Pain? Joy? Benevolent universe premise?

[Alfonso Jones]

I can't find the earlier discussion on this subject, but wanted to post this portion of a letter Rand wrote to a fan (R.A. Williams) on August 29, 1960. You can find it in Letters of Ayn Rand, pages 583-584.

You ask me about the meaning of the dialogue on page 702 of Atlas Shrugged:

"'We never had to take any of it seriously, did we?" she whispered. "'No, we never had to.'"

Let me begin by saying that this is perhaps the most important point in the whole book, because it is the condensed emotional summation, the keynote or leitmotif, of the view of life presented in Atlas Shrugged.

What Dagny expresses here is the conviction that joy, exaltation, beauty, greatness, heroism, all the supreme, uplifting values of man's existence on earth, are the meaning of life—not the pain or ugliness he may encounter—that one must live for the sake of such exalted moments as one may be able to achieve or experience, not for the sake of suffering—that happiness matters, but suffering does not—that no matter how much pain one may have to endure, it is never to be taken seriously, that is: never to be taken as the essence and meaning of life—that the essence of life is the achievement of joy, not the escape from pain. The issue she refers to is the basic philosophical issue which John Galt later names explicitly in his speech: that the most fundamental division among men is between those who are pro-man, pro-mind, pro-life—and those who are anti-man, anti-mind, anti-life.

It is the difference between those who think that man's life is important and that happiness is possible—and those who think that man's life, by its very nature, is a hopeless, senseless tragedy and that man is a depraved creature doomed to despair and defeat.

It is the difference between those whose basic motive is the desire to achieve values, to experience joy—and those whose basic motive is the desire to escape from pain, to experience a momentary relief from their chronic anxiety and guilt.

It is a matter of one's fundamental, overall attitude toward life—not of any one specific event. So you see that your interpretation was too specific and too narrow; besides, the Looters' World had never meant anything to Dagny and she had realized its "sham and hypocrisy" long before. What she felt, in that particular moment, was the confirmation of her conviction that an ideal man and an ideal form of existence are possible.

I think Rand speaks for herself on the question under discussion, and as usual does so quite eloquently.

Bill P

[tjohnson]

This sounds like she is saying we should concentrate on positive emotions and not let negative feelings overwhelm us.

[Selene]

And that sounds like a dim reflection of the image of a dull moon reflecting off the surface of a muddy pond!

Uplifting - not so much!

Adam

[tjohnson]

Yeah, well I'm no novelist, that's for sure! I was just trying to summarize it.

[Selene]

I know, I was just being a mother on Mother's Day!

Which I might add:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL

Edited May 10, 2009 by Selene

[tjohnson]

I know, I was just being a mother on Mother's Day!

Which I might add:

Try this

[size="7"][color="#FF0000"]HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL[/color][/size]

[Selene]

GS:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL

Thank you - so what is the computer cripple doing wrong on this set of code and why can't I see that weird colored strip?

Adam

Edited May 10, 2009 by Selene

[tjohnson]

You originally typed this ;

 [size="7"][/size]HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL[color="#FF0000"][/color]

I changed it to this;

[size="7"][color="#FF0000"]HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL[/color][/size]

Notice that you have to have the opening tags on the left of the text and the closing tags (the ones with the '/' symbol) on the right. You can put text in a code box (pink strip) by highlighting it and pressing the "Wrap in code tags" button on the tool bar. When you do this the application displays the markup tags but does not execute them.

Edited May 10, 2009 by general semanticist

[Guyau]

Bill,

Some connections with your root post of this thread are the exchange between Ragnar and Dagny

and the “there was no suffering or pain” in the passage that conveys the Halley Fifth.

Note on Benevolent Universe

Connect also to the last couple of paragraphs here.

Consider too the closing lines in We the Living.

At the end of the eighth lecture in Peikoff’s 1976 series, Rand responded to a written question from an audience member in which the question took Rand to be saying that evil does not need to be taken seriously. Rand emphatically denied that that was her view, and wondered what, in anything she had written, could make anyone think that was her view. She noted the possibility that someone might make that faulty inference from her line “We never had to take any of it seriously,” which comes from “one of the most beautiful passages in all my literature.” And no, she was not going to explain that line. She asked if the person who had asked that question would come to her after the session---she didn’t want the questioner to be embarrassed---and tell her how he got this totally wrong idea about her view.

