Eva Mathews

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

Let me say something here that I keep forgetting. In one of the posts George deleted in his corner, I talked about wisdom. I was afraid you would interpret to mean your harshness toward the recently departed and you did. But it wasn't. It was about what I should do.

You're one of the good guys and always have been.

Michael

[Jules Troy]

Well you have her the benefit of the doubt and showed a lot of patience with her and that is quiet something. It was one of those cases where I had actually hoped to be wrong about someone.

I could not help but laugh over at RoR though when Luke posted something about a star trek episode "The trouble with Tribbles." In hind site though it appears OL came out on top as there seems to be a lingering presence there. I'm kinda hoping he takes up boar hunting. "Snickers"

[Guest andie holland]

Greetings from Spain! Well, it's Madrid, actually, where I do grad work in philosophy of science.

As for Eva (pronounced Ava), she's a real person & I know her well. She really is into psych stuff, and from what she's told me, she went to OL & RR

to find out at what point people become angry (emotive in evaspeak), crossing over the line from rationality.

Well, it looks like to me that OL is more about going after her (poor gurl!) than discussion of more important stuff.

Haven't had a chance to talk to Ms Whittmore over the photo thing. I think Eva was just trying to provoke The Ash-Poo into participating; both share right-ish views, while I'm an indifferent.

As 'Volland' she was a brilliant student who actually helped me with my Spanish. Should have gone to grad school, but decided upon a 'normal' course of work, marriage, and now mommahood. Sill plays a mean game of soccer, though.

Anyways, I'll take a look around, if you please. By my nature, i'm far less aggressive, s i promise not to raise anyone's blood pressure!

see ya, Andie

[Brant Gaede]

How feeble.

--Brant

[SoAMadDeathWish]

*sigh*

Know when to lose...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is Madrid located in Stone Mountain, Georgia?

Jeez...

Michael

EDIT: Goodbye Andie-Eva. From now on, I'm just going to delete and block.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Eva, who said she was 20 years old, is "Tom"? I'm skeptical. Tom is a good speller and wrote,"I'm rather well-versed in Philosophy, having taken honors at London School of Economics far back in the seventies."

Big deal, "Eva" said she's 20. "Eva" said a lot of stuff which doesn't add up, and Tom's claiming to be well-versed in philosophy doesn't mean he is. Peter Reidy was non-impressed.

Also note that "Eva," albeit with sloppy spelling and hasty manner, was making the same claims on RoR re Greek philosophers which Tom made, and that economics was a major focus of the "Matthews" posts.

ADD: Note, I didn't say "Eva" is "Tom," just "possibly."

Ellen

No big deal intended. I only said I was skeptical. Another hypothesis -- more plausible to me -- is that Eva copied from Tom.

I agree that that's more plausible.

Tom might be a sort of mentor to "Eva," as Peter Reidy suggested here.

On that Meet-Up board thread, there's a post echoing Tom by another "former member" signing as "Sharon."

link

Posted 12/18/13 8:39 PM Link to reply

Post #: 7

According to Aristotle (Meta7.17) to say that 'existence is identity' is either a hopeless tautology or simply wrong.

It can either mean, 'nothing exists apart from words that one uses to identify existants', or 'there is no reality apart from what I've just identified as such."

Aristotle's way out of this mishmash was to write that existence depends on associating four causes. Existence doesn't 'exist'. Rather, it must be found; hence, the beginning of the scientific method. Nothing exists apart from --and until the application of--the scientific method.

One can therefore either be Randian or Aristotelian.

Sharon

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Boys just want to have fun! (Girls too!)

This girl (a) wanted to know if "Eva" was a Darren game: (b) was and is interested by some of what the poster was saying, despite the poster's general incoherence and frequent hot air, and even thinks that there are some issues on which the poster was right.

Ellen

I wouldn't disagree. Why don't you do some recaps on a new thread for a continuing basis for discusion and for us to consider the poster substantively without animadversion upon same? You read a lot of her stuff on R of R and might fold in some of that.

--Brant

my guess it's the more scientific items

I'm thinking of doing as you suggested - when the dust settles a bit.

And your guess is correct.

What I'm particularly interested in is the incoherent hints "Eva" dropped about current work in perception and optic physiology.

Ellen

[Reidy]

Eva, Tom and Sharon all in one city. Where is General Sherman when you need him?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Boys just want to have fun! (Girls too!)

