The Soul of Atlas- Ayn Rand, Christianity, a Quest for Common Ground


Mike82ARP

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Jerry,

Re your post #43, I didn't assign Branden's writings "to the trash bin." I thought and think that some of his work was significant. However, I also thought and think that he was doing a fair amount of playing on Rand's ignorance and slanting things to give her the story she wanted to hear, quite similarly to what I think David Harriman has been doing in regard to Leonard Peikoff with the subject of physics.

Regarding Branden, I became convinced that he was knowingly putting a spin on things he said in a course he gave titled "A Critical Analysis of Modern Psychology." I took that course by tape in Chicago starting February 18, 1964. Previously I had suspicions from his writings, and from the book Who Is Ayn Rand?. Branden had studied psychology in university programs. I didn't and don't believe that someone with a university education in the field could innocently caricature to the extent to which he caricatured.

By the time I took the "Critical Analysis" course I had two years of university courses in Behaviorism behind me. I was very much not a fan of Behaviorism, but despite my antipathy to the approach, I would never have distorted the way Branden did in criticizing.

I had some knowledge of the Gestaltists, less of Freudianism. I wasn't on as confident ground with those approaches, but I thought he was caricaturing there too. I knew next to nothing of Jung. Jung was taken with no seriousness whatsoever in my courses and texts. He was bracketed aside with hardly any mention as a mystical off-shoot of Freud. Branden, like my courses and texts, made just a few passing comments about Jung. I couldn't assess his remarks. Had I known then what I know today, smoke would have come from my ears. As it was, I several times felt like cursing aloud at the tape recorder because of other comments emerging from it.

Ellen

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[....]

I should add here, that I have had considerable personal interaction with Nathaniel Branden on several occasions. One, being his lecture at the university that I was attending, shortly after the publication of his book, The Psychology of Self-Esteem. He spoke to an overflow capacity of students in their largest auditorium. After the lecture, which was well received - he was given a standing ovation (Later, he confided to me that he was taken aback by the overwhel ming positive response that his lecture received. I replied that they were likely also expressing the appreciation for his intellectual contributions at NBI and in The Objectivist) - he was bombarded with questions for several hours about his psychological theories, about Ayn Rand, and about Objectivism. Although this prolonged amount of grilling would try anyone's patience, he never replied out of anger. I was waiting to see the legendary arrogance that I had heard of. It was never displayed over the three days that he was our guest.

On earlier occasions, while attending some courses and lectures at NBI in New York City, I did not personally witness any display of discourteous behavior on Branden's part. [....]

Interesting. I've seen Nathaniel on a couple occasions post-split - quite awhile post-split, Fall 1999 and Summer 2000 - and I corresponded with him pretty extensively in '97 through 2001, and some after that, last time in 2007. I didn't witness discourteous or arrogant behavior in that time frame.

Pre-split, however, on both the two occasions when I saw him, I thought he exhibited fairly obnoxious behavior.

One of those occasions was at Rand's McCormick Place talk September 29, 1963. Branden acted as moderator/intercepter during the Q&A. He responded harshly to and dismissed questions he considered out of line. (A couple of those questions seemed out of line to me too, but dismissible without need for the manner he employed.)

The second occasion made a really bad impression on me. After the West Coast trip during which Rand got the honorary doctorate from Lewis and Clark College, Branden came back to Chicago to deliver the opening lecture of the "Basic Principles" course on October 11.

The audience was on the order of 150 people, large enough for a microphone to be needed. At the start of Branden's talk, the microphone blipped out. There was a maybe half minute, if that long, delay before someone from the back told him, "The mike isn't working." The pause was the normal sort of pause on such an occasion. People generally, politely, are disinclined to interrupt a lecturer, so it usually takes a few seconds before someone from an audience informs the lecturer when a microphone isn't working - or at least that had been, and has subsequently been, my experience of such occasions. It's also always, except in that event, been my experience that the lecturer pauses, says something like, "Oh," and either adjusts the mike him/herself or waits while the attending tech person makes the adjustment.

At that event, however, Branden launched into an acidulous dressing-down of the audience. What was wrong with us? Were we all sheep? Was there not an independent person in the place? And a bit more.

I wondered, would Rand have approved, and did he tell her about the incident when he went back to New York?

I'm aware that Rand had a rep for exploding at questions she didn't like. (I didn't know about this reputation in 1963.) I witnessed a number of her explosions at the Ford Hall Forum later. But none of those seemed to me the same type of thing. Rand responded from too-hasty jumping to conclusions, but Branden's behavior about the microphone I think was rude and popinjay self-important.

