Rich Engle

Narrowing of any kind would be good. In my opinion, altruism is right behing mysticism in Objectivism as being one of those terms that is so broadly applied that it practically loses its significance. Lockstep O'ists have extremely narrow parameters even for benevolence- it's like going to bed with a woman who has a book full of rules, to the point that its not all that fun anymore.

What a thing is determines what it does. And so should it. True in spirit, but not the whole story to me. A holon always came from, and continues to associate with, another holon. If the holon exhibits enough pathology (separates it self fully from what it integrated out of- over distinguishes/over differentiates) it simply ceases to exist.

Dragonfly: "Exactly, I coudn't have said it better! The Objectivist view of human consciousness is hopelessly simplistic: people either think (Objectivists) or don't think (the others), either focus (the Objectivists) or don't focus (the others) etc. Of course one can't avoid simplification in describing such complex systems as human consciousness, but the binary system promoted by the Objectivists is a ridiculous caricature." Gosh, that almost made me cry, it felt so good! Not all-inclusive of people who study Ayn Rand, but I know a lot of the ones you are talking about. It is perplexing, really. Objectivism provides a great clarity. It is very close to a spiritual conversion. And, it provides an excellent framework for dealing with others in the marketplace. The rest of it, I could take or leave. Definitely low marks in the psychology and interpersonal skills areas. rde Love her, try not to hate them.

As simple as this, I think it's important enough to mention. The thing with looking at history, is that there is, conceptually, our sense of it. That we knew there was history. Then, we have various accountings. It is always a process of looking at the various accounts, empirical evidence, etc., and trying to recreate it. Remember, science tells us what "is," but it does not tell us anything about what "is" ~means~. Science can't work any other way. And of course, that is where it gets interesting for everyone... rde Always about those fine distinctions.

In general, I find that on the whole rank/file O'ists do not like compatibilism any more than they like anything else that involves pluralism. Why they don't like pluralism is another question. best, rde

Hello, All! It was brought to my attention that it was possible for readers to interpret my previous postings as attacks on our associate Dragonfly. I believe this came due to the sequence, as MSK pointed out earlier in the thread. So, to be clear: I had no debate nor issue with Dragonfly. I was simply brought into the frame of mind to say a few things about determinists, because lately they have been annoying me like fruit flys. rde No harm/No foul

Ellen, Yes, indeed, along the same lines as MSK's words about you, you're always good for the civilized, sensible approach. "Outside of consciousness" is spot-on. I'm just grinding up trouble, as is the way of my people. I don't debate with pure determinists anymore, because I think they fall into two categories: wankers, and Nancy-boys. I'm not being mean, they're just sissies. Determinism is the ultimate free-pass to the park. No different than a Taggart or a Toohey, just a little better articulated, and a little more intellectually masturbatory. Things just happen. Oh, there's a shared category, too- the ones that, er, determine (well, they and only they get to do that because its their goddamn paradigm and theyll cry if they want to) that I need to read more books about determinism. Sounds amazingly like....well, anyway moving on... and I don't do that because for one, I think that I don't have time to read things built on any next great paradigm, most of which have the particular feature of excepting themselves from everything else. These big paradigms are stupid, they suck, and have nothing to do with where the term came from. They are dog and pony shows. If you actually buy into determinism, especially philosophical and psychological determinism, you are either a booby, or you just like going around to cocktail parties and effing with people's heads, and there's better ways to do that, trust me. Now, this skull cracker, I doubt he's a studied determinist, in terms of reading determinist philosophical work. He came to it out of his scientific background, which is even more goddamn aggravating, if you think on it. Where do they think their abstracts come from? Hmmmm? Again, though- you either have to be completely into depression, or into scaring people for determinism to be for you. But you don't have a choice anyway, so eff it. rde Me: Like you, only better.

I never could wrap my mind completely around their relationship in the first place. It seemed so unbalanced. But on the other hand, she seemed to talk about him in terms of being her anchor. And it's very hard to be in the shadow of a giant, usually. Whether or not that is so, it looks like to me that she got to a point where having an anchor wasn't all that necessary- she was so in motion, and working without a wire. I'm convinced they always loved each other, but there's all different kinds of love. From what I get from reading, he seemed very much like one of those quiet, dreamer types of people. A very spacious interior domain, inside of which he spent a lot of time. I can tell you one thing, if he hadn't already, I definitely would've thought about getting the party started not long after NB started making his scheduled appointments. It would be that, or taking out his eyes. But that's just me. rde Vodka: not just for breakfast anymore.

Nathaniel says that the most important judgment you will ever make is the one you make on yourself.

