On topic, I think the following examples can be improved. Values have two components, the facts and a choice.
Yeah, you’re right. I had in mind a certain emphasis to show, but the way I phrased those examples, it’s not actually an objective value - it’s only objectively good for someone as judged by an observer. I’ll change them to a first body including a choice. Thanks :lol:
Thank you all for your comments, it will give me a good amount of stuff to consider for a while. I think there were some misunderstandings, though, so I’m going to attempt to clear it up, then go my own way and probably leave this topic be. I’ll make a point that I do not deny reality, and do not believe reality itself is uncertain about anything, because uncertainty exists in the mind. My distinguishing between beliefs and reality goes about like so: the things which determine my predictions I call my beliefs, and the thing which determines the results of my experiments I call reality. But interpretation of those results still depends on my prior beliefs; the notion of absolute truth invokes an ideal comparison between belief and reality. As for this ‘knowledge’ business, I don’t need absolute certainty to claim I know something. I know for example about evolution and do not doubt it; there’s a huge mountain of evidence in its favor that you would be insane to ignore it, just like you’d be insane to ignore your odds of winning a lotto ticket are 1/googol, and still bet anyway. I also know Occam’s Razor is true (despite the fact that to justify it you have to invoke it).
I also don’t think that when I’m receiving the reflected photons from my socks to affirm I’m wearing socks that I’m seeing an “illusion” of reality. I’m wearing socks because of the fact I’m wearing socks, and I have experimental results to back me up, and I’m pretty darn sure I’m not going blind right now, where my eye doesn’t process anything regardless of the photons that enter, but I can’t be absolutely sure. I don’t need to be, though. I don’t have to keep track of the very small probabilities (any more than things you don’t have to keep track of that you believe have 0 probability) that something wrong is happening with my brain that would make me not perceive myself to be wearing socks, and I can say with very high certainty that it’s a fact I’m wearing socks.
Existence is poorly defined. I’ve been told “touch yourself” in response to that. I did. If I were an Ancient Greek, I might believe that to be enough. But I know (on a certain level of my map) that the resulting pressure I feel isn’t necessarily because “I exist”, it’s the result of electrons zooming around exerting various particle forces. If you scaled up a hydrogen atom so that the electron was one pixel, the average distance between the nucleus and the electron would be about 11 miles. We’re largely phantoms. But then what is existence? I might claim existence is the territory, but that begs the question of what then is the territory? One might then answer reality. My answer to that answer is we cannot know for sure if what we perceive as existence is actually existence, because we deal with maps. I’m quite sure our map that takes into account quarks accurately reflects the territory, but I’m not going to stake absolute certainty in that and say the map is the territory. That would be the mind projection fallacy. Our maps are multi-level, the territory is a single-level, and I won’t want to put absolute certainty that we’ve found that single-level yet.
Hello Jach,
Welcome to the forum. I think I see where you are coming from and I am not certain if I am very far off. A lot of the problem seems to stem around the concept of certainty so I wonder if a fleshing out of this irritating little noun might help.
If we are to say that something is certain we are necessarily talking about human epistemology. It is therefore necessary to assume that that standard takes a few things for granted. Namely that there are humans, in some place, with some capacity to gain knowledge. In other words, the axioms must be accepted for the concept to even have a context. I think what confuses the issue is viewing certainty as only possible to closed sets such as we find in arithmetic. 2+2=4 etc. If for example, we were to take Peikoffs induction example of a ball rolling, we see that we can be quite certain since rolling is inherent in roundness. The skeptic though will claim that we can not be certain of this since there exists no reason that a round thing rolls. Sure they seem that way, but perhaps in an alternate dimension square things roll because friction coefficients are inverted.
I submit that this is the equivalent of saying that 2+2=4 only because 2=2 when in fact, 2 might equal 3. To undercut the entire fact by eliminating the premises with a great, big, arbitrary, unsubstantiated “what if,” eliminates the idea of certainty as a meaningful concept. Leaves it floating. So it is clear in this way that deductive certainty is no more indefensible than inductive certainty.
In this way, I allow for certainty with regard to both induction and deduction by ignoring the arbitrary until such time as evidence suggests it as a possibility.
What bothers me most is that certainty as defined above is only applicable to a certain class of concretes and that most of the decisions we have to make are not of that class. The decision might contain some concrete things consciously, but most of the decision seems to take place on a intuitive, almost subconscious level. This manifests itself, essentially, as a strong feeling that I ought to do something one way rather then another. If I happen to be strongly integrated, then those facts which are connected to my intuition might might be strongly correlated to concrete certainties which would lead to a higher probability of success, but not what I would think of as objectively true. It is at this point that I believe that I am in agreement with you.
It may be conceptually helpful to envision an objective world in a certain scientific sense, but if we have no access to it in regard to any particular complex decisions, then I see little value in it except in an after-the-fact way.
In regard to the earlier example of whether to sleep with a woman, this point is strongly evident. If my sole criteria were physical attraction, I could make a certain, objective decision. Either I find her attractive or I don’t. If I take that decision out of the control of my id, then I might take into consideration whether she is married, whether she has any communicable diseases, etc. A little harder, but still possible to make a certain decision based on actual objective reality. Now if I wish to make an actually good decision, based on what is actually best for me, then I must consider the future ramifications of the decision emotionally, physically, financially, and a bunch of other -ly’s I am not aware of at the moment. I attempt this by considering her current and past behavior, my understanding of the world, my knowledge of human capacities and my limited knowledge of my own values, which I must then overlay, cross reference, and integrate. To say nothing of the random changes in circumstance which the future might hold. To believe, after that, that I am making a good decision with anything close to certainty would be a naive sort of arrogance. No matter how many conceptual short cuts I create, I will still be left with many holes in my decision which would each accommodate a mac truck.
It is at this level where I have trouble seeing the objective truth as useful.
Thank you everyone, for your response. They’ve been very helpful so far.
*** Mod’s note: Split/Merged from another topic . - sN ***
But, objectively speaking, if one maintains a value that is not objectively protected (say, something altruistic in nature), wouldn’t they really have something that is a lack of a value? I thought Rand never accepted something as a value unless it was objectively defined?
She defined a value as “an entity one acts to gain or keep.”
Edit: feel free to create a new thread about values if you want, but try to stick to the topic of blackmail in this one.
But, objectively speaking, if one maintains a value that is not objectively protected (say, something altruistic in nature), wouldn’t they really have something that is a lack of a value? I thought Rand never accepted something as a value unless it was objectively defined?
What do you mean by “have something that is a lack of a value?” I would contend that yes, the thing they are trying to protect is a false value (by definition, in this scenario). However, the method by which they are trying to protect it (blackmail) is valid, even though they are in error about the value of the end goal.
I would say that the ethical value of blackmail stands or falls on whether the object in question is being pursued as a gain or protected from a loss, and the ethical value of the object itself is a different matter (though both obviously deserve evaluation and deliberation by the individual).
Hopefully this post sticks to blackmail enough; that is the method I’m referring to.