tndbay

CRIMINAL GENES ... well, once a year, I've got a regular routine, I see the doctor for a checkup, get a flu vaccine... When I went to see the doctor I was feeling O.K. But he said "Listen to me closely, I've got something to say" "I hate to have to tell you you've got criminal genes" "Look into the microscope- I'll show you what I mean." So I looked through the lens- and you know what I saw? Forty-eight chromosomes, breaking the law! I said "That can't be right, Dr., Not so fast-" He said "I've studied genealogy and looked into your past!" "You'd better have a seat because you're in for a shock-" "You're ancestors got off the boat at Plymouth Rock!" "I can go back even further, if you so desire, To a caveman name of Uggh, who discovered fire Now he didn't need to cook, because he ate it raw- But instinctively he knew it was against the law!" "I can even go back farther, if you choose, To a single celled creature in the primeval ooze, When by random mutation, there appeared on the scene, the world's first amoeba with a criminal gene." "Now I'll have to turn you in- I've really got no choice." And then I tried to plead, in an anxious voice, I said "but you know me- I'd never hurt a soul!" He said "Maybe not now, but when that gene gets control, Your hormones will rage and your chemicals react- And you'll be driven to commit some sort of illegal act! You'll have to be locked up for the safety of us all!" And he turned his back on me and started walking down the hall... Well, I thought of me in prison and my kids and wife alone And I knew I couldn't let the doctor make it to the phone. I didn't want to kill, but there was no other way. Of course, it wasn't my fault- it was the DNA. pete

argh! i fall from grace. now i probably have to wear clothes and stuff... it would seriously detract from the fun of slash and burn if i had to include a philosophical treatise in a work of comedy!! is that ok if i just footnote the work with *(see the works of Ayn Rand for the right stuff- no need to repeat her work here) ? what a trap was set and i'm caught! you know what that means? another limerick! -=atlas mugged me=- with limericks potent as these the mighty are brought to their knees since the purpose i'm after is infectious laughter i'm worse than a fatal disease. omfg, it's self deprecating too...

this can only cause anxiety to very very very very poor logician! goedel, despite the perversion of his theorem, did not imply that 'you can't know anything because you can't know everything". instead, use goedel to mean that by enlarging the context you can subsume an intractable. 'everything i say is a lie' is not tractable til you enlarge the context and observe that 'this is a self contradiction. problem resolved. it was just that easy. several variations on the self contradiction exist. they are used by gurus to cripple minds. it's like a DOS on the mind (denial of services attack). i like to call these things 'spinner viruses' cuz the logical function can be reproduced with integrated circuits and what you get, when you plug an inverter's output to its input, is an oscillator that runs as fast as the gate delay will allow. when a mind is infected with one of these, its resources are consumed and the critical faculties are thereby weakened. for your protection, i include the following graphic- wrap it around a can of your favorite air freshener.

the boringest thing has to be the collectivist philosophy they're so uninspired and i get real tired of them waving their we we's at me!

i find no fault with your logic using your definitions. i do find a distinction between thought that can be logically validated and habit that is something any chordate is capable of learning. i talk to myself constantly. that's how i validate my reasoning. so the distinction i draw is between reasoned deliberate behaviour and other behaviour of which the performer may be unaware. this is the way i am able to make sense of the topic on which a vast library of literature has been written: the 'subconscious' this is also how i interpret the literary references which abound that call ppl 'unconscious'. see why we need precise cognitive tools (words with mutually consistent definitions)? maybe someday i write a complete dictionary...lol through verbal means i arrive at the understanding of your meaning. it would never happen if i didn't do it as that's the only means available to me. otherwise i'd be responding, 'unconsciously', at the expense of abstracting the truth of what you say. pete

international terrorism? wtf? so now there will be a host of new major characters, motives and plot devices? i sure hope they don't mess it up. there's no bigger bolt to fire than atlas shrugged and they only get one shot. pete

i didn't know rand was criticized for not writing comedy. but such a criticism would surely be grounds for another limerick! -=seriously funny=- a critic was once heard to mention while at a rand roasting convention "it's really fantastic being iconoclastic it certainly gets me attention!" "in fact," he continued to say "i make a fine living this way. in comes the money when i cry 'she's not funny' and i ride on her coat-tails all day! pete

