Robert_Bumbalough

On 7/16/2017 at 10:26 AM, anthony said:

I am most excited someone has at last "deconstructed the notion of objective value".

Oh no, it's Beaver Bob, again.

The assumption that "objective value" means that any and all of the objective persuasion must select values by impartial means, and which are accurate, perfect, and most of all, identical carbon-copies of each other - shows profound ignorance of what "objective" means and what "value" means. Read some Objectivism before bloviating, Bob.

And of what interest apart from academic, is it that a bee sees light differently? Are you concerned with a philosophy for bees? Casting doubt on the senses is so boringly skeptical. Read Kelley on that.

So you found out lately from Objectivists that a value presupposes a valuer. But - two people each see values differently (Duh). One loves Jane, the other Sue. Can you not see that "romantic love" is the common value!? Take that to any value you like: recreation, career, friends, art...and so on. Of Objective value are first, the general abstractions, then, the specific 'things'/ people. The conceptual hierarchy needs to be grasped, or you can't get it. And although true that "people" - vaguely - in general do disagree, when it comes to value (the concept) you will never see Objectivists disagree here. 

If it is not a "perfect" or an empirically-tested 'value' it fails, in your book. But Empirical is not Objective. Perfect is a Platonic ideal. Skepticism is only the other side of the coin from mystical intrinsicism. You regularly flip from one to the other at whim. 

Do some construction before trying deconstruction.

 

Well said. Thanks.

On 7/15/2017 at 9:20 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Here's how I respond to those who "slander" Objectivism (whatever the hell that means).

I make a forum.

It's called producing.

In other words, I don't care about winning arguments with propagandists. Gotchas never swayed mankind and they never will.

Building good things and promoting good ideas do influence people. But not because you think for them. It's because you show them something good and let them think for themselves.

And the propagandists? If you have to say something, realize you will be saying it for the audience, not them. Propagandists are paid, either in money or status or power. So even if they agree with you, they will never say so.

With that in mind, if you have to say something, merely say you disagree, 100% if necessary, and go back to producing. The audience will see you. And some will seek to be with you or later show they agree with you. And that will grow if you keep doing it and keep producing good stuff.

Michael

Thanks, good advice. 

On 7/15/2017 at 7:42 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

Objectivism as  a philosophical discipline does not need to be slandered.  Its own internal contradictions and limitations  do the job just fine. I am no socialist or collectivist  but I deconstructed the notion of "objective value"  Values require valuers.  And humans  who value something are using their judgement and intuition which is not entirely objective.  That is why two perfectly reasonable people can disagree over the value of something.  If value were the exclusively the property of an object,  then two people correctly identifying what the object is could not possibly disagree on its value.  But people disagree quite frequently.  How do you account for that?   Is there only one way of identifying an object?

Which raises yet another question.  When we perceive something  are we perceiving what we perceive exactly as it is (out there in reality) or as it appears to us.  We look at a rose  in the sunlight and say it is red.  A bee looks at the same rose  and thinks it is ultraviolet.  Who is right?  We both are.  We see what our eyes are structured to see as does the bee. Different nerves, different structures, different views. 

Leonard Peikoff has done more to discredit Objectivism than any left wing collectivist nay-sayer. 

On 7/15/2017 at 7:42 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

 

Hi there BC. Thanks for taking time to post your remark.  I apologize for the whiny tone. I suppose I'm just not used to being insulted and threatened by "progressive" politics fans for defending capitalism and individualism and seem to have needed to vent a bit.  I've long respected your opinions on matters of science and have enjoyed reading many of your comments.  I've no intention of attacking you by noting why the points you mentioned get no traction in my thinking. People deserve respect, but ideas have to earn respect.

BC //  Its own internal contradictions and limitations // I've not noticed any internal contradictions in Rands fiction or non fiction essays; could you provide an example other than the point about objective value you mentioned?  Limitations? Please explain.

BC //  I deconstructed the notion of "objective value"  Values require valuers.  And humans  who value something are using their judgement and intuition which is not entirely objective. // That values subsume the concepts of whom is to be the benficiary of value and for what purpose was specifically listed by AR in her Objectivist Ethics essay, and you listed the terms in backward sequence. Valuers require values to live.  Values are ideas, and the ideas do not think the thinker, but thinkers do think ideas.  She also specified that objectivity in reasoning is a choice that those who desire to live a rational existence make. That others are subjective in thier thinking doesn't discredit o-ism.

BC // If value were the exclusively the property of an object,  then two people correctly identifying what the object is could not possibly disagree on its value.   //  Objects, concretes or concepts, do not have value. They have worth with regards to one's wealth in varrying degree for differing persons. Values are concepts and are the subject of the processs of valuing performed by the valuers. The degree of worth valued by an individual can easily and objectivly differ from that of some other due the difference of their ciucumstances.  (Note this would be  a good place for me to talk about the worth of keeping a razor blade in one's mouth all the time, but I'm going to resist that temptation.)

