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moralist

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Greg,

There is zero information content in any one of your replies or they are simply untrue. Your definition of cynical describes you perfectly. Defining me as a pantheist is laughable.

"I don't equate God with the universe."

This directly contradicts an earlier post of yours, which I am unable to find. One or the other is a falsehood either known by you or you don't know your own mind. I can only conclude you do not argue honestly and in good will or a desire to learn anything from anyone else but are a con man here simply to entertain yourself. I regret that the initial red flag you raised in my mind about you is appearing more and more to be true. You learned from a master. But you waste your time. Unfortunately you are wasting the time of a number of well meaning people. Hopefully there's enough entertainment to go around.

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Mike said of Greg: I regret that the initial red flag you raised in my mind about you is appearing more and more to be true. end quote

I am starting to wonder too, Mike. Greg, show us the beef again. Slow poke. I imagine Greg as a small store proprietor in the desert with tumble weeds blowing past. He has two gas pumps and a soft drink machine in the front. Let me try my hand at it again. I predict heavy rain for the Left Coast and heavy snowfall for the Sierra Mountains. Top that Nostradamus!
Peter the SoSo

Latest forecast suggests 'Godzilla El Niño' may be coming to California By Rong-Gong Lin II Droughts and Heat Waves Weather California Drought National Weather Service NASA

The strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has the potential to become one of the most powerful on record, as warming ocean waters surge toward the Americas, setting up a pattern that could bring once-in-a-generation storms this winter to drought-parched California.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center said Thursday that all computer models are now predicting a strong El Niño to peak in the late fall or early winter. A host of observations have led scientists to conclude that “collectively, these atmospheric and oceanic features reflect a significant and strengthening El Niño.”

“This definitely has the potential of being the Godzilla El Niño,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

At the moment, this year’s El Niño is stronger than it was at this time of year in 1997. Areas in red and white represent the warmest sea-surface temperatures above the average. (Source: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist Bill Patzert)
Patzert said El Niño’s signal in the ocean “right now is stronger than it was in 1997,” the summer in which the most powerful El Niño on record developed.

“Everything now is going to the right way for El Niño,” Patzert said. “If this lives up to its potential, this thing can bring a lot of floods, mudslides and mayhem.”

“This could be among the strongest El Niños in the historical record dating back to 1950,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center.

After the summer 1997 El Niño muscled up, the following winter gave Southern California double its annual rainfall and dumped double the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, an essential source of precipitation for the state’s water supply, Patzert said.
end quote

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For the record, you can cheat an honest man. It was fun. He didn't know what hit him.

--Brant

one asseveration deserves another

No you can't, Brant... You only believed the lie that you did. You actually cheated yourself out of knowing the truth... and that is what sets you up to be cheated when someone appeals to the same lie that you believed.

In order to cheat someone, you first need to offer the lie of them getting something for nothing. Honest people already know full well that there is no such thing as a "free lunch" and know better than to take the bait.

Greg

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Defining me as a pantheist is laughable.

These are your own words, Mike :

God = Nature /= Christianity.

Would you like to clarify what you wrote?

(shrug) It'll be impossible to find where I have ever said that God is the universe because I've never believed that.

Greg

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Ian Fleming through his character James Bond said something like, “Once is bad luck, twice is a coincidence, but the third time something similarly bad happens, it is enemy action.”

Greg asked: ...because you have still failed to answer how . . . end quote

Brant, the great, great, great grandson of Socrates and Aristotle wrote: Shit happens? So do good things.

end quote

*How?* is asking what was the cause and affect. Determinists say every affect has a cause, and everything affects all that comes next. That theory does not take in the complexity and unpredictability of the universe and the truth that there is no possibility of *omniscience* (not even if it is claimed by Apollo, Zeus, or a super computer.) The Universe includes *randomness* and *uncertainty.*

Larry Sechrest wrote: Subject: OWL: correct Latin Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 11:43:07 -0600, In the midst of a recent post on aggression and the moral responsibility of the aggressor, Patrick Stephens [12/17] refers to the "post hoc ergo procter hoc" fallacy. Correctly, that should be "post hoc, ergo propter hoc". Literally this means "after this, therefore on account of this". Translated into common English, it refers to the fallacious belief that "B follows A, therefore A caused B". This is an extremely common error in statistical work. Larry Sechrest, Associate Professor of Economics.

