Martin Radwin

For one thing, she obviously didn't know much about what the theory is. For another, are the only possible alternatives "a creation event" or "evolution"? And what form of evolution? Lamarckism is an evolutionary theory, but I doubt that you'd consider Lamarckism true. I don't know how much she even knew about theories of the development of earth. Where did Aristotle think species came from? Didn't he have the idea of their just appearing (somehow)? I think you're asking the question from a framework of current scientific thought wherein evolution (specifically of the Darwinian type) is so accepted as to seem "of course," and thus no other alternative occurs to you. But Rand wasn't educated in a modern science framework. It's clear that she thought that there was a radical gap between man and other animals. But she seems to have been quite vague on any details of from where and how humans appeared. She seems from everything I could ever tell not even to have been especially interested in the question of human origins. I felt unable to "vibe into" her wave length since I grew up already studying Darwin when I was in mid-grade school. Ellen ___ I hadn't considered the "just appearing (somehow)" alternative that you mention, because when does this ever happen in reality? Complex entities do not just pop into existence out of nowhere. But perhaps in a pre-scientific age, this was considered a possible explanation. I have no idea what Aristotle's beliefs were pertaining to the origin of species. Perhaps he did think that they just appeared spontaneously, somehow. I can think of four possible explanations for the origin of species that might have occurred to someone living in the epoch of Aristotle, only one of which is plausible given our present scientific knowledge: 1) All species of life have always existed 2) All species of life were created at once by a creator 3) All species of life just appeared sponteneously 4) All species of life evolved through a series of steps from simpler life forms Of course, one may believe in evolution without necessarily understanding the mechanism of evolution or agreeing that a particular mechanism is the correct explanation. As you said, Lamarckism was a proposed evolutionary mechanism that was subsequently displaced by Darwinian evolution. But even if Rand was unsure of Darwinian evolution as a mechanism, due to the fact that she never really studied it, how could she be unsure of the validity of any kind of evolution as an explanation for the origin of species? Alternatives 1-3 are not really plausible to anyone who doesn't believe in magic or religion. Martin

I find it rather surprising that Rand was undecided about the validity of evolution as a theory. Since she obviously didn't believe in a creation event, exactly what alternative to evolution as an explanation for the existence of advanced life could there be? Martin

I can see a problem in what he says without needing to be a physicist. It's sophistic. He's switched from using "zero" as meaning "nothing" to using "zero" as meaning a result of mathematical cancellation. Whether what he proceeds to say about positive and negative energy makes physics sense, needs a physicist. But I don't see that he's said anything convincing about "creation ex nihilo." Nor is it my understanding that Big Bang theory requires "creation ex nihilo." I thought the typical thing said was that we just don't know what was there prior to when time as we think of it started. Ellen ___ Ellen, I have no idea if the physics makes sense or not. It certainly seems strange to me. In my studies of physics, I learned that potential energy is relative, not absolute. That is, the potential energy function is not an absolute quantity but is always defined with respect to an arbitrary reference. If this is the case, it makes no sense to say that the gravitational potential energy is exactly equal to but opposite in sign from the energy associated with the matter in the universe, since the gravitational potential energy could only be defined with respect to a reference and not as an absolute quantity. I agree that the big bang doesn't really require "creation ex nihilo". I think Hawking was trying to answer the question of where all the energy of the universe came from. If one thinks about the vast amount of matter and energy contained in billions of galaxies across the universe, the idea that all of this energy could come from a singularity is really pretty bizarre. But I certainly agree that, if the big bang theory is indeed the correct explanation for the existence of our universe, it is simply not known what happened prior to the big bang or what actually caused the big bang to happen. Big bang cosmologists would be the first to admit this. Martin

By the way, Hawking's math is wrong. His number ten followed by fourteen "millions" is actually equal to 10^85, not 10^80 as he stated. So there is a discrepancy of 5 orders of magnitude. Martin

I looked up Hawking's book to find the exact passage. Here it is, from "A Brief History of Time", in the chapter entitled "The Origin and Fate of the Universe": "The idea of inflation could also explain why there is so much matter in the universe. There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separtate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." In the next paragraph, Hawking goes on to quote Guth, the founder of inflation theory. Hawking writes, "As Guth has remarked, 'It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.'" So Hawking is arguing that the creation of the entire universe ex nihilo from the big bang does not violate conservation of energy, since the entire universe has zero energy. Martin

