regi

I would too, except that I would add the nature of the world he lives in. One cannot defy any aspect of reality including one's own nature. Our nature determines what is required to live successfully and happily, so I totally agree. As I wrote in the article: I think, however, there is a mistake about this article. The article is not about correct moral principles, but about wrong ones. It is not a philosophical treatise on ethics. In my article, Ethical Principles, I describe the necessity or ethics: "It is human nature that makes ethical principles necessary," which is the premise for all my ethical views. Randy

Reason is how one determines what moral principles, or any principles, are, isn't it? Randy

I think we have a different view of happiness, Brant. Of course one must first seek to survive. The dead seek nothing. But, for human beings, survival means productive work (whatever activity is required to supply oneself the necessities of life), which, if successful, is happiness. As far back in recorded history as one chooses to go, there have always been prosperous people who celebrated their achievements and wrote about happiness. As for prerecorded history, I have very little faith in the guesswork of others about the experience of those who left no record. The very first sentence of the article: "The purpose of living a moral life is to live a successful, fulfilled, and happy life." Success, of course, includes survival. I haven't separated survival and happiness, but I think you have. For human beings, successfully surviving is happiness. That is not survival in the sense of the perpetuation of protoplasm, but surviving, as Rand said, "qua man," -- as a human being. Perhaps that's what you are getting at with your "rotation" metaphor. At least we agree survival and happiness cannot be separated. Appreciate the comments. Randy

Of course. As I wrote, "No one has to live by moral principles." By moral principles I mean those which would lead to human happiness. The whole point of the article is that ethics must be principles based on human happiness as the purpose. Neither you, or anyone else has to agree with that (and very few do), but the alternative is pursuing something other than human success and happiness. I just don't understand why anyone would object to human success and happiness being the basis for one's principles. The article does not directly address what moral principles (ethics) are, it only identifies all the wrong views of ethics that are essentially anti-human happiness. Randy

Totally wrong as usual Forget my previous comments which were obviously tongue-in-cheek. This is a serious question. Since this is an objectivist site, at the risk of assuming, what is it about saying, "The purpose of living a moral life is to live a successful, fulfilled, and happy life," that you believe is "totally wrong?" Ayn Rand wrote: "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." [For the New Intellectual, "Galt's Speech from Atlas Shrugged," page 123] "Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life." [Atlas Shrugged, "Part Three,—Chapter VII, 'This is John Galt Speaking.'"] Of course you do not have to agree with that, but if you disagree, you might at least explain why. Randy

Love the alliteration. If you were really clever you could have added: plebeian, pompous, profane, polemical, and philodoxical. Thanks for contributing.

