A metaphysical argument against objectivism

[caroljane]

Of course, any sentence ever written could be used by very bad people for evil ends. But I do not believe the evil ones are any more intelligent, organized or effective than the good ones at spinning .

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Homosapien is a species. Human beings are persons (capable of intention, selfawareness and reason). Homo sapien newborns do not (yet) have this quality. We are born homo sapien (that is our genome). We become human in due course.

Bob,

This is your opinion and pure ideology. (Or maybe just plain old not wanting to admit you are wrong.)

Your distinction--that there is a difference between homo sapiens and human beings--is not backed up anywhere. Especially not in science.

What silliness.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... as gravy, citing the mother's sovereignty while she is carrying the prenatal human being is another form of check and balance against the government...

I've been mulling this over and I think there is a little more gravy here than I imagined when I wrote that.

I know I'm dreaming, but it would be a very good thing to put the phrase "each individual has inalienable sovereignty over that individual's own body" into the Constitution. Now that would be a check and balance on the government worth fighting for.

This would be for adults, of course. And there would be some exceptions like doctors performing emergency invasive surgery on an accident victim when nobody can be found to speak for that person, etc.

But think of it. The individual would be a sovereign entity that the government would have to respect, just like it respects sovereign nations.

Out would go abortion laws, drug and liquor laws, anti-suicide laws, anti-prostitution laws, vice laws in general, these new silly food restriction laws, and a whole series of government encroachments--including that euphemistic-sounding "respect for an individual's privacy," which sounds like a right, but actually means "respect for what privacy the government, at its sole discretion, allows the individual."

I would have no issue with lowering the boom on a person who uses harsh drugs and gets children addicted to them (and similar bad things), but even in that case, I would support the perpetrator's sovereignty over his own body. The crime would be what he did to the children.

And I would have no issue with the government promoting education on the harms certain things can cause, but even so, I believe that would be better handled by private organizations, churches and so forth.

Michael

[anthony]

I know I'm dreaming, but it would be a very good thing to put the phrase "each individual has inalienable sovereignty over that individual's own body" into the Constitution. Now that would be a check and balance on the government worth fighting for.

But think of it. The individual would be a sovereign entity that the government would have to respect, just like it respects sovereign nations.

Michael

Michael,

Now you talkin'! That's not dreaming, that's how it should be. Wow.

I've been thinking about all the fancy, 'progressive' Constitutions (not the US

one, obviously) in the world (like ours, here) and somehow they cover EVERYTHING

known to man - but not that: not sovereignty of the individual's body.

Why is that, do you think? Innocent error? Oversight?

(Or could it be these statists know you control the body, you own the mind?)

Nah - they can't be that devious, I'm far too suspicious...

;)

[BaalChatzaf]

The statists know it, but they don't want you to know it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Carol,

Maybe you haven't participated in many of these discussions. What Brant said is truer that you could imagine. Very bad people latch onto emphasis--especially if you emphasize something in the ballpark of "subhuman"--to justify very bad things.

Anyway, I believe Bob can speak for himself:

We become human beings over a period of time.

I disagree with that mis-identification in the strongest sense of disagreement possible. We do not "become" human beings over time. We are human beings right from the start. We are prenatal human beings. We are infant human beings. We grow into adult human beings. And so on.

"Human being" is not a term for measuring development. Within the context of identification, it denotes kind, not degree--that is unless you have some agenda.

Once again, it's a hell of a lot easier to kill something that is only "becoming a human being"--and then go have dinner--than it is to kill a human being.

Kill if you must. But don't hide behind semantic games to pretend it is something else just so you can feel better.