Could you say a bit more about that comment? I don't understand how the total energy of the universe might be equal to zero. Ellen ___ Ellen, This was a speculation made by Stephen Hawking in his book "A Brief History of Time". He suggested that, in answer to the problem of how all of the energy of the universe could arise ex nihilo from the big bang, perhaps the total energy of the universe is zero. As I recall, his suggested explanation was that the universe has negative potential energy associated with all of the matter being gravitationally bound. The negative potential energy could be exactly equal to the positive energy of all the matter/energy in the universe, so that the total energy would be zero. To me, this kind of thing is so wildly speculative that it is more in the realm of metaphysics than physics. Martin

I've noticed that Ronald Bailey, science writer for Reason, has recently swung over to the anthropogenic global warming side. That is, he has stated that he now believes that the scientific evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warm is pretty strong. The above is certainly not intended as an argument from authority, just as an interesting observation. Bailey has for many years been a strong skeptic of human caused global warming. And he has certainly studied the subject rather extensively. I personally have no opinion on the matter, since I simply haven't studied it sufficiently to have an informed opinion. But I think it's important to keep in mind that anthropogenic global warming is a scientific hypothesis whose truth or falsity can only be established via scientific inquiry. The tendency among many libertarians and objectivists is to dismiss the hypothesis out of hand, due to its potentially non-libertarian public policy implications should it turn out to be true. Plus the fact that many of the strongest advocates of the hypothesis, such as Al Gore, are scientific illiterates who have adapted the position largely for political and/or religious rather than scientific reasons. But the fact that many of the advocates are idiots with a political/religious agenda is certainly not proof that the hypothesis is wrong. That would be an argument from anti-authority. Martin

The old San Francisco 49ers with Joe Montana could have easily beaten both teams. Too bad they're not around any more. Those were the glory days for 49ers fans like myself. Martin

Chris, Best wishes for a speedy recovery! Take care, Martin

Darrell, I'm rather surprised by your statement that non-determinism is consistent with classical physics, and that there are classical physical systems that have non-deterministic solutions. Are you certain of this? I noticed that Dragonfly did not address this statement and continued to argue that classical physical systems are deterministic, randomness occuring only at the quantum level. It was also my belief that classical systems are entirely deterministic. If you have a classical ensemble of particles, the position and momentum of each particle determine the Hamiltonian function, which is a deterministic description of both the past and future of the system. That's what I thought, anyway. I am not familiar with classical systems which have more than one solution and are, therefore, indeterministic at that point. As far as the device created by your professor, I don't think that any device could actually demonstrate indeterminism, even if indeterminism were indeed a real feature of some classical systems. I think that such indeterminism could only be demonstrated mathematically, such as by showing, as you suggested above, that a system has multiple different solutions at a certain point. Martin

Thanks Chris! I just find it ironic that all of these people who get so upset about Ellison's decision don't consider that the entire oath is a big lie and a charade anyway. I certainly don't trust Mr. Ellison either. But, then again, I don't much trust any of the rest of them either. Mark Twain was all too prescient in his characterization of Congress. Martin

Since all members of Congress take an oath to defend the Constitution, and since every one of them votes in favor of legislation that is unconstitutional, as well as voting to fund federal bureaucracies that are unconstitutional, they are all lying anyway when they take the oath. So the choice of which book to use while taking the oath is actually a choice of which book to use while lying through their oath about their intention to defend the Constitution. Martin

But bombing is so much more fun, especially from a safe distance! Besides, talking could be considered a form of Objectivist sanction. Martin

I see I'm not the only one who's a date late. I hope this constitutes an acceptable excuse for my tardiness. Happy Birthdat Kat! Martin