BC // But people disagree quite frequently.  //  Yes people do disagree, but rational persons have no conflict of interest because they understand and grasp that they can grant a full suite of rights to each other because they're better off benefitting from division of labor economy and trading with each other within the context of laissez faire capitalism.   

BC // How do you account for that?    //  What do you mean by "account for"?  Religious charlatans often use that question as a polemic in attemp to stump an atheist commenter on blogs. If you meant 'Why do people disagree?' the answer is easy; many people are subjective , irrational, illogical, and attempt to use emotions as cognitive tools. If they were rational they'd agree becasue existence exists and has primacy over consciousness and A=A. 

BC // Is there only one way of identifying an object?  // AR said logic is the non contradictory means of identification, so I think any tool that can be used in the non contradictory way of logic can be appropriate.  How would this discredit rational philosophy?

BC // When we perceive something  are we perceiving what we perceive exactly as it is (out there in reality) or as it appears to us.  We look at a rose  in the sunlight and say it is red.  A bee looks at the same rose  and thinks it is ultraviolet.  Who is right?  We both are.  We see what our eyes are structured to see as does the bee. Different nerves, different structures, different views.  // LP wrote a longish description of o-ism's explanation of why differing forms of perception don't invalidate the senses in OPAR chapter two.  Your objection was anticipated and answered not only by LP but by Kelly as well in "Evidence of the Senses".  

BC // Leonard Peikoff has done more to discredit Objectivism than any left wing collectivist nay-sayer.  //  Have you read Linsey Perigo's piece at Solopassion on Yaron Brook and the ARI gang going over to the collectivist/socialists?  LP isn't speaking against that, so those guys have betrayed Objectivism but not discredited o-ist epistemology.   solopassion.com/node/10396 

Greetings OL readers, yet I live still, and am troubled by the vast horde of self identified socialists who slander Objectivism, Capitalism, Rand, Peikoff, Kelly, Branden, and the other Objectivist philosophers. How does one succinctly respond to broad sweeping claims that O-ism is nonsense or the realist philosophers are or were kooks without getting pedantic or waxing into pedagogy? 

Thank you for suggestions.

On 3/26/2017 at 7:40 PM, anthony said:

\\  Prager asks a legitimate question, \\

Hello Anthony.  Thank you for opportunity to comment regarding the quoted portion of your remark.

Sir. The OP question is not legitimate. Legitimate means the question occurs in an objective context. Prager, being a religious organization, operates in the context of superstitious mythology, yet the staff and associates of Prager understand by direct perception without having to perform deductive reasoning that their religious god is not real. They know their god is a mere fantasy because they directly experience the primacy of existence. Since the primacy of existence versus primacy of consciousness forms a valid dichotomy, to know the former is valid and sound is to know the later is false. To know existence has primacy over consciousness is to know consciousness does not and cannot make reality. Since the Christian "God" is alleged to be a ruling consciousness that makes reality, they, and all beings capable of conceptual reasoning, know "God" does not exist.   Hence they know that religious divine command theory cannot be a valid moral system regardless of whatever god is imagined by a religious adherent. Consequently, the question "If there is no God, murder isn't wrong?" occurs in a subjective context which eliminates it from the category of legitimate. 

primacy of existence vs primacy of consciousness  http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/primacy_of_existence_vs_primacy_of_consciousness.html

objectivity  http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/objectivity.html

vs

subjectivism  http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/subjectivism.html

Thank you for allowing me to comment and best wishes to you and yours.

// What's wrong with pointing out how hostile the Democratic Party has become to Christianity? //

It's wrong to believe Christianity's story because it's false as in not true. The Christian God is alleged to be a form of consciousness that magically created existence. This is an explicit stolen concept fallacy. Since consciousness is an activity that something does, consciousness does not exist independent of the something else meaning consciousness is 100% dependent upon existence. When religious believers of any faith tradition claim consciousness is a thing apart from existence as in substance dualism, they're committing a performative inconsistency fallacy. Ayn Rand identified this when she discussed the Prior Certainty of Consciousness Fallacy. The reason PCC is a fallacy is that it is contrary to the primacy of existence. Objectivists should be hostile to all lies including those of religious faith heads. The dems are correct to be hostile to Christianity and should be hostile to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and all forms of theism or deism.

What's a good argument for or against the deity of nominal Christianity, Judaism, Islam?

There is an eye of flesh, an eye of mind, and an eye of spirit. Each is appropriate to a specific body of knowledge, and information in each body of knowledge is validated by consensus among experts in the field.