Michael

Totalitarian regimes frequently dehumanize scapegoat groups like capitalists and Jews. The Nazis turned Jews into vermin then set out to industrialize murder them. Becoming human also means de-becoming human courtesy of myriad "witch doctors." The contrary is the core of the right-to-life lifers. Their views of human rights, or right to life, is intrinsic and they will never grant a woman the right to an abortion. They think it is infanticide that can even devolve into euthanasia. They are as right as their view of human rights is right, but it is actually wrong. Rights are a human philosophical invention respecting human action and are social. There is nothing intrinsic about them. Note that the light-to-lifers have to dehumanize the pregnant woman in order to humanize the fetus. The woman has no say. This is slavery of a woman to a queer rights' philosophy which is not Lockean-Randian. Now, when the baby is born he is ideally free to exercise what rights he can. Those he can't he won't. The old guy in the nursing home too. Everybody's human.

On the basis of natural rights philosophy we can argue about second and third-mester abortions, yes and no, but if you are an intrinsicist respecting rights, no such discusion is possible for it's too much advantage, my dojo.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Homosapien is a species. Human beings are persons (capable of intention, selfawareness and reason). Homo sapien newborns do not (yet) have this quality. We are born homo sapien (that is our genome). We become human in due course.

Bob,

This is your opinion and pure ideology. (Or maybe just plain old not wanting to admit you are wrong.)

Your distinction--that there is a difference between homo sapiens and human beings--is not backed up anywhere. Especially not in science.

What silliness.

Michael

My opinions are grounded by scientific fact. I have little use for ideology. My ideology (if I have one) is the Facts Rule and Theories and Principles come in second.

The fact is that day old infants have not got the machinery for abstract thought and formulation of intent. They have to grow it first. Which means that on day uno a homo sapien new born is not a person as we generally mean that word.

But infants are so damned cute we keep them around long enough so that they become persons we can get to love.

Our biologically hardwired response to Cute is one of our survival characteristics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[caroljane]

Homosapien is a species. Human beings are persons (capable of intention, selfawareness and reason). Homo sapien newborns do not (yet) have this quality. We are born homo sapien (that is our genome). We become human in due course.

Bob,

This is your opinion and pure ideology. (Or maybe just plain old not wanting to admit you are wrong.)

Your distinction--that there is a difference between homo sapiens and human beings--is not backed up anywhere. Especially not in science.

What silliness.

Michael

My opinions are grounded by scientific fact. I have little use for ideology. My ideology (if I have one) is the Facts Rule and Theories and Principles come in second.

The fact is that day old infants have not got the machinery for abstract thought and formulation of intent. They have to grow it first. Which means that on day uno a homo sapien new born is not a person as we generally mean that word.

But infants are so damned cute we keep them around long enough so that they become persons we can get to love.

Our biologically hardwired response to Cute is one of our survival characteristics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Exactly. And from day uno we do the anthromorphic thing with them ("Look, he smiled! He likes what I said!") until they grow into the persons we love, and beyond.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I do not notice any very bad people either.

Carol,

Hopefully you won't, either.

But quid pro quo is not how propaganda works. It works just like it implies--by propagation.

The purpose of an idea virus like the concept of "subhuman" is not to immediately line people up against a wall and shoot them--or, in the case of prenatal humans, send commando abortion teams to every house to insure all pregnant women get an abortion if they want one, especially teens against the will of their parents and poor victims entrapped by religious backwater no-nothings.

The purpose is to soften you (and everyone else) up for being ruled--to make you accept it without too much fuss.

(Note that the word "subhuman" doesn't need to be used for the concept of subhuman to exist. This concept can be represented by many words, but I'll use "subhuman" here for the sake of simplicity.)

The subhuman idea virus is extremely vicious because it weakens your image of what a human being actually is--as defined by your own common sense and learning. It cuts to the core of selecting winners and losers (meaning those who are allowed to live or those who are OK'd for killing) at the identification level. A person automatically is a subhuman--by definition. That's nasty. But it gets worse.

Who defines this?

And here we get into the real nasty stuff.

The subhuman idea virus implies--and you end up accepting that--there are people out there--experts--who can determine the criteria for those who really are human beings and those who are not (i.e., the subhumans). But the main point is that YOU are not the person who decides that. Not even for yourself. Someone else is.

And once you accept that poison, this particular piece of propaganda has been successful.

