tjohnson

In light of quantum mechanics there is no such thing as 'objective reality' . When the observer can have an effect on the observed the notion of 'pure objectivity' loses it's meaning.

You know, in physics we speak of 'electrons, bosons, quarks, neutrinos' and we will never see these. I'm surprised no one has mentioned this as an argument in favour of the existence of a 'mind'. If someone was to postulate the existence of a 'mind structure' at a subatomic level then of course it could never be shown. But subatomic particles leave evidence of themselves which CAN be seen and measured and can we say this about the 'mind'? If you postulate the existence of something absolutely NO physical evidence of it then you are being religious and I'm sure you don'y want objectivism to be thought of as a religion?

The nervous impulses get processed in the visual cortex, the result is associated with the word 'green'. This occurs in our BRAIN, there is no mind.

Yes, well I doubt Bush writes much of his speeches at any rate.

Wow! That's hard to believe! Maybe something good will come out of it though.

Or one perceives SOME colour, and one is TOLD it is called 'green'. Also, there are colour-blind people too who may not be able to distinguish the same colours.

One point, individual rights will not matter squat if we destroy the planet.

What are you saying Chris, do you not accept there is a finite amount of oil in the world? The only question is WHEN it will be effectively exhausted and it depends on a great number of variables. As Dunstan has implied we need to move towards renewable resources, and uranium is definitely not one of them. All energy comes from the sun, directly or indirectly, but some is renewable in human life cycles, others are not.

Brendan wrote; "I use mind as a collective term to refer to the mental activities of human beings" And previously wrote; "The act of comparison occurs in the mind, not the senses" I see a problem here since 'mental activities' does not differentiate between 'mind' and 'senses', and so includes senses or perception. So basically you have included 'senses' in the 'mind' category in one sentence and excluded it in another. In general semantics this is avoided by using the terms 'lower' and 'higher' order abstractions of our nervous systems.

I hope you don't mind if I interject with a few comments from someone from another 'movement' - General Semantics. First of all, I have read NO books about Objectivism and my exposure is limited to reading here and there on the net. I have been a practitioner of GS for around 25 years (I'm 52) and have studied Korzybski's work fairly extensively. I guess GS is slighly older than Objecitivism, Science & Sanity was published in 1933, but I'm not sure when Atlas was published. At the beginning GS looked like it was going to make significant inroads into popular education and AK founded the Institute of General Semantics (it all sounds familiar, eh?) Then there was a split into 2 factions, etc. and declining interest etc. It's been called a cult (that ever happened to Objectivism?), unfortunately Hubbard and Scientology got associated with GS. So I feel for you guys! Tom

I don't think so. First of all, there is no such thing as a 'mind', all we have is brains or nervous systems. I would like to see you show me a 'mind'. The process of abstracting similarities begins with perception and continues with language. How is it dogs recognize their owners if they cannot sense similarities?

This 'conceptual faculty' , which I call abstraction process, continues with linguistic abstraction which in turn influences, or sharpens, conceptual abstraction. It is much easier to 'see' something when someone 'tells' us what to look for. Language can be thought of as an extension of the nervous system which enables similar processes to be shared with others possessing the same faculty.

I suspect most of Bush's speeches are thinly veiled attempts at justifying the invasion of other countries. The 'freedom' word carries great emotional impact so is very useful in manipulating the masses.

For many years I have heard about governments paying farmers to NOT FARM in order to stabilize pricing (supply side management??) I say to myself these farmers could be growing crops to make bio-diesel and we could kill 2 birds with one stone. It's a win-win situation. Apparently you can run vegetable oil in diesel engines with very little modification, but I don't know the details.

'Purring', that's a cute metaphor I could say 'don't fight reality' to you as well. The reality is that if we think of ourselves as animals we will continue to behave as animals. Check out 'The Metaphors We Live By' by Lakoff. It's fine and dandy when we fight with swords, like Conan the Barbarian, but when we fight with nuclear weapons etc. it's not nice to be animalistic. You are quite right when you say the cortex can inhibit responses and we would be very smart to take advantage of this and become more human.

Why do you think this? Has it ever occurred to you that 'vision' is an abstraction process in which our nervous system 'gets some characteristics', but not all? If I look at a group of trees do I not see similarities among them? If not, why would I invent or use a word to represent non-existent patterns?

Gee, I don't think I'm using my verbal skills to secure a mate or food right now.

Yes, but the gift of gab is what separates us from animals. More precisely, the gift of abstracting in higher and higher orders ad infinitum. Surely you must be aware of the 'self-fulfilling prophecy'? If we think about ourselves as animals then there's a good chance we will continue to behave as animals.

I think it would help to make a sharp distinction between 'concept' and 'word'. The concept lives in one's brain, as a visualization or neural net, or something. The word refers to the the concept. So repeated pointing at the object (tree) coupled with repeated verbalizing 'tree' begins the building of associative structures in the brain that connect the lower order nervous abstractions (concepts) to the higher order verbal abstractions (words).

This may be true for animals but bears do not have the ability to control their environments, reduce infant mortality, etc. like humans do. I see no reason why individual and species interests cannot coincide. We do not want to copy animals in our nervous responses, we need to develop uniquely human reponses in order to insure the survival of humans AS humans, and not as animals.

With a 'grain of salt'?? Well thanks, but I happen to think that is one of the most unique and creative takes on mathematics around, so no salt is needed. I also don't see how new developments in neuroscience could change that particular point of view, it is extremely general. Do you have any remarks on the idea itself or just the circumstances surrounding it's appearance?

In Science & Sanity Korzybski describes mathematics as the only language similar in structure to the world and the human nervous system, which accounts for it's tremendous usefulness. For example, when we observe 'continuously' changing phenomena we translate this via differential calculus into static frames and are able to measure differences from one frame to the next. Similarly, we receive static frames at a rapid speed our nervous system integrates these to a continuous process. Food for thought!

Yes, using a different, man-made fuel is a good idea, although I think bio-diesel will be a more likely candidate. We need to change how we live and work as well, like tele-working when possible. Maybe when we are paying 2 $ per litre (8 $ per gallon) like they do in Europe we may be more inclined to reduce our consumption.

Hi, this is my first post here but this issue of global warming, or as I like to call it, climate change, will be around for a long time, I suspect. I think 'global warming' is a poor choice of words for this phenomenon since who cares if the average temperature of the planet increases 0.5 degrees or whatever? This kind of data is meaningless to the average citizen so we should be talking about climate change, which has very much meaning to us. I think, in a sense, it (whatever you call it) is something of a non-issue since even if we assume that burning all our fossil fuels will result in catastrophic climate change there are other important reasons to stop 'wasting' our resources. The old adage "waste not, want not" comes to mind. When I see 12 lane highways choked with vehicles crawling along or stopped with their motors running I say there is something wrong with this picture, and the answer isn't building more highways. Fossil fuels will run out and we need to wean ourselves off them ASAP for economic, social, etc. reasons, if not for climate change reasons.