Another Hello from Israel

[grosz]

Hi all,

My name is Ori, I am 24 and live in Israel.

I am a freshman at Ben Gurion University, majoring in Computer Science.

In November, shortly after the school year had started, I complained to a friend of mine about the lack of purpose in my life, about my intellectual decay (I had just quit my programming job after 3 years, during which I did nothing but work work and buying vinyl records -- no reading, no life, no fun, nothing), any my general dissatisfaction with... well, everything.

He handed me a copy of The Virtue of Selfishness and told me "read this, it's killer."

So I did, and my life hasn't been the same since. During the fall semester, I read VOS, OPAR, ITOE, C the UI, PWNI. I was fascinated, and as a result I failed my differential calculus course (but who cares).

My fascination with Objectivism probably stems from the fact that I have always had what is called "sense of life."

I always knew it was wrong that I HAD to pay taxes (and my co-workers can attest to my periodic (monthly) outbursts of rage when I got my paycheck and saw 50% go to "society"). I always knew it was WRONG to FORCE ME to serve in the military.

But when confronted with questions like "why do you think it's wrong to make you pay taxes?" all I could do was mutter some subjective nonsense in response.

I now KNOW why all the above (and more) are wrong.

AR's books were like a breath of fresh air to me. Her words were so refreshing,

so eloquent, the books so well written, I was in complete awe, paragraph after paragraph.

I read a post here regarding Michael Huemer's refutation of Objectivism.

I too have read his article, and must admit that I am far too inexperienced to point out any/all logical fallacies in his essay.

I am looking forward to user DPW's refutation of Huemer's so-called refutation, because I want and NEED my views to have a strong philosophical base.

Looking forward to fruitful discussions

- Ori

[MinorityOfOne]

Just remember that you don't have to answer every single argument somebody might possibly toss at you. I still should reread his whole essay, but from skimming it a few days ago, I'd say a lot of it simply shows a total lack of understanding of Objectivism.

Grasping the philosophy of Objectivism well comes primarily from studying it and establishing it based on your own observations of reality, not from being able to win debates. For what it's worth, I've been reading Objectivism for years, and I'm still stumped on a pretty regular basis. But that doesn't affect what I've learned from reality.

Here's an example that might help. Are you familiar with Zeno's paradoxes? A simplified version of one of them goes like this: say you're running a race. In order to get to the finish line, you have to hit the half-way mark, right? And that takes some particular amount of time. But then, having hit the half-way mark, you have to go half-way between there and the finish line, and that takes some particular amount of time. At any point before you hit the finish line, you still have to pass half-way between there and the finish line, and that takes a definite amount of time -- which means that there's always time left before you hit the finish line. Therefore, you can never finish the race, no matter how short the distance.

Now, say somebody gives you this argument. Are you going to doubt your own ability to move from one place to another? Of course not -- you know independently that you can do it, and you therefore know that there's something wrong with their argument, whether or not you can identify what it is.

The point is: your goal should be, primarily, to get that sort of understanding of Objectivism. You can't assume from the start that it's right, of course -- you have to test the principles against reality and try to establish them first-handedly. The ability to answer arguments against Objectivism will follow in due course.

Have you considered looking into the Objectivist Academic Center? I expressed a few frustrations about it recently on another thread, which you might have read, but I meant what I said -- it's still a wonderful and unique resource for learning and integrating Objectivism. I believe applications are due pretty soon, so if you're at all interested, go take a look on the ARI website.

Oh, and by the way: if you haven't read Rand's fiction yet, it's killer. :-)

[dondigitalia]

Oh, and by the way: if you haven't read Rand's fiction yet, it's killer. :-)

You beat me to it!

I'll modify what you said, though. Rand's fiction isn't killer. Rather, it's the un-killer. Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are unquestionably the most inspiring, life-affirming books I've ever read.

[AwakeAndFree]

My name is Ori, I am 24 and live in Israel.

I am a freshman at Ben Gurion University, majoring in Computer Science.

Hi Ori!

My name is Eran Dror, I'm 24 and I live in Haifa, Israel (for the next few months, anyway). I didn't read the specific article you're talking about... I'll try to look at it later... but - did you know we have quite a vibrant Objectivist Club in Israel?

Write me and I'll give you more details.

I join the rest here in recommending you read Ayn Rand's fiction. I can't believe you started with the nonfiction! (Actually, now that I think of it, I also started reading AR's novels only after I read a book about her philosophy... but not her own works).

It's always nice seeing someone excited after reading AR for the first time.

[kesg]

Just remember that you don't have to answer every single argument somebody might possibly toss at you. I still should reread his whole essay, but from skimming it a few days ago, I'd say a lot of it simply shows a total lack of understanding of Objectivism.

For years Micheel Heumer was a regular or semi-regular participant on humanities.philosophy.objectivism (if you do a Google search, he went by the nickname "Owl"). To make a long story short, his misunderstandings were not limited to his essay.

[kesg]

Grasping the philosophy of Objectivism well comes primarily from studying it and establishing it based on your own observations of reality, not from being able to win debates. For what it's worth, I've been reading Objectivism for years, and I'm still stumped on a pretty regular basis. But that doesn't affect what I've learned from reality.

The key thing to remember here is what I regard as the most important sentence that Rand ever wrote: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification. The grasp and validation of any conclusion about reality, including but not limited to fundamental Objectivist principles, is the process of grasping and then logically validating that the conclusion is a non-contradictary identification of a fact(s) of reality.

In this process, the Objectivist literature is an invaluable guide, but ultimately a person must make the logical connections to the facts of reality, not to words in a book, article, essay, or recorded lecture even if Rand or Peikoff wrote or spoke these words.

[grosz]

Hello all,

Thank you for your comments.

MinorityOfOne- I believe the example of Zeno's paradox has raised my understanding of Objectivism up a notch. It's all about reality, isn't it?

I started with AR's nonfiction because that's what Yaniv gave me at the time. I knew absolutely nothing about philosophy or AR, I only knew I was unhappy and that everything was "wrong" and "improper."

Will certainly read the fiction titles as soon as free time becomes available.

Eran wrote:

It's always nice seeing someone excited after reading AR for the first time.

And how! The last few months have been a continues joyride for me, as I cruised from book to book, reading coherent, consistent arguments the likes of which I had never read or had thought of before.

I felt like 'I've seen the light,' and confident in my knowledge that it was the light of reason, not that of mysticism and folly.

Can someone please give me an example of Huemer's lack of understanding of Objectivism?

Thank you

- Ori

[MinorityOfOne]

There was a whole thread about Huemer: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...c=673&hl=huemer

Though it was shorter than I remembered... well, I don't have time to pull up Huemer's essay and write more on it, but I pointed out a few problems there. Don Watkins will be writing something about it on his blog, so maybe you'll just have to wait for that.