Hello readers et. al.:, Respects to Ms Judith and to those to whom she refers. It is not my intent to hurt anyone's feelings or to provoke anger, so when I type that I respectfully disagree, please accept my sincerity. I meditate several times a week using brain wave entrainment software and an audio-strobe device. These technologies allow me, and almost any other person, to easily obtain to deep meditative trance states. What happens in such trance states is that the prefrontal cortex where one's rational waking-thinking mind occurs is silenced so that one's normally unconscious mind can easily communicate with the prefrontal cortex. In deep meditative states no super-natural phenomena happens; it's all brain function. Human beings can do nothing without emotions. The minds emotional context produces confidence or trepidation or any of the many other emotional states that motivate one's decisions. As a day trader, emotions inform me. My unconscious mind recognizes situations that my rational prefrontal cortex may not be aware of and communicates to what I think of as me with emotions and visual memories. This is not spirituality; it is normal brain function that can be enhanced by training the brains systems to cooperate more closely.

Time: Best Wishes an Regards.

Greetings Ayn Rand fans and fellow Objectivists.

I could not find a topic on this question. If there is a more appropriate location for this question, would the moderator be so kind as to move it there. Many Thanks.

I recently encountered a rather rude person who voiced an objection to O-ism from what was claimed as a fatal contradiction between O's Metaphysical Axiom law of identity and volitional will. The socialist/communists sympathizer asserted that minds cannot posses volitional will if reality's casualty results from the law of identity. I could not think of a way to counter that point, so now I respectfully ask:

How does an Objectivist philosopher reconcile the volitional nature of free will with the casualty of material existence given facts from neurophysiology showing mind is a function of physical brains so as to validate that will is indeed volitional as opposed to deterministic as would seem Prima Facie true (as opposed to a thoughtful Prima Secundae) under a=a casualty as applied to physical brains without regard to how minds actually work without seeming to appeal to mysticism or ignorance?

Best wishes and regards for your continued success; I hope you make huge profits from capitalism and free market enterprise.

A classmate of mine threw a knife at the head of a professor who told us that we couldn't prove we existed. It stuck in the wall next to his ear. Lesson learned, class was dismissed.

Hello Ted and friends here at OL. I'm not sure if posting a link to my blog is allowed, but I typed out my thoughts on the fear or strong emotion rebuttal to the fallacy of arguing from inductive uncertainty and posted on my blog.

If this violates the rules, will the moderator please flag this post. I will amend it next time I log in.

Best Wishes for Big Profits.

At capitalism.net Dr. George Reisman posts a half hour lecture where he explains the link between Nazism and Socialism. Being an extremely ignorant person, Dr, Reisman's lecture was like a torch served me to expell some of the darkness from me. I want to say my mind instead of me, but me and my mind are one. So on with the show. This is it.

http://www.capitalism.net/index.html

The mp3 file link is below.

http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/08%20Nazism%20and%20Socialism.mp3

Best Wishes for the Reader to Make Huge Profits.

Many Thanks and Best Wishes for You Making Lots of Money. (American needs more capitalists.)

Maybe George will comment.

Yes, America does need more capitalists, but the capitalists need more freedom, especially from various taxes and regulations. If I had a big wad of capital I'd not invest much here now, maybe a little abroad, but mostly I'd sock it away in capital preservation, non-touchable and non-taxable, assets.

--Brant

Hello Brant: Yes that's a good idea and one I myself am using to help guide my financial stance. Thanks for your comment. Best Regards for Continued Success.

Repsectfully request well versed Objectivist philosophers comment on

epistemological foundherentism is a theory of justification

with respect to how Objectivism's doctrines would relate, compare, and contrast to Haack's (No, its not a joke, her name is Susan Haack.) work in joining foundationalism with coherentism induction justification theory?

This is pertinent to the question of refuting Solipsism because it is a way to justify induction.

Many Thanks and Best Wishes for You Making Lots of Money. (American needs more capitalists.)

What value, Robert, would a philosophical proof that existence will exist five minutes from now have?

"Ah, but I have a proof!" said the Wicked Witch, as greenly she dissolved, wet . . .

The purpose of philosophy is not to validate life.

But, to assure us we need not

waste our time on

nonsense.

Hello Mr. Keer; Indeed, what an excellent concise summation of a pragmatic utilitarian view of philosophy. I have made similar comments in discussions with epistemic constructionists of various sorts and do agree with you. However, the purpose of message boards such as this one is to provide a place to discuss ideas just for the fun of it. There is no pretense at trying to convince others to adopt any ideas or to change their thinking in any way attendant to my postings. I would be taking too great liberties to assume anyone would be swayed by my prattling. But, thank you for reminding me that the purpose of philosophy is to live better and not to provide arrogant, indolent, slovenly grad students a secure berth where to feed at the trough in a public University's Philosophy department.

