Ayn Rand Nonfiction

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

Jim

[kiaer.ts]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

[Selene]

"The God of the Machine. This highly reductionist view of history has been enormously influential, but in her classic The God of the Machine,

Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question:

what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated?

Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Ok.

James: we need those skill sets, but the most critical skill set that must be developed is orators.

Look at O'Biwan. We had a great communicator in Ayn, but who has an oratorical presence today - Ed Hudgins was excellent at the tea party in Washington under difficult weather conditions.

One of the areas that I will be involving myself in is public speaking and training public speakers. I am going to some of the Ron Paul campus YAL's and begin to train and recruit.

Folks Allan Drury wrote a fine book called Capable of Honor. I have always conducted my personal politics that way. Yes integrity can cost you an election, but there is always going to be, up until O'Biwan, the certainty of another election.

Once you lose your integrity, sometimes you cannot get it back..."For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Adam

Edited June 7, 2009 by Selene

[kiaer.ts]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

From my profile at RoR:

"Where are my Towers? I am a NYC resident, born 1968, raised Catholic in the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey. I consider myself an objectivist with a small "o" in that I accept Rand's methodology & basic premises, including minarchism, but I differ with Rand on certain mid-level issues, especially on what I see as her essentialist view of human nature. I hence view individual happiness according to one's nature, and not the abstraction "life," as the proper standard (and therefore focus) of ethics. I am opposed to sterile insularity and ostracism, I reject the mystical, but embrace the spiritual, and (at the risk of being misundertsood) would be as happy to call myself a pantheist as an atheist. I admire Spinoza and the Epicurean and Stoic schools. A baccalaureate in philosophy and biology, my hobbies include foreign languages, palaeontology and historical linguistics...Having read a little Rand is no substitute for knowing the facts."

If you have read any of my writing at RoR you will be familiar with my insistence on a need for arguments to be consistent with and grounded in history and science, primarily biology. I have engaged in numerous debates with people who devise their theories of human sexuality, the nature of mind, the nature of animal consciousness or the origins and nature of the state based on a priori deductions from Rand's premises rather than a knowledge of genetics, physiology, comparative anthropology (synchronic and diachronic), and so forth. Of course we need scientifically literate Objectivists, not, for example, ex cathedra prouncements on the big bang by people who don't understand the curvature of space time but who do know that a jesuit (scary!) was involved in the development of that theory.

None of this has to do with Isabel Paterson. I suggest you read her. She begins her monograph with a discursion on Pytheas.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

From my profile at RoR:

"Where are my Towers? I am a NYC resident, born 1968, raised Catholic in the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey. I consider myself an objectivist with a small "o" in that I accept Rand's methodology & basic premises, including minarchism, but I differ with Rand on certain mid-level issues, especially on what I see as her essentialist view of human nature. I hence view individual happiness according to one's nature, and not the abstraction "life," as the proper standard (and therefore focus) of ethics. I am opposed to sterile insularity and ostracism, I reject the mystical, but embrace the spiritual, and (at the risk of being misundertsood) would be as happy to call myself a pantheist as an atheist. I admire Spinoza and the Epicurean and Stoic schools. A baccalaureate in philosophy and biology, my hobbies include foreign languages, palaeontology and historical linguistics...Having read a little Rand is no substitute for knowing the facts."

If you have read any of my writing at RoR you will be familiar with my insistence on a need for arguments to be consistent with and grounded in history and science, primarily biology. I have engaged in numerous debates with people who devise their theories of human sexuality, the nature of mind, the nature of animal consciousness or the origins and nature of the state based on a priori deductions from Rand's premises rather than a knowledge of genetics, physiology, comparative anthropology (synchronic and diachronic), and so forth. Of course we need scientifically literate Objectivists, not, for example, ex cathedra prouncements on the big bang by people who don't understand the curvature of space time but who do know that a jesuit (scary!) was involved in the development of that theory.

None of this has to do with Isabel Paterson. I suggest you read her. She begins her monograph with a discursion on Pytheas.

Ok, I will. My current reading list is long, but I'll get there sometime.

Also, my comments about that were not directed at you, although I now see that it could have come across that way. I saw a comment on ROR by you that you had read Jeff Hawkins which many more Objectivists should do and I applaud you for. Also, Damasio, LeDoux and Kandel are also exremely important. I feel that there is this huge revolution in theoretical neuroscience that Objectivists should be tackling full force.

Jim

[James Heaps-Nelson]

"The God of the Machine. This highly reductionist view of history has been enormously influential, but in her classic The God of the Machine,

Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question:

what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated?

Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Ok.

James: we need those skill sets, but the most critical skill set that must be developed is orators.

Look at O'Biwan. We had a great communicator in Ayn, but who has an oratorical presence today - Ed Hudgins was excellent at the tea party in Washington under difficult weather conditions.