Ellen

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Yo, did I hear somebody was picking on one of my bff's?

I too admire many of NB's writings and his accomplishments.And I never saw him much less met him, but I have heard many people speak of doing so, not just on here. And I have to say, in all those recollections, the word "pompous" was repeated.

I recall Brant, who knows him well, said that NB told him he had never had the pleasure of meeting anybody more intelligent than himself. Maybe he was joking, or maybe he does not get out much. Brant would know best of that.

Rest my case.

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I came across this web page while looking for some information I still haven't found regarding Newton's alchemical writings (specifically, how long those papers sat unread in boxes in the Newton Archives - on the order of 250 years, if I recall right).

I hadn't heard of this author before. He's written other books I noticed the names of in my search.

What he says here sounds like something I've been thinking for years, though I don't know how he goes on with it, if he's headed in the same direction as my further thoughts.

http://www.thomasksimpson.com/nmm.html

"Newton, Maxwell, Marx:

Reflections on Science."

2005 Green Lion Press

www.greenlion.com

[several paragraph breaks added]

Newton, Maxwell, Marx: three pillars of our western intellectual inheritance, yet each more celebrated in encyclopaedias and histories than read. It is the thesis of this new volume forthcoming from the Green Lion Press that there is much to be gained from a fresh reading of these authors. Three extensive essays are collected here, each reflecting a re-reading of a work of one of these authors: respectively, Newton's Principia, Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, and Marx's Capital. A commentary has been added, linking them and proposing a dialectical thread that begins in the 17th century, and develops an unfolding vision of science still challenging in our own time.

The account begins with the recognition that Newton's Principia constitutes overall a polemic against mechanism, and specifically a refutation of Descartes' vision of nature as a mathematical machine. Newton embraces, certainly, the conviction that the natural world is mathematical throughout, but he distinguishes from the outset what is inert -- as all nature is for Descartes -- from a second principle that he calls active force. Newton in this way opens spaces throughout the Cartesian plenum in which spirit, this second principle, can operate.

It is difficult today, in our world of universal engineering, to see again with Newton's eyes the significance of this distinction, and to recognize that a law of force, though strictly mathematical, is not thereby rendered mechanical. Newton shapes his geometrical mathematics as a rhetorical instrument rich in meaning; in such a world the statement that a system is mathematical throughout is by no means a reductive proposition.

This distinction is of first importance to Newton, as it may well be for us, since it becomes clear that within the realm of nature the scope of the Principia is altogether universal. Thus the justly celebrated System of the World, Newton's account of the heavenly motions, becomes hardly more than an example, a first instance of the new system. Force is exactly the domain of what alchemy calls spirit, and Newton as master alchemist, as we now know him to have been, is surely on the track of the ultimate of the spirits in nature, the vital force.

We once approached the Principia as the founding work of modern physics; now we see it as the culminating work of serious alchemy -- a mathematical biology of all natural functions, inclusive of the very cause of life itself -- and indeed, as Newton's book of life. The unity of Newton's thought may astound us, as we ourselves try to piece together in our own time a coherent picture of the world; thus, the Principia holds a central place in Newton's theology, since the concept of force restores scope for God's active presence in the world, a presence crucial to Newton's faith, for which mechanism had left no room.

Ellen

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"Popinjay and self-important."

I swear to God my first thought was of Phil upon hearing this phrase. :laugh: :laugh:

The phrase was "popinjay self-important," i.e., popinjay modifying self-important. :smile:

If it made you think of Phil, it didn't convey the intended flavor. It's a better phrase for Phil than for NB.

Did you ever see Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in his television appearances? There was a glitter to him and an odd look in his eyes, an intense charismatic fire. I thought of a comparison between NB and Bishop Sheen. I'd already thought of that at the McCormick Place event. The added thing of Nathaniel's giving such a dressing-down as he gave to an audience of people who were there to hear the opening lecture of a course they could then decide to enroll for or not gave me an awfully unpleasant feeling. It was like, what did he think the audience were that he'd scold in such a fashion?

I suppose, again, I might be reminding you of Phil, since Phil seems to think of the whole world as a classroom for him to scold. But, again, there's a difference in the flavor. Nathaniel's delivery had a scorn in it which seemed acid and a very self-elevating way for a person to feel toward an audience most of whom were strangers. Suppose a coach were dressing-down a team who he thought had put in a wretched show, maybe the coach might talk like that wanting to elicit abashed reactions. There could be contexts where I'd find the tone understandable, but this wasn't that kind of context.

Ellen

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I find the "judgments" of folks like Ellen, who I respect, to be a tad out there when they do not consider the place that a person like Newton was in, with the state of knowledge at that time.