Parents can, fortunately, guide children into tolerant morality, even through all the mistakes they will make doing it. Even when they fail and occasionally don't walk the talk. But extreme moral indignation? The real kind, not, say, the pseudo indignation of a freshly-trained fundamentalist? Assuming no serious pathology, I think it is because man is part of life, he is part of the universe. Assuming no serious pathology, such a man has a reverence for life, he looks upon it fondly, and likes to get up in the morning. I don't think it's that far of a stretch for such a man to get hacked off when he sees unnecessary pain in his world- he's going to feel that in his being, and a purposeful man is going to act on that.

Uh, yes, I was talking about the witch doctor. No need to resort to spraypainting the locker room, Dragonfly. See, I'd have to retaliate.. being a UU guy, that would mean doing something lame. We're the ones that light those burning question marks in people's front lawns. What psychologize? The doc put it all out on the table. It's a pretty common mindset. I can sympathize, but jeez, suck it up and be a man. Fatalists aren't real men, they're just not. Yes, that means I'm saying that practicing determinists, be they psychological, evolutionary, or whatever other flipping varieties are out there are sissies. Nancy-boys. Actually, according to their paradigm (which becomes the only important paradigm in that it is exempt from itself) they can't even be "practicing," they are being "practiced" or somehow being executed like so much uinversal Playdough<tm>. I can understand when someone first arrives at the importance of looking at evolutionary integration on any axis, but to say it can't be holistically built on is like saying evolution just stops, and while that may not be "evasion," it is definitely mental laziness. More to point on the operational level, I can't see how a committed determinist (wait...dang it, you can't say that either...well, anyway, you all know who you are, you just can't do anything about it...) represents anything on the trade/value-for-value level. They're just some kind of automated cosmic middlemen. You can see why I just keep coming back to the conclusion that they are sissies. They need to watch more kung fu movies. They need to feel the pain of the streets. Determinism, to me, equals fatalism. That is maybe the only honest thing that can be done with it. Or, you can feel sorry for being propelled through life like some cosmically-driven puppet. Or, you can use it as a dandy excuse for when you get caught doing something nasty... Now, let's all get back to seeing how long we can sit feeling our pores breathe without having an associative thought. rde

He's some kind of determinist/evolutionary psych guy and he probably doesn't even know that. One does not exclude the other. This is where I tend to take Objectivism to task. Something is always running in the background. Or else your dead. I've said it before, I'll use it here again- do the experiment: Sit quietly and empty the mind. Just try to be aware of the body and the surroundings. See how long you can go before having an association, before the voice starts up. I know very few people that can do this even for one minute. But even in that under one minute, you can see what that is there, what is beneath what I'd call the monkey-mind. The thing with guys like that is, in my opinion, they are just feeling sorry for themselves. Wah wah wah, I'm on a genetic instinctual subconscious treadmill to hell. Ptui! Gotta integrate, man...

Knowledge and experience are components of wisdom. I view wisdom as a evolved-into state of consciousness. With age often comes wisdom. It's true from a real basic standpoint, in terms of how a person, as they age, turns to referencing the many accumulated memories, experiences. It is a change of perspective.

I saw Nathaniel lecturing one time, and he said something very simple that stuck with me, in the area of essentials. All it was basically, was "your thoughts are your thoughts." He went on to talk about understanding that simple fact. That we all have all different kinds of thoughts, some of which are disturbing or repulsive to the thinker. That a primal thing is to understand that you will have those thoughts. Obviously, the difference is what you do with which ones. Whether you will act on them, or not.

Well, there is that empathy component that the have scientifically pinpointed. If I recall it triggers mainly visually.

I haven't had time this a.m. to fully digest all the thoughtful replies, but I did take a pretty good glance. Here's what I did: I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to talk to an informed outsider, but someone out of the philosophical circuit we operate in. Basically I was looking for fresh thought and a different angle. So, I asked my friend of over thirty years. He's just a regular guy, albeit a pretty wise one. I laid out the original hypothetical, and explained how far I thought we had funnelled it over here, which to me is down to "where does moral conscience come from?" He said, in a nutshell, that the reason most normal people would tend to help the kid is because it is our nature to be life-affirming. We grow things. We have children. That when left alone, all things being level, human beings just naturally gravitate to the nourishing of life. Nature/nurture, break it down however as far as point of origin, but the bottom line is that is what people do. Not a bad way of looking at it. EDIT, minutes later: I would be remiss in pointing out that, of course, being of a religious mind, this particular angle completely supports my own position. In my case, the question "where does moral conscience come from?" is answered by saying "Spirit." God is within, and without. Within, it looks back at Spirit, while Spirit looks back. But this is only my individual consciousness, and there are innumerable ways, as many as there are people, of experiencing the same thing, sans theology, for instance. rde Reason, tolerance, freedom. And pluralistic!

