Logical Structure of Objectivism

[Selene]

Adam wrote:

Ms. Xray's study guide to Ayn compiled by Adam Selene

I guess the study guide was complete - as well as empty.

Bill P

I may actually develop this over the holiday, but it really looks like I would just be wasting time. Since this last post by Ms. Simple, the study guide would be very, very short. Ms. Xray has now announced that she has a mystical aspect to her persona, in her declaration that:

"I'm perfectly familiar with Rand's thought patterns..." which must be some kind of Vulcan mind meld with a little twist of Shirley MacLaine and Dennis Kucinich.

However, if I do get the satirical urge, I may work on it.

Clearly, any contributions would be appreciated.

Adam

[Alfonso Jones]

Adam wrote:

Ms. Xray's study guide to Ayn compiled by Adam Selene

I guess the study guide was complete - as well as empty.

Bill P

I may actually develop this over the holiday, but it really looks like I would just be wasting time. Since this last post by Ms. Simple, the study guide would be very, very short. Ms. Xray has now announced that she has a mystical aspect to her persona, in her declaration that:

"I'm perfectly familiar with Rand's thought patterns..." which must be some kind of Vulcan mind meld with a little twist of Shirley MacLaine and Dennis Kucinich.

However, if I do get the satirical urge, I may work on it.

Clearly, any contributions would be appreciated.

Adam

The soundtrack doubtless will contain "I am the Walrus," from Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles).

Bill P

[Xray]

Rand:

"Objectivity begins with the realization that man (including his every attribute and faculty, including his consciousness) is an entity of a specific nature who must act accordingly; that there is no escape from the law of identity, neither in the universe with which he deals nor in the working of his own consciousness, and if he is to acquire knowledge of the first, he must discover the proper method of using the second; that there is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man, least of all in his method of cognition—and just as he has learned to be guided by objective criteria in making his physical tools, so he must be guided by objective criteria in forming his tools of cognition: his concepts." (end quote)

I particularly like the line ".... that there is no room for the arbitrary in any activity of man".

Is Baskin-Robbins foolish to make more than one flavor of ice cream? I wonder what that one "Objective flavor" "ought to" be.

Rand:

"Tables, for instance, are first differentiated from chairs, beds and other objects by means of the characteristic of shape, which is an attribute possessed by all the objects involved. Then, their particular kind of shape is set as the distinguishing characteristic of tables—i.e., a certain category of geometrical measurements of shape is specified. Then, within that category, the particular measurements of measurements of individual table-shapes are omitted." (end quote)

Billions of persons have been abstracting and categorizing for untold centuries with no problem. Does Rand think that with all this categorizing stuff she is offering something new and difficult?

Edited December 24, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Whatever you may quote later -- which you will likely distort beyond recognition -- does not erase those quotes I made. If you are honest, you will deal with them honestly.

Not only that, I will give a complete rerun of the discussion here so that everyone can compare what we both have written.

Here you go:

View PostXray, on 22 December 2009 - 10:28 AM, said:

"You mean the passage in ITOE where she iirc, states that small children who don't yet know any words (!) will note and compare the lenghts of various object (pencil, ruler, etc) and that this gives them an idea of the concept "length"?

That's absurd, putting the linguistic cart before the horse.

Does Rand in all seriousness believe children so young that they don't even yet know he simplest words (e.g. "Mommy") already engage in this mental activity demanding such a high degree of abstraction?" (end quote Xray)

MJ: "Utter hogwash! Rand says nothing about a child grasping the idea of length before learning the word "mommy". The word "mommy" is not even in ITOE. Also, Rand clearly says a child's first concepts are of entities, concepts of attributes (e.g. length) come later, and first words are of visual objects. Your dishonesty is on full display." (end quote MJ)

Xray: "No, Merlin, what is on display is Rand contradicting herself time after time in ITOE. I don't have ITOE here right now but will show you the quote later." (end quote Xray)

Rand quote provided by MJ:

Let us now examine the process of forming the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute (chronologically, this is not the first concept that a child would grasp; but it is the simplest one epistemologically)—for instance, the concept "length." (ITOE2, 10)

Xray: "Another allegation by Rand (about a concept like length being simple for a child to grasp). What "evidence" does she base her conclusion on? For where does it say the concept "length" is simple to form for children? I don't get this impression at all. For example, six year-olds still often confuse "bigger" with longer/taller, let alone will they easily produce terms like "length", "width", "height", "breadth". etc." (end quote Xray)

Here is the quote you asked about, Merlin. It follows immediately after the passage you quoted - why didn't you quote the whole thing?