Then, you don't mind when these so-called experts in humanity get just a little power so they can make sure things are "fair." And the killing is always reasonable at first (except, maybe to the person killed, but he ain't talkin', especially after he's dead). After all, we don't want to be unfair, now do we?

Then the power of the experts (and their gangs) grows until it reaches the tipping point of no return. Once that happens, it's anyone's guess. If the people in power are good people, not much bad will happen. Some, but not much. If they are monsters, you get a genocide attempt against the subhumans and killing on massive levels.

But there's more. History has shown time and time again that good people with massive power end up, sooner or later, being followed by monsters. So at some point, so long as that subhuman idea is present in the culture, the genocide attempt will surge. It's almost a sure thing.

The only cure is to restrict that power and detonate the idea virus. You usually can't restrict power without violence once it becomes entrenched. That's another issue for another day.

But you can do your share to stop the virus without violence. This discredits the self-proclaimed experts in humanity, thus becomes an obstacle to their (and their gang's) attainment of more and more power.

The Nature of the Idea Virus

An idea virus works like this: a message, a shell and a delivery mechanism.

(For this idea, I'm riffing off of Media Virus! Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture by Douglas Rushkoff. I haven't read Dawkins's thing on memes yet, but it's on my list.)

You have the core message. In this case: "some humans--but not you--are not really humans, so it's OK to kill them off."

Notice that "not you" part of that message. That is the infecting part since being on the lookout for personal danger is already within you. You can't help it. Your subconscious comes prewired that way.

As we know, a virus uses the host's enzymes to live and spread. In this case, the idea enzyme is "these subhumans are not like you." An adult (you, Carol, for instance--or Bob) is no longer like an infant or fetus. You cannot be mistaken for one. It's obvious and your subconscious is pretty happy with that. So the "not you" idea is a relatively easy enzyme for the nasty idea virus to use with nobody even noticing. People who absorb and nest the subhuman idea virus are exempted from the danger of being excluded from the human race by the very description of some of the differences between them and the scapegoats.

Then we have the shell it is encased in--all this scientific sounding stuff added to clever analogies. In the present case, we talk about neocortex development and trimesters and matters of pre-mature stages as if these things were defects that need to be fixed.

With other so-called subhumans like Jews, the bigots talk about big noses, money grubbing, covertly buying off people in power, ruling the entertainment industry, and so forth. (That's just on the surface. For scapegoating Jews, this can get really underground and sophisticated.) But it's the same crap. Mumbo-jumbo to hide the true message: those living things over there might appear to be humans, but they are not like you and they are not really human--so when we need to kill them, no biggie.

Then you have the delivery mechanism for propagation. On a very small scale, that means a site like OL. There are places with far bigger megaphones that can propagate this stuff much wider than OL can, but OL still is a delivery mechanism for propagation. Especially seeing the high intellectual level of OL's audience.

I don't restrict this kind of message from being presented, but I know it when I see it, and I sure as hell speak out against it. I dissect the nature of the shell in easy-to-understand language and expose the rotten toxicity of the core message. I draw a picture of what a full-blown infection in the culture looks like.

Then I let people think about it with their own minds. If they think I'm full of crap, so be it. But at least they see it openly.

I shine sunlight on it. And as we all know, sunlight is one of the best disinfectants against rot.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

My opinions are grounded by scientific fact. I have little use for ideology. My ideology (if I have one) is the Facts Rule and Theories and Principles come in second.

You have an ideology. You just stated it. You usually just say you don't. You are not usually meally-mouthed about the contradiction. Everyone has a philosophy, usually a cultural hodgepoge. For them "ideology" is too strong a word for they hardly really think about anything. You think about a lot, but as an aspie (Aspie?) it's too hard for you to deal with philosophy, but you keep ineffectively trying to attack it.