Abu Ghraib The purpose of living a moral life is to live a successful, fulfilled, and happy life. A moral life is one guided by ethical principles. The whole reason for ethics is to provide the principles by which you can make the right choices in everything you think, believe, and do which benefit you and avoid all choices and behavior that will harm you or interfere in your success or prevent you from being happy. But morality is badly misunderstood. There are seven common mistaken views about the nature and importance of living morally. The Seven Biggest Mistakes About Ethics and Morality [NOTE: Ethics and morality refer to the same thing: living correctly to live successfully. I define ethics as the principles of right living and morality as life lived according to ethical principles. In this article, moral means ethical and morals means ethical principles.] That morals impose restrictions or limits on one's life. A young child who has just learned about hammers and nails might enjoy hammering nails into anything he can, but if he hammers nails into his favorite toy and destroys it he will discover there are consequences for doing whatever he feels like. What the child learns from the experience is that he can choose to do whatever he feel likes, but he cannot choose the consequences of what he does. It is a lesson in morality. To do whatever you like is your choice, but the consequences are determined by reality and you have no choice about what those consequences will be. You may hammer nails into whatever you like but if you don't want to destroy your toys you cannot hammer nails into them. The other thing the child learns is that reality doesn't care whether what he does is a mistake or defiance. Reality punishes all wrong choices and acts, mistaken or defiant, equally. The only difference is, the consequences of a wrong act out of ignorance is a learning experience that may prevent future mistakes, but the consequences of an act of defiance usually leads to resentment (of not being able to do whatever one likes) and more defiance. There are two parts of reality that determine the consequences of choices: 1. the nature of physical reality which determines the physical consequences of all acts, and 2. human nature that determines the psychological consequences of all choices. Ethical principles describe which kinds of acts and choices produce which kinds of consequences. One may choose to think of reality's consequences as restrictions on ones choices, but they are not restrictions, they define the principles by which all good things can be accomplished and achieved, what will work and what will not. In my article, "Principles," I identify 10 ethical principles which I then explain: These are moral or ethical principles. They are not commandments, not instructions, and not rules. No one is required to observe any of these principles, but no one can evade them without consequence or penalty—not a penalty imposed by some agency or by anyone else, but a penalty imposed by reality itself. Are these principles hard? Yes they're hard and yes they are demanding, as hard and demanding as life itself. To evade them is to evade life. No moral individual regards them as limits or restrictions on their life, however, because they are the means of achieving and being all that life makes possible. Living by these principles is the only way to live a life that is worth living. Like all true principles, they are not limits or restrictions, but the keys that open the doors to possibilities that do not exist without them. Like the principles of mathematics that make it possible to answer questions about quantities and measurements which are impossible to answer without them, moral principles make it possible to know how to live successfully and without failure. Just as mathematical principles determine how mathematical problems must be solved successfully, and if the rules are violated, the mathematics will fail, so moral principles determine how one must choose and act to live successfully, and if the principles are violated, one's life will fail. Mathematical principles are not restrictions on the mathematician, they are the means to his success; moral principles are not restrictions on an individual's life, they are the means to his prosperity and happiness. That moral principles are not objective. There are two mistakes here. One is that moral principles cannot be based on reality itself, that is, "what is." The other mistake is the result of the first; if moral principles are not determined objectively they must be determined by something else. The first mistake can be attributed to a very bad philosopher named Hume. Hume said, "no 'ought' can be deduce from any 'is.'" Those were not his exact words, but what he meant is, 'what one ought to do cannot be discovered by examining what is.' Hume made two mistakes. The first, like most other moralists, is a misunderstanding the nature of moral principles. Moral principles do not say, "you ought to do such'n'such, no matter what," moral principles say, "if you do such'n'such, this will be the consequence." But moral principles do not name any specific choices or acts, moral principles identify the kinds of consequences that result from kinds of choices and actions. A moral principle does not say, "do not lie," it says, "if you attempt to live by faking reality you will irreparably damage your own mind and ability to grasp the truth or reality." Hume's second mistake is not understanding the nature of value terms. Words like, ought, should, good, and bad identify relationships and assume some objective, purpose, end, or goal. A thing is good if it furthers or achieves the goal or objective and is, therefore, what one ought or should do, and a thing is bad if it prevents or inhibits achieving the goal or objective and is, therefore, what one ought or should not do. In the case of moral principles the objective or goal is a successful happy life. Moral principles say, "if you want to live happily and successfully this is how reality (the "is") determines how you must, ("ought" to) live. Obviously if one is deceived by Hume's mistake (which is very common today), no objective basis for moral principles exists and something will be substituted for moral principles. What is usually substituted is one of the following: one's culture and tradition, whatever is popularly accepted, or whatever feels right (conscience), which essentially means whatever large numbers of people believe or feel is moral. The consequences of that view explains most of the decadence, corruption, and violence in the world today. That Conscience Is A Moral Guide. The most widely accepted of moral views based on, "feelings," is the belief that, "conscience," is a moral guide, that we are born with a moral sense and "just know what is right and wrong," but that belief is just wrong. All human Feelings called emotions are produced by our bodies response to whatever we are conscious of, especially our consciousness of what we think and what we believe. Those feelings we call conscience, like all other feelings, are determined by what we think and believe. Conscience does not indicate what is right or wrong, it only reflects whatever we believe and think is right or wrong. A woman who believes it is wrong to show her naked ankle will suffer conscious guilt if she willfully reveals what she believes is wrong to reveal. Another woman who believes there is nothing wrong with nudity feels no pangs of conscience while going topless. The cannibalistic natives of a certain tropical island believe it is their duty to eat a member of an enemy tribe if they kill him, and feel pangs of conscience if they