Exactly. Since shortly after Apey Greg arrived here at OL, I've been pointing out that he has no grasp of logic, and that his most commonly used fallacy is that of affirming the consequent, which is similar to the propter hoc fallacy. It's his standard method of "thinking."

His typical illogical response is that I'm using "leftist logic" when claiming that his moronic conclusions are illogical.

Apey pretty much has the mental abilities of a 9 year-old.

J

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Greg, show us the beef again.

Ok... :smile:

I believe that there will be another collapse of the corrupted debt based system on Monday, September 14th 2015 that will be similar to the debt collapse of September 2001 and the debt collapse of September 2008.

Just like El Nino weather patterns, there are also economic weather patterns. In the wet season of 1997-8 we got 66 inches of rain which was triple the norm. If the present El Nino holds for a few more months, the next rainy season will be a gullywasher. :smile:

Greg

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Defining me as a pantheist is laughable.

These are your own words, Mike :

God = Nature /= Christianity.

Would you like to clarify what you wrote?

(shrug) It'll be impossible to find where I have ever said that God is the universe because I've never believed that.

Greg

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

-Einstein

What you call "God" I call everything that is. Pantheism is the belief in many ill defined "gods", it is ancient superstitious primitive belief. You assign that to me as an insult. You insult yourself with these childish bad mannered efforts at being clever. No, it's not all about entertainment, it's about understanding.

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I'm a pantheist. Just a positive way of saying I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a Supreme Being. I believe in a supreme thing: reality.

--Brant

being a pantheist may have other, contradictory meanings--those are not mine

culturally, I'm a WASP--with some Jewish overtures

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What you call "God" I call everything that is.

Ah, there's our difference Mike. :smile:

I don't call God everything that is.

Calling everything that is, God... is Pantheism.

Here's the dictionary definition of pantheism. Notice that it precisely describes your view of God being everything that is:

  1. Pantheism is the belief that the Universe (or Nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God.

Latin
pan: everything
theis: God
My view is different from yours. In my view God created everything... but He is not what He created.
See the difference now?
Greg
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Your God is nonsense. You are insane.

I'm glad you had an opportunity to express your view of God as everything that is, Mike. :smile:

I have no problem with people holding different views as we experience different consequences of our different actions that form them.

Greg

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Mike wrote: Your God is nonsense. You are insane.
end quote

Greg disagrees with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. I am not even sure how much he knows of us. Objectivism leads to rational thinking but many people still retain a vestige of myth and superstition, though their decisions are arrived at rationally. Reason is our way of thinking, and philosophically it would be said that is our epistemologically. We think logically and empirically (the view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only original source of knowledge) and that logically rational thinking must lead to atheism.

By philosophically, empirically, and scientifically negating the concept *God,* Objectivists and other clear thinkers are putting a double hex on religions like paganism, pantheism, and Hinduism that have a number of gods. We must become PC. I suggest that instead of saying “There is no God,” Objectivists say, “There are no gods,” thereby marginalizing no religion, and including a billion Hindus into our consideration. Is there a down side to saying “the gods,” instead of the term “God?” Well, it could make the thinking monotheists wonder about their brand of superstition. Face it, monotheists are snobs. You could have a monotheist who gets it when you said, “the gods,” and dislikes you not only for being an atheist but also because you place a lesser value, on monotheism and polytheism, equally.

So I hereby decree that all Objectivists now say “There are no gods” - if it is necessary to say anything at all. And I also decree that Objectivists must stop being superstitious in other ways. Friday the 13th is not bad luck. Saying “gesundheit,” or "bless you" when someone sneezes is passé. An itchy palm does not mean good luck or that you are going to come into money. Walking under a ladder is stupid but does not bring bad luck. Nobody breaks mirrors anymore or finds horseshoes so forget about those. Opening an umbrella inside a house IS sensible behavior if it is raining outside, black cats are just felines, and tossing spilt salt over your shoulder is a waste of resources. And after all these reforms are implemented fans of Ayn Rand, should no longer make calls to the psychic healing hotline, or crossing yourself. Stop it! And I mean it!

