile of crap? I didn't think so, you bad movie making murderer.

Ayn Rand's on record on both the sending of homosexuals and the falsely accused to jail. She made specific public statements against both.

Not to mention that her philosophy rejects such actions, and I informed you of her position on the initiation of force at least twice just in this thread: she was against it.

Argument from authority.

There is a contradiction here. Rand required the oath for entry into Galt's Gulch for a reason that should be obvious to the simplest of minds. What do you think would have been the penalty for apostasy in Galt's Gulch? Think about that, in the context of the story, and imagine what options the Gulchers would have had in such a case.

A nation that allows any sort of political expression clearly does not require such an oath. A moment's consideration, using Galt's Gulch as analogy for a free state, leads to the conclusion that such a nation cannot survive in freedom for more than a few generations.

Freedom and rights do not include the right to infringe on others' rights. Does freedom of speech allow one to advocate violation of others' rights?

Mr. D'Ipolito, I respectfully ask that you check your premises.

Any two distinct rays emanating from the same point are linearly independent in the simplest sense: linear displacements along one ray can never get you to a point on the other.

The premise I question is that opposing rays somehow coalesce into linear dependence, whilst rays at a tiny angular displacement from opposition are linearly independent.

The contradiction is due to context-dropping, and a bit of conflation, around the concept "linear". Linear means something different than Euclidean rectitude in the more general context of so-called "linear" algebra, and unfortunately leads to the common mistake of assuming that lines are the basis of dimension in volumetric space.

Volumetric space is the conceptual context. What can be said with certainty about volumetric space? Well, it's finite, bounded, enclosed. In other words, it has an inside, and an outside (editorial note: people traditionally have underestimated the importance of the inside/outside complementation that necessarily adheres to volumetric spaces). Now, the thing about inside and outside is that, like any truly complementary pair, they are not merely symmetric opposites. This becomes clear from a simple observation: you can only go inward so far before you pass through a volume and thenceforth move outward indefinitely (assuming a ray-like trajectory).

In volumetric space, in means in towards something, and directions are defined by reference to "inward-nesses".

Mathematicians may play with more or less unrelated abstractions, but we humans live in volumetric space(s), and cannot assume things are where they are without seeing a signal indicating such facts ... and the signal must traverse volumetric space to reach us ... and two signals sent in different directions are clearly not gonna end up in the same place, clearly represent two distinct dimensions of information gathering. This is just another way of saying, as I originally stated: Any two distinct rays emanating from the same point are linearly independent in the simplest sense: linear displacements along one ray can never get you to a point on the other.

Rays, not lines, are the proper basis of dimension when traversing motion is taken as the gold standard of proof of (potentially evolving) relative location. I challenge anyone to impeach this standard.

Ergo, lines are 2-dimensional.

And therefore, since a vectorial representation is required, I submit my representation of the integers as the most conceptually economic I could devise: pairs of counting numbers with equality defined by reference to equivalent net displacement when one imagines finite, constant-length steps taken to the left, or the right.

I can keep trying to make it clear if you choose to pursue it -- it is worth the effort, I promise.

Cheers.

- David

there is no gravitational force in this world if there any force exist then it would apply on the basis of their masses and weights.For example put a paper and a steel rod in front of a blower then switch on the blower you wil see the air will throw the paper many meter away from the blower on the other hand the steel rod will move some inches away from the blower.
But in case of gravitaional force the result is reverse it works more effectively for heavier objects rather than light objects.For example if you put down a stone from the top of a building it will comes down on the ground very rapidly on the other hand if want to throw down a ballon it will never comes down on the ground if the gravity exist then the ballon should comes down more rapidly due to its lighter weight as compared to stone but it never happens because there is no force of gravity in this universe.Accuately there are two factors that are controlling the entire process
1 density
2 pressure
Any object that is more dense than air will comes downward and the object less dense than air will go upward.The factor that controls the falling and upgoing speed of the object is the pressure of the air.
There are many examples to support and prove this concept .

Really, do you think these people actually want to kill people who don't comply with some stupid movement? It's there to be absurd and silly, not to threaten people.

And "Shaky science"? 97% of the science community agrees that global warming is occurring and that humans to some extent contribute. I don't think we should take political action or that industrial society is somehow inherently evil, but it is not an absurd claim that changes should be made. To what extent, in what way and for what reasons are or should be the issues at hand. I think it would take a skeptic of climate science a hell of a lot of proof to cast serious doubts on the accepted science of the day.