This girl ...and even thinks that there are some issues on which the poster was right.

Ellen

Heh, Guessed you might, Ellen. You didn't recognize your own criticism of Rand fed back at us?

Natch, you think she was right!

When she-he mooted AR's conceptual "opposites" (citing altruism/egoism, quite wrongly) - I thought immediately of you. It crossed my mind then, and I'm more sure now, he-she read of it first in the older thread amd 'borrowed' your idea. Like some otherwise intelligent people, paradoxically unoriginal and dependent on others' thinking and conclusions.

"Eva" was posting on that theme from her/his earliest posts on RoR. (The first "Eva" RoR post was dated December 26, 2013, and pertained to Greek philosophy. Rand on "altruism" soon followed as a topic.)

"Eva's" criticisms differ from mine, and I really doubt that whoever the poster is, she/he got any of it from me. According to the poster's own story, she/he didn't know of OL's existence until recently. What's true and what isn't in the story is up for grabs. However, now that I feel safe in discarding the Darren-game hypothesis, I think it's plausible that the poster didn't know of OL, and that she/he learned of RoR via the Atlanta Meet-Up group.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Eva, Tom and Sharon all in one city. Where is General Sherman when you need him?

LOL

Ellen

What's even worse is that similar persons infest academe all over this land.

[Brant Gaede]

What's even worse is that similar persons infest academe all over this land.

It was bad enough 40 - 50 years ago in the age of the mineograph machines.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

The bluffing style of Eva/Andie reminds me of that old SOLOP frootloop Elijah Lineberry when he was trying to impress everyone with how wealthy and culturally sophisticated he thought himself to be. I'm not saying that Lineberry is Eva/Andie, but just that his attempts at putting on airs were as awkward and transparent. Apparently really uncreative people resort to the same techniques. It's like:

"Ah, yes, I'm having drinkies again at 7 this evening with Marcello-Poo. We'll be meeting at the Cadenza. He's an international male model, and he tried to talk me into meeting him even earlier. He so craves being with me, and he is adorable, but I have work to do, so 7 it is! I'm still hoping to hire away the Cadenza's chef, of course. Toddums and Snickies give me no end of grief about it. After all, where will they luncheon together while Toddums writes his fifth best-selling novel and Snickies invents more artificial organs while being a surfing champion who plays lead guitar for a top 40 band? 'Why, you'll luncheon with me, dearie dearest darlings,' I tell them. Tee hee. Aren't I just naughty?"

J

[dldelancey]

The bluffing style of Eva/Andie reminds me of that old SOLOP frootloop Elijah Lineberry when he was trying to impress everyone with how wealthy and culturally sophisticated he thought himself to be. I'm not saying that Lineberry is Eva/Andie, but just that his attempts at putting on airs were as awkward and transparent. Apparently really uncreative people resort to the same techniques. It's like:

"Ah, yes, I'm having drinkies again at 7 this evening with Marcello-Poo. We'll be meeting at the Cadenza. He's an international male model, and he tried to talk me into meeting him even earlier. He so craves being with me, and he is adorable, but I have work to do, so 7 it is! I'm still hoping to hire away the Cadenza's chef, of course. Toddums and Snickies give me no end of grief about it. After all, where will they luncheon together while Toddums writes his fifth best-selling novel and Snickies invents more artificial organs while being a surfing champion who plays lead guitar for a top 40 band? 'Why, you'll luncheon with me, dearie dearest darlings,' I tell them. Tee hee. Aren't I just naughty?"

J

That's so American Psycho. Does Marcello-Poo hack up prostitutes with wire clothes hangers and chainsaws?

[Jules Troy]

Hahaha Lineberry turned out to be a hardcore racist.

[Ellen Stuttle]

The bluffing style of Eva/Andie reminds me of that old SOLOP frootloop Elijah Lineberry when he was trying to impress everyone with how wealthy and culturally sophisticated he thought himself to be. [...]

I think the style of that sort of person hearkens back at least as far as the Roman Empire.

Ever read Quo Vadis??

Rand admired that book. I admire it, too. Rand said of Wynand that he was a modern-day Petronius. Petronius is "the arbiter of elegance," a person with nobility of character possible to him who deliberately uses the courtly game - and comes to a similar end to Wynand's.

Ellen

Edit: I originally wrote "the arbiter of fashion," but the actual title was "arbiter of elegance."

