Nicholas Dykes

Thanks! Long absence due to general busyness. Tempus fugit and all that. Working on a new novel, a sort of cross between Shangri La and Galt's Gulch. Best to you all. N

Daunce, darling, is your email working yet? Get it going FCS! Love, N

Nicholas - Good to hear from you. I obviously disagree with you. You seem to be persuaded (current human behavior to the contrary) that people can live in modern times without governments. I think you have the prescription for looters running amok. I do not find your arguments on this question at all persuasive. By the way - I have greatly enjoyed the book, otherwise, so far. Bill P Thanks Bill, glad I have entertained you a bit at least! Perhaps when you've finished you could elaborate on your disagreements -- if you've a mind to of course. If you haven't already read them, I'd strongly recommend Bruce Benson's books. It was he who persuaded me to question the Gov't Ltd position -- after i read his ~Enterprise of Law~ in 1993. Perhaps you might find his academic approach more persuasive. BTW: EVERYBODY, MY BOOK -- ~OLD NICK'S GUIDE TO HAPPINESS ~ -- IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM LAISSEZ-FAIRE BOOKS AT US$19.95. Best wishes, Nicholas Nicholas - I've read quite a bit of Rothbard. Does Bruce Benson offer something beyond Rothbard? Bill P Yes indeed: a lot more evidence, different kinds of evidence, and lots of interesting analysis. Most importantly, from your point of view, his chief interest is in how to achieve a voluntary society in modern times. I'd say it was a must read for anybody, regardless of their point of view. Best, N

Nicholas - Good to hear from you. I obviously disagree with you. You seem to be persuaded (current human behavior to the contrary) that people can live in modern times without governments. I think you have the prescription for looters running amok. I do not find your arguments on this question at all persuasive. By the way - I have greatly enjoyed the book, otherwise, so far. Bill P Thanks Bill, glad I have entertained you a bit at least! Perhaps when you've finished you could elaborate on your disagreements -- if you've a mind to of course. If you haven't already read them, I'd strongly recommend Bruce Benson's books. It was he who persuaded me to question the Gov't Ltd position -- after i read his ~Enterprise of Law~ in 1993. Perhaps you might find his academic approach more persuasive. BTW: EVERYBODY, MY BOOK -- ~OLD NICK'S GUIDE TO HAPPINESS ~ -- IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM LAISSEZ-FAIRE BOOKS AT US$19.95. Best wishes, Nicholas

I've read most of the book, also. (I'm currently on page 340.) My main argument is with the author's anarchism. (And with some of the foundations which lead to that anarchism) Whenever I read something from someone in this wing of libertarianism, I'm left with the lingering image of everyone with two six gun holsters strapped to their waist, and the guns in hand about 20% of the time. Regards, Bill P Bill, My favorite aspect of the book was the conversations. Jac playing Devil's advocate to drive some interesting points home (in my opinion, questions the author had with Ayn's standpoint). What I truly see this book is a Q&A session between Nicholas and Ayn (Nicholas playing the part of Jac, writer and seeker of knowledge, and Ayn as Nick, holder of knowledge). I find it amusing that Old Nick is Russian. The parallels make me smile. ~ Shane Replying to Bill P: Ayn Rand published ~Atlas Shrugged~ in 1957. That is undeniable historical fact. Countless historical societies have lived peacefully without government, one example being the gold mining communities of the 19th century US. That is undeniable historical fact. Yet when someone proposes a purely voluntary society, basing his arguments partly on historical examples such as the above, Bill immediately assumes violence, gun law, etc. History and anthropology do not support your view, Bill. What is it with Objectivists? They espouse a philosophy which heralds independence as a virtue, but whenever someone starts to think independently -- outside the limited government Objectivist box -- he or she is immediately dismissed or derided no matter how much their views are based on evidence and logic. Objectivism is a philosophy of ~reason~. Reason only works with knowledge derived from objective reality, also known as ~fact~. And the ~facts~ of reality tell us that the concept of a purely voluntary society is not only proven by historical evidence to be completely valid, it is the only form of society to accord with the Objectivist principle of inviolable individual rights. Ayn Rand was a great thinker and a great writer. I've been a devoted proponent of her ideas for 40 years. But as I have demonstrated in my essays "Mrs Logic and the Law" and "The Facts of Reality: Logic and History in Objectivist Debates about Government"; and recently in my philosophical novel ~Old Nick's Guide to Happiness~, Ayn Rand was mistaken in her view of government. Great as Ayn Rand was, we will not advance her cause by defending her where she was wrong. Nicholas Dykes