--Brant

[MrBenjamatic]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. Once the baby is born, I would call it a human. I might have said otherwise earlier, but this is my final conclusion as humans don't chose to be immoral immediately upon being born. I remember from the John Galt speech Rand saying something like in order to be a human you must think, but you cannot choose be anything else. (Does anyone have the quote?). I think I took that the wrong way. I held that those who refuse to think are not humans but mere homo-sapiens, and I've corrected myself. Those who don't think try not to be humans, but they can't not be humans. It was a little error. Before I attributed rights to homo-sapiens and now I'll say individual human rights with full confidence.

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

Yup.

But keep working it.

Michael

[MrBenjamatic]

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

Yup.

But keep working it.

Michael

I always do. And I couldn't bear to stop thinking. I'm now about to endeavor induction vs. deduction and also concepts. I know I have great ability, great talent and great virtue (great as my architecture which needs to be greater along with my philosophy). I can't wait till I understand Objectivism completely! I'll be the ultimate aristocrat.

I also thought I'd ask whether you hold that babies are not parasites? Don't you know the purpose and existence of umbilical cords? Without the umbilical cord the baby would die. And I don't hold it as evil as no unborn baby can chose not to be a parasite. I did correct myself, however, and now I do hold all homo sapiens as human beings, even unborn babies. My holding unborn babies as non-humans is what you, I think, held as being a contradiction, and, upon thinking of it more, I agree. But the unborn babies, being human, still do not have the right to their mothers body as it is her body and no one else's. I do know that my justification of individual human rights with the logic of logic is irrefutable as the laws of logic: You have the right to use and dispose of, offer to trade and give away that which is yours and no one elses with no one else's permission. (I'm not certain in my describing rights as: the ability to use & dispose of, offer to trade and give away that which is yours and no one elses; I'm not sure whether ability is the best word, however I do know my basing rights on the laws of logic is right.)

[Brant Gaede]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. Once the baby is born, I would call it a human. I might have said otherwise earlier, but this is my final conclusion as humans don't chose to be immoral immediately upon being born. I remember from the John Galt speech Rand saying something like in order to be a human you must think, but you cannot choose be anything else. (Does anyone have the quote?). I think I took that the wrong way. I held that those who refuse to think are not humans but mere homo-sapiens, and I've corrected myself. Those who don't think try not to be humans, but they can't not be humans. It was a little error. Before I attributed rights to homo-sapiens and now I'll say individual human rights with full confidence.

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

Many women are desperate to have a baby. Achieving pregnancy thus contributes to the "survival of the host." People used to have a lot of children, especially needed in agricultural societies or to help take care of them in their old age. The materialistic reductionist way you are approaching philosophy can be ultimately programmed into a computer to rule us all. You have stripped Objectivism of its humanity not for the benefit of the species but that computer run by power-lusting, controlling geeks. "Parasite" is basically a pejorative term. If the woman keeps calling her unborn child one, then, I suppose, it'll be easier to get her consent--if it be needed--to abort it.

--Brant

philosophy is not for cows

[Dan Haggerty]

I did some dictionary checking for posterity and this is what I found:

par·a·site

1 : a person who exploits the hospitality of the rich and earns welcome by flattery

2 : an organism living in, with, or on another organism in parasitism

3 : something that resembles a biological parasite in dependence on something else for existence or support without making a useful or adequate return

Outside of being a perfect fit for the current occupants of the White House (gratuitous slam for Selene), only number two comes close until you look up the definition of parasitism. It also fails since it usually involves one creature gaining a benefit while harming its host.

Either way, this is still moot. Let’s be honest, if you walk up a pregnant lady, call her a host and ask how the little parasite is doing, you’re going to need the help of a good proctologist to clean your teeth. Explore that reaction and you’ll find out why the relationship between unborn baby and mother is more complex.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Calling a fetus a parasite excludes reality--specifically the part corresponding to the law of identity.

A parasite eats the flesh and blood of the host. A fetus, then infant, feeds on nourishment specifically provided by nature for it in the mother's body.

A parasite is a predator. A fetus or infant is merely claiming its biological conception-right and birthright--in a very literal manner--by consuming nourishment from the mother's body. That nourishment was generated in the mother's body for no other purpose than to feed it. Without such feeding, the nourishment is discarded.