Leibniz argues in Theodicy that human existence, in this world, is not so bad as usually thought when one really gets all the good things onto the scales.

[Alfonso Jones]

Bill,

Some connections with your root post of this thread are the exchange between Ragnar and Dagny

and the “there was no suffering or pain” in the passage that conveys the Halley Fifth.

<A href="http://www.solopassion.com/node/3522#comment-41620">Note on Benevolent Universe</A>

Connect also to the last couple of paragraphs <A href="http://www.solopassion.com/node/4510">here</A>.

Consider too the closing lines in We the Living.

At the end of the eighth lecture in Peikoff’s 1976 series, Rand responded to a written question from an audience member in which the question took Rand to be saying that evil does not need to be taken seriously. Rand emphatically denied that that was her view, and wondered what, in anything she had written, could make anyone think that was her view. She noted the possibility that someone might make that faulty inference from her line “We never had to take any of it seriously,” which comes from “one of the most beautiful passages in all my literature.” And no, she was not going to explain that line. She asked if the person who had asked that question would come to her after the session---she didn’t want the questioner to be embarrassed---and tell her how he got this totally wrong idea about her view.

Leibniz argues in Theodicy that human existence, in this world, is not so bad as usually thought when one really gets all the good things onto the scales.

Stephen -

Thanks for your additions to this. Quotes from the lectures are always tough to document - - - darn that oral tradition!

Bill P

[Guyau]

Philosophy at Work

Getting Back on Your Feet

Paul Kay

Notes in Earlier Thread

Jody Gomez

Robert Malcom

Michael Stuart Kelly

Scott Stephens

Adam Buker

Objectivism and other naturalistic philosophies largely concur with the premises in the follow arguments for God, but reject the conclusion. Rand goes further, in her philosophy, and adds the beginning of an account of feelings that the world is a benevolent place.

Teleological Arguments – A

Teleological Arguments – B

Edited May 11, 2009 by Stephen Boydstun

[BaalChatzaf]

Objectivism and other naturalistic philosophies largely concur with the premises in the follow arguments for God, but reject the conclusion. Rand goes further, in her philosophy, and adds the beginning of an account of feelings that the world is a benevolent place.

<A href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-80">Teleological Arguments – A</A>

<A href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/">Teleological Arguments – B</A>

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient? If so, that means she attributed consciousness to rocks, asteroids, comets and the hot plasma of stars. Which is strange to say the least. The cosmos as a whole is as dumb as a cloud of gas.

Some benevolent! I would hate to be in the plasma atmosphere immediately surrounding our sun. The sun does not love us. It burns us. Fortunately we live at the bottom of an ocean of air on our planet the existence of which is a fluke, not an act of benevolence. I am sure Rand would not have wanted to live on our planet 250 million years ago, when the eruption of the Siberian Traps nearly scoured all life clean off the surface of the planet. When the Yellowstone Super volcano blows (not if, mind you, but when) we shall see just how benevolent the world is). When (not if) half of Teneriffe in the Canaries (La Palma) slides into the Atlantic and sends a 2000 foot high tsunami against the Atlantic coastline of North America, we shall see how benevolent the world is.

Ridiculous!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

duplicate deleted

Edited May 11, 2009 by BaalChatzaf

[Selene]

Good now I can do all those drugs that I wanted to because we are all doomed!

lol

[Guyau]

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient?

No.

[Alfonso Jones]

Objectivism and other naturalistic philosophies largely concur with the premises in the follow arguments for God, but reject the conclusion. Rand goes further, in her philosophy, and adds the beginning of an account of feelings that the world is a benevolent place.

<A href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-80">Teleological Arguments – A</A>

<A href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/">Teleological Arguments – B</A>

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient? If so, that means she attributed consciousness to rocks, asteroids, comets and the hot plasma of stars. Which is strange to say the least. The cosmos as a whole is as dumb as a cloud of gas.

Some benevolent! I would hate to be in the plasma atmosphere immediately surrounding our sun. The sun does not love us. It burns us. Fortunately we live at the bottom of an ocean of air on our planet the existence of which is a fluke, not an act of benevolence. I am sure Rand would not have wanted to live on our planet 250 million years ago, when the eruption of the Siberian Traps nearly scoured all life clean off the surface of the planet. When the Yellowstone Super volcano blows (not if, mind you, but when) we shall see just how benevolent the world is). When (not if) half of Teneriffe in the Canaries (La Palma) slides into the Atlantic and sends a 2000 foot high tsunami against the Atlantic coastline of North America, we shall see how benevolent the world is.