Forgiven! When he was good, he was very very good ... Nick

Michael, I think you opened the wrong door with this one. Making that kind of repellent garbage directly available on the site is demeaning to OL. What's wrong with 'Hey guys, want a laugh?' plus a link. LOL? Not me. Nicholas.

I believe the bubonic plague which wiped out about 1/3 of Europe was spread by rats. If this is the case, one can understand why people will still have an aversion to rats and mice. It is irrational now, but there was a time when such a fear was rational. You are actually onto something, Rich. When guys like Osama bin Laden are taking on multiple wives, it means that some guys definitely are not getting laid. That energy has to go somewhere. The same thing happened with Cho at Virginia Tech. It was obvious that sexual frustration was one thing that motivated him. Incidentally, he put three bullets into one of my distant cousins--she survived. If this guy had simply gotten laid a few times, 33 people might still be alive today. I believe recent thinking posits that the Great Plague of 14th century Europe was more likely caused by the Ebola virus, or something like it. Apparently, the reported pattern of the spread of the disease does not accord with that of bubonic plague. In any case, the earlier theory wasn't about rats, it was about an infection carried by the fleas which infested the rats: 'Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, and little fleas have lesser fleas and so on, ad infinitum'. That's a ditty I've know since my teens. Nicholas

You're confusing Anthem with We the Living. Anthem was first published in England. --Brant ~We the Living~ was also published in England. Quoting from my JARS article: The first mention in England of Ayn Rand as an author came in The Bookseller on 6 January 1937 when We The Living (WTL) was announced in their regular column “Forthcoming Books.” The novel was launched the next day by Cassell, a famous and old-established British publishing house, at the sum of eight shillings and sixpence, a fairly upmarket price in those days. Cassell seldom advertised and, as far as I could see from the periodicals I examined – including The Spectator (an intellectual weekly, usually conservative in outlook, which recently celebrated its 175th birthday), The New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian as well as the two already mentioned – Cassell did not advertise any of the three Rand books they published. They did have a rare ad for “Spring Books” in The Bookseller on 3 February 1937, but WTL is not mentioned. The company’s book sales seem rather to have been accomplished directly by publisher’s representatives or by printed flyers. However, any early records of advertising, sales and/or correspondence with Rand would have gone up in smoke on the night of 11 May 1941 when a German bomb scored a direct hit on Cassell’s offices and destroyed virtually all their files [Nowell-Smith 1958]. Records from later years went less dramatically. They were apparently thrown out when the company was taken over by Orion Publishing some years ago. Former Cassell employees now working for Orion have no knowledge of any records being retained. Modern British publishers are a pretty unsentimental lot. The first public reaction to a Rand novel in England appeared in The Spectator on 15 January 1937. It was written by a gentleman called William Plomer, and was less than complimentary: “One often wishes that writers would yield a little more to their satirical inclinations, and that goes for Miss Ayn Rand. From internal evidence one would guess her to be a middle-class White or Whitish Russian living in exile in America, and We the Living (a title of no particular significance) is so frankly counter-revolutionary that it ought to annoy readers of Red or Reddish sympathies. Writing, often graphically, of life in Leningrad in the ’twenties she seems anxious to show the corruption of those newly-raised to positions of authority. The story is simple. Kira, her bourgeoise heroine, falls in love with a surviving young man of upper-class origins and White sympathies, and in order to get money to send him to the Crimea and so save him from tuberculosis she prostitutes herself to an admirer in the GPU. The difficulties of obtaining board and lodging during the period of the story are entered into at great length and with every appearance of verisimilitude: ‘Vasili sold the mosaic table from the drawing room … fifty million roubles and four pounds of lard. I made an omelette with the egg powder we got at the cooperative.’ “Miss Rand’s account of the social upset following the Revolution is detailed and likely enough; she makes a certain amount of rather bitter fun of the workings of the new bureaucracy and of the lapses of the new orthodox into such unorthodoxies as private trading. But towards Kira, who stands for individualism and those little things like scent and lipstick which Mean So Much to a woman, Miss Rand is altogether too partial. If Kira had played the game with nice Red Andrei instead of nasty White Leo (who had ‘a slow, contemptuous smile, and a swift gait, and in his hand a lost whip he had been born to carry’) we might have liked her better. Just listen to Miss Rand on Kira’s mouth: ‘When silent, it was cold, indomitable, and men thought of a Valkyrie with lance and winged helmet in the sweep of battle. But a slight movement made a wrinkle in the corners of her lips—and men thought of an imp perched on top of a toadstool, laughing into the faces of daisies.’ What’s in a mouth? An opera, it seems, or a silly symphony.” The novel was also reviewed, briefly, in the TLS on 27 February 1937. Given the literary temper of the times – naturalism was in and romanticism out, and T.S. Elliot and Virginia Woolf were regarded as great writers – the review is quite mild, and only mildly patronising. It is chiefly interesting for the extent to which it misses the point of the novel. The reviewer is anonymous: “This is a long and elaborate story of Russian conditions during the period 1922-25 by a Russian woman who writes irreproachable English. It opens very promisingly with the account of a train journey, lasting a fortnight, from the Crimea to Petrograd. The opening, however, is easily the best thing in the book. Although there are occasional descriptions of a vivid and suggestive character still to come, the interest of things evidently witnessed and experienced at first hand is swamped by an inexhaustible flow of conventional romanticism. The chief source of trouble is the young heroine, Kira Argounova, who is all charm, wisdom, suffering, originality and so on. The temptation to make her as glamorous as possible was apparently hard to resist.” There follows a brief outline of the plot, including the rather quaint expression that Kira “was ready to count the world well lost” for Leo, before the all-too-brief review closes with: “The material at the author’s disposal afforded the opportunity for a more interesting and certainly more revealing story.” It is possible that other reviews exist, but I have not found any. Nor was I able to find any solid information on how the book fared. Leonard Peikoff, in his “Introduction” to the 60th Anniversary paperback edition, presumably basing his judgment on material in the Ayn Rand Archives, says that the book achieved “great success” in England. Cassell’s themselves would seem to have agreed, for in the company’s official history, The House of Cassell, there is this comment for 1937: “Another important novel which appeared in that year was We The Living by Ayn Rand” [Nowell-Smith 1958, 221]. The sentence was probably written by the company’s then retired Chief Editor, Arthur Hayward, who wrote the bulk of the chapter on the 20th century, so the remark is doubly significant. As Chief Editor, Mr Hayward would hardly call a book “important” if he did not think it merited such an assessment and, as a publisher, he would be unlikely to remember and comment on a book published nearly 20 years before if it had not sold." There is more in the article on ~Anthem~ and ~The Fountainhead~. Nicholas

Reidy: Unfortunately, the records of the publisher were destroyed by a German bomb in 1941, and the archives of other possible sources, eg, Rand's UK agents, were inaccessible, at least to me. N