hi i really do get the 'sense' that resides in the statement. you should hear me go on about how it is really Natural Rejection, not natural Selection that runs evolution, or how it's the forgettery that weeds out contradictions before they get installed in long term memory. having been breast fed on objectivism, a habit of logical inference is quite second nature and i have room to be silly. there is also a context where the statement is false. that context is the realm of theoretical proofs. that makes it self contradictory and funny. according to the statement they must all be uncertain. i am absolutely certain that A=A because of the law of identity. i am absolutely certain 1+1=2, because of the number theory. according to the rule of falsification, i need only show 1 example, right? any position anybody holds that is theoretical and simultaneously presented as true must necessarily bear a disclaimer, according to the statement. this is not true. it requires a defined context, no more. so, i'm lampooning that distinction, for if the context is left to the imagination of the reader, this is what happens- somebody who sees a contradiction will experience mirth and, if left unconstrained, may produce limericks for amusement. lol- i won't excommunicate you if you don't excommunicate me! deal? if all the relevant evidence suggests that nobody laughs, i will be uncertain whether to make jokes... here...and now. pete

i found it in the 'tolerance' thread- you said

wow, that's some suggestion. he doesn't seem uncertain about it...lol! i, for one, am certain i spy a logical self contradiction in it... of course, there is absolutely no such thing as an absolute... and logically, therefore, there must be no such thing as logic... and that's how we prove that there's no such thing as proof! voila! limerick time! nothing can be absolute. so there's nothing that i can't refute i can leap any hurdle if i tighten my goedel and spit out the biblical fruit.

i put a spoonful of coffee in the sugar bowl the other day cuz i was distracted and the habits were not properly cued. i did not consciously put the coffee in the sugar bowl. most of my driving is done without verbal validation. sometimes i have taken a wrong turn by habit. habit is a good word for these unconscious decisions, perhaps? (i guess i must be sure to specify that i use the term unconscious to mean subverbal- not sleepwalking) all our behaviours prior to acquiring language skills, then, would also qualify as unconscious in the way. any behaviour that is done without deliberation might be called subconsious, too. or unconscious. or maybe we should discriminate between unconscious and subconscious? pete

what may not be clear to you, as you are embroiled in the middle of it, is starkly clear and simple to me. i have to say, also, that were i to name it here and now, i expect i'd be tarred and feathered and run out of dodge. until i've had a chance to make friends (or not) i plan to resist doing that. but to an observer from my generation and perspective- it's glaringly obvious. however, i will state unequivocally that 'objectivism is not plagued with animosity'. one must look elsewhere than a rational philosophy to find a plague. rationality is hardly at root of the squabbling. but no worries- demographics ensures that this squabbling will end, perforce, when the utility function evaporates. pete

thanks. i don't think a fellow could get a better answer than what's given here!

i don't equate contradiction with evil, either. inquiry is all about running headlong into them and resolving them. i think i have a satisfactory understanding of humour, and even laughter. i've met humorless people before. they were unhappy ppl. i don't recall a single instance of a happy person who was humourless. inquiring minds want to know, is all. there is an apparent contradiction here- and, as one expects, it is funny- consulting a curmudgeon on the nature of humour is a funny idea. i think humor is too self evidently an attribute of human beings to disregard or damn it. well, this has to inspire a limerick, or i can't prove anything! so here goes: -=the Humorrhoid=- this is a story in verse of a lady austere and perverse she would choke on a joke that provokes normal folk to incontinence, sometimes, or worse! depression began to consume her the doctors suspected a tumor but on x-ray was shown: a misplaced funny-bone! and from then on they called her Deep Humour! pete

" Rand came up with that idea of programming her subconscious and literally tried to program normal healthy humor right out of her mind. She decided that the human capacity for humor must fit her philosophy, not her philosophy must encompass man's drive for humor as it exists." well, that's what makes a human a human, by my best definition- a creature who defines himself. i know i rehearse what i think i should get good at and extinguish habits that need it on a very regular basis. as you have pointed out (i think i got this one right) humour isn't something you force ppl to pay for- it is an element of man's nature, for sure. and rand really did do well if you are scrupulous about definitions. indeed, if all humor is mockery, then it's only one semantic conversion to make this correspond 1:1 with reality: if mockery is any time you point out a contradiction, then it looks like a good definition of humour, what she gave. for indeed, satire is a wrecking bar for demolition of false monuments and other fake erections. laughing at a kitten playing is mostly cuz it's comical to watch a little creature full of intent but short on capacity do his successive approximation- it's the failures en route that are funny, not the success. it's hilarious to watch a kitten offer to fight a big dog, for instance, when you know there's no way his intent could be fulfilled. the ambition being contradicted by the incapacity is mirth provoking. it's not the kitten, per se. perhaps a flaw enters when she characterises humor as 'essentially destructive' as if humor were not any kind of passive response but instead a tool only (but if nobody laughed would it be a funny?) i think mirth is on the level of emotions- an instantaneous response to a perceived contradiction on a subverbal level. a comedian develops a skill at eliciting this response with stories or performance. but back to topic- something screams at me it isn't right! a consciously developed habit of objective inquiry gets you atlas shrugged. a happy person laughs at things. it's not adding up yet. was she unhappy? if she was unhappy, what was the fear or guilt? (i hope the logic of that is easy!) pete