*sigh* *shudder* This is so broad, unfocused, and rife with holes. Staggering. Now, are there intersects between certain types of religious consciousness and various psychological pathologies? Indeed. But, off the rip, a huge term like "religion" juxtaposed with a huge term like "psychosis," is, well, painfully vague, painfully broad. I strongly recommend a better circumspection of the topic(s). The good place to start is going back to William James' 1904 "The Varieties of Religious Experience." This statement I quoted is, above all, intellectually sloppy. Rich, I guess you didn't get the joke. The above statement, which I made, was a parody of Mark Weiss's post. What I did was to take his post, which was a rant against Muslims, and transpose Christians and Jews in their place, otherwise leaving the post unchanged. I was attempting to illustrate that, with this transposition, the post would clearly be recognized as bigotry against Christians and Jews. The point being that the original post should be recognized as bigotry against Muslims. Martin

I'm going to make some minor edits to Mark Weiss's post, as shown below: We cannot engage Christians and Jews in intellectual terms, because one cannot engage the functionally insane in any intellectual discourse. Religion is a form of psychosis. The very state of mind that enables one to believe in fairies and demons and gods is the state of mind of an insane person. And Christians and Jews in particular, due to the teachings of their bible, are especially militant about their beliefs. That is why I believe that your plan will fail. I wish you good luck with it, but I have reservations about sacrificing even one more Muslim soldier for this cause, when we can end the United States by launching attacks against their homeland instead.

The question could certainly be a prelude to an ad-hominem attack, if it is followed up with the argument that some or all of the positions taken by ARI people with no military experience are wrong and deserve no consideration just because of their lack of military experience. But I don't think that anyone here would apply such an ad-hominem argument. The observation that some of the most militantly pro war people are chickenhawks with no military experience, who have never served in a war or been anywhere near actual combat, who have never seen the horrific aftermath of battle, is not by itself an ad-hominem argument that such people's ideas are therefore to be automatically rejected. The point of the observation is that those with the least direct experience with the actual carnage of war are often the most enthusiastic supporters of wars which lead to such carnage. They advocate policies which kill and maim thousands of people, yet they have never actually seen a dead body or a horribly wounded person. This does not mean that their support for a particular war is necessarily wrong. Nor does it mean that there are not people who do have military experience, who have served in combat, who still support a particular war. But, at least, people with military experience who advocate for a particular war should be expected to have fewer illusions about what the consequences of that war will be. Martin

There is a rather disturbing similarity between the names "LaRouche Youth Movement" and "Hitler Youth Movement". I wonder if this is just a coincidence. Did it ever occur to these wackjobs that the name selected for their group had such a strong resemblance to that of the Nazi group? In a rather weak defense of the Larouche nutcases, at least their organization has not advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons against anyone, as far as I know. In this respect, at least, they are one up on ARI. Martin

Brant, I have several reasons to learn about Islam: 1. Over a billion people, the vast majority of whom are not devoted to Islamo-fascism. 2. To find ways to get the non-Islamist (non-fundamentalist) Muslims to include individual rights, freedom and the separation of church and state in the fundamentals of their thinking. 3. To find out what will make such Muslims comfortable in publicly denouncing Islamo-fascism and to distance themselves from it - and then encourage that. Of course, I fully agree that world-domination-by-force-type Islamism must be smitten down. (By the military when they use force and by goal-directed intellectual means idea-wise, which is what I have started here to do my own share. I may be like the little birdie carrying water to a forest fire, but I fully intend to do this thing.) Michael Michael, I don't agree. I'll elaborate later. --Brant Well, obviously I can't disagree with you about what your goals and motivations are, but you may be asking too much of yourself, especially in regard to your second item. --Brant Brant, I agree with you about the unfortunate implausibility of achieving the second goal listed by Michael, especially in view of the fact that most Americans don't have an abiding respect for individual rights, freedom, and the separation of church and state. I think that the best that can be realistically hoped for is to promote a transformation of Islam into a religion that mostly renounces terrorism as a tool for spreading or enforcing the religion, much as Christianity and Judaism have mostly renounced terrorism. In essence, what is needed is an Islamic reformation. I think this is a far more plausible scenario than converting any significant number of Muslims to objectivism, despite the obvious philosophical superiority of the latter. Martin