MSK: One of the premises we are checking right now is the Objectivist view of man and his values. That's it, exactly. What do we know of it? Quite a bit. Objectivism is a modern system, so we also know that the differentiating trait is that the focus, the value, was put on man himself That may sound painfully obvious, but it is extremely significant if you look back in history. So, if we look at how it was laid out, we can look for ambiguities. If we look at the different ways it is practiced, we can look for interpretation errors. Integration errors that cause the pathology...

I don't think legality is what compels people to do noble and heroic things. Maybe reverence for life, in the example. My reverence for life might even include the ultimate sacrifice, but even so I am acting in my own self-interest. Even altruists are really acting in their own self-interest, if you think of it. It's just that what their self is interested in might be a little effed up.

It's interesting to see exactly how strong someone's conscience really is in extreme situations. Coming at it from a Unitarian perspective, I would say that taking one for the team is business as usual. They've been burning Unitarians at the stake since the 1500's. For us, it's about action. That's why Unitarians were so involved in smuggling Jews out of Germany during the war (that's where our chalice symbol was developed, it was somehwat of a secret sign). My point is that generally, the Unitarian view is not about "self-sacrifice". We will use the term "service." But what it is really about is taking action. It's about doing. And, a lot of times, that means sticking it to the man. Our perspective involves extending the moral compass, not so much defining the one we already possess. Doing.

Social metaphysics? I think it's a lot easier to call it the "we" part of life. Just as the inner domain exists, and the solid "it" part of the world exists. One does not exclude the others, they are all part of the whole.

NB's different vantage point definitely gets it deeper! The very basics of things in life: What is good (ethics), what is true (science), and what is beautiful (art/aesthetics)? Looking at the scenario with the child. What is good about the situation? Pretty much nothing. Suffering, and pending danger. I don't see any good, do you all? That's one reason why I would want to act: because there is no goodness there, and that could be changed.

Well, yes, Phil. It seems like it works that way on an almost metaphysical level. :-({|= I think not around here, my friend. Seriously doubt it, tempting though it may be for some to feel the tug of herd mechanics. rde Nobody deserves to be Wing Man<tm>

On the whole, the NBI was a crack operation and no one has done it better since. If NB had remained at the helm of the organization (and, it was simply not meant to be and in a lot of ways I'm glad because it diverted him into what he does now, and my guess is that he's happier now than he would've been, but who knows) I have no doubt in my mind that it would have continued to grow exponentially. See, the greatly understated fact of it is that NB is a freaking good business person. I have some sense of how he operates because I got to do a little work with him. He's good. Very good. Top down is what it's about with business, and that's why the movement isn't getting the kind of traction it should. Mind you, I think the world of David Kelley. But there's this...thing you look for in a leader, and I know it when I see it. NB has done top-notch work in his little-talked-about-in-the-movement business consulting practice. If one is about improving in leadership, and business, there is one book he wrote that is an absolute must, and it only takes a couple of hours to read. "The High Self-Esteem Leader: How Confident People Make Powerful Companies." This is the cream of it, alongside work like Daniel Goleman's books on emotional intelligence.

Oh, that was so wrong on so many levels, Michael. I couldn't have done better work myself. But don't many Queens have little lapdogs when they sit at the throne? Alright, that's it. It's gotta stop, and it's gotta stop now. Already, I feel the breath of the beast on the back of my neck. rde Mommy, why does Santa Claus have dirty fingernails and smells like whiskey?

Youi know, working with foundations or other donor-type organizations does not de-capitalist you. Far from it- it's just a different way of dealing with finance. Obviously, the caveat is that an organization must have an intense comfort level with the donor organization, but that is not really so difficult. I'm doing something like this right now. When you go to a foundation for money, two simple things: 1. Know that the first thing they will do is think about the last thing they gave you money for, and determine if you were successful with it, and 2. That you better be discriminating, prepared, and worked out when you bring them a new request. Basically it is like dealing with a friendly bank. It's true that a donor or foundation usually has a higher, non-business interest that positions them with whoever they are working with, but the bottom line is always business. You have to remember that you are a part of their financial portfolio, in terms of representing a dandy tax writeoff. It's just business, and it can do things that other kinds can't. For one, you can bust out moves very quickly, because you don't have to clear traditional financing hurdles when you are mounting a project. Basically, it is a mutually beneficial value-for-value relationship. Simple.