regi

Thanks, Michael. I'll post the article as you suggested. It's late, so it probably won't be until tomorrow. I don't think you know what the scope of my view really is, Michael, because it's not the risk that matters, but the reason for taking it. Just like cutting, and pica, and BIID, it's contrary to human nature and the requirements of it, and it's a hedonistic choice based on "feelings." Nothing "makes" human beings make the choices they do, does it? We are either volitional beings, or we're not. It's like death and pregnancy, one is or one isn't, dead or pregnant that is, so one is a volitional being or one is not. That's the scope of my position. Michael, why would I object to your critiques? Of course I do not. It is your site, after all, and you know I defend everyone's right to express their views, and you know I'm never offended by honest differences of opinion. Regi

Good to know, in spite of your evidence to the contrary. But, good luck with that. Regi

Yes, I am one; at least I am a criminal. I do not wear the label "Objectivst." Crime is breaking the law. When a law is immoral, and most are today, it is immoral to obey the law. Today, you are either a law-breaking criminal, or your are immoral. Regi

Thank you, Rodney, for posting the article. I'm glad you are an, "autonomous objectivist," which makes you an independent individualist, which in the end is all that matters. "Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence." [For the New Intellectual,—The Fountainhead, "The Soul Of An Individualist"] Which is what Rand is all about: "That one word—individualism—is to be the theme song, the goal, the only aim of all my writing. If I have any real mission in life—this is it." [The Letters of Ayn Rand, "Arrival In America To We The Living (1926-1936)," To Marjorie Williams, July 28, 1934.] Well hello Michael. I'm glad you think that, "Underneath, I believe they are not bad people," but you are wrong. We're very bad people. That's why Valiant left my forum, because I was bad enough to point out that homosexuality is a chosen, dangerous, self-harmful practice. He wrote a scathing rebuttal using his homosexual brother as an example of how happy homosexuality can make one. Of course he did not make a big point of the fact his brother developed aids and died. He was younger than James. So I am very bad, because I plainly speak the truth, and sometimes people are offended by it, which does not please me, but what other people think and feel has nothing to do with objectivity or integrity. So I do not hesitate to speak the truth, and those who prize it above all other things will appreciate it. Who would want the appreciation of anyone else? Michael, I'd like to ask you a favor. I'd like to post a long article to Objectivist Living, entitled, "Saving Science: A Criticism of the Thesis in David Harriman's The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics". I'd like to post it here so people can comment on it here. It will give everyone a chance to see what a poor thinker I am. I will make one excuse, however, I only had a couple of weeks to write that article, Harriman had 10 years to write his book, and someone else was paying his way. By the way, Pamela is micro-biologist and registered nurse who lives in Australia. Her questions on evolution are based on a number of baseless assumptions (and almost religious adherence to them) by so-called evolutionary scientists, who are unwilling to address those questions, in the same way environmental "scientists" are willing to address questions. Her article is: "Problems of the Evolutionary Hypothesis."