In answer to your question, I think the value of a proof existence will still exist 5 minutes from now is like that of a general philosophical justification of induction that is parsimonious and broad of scope. Such proofs can be used to refute solipsism and various primacy of consciousness metaphysical errors. I hope I am warranted in thinking you and the readers are familiar with how frustrating it is to argue with leftists who hold constructionist theories of truth valid. In order to persuade people who think truth is a social construction because either the world is a dream in the mind of a supreme being or that reality is incoherent, that limited constitutional government and laissez faire capitalism are in their interests, they must first be convinced their premises are false and further that Objectivism's are correct.

Best Wishes and Regards for Your Continued Success

Robert

A classmate of mine threw a knife at the head of a professor who told us that we couldn't prove we existed. It stuck in the wall next to his ear. Lesson learned, class was dismissed.

Hello Mr Keer: Yes that is an interesting story. It reminds me of my recent encounter with a home invading burglar. At 3:10 am my Chihuahua, Taco, woke me up out of a sound sleep. I thought he wanted out for a pee. In the kitchen I heard something moving about in the back mud room. I opened the door and saw an intruder. He spoke something I did not understand and stepped towards me. I slammed and locked the door and held it closed for a few seconds. Then I ran for my shotgun. I got it out of my closet and fumbled in the dark to load it. I dropped one of the shells. It seemed to me that it took at least a minute for the shell to fall to the floor, then I got another into the chamber and snapped the gun closed. (Its a single shot New England Arms 12 gauge.) I ran back to the kitchen and called out,"I have a shot gun." Then I heard foot steps going away and out of my mud room. The perceived danger made my heart beat fast, and I did not sleep for several hours. These sorts of events that make us feel more alive for some reason testify to the efficacy of our senses in detecting the real. I think that's what Hume was getting at in his discussion in Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

Ok, so human senses operate on a 200 millisecond delay so I've been informed from somebody along the way. If reality does exist, as I think it does, but is incoherent and subject to near instantaneous bizarre happenings, as I usually dispute, then we can't be sure existence will be here from second to second. But as Tod Angst pointed out at Link to Tod Angst's essay, Hume mentioned that its our habit to assume induction works and will continue to work.

Hume's answer was that we had little choice but to assume that the future will be like the past..... in other words, it was a habit born of necessity - we'd starve without it! And, given that there was nothing contradictory, logically impossible or irrational to holding to the assumption, this utility of induction was seen to support the assumption on a pragmatic basis. This is a key point lost upon many people: there is nothing illogical or irrational about assuming that induction works, nor are there any rational grounds for holding that 'induction is untrustworthy'. The fact that I cannot be absolutely certain that the sun will rise tomorrow does

not give me any justification in holding that it will not rise tomorrow! This error is called the fallacy of arguing from inductive uncertainty. Tod Angst's essay

So its not irrational or illogical to use induction even if it might be possible the worst could happen in the blink of an eye. But like Hume I want to know how I can philosophically justify with absolute certainty that I will continue to exist 5 minutes from now. Sadly, Tod Angst's offered compromise of polling Bayesian probabilities that converge to unity when their summation limit approaches infinity seems cumbersome at best. While O-ism's epistemological foundationalism also seems insufficient to me. That's the rub. U of N is a necessary condition and without foundationalism of some sort is not a sufficient condition some will argue even in the face of something pointy. Although, their argument could not be taken seriously because crazy people should be treated or left alone but not taken seriously. Is the habit of assuming Uniformity of Nature sufficient for practical utilitarian purposes good enough to be called knowledge without going down the Bayesian probability road? Well Yes. It is. Its even better if we can qualify it with a solid probability of correctness. So The original argument about solipsism's falsity implying reality does have merit despite DragonFly's error-fallacy of arguing from inductive uncertainty.

Thanks for reading and I hope you make lots of money. America needs more capitalists. There are too many collectivists running about smearing working to get rich. I'll check back on this thread tomorrow. Good night.

Now, under A-time theory, everything that begins to exist has a cause

Why? That we often find causes for events doesn't mean that this always must be the case. That is the fallacy of induction. So your argument has already been derailed at this point, no need to read further...

Hello folks: This message comes to you from Robert Bumbalough. Although Dragonfly posted this comment about a year and a half ago, the issue bugs me. Please forgive me if I'm posting this in a wrong thread. I respect people who think whatever their take on Objectivism.

It is my understanding that the problem of induction refers to how to justify inductive reasoning. So I question why is inductive reasoning a fallacy? If existence is not a product of consciousness and actually does exist independent of consciousness, and if reality is casual and A does indeed equal A for objects other than quantum particles and for events other than radioactive decay or quantum vacuum fluctuations such as speculated in Hawking Radiation, then uniformity of nature is both a necessary and sufficient condition to justify induction. That a Boise Einstein Condensate will behave in peculiar manner does not mean that angular momentum is likely to stop working in the next few hours so we can be 100 percent certain that the Sun will come up tomorrow and that there does exist a logical connection between the way reality behaved in the past will be the way that it will act in the future or that there will be a future.

