Off to Vegas for Free Minds 09 & Freedom Fest


Chris Grieb

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there are politicians with zero integrity and educators who are moral giants, but, by and large, the mythology of the noble educator lifting the ignorant masses from the great swamp of ignorance is liberal heroic fantasy, and fits like a glove the leftist notion that the majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled.

I think Aristotle essentially had the right idea with his Golden Mean: all things in balance.

Except, ironically, that Aristotle's own political views, tended to the "majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled":

We should not think that each of the citizens belongs to himself, but that they all belong to the State. (Politics Book VIII) Not to mention his belief that some people--women, slaves, aliens--did not rate even as citizens, and that some people were "by nature" slaves.

"Not to mention his belief that some people--women, slaves, aliens--did not rate even as citizens, and that some people were 'by nature' slaves." And surely you know that that is true, the United States was a happy place before women got the right to vote and hold property. Long live the Aristotelian state!

Adam

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there are politicians with zero integrity and educators who are moral giants, but, by and large, the mythology of the noble educator lifting the ignorant masses from the great swamp of ignorance is liberal heroic fantasy, and fits like a glove the leftist notion that the majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled.

I think Aristotle essentially had the right idea with his Golden Mean: all things in balance.

Except, ironically, that Aristotle's own political views, tended to the "majority of people are stupid swine who are unable to manage their own affairs and need to be controlled":

We should not think that each of the citizens belongs to himself, but that they all belong to the State. (Politics Book VIII) Not to mention his belief that some people--women, slaves, aliens--did not rate even as citizens, and that some people were "by nature" slaves.

Yes, well, you should read what he has to say about gravity. :lol:

You take the good and leave the bad.

Also, Aristotle's views, as deplorable as they are, were still superior to the views expressed by Plato in The Little Red Book The Republic

Edited by Michelle R
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Also, Aristotle's views, as deplorable as they are, were still superior to the views expressed by Plato in The Little Red Book The Republic

The ideal city of The Republic was mostly an exercise in political fantasy, for his final thoughts try the Laws, which in many respects was even worse.

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Also, Aristotle's views, as deplorable as they are, were still superior to the views expressed by Plato in The Little Red Book The Republic

The ideal city of The Republic was mostly an exercise in political fantasy, for his final thoughts try the Laws, which in many respects was even worse.

The Republic, The Statesman, and The Laws really all need to be read within a short period of time of oneanother to get the fullest sense of Plato's political philosophy.

It is The Republic that we get the fullest sense of the tyrant's soul in Plato, however.

Edited by Michelle R
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The problem with induction is its unreality and contriveness and solving it will have no positive effect on human reasoning ability or scientific methodology. It's an implicit demand both for certainty and stagnation, the cessation of motion and change laterally across space and conceptually across time. Our brains evolved the way they have so uncertainty can be reduced and life sustaining actions can be possible, but not reduced so much that knowledge must be replaced by hubris and consequent bumping into walls we are made to know are there.

--Brant

What's the matter with induction? I use it all the time. :D

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Here's my story:

Part 1.

When I was in kindergarten, I figured out how to square the circle, double the cube, and trisect any angle with a compass and straightedge. Pretty easy stuff, really...

Not with a compass and straight-edge you didn't.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Thomas’ post #155 has a serious side. He quipped: “What’s the matter with induction? I use it all the time.”

The problem of induction is not a problem of not believing that induction is useful. Nor is it the problem of how to persuade someone who does not believe induction useful that it is.

Nelson Goodman thought he had arrived at “a new problem of induction.” Leave that aside, to begin. Its relation to “the old problem of induction” can be determined once one knows what is that old problem. What is that old problem of induction anyway?

To solve problems, we must be able to state the problems. That goes for philosophical problems as well as for scientific or mathematical problems. It is no good working on solving “the problem of universals” or “the problem of perception” or “the problem of induction” if one cannot state the problem. Moreover, if every formulation of the problem we consider looks like not a problem, then there is indeed no such problem to be solved (Popper liked to say he had not solved, but had dissolved the problem of induction) or we have not yet succeeded in stating the problem. Those who have got the problem stated will naturally look with a sad smile at attempted solutions from those who cannot state the problem.

In calling for a statement of the problem(s) of induction, I don’t mean to draw thinking about the problem into this thread. In other threads, ones dedicated to the topic of induction, such efforts at stating and solving (or dissolving) the problem of induction are less likely to be lost.

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Subject: How To Break Through (responding to Barbara's points)

> To break into that world [of mainstream publishing] with a book on *philosophy* [emphasis added] will be extremely difficult. [barbara, post # 131, yesterday]

I understand. In part because of this, my plan is NOT to write on philosophy qua philosophy, not to try to seek publication on ambitious "grand theory" until I have some prior publishing credits and a bit of a name (for example to present a theory of induction or a taxonomy of causality) or other rarefied or heavily 'credentialized' topics, topics where the publishers would prefer a Ph.D. or a Harvard Professor. It would simply be viewed as presumptuous or crackpot. My mistake was to have not become a professor. I would need some substantial credibility to have a publisher accept, get behind, and market something he expects would not have a large instant audience.

(( I expect, in fact, it's likely that such topics, if presented as purely theory rather than including many applications that readers can use, may not be publishable in the mainstream at all. Witness how few copies a world-famous novelist's treatise on concept theory sells compared to Capitalism or Virtue of Selfishness. Do you have a plan for a book on efficient thinking that sells to more than the Oist world?))

I'll cross the 'venue bridge' for the theoretical philosophy topics when I come to it. That's years from now . It's not necessary to me that a treatise on induction or causality become a best-seller or a big money maker. Just that it's out there and thoughtful people slowly gravitate to it over a century or however long.

