Reblogged:Left 'White'-Washes Anti-Semitism

[Pokyt]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

You are chiding a critic because you doubt their grasp of the subject matter. If emotions are products of recall, then it should stand to reason that an explanation of how the functioning of memory as an aid to cognition would be pertinent and its lack could suggest a less than conclusive investigation.

As it is obvious by my use of the webs , I do not see an entry in the Lexicon for 'memory', are you aware of other sources , or do you think that subject isn't as tied to emotional response as I am considering? 

I'm chiding him because for days now he's been acting abusively towards other forum members and then crying foul about how he's actually being abused, all the while presenting non-arguments that could be resolved with a very short amount of reading and constantly shifting goalposts during conversation. He is an intellectually dishonest person that turns around and mocks people if they dare get annoyed with him. Excuse me if I chide.

As for your question, I never once said that emotions are a product of memory or thought. I said that they are the result of a series of value judgements, which is true. The scope and intensity of your emotions, just like any other act of consciousness, is a product of the automatizing of the use of concepts, in this case, metaphysical value judgements that make-up your hierarchy of values. Once automatized, that hierarchy of values will inform further value judgements, which then are subconsciously automatized, and used to inform further value judgements etc. etc. etc. This is applicable for every act of consciousness as well, but they are absolutely distinct processes.
 

I appreciate you being clever in how you phrased your question. I initially thought you were trotting out some tired non sequitur argument against consciousness, which I am glad to see was not the case.

Edited May 2 by Pokyt

[Ogg_Vorbis]

On 5/2/2024 at 6:56 PM, Eiuol said:

If you're asking what Aristotle would say, he would say that you cannot look at a virtue in isolation, but in regard to an integration among them all. You could be "productive" in terms of an immediate product, but productivity must be analyzed in relation to all the other virtues. 

Each of your examples is an example of looking at virtues in isolation without regard to integrating them. 

 

The Golden mean is a way to find out what counts as virtue. Once you figure out what virtue is, then you ought to always be virtuous. So excessive pride by Aristotle's standards is not actually pride, but vanity. He doesn't say that the excess of any virtue is bad. There is a certain quality that is in excess, but is not the virtue in question. The quality is a kind of self regard, where vanity is the excess, humility the deficiency, and pride is the right amount of it. Vanity is pride in a superficial way, but it isn't actually pride. 

"In all the states of character we have mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to 
which the man who has reason looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there 
is a standard which determines the mean states that we say are intermediate between excess and 
deficiency, because they are in accord with correct reason."

Book 6, Chapter 1, Nichomachean ethics

As much as you say that you spent a lot of time studying this, you make some elementary errors of reasoning, even misinterpretation of philosophers you use to support your positions. You aren't making substantial critiques, your positions are more like what I've heard people say when they haven't spent much time actually working out what Rand is right or wrong about. Or what people say when they have only been introduced to her recently.

Looks like a semantic different here. I'm not sure, however, why you had to use the words "you" and "your" seven times in the last paragraph. No need to get personal. I suppose it has something to do with Objectivism.

Too much reason, rationality, or as Rand liked to call it, "focusing" -- well, it's impossible to be focused all the time as she advised people to do. Psychological studies show that office workers take several small open-eyed naps during the afternoon. "When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions." “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 20. So the only way to be human, and to avoid the accusation of being subhuman, is to be focused all the time. This is not rational.  

 

Here's an Albert Ellis quote about Ayn Rand and maintaining focus: 

Quote

Here, objectivist psychology surpasses itself in its  inordinate demands! Where it usually fails to make clear that certain goals of human behavior are desirable but not necessary, in this  instance, it posits goals that are not even desirable: commitment to the maintenance of a full intellectual focus,  the constant expansion of one’s understanding and knowledge, and never permitting oneself contradictions.  If people were truly as devoted to these goals as the objectivists urge them to be, they would be compulsively rational­­ and therefore inhuman and irrational!

https://www.walden3.org/CapitalismReligion/Capitalism-Religion_WholeBook.pdf

The only possible way to be focused all the time is by being mentally ill and compulsively rational.

I'm going with Ellis on this. I'd prefer to believe a psychologist.

