Does Objectivism integrate philosophy and science well?

Questions about Objectivism
1

Instead, I found someone who doesn’t think you need to be an expert before you judge something that takes years of study to understand. In other words, someone who talks out of his ass. An arrogant fraud, who likes to circumvent the requirements of rational judgment: a mystic. Have you come across those in Atlas Shrugged yet? If not, you will. Ayn Rand has a special place for them on her sh*&t list.

No, it’s because irrationality is dangerous. Same reason I don’t hug bears: you can’t expect bears, mystics, rabid raccoons, or anything else unable or refusing to use Reason, to not bite you at any moment.

In addition, from The Romantic Manifesto (1971:12): “men have outgrown the practice of seeking the guidance of mystic oracles whose qualification for the job was unintelligibility” and ibid., 27: “one of the most evil consequences of mysticism–in terms of human suffering–is the belief that love is a matter of “the heart,” not the mind, that love is an emotion independent of reason, that love is blind and impervious to the power of philosophy.”

 

All of these quotes, and I am sure that you can find more (as well as the instances of not understanding by Roark, Dagny, and Rand herself), are judgements of mystics. However, it should also be clear that these judgements are based on insufficient understanding of mysticism. In fact, it is slander. I have studied mysticism for 10 years, and I can tell that, for example, Blavatsky’s theosophy is about integrating science and religion where the integration is based on the premise that “there is no religion higher than the truth.” Indeed, they claim that "love is a matter of “the heart,” " and I totally agree with that and, more than that, provide you evidence for it from the Institute of HeartMath’s research, especially their book Science of the Heart and other related books, such as Neurocardiology: Anatomical and Functional Principles by J. Andrew Armour, M.D., Ph.D. What is completely clear, though, is that none say that love (or heart, sense of life, soul) is in conflict with reason (or mind, philosophy, consciousness). This is a totally groundless claim by Rand herself who implanted it into mysticism against reason.

 

I consider you an intelligent person, and, thus, I judge that you are able to understand that mystics have no conflict with Rand’s ideology and ideas, such as “when love is a conscious integration of reason and emotion, of mind and values, then–and only then–it is the greatest reward of man’s life” (ibid.). In fact, they (e.g., Drunvalo Melchizedek, Rupert Sheldrake, Ken Wilber, etc.) have been doing the same thing. Rand came up with new ideas, but she differentiated herself negatively from others. She did not want to be a mystic, so she called others mystics, implying something completely evil and irrational, even though most of those I named are also scientists. Please, keep in mind: it is very hard to accept those who hate you. In fact, it is very hard to even consider (not even speaking of love) those who only hate you in return. And for most people, who are non-Objectivists and therefore labeled mystics, the fact that they are hated and harshly and unfairly criticized remains whether they put an effort into studying Objectivism or none, where the second is a more obvious choice. It has been difficult for me as well, but I think that I am finally breaking through the barrier of hate that Rand has created around Objectivism.

Existence exists subsidiary thread
The Objectivist Rhetoric
2

That the heart itself literally generates love is a bizarre claim, and is complete quackery. Indeed, this would be mysticism… not because it claims emotions and reason can work in harmony, but because it is a baseless claim and attributes phenomena (e.g the emotion of love) to an unexplained and unobservable mechanism. What claim of Rand’s are you saying is baseless?
 

She did not want to be a mystic, so she called others mystics, implying something completely evil and irrational, even though most of those I named are also scientists.

Being a scientist doesn’t prevent you from being a mystic! Mysticism is not a systematic philosophy so it is just an umbrella term. Rand I don’t think was trying to capture mysticism as an umbrella term. I really only see her use it as an adjective as in mystical beliefs. This of course has crossover with mystics in the sense of, say, what I call a “practicing mystic” like the Dalai Lama. Deepak Chopra is an example of someone holding mystical beliefs that masquerade as science, a sort of irrationality that willfully ignores any real fact of how the science works. This is in contrast to the Dalai Lama, who is a “practicing mystic” and is irrational to that extent, but has semblance of rationality.

