Philip Coates

> "You ranger through, you have to." I very much like that relatively new verb [at least I don't think I'd heard it until very recently] Lara Logan used for a way to deal with adversity: I'm guessing it comes from the Army Rangers, from having to dealing with difficult or arduous circumstances on an expedition or in a field of battle (and is a variant of "soldier on" but with a much stronger, less stoical connotation.)

> 1. If you completely agree with a philosophy, why wouldn't you try to live it? 2. If you agree with half the philosophy, why wouldn't you try to live that half? [Phil] > And what "philosophy" is that? The one you have, the one you want, Rand's, Objectivism--and what is that: Rand's, mine, yours [brant] That's why I said "a" philosophy. If one doesn't even half agree with Objectivism, then he should live by whatever it is he does agree with. > What if you happen to think of yourself as an end in yourself and not as a vessel that needs to be filled by a philosophy from another person to become complete? [MSK] A philosophy is a view of how the world works plus a code of living. Everyone has one. The choice is whether they live by it or not. ("From another person" is irrelevant; we all learn things of immense value from others.) > Objectivism will destroy you if you're half-assed about it--paraphrase of Rand [brant] Not if you genuinely don't see why certain parts are true and thus don't live by those parts until you either see them or see how to apply them.

> Do we have to throw you on the bonfire or something before YOU get the point, love? [WSS] You're allowing yourself to focus exclusively on the manner, the fact that my post shows (justified) irritation with Brant and Ellen - rather than the content of the post. Youre allowing yourself to not grasp the fact that an angry post can be both appropriate and justified. Awww, poor OL selected posters, their delicate little sensitivities about being ~lectured to~! Do I have to throw you on the slow cooker, before YOU get the point, love? ==> "The speaker has some interesting points." "Yeah, but I'm going to keep complaining about his delivery and ignoring them." "Why is that?" "He sounds superior. Makes me resentful. Reminds me too much of schoolteachers." "Didn't you say something similar about Peikoff? You couldn't get past his grating voice and his arrogance?" "That's right. And another thing with Phil is his failure to use the OL quoting method. And his annoying use of punctuation and underlining. It sounds like he's disrespectful and shouting and I'm fragile." "Can you get over it?" "I don't wanna. I'd rather keep complaining bitterly and ignore any good points he makes."

Going "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah" & Refusing to Understand in a "Debate" > It's odd to me that even half-Objectivists in the sense of having "accepted half of Galt", say, would not want to continually try to be..That-Half-Of-Galtish. [Phil] > The real mother didn't want half the baby. [brant] > Phil, I find being me and living my life fully satisfactory. [Ellen] Notice how both of those really superficial one-liners blithely brushes aside and willfully refuses to address the point I made. I'll repeat the point since it appears neither Brant nor Ellen, two intelligent people, wants to grant me the satisfaction of seeming to understand my point. I'll even break it down into two steps: 1. If you completely agree with a philosophy, why wouldn't you try to live it? 2. If you agree with half the philosophy, why wouldn't you try to live that half? Got it straight now?

> a large percentage of regular posters here just aren't interested in joining the cause [Phil is] trying to spearhead. {Ellen, post 59] It's odd to me that even half-Objectivists in the sense of having "accepted half of Galt", say, would not want to continually try to be THOG (That-Half-Of-Galtish). Or - if you prefer Francisco or Dagny rather than Galt as models (I certainly do!) -, then trying to be THOF or THOD.

> How did he pass the New York bar? Exit the subway, take your first left.

> Objectvism is not enough for happiness, success, fulfillment - either individually or in a movement for cultural or political change. It's necessary but not sufficient. I should have qualified the 'necessary' further. It's possible to have success without Oism. Else no one could have ever been happy or fulfilled prior to the sxities when Rand fleshed out her ideas. What I should have said is if you live basically contrary to the fundamentals, you're gonna have to be awfully lucky to be happy, fulfilled, etc. despite that.

Subject: It's a Start, but it's Nowhere Near Enough > Let's do 10 Steps To Objectivist Happiness. What would a Black Belt Level 10 Objectivist look like? [MSK, #38] Problem is, as I've argued elsewhere, Objectvism is not enough for happiness, success, fulfillment - either individually or in a movement for cultural or political change. It's necessary but not sufficient. You could have a perfect understanding and integration of it and you'd still need a whole host of other skills, other knowledge of the real world in many areas.