[Eiuol]

1 hour ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Looks like a semantic different here. I'm not sure, however, why you had to use the words "you" and "your" seven times in the last paragraph. No need to get personal. I suppose it has something to do with Objectivism.

Too much reason, rationality, or as Rand liked to call it, "focusing" -- well, it's impossible to be focused all the time as she advised people to do. Psychological studies show that office workers take several small open-eyed naps during the afternoon. "When man unfocuses his mind, he may be said to be conscious in a subhuman sense of the word, since he experiences sensations and perceptions." “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 20. So the only way to be human, and to avoid the accusation of being subhuman, is to be focused all the time. This is not rational.  

Did you really study this for 10 years or more? You should already know that I would respond by saying that focus is meant to be in degrees, not as a constant state of being a ninja. You can modulate your level of focus, without completely eliminating any focus at all. 

Ellis isn't wrong for the most part, but he is wrong about what he thinks the Objectivist view is. Unfortunately, the subsequent debate with NB, NB gave a pretty bad defense, taking Ellis in bad faith. 

By the way, "you" is the general you. 

[Ogg_Vorbis]

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Did you really study this for 10 years or more? You should already know that I would respond by saying that focus is meant to be in degrees, not as a constant state of being a ninja. You can modulate your level of focus, without completely eliminating any focus at all. 

Ellis isn't wrong for the most part, but he is wrong about what he thinks the Objectivist view is. Unfortunately, the subsequent debate with NB, NB gave a pretty bad defense, taking Ellis in bad faith. 

By the way, "you" is the general you. 

Leonard Peikoff in OPAR goes into more detail about this:

Quote

“Focus” designates a quality of one’s mental state, a quality of active alertness. “Focus” means the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality.

This is the kind of thing I'm referring to. "Full awareness of reality." I don't see degrees of focusing in that statement, but full focus. I agree that there are degrees of focus. But if someone else in charge at the ARI said that there were degrees of focus, I don't know about it. Perhaps NB stated something like that in one of his post-NBI books? Using full focus at all times is asking for someone to employ a superhuman degree of intellect.

[tadmjones]

2 hours ago, Pokyt said:

I'm chiding him because for days now he's been acting abusively towards other forum members and then crying foul about how he's actually being abused, all the while presenting non-arguments that could be resolved with a very short amount of reading and constantly shifting goalposts during conversation. He is an intellectually dishonest person that turns around and mocks people if they dare get annoyed with him. Excuse me if I chide.

As for your question, I never once said that emotions are a product of memory or thought. I said that they are the result of a series of value judgements, which is true. The scope and intensity of your emotions, just like any other act of consciousness, is a product of the automatizing of the use of concepts, in this case, metaphysical value judgements that make-up your hierarchy of values. Once automatized, that hierarchy of values will inform further value judgements, which then are subconsciously automatized, and used to inform further value judgements etc. etc. etc. This is applicable for every act of consciousness as well, but they are absolutely distinct processes.
 

I appreciate you being clever in how you phrased your question. I initially thought you were trotting out some tired non sequitur argument against consciousness, which I am glad to see was not the case.

Automatization is memory.

Asking ‘when’ was really about questioning the idea of ‘tabula rasa’ , because without innate ideas as content, they need to be created by individual experience and mental functioning.

I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of innate faculties without content that results in individuals experiencing universal qualities. 
 

And I’m very pro-consciousness ,lol. Especially of late, I now see primacy of existence as a formulation of pure, hard, or strict physicalism. I’ve lost my faith in matter independent of awareness, consciousness. I say loss of faith based on the realization that I’ve always accepted the idea that the external , objective world is ‘made’ of matter. And that matter is a substance and different in being than awareness.

If philosophy is to provide explanation of my relationship to reality, the primary axiom is I am, pure awareness. Objectivism as system is a way to navigate the relationship between human intellect/cognition and the external/objective world.

But it doesn’t say much about the relationship between my awareness and reality.

[Eiuol]

40 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Leonard Peikoff in OPAR goes into more detail about this:

This is the kind of thing I'm referring to. "Full awareness of reality." I don't see degrees of focusing in that statement, but full focus. I agree that there are degrees of focus. But if someone else in charge at the ARI said that there were degrees of focus, I don't know about it. Perhaps NB stated something like that in one of his post-NBI books? Using full focus at all times is asking for someone to employ a superhuman degree of intellect.

