Original Property

[syrakusos]

Thanks, Frediano! Found those compelling. I archived them to my own computer and actually posted both to Galt's Gulch Online. They have a patent lawyer there, Dale Halling, who has some strong opinions.

[syrakusos]

I'm still not convinced that the primary purpose of language is to allow people to think. … But if we already have concepts and cognition, then we're already thinking. Language adds nothing to this except the ability to communicate our thoughts to others.

… the primary purpose of something is the purpose it is usually used for or the purpose for which it was originally designed for or the thing it is best at doing, and in the case of language that would be communication. But the way Rand uses the word "primarily" here, it seems to me that she wants to say "cognition is a logical precondition for communication". These two statements are very different. I agree with the second, but not with the first.

btw - I'm not fully on board with Rand's view in this hierarchy. I believe this issue is a bit more complicated …

I think that Gary Fisher's claim is cogent. Considering this all day, I agree that the best purpose of language (thinking) is the not the most common purpose (communication).Which of those is "primary" depends on the context, as MSK said. Is the primary purpose of a guitar to entertain audiences?

I spend 99% of my waking day with myself and communicate rarely with others. This here is typical of my primary mode of communication. Mostly, I am in my own head.

Gary Fisher's claim that to be conceptualizing, you must be thinking without language is false. Whatever mode you use - words, music, numbers - that is the language of thought. His claim is similar to the counter-argument to Rand that in order to "choose to think" one must be thinking. As with MSK's sore foot - or the hand on a hot stove - not everything that happens in the brain is conceptual. Thinking is a specific mental activity.

I considered the ontology of language, how it may have evolved from animal cries. But how did cries evolve? It may be that some dinosaurs had "sounding caverns" in their heads to facilitate calls. But their kinds evolved over 135 million years. How calls originated is lost in that mist. Thus, it does no good to look at modern animal calls, as they are highly evolved, very sophisticated. Ravens (PBS Nature here) have 30 distinct calls in three dialects. Do they think? Tough question...

But we surely do. And much of what humans do is distinct from our animal cousins. In philosophy, we use the "Crusoe Concept" to test what is true of one person. Does Robinson Crusoe need political rights? No. Does he need morality? Desperately. How about language? Lacking anyone to talk to, he still needs to conceptualize. Therefore, to me, the primary purpose of language for a human being is thought. Communicating thoughts to others is secondary.

[Brant Gaede]

But we surely do. And much of what humans do is distinct from our animal cousins. In philosophy, we use the "Crusoe Concept" to test what is true of one person. Does Robinson Crusoe need political rights? No. Does he need morality? Desperately. How about language? Lacking anyone to talk to, he still needs to conceptualize. Therefore, to me, the primary purpose of language for a human being is thought. Communicating thoughts to others is secondary.

Going back to the pre-historic, why would someone lack someone to talk to? To you, a man, isn't the same as to man. Our brains are hard-wired for survival and reproduction, hence a social existence. Basic thinking is thinking about communicating. Even Einstein had a wife--two, I think.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

Going back to the pre-historic … Even Einstein had a wife--two, I think.

That is why I took the digression through the dinosaurs and ravens. What is the purpose of the American army? To defend the Constitution. But aggression between prehistoric tribes had nothing to do with natural rights or rule of law. We could analyze today's conflicts in those same terms, of gene pools and resources, but we would be missing something essential. We are not our ancestors.

Crusoe took as much from the ship as he could, the goats, the guns,…, all provided to him by the society from which he came. But your need for food - and your ability to acquire it - is not social. He learned language socially, of course, perhaps (I believe) starting in his mother's womb. But his need for it was personal to him, for his own survival.

Another way to look at it is by analogy to formalized studies such as mathematics. The first mathematical ideas were not theorems. Paleontologists have recovered what clearly seem to be tally sticks, likely for the phases of the Moon. The study evolved over time, but today is presented differently because it meets different needs. In fact, the "primary use of mathematics" is not counting your change at the grocery store, or figuring out what time to set the alarm clock for so that you get to work on time, even though those are among the most statistically likely uses for most people. The primary use of mathematics is discovering new studies in mathematics.