Greg thinks we should mark the calendar for September 15, 2015. How wrong would you be Greg if a financial crisis happens a day early or a day late? Your claim to knowledge is not even the equivalent of fantasy football. And because of your flawed thinking you are now hoping for bad things to happen - on September 15th.

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Some old gems from our own Jeff Olsen, Gayle Dean (of crossword puzzle fame) Ellen Moore (replying to Barbara Branden), Roger Bissell, and Ellen Stuttle (on toilet training.)

They may not want their web address here so I will try to delete them. If you think this is too much info or you don't like what is said just don't read it. Peter

Ellen Moore To: Atlantis@wetheliving.com
Subject: ATL: Re:Pure evasion Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 13:24:29 -0600
Bill, You use such tricky circumlocutions that I think you confuse yourself, and maybe a few others.
Oh, yes, a false belief can be held for any length of time. The question is -- is it a mistake or is it an evasion? A mistake may be made and continued over a long time, e.g. faith, but after one knows there is no evidence or reason to support it, and if valid new information is received, and if they refuse to consider all the evidence in their context, then it's an evasion.

When you jump to "Psychologically impossible" you are leaping over fields of evidence, metaphysics, epistemology, values and morality -- psychology is a consequence of all this that is present within a person's context of knowledge - which rests on volitional actions, reason, valid logical evaluation, and accepted values. Many, if not most, people may hold contradictions by means of evasion. E.g., even a believer in faith will reason some of the time, and tries to evade consciously knowing the difference.

IN fact, "rationalization" means that one has not reasoned -- rationalization IS conscious and deliberate evasion -- one is deliberately trying to "fool" oneself by refusing to acknowledge facts one knows. So, of course, the person knows he is doing it. That is what evasion and rationalization means.

Bill, I am quite capable of discerning an evasion from the truth. It's the ability to be honest and objective externally and internally. Ellen L. gave you a fine illustration of her own objectivity by explaining that she knows this subject, i.e., identifies evasion from reasoned evidence. So do I.

Bill, I reject your question that accuses me of evasion because it is a false option. There is no evidence that I evade or rationalize. Those on the list who accuse me of this have to prove the positive, i.e., prove that I'm evading my own knowledge. I give reasoned arguments for all my ideas. If you can prove that I have not reasoned validly, or that I have evaded my knowledge, or that Rand has not reasoned and has evaded in Objectivism, then we'll talk.
Ellen M.

From: "Jeff Olson" To: "atlantis" atlantis@wetheliving.com Subject: ATL: Not Quite Knowing What We Really Know (was: Not so pure evasion) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 18:44:17 -0800
Billy D. objected to Ellen Moore's claim that a "person can knowingly evade":
<>
There's an old saying in the intelligence community that the government "doesn't know what it knows" (due to complex compartmentalization of knowledge). I find this to be a helpful metaphor for viewing the Byzantine operations of the human mind. Of course, it's not literally possible to "know what one doesn't know," or to believe "what one knows to be false," but I think it is possible -- indeed, commonplace -- for people to screen certain unpleasant thoughts from easy viewing. It's not that they don't have some glimmer of an awareness about these undesirable things, but their awareness is sufficiently fuzzy to permit them to persist with their desired perspectives or beliefs.

Individuals are aided in this task, I think, by the intricacy of many ideas and events. A slight emphasis here -- an averted gaze there -- and one can effectively select the elements necessary to fuel a given belief. I think most individuals are aware that they're engaging in a selective interpretation of facts, but can often easily justify this by arguing that some form of selectiveness is necessary to separate the "wheat from the chaff."

So while an individual, I believe, generally has an awareness of being selective -- and that this opens the possibility of self-deception -- they generally believe that their biases are justified, and thus possess little or no conscious knowledge of the specific falsity of a particular belief.

This isn't to say, however, that individuals have *no* sense of the questionability of their beliefs. On the contrary, to one extent or another an individual can be aware of this questionability, but simply choose to disregard it. This is not the same as *knowingly* holding a false belief, true, but it is not equivalent to *no awareness* of that possibility, either.