Subject: Halfway Up the Mountain is Good Enough Michael, that's an eloquent post [#33] and there's an element of truth to it. But I'm not expecting Galt or Rearden or Dagny in ARI, TAS, the various discussion websites like OL or the old OWL. It's all too soon, too difficult, too poorly integrated. More importantly it's not necessary. Be as much as you can be, not a fictional character. Just partial or gradual understanding is a big 'systems and personal upgrade'. I think if we had some more Half-Galts, the Objectivist movement would be influential and spreading. And widely respected, even by opponents well outside of free-market circles. No one can be expected to have the combination of original world-historical genius (in multiple fields - both physics and philosophy in his case), unflinching resolution, great insight, persuasive leadership skills, massive knowledge, force of single-minded will of a John Galt. And no single place has to function as smoothly or on as high a level as Atlantis. Unfortunately there seems a tone in your post of "Giving Up on the Gulch"? ==> "what it would be like for Galt's Gulch to spread to the rest of mankind...an ephemeral shadow..ultimately a sleight of mind." I'd be thrilled to meet to more "half-Franciscos" or "half-Dagnys". I'd be thrilled with a Half-Atlantis**; It's a smug, pretentious Starnesville that is enormously destructive. **Actually I did encounter that three times in my life: Once was the pre-schism Jefferson School summer conferences of the eighties.

> Where did I get potent from? The rest of the quote is correct. Coward was great at just the exact right choice of words and at short, punchy little lines that hit you in the solar plexus. There is another great British comedy...and if I keep writing whether or not it was Coward will come to me...the story situation was about this henpecked husband whose social climbing motormouth wife is always prattling on and on about the cuteness and charm and accomplishments and social register status of her precious nephew "little Basil". Finally toward the end [WARNING: Spoiler Alert] the silent husband gets his revenge by very calmly revealing the information right in the middle of a crowd of prominent people: "Well, my dear, it seems our little Basil is a little bastard." I almost fell out of my chair. It was all in the delivery and timing. Does anyone recall what play this was from? (Extra credit if you don't have to google it.)

> there is no cheap music, anymore than there is cheap emotion [Daunce] If it's authentic, it's certainly not cheap to the person who experiences it.

> "Curious how potent cheap music is", said Noel Coward who was in no way a cynic and knew there is no cheap music, anymore than there is cheap emotion. Or any less. [Daunce] The first word was not 'curious' but 'extraordinary'. It's from "Private Lives", a wonderful play and movie (with Robert Montgomery). It was a testament to being still in the grip of an emotion both Elyot and Amanda want to deny, IIRC when they are thrown together honeymooning separately with their separate husbands. And the love-hate is still as fierce as ever. On another thread, someone was asking today for sources of good humorous writing and Wodehouse was mentioned. Noel Coward is one of my favorites. I haven't read all of Oscar Wilde, but his most famous work, "The Importance of Being Earnest" ranks up there as situation farce.

I think Diana and Paul had to suspect they wrote those things that they would get in trouble with Peikoff and ARI. Which is exactly what happened. Took courage and a sense of integrity. No matter how much one may disagree with them on other issues.

> OK Shut Up for now -- since everyone agreed to not Go There for now [WSS] Actually, I read all those posts on Noodlefood - and you are being a bit exaggerated and unfair: Both she and her husband said quite a bit in defense of MCCaskey. And they questioned whether ARI was going to try to squelch open discussion of differences on issues like induction. They defended the fact that people could disagree on the issues McCaskey did, on induction, etc. The issue was whether he could be on a board whose head doesn't want him and whether they would endlessly keep discussing it. Hardly a craven knuckling under and kowtowing and conspiracy of silence, don't you think? When you criticize your opponents you have to bend over backwards to be fair to them.

> The main problem is that there’s no “Edit by” stamp, so people can’t tell that you edited the post. Okay then, here is what I see happening if I were to post in the corner of certain reprobates who shall go unnamed (not necessarily George's corner) ==> Phil's statement: "I believe the Harriman and Joseph and Mill and Whewell account of induction at least partially is correct. Where H. goes wrong is oversimplifying the process and he gets a lot of mileage by over-generalizing from simple examples. On the other hand, the fact that causality underlies induction and the fact that causality can be established in certain cases are only a starting point. Further necessary steps have not been explained: For example, the application of the theory beyond physics is vital and would be of enormous value." Phil statement "simplified" by reprobate: "The Harriman account of induction..is correct. He gets a lot of mileage from simple examples. Causality underlies induction and causality can be established with certainty. The application of the theory beyond physics is of enormous value." (If I recall correctly, this is one form of the style with which Diana Mertz Brickell Hsieh 'edited' or 'paraphrased' or 'essentialized' Chris Sciabarra's private emails several years ago. This is a bit of a caricature to make it obvious. Dropping or shifting context is seldom done this crudely. And she also did context-shifting with several posts of mine. And with David Kelley. And later on her blog with Ed Hudgins. )