One of the areas that I will be involving myself in is public speaking and training public speakers. I am going to some of the Ron Paul campus YAL's and begin to train and recruit.

Folks Allan Drury wrote a fine book called Capable of Honor. I have always conducted my personal politics that way. Yes integrity can cost you an election, but there is always going to be, up until O'Biwan, the certainty of another election.

Once you lose your integrity, sometimes you cannot get it back..."For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Adam

Given, that my younger brother is headed off to get a PhD in system dynamics at MIT, I have biases in this area. We can't send terrific speakers out with the same message. We have to change the playing field with new tools.

Jim

[kiaer.ts]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

From my profile at RoR:

"Where are my Towers? I am a NYC resident, born 1968, raised Catholic in the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey. I consider myself an objectivist with a small "o" in that I accept Rand's methodology & basic premises, including minarchism, but I differ with Rand on certain mid-level issues, especially on what I see as her essentialist view of human nature. I hence view individual happiness according to one's nature, and not the abstraction "life," as the proper standard (and therefore focus) of ethics. I am opposed to sterile insularity and ostracism, I reject the mystical, but embrace the spiritual, and (at the risk of being misundertsood) would be as happy to call myself a pantheist as an atheist. I admire Spinoza and the Epicurean and Stoic schools. A baccalaureate in philosophy and biology, my hobbies include foreign languages, palaeontology and historical linguistics...Having read a little Rand is no substitute for knowing the facts."

If you have read any of my writing at RoR you will be familiar with my insistence on a need for arguments to be consistent with and grounded in history and science, primarily biology. I have engaged in numerous debates with people who devise their theories of human sexuality, the nature of mind, the nature of animal consciousness or the origins and nature of the state based on a priori deductions from Rand's premises rather than a knowledge of genetics, physiology, comparative anthropology (synchronic and diachronic), and so forth. Of course we need scientifically literate Objectivists, not, for example, ex cathedra prouncements on the big bang by people who don't understand the curvature of space time but who do know that a jesuit (scary!) was involved in the development of that theory.

None of this has to do with Isabel Paterson. I suggest you read her. She begins her monograph with a discursion on Pytheas.

Ok, I will. My current reading list is long, but I'll get there sometime.

Also, my comments about that were not directed at you, although I now see that it could have come across that way. I saw a comment on ROR by you that you had read Jeff Hawkins which many more Objectivists should do and I applaud you for. Also, Damasio, LeDoux and Kandel are also exremely important. I feel that there is this huge revolution in theoretical neuroscience that Objectivists should be tackling full force.

Jim

I am a huge fan of Damasio, as well as Oliver Sacks, Ernst Mayr, Temple Grandin, Monty Roberts, V S Ramachandran and many others. My curriculum advisor at Rutgers asked why I was double majoring in Bio and Philosophy. I said I wanted to know the meaning of life. She thought I was kidding.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

From my profile at RoR:

"Where are my Towers? I am a NYC resident, born 1968, raised Catholic in the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey. I consider myself an objectivist with a small "o" in that I accept Rand's methodology & basic premises, including minarchism, but I differ with Rand on certain mid-level issues, especially on what I see as her essentialist view of human nature. I hence view individual happiness according to one's nature, and not the abstraction "life," as the proper standard (and therefore focus) of ethics. I am opposed to sterile insularity and ostracism, I reject the mystical, but embrace the spiritual, and (at the risk of being misundertsood) would be as happy to call myself a pantheist as an atheist. I admire Spinoza and the Epicurean and Stoic schools. A baccalaureate in philosophy and biology, my hobbies include foreign languages, palaeontology and historical linguistics...Having read a little Rand is no substitute for knowing the facts."

If you have read any of my writing at RoR you will be familiar with my insistence on a need for arguments to be consistent with and grounded in history and science, primarily biology. I have engaged in numerous debates with people who devise their theories of human sexuality, the nature of mind, the nature of animal consciousness or the origins and nature of the state based on a priori deductions from Rand's premises rather than a knowledge of genetics, physiology, comparative anthropology (synchronic and diachronic), and so forth. Of course we need scientifically literate Objectivists, not, for example, ex cathedra prouncements on the big bang by people who don't understand the curvature of space time but who do know that a jesuit (scary!) was involved in the development of that theory.

None of this has to do with Isabel Paterson. I suggest you read her. She begins her monograph with a discursion on Pytheas.

Ok, I will. My current reading list is long, but I'll get there sometime.

Also, my comments about that were not directed at you, although I now see that it could have come across that way. I saw a comment on ROR by you that you had read Jeff Hawkins which many more Objectivists should do and I applaud you for. Also, Damasio, LeDoux and Kandel are also exremely important. I feel that there is this huge revolution in theoretical neuroscience that Objectivists should be tackling full force.

