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"Are you a Rand Cultist" quiz

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1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived.

2) "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

3) Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth.

4) Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth.

5) Immanuel Kant is the most evil person who has ever lived.

6) Immanuel Kant deliberately set out to cause the Nazi Holocaust.

7) Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are only slightly less immoral than Immanuel Kant.

8) James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is a profound, brilliantly argued expose of the above.

9) Modern physics, such as Einstein's theories, are philosophically corrupt and must be urgently replaced by a new physics based on Ayn Rand's epistemology.

10) Words have "true" meanings that are only available to superior Objectivist philosophers, whose job it is to inform those in lesser disciplines, such as scientists, of these true meanings. Where these special true Objectivist meanings clash with conventional dictionary meanings, those conventions are false and corrupt.

11) Ayn Rand invented a new, Objectivist super-logic which incorporates the standard bi-valent logic formalised by Aristotle, yet dramatically improves on it, solving among other issues Hume's problem of induction.

12) Ayn Rand is the only true Objectivist that ever lived, and will ever live. Everyone else is merely a student of Objectivism.

Ok, I'll take the fucking quiz. Even though it is annoying as hell, it raises interesting points. I agree with some of the other answers, so I might repeat things that were said.

1. I know some great people (no one famous), but I never met Ayn Rand, so it would be tough to judge her. I don't see how anyone can choose the greatest person in the World. The best we can do is choose the greatest person we know, defining "great" objectively, relative to the person themselves. (as opposed to estimating everyone's take on the person)

2. It is the greatest acheivement, to me. But "great" is defined as it relates to me. I can't imagine that there would be a point in defining greatness in accordance with everyone's opinion of the subject, and then adding up the billions of "votes". It can't really be done, or if it could be, it doesn't reflect reality. Many people's opinions suck.

3. Nope, and I think I saw Grames link to the answer to "Why not?".

4. No, and I wouldn't care anyway. Such an acceptance would however be beneficial to all individuals who are mostly "good" (by choice), because Objectivism is the culmination of humanist philosophy.

5. No, and just as in point one, it's tough for me to get to know all the candidates. But some horrific deeds are a minimal requirement for the title, so I think Hitler, Stalin, Lenin or someone like ol' Teddy Bundy would definitely beat out Kant.

6. That's a big tell that these points are all straw-men, designed to fake Objectivism. The answer is btw no.

7. No.

8. The above is the stupid ravings of a moron. By all accounts, Valiant's book is not, so I guess the answer must be no.

9. The "modern physics" Objectivism is in contradiction with (which is actually only philosophy, by some physicists, not physics) and "Einstein's theories" can hardly be used interchangeably. Here's some quotes of Einstein venturing into philosophy, perfectly in tune with Objectivist metaphysics (except for the God part, which isn't all that important), and opposed to the questionable philosophy of some modern "physicists":

The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Einstein

I still believe in the possibility of a model of reality, that is to say, of a theory, which represents things themselves and not merely the probability of their occurrence. -- Einstein

It seems hard to look at God's cards. But I cannot for a moment believe that he plays dice and makes use of 'telepathic' means as the current quantum theory alleges He does. -- Einstein

The Heisenberg-Bohr tranquilizing philosophy - or religion? - is so delicately contrived that, for the time being, it provides a gentle pillow for the true believer from which he cannot very easily be aroused. -- Einstein

So, on this one, I guess I'm a fucking Einstein-Rand cultist.

10. No. Words have the meanings human beings mean by them, when they use them, I guess.

11. See, this proves my point from nr. 10. I have no idea what the guy means by some of those words. I have a feeling he may have invented them on the spot, and never bothered to assign a meaning to them.

12. No.

Oh goodie, I'm not a cult follower of what this guy thinks Ayn Rand wrote about. Maybe he can read something Ayn Rand wrote next, and come up with a quiz that's about Objectivism, to find out how close I am to the actual philosophy. Until then, the only answer to him is to point out how he has no idea what he's talking about.

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The implication is that words do NOT have true meanings. If that were the case, then knowledge and communication would be impossible. So you might just say to your "friend" that you don't understand anything that is coming out of his mouth.

I didn't notice until now that you were addressing me, you gotta work on those quoting skills. :thumbsup: Like this:

The implication is that words do NOT have true meanings. If that were the case, then knowledge and communication would be impossible. So you might just say to your "friend" that you don't understand anything that is coming out of his mouth.