fail to engage in that "moral" duty. Depending on feelings of conscience as a guide to moral practice reverses the roles of the mind and feelings. It is moral principles that determine what is right and wrong, one's feelings of conscience will only be correct if they have right moral principles. That moral principles are dictated. This view tacitly assumes there are no objective moral principles, and therefore, moral principles must be dictated by some authority, like a God, or a government. Everything is wrong with the view that moral principles can be determined by the arbitrary dictates of some authority, God or man. The reasons are so important I dedicated an article to them, "Religion and Absolute Moral Values: The Ten Commandments, For Example." All absolute truth is determined by reality and must be discovered. No truth is determined by the dictates of any authority. The pronouncement of an authority are not absolute, they are arbitrary. If truth were determined by the dictates of any authority, God or man, there could be no absolute truth, because the dictator would not be bound by his own dictates, and truth would be reduced to the whims of the dictator. That morality is social. Again there are two mistakes here. The first is that the purpose of morals is in some way social, for the sake of one's community, society, or the world of others. The second mistake is that it is society itself that determines what is moral. Moral principles are only a guide to those capable of making conscious choices. They do not apply to the animals, because they are not capable of making conscious choices, which is why they are not morally responsible. Moral principles do not apply to collections of individuals, families, communities, countries, or any other groups, because only individuals have conscious volitional minds. What is mistakenly called "choice" or "decision" when applied to things like societies, committees, or governments disguises the fact that only individuals make choices and the so-called collective choice is only the result of their individual choices, for which every individual is individually responsible, because moral principles only pertain to individuals. The converse of this mistake is the belief that moral principles can be evaded if one is a member of some collection of individuals that all agree or participate in the same violation of moral principles. It is the basis of all the horrible things human beings do as members of gangs, unions, mobs, and religions. The other version of this mistake is the view that the purpose of moral principles is society itself, that right, wrong, good, and bad are determined by whatever is good for society, which always reduces to, good for the greatest number of individuals in a society (because everyone is different and nothing is going to be the best for everyone), therefore the minority must always be sacrificed for the sake of, "the greater good," of the majority). The name of this view is democracy, in all it flavors. The ethical "theory" based on the social view of morality is called "altruism." Altruism defines the moral good as whatever one does for the sake or benefit of others or for society as a whole. Altruism reverses the purpose of morals from one's own success and happiness to the success and happiness of everyone else, from their neighbor to the whole world. Altruism turns the good from being the source of human joy and happiness to being the basis for self-sacrifice and self-immolation. That morality means whatever makes one happy. The correct name for this mistake, in all its forms, is hedonism. Hedonism is the view that the the moral good is whatever makes one happy—individually it means whatever gives me pleasure or makes me happy—collectively it means whatever gives pleasure to the most people or makes the most people happy. Happiness is certainly the goal of moral principles, but hedonism attempts to make happiness the guide. The purpose of moral principles is to identify what happiness is and what is required to achieve it. One may declare, the good is whatever makes me happy, but without knowing what will make a human being happy, one is left with no guidance for achieving that happiness. Hedonism also mistakenly confuses pleasure with happiness. It claims, whatever gives me pleasure will make me happy, therefore whatever gives me pleasure is the good. The mistake is obvious to anyone who has observed the kind of lives those who live for pleasure, especially pleasure for its own sake, disconnected from any reason or purpose, experience. Since the hedonist has no moral principles beyond the pleasure of the moment, life based on hedonism makes no provision for the future or the long-term consequences of one's present indulgences. Why would he? A moral life will be filled with pleasure, the kinds of pleasure our natures give us for living moral lives, pleasure enjoyed as the reward of our achievements, pleasure that befits a moral life and benefits the individual both short term and long term, the pleasure of a fulfilled life, an ecstasy the hedonist can only dream of. That morality is not important. There are lots of names for this mistake which includes all those who believe there are no moral principles (amoralists) or substitute some form of pragmatism (whatever works) for moral principles. The root of this belief is the consequence of all the wrong views of morality. Many intelligent people have seen the results of all the wrong views of reality and know they cannot possibly be true and therefore conclude there are no moral principles and therefore resort to a kind of whatever works view of morality. Unfortunately, "whatever works," never works because there is no principle by which what will or will not work can be determined. That view always ends meaning, whatever seems to work at the moment without regard to any long term consequences. (This is the dubious view of moral value all government policy is guided by.) No one has to live by moral principles. To whatever extent your life is successful and you enjoy it, however, will be because the things you have chosen and do conform to moral principles, whether you recognize them or not. To whatever extent your life is a failure, and you experience trouble, disappointment, regret, or unhappiness will be because the things you have chosen and do are in defiance of moral principles, whether you recognize them or not. Moral principles are just like all other principles. You cannot survive if you neglect the physical requirements of your body or defy the laws of nature, if you have survived it is because what you have chosen and done conforms to your biological requirements and have not defied the laws of physics, chemistry, or biology, even if you have no real knowledge of your biological requirements or of the laws of physical nature. To some extent the principles of physics can be defied, especially by children, and they won't die, but will still suffer the consequences with bloody knees, broken bones, and various scrapes, cuts, and burns. You can also defy your biological requirements to some extent without dying, but you will still suffer the consequences of defying those requirements, from minor ailments to severe disease. Living without moral principles may not kill you or utterly destroy your life, at least not immediately, but the consequences cannot be avoided, and your life, your success, and your happiness will be diminished to whatever degree you live immorally. Why would you want to live a life that was less than moral. Why would you not prefer to live a moral life that is fulfilled, successful and happy? —(10/29/17) Originally Published in The Moral Individual.