> you will find a concern with credentials, and, most particularly, with prior publications and past successes.

Especially for a first-time book writer with no name or track record.

> how terribly difficult it is to break into philosophical journals and into mainstream publications? It isn't only Will Thomas who is concerned with credentials and degrees.

Here is my plan and where I am at this point [next post, coming up]:

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Subject: How To Break Through [continued]

Here is my plan and where I am at this point -- practical applications not theory:

I have two book ideas and pages and pages of notes and spadework in each ==> (#1) one on education and curriculum...what's wrong, how to reform them...drawing on my experience as a teacher of a range of subjects at different levels. This is a 'hot' area, and my credential is that of a teacher. Another book: (#2) within the broad topic of rationality, a very specific area of thinking [quite different from and narrower than the survey or overview of thinking topics I think you/Barbara/ cover].

> it's what every writer wants [to reach the best minds]. But you can't start there. You have to be like the storytellers of old, going from campfire to campfire spinning your tales -- in your case, your ideas -- to whomever will liisten.

I agree completely. To mix metaphors, I do understand that I have to build exposure and audiences. I'm looking to score some walks, singles, and doubles before swinging for the fences for a grand slam home run.

There is a reason for working on two topics/two book possibilities which I don't need to go into, but at some point, I will try to publish or speak on 'chunks' of the forthcoming books. And Ill seek out those campfires. Maybe one of those will be an Oist or NAS or equivalent venue, but no tright away as I don't want to be pigeonholed as a 'conservative' writer.

> I return to the blog idea. You may start with a very small audience, but if you're really good, that audience will grow; there are examples of that happening all over the Internet. If your audience grows, that could eventually be your doorway into mainstream publishing,

My own newsletter, Classics Review, before the internet was my first lesson in self-publishing. And regularity of writing. It's often said that a blog or website has to feature regular new content. You have to write for it pretty much every day, else your audience won't keep coming back to read your blog. Writers who publish too much too frequently rather than having a gestation period sometimes run dry or get repetitious. I'm much more of a volatile or "burst" thinker. I'll have a dozen things to say for several months and then not much for half a year. So, as with CR, I'm not sure a day in, day out blog is the ideal venue for me. In our little circle, even Rand and the Oist publications had a problem coming out on a longer time frame, every month. And the New Individualist had to switch to being quarterly, TIA is way behind schedule, etc. The only person who ever kept to schedule was Harry Binswanger with The Objectivist Forum.

If the topic were daily events or the news or politics, I would have a comment every day since there is new stuff happening every day. But applied epistemology or education? Not so much.

[continued in next post]

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How to Break Through (end of post)

> Have you made any contacts in the world of mainstream publishing? Do you have or are you looking for an agent?

No, not yet. My assumption is that (both?) would be premature. Reason: I'm at a very early stage in getting things in polished shape to show professionals. I assume (and gather from what I've read)that no busy people in the know would talk to me until I've published some articles in the area of my interests, nor read my 'book proposal' without any credentials. And once they've said no, it's hard to reapproach them. I've read in writer's mags that agents don't represent nobodies until they can show them perhaps more than what I have. My publishing and speaking clips are pretty small compared to people with a 'name' with Ph.d's, etc. and they are right now largely within the classical liberal and Ayn Rand worlds - which is not the world I want to write for or where I want to be pigeonholed.

The good news is the (hopefully appealing if well written and thought out) nature of my topics.

The speeches and courses I gave at the summer seminars over the last ten years - Concretization, Reaching and Sustaining Benevolence, Heroes and Role Models for example - were in large measure *application* topics. I have lots to say on how even the man on the street can practically use, apply theoretical philosophy or psychology or self-help in everyday life. I'll have a struggle and lots of turn downs, but that should be easier to publish on in print than theory.

I'm thinking about other venues and formats besides "mainstream publishing". And in particular, not starting by submitting to top, highly competitive magazines.

Alternative venues include: classroom courses, lectures, workshops, print articles, online articles, workbooks and resources for teachers. I've dipped my toe into the water with this already in the classroom - courses I've taught as a teacher. "In service" workshops.

Those are my (tentative) plans on how to start. I'm very willing to listen to feedback on this. And interested to hear of any reasons why my plan is not the best one, or any other ideas. MSK said he had ideas on audience generation. I've long read publications like Writer's Digest and Writer's Market which are devoted to this and more widely how to break in, how to get published, how to carve out your 'niche' market.

I'm not rejecting the blog [or topical website] idea permanently, but I'm thinking of not starting that way for the reasons I mentioned earlier this afternoon. I'm thinking of starting by writing articles, finding speaking venues, and the other alternative approaches and audiences I just mentioned. (Included: courses at adult education and 'education reform movement' venues.

--Phil

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Thanks, Ginny. I'm certainly going to push forward steadily - but the process will be years long.

By the way, (1) despite my experiences of disinterest, incomprehension, or the like from Peikoff or Kelley, it's not my sense that those two men were threatened by something "not invented here" or that the problem was an ethical one. There's lots of room for errors of judgment or perceptiveness or being distracted because one is busy... (2)Someone else speculated on this: I don't have the sense that Peikoff's solution to the problem or induction or his broad theory of induction is along the lines of the paper I did for hims so many years ago. I'll wait for his book, until I can see it in writing, but you don't start a theory of induction with very advanced topics like 'induction in physics and philosophy'. You start with everyday causal phenomena and things around you on the level that even a child has started to notice. Until you can reason from individual observations about them "This S1, S2, S3 is P" to generalize that "All S is P", you certainly can't induce about laws of thermodynamics or principles of ethics.