Also, female breasts are only sex organs as a secondary purpose. Their main biological purpose is to provide milk for infants.

This has nothing to do with parasitism.

Rand defined man as a rational animal. Rational is the differentia and animal is the genus. I have seen too many times--including with Rand herself--where, in discussing human beings, the rational part is kept but the animal part is discarded.

What's worse, Rand even identified the fallacy involved in doing that. She called it the stolen concept fallacy, i.e. (to quote to link) "the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends."

The concept "man" logically depends on the concept "animal" as a root.

Michael

[Selene]

A fetus would effect a more symbiotic relationship with the "host" Mom.

Similar to a pilot fish on a whale. Not to demean the relationship to mother and child, but illustrative in terms of this discussion.

[anthony]

Are we really having a conversation about babies as if they were a leech and mothers as if they were a host creature? I mean, really?

Dan,

It looks like it.

This is Objectivism for Martians, not a philosophy for living on earth.

(This is what happens when a person deduces reality from principles and memorizes catechism lessons--then wants to preach--rather than induces principles from reality first-hand. I know because I used to do that stuff all the time. That's why I'm not all over the kid. Give him some time. Reality will teach him some hard lessons if he does not think through things correctly, but he has a good mind and I'm convinced he will learn.)

Michael

Your right of course, I was just shocked.

This reminds me of something I have been thinking about. As I've been reading and exploring the online world of O'ism I've noticed a bad trend where people like to think in theory without ever considering the practical side of their argument. I'm starting to wonder if this is the problem with O'ism, not the philosophy but how it has been represented. I seem to recall LP once said Rand got on him for forgetting the practical in the same way she would get on Greenspan for doing the opposite. It would explain a lot.

Just a theory I’ve been kicking around.

Dan,

I agree - I don't believe the problem is in Objectivism itself, but that O'ists do make the problem for themselves.

As I'm sure you know, you are describing *rationalism*, briefly defined by AR as the philosophy which "...claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world exclusively from concepts." (Out of touch with reality.)

She contrasted this with *empiricism* - the philosophy which claims man's knowledge is derived

..."by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts." (Concrete -mindedness.)

They are both contra O'ism, of course, as a false dichotomy.

It is interesting that both 'philosophies' are being heard here: rationalism by Mr B, and empiricism by Bob.

Principally, the tone of those arguments is that man is a. supra-human or b. sub-human.

As methodology, of course the empirical approach is essential to us. But the method may extend into empiricism (as philosophy) through reductionism and 'scientism'.

In which case a human foetus can be 'disposed of,' by an empiricist, as having no more value than any biological organism.

As you are pointing out, rationalism is much more common in Objectivism: the ideas and principles O'ism

contains are seductively powerful to (especially) young minds, I think. But "concretist" empiricism

comes up sometimes, too.

Both philosophies I think, are based on mind-body dualism, but I could be wrong.

(Also, very broadly, the abortion conflict shows this too: the mystical pro-lifer rationalist,

vs. the liberal pro-choicer empiricist.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A fetus would effect a more symbiotic relationship with the "host" Mom.

Adam,

I wouldn't characterize this as a relationship of mutual benefit. It's more like closing a natural cycle. The mother has no choice about generating nourishment for offspring, just as she has no choice about arresting the growth of the offspring without killing it. She has no choice about what comes in nature. She must accept what Rand called "the given" and go on from there. Ditto for the offspring. And a fetus literally dies if its umbilical "relationship" is severed before the proper time.

This is one case where man the species is more fundamental to action and relationships than man the individual. Like I said, the concept of animal, which includes reproduction, is one of the roots of the concept of man. What is fundamental to animal--like having reproduction organs--has to be fundamental to man.

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

Qualifier: Jumping in here without reading the full thread.