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That the heart itself literally generates love is a bizarre claim, and is complete quackery. Indeed, this would be mysticism… not because it claims emotions and reason can work in harmony, but because it is a baseless claim and attributes phenomena (e.g the emotion of love) to an unexplained and unobservable mechanism. What claim of Rand’s are you saying is baseless?

 

Being a scientist doesn’t prevent you from being a mystic! Mysticism is not a systematic philosophy so it is just an umbrella term. Rand I don’t think was trying to capture mysticism as an umbrella term. I really only see her use it as an adjective as in mystical beliefs. This of course has crossover with mystics in the sense of, say, what I call a “practicing mystic” like the Dalai Lama. Deepak Chopra is an example of someone holding mystical beliefs that masquerade as science, a sort of irrationality that willfully ignores any real fact of how the science works. This is in contrast to the Dalai Lama, who is a “practicing mystic” and is irrational to that extent, but has semblance of rationality.

Ok, what you misunderstand is that love as an experience goes through the heart, but is originally generated by the brain. The confusion is in this quote: “Love is the expression of philosophy” (1971:27). I want to differentiate love as an experience and love as an idea or an impulse. Love comes or is generated from the brain, where, in my words, philosophy is the content of the mind. Since love is generated from the brain, it is also an expression from philosophy but an expression through the heart, where, in my words, the sense of life is the content of the soul. Such expression is indeed proven by neurocardiologists. The heart has neurons and complex neurological nets that are independent from the brain. The heart also has more and stronger connections to the brain than the brain has to the heart, and this explains why emotions have greater effect over thoughts than vice versa. Any kind of hate by Rand is baseless because it is directed at what she did not understand, at that in which she saw no value, which is still inherently there. Just because you do not see a value in something, it does not mean that it has is no value. Others see value in mysticism because they can understand it. They are also logical, but their logic is different because it is many-valued. I can understand both Objectivism and mysticism because the two-valued and many-valued logics in my head do not conflict.

 

Mysticism for Rand is an umbrella term. Here are quotes from Atlas Shrugged (digital):

  1. “the idol of instinct and the idol of force—the mystics and the kings—the mystics, who longed for an irresponsible consciousness and ruled by means of the claim that their dark emotions were superior to reason”

  2. “all those impotent mystics who prattle about their souls and are unable to build a roof over their heads”

  3. “hatred-eaten mystics, who pose as friends of humanity”

  4. “there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness” etc.

 

Now tell me that Rand did not use the rhetoric of hate in relation to “mystics.”

4

Is the distinction drawn between two-valued and many-valued logic a distinction of ontological (two-valued) and non-ontological (many-valued) logic?

 

In finding no conflict, does such an understanding arise from considering the multi-valued logic in the context of two-valued logic or visa versa?

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 Since love is generated from the brain, it is also an expression from philosophy but an expression through the heart, where, in my words, the sense of life is the content of the soul. Such expression is indeed proven by neurocardiologists. The heart has neurons and complex neurological nets that are independent from the brain.

Seriously, I know you this info from a book, but please provide other citations. Hearts don’t have *neurons*, emotions originate in the brain (don’t equivocate my saying mind with rationality). Your heart can indicate the emotions you experience, but as a phenomena you experience, emotions happen in the brain. That’s brain science 101. It’s quackery to say the heart does anything but pump blood, essentially. Proven? Asserted, yes, proven, no… It’s just an exaggeration of how your emotional state affects your body as a whole. Yeah, emotions affect your heart health. That’s all you can say.

 

I’m saying there’s a difference between foaming-at-the-mouth mystics who profess strong mystical beliefs of the sort that shapes their philosophy. These are the types who live by their code, going to the extent of literal self-immolation as in the case of those monks who burned themselves alive to protest in Vietnam during the war. Anything Deepak Chopra is a woozy mysticism, where no scientific thought is apparent in his science-backed statements. I take it Rand is talking about an especially deep mysticism, not just some irrationalities. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist monk, but he has a sensible understanding of science where it’s probably better to label him as no worse than people who go to church, but don’t suddenly dis-integrate and start saying that prayer is superior to medicine. The hate Rand expresses towards mysticism I think is exactly right, except you need to remember we’re not merely talking of someone who holds a certain number of mystical beliefs.