Could you elaborate on this a bit? I was having a discussion with a friend about this and we were wondering which meaning is the true meaning; that is, is the Randian version correct or the "accepted version". For instance, which definition of arrogance is correct? The "accepted" one (conceited prickishness) or the Randian one (a complete belief in yourself).

Thanks

First a note of etiquette. "Randian" is really not a proper terminology and is often used as a sneer by people who strongly dislike Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism. They usually either don't understand her philosophy and so dismiss it out of ignorance or they do understand it and are altruist tyrants who want to rule the world by sacrifice.

Especially in this thread which is already laced with insults I would be hard pressed to answer.

But my benevolence has gotten the better of me so to make it quick: you first would need to demonstrate to me that that is Ayn Rand's definition of arrogance by quoting something she wrote -- I sincerely doubt it is.

To the broader question: how do we know anything is true? By checking it against reality.

More specifically, if words had no meaning how could you and I be having this conversation?

To give an example -- if I answered your question above by saying: cats do live on the prairie and atoms are blue; would that mean anything to you and would I have answered your question?

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  • 11 years later...

1. Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived. >She was a human being, and human beings are flawed. Was she good? Yes. Was she the greatest human being to ever live? No. She is not a deity. 

 

2. "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world. > Its a good novel, but its not the greatest human achievement in human history.

 

3. Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth. > The virtue of selfishness stems from the primacy of man's reason, not solely from Rand herself.

 

4. Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth. > No. The epistemology of Ayn Rand is essential to the philosophy of Objectivism, and for Objectivists like myself, but not all of mankind is rational or rationally capable of understanding her epistemology, and humans have survived much without it throughout human existence. This seems also to be a manevolent universe fallacy of sorts, and why does human survival hinge on having a objective understanding of knowledge? This question made no logical sense.

 

5. Immanuel Kant is the most evil person who has ever lived. >No argument from me.

 

6. Immanuel Kant deliberately set out to cause the Nazi Holocaust. >The nazis justified their actions by his philosophical views, so yeah.

 

7. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are only slightly less immoral than Immanuel Kant. >Well no, but they aren't the best examples of moral uprightness.

 

8. James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is a profound, brilliantly argued expose of the above. >Never read it, so I can't comment.

 

9) Modern physics, such as Einstein's theories, are philosophically corrupt and must be urgently replaced by a new physics based on Ayn Rand's epistemology. >Objectivism is a philosophy of life. Physics is physics, lets keep it that way please.

 

10) Words have "true" meanings that are only available to superior Objectivist philosophers, whose job it is to inform those in lesser disciplines, such as scientists, of these true meanings. Where these special true Objectivist meanings clash with conventional dictionary meanings, those conventions are false and corrupt. >Again Objectivism is a philosophy, not the sciences of the scientific method. They are two separate and distinctive enterprises lets keep it that way please.

 

11) Ayn Rand invented a new, Objectivist super-logic which incorporates the standard bi-valent logic formalised by Aristotle, yet dramatically improves on it, solving among other issues Hume's problem of induction. >No argument from me.

 

12) Ayn Rand is the only true Objectivist that ever lived, and will ever live. Everyone else is merely a student of Objectivism. >Well, since she's the one who came up with the philosophy she was a true Objectivist yes in a sense, but there's plenty of others like Leonard Peikoff who in my view outlived her true Objectivist status in terms of its philosophical applications. So no. 

Edited by Luke77
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4 hours ago, Luke77 said:

1. Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived. >She was a human being, and human beings are flawed. Was she good? Yes. Was she the greatest human being to ever live? No. She is not a deity. 

Welcome to OO, Luke77.

What is(are) the flaw(s) of human beings?

Edited by dream_weaver
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  • 6 months later...
On 7/2/2009 at 11:45 PM, 0096 2251 2110 8105 said:

Give yourself a point for every statement you agree with.

 

1) Ayn Rand is the greatest human being who has ever lived.

2) "Atlas Shrugged" is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.

3) Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man’s life on earth.

4) Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth.

5) Immanuel Kant is the most evil person who has ever lived.

6) Immanuel Kant deliberately set out to cause the Nazi Holocaust.

7) Nathaniel and Barbara Branden are only slightly less immoral than Immanuel Kant.

😎 James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" is a profound, brilliantly argued expose of the above.

9) Modern physics, such as Einstein's theories, are philosophically corrupt and must be urgently replaced by a new physics based on Ayn Rand's epistemology.