Rule one is that you will get lots of very helpful and contradictory responses. The reason is that all of the real alternatives suck one way or the other, so your question reduces to wondering "what sucks the least".

In my opinion, it is pointless to give any level of support to a candidate who sucks and has no chance of winning. Since you are using "support" in a broader sense (not just "will vote for" which implies that you live there), I would ask what the actual alternatives are. For example, you may determine that you have $1,000 that you can give to causes, so should you give it to Peter Schiff, or Rand Paul, or John McCain? These are not your only alternatives: you could also give the money to ARI; you could purchase copies of Rand's books and donate them to your local library -- etc. I would do one of the latter two things, rather than give money to a political candidate. You could also spend some time, let's say 200 hours, working for something (distributing literature, making phone calls, writing letters to the editor, etc). Should you dedicate your free time to Peter Schiff? Or should you dedicate your free time writing an article for The Objective Standard, or hanging out at an Objectivist table at a tea party event? I'd go for the latter, myself.

There's a weaker sense of support, not involving money or time, simply giving "moral support", for example publicly advocating -- when the question arises -- a particular candidate. So if someone asks "Do you support Rand Paul", you could say "Yes" as opposed to "No". But a better option, if it works in the conversation, is to change the conversation to something about why certain ideas are good and worthy of supporting, and why other ideas are bad and need opposition.

When it comes time to pull an actual lever, though, the question before you is a stark dichotomy: either Rand Paul will be the Senator, or Jack Conway will be the senator. Which one would be a worse senator. Both are dangerous candidates, but one of them will win. Which is the greater threat to our existence, creeping socialism, or theocracy? The answer to that question could push you a particular way. Another more fundamental question is whether it is more dangerous to have a well-defined enemy in government, or an apparent friend who will betray the principles that you support and sully the reputation of those principles. In my opinion, it would do more long-term harm to have a fake capitalist in office than a socialist. One can point to the catastrophe of communist nations as an existence proof that communism is not a proper political system for humans. We do not need a catastrophe perpetrated in the name of capitalism.[Rand had a very appropriate comment on supporting false friends, in CUI, which I cannot find now -- maybe someone out there know what I mean].

You guys are making this way too complicated. Mathematics is the science of measurement as I am sure most of you are aware. The purpose of mathematics is to be able to derive values for any measurable aspect of reality , using certain logically derived, objective methods.

Are these methods sometimes highly abstract and beyond an immediate connection to perceptual experience? Sure. Do some methods seem to be arbitrary? One might think that, but if they are logically derived from the basiic axioms of mathematics and allow one to acheive real-world values then they are not arbitrary at all. What matters here is that the mathematical methods used are not complicated beyond neccessity and that they can be used to acheive reasonably reliable and accurate results. Not only intuitive they may be, or how well they relate to every day experience.

I just want to clarify that neither Einstein nor his equations reify space. Later interpreters and people trying to dumb it down for laymen (Brian Greene, et al.) have reified space.

Here's a relevant quote:

Italics original
I think that's the third time I've posted that quote to this forum, but it's a point I like to make. The math is solid, even if some attempts at physical intrepretation are faulty.

I wish some governing entity would get off their ass and just nix the term marriage altogether and just give gay and straight couples alike civil union licenses and let people get "married" however they want.

Okay, let's skip all the drama.

The decimal 0.(9) is referring to a 'completed' infinity. The most important question to be asked is this: Since you can't measure something with infinite accuracy, does infinity itself have a valid meaning in a purely mathematical concept?

This touches the idea that there can exist things in mathematics that do not DIRECTLY apply to anything in reality. I don't accept Ayn Rand basing ALL of mathematics on measurement. Rather I think that the mere notion of an entity as having an independent existence implies the notion of wholeness, or of something corresponding to an integer. Furthermore, math is purely deductive. It tells you, IF you take certain things as premises, where those premises lead.

So really what we should be asking is this: Is math any more fundamental than Ayn Rand's definition implies? If you have dealt with any advanced mathematics you have no choice but to consider infinity as something with some semblance of identity, and that contradict Ayn Rand's theory.

If someone closes this thread at least split this off. Everybody here is attacking method but nobody's actually going to convince anyone of anything by doing so.

Please consider my offer to start a new debate about where mathematics ACTUALLY fits into the world versus where Ayn Rand put it in her philosophy.