Hume did not know about genetics or evolution so his knowledge was incomplete regarding the swans. It is the case that black swans show up from time to time. His expectation that all swans should be white may have been sourced in Christian religious creation teachings about "Kinds" of animals. It is known that mythology has no explanatory power. I think it may be the case that thinking the uniformity of nature not a sufficient condition to justify induction is due to a dearth of knowledge about how nature works and requires omniscient knowledge that no natural causation can give rise to some effect or a lack thereof subject to inductive reasoning.

However, even if casualty of material existence is not sufficient to vivify induction, then a probability buttressed induction can be substituted that entails the uniformity of nature a necessary condition and a Bayesian probability greater than P of the cause yielding the effect a sufficient condition. Since different thinkers will assign different subjective values to prior probabilities given evidence in question to the concept or notion being inducted, the the law of large numbers will work to converge the Bayesian number generated by a bunch of different Bayes Theorem crunchers to some value as the limit of the number of computations approach infinity.

Here's link to a discussion of this angle on validating induction.

If induction cannot be justified by any means, then it would seem to me that Objectivism and any other philosophical system dependent on reality would fail at a metaphysical context and the Communists would be right. Reality cannot be known or understood by an individual and a collective consciousness by it mystical power would somehow justify big shots enslaving everyone else. Its important to me that I know a solution to what Dragonfly called the fallacy of induction. Can the reader help me out here? (Picture Bumbalough standing beside the freeway in the rain on a dark night holding up the jumper cables.) Thanks for reading and maybe helping me out. Best Wishes.

***************************************************************

10-11-2010 20:48 GMT-6; Addendum added by Robert Bumbalough. I'm probably wrong, but I'm used to that. So Here goes. While driving home tonight, I had a few thoughts about the induction fallacy thingy.

(snip. Text removed for reworking and redacting.)

Best Wishes and Regards, Thanks for Reading; I appreciate you all.

Good Morning Friends: Thank you for viewing and reading my posting. Forty people viewed the post, yet none left a comment. I acknowledge that which I have requested is hard and time consuming. Nevertheless and though its only my opinion, I'll still go out on a limb here. The importance of the status of intellectual property as morally good relative to an individual and to their activities as free traders lies in how human rational reasoning enables a person to act as a capitalist free market participant. If Mr Kinsella's challenge is left unanswered, then would it be the case that our human interaction with reality being misrepresented might induce some to advocate yet more restrictions on capital enterprise to the determent of free market participants?

Consciousness is real and comprises a set of instantiated actions undertaken by brains integrated into biological organisms capable of self generated and sustaining action. Consequently, information manipulated by consciousness into unique configurations exists having attributes. Structured information therefore qualifies for thing status. If it is a thing among the set of all other things that exist, then it is part of existence. If it is part of existence and is capable of being controlled, then it may qualify for ownership status. At aynrandlexicon.com the property rights page lists several quotations wherein Ms Rand discussed property rights. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/property_rights.html Unfortunately for the purpose of refuting Mr Kinsella, she did not offer a definition or a meaning of the concept of ownership or property. Would someone be so bold as to posit a meaning for the concepts ownership and property?

Dictionary.com reports for owner http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/owner?r=75 and for property http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/property

Wikipedia.com reports for owner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owner and for property http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property

Are these meanings acceptable?

Hello Friends and Fellow Objectivists

Sirs or Madams: First a brief disclaimer: I am not an expert in Objectivist philosophy, so I do not hold myself to be an authority. Please do not construe anything in this posting as an ad hominen attack or fallacious argumentum ad vericundum.

I respectfully request your time and effort to compose and write a rebuttal against the following.

Stephan Kinsella at http://mises.org/story/3682 has posted an essay entitled "The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide".

Would some person who is an Objectivist Philosopher who wishes a new project please critique Mr Kinsella's essay and write a rebuttal. Mr. Kinsella makes some false assertions regarding Objectivism and consequently distorts the Objectivist position while additionally making at least a few fallacies. For example in the first two paragraphs he writes:

Like many libertarians, I initially assumed intellectual property (IP) was a legitimate type of property right. But I had misgivings from the start: there was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand's purportedly principled case for IP, and something too artificial about the state's copyright and patent statutory classifications. I started practicing patent law around 1992, and the more I learned about IP, the more my doubts grew.

I finally realized that IP is incompatible with genuine property rights. (This echoed the sloughing off of my initial Randian minarchism in favor of Rothbardian anarchism, when I realized the state is aggression incarnate and cannot be justified. See my article, "What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist.")