The novel's Petronius is based on:

link

Gaius Petronius Arbiter (d. AD 66?)

Reputed author of the Satyricon, a fragmentary manuscript of fiction in prose and verse, which is considered one of the early examples of the novel form. Petronius is traditionally identified with Gaius Petronius Arbiter, the "judge of elegance" (arbiter elegantiae) at the court of Nero. In earlier centuries, the book was considered scandalous. Petronius also composed poems.

[....]

Little is known of Petronius the Judge's life; his original name was probably Titus Petronius Niger. Petronius was apparently wealthy and belonged to a noble family. He served as proconsul of of the Asian province of Bithynia and then acting consul or first magistrate of Rome. After this he became the favorite of Emperor Nero and the "judge of elegance", whose word on all matters of taste was law.

[....]

Petronius himself was one of the central characters in Quo Vadis? (1896) by Henry Sienkiewicz. He meets Paul who tells him: "The whole world is trembling before you, and ye are trembling before your own slaves, for ye know that any hour may raise an awful war against your oppression, such a war as has been raised more than once. Though rich, thou art not sure that the command may not come to thee to-morrow to leave thy wealth; thou art young, but to-morrow it may be necessary for thee to die."

[Jonathan]

The bluffing style of Eva/Andie reminds me of that old SOLOP frootloop Elijah Lineberry when he was trying to impress everyone with how wealthy and culturally sophisticated he thought himself to be. [...]

I think the style of that sort of person hearkens back at least as far as the Roman Empire.

Ever read Quo Vadis??

Rand admired that book. I admire it, too. Rand said of Wynand that he was a modern-day Petronius. Petronius is "the arbiter of elegance," a person with nobility of character possible to him who deliberately uses the courtly game - and comes to a similar end to Wynand's.

Ellen

Edit: I originally wrote "the arbiter of fashion," but the actual title was "arbiter of elegance."

The difference is that the Lineberry and Eva/Andie style attempts to impress with a name-dropping style that doesn't actually drop any real and/or recognizable names. When Lineberry would brag that he was meeting with someone of fame, accomplishment or importance or whatever, it was always someone whose name wasn't recognizable or someone whose real name conveniently couldn't be revealed. The people to whom he was referring were obviously either completely fictional or very exaggerated fantasy versions of his loser friends. Same with Eva/Andie's name-dropping without dropping the actual names of family and friends.

And far from being arbiters of fashion and/or elegance, Lineberry and Eva/Andie reveal in their writings that they are naifs. They constantly stumble over even the smallest of shibboleths placed in their path, and they even inadvertently volunteer a few of their own self-betrayals because they don't know when to shut up.

J

[Jonathan]

That's so American Psycho. Does Marcello-Poo hack up prostitutes with wire clothes hangers and chainsaws?

I don't know. My guess would be that if any of the "Marcello-Poo" types that Lineberry talked about were real people, they were nothing like what he claimed.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jonathan,

This stuff couldn't get any closer to the concept "social metaphysics" that was used for intimidation like a Louisville Slugger in the NBI days.

Social metaphysics may not be a useful concept for describing fundamental human nature, but it certainly seems like a great explanation of the primary hunger driving some people when they interact with others in public.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

"Social metaphysics:" two Objectivists get together and one says "A" and the other then says "is A."

--Brant

that one was easy to figure out

three Objectivists get together and together they come up with "A is A is A"--and get banned by Rand

(these are original with me)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan, re post #92:

I misled you inadvertently by talking about Petronius. I wasn't intending a comparison of Lineberry and "Eva/Andie" (who may or may not be the same person) to Petronius, but instead to the general run of the Nero's court characters in Quo Vadis?. Petronius in the story is comparable to Wynand, and the development with Petronius has similarities to that of Wynand, since Petronius came to his downfall through interaction with Christians, portrayed as honorable people, as did Wynand through his relationship with Roark.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, re post #92:

I misled you inadvertently by talking about Petronius. I wasn't intending a comparison of Lineberry and "Eva/Andie" (who may or may not be the same person) to Petronius, but instead to the general run of the Nero's court characters in Quo Vadis?. Petronius in the story is comparable to Wynand, and the development with Petronius has similarities to that of Wynand, since Petronius came to his downfall through interaction with Christians, portrayed as honorable people, as did Wynand through his relationship with Roark.

Ellen

Ah, I see. I did misunderstand.

J