> And there have been -no- comments so far at the time of my writing (usually they post them in batches though, so we'll see - at any rate mine is likely to be very prominent.) For the first hour or so, mine was the only comment posted. Another hour or two later, and there are now two comments. I guess the lesson is picking your topics if you want to stand out. Mine sometimes tend to be intellectual rather than everyday political. In the latter case, the NYT will often see -several hundred- comments in a few hours and then they will close the comments, as no one -- including even the reporter or author who has a strong interest in feedback -- is likely to read all of them. And they get repetitious and/or food-fightish. It's sort of like looking beyond the first page or two of Google search results.

"Lawrence H. Summers is former president of Harvard University and former secretary of the Treasury. This essay is based on a speech Dr. Summers gave at The New York Times’s Schools for Tomorrow conference." The New York Times comments section just gave me an opportunity to engage this highly influential and important intellectual in a form of visible, noticeable debate which I would never have otherwise. Or I would have had to get entree to a conference and patiently stand in a question line and not been able to follow up or let people carefully reread the way one can in posted comments. And there have been -no- comments so far at the time of my writing (usually they post them in batches though, so we'll see - at any rate mine is likely to be very prominent.) Summers published this piece yesterday in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.c...?pagewanted=all And this is what I posted ===> (") Larry Summers said: "For most people, school is the last time they will be evaluated on individual effort." That is not true at all. Larry Summers uses the example of the need for collaboration skills in a 'leading' investment bank. Banking in a large organization is not the job of most people. Think an individual artist, a performer, an inspiring teacher. Or on a more mundane level, a plumber, an airplane pilot, a salesman. Or a -small- banker or broker in a one-man shop or with a strong division of labor. Yes, they interact with others and their work day is spent collaborating to varying extents. But they are evaluated largely on their individual performance and skill: And properly so. Even in a big corporation, it's possible to see who is doing the work and has the insights and is driving the process forward and who is dead weight, or is not pulling his. And if people know that only the group will be evaluated, it's human nature that they are often likely to slack off. Yes, collaboration and people skills are important, but it would be foolish to discard any attempt to assess individual effort. And in my work life in several fields I've *never* seen that happen. (") ,,,,,,,,,,, I forgot to mention in my comment how 'teacher evaluations' are in fact one area where individual evaluation is moving to the fore in recent years in this country and the idea that good vs. bad teachers has a massive impact is more and more widely grasped. Maybe I'll add that in a brief follow-up post, especially if he's annoyed enough to try to argue with me. I've been told that I have the ability to get under people's skin. I'm just recently realizing how powerful posting in a newspaper's online comments is and how little barrier there is compared to the limited space of a letter to the editor. And how this is the? one way you can engage with famous or influential people if you are a nobody who writes or argues well**. Just yesterday I posted a series of comments on another education article and one of them got 13 thumbs up from readers in a little over an hour. **If you are insulting or personal or 'ranting' or meandering, the NYT moderates comments and -will- delete you. So be calm, thoughtful, precise. And essential.

> This is known to be fatal to all but Canadians, George... Is George your new arbiter of all taste including musical, Woos?

Subject: I LIKE SCHMALTZ . . . AND PROUD OF IT It's midnight here on the East Coast and my willpower against OL videos is all worn down for the day so I listened to it: "He, the big opera guy, gets to howling in her face, and she, the extra large lady with the tower-smashing voice of Jericho, howls back in his face. They both wind each other's schtick up into a crescendo of mutual howling. It is more potent than the bowel-liquefying schmaltz of Dion/Reno above." I love it. Woosjerk, how did you know I'd like this kind of music? I have seldom met a corny, schmaltzy, syrupy, heart-on-its-sleeve piece of music that I -didn't- like. I really enjoyed this. (Staying French Canadian, you mentioned Celine Dion - I like a number of her songs. Sometimes she's a bit too much, but not always.) By the way, staying with the sentimentality theme, I also like The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, Vikki Carr, Air Supply. And don't forget Barry Manilow. And, no, I'm not gay, but I like early Barbra Streisand.