Hi Roger, This is a little section from an introduction to metaphysics I wrote some time ago. I haven't changed my view on this, although, if I were writing it today, I would skip the reference to Rand. I thought you might be interested. Reality Verses Existence In one sense reality and existence refer to the same thing. The meaning of a concept is its referents. The meaning of the word, (actually the concept the word represents) dogs, for example, is every (or any) actual dog that did, does, or will ever exist. In that sense, the words "reality" and "existence" mean the same thing; because they both refer to, "everything that is." But they are not the same concept. They identify the same thing; but, the intention or purpose of that identification is different. (This fact is important to epistemology. Existence and reality are not the only words that have the same meaning, with regard to referents, but different meanings, with regard to intention or connotation.) The essential difference in these two words is this: existence refers to all that there is, without explicit reference to the nature of what is or the manner in which it exists; reality also refers to all that there is, but explicitly includes in its meaning, the nature or mode of existence. This distinction is extremely important and requires additional explanation, but before we do that, there is some confusion about the meaning of existence itself that must be dealt with. Existence, a Thing and a Quality Objectivism regards existence as an, "axiomatic concept." The axiom is sometime stated, "existence exists," but it might just as well have been stated, "existence is," or, "there is existence." These statements are propositions, and Ayn Rand explicitly states the "axiomatic concepts" are not propositional; so these statements are not, themselves, axioms; they are true, because the concept existence itself is axiomatic. These statements are also a bit misleading. The Objectivists do not make explicit what existence is, and these statements all suggest it is a thing or an entity. The word existence, however, is actually used for two different interdependent concepts, a quality, and everything with that quality. Existence, as a "quality," just as "redness" or "roundness" are qualities. The interesting thing about existence is, unlike "red" which is a quality of very few things, "existence" is a quality of everything that is. As a quality, "existence" means "is." (In plain language we do not say somethng "has redness," we simply say it is red, so we would not normally say something "has existence," but simply say it exists, which means it has the quality existence, because it "is.") Existence, as a "thing," is a collective noun, like, "society," and includes everything with the quality, "existence," or "everything that is." Used in this collective way, the word existence has the same intention as the word society has. Just as there is no such thing as society without people, there is no such thing as existence without existents, and just as a society includes all the people in it, existence includes all the existents there are. This is why we talk about "existence" as though it were a thing, because, unlike other qualities, such as "redness," which require there to be some existent things that have those qualities, the quality, "existence," for anything that has it, means that it is. That is why we can wave our arm, indicating the entire world, the heavens, the universe, and say, "this is existence," which is to say, "everything that is, is." If everything had the quality red we could say everything is red, but, while we cannot say that about redness, we can and must say it about existence.

So you think at some later time that light can be made coherent is going to be disproved. Your statement was that no scientific hypothesis can be proved. I just mentioned a handful of the thousands that have been proved. I'm not arguing every hypothesis can be proved, but to say no hypothesis can be proved is absurd. The hypothesis that says no hypothesis can be proved has already been disproved thousands of times. Most people who say things like, "scientific hypotheses can only be proved false," think they are arguing Popper's view, but they get it all wrong. Popper's point was that no hypothesis is a legitimate scientific hypothesis if it is not falsifiable, which means: there must be some test that will prove the hypothesis false if it is false. The point is to prevent just any wild conjecture from being put forward as a hypothesis. What this means is, if you have a legitimate hypothesis, because there is a test that will prove it false, if it is false, if you than make that test, and the test fails to prove the hypothesis false, it has been proven the hypothesis correct. Remember, the falsifiability test will prove a false hypothesis false, so, if the test fails, it means the hypothesis cannot be false, and must be true. There is absolutely no basis in logic or heaven or hell (well perhaps hell) for saying no scientific hypothesis can be proved. What do you think proof is? Regi

Why do people say things like this? I wonder where they live. Thousands and thousands of scientific hypothesis have been proven, conclusively and irrefutably. Or perhaps you are not using an electronic device--I wonder how you are communicating here. Perhaps you do not believe it has been proved an electric current can be produced in a wire by moving it in a magnetic field. Or perhaps you still doubt that heavier-than-air human flight is possible. Or that anesthesia is possible. Or that the principles of lazed light is true. Originally these were all hotly disputed hypotheses, rigorously debated by scientists. Regi

Yes she did. Atlas Shrugged: A Model for Individualist Revolution It is the only possible way to deal with tryanny, but most do not have the courage to do it. Regi

There's the answer to your wonder--"Further I suggest that something is wrong with the fact that rational individualists have not been able to muster an organized intellectual-political force against Statism." You'r looking for a collectivist solution to collectivism, which is what statism is. Collectivism will always only result in that which cancels individualism. Lots of luck with your belief--hope the disillusionment will not be too painful. If you were a true individualist you would not need to join with anyone else, you would throw off the statist oppression yourself. If you did that, you might find there are others who have also done that, and they join with each other for their mutual benefit--not to save each other from statism. They've aleady done that. when you are ready for freedom, you will find you need no one else's approval, agreement, or help--ever. Regi

Wouldn't an "individualist organization" be an oxymoron? Individualism--Not Objectivism Regi

Hi Darrell, Thank you for the nice comment. As for the welcome, which is appreciated, Michael and I have a fairly long history, and my appearance here is only a formal continuation of discussions that have gone on for some time, somewhat intermittently, I admit. But again, thank you, I'm satisfied if you enjoyed the thoughts, which to my mind, speak highly of your understanding of some very subtle issues. Regi