I accept MSK's point about crying out in pain, but such cries of emotion shared socially did not bring us to where we are today. Individuals who thought to themselves were and are the engines of creation.

[Brant Gaede]

Robinson Crusoe already knew a language.

If you think the purpose of the American army is to defend the Constitution, you are naive in a way that's hard to believe. Even the SCOTUS doesn't do that. The purpose is to project American power by the jerks running the joint.

Your language gig has gotten so abstract it's gone off the tracks. An island castaway doesn't trump the hard-wiring of biology or an advanced society that doesn't need tribes. In respect to the last, why the propensity to join things or hang with certain people or even post on OL? Thinking begs the question of thinking about what and communication begs the question of why. Answering these questions reveals that the two ideas are completely mixed up as used in what comes out of the mouth. (Just like induction-deduction.) The human brain box comes with a human voice box. We are discussing the chicken and the egg.

Whether your abstraction trumps mine qua abstraction is interesting qua argument, but when it gets down to the practical yours has no wheels to go anywhere. Robinson, you see, is not on a deserted island; he's in the middle of London. In the first place he had no where to go. In London it's all about going. Social, not atomistic, existence travels all over the human world.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael M,

Think storytelling.

That's the glue that holds it all together, both conceptual understanding and communication.

Without story, there is no causality, there are no experiments--no trial and error, there is no integration because differentiation only happens when things happen, and there is no reason to communicate in language.

As to this last, if you remove the story, an awful lot can be communicated by grunting, pointing, smacking and so on.

Robinson Crusoe needed his stories--not only about where he came from, but about where he was and what would happen if he did this or that--more than anything else to survive on that island.

Michael

[Selene]

@Michael Marota

Social as it is, the primary purpose of language is to enable individual thought. Communication with others is secondary.

How to lose all credibility with a single line.

And who better to be able to know that than you...

[Jules Troy]

@Michael Marota

Social as it is, the primary purpose of language is to enable individual thought. Communication with others is secondary.

How to lose all credibility with a single line.

And who better to be able to know that than you...

[Jules Troy]

3 pointer! Swish!

[Selene]

3 pointer! Swish!

[Brant Gaede]

That wasn't a true jump shot. It was more a push shot. If you can shoot that in the NBA it's bad defense. It takes more strength to shoot a jump than a push.

I don't watch NBA basketball. To many millionaires who got theirs. The college players--they all play their hearts out all the time. Unfortunately, there is now so much one and out even the best teams change so much year to year it's hard to be a fan, not even if you get to watch all their games.

--Brant

[Selene]

That wasn't a true jump shot. It was more a push shot. If you can shoot that in the NBA it's bad defense. It takes more strength to shoot a jump than a push.

I don't watch NBA basketball. To many millionaires who got theirs. The college players--they all play their hearts out all the time. Unfortunately, there is now so much one and out even the best teams change so much year to year it's hard to be a fan, not even if you get to watch all their games.

--Brant

Mr. Gaede:

Might I point out that Jules' statement was "3-pointer" with no specificity as to a jump or two handed set shot...you know the one all the white guys shot in the '40' and '50's.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

That wasn't a true jump shot. It was more a push shot. If you can shoot that in the NBA it's bad defense. It takes more strength to shoot a jump than a push.

I don't watch NBA basketball. To many millionaires who got theirs. The college players--they all play their hearts out all the time. Unfortunately, there is now so much one and out even the best teams change so much year to year it's hard to be a fan, not even if you get to watch all their games.

--Brant

Mr. Gaede:

Might I point out that Jules' statement was "3-pointer" with no specificity as to a jump or two handed set shot...you know the one all the white guys shot in the '40' and '50's.

A...

I saw a white guy shoot a set shot once. It went in!

--Brant

more than one, but all the others were on TV (shot some myself but preferred long hook shots [in practice])

[Selene]

The set shot ...

http://www.ehow.com/video_2368540_the-set-shot-basketball.html

Bob Petit used to shoot a set shot. He was the first BB player to score 20,000 points and like Wilt he averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds a game for an entire season.