He already made a very cogent and interesting comment. That is true of all conscious experience. Human beings have an aesthetic sense, however, whatever any individual's experience of beauty is, but why should there be a sense of beauty at all? Like humor, what any individual will find funny will be different, but why is anything funny at all, why is there a sense of humor. Beauty and humor are certainly not intrinsic attributes of the things we find beautiful or funny, they are a way we evaluate what we perceive and think. It is the nature of that evaluation I am interested, why we have it and what its function is. I do not believe the senses of beauty and humor are just happy accidents. I agree. But I do think there is a philosophical foundation for aesthetics as it relates to human consciousness and emotions. I have never identified my self with Objectivism, or any other -ism, but have studied Rand's phylosophy, as I have many others and like how she clarified some things and admire her for her accomplishments. I agree, "Everybody has a unique philosophy," and I think they must. However much one learns from others, their own views must ultimately come, as you said, from their own, "autonomous thinking mind." Randy

Yes, certainly. Have to love your rhetoric, and agree with all you said. Still, there is a reason human beings have an aesthetic sense which I think ought to be identified. Randy

I'm sorry, I didn't get the notice. The title of the thread, "Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P," and the final words of the initial post, "It's NOT ART!!!!" led me to believe there was some relationship between aesthetics and art. I'm quite aware the discussion has been mostly about art, and other things, but unless there is no connection between the nature of beauty and art, what does the discussion of art have to do with aesthetics at all? You don't need to answer. The question is rhetorical, an expression of my bewilderment. Randy

Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.? Really? Aesthetics is the study of the nature of beauty. Ayn Rand's, The Romantic Manifesto deals with one tiny aspect of aesthetics, art. The real question of aesthetics is, "what is beauty," why do some things in reality strike us as so beautiful they take our breath away? What is there about human nature that makes that kind of experience possible and what is its significance? Those questions Rand never addresses. For Rand, beauty is taken for granted and she proceeds simply to assert what kinds of things are beautiful in art. Without addressing the question of the nature of beauty itself, discussing beauty in art is discussing a floating abstraction. Beauty is like humor, an experience unique to human beings. The reason for humor and the aesthetic sense are related to the unique nature of human consciousness and the whole nature of human emotions. I've read this entire thread and the question of what beauty actually is and why human beings have an aesthetic sense never comes up. Objectivist aesthetics cannot die, there is no Objectivist aesthetics. Randy

Did you try picturing that?

Which I very much appreciate. You are at least consistent which not all physicalists (materialists) are. That is what I question. What, exactly, is it that suffers from this illusion? I'm a materialist but I believe material or objective reality includes more than the mere physical. I do not believe in anything mystical or supernatural. Life, consciousness, and the human mind are perfectly natural attributes of reality and do not exist except as attributes of physical living organisms, but are not themselves physical attributes. I think the strict physicalist form of materialism you hold limits one's ability to comprehend the full nature of material existence. My view does not conflict or in any way invalidate your view, because my view of life and consciousness depend on the validity of the nature of the physical. The physical is all that can be consciously perceived, seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt as well as all perception of the physical body called interoception (internal pain, emotions, etc.) but believing what is perceived is all there is ignores the fact of the conscious perception itself. So now we both can be consistent, and you'll understand I do not consider your view incorrect, I only view it as incomplete and you'll no doubt consider my view as advocating what cannot be known because it cannot be perceived. That is what I advocate. I don't know I perceive by perceiving it, I know it because I do it. Randy

That which is seen and that which sees it are not the same thing. I know I can see, (just as you do), but I cannot see my seeing. I know I can see, (just as you do), not by seeing it, but by seeing.

