About
Content
Store
Forum

Rebirth of Reason
War
People
Archives
Objectivism

Post to this threadMark all messages in this thread as readMark all messages in this thread as unread


Post 0

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 6:58pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
— Ayn Rand, Appendix to Atlas Shrugged
 
talk about stealing heavily from the great thinkers of the enlightenment. I can't believe so many of you hold Ayn Rand in such high regard. She did nothing but spin old ideas into intiriguing novels. Hmmm. Isn't that what L. Ron Hubbard did? And people follow him too...... You guys are wasting your time with all of this objectivism philosophy. It is robbing the life from you. Loosen up! Follow some emotions sometime! geez. Ok. There. I said it. Bring on the wolves to rip and tear at the soft underbelly of my remark! Go nuts!  Thanks. Jbrad


Post 1

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 8:56pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Follow some emotions sometime!

LOL! Stick around, you'll see plenty of emotion. Edit: Especially after a post like that.

Sarah

(Edited by Sarah House
on 7/19, 8:56pm)


Post 2

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 9:07pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Who is L. Ron Hubbard?

It is pretty clear that Ayn Rand has done more then spin old ideas. "Virtue of Selfishness"... come on!

Hehe... you said "[Dean is] wasting time with all of this objectivism philosophy", when earlier you stated "any posts that explain the core philosophy will be much appreciated" which clearly shows your inability to make such a judgement.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 7/19, 9:08pm)


Post 3

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 11:15pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Loosen up? Follow some emotions? Man, I'm glad I ain't you. Hey, I'm just a guy who's telling you to "Run, dumbass, Run!!!"

 The wolves are coming. 

We may not always get along here, but posts like yours are blood to the hounds!!!


gw



Stick around and take on the wolves. There are Objectivists and Non-Objectivists here, you can have your choice! But, my guess, you being a cowardly wuss and all, you won't take on anybody. Well, there are  monsters here the likes you have never seen. Thinking monsters. Beware!!!.


Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Post 4

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 4:57amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Given there are no facts or citations to back up Joshua's post, I can only assume it's merely an attempt to troll for a flame war. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps he'll post some real arguments to back up his statements. In any event, with an opening like that, I'm not going to bother to reply. No value in it.

Ethan

(Edited by Ethan Dawe on 7/20, 5:29am)


Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 5

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 7:49amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Joshua Bradley wrote: "... talk about stealing heavily from the great thinkers of the enlightenment. I can't believe so many of you hold Ayn Rand in such high regard. She did nothing but spin old ideas into ... "

You are not the first person to say that.  Back in the 1960s, National Review took Rand to task for this several times.  However, being who they were, the attacks were obtuse.  More understandable were comments in the mainstream media along the same lines. 

*  Rand claimed to be an atheist, but validated conservative religion when she claimed that man is defined by the ability to reason and the possession of free will.
*  She called Aristotle the greatest of all philosophers despite his faults but had nothing good to say about Kant despite Kant's assertions on individualism and natural rights. 
*  Starting from "the virtue of selfishness" Rand backed off into a defensible position of "benevolence."
*  Claiming individualism, she constructed a utopia where everyone lives together in a valley and they all get along by being nice.

Let me take the last case first.  In Isaac Asimov's The Naked Sun (and the other "spacer" novels in the "robot" series) we meet the society of Solaris (if I have that right), which is comprised of people thinly spread out on huge estates, served by intelligent machines, who never come in contact with each other, except by hologram.  Now that is an individualist utopia.

Discussions here point to scientific reports about the conceptual abilities of animals.  Of course, these are limited abilities.  Of course we have massive brains.   It would be surprising if no other animal could hold even one concept.  Rand, however, never dealt with this.  She did sneer at attempts to feed planaria nuclei to planaria to see if learning could be ingested.  She derided it as savage cannibalism, just as she denigrated Hubert Humphery for "looking like a kewpie doll."  In short, Mrs. Logic could be quite illogical.

The problems with all of this fall into two classes: confusing the author with her works; and expecting novelty in the same old places. 