It is the nature of the relationship between parent and child that is being questioned here. It is not enough to just fucus on physical processes when defining the nature of a human relationship. The relationship between parent and child is fundamentally different to the relationship between host and parasite. While part of the picture may look the same, seeing the bigger picture reveals the differences.

Michael is taking a bigger picture perspective and is well fed by a healthy dose of common sense. He has taken a very conceptual frame of reference. Let me try the same theme from a more practical (inside the thing) reference point.

There are times, as a parent, that I have felt like I am being treated like my kids' slave. Kids have a way of pushing boundaries. These are just moments and they are brief because I have an unconscious alert system built to draw my attention to feelings of being used. I have had the discussions with my kids about the difference between my role as a parent and them treating me, or the maintaining of our shared space, like I am their slave. My job as parent is to nurture their growth from dependence to independence by handing them responsibilities that are a match for the independence and freedom they naturally seek as they develop. They love the freedom and independence but would equally love to go without the responsibilities. If I allow this, I would be creating a master/slave relationship.

The relationship between slave and master is very much the same as the relationship between parasite and host. One is using the other's resources without the other having a practical choice, at least in the mind of the host or the slave. And this choice goes against the core motives and intentions of the host or slave.

A parent has choice (within his or her nature and the nature of his or her culture and environment) and gives resources from a place of intrinsic core motives and intensions. In my mind, this difference nullifies the claim that a fetus, or a child, is a parasite. It is also the story that stops me, as a parent, from becoming my kids' slave. I've seen other parents who carry other stories about their role as parents who do live as host to parasites or slaves to masters. Their mistake.

[MrBenjamatic]

I did some dictionary checking for posterity and this is what I found:

par·a·site

1 : a person who exploits the hospitality of the rich and earns welcome by flattery

2 : an organism living in, with, or on another organism in parasitism

3 : something that resembles a biological parasite in dependence on something else for existence or support without making a useful or adequate return

Outside of being a perfect fit for the current occupants of the White House (gratuitous slam for Selene), only number two comes close until you look up the definition of parasitism. It also fails since it usually involves one creature gaining a benefit while harming its host.

Either way, this is still moot. Let’s be honest, if you walk up a pregnant lady, call her a host and ask how the little parasite is doing, you’re going to need the help of a good proctologist to clean your teeth. Explore that reaction and you’ll find out why the relationship between unborn baby and mother is more complex.

The specific definition of parasite I relate to an unborn baby is: An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host. I have not said that a baby harms the health of the mother or that a baby human, once born, is a parasite. I guess one could call this deduction as all words are concepts, as Rand said, but I hardly understand the difference yet between induction and deduction apart from the Ayn Rand Lexicon description which is very short and which I am endeavoring to further grasp. If induction is held to mean taking facts of reality and forming concepts, I have used induction. The umbilical cord and its purpose is a fact of reality.

For the record, I do take facts of reality to form concepts (as opposed to deducing reality from concepts). My justification of rights is grounded with facts of reality. I know, in order to sustain my existence, I have to use my mind and my body. I know my life and no one else's is my life and no one else's. That is self-evident, in other words,I have sensory evidence that it is true. I know, in order to sustain my existence I have to offer to trade that which is mine and no one else's (my architecture, for instance) and if trading (that which is mine and no one else's) was forbidden by force until and unless I received permission from someone else, someone could easily stop and destroy me by refusing to sanction all trades I need to make. I also, as I've noticed your aware, perform deduction, if it is held to mean: the process of subsuming new instances under a known concept (Rand's def). I originally reached the conclusion, by means of reason, that it is proper for man to trade as it sustains his existence and man has a right to trade that which is his and no one else's. I realized I made a mistake: that if I had the right to trade with someone, they would have no right to refuse to trade (so long as I had the right to trade with them); upon thinking of that, I then held that man has the right to offer to trade that which is his and no one else's. I don't know whether this is induction or deduction. I'm not going to claim I understand. Also, I noticed the definition of rationalism held that one is only a rationalist if he "obtains his knowledge of the world exclusively by deducing it from concepts which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts". I know I studied magnetism without reading but by means of reason and of magnets themselves. (Magnetic levitation will take place throughout my architecture). That which I know about magnetism (knowledge being sensory evidence and reason based on sensory evidence) is based on physical evidence I sensed of magnetism and has been furthered by means of reason. I barely knew definitions prescribed to magnets and their nature; I learned some definitions after experiments of magnetism and physics so to define what I did. I don't know it but I may deduce too much in other areas of thinking, but when it comes to the creation of my architecture I must perform induction.