 

Address what Rand claims, not why she’s mean to mystics. I’d add though that I don’t think she had a fair understanding of Eastern philosophy, Buddhism and also various Chinese philosophers has had good things to say just as many Greek philosophers had good things to say. So, you could say she didn’t correctly use the term mystic for some philosophies. (It seems to me that Rand didn’t look into Eastern philosophy much, at least not first-hand). I still think Rand is right in general, though, that mysticism is very bad.

1 Like
6

Is the distinction drawn between two-valued and many-valued logic a distinction of ontological (two-valued) and non-ontological (many-valued) logic?

 

In finding no conflict, does such an understanding arise from considering the multi-valued logic in the context of two-valued logic or visa versa?

Before I answer your questions, we need to understand the definition of ontology as “the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.” I would also like to point out how Rand faced this discipline by questioning the nature of man, “what he is and where he is–i.e., he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts” (1971:25, original emphasis). In other words, her ontological abstraction is: Object–Context. However, this is not enough for a complete ontology. A complete, concrete ontological study will include the analysis (categorization or taxonomy, entailment, and inference), not merely a general metaphysical claim. Rand’s claim lacks differentiations, and it is like looking from existence’s point of view (which I call APEIRON in the model below)–this is indeed a dangerous viewpoint, for it forces one to be independent from anything/one specific, while our true, differentiated existence depends on our concrete contexts experientially. There are many ontological models out there that show what kinds of existences there are and how they are related. I have already shown my own, preferred ontological (as well as epistemological) model, and I show it to you here again (updated and updating):

Particle–Void

Atom–Field

Molecule–Structure

Organelle–Cytoplasm

Cell–Matrix

Tissue–?

Organ–Aura

Body–Environment

Society–Nature

Race–World

Sphere–System

Star–Nebula

Hole–Cosmos

Source–Vacuum

Multiverse–Ratium

Omniverse–Limits

APEIRON

 

The following illustration includes the way to interpret left and rights sides of the model. You can see that there is no conflict between the two-valued and the many-valued logic. The multi-valued logic is the context (the continuum), whereas the two-valued logic only shows the objects.

 

 

Seriously, I know you this info from a book, but please provide other citations. Hearts don’t have *neurons*, emotions originate in the brain (don’t equivocate my saying mind with rationality). Your heart can indicate the emotions you experience, but as a phenomena you experience, emotions happen in the brain. That’s brain science 101. It’s quackery to say the heart does anything but pump blood, essentially. Proven? Asserted, yes, proven, no… It’s just an exaggeration of how your emotional state affects your body as a whole. Yeah, emotions affect your heart health. That’s all you can say.

 

I’m saying there’s a difference between foaming-at-the-mouth mystics who profess strong mystical beliefs of the sort that shapes their philosophy. These are the types who live by their code, going to the extent of literal self-immolation as in the case of those monks who burned themselves alive to protest in Vietnam during the war. Anything Deepak Chopra is a woozy mysticism, where no scientific thought is apparent in his science-backed statements. I take it Rand is talking about an especially deep mysticism, not just some irrationalities. The Dalai Lama is a Buddhist monk, but he has a sensible understanding of science where it’s probably better to label him as no worse than people who go to church, but don’t suddenly dis-integrate and start saying that prayer is superior to medicine. The hate Rand expresses towards mysticism I think is exactly right, except you need to remember we’re not merely talking of someone who holds a certain number of mystical beliefs.

 

Address what Rand claims, not why she’s mean to mystics. I’d add though that I don’t think she had a fair understanding of Eastern philosophy, Buddhism and also various Chinese philosophers has had good things to say just as many Greek philosophers had good things to say. So, you could say she didn’t correctly use the term mystic for some philosophies. (It seems to me that Rand didn’t look into Eastern philosophy much, at least not first-hand). I still think Rand is right in general, though, that mysticism is very bad.