Thanks. How come you're so knowledgeable about this? Sounds like a lot of research time has been invested. Are you involved in architecture/design? It struck me because when I was researching my article "Ayn Rand in England" for JARS (2004, 5/2) the only obituary I could find was in a relatively minor architectural journal, ~Building Design~. Here's what I wrote: Buried inside on the bottom right-hand corner of page 9, next to an advertisement for plumbing and drainage systems, the piece is very typical of British ambivalence about Rand: honest enough to admit she created something special, yet reluctant to accept her radical stance, and therefore scoffing at a philosophy, and at an art form, that the unnamed writer plainly does not understand. After noting the fact of her death, the piece acknowledges that The Fountainhead is “probably the most famous example of the architect as hero.” It also confirms that most students of architecture in the US have read it and that some chose their profession due to its influence. The piece continues: “The brave and beautiful purity of the hero Howard Roark as he struggles against the overwhelming tide of traditional architecture to a land where a new architecture will rise uncompromisingly is indeed stirring. “Rand’s philosophy was called objectivism, which was a simplistic version of romanticism; ‘a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do’.” (Sometimes one clenches one’s fists while doing this kind of research). It is most unfortunate that Wright did not do the buildings for the movie, because the writer, not knowing the troubled history of the drawings, is able to sneer at the film’s sets: “What a master of style.” Commenting on the blowing up of Cortland, the sneering goes up a notch: “What a hero, what a superman, and of course in the end he gets to build the world’s tallest building, a temple in the Palumbo tradition. “Objectivism had a certain vogue, especially among the far right anti-liberal faction. The glorified self-determination was all that mattered and the implication that without it you are nothing makes her philosophy unpalatable. “Her books are full of parodies of people to whom she allows only this one facet, and generally philosophy makes poor fiction. But somehow in this age of compromise, cutbacks and redundant architects, it is wonderful to read what might have been, and very interesting that she should have chosen architecture as the vehicle.” I could dig out the piece if you are interested. Nicholas

Thanks very much for drawing our attention to the Rand house photos, and hence inspiring Barbara's recollections. Does anyone know who the other people are with Ayn and Frank? Nicholas

Well, here I am playing in my own play-pen again. For parents: Bedtime goes more smoothly if it is routinized. No-one in their right mind would have their child say the classic Christian bed-time prayer, not only for its superstitious associations, but because it mentions death. What a way to settle down and get ready to have the light turned off... "If I should die before I wake..." Even as a child, kneeling with my sisters and repeating this prayer, I thought to myself that it was the wrong thing to be thinking about! So, when my daughter came to be of an age to be able to understand such things, I worked on a poem for her to say before sleep. There are, I believe, both philosophical and psychological factors to letting go of the day and letting oneself go to sleep. I tried to address those in my piece. Since there is a parenting contingent here, it might be of interest to those who have young children. "Lay me down to sleep" Now I lay me down to sleep, This day is done, and mine to keep. Tomorrow is another day, For adventure, work, and play, But now I'll rest, so I may be, The best, tomorrow, I can be. Turn out the lights, prepare my bed, For I've become a sleepy-head. Soft's my pillow, snug my nest, Dreamland is my only quest, There to wander, peacefully, Until tomorrow comes for me. = Mindy 'Night Mom. Love you.

It means master of cheekiness. Master of chutzpah. Ba'al Chatzaf I like that! Le chaim! Nicholas

Brant: That's a non sequitur. I favor a free state. One without child abuse. Do you claim "teaching" religion is not child abuse, brain-washing, and psychological torture? How terrible do the lies and mental pain inflicted on the defenseless innocent have to be, before you would protect the rights of the children? I was brought up Jewish and it did me no harm. At a certain age I jettisoned the supernatural nonsense and retained the ethics. What were the ethics I learned? Respect for the lives and property of others. You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. This is an ethical system devoid of altruism. I should point out that Rand and most of the original Objectivists were brought up Jewish too. Did that harm them? As long as religious doctrine is taught as doxa (greek for opinion) the State has absolutely no business in interfering with the teaching of such doctrine. When the State decides that one opinion is harmful and another is just fine, we are in for a lot of pain. If you don't like someone's opinion pay no attention to it. Ba'al Chatzaf Ba'al, I've been meaning to ask, no offence intended; but what does 'Ba'al Chatzaf' mean, or refer to? I thought Baal was some ancient heathen deity. Best, Nicholas.

Chris, I wasn't ~approving~ of the Swedish action. I agree with you, fight ideas with ideas. I will shortly be announcing a different sort of initiative vis-a-vis Islam. Nicholas.