Yes, I said so in my post. Yes, of course. (Sigh!) Sorry you missed my point. Regi

Yes, of course, and that is the point. Philosophy is not easy, and Rand's is not without its difficulties. I personally think very few understand Rand's philosophy, even those who think they do. Now honestly, do you think most of the people in this world are going to study and learn philosophy or are even capable of doing it? The following is from an older article of mine, I linked to above. It's only for if you are interested--it is a little long for a post, I think: ---------------------------------- ... there is an aspect of religion, particularly Christianity, that is part of the distinction between America and Western Europe. It is that which I want to identify. Objective Perspective on Religion I would gladly take the credit for that identification if it were mine, but it is not. It was Ayn Rand who made that identification, and clarified it in a way that few of those who call themselves by the name of the philosophy she developed, Objectivism, understand. I'm afraid many "Objectivists" find themselves on the wrong side of this issue, siding with those who would tear down all values, that is, on the side of the postmodernists and multiculturalists. In a Feb. 4, 1963 letter to US Congressman Bruce Alger, she wrote: "In accordance with the principles of America and of capitalism, I recognize your right to hold any beliefs you choose—and, on the same grounds, you have to recognize my right to hold any convictions I choose. I am an intransigent atheist, though not a militant one. This means that I am not fighting against religion—I am fighting for reason. When faith and reason clash, it is up to the religious people to decide how they choose to reconcile the conflict. As far as I am concerned, I have no terms of communication and no means to deal with people, except through reason. The difference between "not fight against religion" and fighting for reason is profoundly important. She is not just speaking of "freedom of religion" because she has a profound respect for religion, and an equally profound contempt for those who would destroy it. For example, she wrote, in the April 1966 issue of The Objectivist, in the article, "Our Cultural Value-Deprivation," the following: "From a report on a television discussion in Denver, Colorado, I gather that one member of this movement has made its goal and meaning a little clearer. 'God,' he said, 'is a process of creative social intercourse.' "This, I submit, is obscene. I, who am an atheist, am shocked by so brazen an attempt to rob religion of whatever dignity and philosophical intention it might once have possessed. I am shocked by so cynically enormous a degree of contempt for the intelligence and the sensibility of people, specifically of those intended to be taken in by the switch. "Now, if men give up all abstract speculation and turn to the immediate conditions of their existence—to the realm of politics—what values or moral inspiration will they find?" The answer, of course, is none! Rand is not saying or implying that religion provides men with the right values, only that men embrace religion because they seek values and believe in them. She's not saying religion provides the right inspiration, only that religion is, for those who embrace it, an acknowledgement that principles matter, that there is something to revere, that life is important, and there is an absolute truth. When that is taken from men, they become what all Europeans have become, men who value nothing, reverence nothing, believe in nothing, and live for nothing. Rand described that too: The Road to Nihilism "Most people lack [the capacity for] reverence and "taking things seriously. "They do not hold anything to be very serious or profound. There is nothing that is sacred or immensely important to them. There is nothing—no idea, object, work, or person—that can inspire them with a profound, intense, and all-absorbing passion that reaches to the roots of their souls. They do not know how to value or desire. They cannot give themselves entirely to anything. There is nothing absolute about them. They take all things lightly, easily, pleasantly—almost indifferently, in that they can have it or not, they do not claim it as their absolute necessity. Anything strong and intense, passionate and absolute, anything that can't be taken with a snickering little "sense of humor"—is too big, too hard, too uncomfortable for them. They are too small and weak to feel with all their soul—and they disapprove of such feelings. They are too small and low for a loyal, profound reverence—and they disapprove of all such reverence. They are too small and profane themselves to know what sacredness is—and they disapprove of anything being too sacred." [Journals - Part 1: Early Projects, "The Hollywood Years," circa February 1928, ... her first attempt in English to plan a novel. The working title was "The Little Street."] The thing that is hated about religion is not what any specific religion teaches so much, but that it is something sacred to men, something worth living for, a source of values and profound reverence. It is that which must be destroyed if men are to be enslaved. Rand puts these words in the mouth of the ultimate collectivist, Ellsworth Toohey: "Don't set out to raze all shrines—you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity—and the shrines are razed. Then there's another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul—and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll set no limits to his obedience—anything goes—nothing is too serious...." [FTNI - The Fountainhead "The Soul Of A Collectivist"] ... "Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned—that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character—that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice—that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself." [Atlas Shrugged, Part Three / Chapter VII, "This Is John Galt Speaking"] ... Those who call themselves Objectivists or individualists wonder why people are so resistant to their philosophy of objective reason. Most men are not philosophers, but they know the kind of men a right philosophy would produce—men of character, decency, and integrity—that's the kind of philosophy they want. They look around and see the kinds of things men stand for, or stand against, the kind of language they use, the entertainment they enjoy, and how they live their lives, and after they look, they can see no difference between those who call themselves Objectivists, individualists, or libertarians and the rest of corrupt society. Then they look at Christians and find in them all the attributes of character and moral rectitude they expect to find in those whose philosophy is the correct one—and the Christians win. Before we choose to rid the world of the horrors of religion, especially Christianity, and convert it to our cherished philosophy, we must first tend to our own characters, to ensure we truly seek the "best in all things, in values of matter and spirit," that ours is, "a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection." It does not matter what our arguments are, what we are and what we truly value shows in all we do, and all men can see it. However clear our reason, however vaunted our ethical views, if how we live is no different than how the rest of the world lives, then we are no different from the rest of the world and have no business telling other men what they ought to believe. ---------------------------------- Sorry this was so long. The whole article is linked above in my earlier post to Michael or here: http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article80.php Regi