Calling scientific evidence quackery only because it is not widely known is in the same vein as Rand’s name-calling. I can see how you support her hate rhetoric. Not only Objectivists do not want to believe that the heart “does anything but pump blood.” Transhumanists do not believe in that as well, nor fundamental scientists who associate our selves with brains. The evidence is there; however, from what I have found, there is only one conflict: the amount of neurons in our hearts. Maybe it varies from person to person, but the research by Rollin McCraty (Ph.D.) has shown that “[t]he heart’s nervous system contains around 40,000 neurons” (Science of the Heart, p.4), whereas Andrew Armour claims that “they only number about 20,000 or so.” Indeed, this requires more research from other scientists, and people in general need to overcome the idea that the brain is dominant over the heart.

 

P.S. “emotions originate in the brain” and “emotions happen in the brain” do not contradict what I have said. Indeed, they complement. What you mean is the emotional center in our brains, and emotions are _ initiated _ from there, but nothing more.

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Calling scientific evidence quackery only because it is not widely known is in the same vein as Rand’s name-calling.

 

P.S. “emotions originate in the brain” and “emotions happen in the brain” do not contradict what I have said. Indeed, they complement. What you mean is the emotional center in our brains, and emotions are _ initiated _ from there, but nothing more.

I’m simply beginning the paragraph with my conclusion (so you know right away what I’m getting at). I didn’t say that because it’s not widely known, I’m saying it is quackery *because there is no basis* to it besides *one* book. The book doesn’t even show on Amazon that I saw. I didn’t mean to imply the heart *only* pumps blood, but I do mean to say one thing it does not do is produce emotions. Unless you want to claim your heart is conscious so has its own emotions distinct from any mental awareness…  Even if I am mistaken that the heart has no neurons, it is a whole other level to then say the heart is literally an emotional center, or emotion producer. It’s just…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBRKPoAPXEQ

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I’m simply beginning the paragraph with my conclusion (so you know right away what I’m getting at). I didn’t say that because it’s not widely known, I’m saying it is quackery *because there is no basis* to it besides *one* book. The book doesn’t even show on Amazon that I saw. I didn’t mean to imply the heart *only* pumps blood, but I do mean to say one thing it does not do is produce emotions. Unless you want to claim your heart is conscious so has its own emotions distinct from any mental awareness…  Even if I am mistaken that the heart has no neurons, it is a whole other level to then say the heart is literally an emotional center, or emotion producer. It’s just…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBRKPoAPXEQ

Colbert is funny :slight_smile: Here are the books I have found so far (but I have read only the first one–it’s free, just need to register):

  1. Science of the Heart

  2. Basic and Clinical Neurocardiology

  3. Neurocardiology

 

Eiuol, heart does not produce emotions. The way I understand it, the emotions are merely expressed through the heart. You can see that from your changing heart-beat. Emotion is a change in heart-rate. Emotion is embodied by a pulsation of the blood tissue, which is a part of the circulatory system regulated by the heart. I claim that the heart is indeed conscious (heart is the soul, as mentioned in the Bible; Aristotle also called heart the place of common sense) in its own way. Emotions are differentiated from thoughts this way: Thought is a change in brain activity. Thought is embodied by an impulse of the nervous tissue, which is a part of the nervous system regulated by the brain. The aforementioned neurocardiologists explain emotions through psychological coherence with the brain. I don’t think they directly link emotions with the heart; they only state that heart is autonomous and has great effect on the brain through emotions and that one can perceive differently through the heart as well.

 

P.S. This is also emotion: "The emotion involved in art is not an emotion in the ordinary meaning of the term. It is experienced more as a “sense” or a “feel” " (1971:28). Emotion implied is not merely a word or some mental construct. It is an actual experience.