Nor are the principles of induction and how you do it practically an extension of concept theory or of ITOE. It's a new science with very new insights.

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I don't have the sense that Peikoff's solution to the problem or induction or his broad theory of induction is along the lines of the paper I did for hims so many years ago. I'll wait for his book, until I can see it in writing, but you don't start a theory of induction with very advanced topics like 'induction in physics and philosophy'. You start with everyday causal phenomena and things around you on the level that even a child has started to notice. Until you can reason from individual observations about them "This S1, S2, S3 is P" to generalize that "All S is P", you certainly can't induce about laws of thermodynamics or principles of ethics.

Nor are the principles of induction and how you do it practically an extension of concept theory or of ITOE. It's a new science with very new insights.

Phil,

I think you are right about your theory striking off in at least a somewhat different direction from anything that Leonard Peikoff has been doing.

In Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, he talks about proof as though "all" that needs doing is extending Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology from hierarchies of concepts to hierarchies of propositions. If anything, OPAR pulls back from some of the suggestions he had made in his old logic course.

Anyhow, unless Leonard Peikoff is using his DIM volume as a diversion wile he really concentrates on a secret induction project, there will be no book from him on the subject. There may be one, in a little while, from David Harriman—with the emphasis on physics that you've questioned.

Robert Campbell

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I don't have the sense that Peikoff's solution to the problem or induction or his broad theory of induction is along the lines of the paper I did for hims so many years ago. I'll wait for his book, until I can see it in writing, but you don't start a theory of induction with very advanced topics like 'induction in physics and philosophy'. You start with everyday causal phenomena and things around you on the level that even a child has started to notice. Until you can reason from individual observations about them "This S1, S2, S3 is P" to generalize that "All S is P", you certainly can't induce about laws of thermodynamics or principles of ethics.

Nor are the principles of induction and how you do it practically an extension of concept theory or of ITOE. It's a new science with very new insights.

Phil,

I think you are right about your theory striking off in at least a somewhat different direction from anything that Leonard Peikoff has been doing.

In Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, he talks about proof as though "all" that needs doing is extending Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology from hierarchies of concepts to hierarchies of propositions. If anything, OPAR pulls back from some of the suggestions he had made in his old logic course.

Anyhow, unless Leonard Peikoff is using his DIM volume as a diversion wile he really concentrates on a secret induction project, there will be no book from him on the subject. There may be one, in a little while, from David Harriman—with the emphasis on physics that you've questioned.

Robert Campbell

Phil and Robert -- DIM and OPAR are NOT the places to look for clues about Peikoff's latest views on causality and induction. And I don't think you have a realistic impression of what is REALLY in his more recent courses on induction. He does NOT start them on an "advanced" level. He starts them very basically, and in a very illuminating manner. I am somewhat surprised that neither of you has checked this out.

After having thoroughly listened to and read Peikoff's recent courses, Objectivism through Induction and Induction in Physics and Philosophy, I'm convinced that ANYONE who attempts to present an Objectivist or Objectivism-inspired theory of causality and/or induction that do NOT consult those courses is going to find himself embarrassed by having "re-invented the wheel." See especially lecture 1 in OTI and lectures 1 and 2 in IPP.

I think that the guts of Peikoff's view/theory of induction will be present in the early chapters of Harriman's book. (He's writing two books, one on the history of modern science and one on induction. All we've seen excerpted in The Objective Standard are chapters from the former book.) I don't know whether this book will be GREAT, but I do firmly believe (from the evidence) that it will be GOOD ENOUGH that it needs to be reckoned with, before tossing out one's own ideas (as good as they may be).

...unless you simply intend to bypass the Objectivist movement entirely, which I think would be a mistake.

We theorists are all engaged in the "Great Conversation," not working in a vacuum or a hermetically sealed conceptual generator. We have to "hook in" SOMEWHERE, within SOME context, if we want to be taken credibly. Unless you want to divorce yourself from Objectivism and Objectivists, I think it behooves you to plant your feet somewhere friendly within the movement and grow from there, especially since your own views are so obviously Rand-inspired.

Phil, I am well aware of your struggles, having had similar, parallel struggles of my own. I have been called a "crank" and an "enemy of Objectivism" and have had proposals turned down at least as many times for as many lame reasons as you have. Yet, I have still managed to make SOME headway within the movement, despite having been relegated at meetings of IOS/TOC/TAS/TBA to "back room" status in re my most serious, challenging ideas.

First of all, I have had a number of important (to me, anyway!) pieces on my aesthetics and epistemology and metaphysics views published in Chris Sciabarra's Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. You would almost certainly have a sympathetic reception and a welcome place in that publication. Yet, I am shocked to read, YOU HAVE NOT EVEN READ A SINGLE ISSUE OF THIS JOURNAL! What the fracking frack????!!!! The single best organ and avenue for "Open Objectivism," and you have not bothered to even check it out???!!!

<sigh> Why do I get the feeling that I am engaged in an exercise in futility?

Anyway, secondly, I applied to Free Minds 09 to speak on aesthetics, and wonder of wonders, I was ACCEPTED! And not for a "back room" presentation, but a regular break-out session. Other speakers were there, including Ed Hudgins, who spoke favorably to me about my presentation. (Though David Kelley was not there.) I did my very first ever Power Point presentation with audio examples--and despite some a/v hookup problems, managed to do a good job and get some wonderful feedback from the audience.