Rand speaks of thinking requiring full focus, but we can't think of full focus as the kind of focus that a ninja has. There are times of rest, and times of perceiving, neither of which is thinking per se. This does not require deliberate unfocusing. But as Peikoff is saying, focus is alertness, and being focused is a state of being committed to attaining full awareness of reality. This kind of focus is a lot like what Buddhism takes to be a state of mindfulness. You might argue that this isn't exactly what Rand said word for word, but when you assemble what others said about her ideas that she endorsed, what she agreed with, what she wrote about in her fiction, you can see that I'm saying to you is completely within her framework of philosophy. 

Don't be a zombie. Be prepared to think. Be in a general state of self-control. 

"The basic act of self-regulation possible to a human consciousness is to direct that consciousness, aimed in the direction of being aware, of being optimally conscious, of seeking to understand that with which it is dealing—or to suspend conscious focus, to go out of focus, to induce an inner fog." The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism.

The way he says it, focus is being optimally conscious. And these are from the lectures that Rand explicitly endorsed. 

[necrovore]

1 hour ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

This is the kind of thing I'm referring to. "Full awareness of reality." I don't see degrees of focusing in that statement, but full focus. I agree that there are degrees of focus. But if someone else in charge at the ARI said that there were degrees of focus, I don't know about it. Perhaps NB stated something like that in one of his post-NBI books? Using full focus at all times is asking for someone to employ a superhuman degree of intellect.

I think I am in full focus almost all the time (when awake and not fatigued). I think full focus is easy. However, one of my common mistakes is focusing on the wrong thing. So being in full focus is not enough to confer super-humanity. Nothing easy would be.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

4 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Rand speaks of thinking requiring full focus, but we can't think of full focus as the kind of focus that a ninja has. There are times of rest, and times of perceiving, neither of which is thinking per se. This does not require deliberate unfocusing. But as Peikoff is saying, focus is alertness, and being focused is a state of being committed to attaining full awareness of reality. This kind of focus is a lot like what Buddhism takes to be a state of mindfulness. You might argue that this isn't exactly what Rand said word for word, but when you assemble what others said about her ideas that she endorsed, what she agreed with, what she wrote about in her fiction, you can see that I'm saying to you is completely within her framework of philosophy. 

Don't be a zombie. Be prepared to think. Be in a general state of self-control. 

"The basic act of self-regulation possible to a human consciousness is to direct that consciousness, aimed in the direction of being aware, of being optimally conscious, of seeking to understand that with which it is dealing—or to suspend conscious focus, to go out of focus, to induce an inner fog." The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism.

The way he says it, focus is being optimally conscious. And these are from the lectures that Rand explicitly endorsed. 

An exception can hopefully be made for those with a medical condition called brain fog. 

In that quote I see an either-or distinction being made between optimal consciousness and suspension of consciousness, but nothing about degrees of focus. I can see where Albert Ellis would be concerned about this, as he was not a promoter of black-and-white thinking, either-or thinking, or absolutism. These mental states will produce some unfortunate emotional side-effects. For example, constant black-and-white thinking can produce anxiety, frustration, anger, and chronic stress. The negative emotions will then encourage more black-and-white thinking.

What do you mean by "a general state of self-control"? 

[Ogg_Vorbis]

6 minutes ago, necrovore said:

I think I am in full focus almost all the time (when awake and not fatigued). I think full focus is easy. However, one of my common mistakes is focusing on the wrong thing. So being in full focus is not enough to confer super-humanity. Nothing easy would be.

I think full, optimal focus means uninterrupted concentration on a single topic for a period of time without interruption from random thoughts and imaginings. For example, I might be reading something on this forum that reminds me of something else. So my focus is interrupted by an internal train of thought and memory.

[necrovore]

1 hour ago, tadmjones said:

I’m very pro-consciousness ,lol. Especially of late, I now see primacy of existence as a formulation of pure, hard, or strict physicalism.

I think even OPAR says that existence isn't confined to physical existence. Things like consciousness, ideas, emotions, dreams, etc., exist, they are observable, they have specific natures, but they are non-physical, and so their nature is different from the nature of physical things.