P.P.S. The heart can be forced to change either through a heart transplant or a physiological activity. I am not sure how emotions happen in these cases, for there is not enough research done to differentiate physiological emotional and non-emotional states. Such research will be paramount for the emotional economy.

9

Ilya,

 

I was using ontological in the context of how logic is based. Aristotelian logic, is usually described having an ontological basis for it, in the philosophic sense of pertaining to reality. Aristotle was looking for a principle to guide thought by seeking something that was true about everything, the fact of its being, or the fact of everything as being, as in being qua being. Your explanation goes into physics, biology and chemistry.

 

As logic is a method to guide ones thinking in the sciences and every other field of endeavor, it would be a subset of epistemology.

 

You stated “There are many ontological models out there that show what kinds of existences there are and how they are related.”

Since existence refers to everything which exists, the singular tense is quite adequate to refer to everything which exists, and the relationships are then drawn from the existents.

10

Ilya,

 

I was using ontological in the context of how logic is based. Aristotelian logic, is usually described having an ontological basis for it, in the philosophic sense of pertaining to reality. Aristotle was looking for a principle to guide thought by seeking something that was true about everything, the fact of its being, or the fact of everything as being, as in being qua being. Your explanation goes into physics, biology and chemistry.

 

As logic is a method to guide ones thinking in the sciences and every other field of endeavor, it would be a subset of epistemology.

 

You stated “There are many ontological models out there that show what kinds of existences there are and how they are related.”

Since existence refers to everything which exists, the singular tense is quite adequate to refer to everything which exists, and the relationships are then drawn from the existents.

Yes, I meant existents as differentiations of existence. The danger in thinking about existence qua existence is the potential to lose sight of one’s unique relationship to it. All relationships start from yourself. I don’t know why Objectivism keeps going back to existence. Life is a specific experience.

11

I do mean to say one thing it does not do is produce emotions.

Eiuol, the process may look like this:

body -> consciousness -> mind -> brain -> brain impulse -> nervous tissue -> heart -> heart pulse -> emotion -> blood tissue -> heart -> sense of life -> soul -> body

 

P.S. Emotions hence may seem automatic because their operation is subconscious.

12

Yes, I meant existents as differentiations of existence. The danger in thinking about existence qua existence is the potential to lose sight of one’s unique relationship to it. All relationships start from yourself. I don’t know why Objectivism keeps going back to existence. Life is a specific experience.

“Life is a specific experience.”  

 

Life is a broad abstraction. Bacteria and viruses are considered to be alive, albeit, as human beings, we do not know if they “experience” specifics. Grass, trees, flowers, or vegetation are considered to be alive, again, as human beings, we do not know if they “experience” specifics. Snails, worms and oysters are alive, granting the same caveat. Lions, tigers and bears are considered to be alive. To most animals, it is granted that they do “experience”  specifics.

 

Experience is a specific term. It denotes a relationship. Relationship is a specific term. It denotes a unique connection between two or more existents. Experience denotes a unique relationship or connection between consciousness and existence, between consciousness and (the) what (, existence,) consciousness is conscious of. Consciousness, an attribute of some life forms, experiences, is aware of, specifics, or existents (the sum of existents being existence).

 

“All relationships start from yourself.”

 

Relationships are specific form of identification by an entity capable of performing it (i.e., by specific forms of consciousness). I don’t think of this as “Objectivism going back to existence”, rather as a recognition that I am a being that is aware of, and am therefore capable of identifying the relationships I observe between existents.

 

As to thinking about existence qua existence, to use your terminology here, is simply a recognition that a consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction.

13

 

“Life is a specific experience.”  

 

Life is a broad abstraction. Bacteria and viruses are considered to be alive, albeit, as human beings, we do not know if they “experience” specifics. Grass, trees, flowers, or vegetation are considered to be alive, again, as human beings, we do not know if they “experience” specifics. Snails, worms and oysters are alive, granting the same caveat. Lions, tigers and bears are considered to be alive. To most animals, it is granted that they do “experience”  specifics.