A...

[Derek McGowan]

I had a recent debate with someone YouTube as to the nature of property rights. I used debate in italics because they were using the most easily brushed aside arguments that I have ever heard. To show that their points had no basis I (almost as a joke) compared human property rights to animals lack of property rights. But the more I think about it...... why don't animals have property rights?

If I am entitled to something, as my property, because I made it then what about beavers?

If humans are entitled to property because they need shelter and they create the shelter to suit those natural needs, then what about termites whose African mounds and at least as tall as man's skyscrapers relative to their size?

If humans are entitled to property because there is an element of time in the creation of something as well as labor (farming) what about leaf cutter ants?

If humans are entitled because they use a creative mind to decorate and appreciate what they have, what about the Bower bird?

If humans are entitled because they put effort into to protecting what they consider to be theirs, even going to war over land, what about wolves and bears and all the other animals, singular and grouped who kill over territory?

If human's are entitled because they can conceptually see the future value in collecting and holding onto something, what about squirrels?

Then we get into the more direct issues. If I give you, my friend, a iPhone, I have transferred ownership to you. You now own it and can do whatever you want with it. But when we give a toy to a dog, we and then we find the toy lying unused in a corner, we are somehow able to just throw it away. If I walked into your apt and noticed that you weren't using the iPhone, could i take it back and throw it away? This is like a master slave relationship where whatever the slave owns is really owned by the master and he is free to do as he likes with it

Then there are bees. They make their homes and they make a product (for themselves) and we directly reach in and take it. Does that make any sense from the standpoint of inherent property rights? I wonder though if the bee thing is easily wrapped up in capitalism though since bee keepers provide the capital structure (the boxes the bees build in) therefore all production which comes out of the worker is owned by the company

Seems to me that the reason why animals don't have property rights is simply because we don't want them to as it would complicate/impact our own rights. Or maybe WE don't have inherent property rights either (which I personally don't believe-over nature, and that is what the argument was about), we simply assert that we do.

p.s. I also do not believe that language is needed to think. I have actually been looking forward to the day when we all have brain chips connecting us to the internet because.... while it may start off as a direct connection to information, it would also be a connection to each other. We would be about to communicate telepathically and I think that language would then fall by the way side. If I can send you emotions and images directly, then you can understand exactly what I want and why without words or even static concepts. I find it hard to say that emotions could be said to be a language as different people surely experience them differently and the images and memories that you would send to accompany the emotions wouldn't be considered a language either because I can use the same image and it can mean any number of things based on my personally memories or feelings. But you would still get the translation because I would put you in my point of view directly. Language as a communication is used to bridge the gaps and bring some understanding between to minds who are feeling differing things and can't directly impart those feeling. This system would fix that and it would be so much faster and more accurate than language now.

[Brant Gaede]

Every "right" given to an animal is a right taken from a human. Giving humans or animals rights is top-down. Bottom up is political philosophers inventing rights and those philosophers are not the birds, bees, dogs or cats. Rights are codified and protected by government so the inventors and producers can go out and invent and produce as their primary function, not defend and protect. Hence police, even private security. It's not a dog driving the cop car, growing food, making and selling computers or seeing the next dog at the vet.

While there is no justification for animal rights from any philosophy that doesn't intrude on a human right there are plenty of enforceable laws against animal abuse. Let the animal abusers come up with their philosophical-legal defenses in court. I won't be there. I won't defend them. I won't testify for the defense. Don't we have other things to worry about than the fate of the dog kickers and cat torturers?