how's come, while nick was being offended by ethnic jokes to the point of stalking off (but not before plugging his blog), nobody pointed out that a person isn't entitled to claim either pride or shame in his ancestry, since he had nothing to do with it? thus any insult taken is done to protect an embezzled identity, right? btw- i'm a minority of one, but i won't try to hold that as a blank check on anybody's mirth. that would be really dishonest, wouldn't it? nor would i dream of trying to censor a person's speech on the basis of his ancestry. pete -=because beneath this mask, and beneath this skin is an idea. and ideas are bulletproof.=- V

i once took a trip at .9C - just to test the theory of relativity. when i got back i found my brother to be- 30 years and 6 months younger than me... the results were quite conclusive and removed all trace of doubt- as i was 30 yr 6 mo younger than he, everything worked out.

i have trained animals. i actually design the concepts and implant them in the animals. association is how the animal learns automatically. it doesn't matter to me what is fashionable or not because i see it work in daily life. i don't find a thing that it fails to explain- and as my typing improves and 'ing' becomes a single efferent concept i find i can type faster. 'ion' is now a single element. phonics was the program of associations that enabled me to read. rehearsal improves my performance. learning is a habit i acquired by developing the habit. when i was born i had only the automatic associative learning to use. it was not til a million habits, each a long chain of associations, got me to using language and defining words that i had an alternate means of ingesting information. so much for my testimony that associative learning works- i use it successfully and it never fails me, so it has passed all my criteria for validity. what do you think a concept is? pete

i got something mixed up. it was in the thread about satire, which was quite lengthy (in which the sensitive-to-ethnic-jokes NickOtani chose to take enuff insult to leave OL) where you said: Rand was generally a sourpuss when it came to traditional humor. By projecting this into a philosophical principle to cover ALL humor, she turned one of man’s basic drives into a built-in defect that needs to be programmed out of him. This is nothing more than a variation of Original Sin. Her theory stands if applied only to mocking. If applied to other forms of humor, it is “wrong.” I prefer “incomplete,” since mocking is a form of humor. then dragonfly later posted: Another Rand quote (Ayn Rand Lexicon): Quote: To laugh at that which is good, at heroes, at values, and above all at yourself is monstrous.... The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in you own face. I've seldom read such nonsense. Beware of people who can't laugh at themselves! The hidden premise in Rand's quote is that you are a perfect human being, without any flaws, so that if you laugh at yourself, you must automatically laugh at something noble and good. This notion is of course completely crazy, nobody is perfect, every person has some traits or does some things that may be laughed at without implying that the person must therefore be bad or evil. none of the above contains any real refutation of what rand SAID, for instance, my parsing algorithm finds an easy way to laugh at myself that has no conflict with rand's description. when i laugh at me- it's not the identity i laugh at- it's certainly not 'the good' that is comical- but the failure to make me match up to the ideal. i laugh at the monkeyshines. good things don't make me laugh; they make me cry. maybe i'm backwards? but it was paul mawdsley, not you, who wrote: Contrary to Rand’s statement quoted above, a sense of humour about oneself is a great value because it increases objectivity. When we can laugh at ourselves, we reduce our defensiveness against the sides of us we don’t like to own. We can be open to seeing more of ourselves clearly. When we can see all the parts of ourselves more clearly, we can bring more of ourselves under conscious scrutiny and volitional control. We can be more integrated. Conversely, when we can’t laugh at ourselves, we can bury those parts of ourselves we don’t approve of– especially, in the case of Objectivists, those parts that don’t fit with Objectivist authority. To borrow from Pink Floyd, “All in all it’s just another brick in the [randroid] wall.” in fact, you did not respond directly to paul mawdsley's post at all. again, i am sorry for mixing that up. it may not affect the topic, however? i started out looking for any funny joke by rand as a single one would constitute a proof that she had a sense of humour. then you offered a single example of a joke that wasn't really very silly or funny. i thought of the phrase: 'to damn by faint praise' just because the utter paucity of examples seems bizarre. that made me wonder just what might be beneath this lump in the smooth fabric of her philosophy. if we assume that rand had a reason for the things she did, then what reason underlies: she turned one of man’s basic drives into a built-in defect that needs to be programmed out of him? that's something monstrous, no? i've noticed this before many times that what a person wants most to hide is what he most rails against. and paul mawdsley's post, of course, can be reparsed to give the meaning of the bit of my previous post re insecurity. that's the logic i use to infer that a hypersensitivity to something which can not ever produce a legitimate damage claim and can in no way violate a right MUST have some basis which, if not apparent, must be concealed. with regard to the second part of your response, of course i never stated or implied such a thing as you say. lack of a sense of humour is not equivalent to the choice of taking insult to a joke. one means you don't get it. the other means you get it and you want to somehow censor it. lack of a sense of humour also doesn't equate with QUOTE: "turned one of man’s basic drives into a built-in defect" by any stretch of the imagination.