 

Experience is a specific term. It denotes a relationship. Relationship is a specific term. It denotes a unique connection between two or more existents. Experience denotes a unique relationship or connection between consciousness and existence, between consciousness and (the) what (, existence,) consciousness is conscious of. Consciousness, an attribute of some life forms, experiences, is aware of, specifics, or existents (the sum of existents being existence).

 

“All relationships start from yourself.”

 

Relationships are specific form of identification by an entity capable of performing it (i.e., by specific forms of consciousness). I don’t think of this as “Objectivism going back to existence”, rather as a recognition that I am a being that is aware of, and am therefore capable of identifying the relationships I observe between existents.

 

As to thinking about existence qua existence, to use your terminology here, is simply a recognition that a consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction.

 

Everything you wrote here is not necessary if you knew exactly in which reality you live. I want you to be as exact as possible about yourself, your reality, not some animals or other creatures, not some abstract concepts in your head, not mere words, not art, or some other illusion. There is still not a single Objectivist who was able to answer on this simple question: In what specific reality do you live? Observe and identify your relationship to existence/existents.

 

I liked that you said that my explanation goes into sciences. Indeed, it is so because sciences tell the exact (physical) nature of reality and the relationships between existents. And I also like that Objectivism is independent from science. This is good in that you can be a great support for sciences that match your vision, such as economics and psychology. But it can also be bad in that you may ignore scientific evidence, such as quantum physics, evolution, climate change, neurocardiology, etc.

 

You pure logic does not lead you anywhere. There is no change, no Capitalism is possible with your thinking unless you become exact and get to the point. After all, David Kelley has a point here even though he is not an Objectivist anymore. I would call him a Neo-objectivist if he would support my model, but that’s for the future. For right now, let me help you with identifying your reality. Let us analyze what is life in Objectivism.

 

“[V]irtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness” (AS). There are eight virtues. Seven are mentioned in AS: “rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.” And one–“benevolence”–is added by David Kelley. He defines it as such:

“Benevolence is a commitment to achieving the values derivable from life with other people in society, by treating them as potential trading partners, recognizing their humanity, independence, and individuality, and the harmony between their interests and ours” (David Kelley, Unrugged Individualism).

 

I might add, from AS, that: “Virtue is not an end in itself. […] Life is the reward of virtue—and happiness is the goal and the reward of life.” From the RM, we also know that “art (including literature) is […] an end in itself” (13). Man is also an end in him/herself if he sees virtue and value in his life. Besides values as means (money, virtue), art is a value (if it is considered a value by you) that is an end in itself. Art includes concretized subjects whose nature is originally metaphysical. Thus, the concept of existence may be included in art, and it is included in Objectivist art (such as AS and other books that may be considered an art).

 

To delineate, we have three ends in themselves in Objectivism; these are three entities for all or any of which one may live: 1) yourself; 2) art; 3) another. Entities 1) and 3) do not conflict because you already see yourself as your relationship with another through the virtue/value you see in him or her. The conflict that I am interested in is between 2) and 3). Say, you value AS, but you do not value a mystic because a mystic does not have a virtue and thus cannot be considered an end in him/herself. Before you disagree, here is an excerpt from the Playboy interview with Rand:

"PLAYBOY: . . . And that any free nation today has the moral right – though not the duty – to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?

RAND: Correct. A dictatorship – a country that violates the rights of its own citizens – is an outlaw and can claim no rights."

 

I should then rephrase the following: “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life” (my emphasis). A mystic is thus not considered a man, even though he may be a man to him/herself. Objectivists do not see virtues or values in a mystic and can thus choose art over him or her. A mystic then becomes a means to the end (the art of Objectivism). Nobody would care about him or her. The opposite can also be true, when a man (an Objectivist) is considered greater than an art (for example, mystic books that are valuable to others). From these conflicts, I see that “a selective re-creation of reality” (RM, 15) is more important to you than others with whom you have no relationships, yet those others still help make your reality better (at least economically).

