One Suggestion

[Soulsurfer]

A set of standard questions (with Objectivist answers) in the form of an authentic Dialogue between the reader (client) and the Objectivist (server). What I am suggesting here is not some body of random or floating abstractions, nor a deductive chain of syllogisms -- but rather a mode of "Objectivism through induction". I.e., a guide to Objectivist literature and ideas by reference to common real-life instances of human action in the pursuit of rational values.

Such a project could easily be implemented on any wiki-system, since the questions and follow-up questions would require new pages. The structure would then be something like this:

Step 1:

 


Question: (E.g. "Can you read this text?")


Yes - [[Link to new page]]

No - [[Link to new page]][/code]




Step 2:

[code](Two new pages for the "yes" and "no" links)


A follow-up question: (E.g. if Yes: "If you can read this text, it means that you are conscious... [more Objectivist arguments, introducing the axioms etcetera])


New links (not necessarily in the form of a binary Yes or No) to new pages

Repeat those steps forever until the user either converts to Objectivism or commits suicide.

There are, of course, several "developer issues" to be aware of. The user might adopt a rationalistic model of reality rather than an objective one. But I think that could be handled, though.

What do you think?

[Bowzer]

I'm sympathetic to your suggestion but I'm not sure that it's feasible. If you have had the pleasure of taking Dr. Peikoff's Objectivism through Induction course, you will have an idea of what I mean. Here is a course given by one of the greatest philosophers that has ever lived and it took the space of 24 CD's. On top of that, the course only covers a handful of Objectivist principles; I can't imagine what it would take to give the entire philosophy in this format especially for those of us who are not great philosophers.

The only option, I think, would be to teach people the methods of induction and reduction so that they could apply them on their own, i.e., teach a man to fish...you know the rest.

What I am more worried about is the potential for rationalism. For example, (I know that you were just making simple suggestions so don't take this too critically) the content that you provided is very floating and wouldn't really serve as material for induction. The only way to induce is to generalize from sense data and it's just a plain fact that books and web pages dish out "pre-formed" abstractions.

[Soulsurfer]

Yes, you are right. No matter how advanced or complex such a system might develop in the future, even with the input of thousands of rational minds it would still delimit the user within the deductive framework of pre-formed abstractions.

However, I do think this kind of system (i.e. a "super-FAQ" structure of rational arguments) might be of value to non-rationalist students of Objectivism (although not in the form of a scripted dialogue). It would probably serve as food for thought, pointing to new exploratory directions while keeping the inductive approach intact.

I have not (yet) listened to OTI in its entirety, but it is next on my list. Right now I am listening to another course by Dr. Peikoff ("Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand", the original 1976 lecture series). FYI: I began my personal studies of Objectivism in just a couple of months ago. So far I've only read the first two chapters of OPAR and right now I'm trying to answer the questions in a Study Guide pamphlet written by Gary Hull.