> If you have additional comments about the problem of induction, you might wish to revive one of those old threads, say, the one on Harriman. [GHS] I wouldn't want to do what would end up being extensive for two reasons: (1) This certainly isn't the venue I would choose to unveil original work I think important. (2) Even less would I want what would end up as socratic point-counterpoint on such a subject largely with someone who has attacked my honesty or character.

> we have this "phil coates" clone emerging. > the lovely little boneless thing may not survive the harsh nursery that is Objectivist Living. > Alchemical forces are at work without a doubt. And the moon is in the seventh house, and small herd animals are roaming the streets. I intend to lie low. Very good advice. He is a master of misdirection. Just when he has you relaxing your guard, he'll come back and knife you in the short hairs.

Very briefly -- after having spent three freakin' hours reading through several months of George's posts -- to summarize without argument my view on whether previous or Oist thinkers have "solved the problem of induction": I don't agree either with Harriman's view: "One cannot ask for a justification of induction, any more than for a justification of deduction. Inducing and deducing are man's means of justifying anything. Their validity as cognitive processes, therefore, is an unchallengeable given", or with the George's example {assuming I've 'snipped' it properly-always tricky in areas this complex and where details matter} insofar as it is intended to suggest a solution to the problem of induction more broadly: " Why do we generalize that dirt is bad to eat on the basis of a few samples? ...we made a conceptual identification of the substance we call "dirt" and rationally concluded that other substances with the same nature will have the same negative effects. In sum: We reasoned from particular instances to a generalization about the nature of dirt, and we then applied this generalization to instances as yet untried. This is pretty much what J.S. Mill had in mind when he said that induction consists of reasoning from particulars to particulars by means of an intervening generalization. (I discussed the problem of exceptions in my last post.) " Also: The uniformity of nature is a valid conclusion (under certain very precise circumstances) and so is the existence of what Mill called parallel cases and induction does presuppose causation. But there is a very specific line of argument and chain of examples needed to validate this.

It's taking me a long time to wade through the huge number of his posts George linked me to in post 113. I'm still not through, but I want to apologize for calling him in effect a blowhard on the topic of induction and to withdraw my post 112 and the laundry list of charges I made in it. {I won't delete that post, but will leave it up there because you have to own your foolish charges and leave them as part of the record not rewrite history: embarrassment is a penalty for making rash claims and incentive to try not to keep doing it}. It's clear from all those posts that he made on these threads: The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics, New Developments re Harriman Induction book, Logical Leap, Eating Dirt etc. -- that GHS is impressively well-read in the area of induction and the philosophy of science, that he understands many central issues. And is thoughtful about them. I can also see more clearly why he claims the problem of induction has "already having been solved" by previous thinkers. I disagree with that. More broadly, I agree with some of his specific conclusions and points and not with others.

" it was her jazz-inflected rendition of "At Last" that would come to define her and make her legendary...the tender, sweet song...Over the decades, countless brides have used it as their song down the aisle." Part of what makes this song so powerful for me and for so many others is the haunting quality of a relief, a deliverance, an victory over loneliness "at last". Like the work of other believable torch singers about love - often female: Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, and the Roberta Flack of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" - millions of people across a long stretch of decades have been touched not just by a great voice, but by the conviction and the sense of the singer's being emotionally swept away of the rendition. And by the transcendent importance in their lives of the emotions and attitudes expressed. I'm almost afraid to listen to anyone else's rendition of "At Last" besides the classic version by Etta James, so much does it move me.

Subject: George H. Smith's Usual "Intellectual Intimidation" Bullshit > the "problem" of induction was solved many times in earlier centuries, primarily by Aristotelian philosophers. [GHS] > Care to back up that wild (and philosophically ignorant) claim? [Phil] Just what I thought you'd do George: A lot of reference to tons of books that "solved it". But you're unable to actually *state what the solution is*. Just the usual Georgian Argument from Intimidation: "Everyone knows this...except you, you dummy...and I'm not going to say what it is". George I'm calling you out: 1. You -don't- know of an answer that has been published to the problem of induction. 2. By Joseph, by Coffey, by Biddle, or by others beyond the "tip of the iceberg"...as you so pompously and stupidly claim - lacking knowledge of the history of philosophy. 3. If you did know of a solution, I"m pretty damn sure you would have stated it. Or given a summary in some form. 4. I wonder if you could even -state- the basic problem of induction in a sentence or two. 5. Or if you could state why philosophers (and well-read intellectuals) generally consider the problem unsolved.