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The “Little Brain In the Heart”: http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-home/our-heart-brain.html

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Failure to recognize an answer as an answer does not invalidate it.

 

“Everything you wrote here is not necessary if you knew exactly in which reality you live.”

 

Multiple realities again? Look around you. What you see, is what is, like it or not. The question to me is “what is it”, not “which is it.”

 

Logic, applied as non-contradictory identification, is the method that guides the process of identifying what things are. The goal of making thought exact distinguishes it from inexact (non-exact) thought. The recognition that thought cannot be exact and inexact at the same time and in the same respect, is an instance of recognizing a specific application of the law of identity, appealing to a corollary: the law of contradiction. The principles of logic are used to guide thought in the sciences of philosophy, biology, physics, chemistry, etc., leading to knowledge in these fields, as well as weeding out error that may have crept in along the way.

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Failure to recognize an answer as an answer does not invalidate it.

 

“Everything you wrote here is not necessary if you knew exactly in which reality you live.”

 

Multiple realities again? Look around you. What you see, is what is, like it or not. The question to me is “what is it”, not “which is it.”

 

Logic, applied as non-contradictory identification, is the method that guides the process of identifying what things are. The goal of making thought exact distinguishes it from inexact (non-exact) thought. The recognition that thought cannot be exact and inexact at the same time and in the same respect, is an instance of recognizing a specific application of the law of identity, appealing to a corollary: the law of contradiction. The principles of logic are used to guide thought in the sciences of philosophy, biology, physics, chemistry, etc., leading to knowledge in these fields, as well as weeding out error that may have crept in along the way.

We live in only one reality at the moment. What is the reality and which is the reality is one and the same question, since I was asking you about the physical reality. So, what, literally, do you see? I imply seeing not as a percept but an actual act of perception, which is sense data that becomes your percepts. In other words, what do you see outside of yourself, not merely in your mind.

While you are getting the senses to connect back to your philosophy, the following is my short analysis of metaphysical existence. I mentioned that existence is reflected as APEIRON (my model in its entirety). Technically, it is only the left side (object) of APEIRON, which is not shown on the model in the metaphysical percept, since APEIRON is the integration of everything and nothing. Everything is existence if seen by itself, viz., existence exists. Everything is everywhere and everywhen. Nothing is everywhere, everywhen, nowhere, and nowhen (cf. Gorgias, On the Nonexistent). Nothing can be seen, most generally, as an empty spacetime. I won’t go into much detail into nothing because what I have mentioned should be enough for our purposes. You can see now that everything and nothing overlap in everywhere and everywhen. This reality is the integration of everything and nothing. It is the ultimate reality that I call APEIRON (after Anaximander). Please, tell me if you think that my metaphysical analysis is contradictory in two-valued logic. I want to warn you, though, that to understand this fully, I use a many-valued logic, which connects it to existents through continuums.

 

EDIT: I meant percepts, not precepts.

 

P.S. I have to clarify that, by the Objectivist model (Object–Context), Existence (i.e., everything) will be the ultimate Object, and nothing is its Context. Remember how important is the context to you! So, reconnect your existence to its context through nothing.

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We live in only one reality at the moment. What is the reality and which is the reality is one and the same question, since I was asking you about the physical reality. So, what, literally, do you see? I imply seeing not as a percept but an actual act of perception, which is sense data that becomes your percepts. In other words, what do you see outside of yourself, not merely in your mind.

That doesn’t even make sense. You’ve conflated mental visualizations that you can imagine, with direct perception. What you see in your mind is not exactly sense data, you must distinguish between what is perception and what is mental visualization. Seeing a percept *is* an act perception, so I have no idea how what you’re saying. I suppose you mean that how one thinks of reality provides them with a unique reality, but that is just a very loose respect for precision of words. What is more exact is saying that we all think about reality differently. If you conflate mental visualizations with direct perception, then of course to you “what specific reality do you live in” makes sense, since that makes what you imagine as part of directly perceivable reality, thereby making reality relative to your will and desires.

 

And this seems entirely off topic.