I see this kind of evasion constantly in normal life and on this list. A symptom of this awareness of questionability can be seen, I think, in a reaction of extreme annoyance or emphatic denial to a critical point (a very common occurrence here). This angry reaction follows, in my opinion, from a sense of vulnerability, a vulnerability which generates a powerful need to defend; this sense of vulnerability, in turn, derives principally (in my view) from a subconscious or unconscious awareness that one has engaged in a questionable selection/emphasis of reality.

In other words, individuals who respond in this manner know, on some level, that at the very least their beliefs are "questionable." Again, they haven't quite broached the contradictory "belief in what I know to be false" barrier, but they are ardently flirting with it (and not innocent about its existence).

When someone defends a belief while aware of its questionability -- which, per above, I think is completely possible if not commonplace -- I call this "evasion." Evasion is not a simple full consciousness of our dubious beliefs, then, but is instead a partial awareness of these beliefs' questionability (stemming from an awareness of our biased appraisal of reality).
In closing, I find it ironic that the person on this list who most frequently accuses others of evasion is, by the standards alluded to above, the most guilty of this practice. Jeff

From: Roger Bissell To: atlantis@wetheliving.com Subject: Re: ATL: Re: pure evasion continues Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 04:49:04 EST
At issue: is Ellen Moore's use of the term "tricky circumlocutions" an evaluation of Bill Dwyer's ~character~ in promulgating such "circumlocutions", or is it an evaluation of the ~nature of Bill Dwyer's "circumlocutions"~?

Gayle Dean says the former, comparing "tricky circumlocutions" to "evasive arguments," which is clearly an evaluation of the character of the person making the argument. Gayle's case seems to hinge on whether the parallel is air-tight.
Ellen Moore and Morganis Chamlo, on the other hand, say the latter. They point to difficulty in following Bill's ~"circumlocutions"~, while denying that they intend any claim that Bill is ~deliberately~ trying to create difficulties with his "circumlocutions".

So, setting motivations and personal animosities aside, can we judge who is correct? Both sides seem rather convincing and adamant about their position. I resolved it for myself by consulting the dictionary, which showed me that the argument is over a word that can actually take ~both~ meanings, while the ~real~ problem is with ~another~ word.

"Tricky" has a ~core~ meaning pertaining to tasks, problems, or situations that require care and skill because difficult or awkward -- and a ~subsidiary~ meaning pertaining to persons or acts that are deceitful, crafty, or skillful.

Now, while Gayle points to what is the ~subsidiary~ meaning of "tricky," in bolstering her claim that Ellen M. was attacking Bill Dwyer's character in referring to his "tricky circumlocutions," Ellen M. and Morganis instead rely on the ~core~ meaning of "tricky," in explaining that Ellen M. was referring to the ~effort~ needed to deal with Bill's difficult "circumlocutions".
So, when Ellen M. says that "A 'tricky circumlocution' IS an evaluation about the nature of an argument, about the ideas presented, it's not about Bill himself," she is ~not~ entitled to claim that that is ~all~ it can mean, just that that's what ~she~ meant by it -- and that the other thing that it ~could~ have meant (Gayle's interpretation) was ~not~ what she meant by it.
Nonetheless, in my book, a core meaning ~trumps~ a subsidiary meaning, especially giving people the benefit of the doubt, in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately for Ellen M. and Morganis, however, there is a HUGE piece of evidence weighing against them, and that is Ellen's use of the term "circumlocution," which means "the use of many words where fewer would do, esp. in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive."

While "circumlocution" does not ~necessarily~ refer to a person's deliberately trying to be vague or evasive, there is a strong ~connotation~ of their doing so. And when that connotation is coupled with ~another~ term, "tricky," which has a subsidiary meaning of "deceitful," there is a ~powerful~ undercurrent of suggestion that Bill Dwyer was being deceitful and evasive in his style of arguing.

