All values are the means, not the ends, right?
What you have is long sequence. X is a means to Y, which is a means to Z, which a means to … which is a means to your flourishing life as a happy human!
Well written. Now, do I understand correctly that, in other words, everyone is a means to his end? Then he is also the means to the ends of others. All values are the means, not the ends, right? So, everyone and everything (besides oneself) are values only as far as they are the means. So, if the rational man did not realize that something was valuable, would his life be negatively affected? Is that necessary? What if he does not think he is in trouble, never gets in trouble, or does not know better (as Objectivists do not want to know everything and cannot, for that matter) for, say, using the world as the means to his ends? He cares for the world as long as he has not destroyed it, as long as it’s valuable for his life. Once the world is destroyed, he will find another world, and the cycle repeats, right? Is this how much you value and thus care for the world, nature, culture, and society? They can come and go, but the individual stays, correct?
I do not believe individuals “as such” ARE values or means, not literally. Values are gained and kept… people are not property. Now that said, relationships forged with other people CAN and are valuable to a rational man’s life and are the means to successful and peaceful (not having to worry about war and injury etc.) existence.
To say a “person” is literally a means to something I think is a distortion… but the relationships can be characterized in this way, yes.
Rational selfishness is acting only for oneself and although it has nothing whatsoever to do with altruism or self-sacrifice it certainly does not require that he not care… in fact it requires precisely the opposite.
I have nothing to contest, nor even add to your post. It was beautiful. However, I believe we are being played and I find it painful to see efforts like yours being spent on ends like his.
Then I want to understand how you understand it. . .
This seems to be a request with a very specific sort of motivation; a motive that most of us, on this forum, know all too well.
This philosophy is for the time when new financial crises will show whether Objectivists have learned to care for others… or not.
This is a reference to his actual motive; the thing he means by those words:
Would you like to live in a world where there are no taxes, no material costs of production, no military, no wars, no crime, no corruption, and there is just one law – emotional love?
The sadists will be the fogyish people still enthralled by the purely competitive edge to living. What I have to say to these people is so: be who you may, but the ultimate goal is genuine love.
And his own description of the alternative state of non-love:
Worshipping the value of money is like worshipping perfect competence for making money – both means to an end – and thus becoming perfect machines, unfeeling and intransigent.
Humans are on their way to becoming such industrial machines. And once they become automatized, they will not only lose their bodies and consciousness, but also their souls. Emotional economy is the only way provided right now to save humanity from the conversion into perfect, competent machines.
He did not call this non-love evil or destructive. He called it perfect.
“It’s good to suffer. Don’t complain. Bear, bow, accept- and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy. If you don’t understand this, don’t try to understand. Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand.” -Ellsworth Toohey
If you find yourself struggling to even begin to comprehend that then take a long, hard look at this.
Emotional economy is the only way provided right now to save humanity from the conversion into perfect, competent machines. Unfortunately, not everyone can be an Objectivist.
Ilya Startsev is not a diabolical mastermind like Immanuel Kant or Ellsworth Toohey. He only intends to be one, once he gets the hang of it.
Once you’ve got a mental handle on everything above, read this:
This work is dedicated to Ayn Rand and her followers, the Objectivists, because, without you and Ayn Rand, this idea would not have been possible. The greatest payment that I can give you for your support is not only my thanks but also having me on your side.
And realize the full meaning of “I want to understand how you understand it”.
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I do not believe individuals “as such” ARE values or means, not literally. Values are gained and kept… people are not property. Now that said, relationships forged with other people CAN and are valuable to a rational man’s life and are the means to successful and peaceful (not having to worry about war and injury etc.) existence.
To say a “person” is literally a means to something I think is a distortion… but the relationships can be characterized in this way, yes.
And I am arguing that people are relationships, literally. Minimally, a person has a particular relationship to himself or herself and to his environment, although that’s based on his or her relationships to other people, such as his parents, friends, loved ones. Even a trade is a relationship between a buyer and a seller. So, in other words, people are all connected to each other. There are no completely isolated individuals.
Relationships and people are not the same things and there is no basis in reality to claim that this is true.
Any conclusion based on such a false premise would also be false.
<snip>
And realize the full meaning of “I want to understand how you understand it”.
Then look at the difference between “I want to understand how you understand it.” and “I want to understand how I understand it.”
The first statement could easily flow from Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” in his adage of “Seek first to understand . . .”
The two primary questions that mark one of the entrances into the great hall of epistemology are “What do I know?” and “How do I know it?” is all about understanding how one understands.
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[…]
Ilya Startsev is not a diabolical mastermind like Immanuel Kant or Ellsworth Toohey. He only intends to be one, once he gets the hang of it.
[…]
I agree with the facts but not the estimate of this criticism. And it is a very harsh and serious accusation, Harrison. So I will ask a fair and objective judgement of myself and my work. All of you are my judges.