There is still much to be learned about consciousness, but anything we do learn shouldn't contradict what we already know, and we already know that consciousness doesn't have primacy over existence. (It doesn't even have primacy over its own existence.)

Edited May 3 by necrovore

[Eiuol]

15 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

In that quote I see an either-or distinction being made between optimal consciousness and suspension of consciousness, but nothing about degrees of focus.

Several pages later he gets into it. 

9 minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

For example, I might be reading something on this forum that reminds me of something else. So my focus is interrupted by an internal train of thought and memory.

Your concentration is interrupted, but concentration is not a synonym for focus. The type of focus we are discussing is a mental preparedness, we aren't talking about concentration. 

A general state of self-control, by my meaning, is what focus enables, being ready to think about things in detail, taking control over your life and managing emotions as they come and go. 

Edited May 3 by Eiuol

[Ogg_Vorbis]

1 minute ago, Eiuol said:

Several pages later he gets into it. 

Your concentration is interrupted, but concentration is not a synonym for focus. The type of focus we are discussing is a mental preparedness, we aren't talking about concentration. 

I don't know what "mental preparedness" means in this philosophy, but it reminds me of soldiers on a battlefield expecting an attack soon, or an order to attack. 

[Ogg_Vorbis]

5 minutes ago, necrovore said:

I think even OPAR says that existence isn't confined to physical existence. Things like consciousness, ideas, emotions, dreams, etc., exist, they are observable, they have specific natures, but they are non-physical, and so their nature is different from the nature of physical things.

There is still much to be learned about consciousness, but anything we do learn shouldn't contradict what we already know, and we already know that consciousness doesn't have primacy over existence. (It doesn't even have primacy over its own existence.)

I agree. Existence in this philosophy refers to things that exist whether they are physical or mental. But then we go down the rabbit hole of David Harriman and Leonard Peikoff declaring that science should only deal with topics approved by the ARI eliminate quantum mechanics, relativity theory - any physics that followed after Isaac Newton. Harriman also says that the concept of "space" is invalid.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

https://objectivistmedia.com/presentations/physicists-lost-in-space

David Harriman traces the history of the concept "space" in philosophy and physics up to Einstein, and finds it to be invalid.

[necrovore]

8 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

But then we go down the rabbit hole of David Harriman and Leonard Peikoff declaring that science should only deal with topics approved by the ARI eliminate quantum mechanics, relativity theory - any physics that followed after Isaac Newton. Harriman also says that the concept of "space" is invalid.

Harriman and/or Peikoff and/or ARI are not the authority. Reality is the authority. I have devices in my house that can only function because of parts of quantum mechanics being true. On the other hand, some of the more counter-intuitive phenomena described by quantum theory don't scale up, and I don't think scientists have a clear understanding of why.

I don't think Harriman and Peikoff are trying to set themselves up as alternatives to reality, or as superior to reality. I do think they are trying to call attention to places where bad philosophy is leading scientists to make incorrect or nonsensical claims.

Modern philosophy easily gets detached from reality (and likes to "fantasize alternatives to it"), and it can persist in this detachment more than would normally be possible, due to availability of government funds. It is also possible for science to get detached from reality, because it is influenced by philosophy. Philosophy (and politics) influences what questions scientists may ask. In the worst cases it can lead to Lysenkoism.

Also, because science has succeeded well for a couple of centuries now, and greatly lifted the standard of living, it has credibility with a lot of people, and many philosophies and religions want to get themselves attached to it to boost their own credibility, for example, by claiming that they have "scientific proof." It even happens sometimes that Christians claim they have "scientific proof" that God exists and that evolution is impossible. Such claims actually rest on bad philosophy (especially on any lack of understanding of what "scientific proof" is or what it requires).

Generally a scientific concept or a scientific discovery shouldn't contradict what we already know. But every now and then one sees a newspaper headline like "Scientists prove the universe doesn't exist" or some such nonsense.

Is Harriman saying that "there is no valid concept of 'space'," or is he saying that a certain particular definition of the concept, perhaps the one claimed by certain scientists, is invalid? I would be surprised if he claimed the former, because "space" matters if for example you are renting an apartment, but the latter claim is much more plausible.