Morganis even referred to Ellen M's "emphasized redundancy." Now, there is nothing redundant about the term "tricky circumlocution" when the intended meaning (as Ellen M. and Morganis claim) is: difficult-to-understand wordiness. But observe that there ~is~ redundancy in the term "tricky circumlocution" when the piled-up connotative meaning is (as Gayle no doubt intuited): deceitful use of many words where fewer would suffice, in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.
(Is it possible that Morganis, on some level, ~also~ picked up on this derogatory undercurrent? There is no other evidence to support his calling Ellen M's phrase an "emphasized redundancy." What else was being emphasized, if not Bill Dwyer's "deceitful evasiveness"? What else was being repeated if not the claim that his arguments are sometimes "deceitfully evasive"? Morganis asked: "Who would argue that circumlocutions, trying to be understood by another, are NOT "tricky" in trying to figure out?" Well, ~I~ would, and I'm sure quite a few people would agree, so it's not valid to claim that they are "tricky" in an objective sense. I.e., wordiness is ~not~ inherently difficult to understand, nor necessarily so for everyone.)
Consequently, because of how the normal (?) reader would respond to the piling up of negative connotations, it is difficult to read Ellen Moore's phrase "tricky circumlocutions" ~without~ taking it as a ~character evaluation~, and thus an ad hominem. Her phrase, even if she did not intend it as such, ~functions~ as a claim that Bill Dwyer is being ~evasive~!!
Would it be possible for Ellen M. and/or Morganis to acknowledge this....problem....in the phraseology they have been defending? And to affirm that they regret any (nearly inevitable, in my view) misunderstandings by Atlantis members from the piled-up negative connotations of Ellen M's ill-chosen words?

It is really a shame that this much cyberspace has to be consumed in order to set straight the .... confusion .... sown by people who do not seem to understand the power of compounded negative connotations. I hope we can re-direct our attention back to the very worthwhile and (to me and Gayle, at least) ~clarifying~ and ~thought-provoking~ things Bill Dwyer has to say about volition. Best to all, Roger Bissell
P.S. -- the definitions used were found in The New Oxford American Dictionary. Not Webster's, but not too shabby either. :-)

From: Ellen Moore To: Atlantis@wetheliving.com Subject: ATL: The Objectivist Revolution... Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 13:22:15 -0600
Barbara,
I agree with you that [maybe most] people do not think about thinking or reasoning, and they are often most inexperienced at introspection. In the primary states of learning about anything, I would say that we learn about external things first. In fact, they hit us directly in our awareness. The crucial conscious action, then, is to BE consciously aware, volitionally in focus, and then to identify and acknowledge things as we perceive them to be in reality. When one does NOT do this consciously, that is the beginning of a policy of evasion -- which means not initiating the process of being consciously aware when it IS important to BE aware. At the early stages, one is not introspecting or analyzing the inner workings of one's mental experiences. This comes at a later stage of self analysis after one has lots of internalized experiences to compare and contrast.

Barbara, in your last line I think you are describing what evasion IS. You wrote, “Rather, the evader creates a blur in his mind, a mental fog, so that he is not [fully] conscious of X nor that he is evading it. Perhaps he is aware of it only in the sense of a vague uneasiness which he does not look at.” [insert is added]

Of course! That is the point. The evader lowers his conscious awareness when he does not want to face something that made him feel uneasy, and if he really ~looked~ at it and acknowledged it fully consciously, then he would have to deal with the facts He does not want to, so he evades things that he "kinda" knows in some minimal awareness, but instead he avoids thinking about them. This is evasion.

In Galt's speech, she wrote, " ..., it is none of your failures, errors or flaws, but the ~blank out~ by which you attempt to evade them."

Peikoff, in his lectures [Rand authorized] and his book on Objectivism [OPAR, p. 61], he quotes AS, p. 944, in Galt's speech. Peikoff makes three distinctions of conscious actions that exist by initiating levels of conscious awareness -- i.e., switching on [focusing] one's mental attention, leaving it at a level of passivity and mental fog, and evasion.

"Evasion is an active process aimed at a specific content. The evader does expend effort; he purposefully directs his attention away from a given fact. He ~works not to see~ it; if he cannot banish it completely, he works not to let it become completely real to him.... the evader disintegrates [his mental contents] by struggling to disconnect a given item from everything that would give it clarity or significance in his own mind ... He expends energy to create a fog; he lowers his level of awareness"

That's evasion, and the actions require a volitionally conscious and deliberate effort. This is the point that you and Bill do not acknowledge. The logic of the action of evasion is this: *before one could evade X, one had to be aware of X.* The action of evasion is specifically directed at some particular thing or event one refuses to see, pay focused attention to, and deal with honestly in reality. "Focus" is a metaphor that means to turn on, initiate, raise one's level of conscious awareness. The opposite is "evasion" which really means to shut down one's conscious awareness so that specific things are not allowed into full consciousness. Ellen M.