This thread is the culmination of all ideas discussed and my personal view that resulted from the previous discussions. Whatever I may say about myself is not going to be sufficient to persuade you, so let us concentrate on what I have said in the theory, for that remains my only truth.
In Part III.4, I wrote: “the emotional currency can only be genuine and everyone will start equally (with zero reputation)” and I am under the same obligation to start equally with everyone else. Just because I am one of creators of this new economy does not mean that I would even become very wealthy and/or get into the government.
And in Part III.2: “There will be more freedom than we have right now and less regulations and infringement in personal lives because E is a self-regulating economy.” This means that the government will not be a tyranny or some totalitarian regime like in Brave New World. All that the government will be is (ibid.): “financial and judicial political institution and authority.” Only courts and the bank will be governed, not people’s lives. The government will be “employed by the citizens” (ibid.) and thus create value for its citizens. It will motivate happiness but not force it.
The word “love” that I used previously is not just a word and not made to control people externally. It will be a quantitatively measured emotional response that will reflect economically and create wealth. It is for the benefit of the society as well as all of the individual citizens. I have spoken with the chair of the Department of Economics at NIU, Professor Virginia Wilcox-Gok, and she has told me that not only there is no alternative economic model such as this one, but also that it is a rational as well as an emotional economy. This balance is what I would like to uphold. It is for my selfish benefit only as far as the society in which I will live will be enjoyable for me and my relationships with others. I do not want to control people; I simply want to provide the tools for people to control themselves.
Relationships and people are not the same things and there is no basis in reality to claim that this is true.
Any conclusion based on such a false premise would also be false.
The reality in America is that you do not care about relationships as much as people from other cultures do. You think that it has no basis in reality, where only existence exists and unilaterally causes us, as if we were some blind robots who cannot affect existence. I have already mentioned that the research by the Institute of HeartMath has shown that our emotions affect our minds, and this cannot be escaped. Here is the direct quote from their book, Science of the Heart, page 20: “communication between the heart and brain is actually a dynamic, ongoing, two-way dialogue, with each organ continuously influencing the other’s function.” This is also true in relationships. We affect them and they reciprocally affect us. That is reality as proven by science. As for metaphysics, the arguments can be never ending. What can you say that you feel about your relationships? Do they affect you as well? Or are they just something you are forced to do, something replaceable and ultimately meaningless, like wearing a pair of gloves in the winter?
Forces between the Earth and the Moon affect the Earth and the Moon.
Neither the Earth nor the Moon “are” the forces that they exchange and interact with. The forces and the bodies simply are not the same thing. It would be irrational to claim either or both of the Earth or the Moon is one in the same as the gravity between them.
The same is true for relationships between people. People are affected by the relationships they have, but it is irrational to claim that the people ARE the relationships between them.
This distinction is very simple to observe and has nothing to do with any assessment (correct or incorrect) about “America” or “determinism” or “emotions” as you evidently are trying to argue.
There are entities and there are relationships between them and these are different things we can identify .. if we are sane and rational.
People are affected by the relationships they have, but it is irrational to claim that the people ARE the relationships between them.
Any inference, about someone else’s mind, is based on an introspective analogy. We observe the behavior of others and draw parallels to our own behavior, as well as the reasoning behind it. Since each person has direct access to only one mind, sometimes such generalizations can suffer from a sort of selection bias.
When he declared that all men are nothing more than their relationships, he was telling the truth.
[…]
Rand did argue to show that living for others is incompatible with living for yourself. She did go on to argue that living for others is exclusively ~A, i.e. a contradiction.
[…]
“Living for others” and “Living for oneself” are contrary, not contradictory.
Forces between the Earth and the Moon affect the Earth and the Moon.
Neither the Earth nor the Moon “are” the forces that they exchange and interact with. The forces and the bodies simply are not the same thing. It would be irrational to claim either or both of the Earth or the Moon is one in the same as the gravity between them.
The same is true for relationships between people. People are affected by the relationships they have, but it is irrational to claim that the people ARE the relationships between them.
This distinction is very simple to observe and has nothing to do with any assessment (correct or incorrect) about “America” or “determinism” or “emotions” as you evidently are trying to argue.
There are entities and there are relationships between them and these are different things we can identify .. if we are sane and rational.
It’s the wrong analogy because planets do not have human minds.
[…]Since each person has direct access to only one mind, sometimes such generalizations can suffer from a sort of selection bias.
[…]
There is not only you in your mind, but also others. And others of your relationship have themselves and you in their minds. This perception of others in your mind and the perception of yourself in others’ minds is what connects those minds. Such perception can be mental (i.e., through words, facial expressions, etc.) or emotional (i.e., through how the person makes you feel).