From your quote:

Let us now examine the process of forming the simplest concept, the concept of a single attribute (chronologically, this is not the first concept that a child would grasp; but it is the simplest one epistemologically)—for instance, the concept "length." (ITOE2, 10)

Continued: (bolding mine)

"If a child considers a match, a pencil and he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. the difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length", the child's mind retains the attribute and omits the particular measurements. Or more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: "Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify as 'length' that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity.

The child does not think in such words, (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly. And that is the principle which his mind follows, when having grasped the concept "length" by observing the three objects, he uses it to identify the attribute of length in a piece of string, a ribbon, a belt, a corridor or a street." (ITOE)

Imo is impossible for a child having "as yet, no knowledge of words" to perform such acts of thinking.

Aside from that, the setup of the experiment itself is flawed, for one might observe other characteristics in common as well (e. g. wood, same color, hardness, etc).

What Rand calls "length" here is actually the oblong shape of the objects. As for "length" - anything put on a vertical/horizontal plane has height (vertical length) and width (horizontal length) determined by the extremities regardless of shape.

So unless the objects are equally high and wide, they do NOT have "(the same) length as an attribute in common". What they have in common is merely the oblong shape.

What does Rand mean by a child "not having knowledge of words"? Does she believe an infant not able to utter a word yet will look at these objects the way she thinks?

The child does not think in any such manner at all. The child observes a set of characteristics that constitute the identity of a specific entity.

This set of characteristics represents a specific relationship to the child. I have observed this countless times myself in my work with children.

After the Christmas holidays, I'll do the test for you and Selene who so readily believe Rand on this.

I'll show my five- and six year-olds, who already do have "a knowledge of words": a match, a pencil and a stick, let them comment on what they perceive and will post the result here.

Bill P: The soundtrack doubtless will contain "I am the Walrus," from Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles).

'Magical Mystery Tour' - what a fitting title this would be for ITOE.

No answer from Selene to my post # 573 where I asked him:

"Run through all the many choices you have made today and you will see that, whenever faced with a choice, it is always what you value highest at the moment of the choice that will tip the scale for you. It applies to everything - be it mundane things like choosing which socks to wear, up to choices which may have a profound effect on your life." (Xray)

Speaking of Beatles titles, "Help!" comes to mind. Maybe you could help Selene in giving your results of "a day in the life" (another title by the Fab Four)? Have you made a single choice contradicting my claim that what you have chosen was what you valued highest at the moment of the choice?

Edited December 24, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

Not only simple, but ignorantly simple.

No answer from Selene to my post # 573 where I asked him:

"Run through all the many choices you have made today and you will see that, whenever faced with a choice, it is always what you value highest at the moment of the choice that will tip the scale for you. It applies to everything - be it mundane things like choosing which socks to wear, up to choices which may have a profound effect on your life." (Xray)

Are you too blind to see that you did get an answer to post #537?

Login to rate

Adam

[merjet]

Whatever you may quote later -- which you will likely distort beyond recognition -- does not erase those quotes I made. If you are honest, you will deal with them honestly.

Not only that, I will give a complete rerun of the discussion here so that everyone can compare what we both have written.

Your dishonesty is on full display agin. Your rerun is far from complete. The proof is here.

[Alfonso Jones]

Whatever you may quote later -- which you will likely distort beyond recognition -- does not erase those quotes I made. If you are honest, you will deal with them honestly.

Not only that, I will give a complete rerun of the discussion here so that everyone can compare what we both have written.

Your dishonesty is on full display agin. Your rerun is far from complete. The proof is here.

You've got it, Merlin. Every time I readjust my expectations of Xray downwards, she engages more of this sort of behavior - misleading quotes, bizarre and unnatural interpretations, ... and demonstrates that she can underperform to those new expectations.

Not ready for prime time.

Bill P

Edited December 25, 2009 by Bill P

[Selene]

Guys:

When you are innately deceptive, it gets extremely difficult to remember each lie, evasion, misleading out-of-context quote and self delusional statement.

