mpp

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  1. I would be happy to bring the discussion back to the scientific denial of free will. How can we have free will if they can run experiments in which they can predict that subjects will press a button in 10 seconds? Or that you can send someone a signal to move his fingers and he will do it but thinks he came up with it?
  2. I understand this counter: Arriving at the conclusion that we lack free will through rational or logical means is intrinsically self-contradictory, as rationality and logic epistemologically presuppose the existence of free will. I struggle with the second part though to fully understand: why do rationality and logic presuppose / imply free will?
  3. Interesting article, what do you guys say? Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will PHYS.ORG Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, ...
  4. Hey all, thanks for answering in my thread! Guyau, I agree with you, that arbitrary could be a stolen concept. But I am not saying that there at not non-arbitrary statements. I am asking, how we can achieve the same level of certainty about an abstraction as we have about an observation. There is a long way between arbitrary and certain. Something could be founded in evidence, hence not arbitrary but still just a hypothesis or theory. How can we ever say that our stories or interpretations are as true as something we observe with our eyes? Brant, I am not sure I follow. Consciousness observes the physical so is still needed. Also I do not want to say that there are no interpretation, stories, abstractions at all possible. I am asking how we can be certain of the truth of these. -m
  5. Hello all, I am currently doing a course in Radical Honesty (there are parallels imo to Objectivist ethics). One of the tenets of Radical Honesty is that only the noticings from your senses are true and real and everything your mind adds is a more or less arbitrary interpretation or story and cannot be considered THE truth. This idea reminds me of sensualism. The idea that only the material from our senses is true. Unfortunately I was unable to reconstruct a critique of sensualism. How can we say that our abstractions (interpretations of sensual noticings, stories) are true? In the basic Radical Honesty example it sure doesn't seem like we could. Example: Noticing: Somebody frowns and walks out the room. Story: I might interpret that person is angry at me. Fact: I do not know why the person stormed out the room. All I know for sure (to be true) is that the person pulled there mouth down, something I imagined to be frowning, and walked out the room (something I imagined as storming out). My attempt: I suppose in this situation I couldnt know for sure about the interpretation or story I make from my noticing. So I would just form a theory. At which point a theory becomes fact is probably the crux of all epistemology. I think the answer is when there is no contradicting evidence in my context? But still when is there enough evidence for it to assert it as fact? To stick with the example, lets say I do a reality check and ask the person if they are angry with me and they tell me yes and start yelling at me. I suppose then I would know as truth above sensualism that they are angry with me. But even there you could ask questions such as: maybe they are angry with themselves and projecting it on me. Maybe they just want to pretend they are angry with me to achieve a certain eng (easier breakup, pity, etc.) so can I ever really know something about what I see? I will always know for sure that the person yelled at me and made a frowning face at me. But can I be certain of the meaning / interpretation of that? Thank you for reading and chiming in!
  6. Thanks for your reply! 1. This is a good point. As far as I understand it, Objectivism doesn't equate knowledge hierarchy with fundamentality. Fundamentality is one way of hierarchy, but there are others. Hierarchy means just what has to be learn first to understand something later. They do define fundamental as a root cause though -- this definition may be arbitrary, as you can use fundamental in any other way; e.g. in the building metaphor, as you point out, where the ground floor doesn't cause the upper floors. But I can't say I fully grasp the boundaries or purpose of the concept hierarchy. 2. I guess essence would be linked to identity. So with several essences you would have several identities. According to rand, essence is contextual though, so in this sense you could have several essences; one in the context of limited knowledge, then more advanced, etc, etc. In selecting a genus, as I understand it, the genus should imply the largest number of characteristics which the concept has in common with the other things from which it is distinguished by the differentia. This makes sense in terms of cognition, as the genus will feed you more knowledge about the concept which you know from the other things in that genus. Genus should tell us what the concept means basically and how we can distinguish it from these things which have little or nothing in common with our concept. Here is Peikoff on Genus selection:
  7. On this question, here is a rough transcript from Schwartz from his course on Essentials: The thought that fundamental is a relationship between cause and derivative while essence is a relationship between concept and one of the concept's characteristics might be a good starting point for an answer.
  8. Does the term essence always pertain to a concept, hence implying a fundamental, distinguishing characterizing that is similar among many units? Or can we have an essence of a single existent? e.g. What's the essence of man? Rational animal. What's the essence of that person? We wouldn't say rational animal, maybe we would say something about his beliefs, or gene distribution or upbringing...? Can we even speak of essences of existents or is essence reserved for concepts only? How does the essence of man and the essence of that person relate? Essence makes the thing that which it is. But the concept "man" doesn't exist, so essence cannot make the concept what it is. Essence can only make man, as in that person, what he is. But how could we then say what makes him him is his rationality? I am confused between the relationship of essence, what is the essence of, when we speak of an essence of a concept and can there be an essence of something that isn't a concept? Thank you.
  9. A fundamental is the root cause of a series of multi-level, branching effects. E.g. the patriarch and matriarch of a family line. Or rationality in man, it is the cause of many of man's distinguishing features, humor, culture, science. Essence is the things that makes the thing the which it is, that without which the thing wouldn't be what it is. The family line's essence is the founders' DNA, man's essence is rationality. In what way then are a fundamental and an essence different? Or how do they relate? We say an essence is a fundamental attribute; how is this definition not circular? Thank you.
  10. Hello, in terms of thinking, what is the relationship between the concepts Fundamentality, Essence, Principles and how do they differ from each other? For instance, you can say: One must think in principles; one must think in fundamentals; one must think in essences. What is meant in each case, and how is each case different to the other? Lastly, where is each case best used/applied? THANK YOU
  11. Thank you Korben! I've enjoyed Barbara's course and I'm about to acquire Peikoff's as well. Anyone more ideas? Can be technical philosophical literature as well.
  12. Hello all, I would like to study in depth the idea of thinking in (first) principles. I'll want to answer some questions, such as when do you know you've reached the highest abstraction in the context, what exactly makes a principle a principle, how do you find "the one in many", i.e. a recurring principle in many examples, how do you deduce/induce? a principle from facts. Could you kindly point me to some material helpful in studying the above? I like Objectivism's focus on principles in this way, however, I don't mean to only study Objectivist sources -- I know some of the ancient Greeks were concerned with this topic as well. Please mention any and all you'd think would be contributive to my quest! THANK YOU.
  13. I would like to open a bit of a discourse about the idea that we could backwards engineer how our brains process information to create an artificially intelligent machine. To start here is a quote by Harry Binswanger from his book How we know that seeks limits this possibility: I follow his "answer" up to the bolded segment. Then I ask, could we not break down perception and emotions into algorithms? Why should these two phenomena not be replicable without life? I assume there is an answer that consciousness cannot be reduced to matter, but I'm questioning whether it would have to be? Couldn't we just mimic the way consciousness does its thing, just as we are now mimicking how our eyes perceive and evaluate things; e.g. visual recognition software; my iPhone can tell me what is a beach, what is a dog, etc. So for the machine to be able to perceive and feel emotions we define an enormous amount of if-then statements and other fundamental principles about how our mind works and handles input as to mimic how we process information.
  14. I know the feeling of satisfaction watching things like this. check out www.reddit.com/r/justiceporn - sort from top.
  15. thanks for the link. this makes sense, if one is truly on the brink of death starving, even regardless of the reasons why one got there, say by one's own fault, i'd still consider it an emergency if one's only choice is to steal or die. in a situation like this, it seems natural that all morality would fly out the window and one's only choice could be to survive and not to be moral. (unless the survival would carry cost so high it would make the gained life unliveable.)