Jim

I am a huge fan of Damasio, as well as Oliver Sacks, Ernst Mayr, Temple Grandin, Monty Roberts, V S Ramachandran and many others. My curriculum advisor at Rutgers asked why I was double majoring in Bio and Philosophy. I said I wanted to know the meaning of life. She thought I was kidding.

This idea that many Objectivists have that you can study thinking without studying the brain is an odd one to me. Out of your list, I've only read some of Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachndran. Thanks for the new leads.

jim

[kiaer.ts]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

Ted,

Regardless of the mistake of attribution, I found Bob's criticism of the substance of Andrew Coulson's quote helpful. Why not simply point out where he was right and where he was wrong? I will admit to not having read Isabel Paterson. Maybe Bob hasn't either, but apparently some of the folks at CATO don't know their math history.

jecti

Jim

What are you talking about? Where did I say Bob was wrong about the math history, or defend Coulson's overgeneralization? Why do I need to meet Bob's mistake half way?

Bob attacked Paterson due solely to his own misunderstanding, and called on it he says his criticism itself is valid (of whom?) and he continues the attacks "Queen Isabel." This thread isn't about CATO or the obvious necessity of scientific and historical literacy, but about Objectivist non-fiction. Isabel Paterson's book is a masterpiece, and she was brilliant, and insisting on criticizing her ("Queen Isabel"?) because he objects to reviewer's quote of an univolved party is simply perverse. Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

OK, Ted. Uncle. I obviously have no dog in the Isabel Paterson sweepstakes. The title of the thread is also duly noted.

For Objectivist nonfiction, I recommend The Objectivist Ethics in VOS, What is Capitalism in CUI, IOE, and her article on philosophical detection in PWNI.

Jim

From my profile at RoR:

"Where are my Towers? I am a NYC resident, born 1968, raised Catholic in the Philadelphia suburbs of South Jersey. I consider myself an objectivist with a small "o" in that I accept Rand's methodology & basic premises, including minarchism, but I differ with Rand on certain mid-level issues, especially on what I see as her essentialist view of human nature. I hence view individual happiness according to one's nature, and not the abstraction "life," as the proper standard (and therefore focus) of ethics. I am opposed to sterile insularity and ostracism, I reject the mystical, but embrace the spiritual, and (at the risk of being misundertsood) would be as happy to call myself a pantheist as an atheist. I admire Spinoza and the Epicurean and Stoic schools. A baccalaureate in philosophy and biology, my hobbies include foreign languages, palaeontology and historical linguistics...Having read a little Rand is no substitute for knowing the facts."

If you have read any of my writing at RoR you will be familiar with my insistence on a need for arguments to be consistent with and grounded in history and science, primarily biology. I have engaged in numerous debates with people who devise their theories of human sexuality, the nature of mind, the nature of animal consciousness or the origins and nature of the state based on a priori deductions from Rand's premises rather than a knowledge of genetics, physiology, comparative anthropology (synchronic and diachronic), and so forth. Of course we need scientifically literate Objectivists, not, for example, ex cathedra prouncements on the big bang by people who don't understand the curvature of space time but who do know that a jesuit (scary!) was involved in the development of that theory.

None of this has to do with Isabel Paterson. I suggest you read her. She begins her monograph with a discursion on Pytheas.

Ok, I will. My current reading list is long, but I'll get there sometime.

Also, my comments about that were not directed at you, although I now see that it could have come across that way. I saw a comment on ROR by you that you had read Jeff Hawkins which many more Objectivists should do and I applaud you for. Also, Damasio, LeDoux and Kandel are also exremely important. I feel that there is this huge revolution in theoretical neuroscience that Objectivists should be tackling full force.

Jim

I am a huge fan of Damasio, as well as Oliver Sacks, Ernst Mayr, Temple Grandin, Monty Roberts, V S Ramachandran and many others. My curriculum advisor at Rutgers asked why I was double majoring in Bio and Philosophy. I said I wanted to know the meaning of life. She thought I was kidding.

This idea that many Objectivists have that you can study thinking without studying the brain is an odd one to me. Out of your list, I've only read some of Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachndran. Thanks for the new leads.

jim

Ernst Mayr is one of the creators of the Neo Darwinian synthesis and originated the definition of a species as a reproductively isolated group. He argues against reductionism and against Platonic essentialism in biological thought. Temple Grandin and Monty Roberts are innovative empirical thinkers on animal mind. Roberts is the original "Horse Whisperer" and Grandin (Animals in Translation) was profiled by Sacks as the Anthropologist from Mars in the book of the same title.

[Selene]

James:

I completely agree with you as to the critical awareness and knowledge that is now required concerning neuroscientific theories and practice.

Arte and techne.

Developing orators would include as much immersion in those disciplines as possible.

I did not mean it as an either or, but as a tandem. I realize I did not make that clear in my post.