Thirdly, I too have books in outline form--but also actual research projects about to begin (with the help of another Objectivist who specializes in statistical analysis) on analyzing emotion and meaning in music, which will turn into journal articles and/or books and/or lecture courses.

So, IT CAN BE DONE, Phil. You are not Don Quixote in re the Objectivist movement. You are just being a little too gun-shy because of unencouraging behavior from those who should be most nurturing to your efforts, but apparently don't give a flip about them. Well, SCREW THEM! Take the opportunities THAT ARE THERE for you to benefit from.

Phil, I am not going to live forever, and I can assure you that I AM GOING TO GET MY IMPORTANT IDEAS DISSEMINATED. And my friend, YOU are not going to live forever EITHER. Stop talking about it, and DO IT. Otherwise, your jaw will STILL be flapping about what you WANT to do when they lower you into your grave, and the world will not benefit from the usefulness and enligtenment that your ideas have to offer.

That's all I have to say on this topic.

REB

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Thanks very much, Roger, for those suggestions above.

> what is REALLY in his more recent courses on induction. He does NOT start them on an "advanced" level. He starts them very basically, and in a very illuminating manner. [Roger]

Roger, you apparently think highly enough of them - and their validity - to advocate spending the money to buy the quite expensive recordings in 'oral' form rather than waiting for the written form.

Can you say briefly (as in a paragraph or two - not pages of notes) what his theory is and a non-trivial generalization (like water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, all men are mortal, or some other general proposition) that he induces with certainty using it?

I've had several people listen to the tapes and they apparently didn't understand them very well, because when I tried to pin them down, it was all "hand waving". They (I don't mean you) couldn't articulate it in an essentialized way with succinct, clear, everyday, real world examples.

Thanks,

Phil

PS, I'm not talking about -Objectivism- through Induction, but the more down to earth phenomena all around us that even a child would start to generalize about.

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Thanks very much, Roger, for those suggestions above.

> what is REALLY in his more recent courses on induction. He does NOT start them on an "advanced" level. He starts them very basically, and in a very illuminating manner. [Roger]

Roger, you apparently think highly enough of them - and their validity - to advocate spending the money to buy the quite expensive recordings in 'oral' form rather than waiting for the written form.

Can you say briefly (as in a paragraph or two - not pages of notes) what his theory is and a non-trivial generalization (like water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, all men are mortal, or some other general proposition) that he induces with certainty using it?

I've had several people listen to the tapes and they apparently didn't understand them very well, because when I tried to pin them down, it was all "hand waving". They (I don't mean you) couldn't articulate it in an essentialized way with succinct, clear, everyday, real world examples.

Thanks,

Phil

PS, I'm not talking about -Objectivism- through Induction, but the more down to earth phenomena all around us that even a child would start to generalize about.

Phil, that is EXACTLY the kind of example that I was thinking of (not OTI, but something everyday, concrete). If you will please email me (at rebissell AT aol DOT com) your personal email address, I'll be happy to provide an example that I think you will find convincing. I'll also throw in his inductive method for validating causality. As for summarizing his ~theory~ of induction, I'll try my best to do that. But the examples should help a lot, even if I get tongue-tied with the general case, no?

REB

P.S. -- I want to do it through personal email rather than posting here. We (not you and I, but OL'ers in general) have bogged down horribly in induction discussions before, and I think I can say with a fair degree of confidence (perhaps it's an inductive leap?) that it would only happen again, and that would not benefit either of us.

Edited by Roger Bissell
wanted to add P.S. comment
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This has been a good thread. Being preoccupied with laying out my own situation, there are a few topics which were left decomposing in the bottom of the net:

Re Michael's posts # 106, 110:

> She networked with people. She accepted editorial cuts (even in The Fountainhead). She learned about the venues she was submitting to. She accepted editorial guidelines...Once she had her audience guaranteed (she called it in The Ayn Rand Letter, "acquired a public voice"), she did as she pleased. Just like everybody else does. Her disservice is that she taught her privileged behavior as the proper way to people who had not earned the privileges in the market to behave that way yet.

> contrary to being an enemy, many editors are not only quite reasonable, they know a hell of a lot that an aspiring writer needs to learn..There is a huge difference between working on a publication and adapting your work so that the exchange of value is fair and selling out your fundamental values. The image of Roark putting his drawings under his arm and walking out on a commission as "the most selfish thing anyone has ever done" is fit for a master, not an aspiring writer who does not yet know his tail end from a hole in the ground.

Very good points. Not appreciating these points is part of the "Objectivist hubris" problem...being unwilling to learn, thinking you already know everything. [in my case I am aware that I only know 98% of everything in the universe.]

> Learning how to obtain an audience is a skill just like any other form of work...They are not that hard to learn, either. Say the word and I can point you in some very good directions.

I'm ready to hear them. I'm sure others would be interested as well in any insights you have. Please share.

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Re Robert's post #82:

" Saying that Objectivism is incomplete isn't going to deter any academic from taking it seriously."

?? I wonder. Robert, my experiences with academics leads me to suspect them of not being quite as open-minded as you seem to suggest. [i wonder if psychology is different as an academic field from philosophy?]

"Phil, You're assuming that from the standpoint of academic philosophy, incompleteness is a "flaw"—if not grounds for instant dismissal of a thinker or system. Quite the contrary is true. None of the philosophers currently enjoying good standing in academia could be said to have offered complete philosophical systems. Many have (or have had) a far narrower focus than Ayn Rand did. Think, for instance, of John Rawls or Daniel Dennett or Willard van Orman Quine."