Michael, Ignoring the irony of that statement (since a singular entity would be the only one), isn't every real existent, as a particular, a singular entity? Every real existent must share some attributes with other existents, but must have some attribute or combination of attributes no other existent has. No two existents can be identical in every way, else they would be the same existent. (Does not apply to existents known only be description; e.g. electrons, though even they must have some qualitative difference, such as position.) If by "singular" enitity is meant an existent which shares no attribute with any other existent, so that it was totally unique in every way, that would, I'm sure, be ontologically impossible. Though no proposition can be proved on the basis of what can or cannot be imagined (except propositions about what can or cannot be imagined), how could something with no imagineable attributes, much less knowable ones, exist? Regi

Every true proposition is a tautology. Regi

Speak for yourself. I do.

Hi Paul, Hmmm, "Try to grasp quantum reality without direct perception." But, I think you may have misunderstood me because I did not make myself clear. I did not say science only uses direct perception, as a method, because that would exclude almost every mode of scientific investigation from microscopes to x-rays, for example. What I said was, "the sciences only address what can be directly perceived," to indicate the physical (material/objective) universe is the subject of science, as opposed to consciousness (non-physical/subjective), for example, which we cannot directly perceive and can only know by introspection. Even the basis of quantum mechanics, however, is observation. If we were unable to perceive, directly or indirectly (by means of instruments) the characteristics of the photoelectric effect, for example, Einstein would never have made the twin observations that an increase in light intensity does not change the number of electrons being produced, but that a change in the wave length of light does, but not continuously, but rather in little "leaps." Max Planck had already made a similar observation about the discontinuity of black body radiation and noticed that discontinuity had a constant value, for which he had no explanation. It became known as Planck's constant. Einstein simply concluded, since the changes in the photoelectric effect depending of wave length were multiples of Planck's constant, light must be "quantized" in little packets rather than continuous, and that is the basis of all quantum mechanics. My point is only that in science, assumptions (except as part of the process of developing a hypothesis) is always a bad mistake. The phlogiston theory of combustion is a perfect example. It was observed that some things become lighter when they burn, so it was assumed they must have given something up, which, though never observed, was called phlogiston. It took Lavoisier's very careful observations to put that mistaken assumption away. To assume quantum characteristic of matter hold everywhere in all contexts would be such a mistake--at absolute zero, in strong magnetic fields, and in some solid-state electronic devices, the behavior of some particles predicted by quantum mechanics is altered, for example. ------------------------------- Now, before Michael gets upset with me for changing the thrust of this thread... For many people (which includes many who call themselves Objectivists and think they understand it) philosophy is a very hard subject. It is fine to point out the difference between reason and faith, so long as both are clearly defined, but faith as used by many Christians does not mean what it means to many others when talking about Christians. I have a Christian friend who believes that philosophical principles like ethics, epistemology, politics, and aesthetics, can all be derived by objective reason, and has total confidence in the objective findings of science. For him, however, neither philosophy or science answer three questions which he thinks are very important: why does everything exist, what is the point of life, and why should consciousness cease at death? While I personally do not find these questions compelling or unanswerable, I understand why my answers are both difficult, and uncomfortable to grasp, for most people. My friend's values and views about the world are almost identical to mine on all philosophical points and he arrived at them by objective reason. His religion is not a source for those views (although he sees no contradiction between his religion and those views), it is his