So, assuming that this is an accurate quotation, Brook thinks that people who are happy about things that he doesn't think they should be happy about should be shot. He is advocating the death penalty for the crime of feeling an emotion that he considers to be unacceptable. This man is a raving lunatic. He is also president of the Ayn Rand Institute. How sickening. Martin

To answer this question is a double edged sword. It's set up in a way to trap the one's responding. For one, there needs to be more context; the question needs to be broken down. This is similar to a compound question. Two questions posed as one question. No matter which way you answer it, it will only lead to confusion and misunderstandings. I'm not here to debate as I do not have the time, especially now. I am only here to state my opinions and some observations with the question posed. I'm wholeheartedly against targeting unarmed civilians, people that are innocent. These people may be against the war but are trapped in whatever country they are in. Context is everything. For me, I don't like the way the above question is phrased. It's a loaded question and designed to trick or trap the responder. I've seen this too many times in court by many attorneys trying to trap or discredit the witness. Personally, I'm only taking into account the last part: "to preserve the long term freedom of our country's citizens” when is it justified to kill innocent civilivans? There is only one instance that I can think of where it would be justified in taking out or bombing the hell out of a country in an attempt to deflect a possible threat to our country and our freedom. If the war has progressed to the point where our country, our land was on the verge of being invaded, meaning the other country on our territory and has brought the war to our own backyard--then yes, our long term freedom is definitely threatened and immediate action is needed, then bomb the hell out of the country, strategically bombing whatever they can, do what is necessary to deflect the impending invasion onto our soil. That is the one time that I can think of where I would support taking out innocent civilians, both women and children and even other possible “John Galts” or others that are like Ayn Rand. But to take out whatever you can and to commit mass murder in another country where there is no threat to our long term freedom is downright horrifying and is despicable. I would support it, as I said, especially if there was a *serious* threat to our long term survival. My freedom is more important than those that are strangers to me, people I do not even know, people that may very well be against me in some form or another. But this scenario would only be brought up if it was a full blown war and our men were dying and our long term freedom was *seriously* threatened—but strategically targeting certain areas at first. If this does not work, then yes, do not discriminate and bomb the hell out of the country, anything to deflect our own loss of innocent civilians, killings on our own soil, and our long term freedom possibly being taken from us. But strategic bombing at first--if that doesn't work, then bomb the hell out of the country. Imagine having your freedoms taken from you, living under the rule of another psycho Hitler or Saddam. Hell no, you better believe I would support it if it came down to it and it was our only way of preserving our freedom. Angie Excellent post, Angie! So much of this debate has been about the question of what is morally justifiable in war. While this is certainly an important area for discussion, I have seen very little discussion on the question of when it is morally justifiable to go to war in the first place. To me, the only moral justification for going to war is self-defense. Yet the last war fought by the US that was arguably in self-defense was WW2. Since WW2, the US has been involved in a huge number of wars, not one of which has been a war of self-defense. During the Vietnam war, the US killed about a million people, as well as helping to create conditions in Cambodia that led to the killing of about two million more people there. Yet who could reasonably argue that Vietnam was a threat to the US, such that the war could be justified as being fought in self-defense? Ayn Rand condemned the Vietnam war, but only because it did not serve the national interest of the US and was therefore altruistic. She never uttered a word about the morality of killing a million people in a country that never threatened and never was a threat to the US. ARI has likewise never said a word about the killing of foreigners by the US in wars fought since WW2, not one of which was a self-defensive war. ARI and its fellow travelers scream about the horror of 9/11 and the 3000 innocent Americans killed that day. Yet they have no ethical problem at all about the million people killed by the US in Vietnam, or about the estimated 50000 people killed in another war not fought in self-defense, Iraq. When killing of innocents is done by Muslims, they are terrorists who must all be eradicated. When killing of much larger numbers of innocents is done by our own government, this is not terrorism at all but merely carrying out US foreign policy. The worst they can say about this is that it is altruistic, not that it is horribly wrong to slaughter innocent people in wars not involving self-defense. Apparently, by their ethical standards, some innocent victims are much more equal than others. Martin

