Rodney

Daniel, the only contribution I attempted to make was to point out your wrongheaded interpretation of the "length" passage. The rest was tangential things in which I was mainly addressing Objectivists here. On the matter of my willingness to confront and engage opposing views, I suggest you rethink and look back over my posting history. (Not just here, but also at the old SOLO and at Rebirth of Reason.) I also post on other boards under other names. I have put forth pro-capitalism on the Carole King board. I have argued about hypercomplex numbers on a board for computer technologists. Years ago, I revelled in being apparently the only Objectivist in my university, and wrote a prize-winning essay on existentialism, at the end attacking it from the viewpoint of Objectivism. I argued with professors and classmates. I loved it! I brought a philosophy of education professor to appreciate and recommend IOE to the class, when I stunned him with an impromptu oration on epistemology. By the way, I once initiated an email debate at Solo with Next Level (apparently an old friend of yours). But he got banned, I think. I'll post it sometime, because I feel very insulted by your remarks. ----- PS: Actually, writing this has dissipated my feelings and I'll do you the kindness of letting you have the last word (which I won't read). Gotta go.

I'm not attempting to counter your arguments by criticizing your psychology. I'm asking myself "How is it that this perfectly intelligent man is unable to see something that is so clear?" So I (tentatively so far, I'll admit) trace it to a certain error made early in life, and the steady building upon that error over the years, until it is almost impossible to reverse. Thus, if I decide this idea is right I would merely be describing a phenomenon. I think it's much more of an ad hominem to let fully half of the force of your arguments derive from a patronizing tone and contemptuous mockery. Just a bug in your ear, Daniel. :-) (The last sentence is to show I can give as good as I get.)

Not unwitting at all. I knew you'd say that.

I did have in mind the philosophy, and not you personally. Your revelling in strong debate in hostile milieux has been on display for years. (It is a quality I possess also. More later, but perhaps in another thread. The good Doctor Agonfly may be wishing to get back to the ASD.) But you are in hock to verbal metaphysics and this shows in your approach to establishing truth. The question of how a child can deal with length as a quality without having the actual concept is dealt with in my math essay--but it's a simple one and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets spelled out here by someone else.

Daniel, I was making the point that that seems to be a characteristic of the CR philosophy itself--judging from your explanation of it. Whereas Objectivism rests on an independent perception of reality all the way down. The time I have for debate is limited, but I do not shy from it when I have the time--as you well know (look over the RoR archives). I prefer to present my views in essays or long posts. And I do sometimes present my views in hostile forums. Not often. But it's not that I need to look to others for validation of truth or falsity.

What, no ;-)?

Looks like a proponent of CR needs warm bodies around him.

"With that in mind, once again, I challenge you: let's take this sentence, and the whole passage around it, to a non-Objectivist forum. We'll present it as-is, and the people there can rate it on a scale from 1 (drivel) to 5 (profound insight)." Why not just examine the context first-hand (which has to be gotten from the chapter's title and from the paragraphs above and below that in which the passage occurs)? I would strongly advise not accepting the "challenge" suggestion. It's shot through with second-handedness--embodied, for one thing, in the choices not being simply "True" and "False," a set of alternatives that should be all that matters to one concerned with reality rather than social approval.

It's not dishonesty (pretension), it's near-congenital first-hand reading of the passage while keeping in mind the context.

Of course, "verbal metaphysics" is closely related to, and may even be a form of, "social metaphysics." It's not dishonesty, it's near-congenital blindness.

"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." --Ayn Rand, ITOE, Expanded Second Edition, p. 11 If anyone brought context-dropping to the extreme needed to interpret this passage as "the attempt to express the ultimate reduction of knowledge - that is, down to 'the simplest concept,'" I could well understand that he would find the book confusing as a whole. (By the way, in my math paper I also touch on how such concepts are wordlessly formed, but I add one more detail.)

I've decided it's an issue of psychoepistemology--the deeply ingrained method of using one's consciousness that is formed early in life (involving the issue of independence). I may write an essay on what I call "verbal metaphysics" one day, which would be the philosophic expression of this flawed method.

I think there is another possibility, that the theory used as a foundation implies that the question is logically flawed and makes no sense.

One of my favorite rock songs ever:

"Furthermore, we the readers here are not scientific ignoramuses standing in need of enlightenment from those whose diurnal song is denigration of Rand’s philosophy." Well put! Watch your tone, please, gentlemen. And don't repeat the canards of the past as if they were reference points that we had overlooked.

By the way, I was only considering Kipling as a poet. Rand is far above him as a novelist, in my view.

I consider Rand to be right up there with Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Shaw, Ibsen, etc. in terms of literary achievement and worth. Let me add Kipling to that list, as he has been highly underrated.

McCartney-booster though I am, to me this is a very slight effort that I find wholly uninteresting. (And no "rhetoric of melody" for sure!)

Some of this is similar to a topic in my Appendix B of Understanding Imaginaries, which begins: "Appendix B: Taxonomy of Concept Types / Concepts may be categorized by type of referent, such that the category of any given concept suggests whether its definition is open to change and under what conditions. The types I have noticed so far are:" Etc.

This of course is the killer admission that, applied consistently to BB and NB, wipes out the method of the book in question.

Bravo, Brant.

I would have a number of helpful comments to make, but, as is often the case, I don't have time to write a thoughtful post due to my editorial projects. On a different note, consider this, which can be inspiring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOnew7RMkZ0

OK. I thought you might be doing that.

To focus on mechanics, the last two lines in many of your stanzas do not rhyme. (For example, falling and haunting.) For a rhyme, you need to include the stressed syllable and everything after it.

I'm gratified to see that some patter for an entertainment I wrote in the 1980s still applies: It’s funny[73]—new dimensions sprouted wings When physicists came up with ... superstrings.[74] I’ll speak of superstrings in just a minute; Meanwhile, if there’s a pun,[75] I won’t begin it. You fools! I’ll have you know that I’m a poet— You don’t crack jokes while swinging on a star. Now let’s get back to all those weird extensions Of space-time with a host of new dimensions. They tell us that the superstring idea[76] Was offered as a useful panacea For mathematic stumbling blocks that lurked[77] Behind old thoughts that formerly had worked.[78] They used to visualize the seeds of matter[79] As ... much like points[80]—now strings have come to shatter[81] The old idea—strings make much more sense. At once again they’re making progress. Hence The superstring, with its superior math,[82] Is next to lead us[83]—down the garden path?