1.  Whatever Rand's quirks, she was who she was and calls for perfection in her life and writing are just that: the debater's fallacy of calling for perfection.
2.  Boy meets girl... boy loses girl... boy finds girl...  Greek myths, the Bible... Plato, Aristotle...  Pretty much most of what we think about what we think has been said before. 
Is light a wave or a particle or both or neither?  Democritus and Empedocles wrestled with the same ideas.  Actually inventing the light bulb is another trick entirely.  So, whether or not man is a rational animal or the only rational animal or whether or not you really can get kinetic energy from static electricity, putting it all into at least two (if not four) major works of literature is something that was not achieved by Mill or Bentham or Russell or whomever.  Sartre might have done it, but I just cannot read anything called "Nausea."

Which brings us to SOLO.  It is true that Ted Turner, Bill Gates and Donald Trump need explaining.  But we are not responsible for them.  Certainly, I am not.  Personally, for whatever criticisms I have of Introduction to the Objectivist Epistemology, I had to start with IOE to get to that point.  As a teacher, I know that my professional life got much easier when I re-read the book from the point of view of a professional with a specific need to understand concepts in order to teach them.   So, I am pretty happy being an Objectivist. 

I have held many kinds of jobs, done many kinds of work, and sell many kinds of services.  In every case, I invest myself totally in what I do. My hobbies include numismatics -- the buying and selling of money for fun. The reason that I can appreciate the artistry in money is that I hold money as a high moral ideal based on rational metaphysics.  Ayn Rand wove all of those thread together.  No other philosopher did that.

I also fly. Aviation is its own challenge and reward: an unequivocal and complicated task done well.  The fiction of Ayn Rand -- made possible for her by her own philosophical framework -- made that real for me. 

Much in life is personal.  Objectivism might be a formal philosophy for someone else.  For me, it is an artistic style. 


Post 6

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 4:33pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit

Gentlemen,

Wow. You guys are a bit more edgy than I first thought. I just want to thank you for participating in my experiment. Let’s see, I was called a dumbass and a cowardly wuss by gw, and Ethan said he will not bother to reply and Dean said  I show that I do not have the ability to make such a judgement. Sarah actually saw the humor behind it and Michael Morotta offered a civilized explanation.

 
So based on that I would say that I am dealing with aggressive people who don’t take criticism lightly. Especially when they don’t think it is funny. Let’s see, I will start it off with a big one…….. how about there is no freewill? That sounds good. I suppose everyone here believes in freewill?
 
 Here is why I dont believe in  freewill and I will keep it brief . (Before I begin, these thoughts are heavily influenced by Spinoza). Freewill ,according to ayn rand, is your only freedom. . Spinoza wrote” "Men believe themselves to be free because they are conscious of their own actions and are ignorant of the causes by which they are determined"(The Ethics)
 
Now , if we were to learn and gain knowledge about what causes us or prompts us to act, then we would see that free will is delusional. If our minds are to act according to the natural laws or say it is finite in its operation, then free will would have to exist outside of the natural law because it does not follow a set pattern and that cannot be.
 
 (Perhaps Freewill is a moral issue. I do not believe in morals because of the religious connotation. I deal with ethics.)
 
 Once we “allow” occurrences outside of the natural law, then miracles would be real.
 
Every action by man is caused by an internal or external force. It is those forces that cause us to make decisions.
 
We are free to decide and choose between two things but we do not create the choices. The choices are already there.( If we created our own choices, then perhaps we may have freewill.)
 
Everything about life is already determined by the set laws of nature. We just get to choose what is best for us.
 
This is not an easy subject. I earnestly await your attacks and/or responses, however you express yourself. Thanks. Josh

(Edited by joshuabradley on 7/20, 5:32pm)


Post 7

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 5:27pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Josh,

Better watch out with those experiments, some folk round bouts here don't take to kindly to bein' 'sperimented on. :)

I'd take a shot at answering your questions, but I don't really feel like sifting through your post. Would you mind either editing it or reposting in a more reader friendly manner? Be mindful of your white space.

Sarah

P.S. I suddenly have a craving for chewing gum. Hmm.

Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 5, No Sanction: 0
Post 8

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 6:39pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Josh,

Firstly, I saw humor in your original post here because what you describe is the exact opposite of what SOLO is and represents.

Secondly, the free will issue is being discussed, now and forever, in a recent article with comments. Michael Stuart Kelly also made a nice post summarizing the issue and offering a response much like I would give you. I'd suggest delving into the commentary on the above article since everything is already going there.