Additionally, she, or it, has theintellectual handicap of being arrogant in a meaningless way and condescending in a clumsy and infantile manner.

Add a final dash of a lack of integrity and you have a sad, dysfunctional mistresspiece [new word].

She, or it, has brought me a great deal of amusement this Christmas season.

Adam

[anonrobt]

Guys:

When you are innately deceptive, it gets extremely difficult to remember each lie, evasion, misleading out-of-context quote and self delusional statement.

Additionally, she, or it, has theintellectual handicap of being arrogant in a meaningless way and condescending in a clumsy and infantile manner.

Add a final dash of a lack of integrity and you have a sad, dysfunctional mistresspiece [new word].

She, or it, has brought me a great deal of amusement this Christmas season.

Adam

but the battery is running low.......

[Alfonso Jones]

Guys:

When you are innately deceptive, it gets extremely difficult to remember each lie, evasion, misleading out-of-context quote and self delusional statement.

Additionally, she, or it, has theintellectual handicap of being arrogant in a meaningless way and condescending in a clumsy and infantile manner.

Add a final dash of a lack of integrity and you have a sad, dysfunctional mistresspiece [new word].

She, or it, has brought me a great deal of amusement this Christmas season.

Adam

I would like to respectfully call your attention to a spelling error above.

That's "inanely" deceptive.

Oops. It works both ways...

Bill P (smiling)

[Xray]

Whatever you may quote later -- which you will likely distort beyond recognition -- does not erase those quotes I made. If you are honest, you will deal with them honestly.

Not only that, I will give a complete rerun of the discussion here so that everyone can compare what we both have written.

Your dishonesty is on full display agin. Your rerun is far from complete. The proof is here.

Read my quoted post. Where did I leave out what we both have written?

Edited December 25, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

(Quoting Xray):

"No answer from Selene to my post # 573 where I asked him:

"Run through all the many choices you have made today and you will see that, whenever faced with a choice, it is always what you value highest at the moment of the choice that will tip the scale for you. It applies to everything - be it mundane things like choosing which socks to wear, up to choices which may have a profound effect on your life." (Xray)

Selene: Are you too blind to see that you did get an answer to post #537?

But not to the question I asked you above, Selene.

Edited December 25, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

In all fairness Xray, wouldn't you describe religion as 'irrational'? If we use science as the standard, and I really think deep down this is what Rand was alluding to, then man ought to live by science and not religion if he is to maximize the use of his superior brain.

To get into a discussion on this, we would first have to provide objective criteria between rational and irrational.

But off the cuff, if claiming that something exists (without offering evidence of its existence) is irrational, then religion is irrational.

But so is Objectivism, where something is also claimed to exist of which there is no evidence: so-called "objective values".

To me, Objectivism against religion is one fallacy fighting another. Both are based on the illusion of "objective" value.

[Alfonso Jones]

In all fairness Xray, wouldn't you describe religion as 'irrational'? If we use science as the standard, and I really think deep down this is what Rand was alluding to, then man ought to live by science and not religion if he is to maximize the use of his superior brain.

To get into a discussion on this, we would first have to provide objective criteria between rational and irrational.

But off the cuff, if claiming that something exists (without offering evidence of its existence) is irrational, then religion is irrational.

But so is Objectivism, where something is also claimed to exist of which there is no evidence: so-called "objective values".

To me, Objectivism against religion is one fallacy fighting another. Both are based on the illusion of "objective" value.

(I assume that others can also sort out the attributions on the above.)

Xray would do well to read Rand carefully on the subject. In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, essay What is Capitalism, Rand says:

The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason.

Perhaps if you dealt with this notion of objective, instead of some other which seems to be capturing your attention, you would not be so puzzled, Xray?

Read carefully: no separation of "value" from "purpose," or of good from beneficiaries.

Bill P

[Xray]

Corrected version f my # post where the quote from GS did not show up in the frame:

In all fairness Xray, wouldn't you describe religion as 'irrational'? If we use science as the standard, and I really think deep down this is what Rand was alluding to, then man ought to live by science and not religion if he is to maximize the use of his superior brain.

To get into a discussion on this, we would first have to provide objective criteria between rational and irrational.