Hi William, I'm flattered that you considered my brief article on evolution worth the obvious effort you put into annotating it. Overall I think your notes and comments are fair and valuable, especially in each place you suggested a reference would have improved the article. There are a few places I'm not in total agreement with you which I'll mention. We're not going to agree on those points so we'll just have to agree to disagree about them. There is perhaps a misunderstanding of the purpose of the article. It is not an attempt to repudiate the concept of evolution itself. I do not know of any reason some form of evolution could not be possible. Other perfectly natural explanations for the existence of life and the species is also possible, though I do not think any such explanation, including evolution as currently define and deliniated is probable. Certainly no supernatural explanation is correct. My main concern is that evolution is used to promote ideas which are wrong. You point about, "'most people' is a strong claim," is not a claim. It really wouldn't matter whether it were most people or not. The fact is that evolution is now taught as settled science in every university (with the exception of some religious schools), in public schools, and except for some religious individuals I do not know of more than a handful of individuals who question evolution. I don't think that is controversial. I did not define every term, like hypothesis, because those who are not familiar with the common meaning of such terms aren't going to understand the article anyway. Those who call evolution a theory are among those who do not know the difference between hypothesis and theory. Until a hypothesis has been proven without question or caveat it remains a hypothesis. A possiblity, no matter how great that possiblity might be believed to be, remains possibly wrong. I did make reference to the scientific method in the article Science. It was meant to be a link, and I will correct that in the article. "This is an example of the limitations of assertion, and of the rhetorical danger of reification. In this passage, each 'Evolution asserts' could well be accompanied by a reference to an actual publication or claim." Rhetorically the assertions are not about particular claims, but any claims of knowledge about what no one has or can ever observe because they are in the past. Nothing that evolution claims occurred can possibly be observed except for the very unlikely possiblity that it happens again. The assertions would also pertain to most of cosmology as well. "This is mistaken. The/A theory of evolution is not the theory of 'How life began.'" It is interesting that when evolutionists confront creationists they argue for the abiogenic origin of life, but when confronted with the question of how life began they deny it being part of evolution. Yet evolutionists to make guesses about when life began (3.8 billion years ago, for example). They make no claim about how life began and deny evolution addresses the question but they are sure it began, sometime. I'm sorry. Do not tell me something happened if you can tell me neither how it happened and how you know it. Timeline: The evolution of life I wrote: "Mutation the only answer. Evolution claims to be the explanation for where all different forms of life came from." You wrote: "This is incorrect. Evolution is not an explanation of life's origins." Notice, I said, "all different forms of life," not life itself. "Did you look up and scan/skim/read Wood and Eagly? If you did, maybe you can venture an answer to the implied question: 'Why does anyone take seriously the notion that evolutionary theory can expand knowledge of sex-differences in behaviour?'" I didn't and I wouldn't. Nothing makes human beings think or do anything except conscious choice, not heredity, not environment, not evolution, and not feelings. I do not agree with 004, your illustrated version of the scientific method. For instance, in the diagram, the last step, "Develop General Theories." Theories are not developed. Hypostheses are developed, but something is a theory only after a hypothesis has been conclusively validataed, meaning there no more anomalies or unanswered questions. The suggestion that the scientific method is some kind of continuous process that keeps getting closer to the truth but never quite reaches it is a terrible mistake. Ohms law is not some kind of approximation, it is an absolute law of electric current in a DC circuit. E=IR, absolutely, not almost or probably or what most scientists agree is the case. The chemical properties of the chemical elements listed in the periodic table are absolute. They are not established statistically or by concensus but by direct experimental verification. The properties of chlorine are always the properties of chlorine and anything that has different properties is not chlorine and whatever has the properties of chlorine is chlorine. "From Wikipedia: 'There is no consensus among biologists concerning the position of the eukaryotes in the overall scheme of cell evolution. Current opinions on the origin and position of eukaryotes span a broad spectrum including the views that eukaryotes arose first in evolution and that prokaryotes descend from them, that eukaryotes arose contemporaneously with eubacteria and archeabacteria and hence represent a primary line of descent of equal age and rank as the prokaryotes, that eukaryotes arose through a symbiotic event entailing an endosymbiotic origin of the nucleus, that eukaryotes arose without endosymbiosis, and that eukaryotes arose through a symbiotic event entailing a simultaneous endosymbiotic origin of the flagellum and the nucleus, in addition to many other models, which have been reviewed and summarized elsewhere.'" This is a perfect picture of why evolution is not a science. It is the same way all the way up and down. "There is no consensus among biologists," "current opinon on the origin ...," "in addition to many other models." If you seek a specific answer to any question of evolution like how did creatures that metamorphosize evolve, it's always the same, several models and various conjectures but never a specific definitive answer to anything. They have no idea how butterflies or dragon flies evolved but know for certain how human nature and human traits and psychology evolved. But then they study voles and discover certain chemical changes in the brain that seem related to their mating behavior which they hope will help them understand human social behavior. Good grief! Thank you again for the comments and suggestions. It doesn't matter that we don't agree on everything. Except for whatever choices individuals make based on their acceptance of evolution, I don't think the question of evolution much matters. What's here is here, however it got here, that is certain. One cannot go wrong studying the nature of what is here. That is why I have total confidence in the theories of the physical sciences. I'm only mildly interested in whatever proports to study what is not here as a means of guessing how it got here. I really don't care how it got here. Randy