For twenty-five times around the sun, Nick's wife has made his life more fun, And he has made her feel secure, And they have both felt love's allure. Congrats, congrats, congrats! =Mindy You're sweet, Mindy. You know that? But actually Rachel is ~my~ security. She started a business when I got ill and turned out to be 100 times better at making money than I ever was! Best Nick

How long have you been married, dear? The proof is in the doing. Ba'al Chatzaf As a matter of fact, over 20 years. First marriage for both of us. I wonder if your wife feels the same way about the absence of romance between you two. --Mindy Hey Mindy! Got you beat. Just celebrated 25. First for both too. Best, Nick

Galt, congratulations and thanks for posting this. Fascinating and encouraging. I don't read the Guardian, their usual line is left liberal/socialist, but their reporting is occasionally better than anybody's. I did not see any word of this in the Daily Telegraph or Sunday Times. Nicholas Dykes

Many thanks, Michael. If you email me at lbp2008@ereal.net I'll send you a few short extracts. Best, Nicholas Extracts from my book have now been added to the website http://www.oldnicksguidetohappiness.co.uk

Really? Now, I read ~somewhere~ that Rand, perhaps even on more than one occasion, would refer to members of the Collective as her "children." (In "Passion," perhaps? Or maybe in something Mary Ann Sures wrote? Maybe in Joan Kennedy Taylor's memoirs in the oral history dvd?) Wouldn't this kind of reference, even if informal and light-hearted, reflect a real attitude that might inspire some of those younger ones to adopt a name reflecting that relationship? Just asking. Personally, I find the statistical likelihood vanishingly small that you two would accidentally, or at RANDom (heh-heh), select a name bearing such a close resemblance to "Rand" -- let alone to "ben Rand." (Though I admit to not being an expert in statistics.) For that matter, wouldn't Rand have had very mixed feelings about the implications of having a book about respect for the Law of Causality and freedom published by RANDom House? and that book shepherded along by a guy named Bennett Cerf (serf)? REB "book shepherded along by a guy named Bennett Cerf (serf)?! REB, surely you know 'cerf' is French for 'stag'? Make of that what you will! Nick

Mindy, Dodecaphonic music is a school of composition designed by Arnold Schoenberg shortly after WWI when people were searching for new forms of trying to understand the universe after that mess and blaming every previous human structure for leading up to it. The technique consists of establishing a twelve-tone row (chosen by God knows what standard), then using that as the basis for a composition. The rule is that you must use up all twelve tones before you are allowed to sound them in sequence again and you must repeat the sequence in the same order. For example, you are allowed to make a chord out of the first five notes, use the next three for melody, and the remaining 5 as a bass line. Or you can make a chord out of all 12 notes at the same time. Or several chords. Or a 12-note melody. And so on. That part is up to you. The only rule is that only after the last note has sounded are you allowed to start the series over. In addition to repeating the series, you are allowed to run it backwards, invert it, transpose it up and down, and so on for more variety. Dodecaphonic (twelve-tone) technique was an attempt to replace tonality as an organizing principle in music. The problem is that the human mind does not organize sound that way. In literature, it would be akin to establishing an arbitrary order for all 26 letters of the alphabet, then only allowing you to reuse a letter after you have used up all the others for writing the words and sentences to an article or book. The music resulting from this method sounds just awful. When it does sound more or less listenable, it is because the composer fudges and leans on the overtone series for his strong notes and lets the really dissonant ones be less important. Alban Berg was a composer who worked more in that manner and even has a famous opera Wozzeck in that style. Schoenberg used the technique in a very strange manner. Imagine a work by, say, Mendelssohn, that keeps the form, orchestration, etc., but is filled full of wrong notes. That's his style. Of the third famous dodecaphonic composer, Anton Webern, this guy wrote extremely short compositions that were full of intricate mathematical formulations, but they sound only a bit more organized than an orchestra warming up. Or better, a chamber group warming up (he mostly wrote chamber music). Other composers have fiddled with this technique. Even Stravinsky did. But no one has achieved any fame as a twelve-tone composer on the scale of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. They are known as the classicist, Romantic and miniaturist respectively of dodecaphonic music. They even have a colorful title: the Second Viennese School. Most performers I knew during my orchestra career did not protest so much against playing these pieces because they liked the athletic challenge to their playing technique (the pieces are usually very difficult to perform), not because they liked the music. Here is the Wikipedia article if you are interested: Twelve-tone technique. Michael In ~The Agony of Modern Music~ the great American music critic Henry Pleasants called it "decomposition"! If you haven't read the book, do so, it's superb. I knew Henry personally, he was a lovely guy, utterly charming. Nicholas Dykes