But off the cuff, if claiming that something exists (without offering evidence of its existence) is irrational, then religion is irrational.

But so is Objectivism, where something is also claimed to exist of which there is no evidence: so-called "objective values".

To me, Objectivism against religion is one fallacy fighting another. Both are based on the illusion of "objective" value.

Bill P:

(quoting Rand): The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason. (Rand)

Rand correctly states that 'good' is relative to evaluation from the facts of reality. Which plain and simple meams, that good is no absolute.

Part of the "facts of reality" is that humans are goal-seeking entities subjectively attributing value to this or that. Surely Rand would not deny this fact. We even have it verbatim from her, which proves her is well being aware that the concept "value" implies of value for whom and for what? "Value" is tied to a valuer.

Example of evaluation from the facts of reality.

A large bucket of water is dumped on a small wood fire. The fire is extinguished. If the fire is threatening to ignite and burn down a valued house and you want the threat removed, the action is suited to this purpose, therefore, called good. If the intent is to cook with the fire, the action is unsuited to the purpose, therefore, is called bad.

Same entities. Same action. Same end result. Cause and effect are the objective constants. Purpose is the subjective variable; meaning, whether the result of putting out the fire is called 'good' or 'bad' is in reference to personal preference. Or to put it another way, good or bad refers to the evaluation of means (suited/unsuited) in respect of a subjectively chosen purpose. (The terms, good and bad could be eliminated altogether since they are the same as saying suited/unsuited to personal preference).

Value can't be separeted from purpose. It is the goals of volitional entities which determine whether an action is considered as valuable or the opposite.

Which naturally reduces choosing e. g. "life as a standard of value" or "life as the ultimate value" to the subjective preference of the chooser. Within natural capacity, humans can choose death over life. Their chose is as subjective as Rand's and all that is left is her personal approving/disapproving of the individual choices others make.

Rand wants to have it both ways. Her claimig that "good" that must be "discovered" contradicts what she wrote in the rest of the quote.

In other words, entities and relationships would reactively exist on earth even if there were no volitional inhabitants. This leaves the designation of an action or reaction as good or bad dependent upon volition and valuing or disvaluing. In the category of behavior, it is the action that is subject to evaluating as good or bad.

In the mental reversal to “universal objective value”, purpose is the constant and means the variable. A huge problem arises when the moralists attempt to make a constant out of the natural variable. What happens is in the mental reversal, individual ceases to exist as an autonomous entity. Individual is mentally converted to means to the “universal goal.” Individual is then evaluated as good or bad in respect of the “universal goal” called “God’s will”, “life proper to man”, or other.

Since the “universal goal” is actually individual personal preference, there are as many “universal goals” as there are believers. With each moralist trying to transform infinitely variable autonomy into singular conformity in defiance of individual identity, resentment, hostility and violent conflict is assured.

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

I realize you will not accept this as a fact, but I view each of your post with a fresh mind in order to constructively critique the post.

I cannot even get past the first line of your post where you respond to Bill P. without a semantic issues emerging.

Your statement A: "Rand correctly states that 'good' is relative to evaluation from the facts of reality. Which plain and simple meams, that good is no absolute."

"The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man."

How could you have gotten your statement A from that quote?

Adam

[Alfonso Jones]

Ms. Xray:

I realize you will not accept this as a fact, but I view each of your post with a fresh mind in order to constructively critique the post.

I cannot even get past the first line of your post where you respond to Bill P. without a semantic issues emerging.

Your statement A: "Rand correctly states that 'good' is relative to evaluation from the facts of reality. Which plain and simple meams, that good is no absolute."

"The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man."

How could you have gotten your statement A from that quote?

Adam

Adam -

Isn't amazing? Read the brief Rand quote. Then read what Xray said about it. Rand is crystal clear. Xray's prose is unintelligible.

Perhaps that's her purpose - to get folks to think that her writing is deep, because it is unintelligible.

I can see through Xray. Some pun intended.

Bill P

[Xray]

Isn't amazing? Read the brief Rand quote. Then read what Xray said about it. Rand is crystal clear. Xray's prose is unintelligible.

What please is "unintelligible" in my "prose"?