From the kinds of hostile reception Rand has received in the past [including from academics who while ostensively addressing her epistemology, can't resist scathing denunciations of her ethics], and from -- wait for it-- human nature!, my suspicion is that if one is very strongly, angrily, emotionally biased against a thinker, one will look for *any excuse* not to give her serious consideration. Despite one's claim to be objective.

"What most philosophers who are well-regarded in academia have provided is detailed explications for the views they advance, and detailed arguments for them."

Well, first, just because something is a detailed argument, doesn't mean it is a good argument. There are tons of verbose, arrant nonsense coming our of 'respected' thinkers. Thomas Kuhn, Peter Singer. Plato and Nietzsche, among the 'classics'.

And sometimes using a novel as a laboratory or giving a short essay is detailed enough for the ideas to be taken seriously at some level. And the lack of detail in -some- areas {aspects of epistemology or ethics or politics} is not grounds for not giving any attention to the areas where Rand was detailed, philosophical, cogent.

"[You make an] assumption [regarding the idea that there is not a "hole" if other contributors than Rand have addressed something adequately] that all of the significant contributions come from self-declared Objectivists, all of them "inside the fold" at one time or another...What makes you think that Doug Den Uyl (author of The Virtue of Prudence) is any less a contributor? What makes you think that Doug Rasmussen is any less of one? Or, for that matter, that I'm any less of one? You're insisting that those who have never been "inside the fold" must respond to the work of those who have been, but not the other way around."

I don't assume *either* of these points: I simply referred to a number of contributors that I am very familiar with from 'within the traditional Oist fold' such as Edith Packer, the Oist psychologists, the oral tradition.

" [TAS has] had some excellent grad students go through their system (Alex Cohen and Jason Walker, at present) but the numbers have always been tiny, and the attrition rates high. Some of their grad students have washed out entirely." [Robert C., another post]

It's worse than that. By trying to build a prerequisites-free "Advanced Seminar" on people who they have not been willing to systematically mentor or train in the basics, they have not only driven away dozens of grad students who had been hungry and enthusiastic about Objectivism and building a career around it in whole or in part, but they have turned many of them into actual opponents of Objectivism. Never having actually understood it in the first place. Will Wilkinson. Bryan Register. Etc. I listened them at the conferences and seminar. I was there. **I could see it happening**. "Oh I studied that under Kelley. He didn't convince me or explain why it was a valid philosophy, why rights are absolute. I think there are 'holes' in selfishness..."

> The model whereby David Kelley and Will Thomas teach advanced Objectivism to those few who are deemed ready to receive this teaching is not viable.

Do you think Kelley listens when this is pointed out? He clearly WANTS to teach advanced subjects, not the basics. Just like the famous college professors who is bored, can't be bothered teaching undergraduate survey courses as opposed to their favorite subtopics. Of course, in that case someone will teach them. In the TAS case, no one did. [or they thought a five hour summer course intro to Oism by Diana H or a rotating group of grad students themselves would be equivalent to years of organized exposure.

We've seen the results.

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Phil, as I read some of your posts, I realize I'm not clear about something -- and I wonder if you are. You seem to swing between wanting to present your ideas to philosophically-sophisticated audiences and wanting to present them to a mainstream audience. It's clear that Roger, for instance, wants to go the route of academic philosophy; I, as another instance, am interested in reaching a more general audience with my work on thinking. These are two very different purposes -- both legitimate, of course -- but requiring quite different approaches and tactics.

During the course of a career, one can write for both audiences. But one has to be clear about which work is directed to which set of readers, and on how one intends to reach those readers.

Barbara

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Barbara,

I'm happy writing on different subjects for different audiences. I'm primarily interested in the intelligent layman, the (motivated, effort-making) general reader, a similar reader to the ones Rand had in mind. I agree that before you are well along in your writing on a particular topic, you have to project your audience, their needs and level of knowledge.

But at an early stage, I am focused primarily on my subject, something that excites me and I have a lot to say on and think is important. And once I have developed the subject on the level where I have the most to say now , -that- will tell me who my audience will be now for that topic.

I am 79.372% certain that my full development of induction and a classification scheme for causal relationships will not be of interest to the average American or Pakistani and will largely only be grasped by the sophisticated. And I'm sure I can do develop my philosophical application work (concretization is an example)in some cases "for the million". But the audience will be become more clear before I'm through the idea-and-application- refining stage. In some cases I will address the same subject twice over time, once for a mass audience, and once for a narrower one.

My understanding is that the Greek philosophers often did this. Both Aristotle and Plato wrote 'literary' treatises and 'scientific' treatises. On the same topic. For Plato only the former survived (the Dialogues), and for Aristotle only the latter survived...This duality works for me.

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DIM and OPAR are NOT the places to look for clues about Peikoff's latest views on causality and induction. And I don't think you have a realistic impression of what is REALLY in his more recent courses on induction. He does NOT start them on an "advanced" level. He starts them very basically, and in a very illuminating manner. I am somewhat surprised that neither of you has checked this out.

After having thoroughly listened to and read Peikoff's recent courses, Objectivism through Induction and Induction in Physics and Philosophy, I'm convinced that ANYONE who attempts to present an Objectivist or Objectivism-inspired theory of causality and/or induction that do NOT consult those courses is going to find himself embarrassed by having "re-invented the wheel." See especially lecture 1 in OTI and lectures 1 and 2 in IPP.

I think that the guts of Peikoff's view/theory of induction will be present in the early chapters of Harriman's book. (He's writing two books, one on the history of modern science and one on induction. All we've seen excerpted in The Objective Standard are chapters from the former book.) I don't know whether this book will be GREAT, but I do firmly believe (from the evidence) that it will be GOOD ENOUGH that it needs to be reckoned with, before tossing out one's own ideas (as good as they may be).