Its good practice in a formal essay to use good diction via use of primary definitions of words. Doing so insulates the writer from charges of equivocation. If the writer wishes to use other than primary definitions she should explain that in the piece. Mr Kinsella fails to heed that warning and thus opens himself to equivocation charges. He uses the word “assumed” with its secondary meaning of [taken for granted; supposed] rather than its primary meaning of [adopted in order to deceive; fictitious; pretended; feigned:]. (Note that despite Mr Kinsella's profession of lawyering, I'm not making the obvious lawyer pun here.) This seems a small quibble, but its good writing to structure one's essay such that points are presented in sequential order of importance.

More importantly, nevertheless, is the content of meaning in the sentence: “I initially assumed intellectual property (IP) was a legitimate type of property right.” Here Mr Kinsella betrays his lack of proper metaphysics. Since existence really does exist, and human beings have direct sensory verification of that fact, then human beings don't take for [granted or supposed] that there is consciousness or instantiated things and actions because our cognitive faculty automatically integrates our sensory perception so that we can then form concepts as the basis for knowing we have conscious intellectual processes. Lacking a proper view of metaphysics, Mr Kinsella cannot fail to hold false definitions of intellectual processes and of instantiated things and actions. Yet by contrasting his faulty definition of IP with a “ legitimate type” he further reveals he holds that rights come from societal acquiescence rather than the interaction of rationally reasoning and living human beings with objective existence. This follows from reflection on the meaning of legitimate: [according to law; lawful]. Since there is no such thing as society, then it cannot grant or do or think anything including grant moral license. Appropriately then, rights can be recognized and protected by an institutionalized political body through rules establish and agreed upon by the citizens of the political body, but not granted. Mr Kinsella may have made a sort of frozen abstraction fallacy.

He continues by mentioning “property rights” and thus acknowledging that human can have moral license to own things. But by employing an unstated enthymeme that actions are not instantiated, he vivifies his stolen concept fallacy by denying the production of thought as qualifying for ownership while asserting a non-existing society can grant moral license to hold and control things.

Mr Kinsella then continued that he “had misgivings from the start.” How can that be? He does not say. Yet in one brief sentence, he dismisses all of Objectivism while neither citing any authority or even attempting to offer argument for such a case. This in my opinion forms a fallacious incidence of Argumentum Ad Vericundum wherein he holds himself as authority essentially saying he is right because he says so. Nevertheless, his misgivings may have been due to his failure to understand Objectivist metaphysics.

Mr Kinsella further elaborated, “ there was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand's purportedly principled case for IP.” This is most interesting as later in the essay he makes a utilitarian argument for self-ownership of one's body. So here he commits to the first half of a later contradiction while ignoring that Peikoff argued against Utilitarianism when he wrote:

Utilitarianism is a union of hedonism and Christianity. The first teaches man to love pleasure; the second, to love his neighbor. The union consists in teaching man to love his neighbor’s pleasure. To be exact, the Utilitarians teach that an action is moral if its result is to maximize pleasure among men in general. This theory holds that man’s duty is to serve—according to a purely quantitative standard of value. He is to serve not the well-being of the nation or of the economic class, but “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” regardless of who comprise it in any given issue. As to one’s own happiness, says [John Stuart] Mill, the individual must be “disinterested” and “strictly impartial”; he must remember that he is only one unit out of the dozens, or millions, of men affected by his actions. “All honor to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life,” says Mill, “when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world.” - Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels, 119 http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/utilitarianism.html

These objections are a serious short coming of Mr Kinsella's case. But even more puzzling is his assertion that there was “something too artificial about the state's copyright and patent statutory classifications.” Well of course they are artificial as they are man made and not part of the metaphysically given. The protections the State offers the citizens are the very justifications for the State. If the State does not protect the citizens, then it is a detriment to their existence, and they would be justified in altering the extant State or substituting a new one. But here again Mr Kinsella shows a definite lack of specificity as he does through out his essay.

However, that aside, he continued “I finally realized that IP is incompatible with genuine property rights.” The act of realizing means to grasp or understand clearly. This is an act of reasoning that is an intellectual process. Mr Kinsella thinks and holds that his thoughts cannot be property. Yet in order for his thought to exist, they must be instantiated action of a living brain. For some reason he further holds that some property can be such that a genuine right applies to it. If the product of thought cannot be property, then how can it be the instantiated action of a living brain and competent to ascertain the attributes of anything. I think this is another example of a stolen concept.

Mr Kinsella says he is in “favor of Rothbardian anarchism.” Mr Rothbard's case for anarchy, found here http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard133.html , entails that competing providers of security services, insurance and arbitration companies would be motivated to work cooperatively in order to avoid warfare and thus people could function without a State. Such cooperation would be complex enough to require those entering into agreements to write the articles of agreements into a contract or other formal recorded medium. Doing so institutionalizes the agreement which then automatically becomes a State. Here Mr Kinsella falls for the same trap into which Mr Rothbard was immersed.