Ridiculous!

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob -

YOu know better than this. You know that the answer to your first question is "NO." (I'm assuming you're read the thread you've responded to here, and the others in which you have participated. I and others have provided ample quotes where Rand explains her position.

Bill P

[Selene]

Yes but according to Korzybski, an opinion or a fact is kinda like sorta in flux

dude you know like the whole world is kinda like grey ....

changing whirling

GAG

:sick:

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob -

YOu know better than this. You know that the answer to your first question is "NO." (I'm assuming you're read the thread you've responded to here, and the others in which you have participated. I and others have provided ample quotes where Rand explains her position.

Bill P

Unlike you, I take Rand literally and verbetim. So I do not know better than this. I know what people say and I go with what they say. If they cannot say what they really mean, that is their defect, not mine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient? If so, that means she attributed consciousness to rocks, asteroids, comets and the hot plasma of stars. Which is strange to say the least. The cosmos as a whole is as dumb as a cloud of gas.

Some benevolent! I would hate to be in the plasma atmosphere immediately surrounding our sun. The sun does not love us. It burns us. Fortunately we live at the bottom of an ocean of air on our planet the existence of which is a fluke, not an act of benevolence. I am sure Rand would not have wanted to live on our planet 250 million years ago, when the eruption of the Siberian Traps nearly scoured all life clean off the surface of the planet. When the Yellowstone Super volcano blows (not if, mind you, but when) we shall see just how benevolent the world is). When (not if) half of Teneriffe in the Canaries (La Palma) slides into the Atlantic and sends a 2000 foot high tsunami against the Atlantic coastline of North America, we shall see how benevolent the world is.

Ridiculous!

I agree. Rand may not have thought that the physical cosmos as such was sentient, but then she shouldn't have used the expression "benevolent universe", because that is exactly what it implies. Further life has no "meaning", it just is. If there is to be assigned any "essence" to life, it is the fact that it has evolved as a construction to prolong its own existence by procreation. For sentient beings joy and pain are essential elements in that process. Without pain, they would quickly become extinct. Our personal preferences don't determine what the essence of life is.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Dragonfly

[Alfonso Jones]

Bob -

YOu know better than this. You know that the answer to your first question is "NO." (I'm assuming you're read the thread you've responded to here, and the others in which you have participated. I and others have provided ample quotes where Rand explains her position.

Bill P

Unlike you, I take Rand literally and verbetim. So I do not know better than this. I know what people say and I go with what they say. If they cannot say what they really mean, that is their defect, not mine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob -

Rand defined what she meant. Why not assume she meant what she said she meant? That is . . . . if you find something an author says puzzling to you, why prefer to impute a meaning to them which leads to silliness and CONTRADICTS the author's explicit statements on the subject, instead of assuming the author means what they explicitly say they mean when they expand on their statement?

Bill P

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill,

When a person is in "understand" mode, what you say is what anyone does.

When a person is in "preach" mode, any old thought will do so long as it helps the preaching, regardless of how invalid or untrue the thought is.

Who needs facts and understanding when you are preaching?

Michael

[Xray]

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient? If so, that means she attributed consciousness to rocks, asteroids, comets and the hot plasma of stars. Which is strange to say the least. The cosmos as a whole is as dumb as a cloud of gas.

Some benevolent! I would hate to be in the plasma atmosphere immediately surrounding our sun. The sun does not love us. It burns us. Fortunately we live at the bottom of an ocean of air on our planet the existence of which is a fluke, not an act of benevolence. I am sure Rand would not have wanted to live on our planet 250 million years ago, when the eruption of the Siberian Traps nearly scoured all life clean off the surface of the planet. When the Yellowstone Super volcano blows (not if, mind you, but when) we shall see just how benevolent the world is). When (not if) half of Teneriffe in the Canaries (La Palma) slides into the Atlantic and sends a 2000 foot high tsunami against the Atlantic coastline of North America, we shall see how benevolent the world is.

Ridiculous!