way of dealing with what he calls, "the abyss of the unknown." Many people have this view, though most would express it differently. I think we would all agree that as much as our philosophy and science has given us real knowledge of life and existence, it has and never will make us omniscient, so there will always be more to learn and know then we have thus far learned. For someone like me, that unknown constitutes all that I live for; it is all the future, the great frontier of discovery and adventure, the endless source of new experience and learning. For many people, however, that unknown is a terrifying thing, and for some of them, religion provides an answer or explanation which philosophy and science obviously cannot. The questions religion answers for them are not questions I, or probably you, would even regard as legitimate questions, but for those who "need" answers to them, I can see no harm in their accepting the teachings of their religion which can only be held by, "faith," since neither science or philosophy (objective reason) can provide them. What worries me is the growing hostile movement against religion, especially Christianity, in this country and around the world, which is very strong in some so-called Objectivist circles and is very reminiscint of pre-World War II European antisemitism. The other danger is that Christians who hold the same views of individualism, personal liberty, and values that Objectivists do, or at least the most rational among us do, because of their need to have something more than reason alone can provide (however mistaken that "need" is), and that provides them a reason for living, and working, and finding value and purpose in life, if it is taken away from them, we'll end with a society like Europe's, where people value nothing, have nothing to live for but the pleasure of the moment, resulting in a society that is mostly nihilistic, hedonistic, and collectivist. Enough! Regi

Relax, Michael. I'm just stating my view, not making an argument for it. I'm more interested here in the idea that assumptions constitute science. Regi

Hi "g.s." Has it ever occurred to you to ask what possible purpose, "theories about the origins of the universe," objectively serve? As for, "we assume the laws of light behaviour that we developed here and now apply equally to light billions of years old," that is not an assumption. Light is whatever it is, and has very specific attributes (not completely understood even now, however) and if what we are seeing is light that is truly "billions of years old," then it must have the characteristics it does, or it would not be light. While the sciences only address what can be directly perceived (what we call the physical) and cannot address what is not directly perceived (life, consciousness, and volition, for example), there is no need for any "assumptions" in any aspect of science, and whatever calls itself "science" but is based on assumptions (psychology, cosmology, and evolution, for example) is not really science. Regi

Hi Michael I hope you enjoy it. It needs a couple of corrections which I'll make when I republish it. You are free to use it if you like as well. We still disagree on some important things, but I've never found you anything but reasonable in those disagreements. Regi

Excuse me for butting in here. This is an assertion based on a misunderstanding of what physical laws are. Physical laws are nothing more than a formalized description of the nature of things that are observed. There is no a priori assertion that any particular discovered law has to hold in all contexts--all the physical laws are contextual, which simply means, under these condition it has been established that this thing thus identified will always behave in such'n'such a way. In fact, your expression, "uniformity of physical laws," is a bit of a floating abstraction. Physical laws are not like man-made laws, the word "law" in physics only means a principle by which we identify things and their attributes. If you mean by "uniformity" that once a thing's attributes have been identified it will never have different attributes and be the same thing, that is true. But that fact is not science, or metaphysics, it is epistemological. Regi

Hi Michael, I do not get around here very often, but did see this thread and thought you might be interested in this article which I think addresses many of the issues here, particularly with reference to Objectivism and Rand's view toward religion. http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article80.php "Three Books--An Atheist's Defence of Christianity" Regi