He lost me at “reality is the market” […]
I was wrong to state that in the name of Objectivism. Market is a reality in my model, not Objectivist model. I should have written it so: “By the definition of the current Objectivist model, we live in the market, which consists of others, that is, the sum of individual minds, and life, for the purposes of this discussion, shall be considered inseparable from the market where all items traded are caused and co-created by the minds.”
Funny, I live in a house, located on some property inside a city which is part of a county in a state within a country on a planet . . . ultimately reality, of which the economic usage of “market” exists within. But I did go to the grocery store today. While I was in the market, I picked up some groceries.
Ilya, I find your means of trying to express yourself quite convoluted. Did you express yourself in this manner prior to Northern Illinois University?
Edited: Added quotes around "market’.
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Funny, I live in a house, located on some property inside a city which is part of a county in a state within a country on a planet . . . ultimately reality, of which the economic usage of “market” exists within. But I did go to the grocery store today. While I was in the market, I picked up some groceries.
Ilya, I find your means of trying to express yourself quite convoluted. Did you express yourself in this manner prior to Northern Illinois University?
Edited: Added quotes around "market’.
Since the question refers to my model, I show the appropriate realities from it here:
Body–Environment
Society–Nature
Race–World
All three are different realities. To know which one you are in is to know what you are conscious of (what you perceive and feel directly). Since you are conscious of your body and can only directly perceive your surroundings, which is basically the market, you are living in the first reality. You are not conscious of society or nature (even with the help of the Internet, since you can ever be aware of only one thing happening there at any one time), and you are very far from being conscious of the entire world (i.e., planet). Even astronauts are not conscious of the planet and can never directly perceive it completely, since it’s round and in three dimensions. Seeing an object is not the same as being completely conscious of it, which happens only through subjectification. I hope that this is not so hard to understand. I see an issue in believing (or worse: being convinced) by pictures or videos (or experiences) of others and take them not merely as evidence, but as the only objective reality in itself. This mixing up and jumping realities through faulty analogies that lead to contradictions is the problem. Your reality is where you are, not where others are without yourself. The latter can be called a virtual reality, though - I have no problem with that.
A is A
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A is A
True only for the metaphysics of the mind. But the way mind’s consciousness directly perceives it is in the firings of neurons and pulsations of the nervous tissues - quite different from how we interpret it.
P.S. For further discussion on the topic, please refer to this thread.
P.P.S. Also, emotional connections in human relationships do not fit “A is A.” They are subjective and hence require a higher order logic to control them. Many-valued logic is one such logic that can handle reality most accurately. Both Christian and Objectivist moral codes use two-valued logic (good versus evil, and both praised Aristotle). For example, what is better “to be wronged or to wrong”? To be wronged is better for a Christian (Aristotle also leaned toward this as did Plato), but to wrong is better for an Objectivist. However, here is how many-valued logic would work in Neo-Objectivism: to wrong or be wronged equally. In other words, both become patients and actors at the same time. This is truly beyond good and evil as Nietzsche predicted.
Since the question refers to my model, I show the appropriate realities from it here:
Body–Environment
Society–Nature
Race–World
All three are different realities. To know which one you are in is to know what you are conscious of (what you perceive and feel directly). Since you are conscious of your body and can only directly perceive your surroundings, which is basically the market, you are living in the first reality. You are not conscious of society or nature (even with the help of the Internet, since you can ever be aware of only one thing happening there at any one time), and you are very far from being conscious of the entire world (i.e., planet). Even astronauts are not conscious of the planet and can never directly perceive it completely, since it’s round and in three dimensions. Seeing an object is not the same as being completely conscious of it, which happens only through subjectification. I hope that this is not so hard to understand. I see an issue in believing (or worse: being convinced) by pictures or videos (or experiences) of others and take them not merely as evidence, but as the only objective reality in itself. This mixing up and jumping realities through faulty analogies that lead to contradictions is the problem. Your reality is where you are, not where others are without yourself. The latter can be called a virtual reality, though - I have no problem with that.
I’m not really sure where to go with this. The three examples you provide might be considered relationships, but as to three different realities - only having resided in the one reality I know to exist, makes about as much sense to me a multiple universes.
Your use of “conscious”, as in “Even the astronauts are not conscious of the planet and can never directly perceive it completely, since it’s round and in three dimensions.” side-steps how it was ascertained to be round and three-dimensional. The fact that all of man’s sensory apparatus are finite and limited in their scope and range, only means that the astronaut is conscious of the planet as it can be perceived by him from the vantage point of where they are at.
Incidentally, the Greeks had estimated the size and shape of the planet well before space travel.
Stopped reading the thread at post #11. Ilya seems to be a better satirical humorist than philosopher. Sadly this can only be true if he admits trying to make us laugh. Oh well, thanks for the chuckles anyway.