Hello?

What does that comment mean?

Exactly what I'm pointing out is "the place that a person like Newton was in, with the state of knowledge at that time," contrary folks who say he was "compartmentalizing," his physics pursuits in one compartment and then all the supposedly irrational activities as a different category. As I said, for Newton it was all of one piece. He was not afflicted by post-Newtonian conflicts.

Ellen

Ellen, my apology. I was inartful in what I posted.

A...

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Yo, did I hear somebody was picking on one of my bff's?

I too admire many of NB's writings and his accomplishments.And I never saw him much less met him, but I have heard many people speak of doing so, not just on here. And I have to say, in all those recollections, the word "pompous" was repeated.

I recall Brant, who knows him well, said that NB told him he had never had the pleasure of meeting anybody more intelligent than himself. Maybe he was joking, or maybe he does not get out much. Brant would know best of that.

Rest my case.

Question: (I don't recall the actual question so I made up an approximate one to go with the answer) Therapy group: "You know how you feel meeting someone more intelligent than yourself? NB (quiet very centered assuredness) : "I've never had the pleasure." (Exact quote, 1976)

--Brant

It wasn't my question

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I came across this web page while looking for some information I still haven't found regarding Newton's alchemical writings (specifically, how long those papers sat unread in boxes in the Newton Archives - on the order of 250 years, if I recall right).

I hadn't heard of this author before. He's written other books I noticed the names of in my search.

What he says here sounds like something I've been thinking for years, though I don't know how he goes on with it, if he's headed in the same direction as my further thoughts.

http://www.thomasksimpson.com/nmm.html

"Newton, Maxwell, Marx:

Reflections on Science."

2005 Green Lion Press

www.greenlion.com

[several paragraph breaks added]

Newton, Maxwell, Marx: three pillars of our western intellectual inheritance, yet each more celebrated in encyclopaedias and histories than read. It is the thesis of this new volume forthcoming from the Green Lion Press that there is much to be gained from a fresh reading of these authors. Three extensive essays are collected here, each reflecting a re-reading of a work of one of these authors: respectively, Newton's Principia, Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, and Marx's Capital. A commentary has been added, linking them and proposing a dialectical thread that begins in the 17th century, and develops an unfolding vision of science still challenging in our own time.

The account begins with the recognition that Newton's Principia constitutes overall a polemic against mechanism, and specifically a refutation of Descartes' vision of nature as a mathematical machine. Newton embraces, certainly, the conviction that the natural world is mathematical throughout, but he distinguishes from the outset what is inert -- as all nature is for Descartes -- from a second principle that he calls active force. Newton in this way opens spaces throughout the Cartesian plenum in which spirit, this second principle, can operate.

It is difficult today, in our world of universal engineering, to see again with Newton's eyes the significance of this distinction, and to recognize that a law of force, though strictly mathematical, is not thereby rendered mechanical. Newton shapes his geometrical mathematics as a rhetorical instrument rich in meaning; in such a world the statement that a system is mathematical throughout is by no means a reductive proposition.

This distinction is of first importance to Newton, as it may well be for us, since it becomes clear that within the realm of nature the scope of the Principia is altogether universal. Thus the justly celebrated System of the World, Newton's account of the heavenly motions, becomes hardly more than an example, a first instance of the new system. Force is exactly the domain of what alchemy calls spirit, and Newton as master alchemist, as we now know him to have been, is surely on the track of the ultimate of the spirits in nature, the vital force.

We once approached the Principia as the founding work of modern physics; now we see it as the culminating work of serious alchemy -- a mathematical biology of all natural functions, inclusive of the very cause of life itself -- and indeed, as Newton's book of life. The unity of Newton's thought may astound us, as we ourselves try to piece together in our own time a coherent picture of the world; thus, the Principia holds a central place in Newton's theology, since the concept of force restores scope for God's active presence in the world, a presence crucial to Newton's faith, for which mechanism had left no room.

Ellen

Newton was a God Phreak. Read the Scholium of Book III of Principia Mathematica.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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next!--round four!

First you have to make it to round one.

Speaking of how Newton saw things, here's an interview pertaining to Newton's alchemical investigations:

Newton the Alchemist.

Newton the Alchemist

Posted 11.15.05 NOVA

The revelation that Sir Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist of all time, practiced the covert art of alchemy may shock us today, but was this pursuit considered deviant in Newtons own era? To find out, we spoke to Bill Newman, an historian of science at Indiana University who spent years deciphering Newton's secret coded recipes.

Ellen

Your empiricism has beaten down my deductivism.

--Brant

damn!

(sore loser)

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