...unless you simply intend to bypass the Objectivist movement entirely, which I think would be a mistake.

Roger,

My aims are rather different from Phil's.

I'm interested in Leonard Peikoff's views as one presentation of Objectivism. Dr. Peikoff has claimed that Ayn Rand spoke, and he merely listened and tried to remember. I don't think that this was the case during her lifetime. It surely hasn't been since 1982.

What's more, Dr. Peikoff has chosen to keep many of his ideas in hard-to-access formats such as high-priced recordings of his lectures, instead of getting his stuff out in front of a broader public by putting it into book or article form.

So I will certainly listen to those two lecture series before I write about Objectivism and induction.

But I don't recognize any obligation to consult them for other purposes.

The 1997 lecture about "the arbitrary" is the only one that I have studied so far, when I was getting ready to write about that specific subject. It may be atypical of the two induction series as a whole. (Since Dr. Peikoff maintained, as a justification for not reading Barbara Branden's book, that it had to be "non-cognitive" from one end to the other, maybe his thoughts about arbitrariness have become directly entangled with his thoughts about people who knew Ayn Rand and say things about her that he wishes they hadn't...) I kind of hope that is so, because the quality of the arguments in it was not good, and a significant portion of the lecture was taken up with ranting against college professors—any college professor, in any subject, from the community college level up through the Prestigeville research institutions.

Robert Campbell

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> Learning how to obtain an audience is a skill just like any other form of work...They are not that hard to learn, either. Say the word and I can point you in some very good directions.

I'm ready to hear them. I'm sure others would be interested as well in any insights you have. Please share.

Phil,

This will be a longish post, but I am writing off the top of my head and I do not have time to go in depth into any of the things I mention below. It will be good food for thought, the appetizer. For the actual meal I will be presenting a lot of this stuff (and much more than how to generate audiences) in my long-delayed course.

Attitude

In your case, I want to start with something pronounced in many Objectivists: attitude. Nobody is going to generate an audience if they do not have an attitude receptive to this. They can leech off the audience of others or be the topic of another person who has an audience, but I am discussing how to generate your own.

1. Desire. To start with, you have to want to know how to generate an audience. This means you accept this as a skill you wish to acquire. You need to (1) learn it, (2) practice certain parts until you can do them well, and (3) apply this skill to your interest, which means devoting time and energy to it with the same seriousness as you devote to the interest you are working on.

Objectivists tend to think that concern with generating an audience will turn them into a Peter Keating. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's apples and oranges. Keating had those skills, but went after the unearned in his interest to present to his audience as if he had come up with it. Those who use audience-generating skills to present work of true value earn their audience twice over.

Look at it this way. If you do not generate your own audience, someone else will have to for you. Who do you trust to do that? If you accept the mistaken premise that only a Peter Keating knows how to manipulate audiences, you will have to have a Peter Keating working for you. How's them apples? :)

So there is no magic pill you can swallow, no magic bullet to shoot, no magic wand you can wave that will bring you an audience. It's going to take work. And it is noble work just like any honest work is. You have to accept this vision and reality and fold it into the general Objectivist attitude of being a genius loner. Otherwise you run a great risk of failing and becoming one of those folks who complain that the world does not understand them, that they did not get the breaks, etc., etc., etc.

2. Positive attitude. Another component of attitude that many Objectivists need to change for generating audiences is negativity. In the Internet marketing world there is an emphasis on the Law of Attraction. As a metaphysical law, I am not so sure, but as a social law, it works perfectly. You attract people according to the vibes you put off. If you are not seriously life-affirming in your communication (and I would even venture to say in your heart), you will not attract people who are seriously life-affirming. With too much negativity, you attract snarky little nobodies who are just as frustrated as you are. Do you know of any large audiences of snarky little nobodies? I don't.

So it makes sense to be positive. How to be positive? Let's simplify. This means telling people good stuff. Tell them good stuff about you. Tell them good stuff about them. Do you know who you attract like that? It's a no-brainer. You attract people who tell you good stuff about themselves and good stuff about you.

The whole Internet concept of social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) runs on the power of positive attitude.

3. Bashing. You can bash once in a while (and even should if you despise something) since train wrecks tend to attract an audience. But this kind of audience is short lived. The problem with too much bashing is that it gets old after a while. If people start perceiving that you have little value to offer other than a wish to take someone down, they go away. The only people you will see remain interested for any length of time will be an audience typical of professional wrestling, but without the benevolence. (Especially in the Objectivist subcommunity.) Interested parties and suck-ups stay on, too, but that is not much of an audience to speak of.

4. Learning. Since you are about my age, you are probably encountering a problem I face: great irritation about constantly changing technology. It seems like once you learn something, especially on the Internet, it changes and you have to learn something else just to keep doing what you want to keep doing. These advances and constant changes intrude.

Outside of the audience things I have learned in a career largely devoted to performing arts and entertainment, I had to change this attitude when I started running my own Internet forum. I was a walking sourpuss for a while and really ticked about the unfairness of it all. But I decided (for my own reasons) to change this and three thoughts helped me.

The first is that it is proven that if you use your mind to learn a variety of new things on a daily basis, your risk of dementia in old age is greatly diminished. So even though it is a pain in the ass to force yourself to do this at first, it is healthy. Really healthy. And as you learn new stuff, your self-esteem improves as an added bonus. Keeping up with new technological resources gives you plenty of new stuff to learn all the time.

I admit that information overload is daunting, but dwelling on that is a negative thing. I'll take information overload over dementia any day.