--Brant

[Derek McGowan]

What I'm saying Brant, it that there appears to be no philosophical, intrinsic, inherent basis for human property rights either except that it helps human society. That's fine, I can accept that. The problem occurs when (and I mean in general, not just this discussion about property rights) you give a reason why one group should have certain rights and yet those same reasons apply to other groups, then when presented with that information you just come up with some other excuse. This was the case with the "all men were made equal" statements which then didn't apply to women or African Americans or the Irish or whatever. It's better if you simply say from the beginning, this group is superior/has certain rights merely because we say they do AND the fact that you (the opposition) can't do anything about it

[Derek McGowan]

But I appreciate that you specifically used the term "given" rights. And rights being codified by government in order to maintain society and allow for advance

[Brant Gaede]

What I'm saying Brant, it that there appears to be no philosophical, intrinsic, inherent basis for human property rights either except that it helps human society. That's fine, I can accept that. The problem occurs when (and I mean in general, not just this discussion about property rights) you give a reason why one group should have certain rights and yet those same reasons apply to other groups, then when presented with that information you just come up with some other excuse. This was the case with the "all men were made equal" statements which then didn't apply to women or African Americans or the Irish or whatever. It's better if you simply say from the beginning, this group is superior/has certain rights merely because we say they do AND the fact that you (the opposition) can't do anything about it

I was simply addressing animal rights. You've broadened it out to what seems to me to be a mish-mash.

Group to group by your implicit formulation here reads like humans are one group and animals another.

I don't know if you know what I meant by "given." (See your next post.) Rights are not given. The codification of wrong actions is protection of rights, not the granting of rights. The validation of rights is objective identification of the individual human cognitively thinking man's ("man" covers men, women and children, all races, creeds and colors) social need to be free to act on his freely thought out conclusions and is the separation of force from that thinking. Property is the pursuit of property through production and trade and thus the right to that property--property rights--is the necessary adjunct to thinking. Without the right to life--the right to think and do (in freedom) and acquire--none of this is socially possible except by squirming through the cracks and dodging bullets. There are no rights within any person. Rights are a social moral objectification referencing man qua man invented by man to match up to people generally. Clothes are much the same thing. Unlike clothes, however, the tactility of rights is in their legal codifications. Autopsies will not reveal them.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

What I'm saying Brant, it that there appears to be no philosophical, intrinsic, inherent basis for human property rights either except that it helps human society. That's fine, I can accept that. The problem occurs when (and I mean in general, not just this discussion about property rights) you give a reason why one group should have certain rights and yet those same reasons apply to other groups, then when presented with that information you just come up with some other excuse. This was the case with the "all men were made equal" statements which then didn't apply to women or African Americans or the Irish or whatever. It's better if you simply say from the beginning, this group is superior/has certain rights merely because we say they do AND the fact that you (the opposition) can't do anything about it

I was simply addressing animal rights. You've broadened it out to what seems to me to be a mish-mash.

Group to group by your implicit formulation here reads like humans are one group and animals another.

I don't know if you know what I meant by "given." (See your next post.) Rights are not given. The codification of wrong actions is protection of rights, not the granting of rights. The validation of rights is objective identification of the individual human cognitively thinking man's ("man" covers men, women and children, all races, creeds and colors) social need to be free to act on his freely thought out conclusions and is the separation of force from that thinking. Property is the pursuit of property through production and trade and thus the right to that property--property rights--is the necessary adjunct to thinking. Without the right to life--the right to think and do (in freedom) and acquire--none of this is socially possible except by squirming through the cracks and dodging bullets. There are no rights within any person. Rights are a social moral objectification referencing man qua man invented by man to match up to people generally. Clothes are much the same thing. Unlike clothes, however, the tactility of rights is in their legal codifications. Autopsies will not reveal them.

--Brant

The lesser animals have exactly those right which humans choose to recognize.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Peter]

Ba'al Chatzaf wrote:

The lesser animals have exactly those right which humans choose to recognize.

end quote

Round and round we go! Rand was spot on. Reasoning ability and the reciprocal granting of rights is required for rights to be accepted/acquired. I have always liked Roger Bissells idea that we do not allow animal cruelty because observing cruelty bothers humans. End of story. But the idea of lion police on the Serengeti plain to stop the killing of zebras is obviously a parody of a rational argument.

Peter

Notes:

Gayle Dean once stated on objectivism@wetheliving.com:

A. EITHER both the babies and the animals have rights, or

B. NEITHER the babies nor the animals have rights.

end quote

Ralph Blanchette replied:

-- Refuting Singer's Argument from marginal Cases --

Since my last post was somewhat discursive, I want to make a more rigorous case for rejecting the argument from marginal cases for beasts' rights. Following the reasoning of Singer perhaps, Gayle Dean insists on an even-handed application of the criterion for rights. That is what I here provide.