10) Words have "true" meanings that are only available to superior Objectivist philosophers, whose job it is to inform those in lesser disciplines, such as scientists, of these true meanings. Where these special true Objectivist meanings clash with conventional dictionary meanings, those conventions are false and corrupt.

11) Ayn Rand invented a new, Objectivist super-logic which incorporates the standard bi-valent logic formalised by Aristotle, yet dramatically improves on it, solving among other issues Hume's problem of induction.

12) Ayn Rand is the only true Objectivist that ever lived, and will ever live. Everyone else is merely a student of Objectivism.

#1  Nope.  Off the top of my head try Isaac Newton or Alexander the Great.  She was up in that same league, but "best person of all" are some pretty strong words.

#2 again, the Archimedes pump or vaccinations were pretty revolutionary for all of mankind.

#3 what???  I don't think anyone on this forum would ever say that if her words contradict their own eyesight then she must be right because she is the ultimate authority of everything.  That really is nothing more than a straw man.

Point #4 should be obvious to anyone who really understands Atlas Shrugged and its relevance to the modern world.  We are either heading for a Golden or a Dark Age and Objectivist Epistemology is what we all need to understand in order to avoid it.  If the Presidency of Donald Trump and most elements of the backlash against it (save maybe Yaron Brook) have proved anything, it's that.

#5 is tougher for me but I think it's doubtful.  I know he was one of the main motivators of both Stalin and Hitler but I'm inclined to think that the former were actually worse than the latter.  I find it difficult to blame the ideological spokesperson more than I would the actual trigger man.

#6 is also pure rubbish.  We all know that Kant was too busy lying to himself to consciously conceive of Hitler's death camps, even apart from the other reasons why this one is rubbish.  That's two that I doubt any real Objectivist has ever actually thought or said.

#7 is the third straw man.  For someone even more evil than Kant to deceive and then seduce someone like Ayn Rand would either require some degree of wilfull evasion on her part or for her to be far less perceptive than most of her fans would believe.  To me, the simplest solution seems to be that he simply wasn't that bad of a guy in the first place.  Maybe he told Rand a few lies that he shouldn't have and maybe she also reacted a bit more harshly than was warranted, but to say that either one of them was comparable to Immanuel Kant is to say that Objectivism is somewhere a falsehood, somehow.  Show me the alleged Objectivist who thinks that and I will explain to them why they are only allegedly so.

#8 I can't be sure of.  Since I've never read The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics for myself I thusly can't really judge whether it's right or wrong.

#9 I gave myself a point for, not because there's anything wrong with Einstein (I personally think that what Leonard Peikoff once said about it was based on a faulty understanding of what its math really means) but I do disagree with the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics for reasons of that general nature.  If the Law of Identity seems to contradict Locality then we've got to view the universe as one big web of interactions (via De Broglie Bohm) because in a conflict like that Locality is the thing which must necessarily lose.

#10 is true in the special Objectivist sense.  😝

#11 is precisely true.  The biggest problem with old-school logic is Hume's problem of induction, which Rand gave us the leads to the solution of in the ITOE.  I devoured that book and am still a bit upset that it hasn't been elaborated on since The Logical Leap.

#12 I consider false because I'm in the David Kelley camp, which is to say the truly Objectivist camp.  Its alternatives consist primarily of posers.

I gave myself a 4.5 (depending on what I think of The Passion of Ayn Rand whenever I get around to it) which gives me Randroid tendencies - which are the best kinds of tendencies!  I also gave the quiz itself 3 Straw Men.

I doubt she would've approved of heavy metal, but I'll always be interested in hearing the reasons why she held the opinions that she did.  Since she is not my mother, though (and neither are you) here you go all the same!

 

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
Kickass music video!
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19 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Point #4 should be obvious to anyone who really understands Atlas Shrugged and its relevance to the modern world.  We are either heading for a Golden or a Dark Age and Objectivist Epistemology is what we all need to understand in order to avoid it. 

In a benevolent universe, unless there is reason to expect calamity and/or disaster, cooler minds should prevail.

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9 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Alright.  Where do you think we're heading?

Back to the future. The discoveries of an unprecedented theory of concepts, a metaphysical basis for morality, treatises from the roots of war to it's counter-part in the yet unknown ideal provided by capitalism, await more minds that value them.

The Verunca Salts are singing "I Want It Now", while the Oompa Loompas are queueing up for their retort of " Who Do You Blame When Your Kid Is A Brat." 

 

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