The second is geography. The miracle of the Internet means that you can communicate with others and you do not have to go where they are at (or have them come to you). If learning knew stuff to generate an audience is a pain, what about doing it without the Internet?

That's the only alternative. I don't know about you, but I have plastered posters on street walls, placed classified ads, made cold calls on the telephone, begged for air time on TV and radio, tried to find honest publicity agents, etc.

Now that's a pain. And to add insult to injury, others control your message. Learning new Internet stuff that I control is a cup of tea by comparison.

Third. If I don't do it, someone else will. Back during the pre-Internet age, if you found a good agent, you could be the genius loner and be successful. And if you did not find a good agent, you had a wonderful excuse to be a martyr for your vision. Remember Henry Cameron's agent in The Fountainhead and how his work went away when the agent did? (btw - That's closer to reality than doing both the work and the publicity as Howard Roark did.)

Well, today, the reality is that you do not need an agent to run around. Your fingers can run across a keyboard. That does not leave you with much excuse. But if you use the Internet at all, you can't help but notice that if you don't want to learn new stuff and generate an audience, other people do. Many other people. Many other people with much less talent and much less substance than you.

In the old days, they were suck-ups since audience generation was controlled by powerful people. What about now, when there is no one to suck up to? So there's the reality. If I don't learn new stuff because the world ain't fair, how come people who are not as good as I am at my interests learn it and get huge audiences? I find that unacceptable as an excuse to myself. So I have to learn.

A really cool little present reality gives you after a while is that not only does your self-esteem improve by learning new stuff all the time, some of it actually starts getting fun in a "crossword-puzzle" kind of way.

5. Stand for something. There is much more attitude-wise, but I will end the attitude part with standing for something. The audience you generate will depend on what you stand for. If you care deeply about an interest, try to pinpoint something fundamental about it and make that very clear. You will automatically become controversial.

It's easy to say you don't have the time, etc., and from the sheer amount of boneheads on the Internet, it can get quite discouraging. But you have to pump yourself up with the thought that if your interest is really important, why isn't it important when you get in public?

People love—and hate—people who stand for stuff. But here's the thing. They always show up.

Here is an example with me here on OL. I got "thinking for yourself" as one of the main messages from my immersion in Rand's works. This is a part I dearly love. Other people get a message from her writing that flies in the face of this. So they give lip service to independent thinking, but bury it in practice under a bunch of tribal preaching and social pressure, and even outright repression. I decided to stand for "thinking for yourself." Better to think for yourself out loud and be wrong than let the crowd cower you into silence. If that means criticizing Rand, questioning a long-held premise, etc., so be it. If I detect that a person is thinking for himself or herself, I encourage it.

I usually piss off people who preach, too. This is not my goal, but it is the result. People who preach that Rand will save the world from an orgy of this or that get pissed, and people who preach that Rand was one twisted soul and rotten thinker get pissed. It has gradually dawned on me that rigidly intolerant people usually stopped thinking for themselves, and when they encounter one who does, it is like a slap in the face. That stings.

This is not the only thing I stand for, but it serves as an illustration.

Profiling an audience

You wrote:

I agree that before you are well along in your writing on a particular topic, you have to project your audience, their needs and level of knowledge.

But at an early stage, I am focused primarily on my subject, something that excites me and I have a lot to say on and think is important. And once I have developed the subject on the level where I have the most to say now , -that- will tell me who my audience will be now for that topic.

No, that will not tell you. That will only be a start.

But before we get to that, let's discuss why you should profile. It's obvious, but not to many Objectivists. If you profile your audience, you are not being Peter Keating. You are simply locating people who have interests similar to you own. That way, when you expose your stuff to them, the likelihood of them becoming your audience is far greater than with general traffic.

Here is the exact procedure for you to get a good handle on your audience.

1. Search on Google for stuff that is related to your interest. Only look at sites that occur on the first page of results for the keywords you use, but try out different keywords and keyword phrases that are typical to your interest.

2. Once you find a site that looks successful, copy the url and plug it into Quantcast (do not include the "http://" or "www" parts). If the site is big enough, you will get all kinds of demographic information. If it is too small, you will not, so you will have to find another.

After you do about 10-20 sites like that, if you take notes, you should get a good feel about people who are interested enough in this subject to search for it and go to sites that promote it. You will also discover what other sites they are interested in and oodles of information.

(As an aside, do this with the ARI site. Strangely enough, the greatest number of visitors is teenage girls, mostly Asian. Strange, but true. :) )

Once you know where these people hang out on the Internet and more or less what they like and dislike, you are in a position to go after them.

And this leads to one of the most powerful means of generating a new audience. You use other people's audience to expose your stuff to and invite them (usually indirectly for good Web etiquette) to go there.

Here is a good example with you and OL. Should you take Barbara's advice and make a blog (which I think is very good advice), when you post on OL, you could include a link to that blog in your signature. If the people on OL are interested in what you have to say, they will go to your blog to read more.

You can do this at other forums and at blogs. Demographic information helps you select the proper ones.

I need to say something about paid advertising, also. So here is just as good a place as any. A person who spends money on something like Adwords is nuts if he does not do demographic research. That's like going to a casino. But with demographic information, you know what messages to write and how to approach certain topics.

I think you should only use paid advertising after you are skilled in generating audiences from unpaid sources. You will certainly save a lot of money that way.

At any rate, here is the main point of targeting a specific public to generate an audience. You need to discover what these folks have as problems and/or what they are extremely passionate about. Then you give them solutions and/or you give them some of the stuff they love and/or you give them a place to talk about it and show their stuff.