From: Ellen Stuttle To: atlantis@wetheliving.com Subject: ATL: Evasion (was: Re: Re: Re: Hypothetical Question) Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 15:11:53 -0400
Well, at least something is coming clearer here. I'm not going to quote Gayle's remarks, since I'm not going to argue with her further, but it's become evident that indeed she doesn't understand what "evasion" means.

Simply put, evasion is willful blindness. It's the inner act of turning one's consciousness away from recognizing something that one could recognize if one attended to it.

I'll give an analogy from external behavior which I think is of help in understanding the process of evasion. The analogy comes from something which happened earlier this year when the issue of determinism was being discussed on the list. I was thinking then of writing a post about it, but I didn't have time.

The incident occurred when I went to the ladies' room during intermission at a chamber orchestra concert. I started to walk into one of the stalls, but as I was opening the stall door I just barely glimpsed that someone was already in there -- either the lock didn't work, or she'd forgotten to lock the door. I promptly did the polite thing in such circumstances, which was quickly to avert my eyes even further from focusing on seeing the woman, while I backed out the door.

If you extrapolate from this example to an inner process, you'll get the idea of what evasion is. With evasion, the person is dimly -- non-focally -- aware that the person is just about, if the cognitive processing continues, to become aware of something which the person senses would be disconcerting, unpleasant, or in some other way threatening to be fully aware of; and so the person averts the inner gaze, as it were, turning the thought process to something else, turning it away from the threatening material, thus preventing focal recognition of the threatening material.
Ellen S.

From: Ellen Stuttle To: atlantis@wetheliving.com Subject: ATL: Re: Evasion Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 23:41:10 -0400
I wrote: >"Simply put, evasion is willful blindness. It's the inner act of turning one's consciousness away from recognizing something that one could recognize if one attended to it. "If you extrapolate from this example to an inner process, you'll get the idea of what evasion is. With evasion, the person is dimly -- non-focally – aware that the person is just about, if the cognitive processing continues, to become aware of something which the person senses would be disconcerting, unpleasant, or in some other way threatening to be fully aware of; and so the person averts the inner gaze, as it were, turning the thought process to something else, turning it away from the threatening material, thus preventing focal recognition of the threatening material."

Keyser asks a series of questions, which I'll address in sequence (except the last two, which I'll skip).
> Ellen,
> Is evasion actually willful ~blindness~?

Incidentally, I should have said "willful inner blindness." Though I used an external process to illustrate, I'm talking about what one does with a cognitive process.

> Or is it a lie based on a very ~clear vision~ of an unwanted reality? Is evasion even possible?

I distinguish between "lying" and "evading." Although in one of my posts, I spoke of "consciously lying," because I was emphasizing a particular point there, the way I use the term "lying," "conscious" is redundant. I define "lying" as the statement of something which one knows to be false, a deliberate attempt to deceive. Thus, I think that "lying" can only be done in regard to someone else, not in regard to oneself, because I think that if someone *knows* clearly that X is true, one can't at that same moment believe that X isn't true. Thus what one has to accomplish, if one doesn't want to believe X, is to avoid knowing it.

> It seems to me that, unless a person is severely mentally ill, she would have to be very consciously aware of why the truth is disconcerting in order to construct a safe or heroic false alternative.

I don't see that at all. There are many different degrees of awareness. If you're paying attention to one thing, most else isn't in your central awareness, but there's much else of which you're peripherally aware. And often one can sense the direction one's thoughts will take -- or certainly, I can. And in many circumstances (though not all) it's possible to change the direction. For instance, think of an experience such as ... oh, say, you're about to have a flu shot. And maybe you're nervous about shots. So you try to distract yourself by looking out a window or by thinking about some subject other than the needle approaching your skin. Have you never done anything like this? In that circumstance, it wouldn't be evading, just intelligently avoiding unnecessary pain. But suppose instead that maybe you suspect you have a medical problem and you should go to a doctor, but each time the thought of making an appointment starts to arise, you change the subject in your mind (one way of doing that is to tell yourself, in effect, I'll think about it tomorrow, but then you keep putting off "tomorrow"). Or you might say to yourself, "Really, everything is perfectly fine; it's just that I'm a bit tired," etc., etc. There you're creating an alternate explanation, which you keep your mind on, attempting to believe it. But if you directly attended to the symptoms you're experiencing, you wouldn't believe the story you're telling yourself.