Rand said definitions are concepts. Wouldn't integrating definitions and entities (so to define the entities), be a process of deduction? It seems to me that people have held deduction as immoral, or, perhaps they hold rationalism as immoral (which I agree with, and once and if I prove myself guilty of it, I'll change it). Furthermore, to the extent of my knowledge, deduction cannot be immoral: If deduction is meant to mean "The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept", would it not be stupid to ignore that new instance of sensory evidence and refuse to integrate it with your established concepts, or, if you haven't a concept for it yet to create one (though that is, I think, induction. Integration is essential to reason and thereby deduction is key to survive.

Anyway, I'm going to read about induction and deduction and concepts and rationalism. I'm going to further study Objectivist epistemology. Till then I can't and won't claim I know more than a sliver (which I might have misconstrued) about induction and deduction. Then I'll judge for myself whether I'm a rationalist or not. If I am, I'll think and solve the problem of rationalism. If I'm not, I'll understand more upon the volumes of thought I always put into philosophy. But don't expect me to take on faith that I'm a rationalist.

By the way, if rationalism is held to mean "obtaining knowledge of the world exclusively by deducing it from concepts, which come from inside one's head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts", then a rationalist creator is a contradiction. I am a creator. One can only create a new architecture by means of reason. You have to know the nature of that with which you build, as that which you build hasn't been done before. Rationalism and reason clash with each other. You absolutely cannot act only on reason and be a rationalist at the same time. Either you are a rationalist or you are not just as you are alive or you are not: this, like death, is a matter of either-or. If I'm a tad bit of a rationalist (which is a contradiction as one deduces reality ENTIRELY from concepts or one does not), I'll fix it by means of reason (which must be the antidote of rationalism).

Carpe Diem, Carpe Noctum

PBH

[caroljane]

MrBen,

Beware of confirmation bias in your studies. Your overriding preoccupation with decertifying the architectural certifiers could distract you from the fundamentals of the philosophy you are exploring.

[MrBenjamatic]

MrBen,

Beware of confirmation bias in your studies. Your overriding preoccupation with decertifying the architectural certifiers could distract you from the fundamentals of the philosophy you are exploring.

Who is an architectural "certifier"?

*Never mind. I think regulator would be a better word to use.

The purpose of my life is My Benjamin. My Benjamin is an end in itself. The purpose of my studying philosophy is to win my court case by justifying it with indubitable logic, which I have, and to gain and keep my architecture and happiness more than I did before I knew of Objectivism. Wiping the architectural gangsters guns out of my way is a profound reason and motivator to study Objectivism.

[caroljane]

MrBen,

Beware of confirmation bias in your studies. Your overriding preoccupation with decertifying the architectural certifiers could distract you from the fundamentals of the philosophy you are exploring.

Who is an architectural "certifier"?

Those organizations you want to sue for preventing you from practising. How is the lawsuit going btw?

[MrBenjamatic]

MrBen,

Beware of confirmation bias in your studies. Your overriding preoccupation with decertifying the architectural certifiers could distract you from the fundamentals of the philosophy you are exploring.

Who is an architectural "certifier"?

Those organizations you want to sue for preventing you from practising. How is the lawsuit going btw?

I haven't filed it yet. I'm further studying philosophy so to correct any errors I may have in my case. If the laws of logic are held as valid in a courtroom, if the judge and jury recognize that every thing is itself, I can win right now. I want to be right about everything I say before trial. I'm exercising reason and studying philosophy more before trial.