Mr Kinsella then states “I realized the state is aggression incarnate and cannot be justified.” While its very true that those who operate the machinery of the State can impose very harsh excessive force against any and all at a whim, this alone is not sufficient to render the concept of the State invalid or unjustifiable. Ayn Rand explained,

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control. - “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 19 http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html

So then the State is justified by virtue of its structure allowing for objective control, but excesses of tyrants are not. Mr Kinsella confuses the State with the wrongful behavior of tyrants. I think that may be a package deal fallacy. This then is my commentary on the first two paragraphs of Mr. Kinsella's essay. There is a rich field of fallacy, a cornucopia of target opportunities there for the interested writer. It is my hope someone more versed in Objectivism than I will take Mr Kinsella to task as pretensions of intellectual superiority abound on the Mises.org comment forum.

Please forgive any misspelled words and poor grammar. Thank you for your time and effort spent reading.

Best Regards

Bell's inequality is proved by relatively elementary mathematics. It is rock solid as mathematical proofs go. He has definitely shown that if reality is local a certain set of inequalities of correlation for the outputs of double delayed measurements on entangled photons must hold. Experiment has show they do not hold. Ergo reality is non-local. There are no local hidden variables which can reproduce the actual measured correlations. Quantum theory predicts the failure of the inequalities and the measurements bear the predictions out. In so proving, Bell revealed a subtle error made by von Neuman in his important book "Grunlagen des Quantum Mechanik". Einstein's assertion of locality is just plain wrong.

The proof is rock solid. The experiments use less than one hundred percent efficient detectors, but with improving technology the double delayed entanglement correlation measurements falsify the inequalities proved by Bell (and later modified some by Bohm).

Quantum theory is on the mark and has not been falsified by any entanglement based experiment.

The Philosophers may long and lust for hidden causative factors, but they long in vain.

By the way, the finite and constant velocity of light is not a common sense notion. Common sense and unaided observation do not reveal the finite and constant speed of light. The finite speed of light in free space was first observed by Roemer in the mid 1600s and all subsequent experiments have shown light to have a constant speed in vacuo which is measured to five decimal places of precision.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Greetings Ba'al: Thank you. I admire and respect your mind and education. There is much I have to learn, and like the philosophers I too am very uncomfortable with nonlocality. But that may be because I do not understand it.

Victor Stenger wrote:

In the 1960s, John Bell proved an important theorem about hidden variables theories. He showed that any deterministic hidden variables theory capable of giving all the statistical results of standard quantum mechanics must allow for superluminal connections, in violation of Einstein's assertion that no signals can move faster than light (Bell 1964). In the jargon of the trade, deterministic hidden variables theories are nonlocal. In popularized language, they are holistic, allowing for simultaneous connections between all points in space. Bell proposed a definitive experimental test that has now been repeated many times with every increasing precision (Aspect 1982). In all cases, the results are fully consistent with quantum mechanics, requiring deterministic hidden variables, if they exist, to be nonlocal.

Instead of giving up on hidden variables because of their apparent conflict with relativity, proponents have taken Bell's theorem to imply hidden variables are even more profound, providing for the holistic universe of the mystic's fondest desires. The problem of nonlocality is dismissed by claiming that no communication of signals faster than light takes place. This conclusion can be proven to be a general property of quantum theory (Eberhard 1989), and will be true for Bohm's theory as long as Bohm's theory is consistent with quantum mechanics. But, as we have seen, Bohm's theory by itself has no unique, testable consequences. We can use Occam's razor to excise it from our discourse, and nothing substantial is changed. The notion of hidden variables has no use unless superluminal connections are observed. This has not yet happened, and so hidden variables remain a non-parsimonious alternative to conventional quantum mechanics. - Victor Stenger

Stenger also wrote about a process he calls zigzagging in spacetime as an explanation of nonlocality.

Feynman noted that whether you say you have a particle moving forward in time with negative energy, or its antiparticle moving backward in time with positive energy, is really quite arbitrary at the fundamental level. Energy conservation and the other laws of physics remain intact. By reversing the charges and momenta of the backward particles, charge and momentum conservation are unaffected.

The violation of causal precedence by tachyons, if they are ever found, will result not from their motion backward in time but from their superluminal motion. In the case of the known elementary particles, whether they move backward or forward in time they still remain within the light cone and retain causal precedence. That is, they do not exchange cause and effect from one reference frame to another. And, as I will now show, the apparent nonlocality proposed by Vigier is simply an artifact that can be understood without superluminal motion.