>What are your reasons for concluding that a person prevents his own "focal recognition" of an unpleasant reality?

I'm not sure if you're asking why I would think it's possible to prevent "focal recognition," or how I would know if some particular person is doing that. The first I know is possible to at least one human, on the basis that I can do it -- and thus (here we go again with, what can we know about other minds?), I assume that others can, too. Furthermore, I observe behavior where it looks from the way the person responds as if that's what the person is doing. (See next question.)
>How would you know that he is not simply lying based on his clear understanding of reality?

As I said, "lying" I take to mean a deliberate attempt to convince someone else of something one knows is false, whereas evasion is directed toward keeping oneself from knowing. So I don't see the two as alternates, though it can happen that a person has to evade in order to be able to lie. (For instance, if the person thinks that lying is immoral and hence has to come up with an excuse via evasion in order to lie.)

As to the specifics of how I would tell...what, you want a treatise here, do you? I mean, Keyser, that's an enormous question involving an enormous range of behavior, varying from people who lie characteristically to people who lie about a particular situation; from people whose whole personality I'd describe as evasive to people who seldom to never evade (near as I can tell). I'd really have to have the details of the particular circumstance before I could assess it. But the starting point of assessing is going to be something which seems "off," something which doesn't add up. One such starting point would be if someone tells me something which I myself have reason to know isn't true. Another would be evidence of discomfort when someone tells me something. Another would be that the person's behavior and how the person describes his or her behavior don't jibe. Another would be defense mechanisms being kicked into gear when a particular subject arises. And in terms of how I'd be sure if I was judging the person correctly...in the vast majority of cases I'm not sure.

> Isn't personal experience of one's own mind the only evidence that could lead to such a conclusion about others? I don't mean to make this personal, but have you ever willfully unfocused your awareness in order to avoid a harsh reality?

As I hope I made clear above, I don't actually think that the process occurs through "unfocusing" one's awareness, but instead through shifting one's awareness away from impending focal awareness on X. And, yes, I've done that willfully, though not often in a circumstance which I'd describe as evading, usually in a circumstance like the flu-shot example.
>I don't think that I have (or could). Any "evasion" that I've caught myself creating had been based on a very clear understanding of what the truth actually was, and what consequences I had contemplated avoiding (note the ~very~ past tense of this sentence :-)).

I'd need further details to have a sense of what you're meaning here. Do you mean making excuses for not doing something? Or trying to talk yourself into believing what you suspect isn't true? But how would you succeed at either of those without preventing yourself from looking too closely at what you're trying to avoid?

Please excuse my not answering the two specific questions you asked, one re Peikoff and one re Rand. I'd rather not get into that subject again now. (Also, I'm aware that I'm merely brushing the surface here. I sense that you're really interested in knowing, so I feel frustrated that (a) sitting in front of a computer screen is too hard on my eyes for me to do it very long; and (b) exploring the issues would need delving into lots of case examples, and such delving is outside the parameters of this context, since the only examples you and I have in common as reference cases are other list members.) Ellen S.

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"Objectivism leads to rational thinking..."

Oh, like Peikoff?

Greenspan?

A...

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Greg thinks we should mark the calendar for September 15, 2015. How wrong would you be Greg if a financial crisis happens a day early or a day late?

Ask me if I care. :laugh:

It's actually Monday, September the 14th not the 15th.