It does...;-) Possibly, but that might be a bit wide ranging. And truth be told, I'm a bit over induction having done several long threads here on it prior to your arrival. Shall we narrow it down a bit, and start with an area we are in fact quite close on? I like what you say here: Well, me too. I think this is exactly where Rand's theory of knowledge leads, despite her condemnations of relativism. Right now, that's my speed too. I've got a new business on the go, so I'm all for the pithy. If that interests you, I'll start a new thread. Maybe "The Accidental Relativist: Does Rand's 'contextual' theory of truth lead to Relativism?" You're on! You start. However, in view of the tenor of certain posts I've seen on OL, I would like to make emphatically clear that I am not the slightest bit interested in ~attacking~ Ayn Rand, or Popper, or anybody else. What I ~am~ interested in doing is refining and improving my knowledge and understanding of ~philosophy~, a subject I have been interested in since I was sixteen years old. On that basis, let us commence. All the very best with your business. When my back collapsed, in 1992-3, my wife started a new business which turned out to be a huge success. I sincerely hope yours follows the same path. Nick

It was in reference to the defective Randian claim that "The truth or falsehood of all of man’s conclusions, inferences, thought and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions." I put it there to distinguish Rand's use of "truth" from meaning conventionally true. Recall that Rand derides the idea that meanings of words are simply conventions. Recall she also claims that "The fundamental concept of method, the one on which all the others depend, is logic." Thus she is suggesting that definitions can, and indeed must, be logically decided as to their truth or falsity. But there is no way of doing this. It does not work as advertised...;-) Precisely my point. Popperians have no special meaning for logic. We use the same meaning as most logicians. Objectivists, however, do have their own special meaning. I do not see any basic conflict between this and Popper's position, other than that Rand insists on self-contradictory jargon about "contextual certainty." This amounts to saying all our present knowledge is uncertain. The irony is that she so violently attacks the very position she unwittingly holds! It's paraphrased from Objective Knowledge, I will supply a ref later. I am surprised you don't think it sounds like him, I can't see what is unusual about it. Good morning!..;-) 'Evenin' Daniel! I hope this finds thee well. The sun is struggling to shine here, which kindles a little optimism -- we've had a truly dreadful summer. Do you think we could move this exchange to a new thread? Say, "Popper v. Rand"? It's all getting a bit ragged and random. I have to say, I did enjoy the old journal way of debating; when each writer got two cuts at the cat, with plenty of time to consider in between. This quickfire fencing is fun, but I think the old method tended towards greater understanding in the long term. I don't actually believe we're very far apart. I've often wished to find in a philosopher a blend of Rand's passion and insight with the knowledge and skill of a professional. It couldn't be Popper and Rand, because both are too unyielding. Rand plus Brand Blanshard would have been great. David Kelley has come closest to my ideal but as yet hasn't produced the geat synthesis I yearn for. I have to go out in 20 mins. So I'll be quick. First, I don't carry a brief for Ayn Rand. I love her novels; agree with the basics of her philosophy; am sure she's almost entirely right about ethics, but I disagree with her politics, and am embarrassed by her demonising of Kant, etc. I'm also troubled by some technical issues, such as this business of 'contextual' knowledge, which strikes me as bordering on relativism. As to Popper, I admire his learning, enjoyed his writing, and his combative spirit, and think his critical method is very helpful. But I dislike his scepticism, his reliance on Hume and Kant, and his penchant for sweeping generalisations. So I'm prepared to debate Popper v. Rand. But my interest is not in defending Rand against Popper, or Popperians, it is in establishing the ~truth~. I won't debate as a 'Randian', but as myself. Lastly, I'm already encountering the problem on OL that I encountered on OWL: no matter how enjoyable, it simply takes up too much of my time. So if you do want to debate with me, I shall confine myself to one or two posts a week, no more. For starters, if you want to, why don't you give us/me a succinct description of Hume's 'problem of induction', perhaps if you like from statements you've already made. Anyhow, I'm off down the pub now for a pint of our local Herefordshire ale, Wye Valley, with my mate Ian, who has paid me the triple compliment of buying a copy of my book, reading it, and enjoying it thoroughly -- tho' he knows nothing about philosophy! Bye now. Nick