Example from my # 590 post (typos edited):

"A large bucket of water is dumped on a small wood fire. The fire is extinguished. If the fire is threatening to ignite and burn down a valued house and you want the threat removed, the action is suited to this purpose, therefore, called good. If the intent is to cook with the fire, the action is unsuited to the purpose, therefore, is called bad.

Same entities. Same action. Same end result. Cause and effect are the objective constants. Purpose is the subjective variable; meaning, whether the result of putting out the fire is called 'good' or 'bad' is in reference to personal preference. Or to put it another way, good or bad refers to the evaluation of means (suited/unsuited) in respect of a subjectively chosen purpose. (The terms, good and bad could be eliminated altogether since they are the same as saying suited/unsuited to personal preference).

Value can't be separated from purpose. It is the goals of volitional entities which determine whether an action is considered as valuable or the opposite." (Xray)

Now please tell me what you don't understand about this. My six year-olds will understand this, Bill, when I demonstrate it to them with a similar experiment.

Edited December 27, 2009 by Xray

[BaalChatzaf]

Isn't amazing? Read the brief Rand quote. Then read what Xray said about it. Rand is crystal clear. Xray's prose is unintelligible.

What please is "unintelligible" in my "prose"?

Example from my # 590 post (typos edited):

"A large bucket of water is dumped on a small wood fire. The fire is extinguished. If the fire is threatening to ignite and burn down a valued house and you want the threat removed, the action is suited to this purpose, therefore, called good. If the intent is to cook with the fire, the action is unsuited to the purpose, therefore, is called bad.

Same entities. Same action. Same end result. Cause and effect are the objective constants. Purpose is the subjective variable; meaning, whether the result of putting out the fire is called 'good' or 'bad' is in reference to personal preference. Or to put it another way, good or bad refers to the evaluation of means (suited/unsuited) in respect of a subjectively chosen purpose. (The terms, good and bad could be eliminated altogether since they are the same as saying suited/unsuited to personal preference).

Value can't be separated from purpose. It is the goals of volitional entities which determine whether an action is considered as valuable or the opposite." (Xray)

Now please tell me what you don't understand about this. My six year-olds will understand this, Bill, when I demonstrate it to them with a similar experiment.

I agree. In this example, purpose, is the key ingredient.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Alfonso Jones]

Isn't amazing? Read the brief Rand quote. Then read what Xray said about it. Rand is crystal clear. Xray's prose is unintelligible.

What please is "unintelligible" in my "prose"?

Example from my # 590 post (typos edited):

"A large bucket of water is dumped on a small wood fire. The fire is extinguished. If the fire is threatening to ignite and burn down a valued house and you want the threat removed, the action is suited to this purpose, therefore, called good. If the intent is to cook with the fire, the action is unsuited to the purpose, therefore, is called bad.

Same entities. Same action. Same end result. Cause and effect are the objective constants. Purpose is the subjective variable; meaning, whether the result of putting out the fire is called 'good' or 'bad' is in reference to personal preference. Or to put it another way, good or bad refers to the evaluation of means (suited/unsuited) in respect of a subjectively chosen purpose. (The terms, good and bad could be eliminated altogether since they are the same as saying suited/unsuited to personal preference).

Value can't be separated from purpose. It is the goals of volitional entities which determine whether an action is considered as valuable or the opposite." (Xray)

Now please tell me what you don't understand about this. My six year-olds will understand this, Bill, when I demonstrate it to them with a similar experiment.

Xray -

Note that you begin by editing your earlier response. That says a lot, doesn't it?

You might try defining some of your terms:

Subjective - - - that would be a good first one.

Bill P

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

Before you linguistically obfuscate us away from the primary question that I posed to you.

Once again,

Your statement A: "Rand correctly states that 'good' is relative to evaluation from the facts of reality. Which plain and simple means [sic], that good is no absolute."

"The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man."

How could you have gotten your statement A from that quote?

How about we start with that simple answer. No questions. No references to prior quotes and posts and red herrings.

Just answer the question:

How could you have gotten your statement A from that quote? It is a simple single question - answer just that question.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray's epistemology is interestingly present in her offline reaction to the 5 post limit.

I mention this because I find this kind of mental handicap (or attempted cunningness--your decide) very interesting. I believe it is a result of years of imprecise thinking.

The forum software program works in units of minutes and hours in the post restriction function, not in terms of calendar days.

