7 minutes ago, Economic Freedom said:
What actually exists objectively, however (as physics shows) is just a bunch of boring particles.
It’s not the whole story.
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@Boydstun, I wasn’t thinking on the margins, when the thrust has been more of a general attack on perfection, as a more general concept. With refrigeration, you have a grasp of what can’t be achieved. In circularity and straightness, acceptable levels of perfection can be stipulated and maintained/produced. Even with such a specification, it is known (abstracted) what the level of deviation is a referenced of.
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7 minutes ago, KyaryPamyu said:
See:
???
I said nothing about “measurement.” I don’t think Boydstun did, either. He simply jumped from “string suspending a bob” to “perfect verticality” as an arbitrary assertion.
I don’t see how measurement is relevant. Pray tell, which measurements – and how many measurements – take us from “string suspending a bob” to “perfect verticality”? Don’t assert, please. *Cite the actual measurements that one would have to make to go from “this particular string suspending this particular bob” to “a universally abstract PERFECT verticality”*. I don’t see how one goes from the former to the latter via any act of physical or conceptual “measurement.”
Miss Rand was hung up on the idea of “measurement”, even claiming – with no background in mathematics – that measurement was the basis of all math (wrong). She then imports the idea of a “unit” into her hypothesis of concept formation – in which the concept “chair” is a kind of “unit” of an existing, physical chair; but then explains away some obvious difficulties in that idea by quickly asserting, “Oh, but I don’t mean a physical unit – because that would be a metaphysical statement. I mean an *epistemological* unit!” – As if the latter actually were intelligible (which it isn’t, and which I believe is the reason that not only is ITOE the weakest part of Objectivism, but explains why no one else has tried to do anything more in Objectivism regarding epistemology (I don’t count Peikoff’s “DIM Hypothesis”). Acolytes merely quote from ITOE in the same way devout Catholics recite a catechism.)
In any case, Boydstun’s example was arbitrary, too. Why jump to “perfect verticality” from a string suspending a bob? Why not, for example, pouring water from a bucket onto the ground? The stream of water is somewhat vertical, just as a string suspending a bob is only somewhat vertical. Boydstun failed to validate the conceptual jump from “somewhat vertical” to “perfectly vertical.” And I maintain that it cannot be validated at all simply relying on percepts – which are always “in the mind of the perceiver” anyway – as being at the putative “base” of knowledge.
21 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
Perfects are only to purposes. We use ‘perfect’ also when we mean exact, as in the flawlessness of a crystal array. Neither concept under the term “perfect” can be grasped without having pertinent living experience in the world.
You have not presented arguments, only repetitions of commonly held cliches having the authority of Plato or Feynman and much repetition.
>You have not presented arguments, only repetitions of commonly held cliches
You have not presented refutations, only repetitions of falsehoods and half-truths from Ayn Rand’s works.
23 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
EF,
Perfects are only to purposes. We use ‘perfect’ also when we mean exact, as in the flawlessness of a crystal array. Neither concept under the term “perfect” can be grasped without having pertinent living experience in the world.
You have not presented arguments, EF, only repetitions of commonly held cliches having the authority of Plato or Feynman and much repetition.
>flawlessness…
A synonym for “perfect”. Where did you get “flawlessness” from? From “measurement” of something?
You haven’t answered the question.
6 minutes ago, Economic Freedom said:
I said nothing about “measurement.”
If you are able to distinguish between a perfect and an imperfect circle, it means you can measure the imperfect circle’s closeness to a standard of perfection.
100 points on a test is a perfect score, a video game can be finished with a perfect score, and so on. You can’t measure perfection without a standard.
12 minutes ago, KyaryPamyu said:
It’s not the whole story.
No, but that story is not too different from claiming, “It’s magic!!”, which seems to be the position of the members of the Santa Fe Institute (Stuart Kaufmann, et al.). “Things just magically become different when enough elements are brought together!” OK. “Brought together” by chance? Or by intentional design? And to claim (as the Wiki summary does) that “Life is an emergent property of chemistry” misses the salient point that life relies on a *code* embedded within the chemistry, and which cannot be derived simply by studying the chemistry. No study of thermo takes you from chemistry to the genetic code. It’s a bit like saying, “If we study metallurgy really thoroughly, we’ll understand how metallic things self-assembled to ‘locks’ and ‘keys.’” No. “Locks” and “Keys” are ideas that someone thought up and invented; then instantiated in material that seemed suitable for portability, durability, reproducibility, etc. As far as the idea of a lock and the idea of a key are concerned, they can be concretized in any suitable material: stone, plastic, even chains of amino acids (enzymes are proteins that function by means of a “lock-and-key” mechanism; the enzyme is the key and its substrate is the lock).