No disagreement on the path your brother is on, it is critical for objectivist to do the heavy lifting in those areas because you become so much more

persuasive when you understand how the human mind is persuaded.

That is why my eternal love of Aristotle exists unsullied through to today.

And for Rand.

However, I am thinking that James would love Edmund Burke's statement asking "What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food and medicine? The question is upon the methods of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician , rather than the professor of metaphysics."

I think that applies in the instant case raised by James and Ted.

Adam

[BaalChatzaf]

Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

Not a word. She never wrote anything about math, physics, or hard science. Why would I bother with her?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Did I miss something Miss Rand wrote about math, physics, or hard science Bob?

Or have not read any of her works either?

Edited June 7, 2009 by Selene

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Let Bob tell us if he has read Paterson, and has some basis for his continuing criticism of her.

Not a word. She never wrote anything about math, physics, or hard science. Why would I bother with her?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Kind of a limited literary diet there, isn't that Bob? Not that you're likely to run out of sustenance :-).

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just a technical point.

Do you guys know how to chop off text when you quote? It only takes a few extra seconds once you get the hang of it. I could explain it if need be.

Those frames are awfully pretty once the nesting gets up to 4 posts or more, but all that extra scrolling down along the pretty frames just to read a one-liner makes the reader feel cheated in a weird way...

At least, that's my experience.

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

Yes they get hard to read and yes I would like to know how to do the "chop off text technique" being the computer imbecile I can be at times.

[kiaer.ts]

Just a technical point.

Do you guys know how to chop off text when you quote?

I do. But this forum's tracker has the very annoying characteristic that instead of taking you to the oldest unread post, it takes you to the most recent. Older posts get buried. If you're expecting someone to answer a question (like have you actually read the person you're criticizing) but you don't keep that question alive as a quote through an ongoing discussion it might be left to the wayside. I find that quoting a serious lengthy previous post when you add a one-liner is a polite way of not distracting attention from the previous writer's effort. Now that Bob has answered the underlying challenge in this circumstance, there's no reason for me to keep quoting the question.

[BaalChatzaf]

Did I miss something Miss Rand wrote about math, physics, or hard science Bob?

Or have not read any of her works either?

Every word. I especially enjoyed -Atlas Shrugged- as alternate time line fiction, my favorite genre. I also liked her kick-ass attitude. I have frequently admired Jewish ladies with a kick-ass attitude and a smart-ass outlook. I married one.

When I picked up on Rand I was one one of my anti-establishment rip-tears.

My disenchantment with Objectivism does not originate with Rand, who I thought was a very smart lady, even though not a good historian. It was Imam Leonard and some of the crazy support of Louis Little's crackpot theory of Elementary Waves. While Rand and the Objectivists admired physics and mathematics most of them didn't bother to learn much of them. What a shame.

Objectivism is a good foil to use against the Pinko Stinko Commie Liberals but it is not a very good practical opposition to current American politics. In order to round up the dogs, one must first be elected dog catcher.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Bob:

So you could step down from Mount Imaginary Numbers and deign to read Isabel Patterson even though she does not write about math/science.

Ok that works.

You know that I agree with you about the political path being the basic paradigm that we have to change government short of a violent revolution.

So we will have to have you crack the God of the Machine when you are feeling particularly rebellious.

Adam

[Ross Barlow]

...

...The greatest math from the Greek civilization came during the Hellenic Period (post Alexander the Great) when Greek civilization was on the downhill course....

This is just a trivial objection to what may have only been a typo on Bob’s part in Post #22 of this interesting thread.

In history, “Hellenic” is the name used for *pre* Alexander the Great times, the time of the glory of Greece proper. The *post* Alexander the Great period is called “Hellenistic.”

Hellenistic civilization was highly Greek-influenced, but the intellectual power coming out of the Greek homelands was greatly diminished by then. And Bob is correct about the great math and science coming out of this latter period.

-Ross Barlow.

[BaalChatzaf]

...

...The greatest math from the Greek civilization came during the Hellenic Period (post Alexander the Great) when Greek civilization was on the downhill course....

This is just a trivial objection to what may have only been a typo on Bob's part in Post #22 of this interesting thread.

In history, "Hellenic" is the name used for *pre* Alexander the Great times, the time of the glory of Greece proper. The *post* Alexander the Great period is called "Hellenistic."

Hellenistic civilization was highly Greek-influenced, but the intellectual power coming out of the Greek homelands was greatly diminished by then. And Bob is correct about the great math and science coming out of this latter period.

-Ross Barlow.

In some of the historical literature on Greek math and science "Hellenic" refers to the time when Alexandria was the center of learning in the world. It refers to the time of Ptolemy I and after. The Hellenic Period is considered ended by the historians when Hypatia the daughter of Theon was butchered by Christian fanatics. (Circa 415 c.e.)

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited June 12, 2009 by BaalChatzaf