What this means (with a 5 post per 24 hour limit) is that if one post was made at 11:00 PM and the following morning the poster wanted to post 5 posts, she would have to make due with 4 posts until 11:00 PM that night. In this manner, more than 5 posts are never made within a 24 hour time span.

I did not set this way of working. The software engineers did. At my present level of coding knowledge, I could not change this even if I wanted to.

Xray complained to me once before that she was not being allowed to post 5 posts in one day, so I explained this to her.

That apparently didn't mean much. Either she didn't understand, or she did understand and thinks she can game it.

She just complained again, mentioning that the program said she could "make 5 posts today." However after the first post, it said her limit was used up. I just looked at the time stamps of her posts and the time limit actually was used up. Here are the time stamps of Xray's posts for Dec 25-26 for a clearer understanding:

Dec 25 2009 09:29 AM

Dec 25 2009 03:50 PM

Dec 25 2009 04:14 PM

Dec 25 2009 04:36 PM

Dec 25 2009 04:40 PM

Yesterday, 10:58 AM

"Yesterday" was Dec 26. She only made one post on that day.

In her mind (as she told me), the software must have a glitch since she is allowed 5 posts a day. The fact is that she would have needed to wait until 03:50 PM yesterday before the software would release any other post from her. Up to then, within that 24 period, 5 posts were already made.

Once again with Ms. Xray, I don't know if she is aware of this and trying to BS me because the software actually does have an imperfect post reporting function, a tabbed one in the profile section (see here), or if she really doesn't know. Is it possible that she forgot the number of posts she made the day before, or wanted to game me and hope I did not notice because of the imperfect tabbed function did not report all of her posts from Dec. 25?

(Just to be clear, you can get a full listing of a poster's posts in the left-hand sidebar of her profile. The link is called "Find Posts." You get a partial listing using the tab called "Posts" in the body section of the profile page.)

Here's a thought. Let's do some speculation.

If somebody wanted to game the software program and it worked on a calendar day system instead of a 24 hour system (meaning that at midnight, the 5 post restriction would be reset), and for-for-for-for-for even more instance, if she wanted to spam a discussion with a lot of posts in succession, she could make 5 posts, say, from 11:00 PM to midnight one day and another 5 posts immediately starting at 12.01 AM the following day. That would make 10 posts within about a 2 hour period or less.

Hey, all the posts could be on the same thread and they could all say that all values are subjective! Wow! That way somebody would most likely respond and send the discussion off in that particular tangent (for the upteenth time on OL). And hopefully nobody would remember the arguments and discussion points from the discussion that was already underway!

Bingo! Mission accomplished!

One more OL discussion ruined and one more blow against Ayn Rand being discussed seriously.

Could Ms. Xray have thought of something like this?

Nah...

Not her...

Fortunately when the software says no more than 5 posts per 24 hour period, it means no more than 5 posts per 24 hour period.

Sorry. No gaming that one...

And no gaming me...

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Michael -

I hope that you aren't letting managing Xray consume very much of your time. The return on investment of that engagement would be amazingly low! She seems unable to enter into a meaningful and respectful discussion. Meaning-switching is her forte.

Bill P

[Selene]

Michael:

Thanks. Interesting.

I was actually amused, and I guess I have to check this, but it appeared to me that her posts were much longer and more targeted from just quick scans of them.

Now that I decided to take a look at one or two, as you can see, I cannot get past her original "black ice" statements. Once you hit that black ice that you cannot see, your orientation can be confused and spinning out of control by the time you get to the "core of her posts".

It is nice to have a specimen to study, maybe I can make some side money leasing her out to freshman logic's classes.

Adam

[merjet]

Xray's epistemology is interestingly present in her offline reaction to the 5 post limit.

Obviously. Xray says all categories are arbitrary (except her own, implicitly) and barely makes any effort to understand somebody else's intended meaning. She apparently did take "5 posts per day" to mean the 24 hours runs from midnight to midnight. Guessing, if one tries to post, the software looks back 24 hours, counts the person's posts during that interval, and doesn't allow posting if the count is already 5.

The first method would be harder to program (in relative time). Since members are in different time zones, midnight is relative. The second would be pretty easy, using only the "local" time zone for OL (which looks like U.S.A. Central).

Edited December 27, 2009 by Merlin Jetton