Sarah

Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 3, No Sanction: 0
Post 9

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 6:29pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
I'll give it a go, Josh. I had a good time arguing about free will in college and I really like this dissent room. Great exercise. OK:

If we look around and see that we cause our own actions and conclude we are responsible for choosing our own actions, we are obeying the laws of nature, which is what people have to do. We choose to act and choose to think.

The thing that causes me to act is my own rational mind. So my actions, and my will, fit in with natural law. e.g. When I need energy, I eat. I could, of course, choose not to eat (but there are so many good restaurants around here). And I can only make decisions that fit in with natural laws. So, I can't decide a miracle will bring dinner to my door or eat something that doesn't exist (and why would I want to when I could have a real, actual burrito?).

Why talk about internal/external "forces"? Let's talk about circumstances and choices. So much simpler. It's not the choices that are the given, the natural circumstances are. Of course, I can affect some circumstances of future choices.

Next: I think "moral" relates to right/wrong behavior, and "ethical" relates to good/bad moral values.

And now, a question for you. What do you like about Spinoza? Do you think, as he did, that God causes all things? If you don't appreciate thinkers who combine the good ideas of previous thinkers, a philosopher who combines Descartes with the Stoics is not your man.

Post 10

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 6:53pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
My take on it may be at odds with many Oists. At some subatomic level, everything is either deterministic or statistically random. Neither way is what you'd build up to free will as a dualistic believer in a 'soul' would speak of. However, determinism underlying QM or not, tracking all the particles and forces involved to do any meaningful macroscopic predictions of human decisions is utterly impossible. Therefore no matter what we have to act on some simplifying heuristic for human behavior, and I'm happy with the heuristic 'free will'.


Post 11

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 6:59pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Aaron,

The statistical nature of QM falls off very quickly. As soon as you start talking about anything more than 100 or so particles, I think, any deviations from the "big world physics" are beyond negligible.

Sarah

Post 12

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 8:39pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Where a macroscopic object will be in general, yes, but individual particular positions could vary wildly due to tiny changes in starting conditions. When dealing with how exactly a water drop splashes, no big deal. When talking about determining whether neurons fire, I'd expect minor starting differences to have a relevant effect.

Sure it might only mean the difference between thinking of a red elephant or a purple elephant today, but with such a chaotic complex system that difference could mean the thought that makes cold fusion work or the decision to fight a land war in Asia, etc. down the road.

Post 13

Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 8:00pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
If we look around and see that we cause our own actions and conclude we are responsible for choosing our own actions, we are obeying the laws of nature, which is what people have to do. We choose to act and choose to think.

The thing that causes me to act is my own rational mind. So my actions, and my will, fit in with natural law. e.g. When I need energy, I eat. I could, of course, choose not to eat (but there are so many good restaurants around here). And I can only make decisions that fit in with natural laws. So, I can't decide a miracle will bring dinner to my door or eat something that doesn't exist (and why would I want to when I could have a real, actual burrito?).

Next: I think "moral" relates to right/wrong behavior, and "ethical" relates to good/bad moral values.


And now, a question for you. What do you like about Spinoza? Do you think, as he did, that God causes all things? If you don't appreciate thinkers who combine the good ideas of previous thinkers, a philosopher who combines Descartes with the Stoics is not your man.    Becky



Becky,
When you chose to act , you do so because you are urged to do so. Something had to setin motion your response.

You chose to eat because you are prompted not because you suddenly exercised freewill. Your urge to eat is a result of biological patterns set forth by evolution many years agothat you can't control. Of course, you can chose not to eat but perhaps you were prompted not to eat. hmmm....And I agree, your actions do follow the natural law unless of course you began to fly and jump over buildings:)

Ok. Morals are what you are taught as good and bad. Good and bad implies approval or disapproval from a judge. As a society we judge people to be good or bad but really we are punishing them based on the outcome of their action.Ethics deals with right or wrong. Right and wrong deals with consequences. An act is only right if the outcome is benficial to the person.(or if in a group then to everybody) An act is only wrong if the outcome is not beneficial to you or the group.(What is beneficial? it is beneficial if it brings happiness or pleasure)Forgive me for my utilitarian lean but.....