Your claim to knowledge is not even the equivalent of fantasy football.
My only claim is solely to a subjective opinion... exactly the same as anyone else's claim.
And because of your flawed thinking you are now hoping for bad things to happen - on September [14th].
You only think its a bad thing, Peter... because you're not thinking rationally. :wink:
The collapse of the corrupt debt driven economic system is only bad for the something-for-nothing suckers who had all their leveraged bets laid down on it.
I find it to be totally fascinating how over 2,500 years ago the Israelites had one particular day set aside, Elul 29 on every 7th year, to cancel all debts...
...and the two greatest debt collapses in US history both occurred on that very day. :smile:
Greg
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Your God is nonsense. You are insane.

I'm glad you had an opportunity to express your view of God as everything that is, Mike. :smile:

I have no problem with people holding different views as we experience different consequences of our different actions that form them.

Greg

You're not insane. You're a rationalist.

I do not equate reality with divinity, Greg; it just is. But that's just me. Reality or God; God or reality--it's all the same to me. No old white bearded guy up in the sky. Christian monotheism is the human race's greatest invention for reasons I won't go into here. Pantheism isn't enough to displace it--at least not yet--because pantheism is for grownups. And it needs better stories. I will say that the displacement of troubles and concerns onto a third party called "God" is the heart of it. It's genius. The same principle applies to politics or law. Law being the interjected third party to a dispute. It's a luxury of civilization to displace revenge with justice so the crime victim is less consumed by the crime than he would otherwise be.

For Catholics it was so important to have the priest as a representative of God or as a God buffer that pederastic priests were tolerated. You think fathers taking whips to their sons for telling them about what they didn't want to hear wasn't sanction of that abuse? The sons got the message and got fucked. Access to boys was a job perk. Then it finally went bad for the Church big time 20 - 30 years ago with a cascade of continuous revelations, some motivated by monetary greed and most by pain. This has cost the Church most of its moral authority and a hell of a lot of money.

Joan of Arc tried to go directly to God by saying God spoke directly to her. So she got her comeuppance. Today we're bypassing the middle man in trade by electronic means eviscerating the middle class which used to economically broker trade. The middle class is striking back by joining the lower class and going after the one per-centers become the five per-centers become those still in the middle class, all devolving into the class warfare of the unproductive vs the productive as the country becomes poorer and debt temporarily hides out and out poverty. The solution of freedom is being pushed aside by the non-solution of slavery through socialism cum fascism cum crony capitalism--as aspect of fascism--and "deserved" benefits and entitlements.

--Brant

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There is a serious difference between Catholic priests and Christians.

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Devastating Greg. Growing up I saw Catholic kids in my public school head off to catechism class on Friday afternoons. In their families a veneer of abeyance to the Pope was required but many of the Mothers supported birth control and did not toe the line on a lot of church doctrine. Crossing themselves was a habit. There were ten times the number of nuns in habits. Church, twice a week or more, was a habit. Girls going to a nunnery or boys to a seminary was common, and dropping out of them was a habit. Like a political primary, people left the Catholic church, but then voted themselves into some other religious community. Nowadays, a lot of people in America still identify as Christian and a smaller number still go to church.

I thought the number of rational secularists would be greater in the new millennia but . . . I think Christmas keeps a lot of people involved in the dozens of Christian sects. It is also interesting to note the other quasi Christian community of school Christmas plays, Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frostie the Snowman, and commercialism. It is not contradictory to Christianity but it is not religious at all and separate. If you mention Christmas to a kid it is all about these other pop culture icons.

Ho Ho HO, Saint Pete Moss

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Nowadays, a lot of people in America still identify as Christian and a smaller number still go to church.

Today, the fastest growing, most powerful religion in America is secular leftism.

With a benefits dispensing government bureaucracy as its god, secular leftists are hard at work with the goal of expunging all religious references from American culture. They're actually quite good at it.

First there is a legal damage complaint of someone being emotionally offended, or of some minority group feeling excluded or discriminated against. Then the claim works its way through the bowels of the leftist legal system until it becomes law.

Secular leftists don't realize that when they abandon God to worship the government they created in their own narcissistic image... by default, they also forfeit God's moral protection and providence.

America's greatness was in its moral goodness. Today, secular leftist America is no longer great because it is no longer good as it sinks into the cesspool of becoming just another dime a dozen secular European liberal socialist welfare state. This is because America has given up it's moral protection as well as its economic providence.

So what will happen soon is just one foregone conclusion of many more, to what has already happened.

Greg

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