I agree. Rand may not have thought that the physical cosmos as such was sentient, but then she shouldn't have used the expression "benevolent universe", because that is exactly what it implies. Further life has no "meaning", it just is. If there is to be assigned any "essence" to life, it is the fact that it has evolved as a construction to prolong its own existence by procreation. For sentient beings joy and pain are essential elements in that process. Without pain, they would quickly become extinct. Our personal preferences don't determine what the essence of life is.

Well put and right on target.

Rand defined what she meant. Why not assume she meant what she said she meant? That is . . . . if you find something an author says puzzling to you, why prefer to impute a meaning to them which leads to silliness and CONTRADICTS the author's explicit statements on the subject, instead of assuming the author means what they explicitly say they mean when they expand on their statement?

Bill P

"Rand defined what she meant", you wrote. Where is that specific definition of hers in terms of "benevolent" in connection to "universe"? For the mere attributing of a quality to a term is no definiton.

The term "universe" does not refer to an individual volitional entity. What is categorized under the "term" universe comprises countless physical phenomena, examples of which Baal outlined in his post.

But with Rand, one gets the impression that "the universe" is some god-like spiritual "benevolent" being.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Bob -

YOu know better than this. You know that the answer to your first question is "NO." (I'm assuming you're read the thread you've responded to here, and the others in which you have participated. I and others have provided ample quotes where Rand explains her position.

Bill P

Unlike you, I take Rand literally and verbetim. So I do not know better than this. I know what people say and I go with what they say. If they cannot say what they really mean, that is their defect, not mine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ah. So Rand isn't allowed to make a poetic-sounding summing up of one of her positions, and therefore if she does it's ipso facto strong evidence that she can't also literally tell you what that means? Her "defect"? You're the one claiming he has Assbarger's Syndrome and learned how to fake it to get along with the unafflicted.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Rand defined what she meant. Why not assume she meant what she said she meant? That is . . . . if you find something an author says puzzling to you, why prefer to impute a meaning to them which leads to silliness and CONTRADICTS the author's explicit statements on the subject, instead of assuming the author means what they explicitly say they mean when they expand on their statement?

Bill P

"Rand defined what she meant", you wrote. Where is that specific definition of hers in terms of "benevolent" in connection to "universe"?

Here. About source: A, B

[Alfonso Jones]

Do you think that Rand thought the physical cosmos as such was sentient? If so, that means she attributed consciousness to rocks, asteroids, comets and the hot plasma of stars. Which is strange to say the least. The cosmos as a whole is as dumb as a cloud of gas.

Some benevolent! I would hate to be in the plasma atmosphere immediately surrounding our sun. The sun does not love us. It burns us. Fortunately we live at the bottom of an ocean of air on our planet the existence of which is a fluke, not an act of benevolence. I am sure Rand would not have wanted to live on our planet 250 million years ago, when the eruption of the Siberian Traps nearly scoured all life clean off the surface of the planet. When the Yellowstone Super volcano blows (not if, mind you, but when) we shall see just how benevolent the world is). When (not if) half of Teneriffe in the Canaries (La Palma) slides into the Atlantic and sends a 2000 foot high tsunami against the Atlantic coastline of North America, we shall see how benevolent the world is.

Ridiculous!

I agree. Rand may not have thought that the physical cosmos as such was sentient, but then she shouldn't have used the expression "benevolent universe", because that is exactly what it implies. Further life has no "meaning", it just is. If there is to be assigned any "essence" to life, it is the fact that it has evolved as a construction to prolong its own existence by procreation. For sentient beings joy and pain are essential elements in that process. Without pain, they would quickly become extinct. Our personal preferences don't determine what the essence of life is.

Well put and right on target.

Rand defined what she meant. Why not assume she meant what she said she meant? That is . . . . if you find something an author says puzzling to you, why prefer to impute a meaning to them which leads to silliness and CONTRADICTS the author's explicit statements on the subject, instead of assuming the author means what they explicitly say they mean when they expand on their statement?

Bill P

"Rand defined what she meant", you wrote. Where is that specific definition of hers in terms of "benevolent" in connection to "universe"? For the mere attributing of a quality to a term is no definiton.

The term "universe" does not refer to an individual volitional entity. What is categorized under the "term" universe comprises countless physical phenomena, examples of which Baal outlined in his post.

But with Rand, one gets the impression that "the universe" is some god-like spiritual "benevolent" being.

Read the thread in which you are posting for detailed documentation.

Bill P