“Living for others” and “Living for oneself” are contrary, not contradictory.
Well yeah, so she went on to demonstrate that they are mutually exclusive.
“but to wrong is better for an Objectivist.”
uh, how do you conclude this? What you’ve tried to say is “neo” Objectivism is just regular Objectivism. “Many valued logic” is fine, in the sense there are many variables. A thing cannot be anything other than the thing it is at that moment in time. Only “true and false” is two valued, depending on the characteristic in question. Generally, the least you can say is a 5 pound weight cannot also be ~(5 pound weight) at the same time and in the same sense. The difficulty of reason is to determine what is in fact mutually exclusive. Can light be a particle and wave, simultaneously? I don’t know. But light wouldn’t be a particle and not a particle *at the same time*, while a wave might be related to a particle if they are both conceptually related. It’s not so simple as saying “particles can’t also be waves!” Simple as “A is A” sounds, it doesn’t mean reason is simple as declaring a definition.
I’m not really sure where to go with this. The three examples you provide might be considered relationships, but as to three different realities - only having resided in the one reality I know to exist, makes about as much sense to me a multiple universes.
Your use of “conscious”, as in “Even the astronauts are not conscious of the planet and can never directly perceive it completely, since it’s round and in three dimensions.” side-steps how it was ascertained to be round and three-dimensional. The fact that all of man’s sensory apparatus are finite and limited in their scope and range, only means that the astronaut is conscious of the planet as it can be perceived by him from the vantage point of where they are at.
Incidentally, the Greeks had estimated the size and shape of the planet well before space travel.
You are confusing “consciousness” as self-awareness with “mentality” as perception. It’s true that they are inseparable, but they are also distinct. I also want to point out that perception can be emotional, as elaborated in the book Science of the Heart. Hence consciousness can be considered to be composed of mental and emotional perceptions, or perceptions through mind and soul (corresponding to brain and heart and their systems).
Stopped reading the thread at post #11. Ilya seems to be a better satirical humorist than philosopher. Sadly this can only be true if he admits trying to make us laugh. Oh well, thanks for the chuckles anyway.
The point of the entire thread is post #11. Hence you missed the point.
Well yeah, so she went on to demonstrate that they are mutually exclusive.
“but to wrong is better for an Objectivist.”
uh, how do you conclude this? What you’ve tried to say is “neo” Objectivism is just regular Objectivism. “Many valued logic” is fine, in the sense there are many variables. A thing cannot be anything other than the thing it is at that moment in time. Only “true and false” is two valued, depending on the characteristic in question. Generally, the least you can say is a 5 pound weight cannot also be ~(5 pound weight) at the same time and in the same sense. The difficulty of reason is to determine what is in fact mutually exclusive. Can light be a particle and wave, simultaneously? I don’t know. But light wouldn’t be a particle and not a particle *at the same time*, while a wave might be related to a particle if they are both conceptually related. It’s not so simple as saying “particles can’t also be waves!” Simple as “A is A” sounds, it doesn’t mean reason is simple as declaring a definition.
“I live for myself” and “I live for others” are only mutually exclusive in two valued logic with excluded middle. In many valued logic, they can occur at the same time (i.e., myself and others are conceptually related). For example, I live for my relationships with others. Just as light is a particle and a wave at the same time because “particle” and “wave” are contrary (opposite), not contradictory (conflicting).
Objectivists would wrong first on the assumption that they would be wronged (attack is better than defense). An example is the nuclear attack on Japan in WWII. If I understand Objectivism correctly, you support that act.
“I live for myself” and “I live for others” are only mutually exclusive in two valued logic with excluded middle. In many valued logic, they can occur at the same time (i.e., myself and others are conceptually related). For example, I live for my relationships with others. Just as light is a particle and a wave at the same time because “particle” and “wave” are contrary (opposite), not contradictory (conflicting).
Objectivists would wrong first on the assumption that they would be wronged (attack is better than defense). An example is the nuclear attack on Japan in WWII. If I understand Objectivism correctly, you support that act.
No, they also need to be proven as unrelated. I mean, you aren’t wrong, it’s just wrong to characterize Objectivism as saying that the law of excluded middle means A and B are contradictions. It just means A and ~A is a contradiction. There is no 3rd option for A, except possibly “90% A”, which would mean that A actually consists of 90% X and 10% Y of some assortment of characteristics… And so on!
“Objectivists would wrong first on the assumption that they would be wronged (attack is better than defense).”
Err, being wronged is just as “bad” as doing wrong. Retaliation isn’t wrong, so you can’t characterize it as “doing wrong is better than being wronged”. It’s 100% right. At the same time, I think there are many valid questions to ask about if it really was retaliation or justifiable to nuke, but insofar it is retaliation, it is right.