I'm sure you are familiar with the way science got the concept of "heat" wrong before getting it right. Before the right concept was discovered, it would have been possible to point out that the concept they did have failed to explain certain things, even if one did not have the correct concept yet.

(And, yes, it is even possible that Einstein got some things wrong. He got a lot right, but philosophical errors on his part may have caused him to hit dead ends in some of his investigations.)

Edited May 3 by necrovore

[EC]

Most of the "disagreements" O_V boil down to non-integration of ideas and concepts that he has claimed to have read. Both Miss Rand and Dr. Peikoff wrote in plain language, provided examples of every concept and explicitly defined all terms used at every point in every discussion. Someone that claims to have read the entire corpus but needs some sort of reinterpretation of every idea, principle, and explicitly defined term is most likely being dishonest whether intellectually or in their true purpose. The Objectivist corpus isn't written in run-on paragraphs and other means of obscuring meaning like someone like Kant's is. It is very explicit and to the point in common language with explicit objective definitions provided at all times when needed. That doesn't mean that there are subtleties and specific applications of knowledge that are beyond rational discussion, but it does mean that after reading and integrating all of the basics one should be at a different level of discussion than what seems to be presented here.

Also as an aside, note that this side discussion buries Gus’s theme.

Edited May 3 by EC

[Ogg_Vorbis]

5 hours ago, necrovore said:

Harriman and/or Peikoff and/or ARI are not the authority. Reality is the authority. I have devices in my house that can only function because of parts of quantum mechanics being true. On the other hand, some of the more counter-intuitive phenomena described by quantum theory don't scale up, and I don't think scientists have a clear understanding of why.

I don't think Harriman and Peikoff are trying to set themselves up as alternatives to reality, or as superior to reality. I do think they are trying to call attention to places where bad philosophy is leading scientists to make incorrect or nonsensical claims.

Modern philosophy easily gets detached from reality (and likes to "fantasize alternatives to it"), and it can persist in this detachment more than would normally be possible, due to availability of government funds. It is also possible for science to get detached from reality, because it is influenced by philosophy. Philosophy (and politics) influences what questions scientists may ask. In the worst cases it can lead to Lysenkoism.

Also, because science has succeeded well for a couple of centuries now, and greatly lifted the standard of living, it has credibility with a lot of people, and many philosophies and religions want to get themselves attached to it to boost their own credibility, for example, by claiming that they have "scientific proof." It even happens sometimes that Christians claim they have "scientific proof" that God exists and that evolution is impossible. Such claims actually rest on bad philosophy (especially on any lack of understanding of what "scientific proof" is or what it requires).

Generally a scientific concept or a scientific discovery shouldn't contradict what we already know. But every now and then one sees a newspaper headline like "Scientists prove the universe doesn't exist" or some such nonsense.

Is Harriman saying that "there is no valid concept of 'space'," or is he saying that a certain particular definition of the concept, perhaps the one claimed by certain scientists, is invalid? I would be surprised if he claimed the former, because "space" matters if for example you are renting an apartment, but the latter claim is much more plausible.

I'm sure you are familiar with the way science got the concept of "heat" wrong before getting it right. Before the right concept was discovered, it would have been possible to point out that the concept they did have failed to explain certain things, even if one did not have the correct concept yet.

(And, yes, it is even possible that Einstein got some things wrong. He got a lot right, but philosophical errors on his part may have caused him to hit dead ends in some of his investigations.)

I posted a link to Harriman's ideas of the concept of "space." Here it is again. https://objectivistmedia.com/presentations/physicists-lost-in-space

Reality, which is a thing, can't be an authority. An authority is a human or human-created source of information that has gained large amounts of credibility.

But reality is *like* an authority in that its information can be challenged. If we didn't have the ability to challenge reality's authority, we'd still believe that the sun revolves around the Earth on the basis that reality, imbued with the authority given to it by us, makes it appear that the sun revolves around the Earth. 

I'm not saying that Peikoff and Harriman are the ultimate authorities on these issues. I'm saying that their conclusions are accurately based on the application of Randian metaphysical principles to physics. If they set themselves up as the authorities, it is because they consider Rand (not reality) to be the ultimate authority.