The IEP ( http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/anim-eth.htm) summarizes Singers Argument from Marginal Cases as follows:

(1) In order to conclude that all and only human beings deserve a full and equal moral status (and therefore that no animals deserve a full and equal moral status), there must be some property P that all and only human beings have that can ground such a claim.

(2) Any P that only human beings have is a property that (some) human beings lack (e.g., the marginal cases).

(3) Any P that all human beings have is a property that (most) animals have as well.

(4) Therefore, there is no way to defend the claim that all and only human beings deserve a full and equal moral status.

I reply:

(5) P = dependence by nature on the creation of values through (some agents) exercise of reason for the survival of ones self and ones species.

(6) Since _no_ human being lacks P, including the marginal cases, (2) is false.

(7) Since _no_ beast has P, (3) is false.

(8) Therefore all and only human beings deserve a full and equal moral (/legal) status, and the argument from marginal cases fails.

[Brant Gaede]

What I'm saying Brant, it that there appears to be no philosophical, intrinsic, inherent basis for human property rights either except that it helps human society. That's fine, I can accept that. The problem occurs when (and I mean in general, not just this discussion about property rights) you give a reason why one group should have certain rights and yet those same reasons apply to other groups, then when presented with that information you just come up with some other excuse. This was the case with the "all men were made equal" statements which then didn't apply to women or African Americans or the Irish or whatever. It's better if you simply say from the beginning, this group is superior/has certain rights merely because we say they do AND the fact that you (the opposition) can't do anything about it

I was simply addressing animal rights. You've broadened it out to what seems to me to be a mish-mash.

Group to group by your implicit formulation here reads like humans are one group and animals another.

I don't know if you know what I meant by "given." (See your next post.) Rights are not given. The codification of wrong actions is protection of rights, not the granting of rights. The validation of rights is objective identification of the individual human cognitively thinking man's ("man" covers men, women and children, all races, creeds and colors) social need to be free to act on his freely thought out conclusions and is the separation of force from that thinking. Property is the pursuit of property through production and trade and thus the right to that property--property rights--is the necessary adjunct to thinking. Without the right to life--the right to think and do (in freedom) and acquire--none of this is socially possible except by squirming through the cracks and dodging bullets. There are no rights within any person. Rights are a social moral objectification referencing man qua man invented by man to match up to people generally. Clothes are much the same thing. Unlike clothes, however, the tactility of rights is in their legal codifications. Autopsies will not reveal them.

--Brant

The lesser animals have exactly those right which humans choose to recognize.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's just your idea you've stamped "right"--without any reasoning whatsoever.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

That's just your idea you've stamped "right"--without any reasoning whatsoever.

--Brant

Rights are a convention, not a biological or physical fact. See if you can derive rights from physical laws. That should be an interesting experiment.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

That's just your idea you've stamped "right"--without any reasoning whatsoever.

--Brant

Rights are a convention, not a biological or physical fact. See if you can derive rights from physical laws. That should be an interesting experiment.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Rights are derived from the same thing your three sentences are, which you obviously think is truth. You deny and affirm cognition simultaneously and you do it all the time. Rights are a human cognitive invention. You can invent things that don't literally make wheels go round--like the laws of logic.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

That's just your idea you've stamped "right"--without any reasoning whatsoever.

--Brant

Rights are a convention, not a biological or physical fact. See if you can derive rights from physical laws. That should be an interesting experiment.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Rights are derived from the same thing your three sentences are, which you obviously think is truth. You deny and affirm cognition simultaneously and you do it all the time. Rights are a human cognitive invention. You can invent things that don't literally make wheels go round--like the laws of logic.

--Brant

A Human Invention, like buggy whips and hot air balloons. Like the rules to various card games. Etc. Etc. In the scheme of things why should human rights be regarded any more a part of reality than the rules of poker or bridge?

Ba'al Chatzaf