the aggressive tenacity to what you've found and identified as good, and your wholehearted application in the act of defining yourself with full deliberation- that's heroic. the act of self ownership is heroic. to watch a person as she does this act is a thing of beauty and can't fail to bring a tear of joy to the observer. i bet you'd enjoy the movie V a lot.

a discussion on Objectivist humor? they have that? i though it all had to be imported- like objectivist wigs, objectivist coffee mugs, objectivist t-shirts, etc. i really was hoping for some examples of non-utilitarian wit, silliness, fun.. thanks for the one example - are there really so few? after all, you have pointed out, and we have seen- it is the insecure who can not tolerate a joke without taking insult. if rand was so insecure, then what was the fraud she was concealing? did she know what that was, herself, or was she in denial? was there nobody in her life up to the task of identifying it for her so she could correct it? if there was, did she listen or merely excommunicate? what was so vital it required such defenses? now you got me going- misunderstandings can lead to interesting investigations!

i just read a book by shell silverstein entitled The Humour of Ayn Rand, which is reprinted below in its entirety: short read, huh? did you like it? someone surely has an anecdote, i hope! cuz i'm just a tad ill hearing: 'her faults made her human to me'. did she ever crack a joke?

the dictionary has a lot of poorly written, ambiguous and even contradictory definitions for many words- especially ones that are most useful for implementing basic morality. while i'm not on about the lexicography being reportage or setting of standards dichotomy, nevertheless, i find that foam rubber hammers and elastic rulers just can't get the job done for me, so i've hacked some definitions to improve the precision and utility of the words. though it may be idiosyncratic, i require of the tools i use that they perform as required so they have to be at the least self consistent! plz play with them and find the flaw- a single contradiction invalidates! a valid concept is a thing of beauty. i'm not concerned about the color or style- hack away! in no particular order: Philosophy: Love of understanding Metaphysics: study of the nature of existence Consciousness: identification Understanding: Conception of an implication or set of implications Sanity: a metaphysical view that corresponds one to one with reality Reality: the largest possible context of existence Science: the systematic discovery of truth Truth: an idea that can not be contradicted by any other implications within its context Logic: non-contradictory identification Language: a system of words for communicating ideas Word: a symbol with a definition Definition: The set of those properties or characteristics that distinguish a thing from all other things, i.e. a distinct set of implications; an identity Symbol: A perceptual unit designating a set of implications Thinking: manipulation of ideas Idea: a concept or set of concepts Concept: a set of implications Implication: the relationship of a cause and its effect Label: to establish a symbol - or- the perceptual token for an idea or concept Money: a commodity that has special utility as a token of wealth Wealth: transferible values Ownership: claim of exclusive control of a property Property: a characteristic of something- or- a thing that is owned Right: fundamental value, sine qua non Humor: the art of assembling contradictory elements into an apparently consistent entity Joke: an idea that appears self-consistent until enlargement of the context reveals a contradiction Art: the confection of symbols into a nonverbal concept Beauty: The degree of consistency among observed implications

oh, boy does psychology suffer from tools fraught with ancient smudge... one of these days i need to rewrite the dictionary to make it self consistent... for now i'll borrow from computer science and hope for the best: at all times we are awake, we are conscious. the main loop running is 'what is it?' repeated endlessly. numerous activities and responses are negotiated and completed on a SUBVERBAL level, via the default chordate associative memory. this is what is meant when uses the words 'unconscious behaviour' even gazing at your navel, your mind is asking constantly 'what is it?' for consciousness is, indeed, identification. 'what is it?' is the way we ask that question with words. once one has aquired the association of sounds with words, then further develops a habit of speech to the point where one is capable of definitions, however vague, one achieves a qualitatively distinct state because with the cognitive tools which are words we are able to program ourselves (and each other). we talk to ourselves, which ruminations become a real part of our experience, i.e., a rehearsal and reiforcement of a habit. when we are chatting ourselves about whatever it is we are doing, that's what is meant by 'conscious behaviour' i like to think of skinner's book on associative conditioning as the technical reference manual and intro to objectivist epistemology as the user manual for H. sapiens. btw- cna posts i've found utterly charming. i'm so glad you found the right tools and are able to use them so deftly! just out of curiosity, are you able to see things separate from what they were and what they will be? if the question is meaningless, then i have my answer- thanks.

hi allexa. if i remember correctly, mrs j taggart was a dependent lady who thought her husband was wonderful until she discovered he was a fraud? to get to galt's gulch you had to swear you would live your life for the sake of no other man... perhaps that was an illustration of the consequences of defining one's identity completely on the basis of somebody else? (if i've misremembered things, plz forgive me and ignore this post!)