For Harriman to talk about 'space' in the Einstein context is simplistic. It is best to call it the fabric of space-time. Objects follow the curvature of this fabric along a geodesic rather than being pulled toward an object such as the Earth.

P.s. I still don't know what "mental preparedness" means in the context of this philosophy. As I said above, it reminds me of the attitude of soldiers preparing to go into battle. But most people aren't soldiers. So what are we mentally preparing for?

Edited May 3 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

3 hours ago, EC said:

Most of the "disagreements" O_V boil down to non-integration of ideas and concepts that he has claimed to have read. Both Miss Rand and Dr. Peikoff wrote in plain language, provided examples of every concept and explicitly defined all terms used at every point in every discussion. Someone that claims to have read the entire corpus but needs some sort of reinterpretation of every idea, principle, and explicitly defined term is most likely being dishonest whether intellectually or in their true purpose. The Objectivist corpus isn't written in run-on paragraphs and other means of obscuring meaning like someone like Kant's is. It is very explicit and to the point in common language with explicit objective definitions provided at all times when needed. That doesn't mean that there are subtleties and specific applications of knowledge that are beyond rational discussion, but it does mean that after reading and integrating all of the basics one should be at a different level of discussion than what seems to be presented here.

Also as an aside, note that this side discussion buries Gus’s theme.

Clear writing with defined terms and examples aims to minimize the need for extensive reinterpretation. However, even the most precise writing can have layers of meaning or subtle implications. Readers might also infer things not directly stated in the text based on their own background knowledge or experiences. Certain text may contain open-ended ideas that are intended to encourage independent thinking. I'm not saying that's the case with Objectivism, I'm just mentioning the idea. But even well-defined Objectivist concepts can be complex and require some explanation or rephrasing. Chris Sciabarra, for example, was attracted to Objectivism because he found that Rand's political writings contain dialectical elements. How do I know this? He told me this via an email exchange we had. These dialectical elements may not be apparent to other readers. But if they are claimed to exist by someone with high credibility, as Sciabarra had, then they at least deserve to be debated about or discussed. See http://www.rogerbissell.com/id11cccc.html The page contains a review called: Dialectical Objectivism? A Review of Chris M. Sciabarra's Ayn Rand: the Russian Radical, by Roger E. Bissell: Reason Papers, No. 21, Fall 1996.

I guess Rand wasn't quite so clear and explicit after all.

[necrovore]

1 hour ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

I guess Rand wasn't quite so clear and explicit after all.

Two problems with what you are saying here.

First, you are blaming Ayn Rand for other people's misinterpretations of her writing, while simultaneously claiming that such misinterpretations are inevitable anyway. That is a contradiction: either she's responsible, or she's not.

Second, you are ignoring the distinction between an accidental misinterpretation and a deliberate one. An accidental misinterpretation can usually be resolved by looking at other parts of Ayn Rand's work, because she often says the same thing multiple times in different ways. It can also be resolved by looking directly at what she was talking about (which is part of reality).

In other words, it's possible to say "She said X, but maybe what she meant was X-prime," and to provide evidence, such as that she said X-prime in other parts of her work, or that X-prime is more consistent with what she would have seen and known at that time.

A deliberate misinterpretation, on the other hand, is a similar fallacy to quoting someone out of context. It can be detected because it clashes with Rand's other work or because it clashes with what she would have actually known at that time. (Such misrepresentations prey on those who are not familiar with her work or with the situation she was writing about.)

Edited May 3 by necrovore

[Ogg_Vorbis]

1 hour ago, necrovore said:

Two problems with what you are saying here.

First, you are blaming Ayn Rand for other people's misinterpretations of her writing, while simultaneously claiming that such misinterpretations are inevitable anyway. That is a contradiction: either she's responsible, or she's not.

Second, you are ignoring the distinction between an accidental misinterpretation and a deliberate one. An accidental misinterpretation can usually be resolved by looking at other parts of Ayn Rand's work, because she often says the same thing multiple times in different ways. It can also be resolved by looking directly at what she was talking about (which is part of reality).

In other words, it's possible to say "She said X, but maybe what she meant was X-prime," and to provide evidence, such as that she said X-prime in other parts of her work, or that X-prime is more consistent with what she would have seen and known at that time.