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That doesn’t even make sense. You’ve conflated mental visualizations that you can imagine, with direct perception. What you see in your mind is not exactly sense data, you must distinguish between what is perception and what is mental visualization. Seeing a percept *is* an act perception, so I have no idea how what you’re saying. I suppose you mean that how one thinks of reality provides them with a unique reality, but that is just a very loose respect for precision of words. What is more exact is saying that we all think about reality differently. If you conflate mental visualizations with direct perception, then of course to you “what specific reality do you live in” makes sense, since that makes what you imagine as part of directly perceivable reality, thereby making reality relative to your will and desires.

 

And this seems entirely off topic.

You can always break it off this topic, if you so desire, and place it into an appropriate forum. I have no tools to do so.

 

Eiuol, I am not conflating. I am connecting. No, there is a shared physical reality. What we need to do is connect our sense data and our mental perception to make a single reality that is reflected by the physical embodiment and your mental perception. Is it really that hard to do? Your metaphysical conception of reality is unlike any definitions of reality that had ever been put forward by anybody in human history. We need to put the relevant ideas about “realities” together, since we are living in one reality, aren’t we?

 

P.S. Definitions of reality:

Philosophy.

a. something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

b. something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive.

 

So, it’s both, right?

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Dear Objectivists, we have finally come to the final debate. It is the final debate because it is concerned with the ultimate of Objectivism–with Existence itself. I propose the integration with the existents of science. It is not a metaphysical integration alone, since Objectivism has integrated everything into the metaphysical Existence. It is the dialectical integration, the integration of senses and percepts, physical and metaphysical, science and philosophy, etc.

 

P.S. More so, it is the integration of open and closed. It will be closed metaphysically because it forever retains, unedited, the metaphysical reality of Existence–Nonexistence, or everything and nothing. It will be open epistemologically, in that the knowledge of specific existents and their relationships will be better understood and collaboratively improved through the scientific methodology.

20

We live in only one reality at the moment. What is the reality and which is the reality is one and the same question, since I was asking you about the physical reality. So, what, literally, do you see? I imply seeing not as a percept but an actual act of perception, which is sense data that becomes your percepts. In other words, what do you see outside of yourself, not merely in your mind.

 

Eioul already touched on this point.

While you are getting the senses to connect back to your philosophy, the following is my short analysis of metaphysical existence. I mentioned that existence is reflected as APEIRON (my model in its entirety). Technically, it is only the left side (object) of APEIRON, which is not shown on the model in the metaphysical percept, since APEIRON is the integration of everything and nothing. Everything is existence if seen by itself, viz., existence exists. Everything is everywhere and everywhen. Nothing is everywhere, everywhen, nowhere, and nowhen (cf. Gorgias, On the Nonexistent). Nothing can be seen, most generally, as an empty spacetime. I won’t go into much detail into nothing because what I have mentioned should be enough for our purposes. You can see now that everything and nothing overlap in everywhere and everywhen. This reality is the integration of everything and nothing. It is the ultimate reality that I call APEIRON (after Anaximander). Please, tell me if you think that my metaphysical analysis is contradictory in two-valued logic. I want to warn you, though, that to understand this fully, I use a many-valued logic, which connects it to existents through continuums.

Miss Rand covers the error highlighted in ITOE (near the end of chapter 6):

One of the consequences (a vulgar variant of concept stealing, prevalent among avowed mystics and irrationalists) is a fallacy I call the Reification of the Zero. It consists of regarding “nothing” as a thing, as a special, different kind of existent. (For example, see Existentialism.) This fallacy breeds such symptoms as the notion that presence and absence, or being and non-being, are metaphysical forces of equal power, and that being is the absence of non-being..

 

I would have to concur that what you have mentioned so far is quite explicit, and it is really not necessary to go into much more detail about nothing. To state that existence is non-existence (nothing) at the same time and in the same respect is to hold a contradiction, in the classical Aristotelian sense.

 

This should conclude this little cul-de-sac, and allow a return to the main topic.