There are actually three separate questions that are relevant to any discussion of the morality of going to war. 1) What is justifiable retaliation in a war of self-defense? 2) Is is justifiable to go to war for reasons other than self-defense? 3) Is the war an act of self-defense? With regard to the first question, I think that the killing of innocent civilians is justified in a war of self-defense, although they should not specifically be targeted, and all reasonable efforts should be made to minimize the killing of innocent civilians. With regard to the second question, I think that it is as a general rule justifiable to go to war only for reasons of self-defense. First, because the only legitimate role of government is the defense of its citizens, so engaging in a war for any other reason is an extension beyond its legitimate role. Second, because the killing of the enemy constitutes an act of aggression if not done for the reason of self-defense. Objectivists generally strongly disagree with this perspective. They have argued that it is morally justifiable, although not in any way a duty, for a relatively free country to go to war with a dictatorship, since the dictatorial government has no legitimate claim to sovereignty. The problem with this position is that, while the dictatorial government has no legitimate claim to sovereignty and is, as far as I am concerned, even fair game for assassination, the same consideration does not apply to the people living under the dictatorship. In war, innocent people die. So while it may be perfectly justifiable to kill all the heads of state of a dictatorial government, this does not also make it okay so slaughter huge numbers of innocent civilians living under the dictatorship as well. With regard to the third question, wars that clearly are not being fought in self-defense are often justified as being self-defensive wars. The Iraq war is a perfect example of this. The idea that Iraq was in any way a threat to the residents of the US, such that the US government had to go to war with Iraq to defend the nation against a possible Iraqi attack, either direct or indirect, is completely ridiculous. Saddam Hussein was a brutal tinpot dictator, but his government possessed neither the intent nor the capability of launching an attack against the United States, which just happens to be armed with a couple of thousand nuclear warheads that could turn most of the middle east into a glowing sheet of glass. Nor was there any evidence of intent or capability to launch an indirect attack, by the Iraqi government giving WMDs to terrorists, a scenario which was proposed by various members of the Bush administration without any basis whatever. So, 3000 US soldiers are dead, along with an estimated 50000 Iraqis, all for an optional war that never had any basis as self-defense. But it is still frequently justified as being a war of self-defense.

Michael and Victor, Thanks for the warm welcome! Roger, Thanks for your comments. I totally agree with you about the importance of avoiding personal insults and acrimony. These accomplish nothing, other than getting the participants in a defensive mode. This is a critically important topic, among the most important topics facing us all today. The last thing we need is to let personal insults and invective get in the way of rational discussion. Michael, you have done an admirable job as owner and moderator of maintaining a friendly, non-hostile forum that minimizes personal insults. If this means that you are not sufficiently KASS by the standards of Lindsay Perigo, you can probably live with that. The idea that people living in a society with a dictatorial government are somehow responsible for the actions of their government, such that they automatically become legitimate targets for retaliation, is the worst kind of collectivism, whether Ayn Rand suggested this or not. It is nothing more than a rationalization for having one's government kill them and then absolve it of moral responsibility for the killing. Yet this idea seems really popular among self-identified objectivists. I recall reading on SOLOP a poster who basically argued that people living in a police state have no rights left anyway, therefore killing them is not violating their rights, since their rights have already been eliminated by their government. This raises an interesting hypothetical. Suppose another 9/11 style attack happens in the US. In response, the US government declares martial law, abolishing all constitutional protections and arresting any people deemed to be a threat to the security of the United States. The US becomes a police state, run by a government in control of the largest cache of WMDs anywhere in the world. Are Americans now fair game for mass murder by another government which considers the US to be a threat to world security and which holds Americans to be collectively responsible for the actions of their government? How many objectivists would accept this conclusion?

I am really glad to see this topic being discussed here. Of all of the problems with ARI, I think that its generally bloodthirsty tone and beliefs when discussing US government foreign policy towards Islamic countries perceived as supporting terrorism is the worst. Without having checked this out, I would bet that most of the ARI writers supporting such policies, along with most of the posters on SOLOP who have advocated them, are chickenhawks who have never been in actual combat, have never been anywhere near the kind of death and destruction that they advocate, and have never even been in a fist fight, let alone been called upon to kill anyone. If objectivism is ever to be reclaimed as a rational philosophy, this kind of craziness needs to be repudiated.