A deliberate misinterpretation, on the other hand, is a similar fallacy to quoting someone out of context. It can be detected because it clashes with Rand's other work or because it clashes with what she would have actually known at that time. (Such misrepresentations prey on those who are not familiar with her work or with the situation she was writing about.)

That is formally true. But in reality, Chris Sciabarra wrote a book called Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (which has my name in the foreword, btw) proving (or not) that Ayn Rand's politics contains dialectical statements. I read the book when it first came out. Did you?

It's not a correct or incorrect interpretation unless you can determine it first-handed by reading the book, not through formalized statement about X and X-prime. Those are classic formal statements.

[Eiuol]

4 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

P.s. I still don't know what "mental preparedness" means in the context of this philosophy. As I said above, it reminds me of the attitude of soldiers preparing to go into battle. But most people aren't soldiers. So what are we mentally preparing for?

What it reminds you of is a good metaphor. You don't need to say "in this philosophy". You say it as if I'm regurgitating something I heard. I came up with that wording. We are mentally prepared for living life when we are in focus, when we are paying attention. 

But more than that, since you studied all this for many years, how can you seriously not know what it could mean? I'm giving you some pretty basic interpretations, not even controversial points. I think you're lying, because you're aware of some deep cuts and read them. You certainly already know the interpretations I'm offering you. 

Worse, your argument about virtue is quite simplistic, so simplistic I'm sure that you heard such arguments before. You already know why it's a bad argument. You already know that you are giving the caricature, not the actual position. You are dumbing yourself down. I'm sure you can do better.

2 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

But in reality, Chris Sciabarra wrote a book called Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (which has my name in the foreword, btw) proving (or not) that Ayn Rand's politics contains dialectical statements.

I read the book. I think he's right. But don't try to trick people here to think that by dialectical, he means Hegelian dialectic, hoping that they believe you because they didn't read the book. 

Edited May 3 by Eiuol

[Ogg_Vorbis]

58 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

What it reminds you of is a good metaphor. You don't need to say "in this philosophy". You say it as if I'm regurgitating something I heard. I came up with that wording. We are mentally prepared for living life when we are in focus, when we are paying attention. 

But more than that, since you studied all this for many years, how can you seriously not know what it could mean? I'm giving you some pretty basic interpretations, not even controversial points. I think you're lying, because you're aware of some deep cuts and read them. You certainly already know the interpretations I'm offering you. 

Worse, your argument about virtue is quite simplistic, so simplistic I'm sure that you heard such arguments before. You already know why it's a bad argument. You already know that you are giving the caricature, not the actual position. You are dumbing yourself down. I'm sure you can do better.

I read the book. I think he's right. But don't try to trick people here to think that by dialectical, he means Hegelian dialectic, hoping that they believe you because they didn't read the book. 

He's right. but I didn't say Hegelian dialectic. With a bias against me as a liar, there's no point in taking this any farther.

[Eiuol]

1 hour ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

He's right. but I didn't say Hegelian dialectic. With a bias against me as a liar, there's no point in taking this any farther.

You didn't, that's why I said don't try to. 

I mean, do you even have a better explanation for why someone who demonstrates advanced experience or has dived into deeper literature than the basics, would use bad arguments that they would have encountered before? 

[Ogg_Vorbis]

5 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

You didn't, that's why I said don't try to. 

I mean, do you even have a better explanation for why someone who demonstrates advanced experience or has dived into deeper literature than the basics, would use bad arguments that they would have encountered before? 

What bad arguments? And why would I try to bring up Hegel? Sciabarra is with the New York school of dialects. Its logic points are listed in various places online. You read the book in which my name is mentioned in the foreword, so it would be pointless for me to try to fool you with Hegel. 

[necrovore]

8 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

Reality, which is a thing, can't be an authority.

Yes, it can.

8 hours ago, Ogg_Vorbis said:

If we didn't have the ability to challenge reality's authority, we'd still believe that the sun revolves around the Earth on the basis that reality, imbued with the authority given to it by us, makes it appear that the sun revolves around the Earth.

"Challenge reality's authority?" On the basis of what, exactly?

It's only because of looking at reality (e.g., Copernicus and later Kepler looking at the motions of the planets) that people learned that the sun does not revolve around the Earth.