Hi Nick I am puzzled. Do you disagree with the purely logical situation as outlined by Hume? For Hume's problem doesn't mean that things don't have identity; merely that our knowledge of that identity cannot be certain. Thus there is an obvious distinction to be made between: 1) The identity of a thing and 2) Our knowledge of that identity This is the point at which Hume's logical problem begins AFAICS. For as most here seem to agree, it is simply illogical to conclude that all eggs break on impact with concrete from the fact that you have seen X number of them do so. Same with sunrises. Thus, our theories as to what an egg is, its identity (for example, our expectations of how it will behave in certain situations such as in collision with concrete) are illogical if we hold them with certainty. This is quite different from merely asserting that something has an identity, which is all the LOI does. However, Popper's point is that if we hold these expectations as to what this identity consists of merely hypothetically, leaving them open to be overthrown by conflicting experience, then there is no logical problem. But you know this already I assume, so I am not sure why you are asking me to explain. PS: My turn to ask you a question. Did you see the query I put to you on this thread?? Yes, Daniel, I saw it, but it required rereading my essay and rereading Popper's chapter too. Sorry, I should perhaps have told you that I'm kinda busy right now, and don't have time to do that, though my recollection of Popper's bilious and unscholarly rant appears rather different from yours, but then, I last read it 15 years ago. However, I've created a file and a reminder to have a look back over it. But don't hold your breath. You did say, "There is no way of logically deciding a definition is true or false." I don't know why you put 'logically' in there. Suppose I say, 'an orange is a fruit, it grows on tress, and, depending on variety, it's roundish, yellowish, sweetish and consists of an outer skin with an inner core in segments.' What has ~logic~ got to do with deciding whether that definition is true or false? One would simply examine oranges and decide if the definition was accurate. If I had said 'all oranges are sweet' you might triumphantly have produced a Seville orange (the black swan of the orange world), in which case I would have gracefully acknowledged that I had been mistaken, because I know that negative instances contradict universal affirmative propositions. Seville oranges are sour. That's where ~logic~ comes in. The problem with Popper, as with Hume, and with Popperians generally, is that they are sceptics who deny the possibility of certain human knowledge. You present them with a lump hammer and say 'hit your thumb with it,' and they reply, 'just because every known instance of belting your thumb with a hammer has resulted in pain does not mean that if I thwack my thumb with this hammer pain will result.' Talk about LOL. If that's what Popperians call logic, good luck to them. The point is that the ~nature~ of a normal thumb -- one allows for birth defects, anaesthesia, etc -- is such that if it is struck with a heavy object, such as a hammer, it's owner will experience pain. And that is certain. Try it. As to your post above, you say, "...there is an obvious distinction to be made between: 1) The identity of a thing, and, 2) Our knowledge of that identity." Yes, but so what? There's a distinction between my knowledge of oranges and the identity of Seville oranges. (I know, I learned the hard way, when young.) It is only by our ~observation~ of things that we establish the ~identity~ of things. All knowledge is indeed based on experience. Identity is something we discover. Dr Johnson knew that if he struck his thumb with a hammer it would hurt, even though he was entirely ignorant of the 20th century discoveries of Melzack and Wall about pain. Johnson's knowledge was primitive, but it was still ~knowledge~. Concepts are open-ended, knowledge grows. And, contrary to Popper's oft-repeated aphorism, we absolutely ~do~ know what we are talking about when we say 'hitting your thumb with a hammer hurts.' "Popper's point is that if we hold these expectations as to what this identity consists of merely hypothetically, leaving them open to be overthrown by conflicting experience, then there is no logical problem." That doesn't sound very like Popper. Do you have a citation for it? It's half past midnight here, too late for this really. Goodnight. Nick