I enjoy Spinoza for several reasons but I will only share one. he sought to separate himself from Descartes philosophy of dualism. , Spinoza abandoned Descartes' two-substance view in favor of what he called the double-aspect theory. Double-aspect theoriy is based on the premise that the mental and the physical are simply different attributes of  the same substance. (A person can be asleep but the mind is still awake but that doesnt mean the two arent working together.The mind instructs you to breath and your heart to pump but the body pumps the blood to keep your mind working)For Spinoza, that single substance was God or nature. While agreeing with Descartes that the world of consciousness and that of extension are  separate, Spinoza rejected the Cartesian view that consciousness and extension are attributes of two finite substances in favor of the notion that they are attributes of only one infinite substance. That substance, nature, is the universal essence  of everything that exists. I am a deist and that should explain alot about why I like Spinoza. Thanks for your response. I enjoyed it. Jbrad


Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Sanction: 4, No Sanction: 0
Post 14

Saturday, July 23, 2005 - 2:45pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Not to be rude to anyone here, but did SOLO suddenly become a forum for silly amateurish discussions between university educated relativists?   Why are none of the veterans of these forums participating in the meaty discussions anymore?
 
In any case, let me try introduce OBJECTIVISM back into some of these message threads and address Josh's last post.

"When you chose to act , you do so because you are urged to do so. Something had to set in motion your response.
 
You chose to eat because you are prompted not because you suddenly exercised freewill. Your urge to eat is a result of biological patterns set forth by evolution many years agothat you can't control. Of course, you can chose not to eat but perhaps you were prompted not to eat. "

The choice of what to eat, when to eat, where to eat and if to eat at all are subject to conscious decision.  Whether or not my choices are ultimately to my benefit are subject to the laws of reality but within the context of my decision making process I have the choice to either #1. Take my knowledge of reality into consideration when making my choices or #2. Choose to evade my knowledge of reality and make other irrational choices.  Continued self destructive behavior happens as a result of direct conscious evasions of reality and thus are entirely the fault of those who chose to make continued poor decisions.

"Ok. Morals are what you are taught as good and bad. Good and bad implies approval or disapproval from a judge. As a society we judge people to be good or bad but really we are punishing them based on the outcome of their action.Ethics deals with right or wrong. Right and wrong deals with consequences. An act is only right if the outcome is benficial to the person.(or if in a group then to everybody) An act is only wrong if the outcome is not beneficial to you or the group.(What is beneficial? it is beneficial if it brings happiness or pleasure)Forgive me for my utilitarian lean but....."

You have a good precise understanding of university leftist ideology as it relates to morality.  You have gotten to the very crux of collectivism.  A very well done summary.  The ultimate result of your arguments is that :

#1.  No one can make individual value judgements -- their morality is based entirely on outside influences.  It is based entirely on what they have been taught and influenced with.  They are in effect mindless automations whose choices are determined for them and ultimately are not responsible for their actions.

#2.  Because of this ONLY society as a whole can make value judgements based upon the overall effects to the group AS A WHOLE. 

So yes, your arguement is entirely utilitarian and collectivist because  you've attempted to cut off free will -- or the ability of INDIVIDUALS to make OBJECTIVE choices.  As Ayn Rand said in a TV interview one time -- this arguement claims that people are simply "a collection of atoms" whose purpose is to serve and be sacrificed for the good of the group.  This ethical system has been used to justify every form of tyranny we've seen during the last century and has unjustly cost millions and millions of individual human beings their lives.

 - Jason

(Edited by Jason Quintana on 7/23, 2:58pm)


Post 15

Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 7:33amSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Jason, I feel the same as you. And though your more correct view may be lost on some, thanks for typing it down as you did (it's refreshing to look at). I especially like the Rand reference to "atoms" -- I had not heard that one before. I really do need to bite the bullet and obtain all of her videotaped interviews.

Ed (a "veteran" -- showing minimal, though actual, "participation")

Post 16

Sunday, July 24, 2005 - 7:52pmSanction this postReply
Bookmark
Link
Edit
Jbrad,

Your posts show that you have fallen for the fallacy of motion causation rather than (Aristotelian) entity causation.

If you can learn to be a bit more respectful of us and our beliefs, some of us might be willing to teach you some things that could help you. You might start by reading Rand's novels, or for that matter the long response I wrote earlier today to what I thought then was your sincere request for knowledge. I hope I wasn't wasting my time.

-Bill

Post to this thread


User ID Password or create a free account.