If you have that, it's a piece of cake to go around where these folks hang out and say, "I've got this stuff over on my site."

Technical stuff

Here are some initial technical things you need to learn and/or prepare. Ignore this at your own risk if audience is your interest.

1. Learn about what kind of sites exist. This does not mean you need to dominate them, but you need to know what they are. Basically you can have sites at places you own or rent (like a server), or you can have accounts and sites at places other folks own. It is good to have both.

For your main site, I suggest you bite the bullet and do Wordpress or get a site template, buy a domain name, get a hosting account and spend some quality time learning this stuff. You will own it.

On the web, you can have accounts at other places and some of them even look like your own site, but they are actually your site on their property. This includes blogs like Blogger, Wordpress (this comes as open source software like above and as a hosted blog like here), etc., authority page sites like Squidoo, Knoll, Hubpages, etc., and even full websites like Weebly, Wetpaint, etc.

Learn about Wikis (Wikispaces.com), forums (OL), social networking (Facebook), microblogs (Twitter), social bookmarking (Delicious, Stumbleupon), rated articles (Digg), Q&A (Yahoo! Answers), Images (Flickr), Video (YouTube), and so on. This is going to take time, so take it slow. When you see a site that interests you, fiddle with it some.

This leads me to something absolutely critical. You need to organize all these accounts. I use Roboform (it's about 30 bucks), but there is a free Firefox and IE plugin that does just about the same thing: LastPass.

If you want a real audience, of all the things you do at the beginning, learning this program (Roboform or LastPass) will be the most important thing you do.

Then you need to make a list of all the stuff they ask you when you sign up for new accounts and have it handy. Some of it you can plug into Roboform or Lastpass, and some of it, like a 250 word description of you and a photo/avatar, you need to have in a place easy to get to. You have no idea how much time you will save doing this stuff, and how much you can waste if you do not.

As one last point, you need to learn how to put content up, not just on your own site, but also at other places like "comments" on blogs and forums. Spend time learning this. The html code for inserting links is <a href="THE URL">KEYWORD</a> and some places require this. Learn it. Commenting at places and giving a link to your own site is too important not to. Google search results are hugely impacted by backlinks and the Google search results page is a major source of traffic.

Content

If you want an audience, you should produce two kinds of content: publicity and your interest. But it is a mistake to think of these as kind instead of degree. It is better to think as follows:

Advertising------------Publicity------------Teaser content------------Serious work

or something along these lines with all kinds of varying degrees in between.

Advertising you pay for.

Publicity is press releases and when other folks write about you.

Teaser content is a small work giving valuable content and an enticement for more.

Serious work is your interest and passion.

Imagine you are in a crowded open-air farmer's market with everyone hawking their produce and people jostling this way and that. (The Internet is like this.) Now suppose you want to sell your own. How are you going to be noticed?

Many people set up a tomato stand right beside big tomato stands, do nothing else and wonder why they do not attract anyone.

You need to attract attention to yourself in the middle of all that yelling. There are two concepts you need to learn:

USP = Unique Selling Proposition

Don't let the word "selling" fool you. Just to get an audience to spend time with you, you have to sell yourself. So you have to take your profiled/targeted audience, tell them that you have what they want (which you know from research), and that your thing is so much better because it is unique. They can't get it anywhere else.

The next concept is:

AIDA = Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

Wikipedia does a fairly good job of explaining it: AIDA

AIDA is an acronym used in marketing that describes a common list of events that are very often undergone when a person is selling a product or service:

* A - Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.

* I - Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising).

* D - Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.

* A - Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

Nowadays some have added another letter to form AIDA(S):

* S - Satisfaction - satisfy the customer so they become a repeat customer and give referrals to a product.

Marketing today allows a diversty of products. Using a system like this, allows a general understanding of how to target a market effectively. A.I.D.A however is a acronym that is necessary to learn in marketing.

Once again, don't let the "selling" stuff throw you. Your audience generating message basically goes as follows:

Hey you! I got something you want!

Do you ever wonder about xxxxxxxxxx? What if you found a solution no one else has? (yada yada yada)

I did. It really did the trick for me, too. I have a bunch of stuff about this.

Go to my site (link). That's where you get it.

It's hard to think like this at first, but over time you learn it.

One other important part is to keep the focus on the other person. Incredible as it may seem, people are generally selfish. :) They want to know what is in their interest, not what is in your interest. For attracting them, you have to focus on them. For your own serious content, however, you no longer need this.

Now here is a bit about psychological triggers. You need to read a book called Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini to really get your feet wet with this. I am running out of time, so here is a quote from the Wikipedia article on Cialdini:

Six “Weapons of Influence"

Cialdini defines six “weapons of influence”:

* Reciprocation - People tend to return a favor. Thus, the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, he often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937.

* Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy. See cognitive dissonance.

* Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.

* Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents, such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.

* Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.

* Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a "limited time only" encourages sales.

There are techniques you can learn to put these psychological triggers (and others) in your writing. Obviously, this is best suited to your advertising, publicity and teaser content than to your serious content.

You can also keep your audience going by using these triggers in the lighter content on your site.

I have not really done a lot of this stuff consciously here on OL because I have not wanted a huge audience without having a way to properly monetize this. Lots of people is a very time-consuming undertaking. But I have done some without realizing it, and I get kind of tickled at myself when I "discover" what I did and see how it worked.

You can do a lot of this stuff dishonestly, but that does not mean you cannot do it honestly. You can. In fact, you should if you want to be competent and you are providing real value to the audience.

I have only scratched the surface, but this should start you off in some interesting directions. There is a wealth of information I will be providing in my course later.

Michael

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