I'm trying to enjoy the exchange of ideas, with the hope that somone might find some value in them.

Me too!

What is on the menu? 1. "Feelings of fear are obviously not reliable," and 2. "Depending on feeling alone for any judgement (sic) is just a gamble." What is not on the menu? Examples where fear works well for information, the neuroscience of fear and all the rest. That's what. (There are other issues--like emotion and reason being part of the same mental processes and even other science--but I don't want to go into the substance in this post. The issue is how the substance is framed, i.e. the limited menu.) So there are two options. Clear and reasonable-sounding options. Then, when the question comes ("by what means does one determine whether their feelings of fear are right or not?"), if you are taking this question seriously within the context of the post, you might not notice that the answer is already given in two options, or you might come up with a third option of trying to mention new information, but this has already been pre-dismissed as "obviously not reliable" and "just a gamble" since it will inevitably deal with fear. Michael, There is no menu. If you believe there are examples of, "where fear works well," is irrelevant to the question. Unless you believe fear always works well, the question pertains to those instances when someone experiences fear about which they are in doubt. What method do they use to determine if the fear is reality based or simply paranoia. The two sentences you misconstrued as, "menu items," only described the situation when the nature of fear is in doubt. The question is entirely open ended. There is no suggestion of any method. I don't think you intended to, but you completely misrepresented my question. Unless fear always, "works well," it means it sometimes does not "work well." It means at least sometimes it is unreliable. How does one know when their fear is "working well," and when it isn't. Isn't it risky to act out of fear if one isn't certain their fear is, "working well?" Wouldn't that be a gamble? That's all I said. Randy

Really? or is it just a feeling? ;) I'm pleased you're pleased. Randy

Thanks, Michael. I've got my answer. Randy

william.scherk I just responded to your request on the Moral Individual. Please use the article as you please. Randy

I did. I was using the word disappointment in this sense from the Collins English dictionary: "Something or someone that is a disappointment is not as good as you had hoped." I really don't care how you would like to define it, if you don't care to answer the question just say so. That will be answer enough. Randy

william.scherk, Thanks for the link, William. I've researcched evolution for over thirty years and believe I've examined every argument for it. Evolution is plausible enough, which is why it is so widely accepted, it just isn't science. It is a hugely complex hypothesis which has more unanswered questions and problems than any substantial evidence. I have no objection to others accepting it without question, as most do. For the life of me I cannot figure out why it bothers anyone else if I don't accept it. Randy

I wasn't asking how you'd feel, I was asking if you would be disappointed, intellecutally, as when you expect something to be one way then discover it is another, which might or might not be accompanied by a feeling. It would help me to know how people think, which I'm very much interested in. Randy

I'm sorry Michael, I cannot accept anyone's faith in the non-scientific or non-objective as the basis for anything. Evolution is an unscientific conjecture about origins which no one knows and must accept on faith because it cannot be verified by evidence or repeatable experiment. I certainly don't care if you do, most people believe in evolution or some other religion. However, I am amazed at the lengths to which people will go to deny that everything they think and do must be by conscious choice. Why does anyone want to believe they have some kind of mystic knowledge injected into their consciousness by the Holy Spirit, or heredity, or evolution? So help me out. If someone provided incontrovertible proof that there is no knowledge of any kind except that learned by the individual using their own mind, would that disappoint you? If it would, why? No matter how you answer, I will not argue with it. It is your opinion I'm asking for. Randy