The Santa Fe Institute has its adherents – those who put their faith in somewhat hazy hypotheses such as “self-organization” and “spontaneous order” – which are relevant in fields dealing with entities that are alive and conscious (economics, for example; see the works of Hayek and Mises) – but in the non-living, non-coded-chemistry world of simple chemical elements? Sounds more like faith than science.
10 minutes ago, KyaryPamyu said:
If you are able to distinguish between a perfect and an imperfect circle, it means you can measure the imperfect circle’s closeness to a standard of perfection.
100 points on a test is a perfect score, a video game can be finished with a perfect score, and so on. You can’t measure perfection without a standard.
> You can’t measure perfection without a standard.
Indeed. That’s why the idea of “perfection” doesn’t rely on measurement.
35 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
Greg, there are places where a “perfect” that cannot be achieved is sensible, warranted, and useful. That would be in talk such as a “perfect refrigerator” as a limit that the second law of thermodynamics holds as out of reach in our devices. The unreachable perfections that EF refers to are without such backing as in thermo, but are merely from the philosophy-of-mathematics armchairs of Plato, Leibniz, . . . .
>The unreachable perfections that EF refers to are without such backing as in thermo, but are merely from the philosophy-of-mathematics armchairs of Plato, Leibniz
Funny! Euclid reached them thousands of years ago. What do you think his “Elements” is based on?
Don’t know about Plato’s contribution (if any) to mathematics. I know that he insisted on students in his Academy studying geometry so that they would better understand the idea of “Formal Proof” and “Logical Demonstration”. He believed an education in geometry was a necessary prerequisite for the study of ethics, since in his view the latter would also depend on formal proof and logical demonstration.
As for Leibniz, he is considered by historians as the co-founder (along with Newton) of calculus. In fact, it’s mainly the notation of Leibniz that we use today in differential calculus (dy/dx as the “First Derivative” vs. Newton’s terminology of “First Fluxion”).
41 minutes ago, Economic Freedom said:
That’s why the idea of “perfection” doesn’t rely on measurement.
If I understand you correctly: perfection does not rely on measurement, because perfection is what is being measured.
If this is the case, then no, The ability to judge closeness or deviation from a set criteria precedes any instance of doing it, it is a mental faculty which is there whether it’s being currently used or not.
Concepts of consciousness (measurement, perception, intensity of thought) are derived ostensively from observing those faculties in action.
The mind is part of reality. So is my ability to measure perfection. So is my thinking of a blue elephant, even if there is no actual blue elephant out there to match that concept.
1 hour ago, KyaryPamyu said:
If you are able to distinguish between a perfect and an imperfect circle, it means you can measure the imperfect circle’s closeness to a standard of perfection.
100 points on a test is a perfect score, a video game can be finished with a perfect score, and so on. You can’t measure perfection without a standard.
>If you are able to distinguish between a perfect and an imperfect circle, it means you can measure the imperfect circle’s closeness to a standard of perfection.
I can distinguish precisely between a perfect circle and an imperfect one without seeing, imagining, or measuring them. A “perfect circle” is one in which all points on its circumference are equidistant from its center. An “imperfect circle” is one in which NOT all points on its circumference are equidistant from its center.
I don’t have to perceive anything to distinguish between the two. I just have to know the meaning of the adverb “not”.
>That is false, unwarranted, and insulting. Here is independent thinking and learning.
Give me one example of a thought on this board that _contradicts _Objectivism or any of the “inerrant” scriptural texts of Miss Rand. I haven’t found any so far.
If all statements are simply in agreement with Objectivist Scripture and statements by Objectivist authorities like Peikoff, Brook, and Kelley, then they can scarcely be said to be “independent”.
59 minutes ago, Economic Freedom said:
>The unreachable perfections that EF refers to are without such backing as in thermo, but are merely from the philosophy-of-mathematics armchairs of Plato, Leibniz
Funny! Euclid reached them thousands of years ago. What do you think his “Elements” is based on?
Don’t know about Plato’s contribution (if any) to mathematics. I know that he insisted on students in his Academy studying geometry so that they would better understand the idea of “Formal Proof” and “Logical Demonstration”. He believed an education in geometry was a necessary prerequisite for the study of ethics, since in his view the latter would also depend on formal proof and logical demonstration.
As for Leibniz, he is considered by historians as the co-founder (along with Newton) of calculus. In fact, it’s mainly the notation of Leibniz that we use today in differential calculus (dy/dx as the “First Derivative” vs. Newton’s terminology of “First Fluxion”).
Euclid did not remark the Plato-view you espouse that there are no perfect straight lines available to the senses, only to the intellect.
Plato did not contribute to mathematics; lots of philosophers study mathematicians and develope a philosopohy of matrhematics. Descartes was one philosopher who contributed to geometry and had (also Pascal) the breakthrough of representing curves by algebraic equations. Plato was correct to set geometry as a pre-req for philosophy, at least for what we would call epistemology. Empiricist accounts of geometric knowledge have been failures by and large, in my estimation. On mathematical knowledge on an empiricists basis, the best I know is Philip Kitcher’s book.
You’re not the first to hold the stance you are posturing with, nor will you be the last. If you are unable to find what you’re searching for here, perhaps there are more fertile fields to plow elsewhere.
Has anyone prevented you from positing your position and making your inquiries?
28 minutes ago, Economic Freedom said:
>That is false, unwarranted, and insulting. Here is independent thinking and learning.
Give me one example of a thought on this board that _contradicts _Objectivism or any of the “inerrant” scriptural texts of Miss Rand. I haven’t found any so far.
. . .
>You’re not the first to hold the stance you are posturing with, nor will you be the last.
I’m relieved to hear it! You mean to tell me that others have actually posted to this board and dared to contradict the teachings of Ayn Rand as recited verbatim by the long-time members here? Good grief, that’s outright blasphemy!
>If you are unable to find what you’re searching for here, perhaps there are more fertile fields to plow elsewhere.
By “fertile fields”, you mean boards that encourage independent, critical thought? There probably are. Thank you for stating the obvious. Now, are you “posturing the stance” that this board brooks no contradiction of Ayn Rand or the Scriptural Texts of Objectivism? If so, say so. I assumed this board was all about “reason” and “truth”. Please inform me if I’m wrong about that.
>Has anyone prevented you from positing your position and making your inquiries?
Have I claimed that anyone has prevented me from “positing my position” and making my inquiries? I don’t think so . . .
21 minutes ago, Boydstun said:
Interesting. Long-winded but interesting.
I’m fascinated by the amount of lively discussion it generated.
In any case, I’ll have to peruse it later today.
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3 hours ago, Economic Freedom said:
It’s a commonplace in the field of experimental psychology – specifically, the psychology of perception – that percepts exist in the mind only.
Percepts themselves are not out there in the world, and no one did claim that percepts are something placed from the outside into your brain. The Oist is really that our percepts are some kind of presentation of the world as it is, and that our minds are not constructing reality itself as we see it. Sometimes experimental psychology goes heavy on representationalism, but to say that percepts exist in the mind is trivial.
Anyway, you are a reductionist, so I know saying that won’t really change your mind about much.
2 hours ago, Economic Freedom said:
By “fertile fields”, you mean boards that encourage independent, critical thought? There probably are. Thank you for stating the obvious. Now, are you “posturing the stance” that this board brooks no contradiction of Ayn Rand or the Scriptural Texts of Objectivism? If so, say so. I assumed this board was all about “reason” and “truth”. Please inform me if I’m wrong about that.
It seems you’ve already reached your verdict. It is your mind that needs to process the data of your senses. It would be silly and, I would venture to say, an insult to tell you what you can and ought conclude for yourself as to whether you conclusions are in alignment with the facts of the final arbiter (i.e., reality). My apologies for resorting to paraphrasing Miss Rand to you.
4 hours ago, Boydstun said:
4
On 1/25/2021 at 10:06 AM, Boydstun said:
. . .
Even were Rand successful in deriving a social virtue such as justice purely from self-interest, is it the case that the only alternatives in helping are the specifics in duty-help v. esteem-help v. their mixture? Is brotherly love, close or remote, reducible to rational self-love? That rational self-love is good, I do not question. That brotherly love is reducible to rational animality, I do not question, only what is this rational animal that is you and me.
Some good non-fiction philosophical resources on friendship: _Friendship – A Philosophical Reader_ (1993) edited by Neera Kapur Badhwar. _Ancient and Medieval Concepts of Friendship_ (2014) edited by Suzanne Stern-Gillet and Gary M. Gurtler. _Aquinas on Friendship_ (2007) by Daniel Schwartz.