In Fig. 5.3, the Feynman diagram for the zigzag process is illustrated [Purists will object that the Feynman diagram is generally drawn in terms of four-momenta rather space and time. However, the space-time diagrams I show are an equivalent way of describing the same ideas. Even the purists must admit that one can go from a momentum space to a spacetime description by a canonical transformation]. As usual, the time axis is up and a single spatial axis is indicated to the right. An electron starts at point A and follows a path through spacetime at constant velocity, changing its position as time progresses. At point B, a fluctuation in the vacuum results in a momentum transfer to the electron, which turns it around so it goes backward in time. At point C, another vacuum fluctuation causes the electron to turn around again and resume its forward course in time, passing point D at the same time as the interaction B, but at a point separated by the distance BD. Thus it appears that the particle has made an instantaneous jump from B to D.

Actually, it is possible to view this nonlocal artifact without introducing motion backward in time, as illustrated in Fig. 5.4. Note that all the particles are moving in one time direction. At time C an electron positron pair is created by a vacuum fluctuation. The positron goes to the left and collides with the original electron at B where they annihilate each other, the annihilation energy disappearing into the fluctuating vacuum. In the meantime, the electron from the pair created at C continues on and is interpreted as the original electron from A transported instantaneously from B to D.

The net result, in either view, is an effectively instantaneous jump of the electron over the spacelike separation BD. At time B the electron disappears and reappears at D some distance away. A quantum jump, a "spooky action at a distance," has taken place. However, when the event is not just viewed at one instant, but over the progression of time, nothing unusual has taken place.

Note that conservation of momentum is maintained overalland no other laws of physics are violated. The impulse delta(p) at B is exactly balanced by the opposite impulse at C. The impulses at B and C individually violate momentum conservation, but this is allowed by the uncertainty principle, provided the spatial distance delta(x) between B and C is less than h/delta(p). - Victor Stenger link

What Stenger says here makes sense, (I think, but I'm not sure.), if the thing about quantum particles moving backwards through time is allowable as he claims Feynman showed. Could this be an explanation for nonlocality that eliminates "magic" from consideration?

Many Thanks

I found the following interesting linked article by Victor Stenger on the Skeptical Inquirer site.

Quantum Quackery

Dr. Stenger wrote:

Quantum mechanics, the centerpiece of modern physics, is misinterpreted as implying that the human mind controls reality and that the universe is one connected whole that cannot be understood by the usual reduction to parts.

However, no compelling argument or evidence requires that quantum mechanics plays a central role in human consciousness or provides instantaneous, holistic connections across the universe. Modern physics, including quantum mechanics, remains completely materialistic and reductionistic while being consistent with all scientific observations.

The apparent holistic, nonlocal behavior of quantum phenomena, as exemplified by a particle's appearing to be in two places at once, can be understood without discarding the commonsense notion of particles following definite paths in space and time or requiring that signals travel faster than the speed of light.

No superluminal motion or signalling has ever been observed, in agreement with the limit set by the theory of relativity. Furthermore, interpretations of quantum effects need not so uproot classical physics, or common sense, as to render them inoperable on all scales-especially the macroscopic scale on which humans function. Newtonian physics, which successfully describes virtually all macroscopic phenomena, follows smoothly as the many-particle limit of quantum mechanics. And common sense continues to apply on the human scale.

Unfortunately, what we call electrons, for example, sometimes act like waves and other times act like particles. This means that the distinction between particles and waves appears as a human perceptual artifact.

Hello GS: Sir one interesting thing about double slit experiments is that if the procedure is done in a sealed room without an observer or a recording device connected to the detectors stationed on the slits, then the interference pattern still breaks down. This indicates the phenomena is not a "a human perceptual artifact". Only measurement need be present without conscious observation to bring about the effect. (This is a very strong argument against the existence of an omniscient god, btw. Such a being would necessarily have to know δX and δP. The breakdown of the interference pattern when the detectors are turned on is positive proof god is not there.)

Also interesting is Oxford Physicist Joy Christian who has demonstrated a disproof of Bell's Theorem. If Christian's work withstands critique, as it appears to be doing, then it is very possible to construct a deterministic local variable theory that makes the same predictions as standard QM.

Christian wrote:

Contrary to the received wisdom, Bell’s theorem is not a threat to local realism. Neither is it a curb on determinism. The counterexample constructed in the provides a fully deterministic, common cause explanation of the EPR-Bohm correlations. In fact, it is hard to imagine a more simple common cause than the one on which the counterexample is based—namely, the intrinsic freedom of choice in the initial orientation of the orthogonal directions in the Euclidean space. In the present paper we have further consolidated the conclusions of by demonstrating that the exact, locally causal model for the EPR-Bohm correlations constructed therein satisfies at least eight essential requirements, arising from either the predictions of quantum mechanics or the premises of Bell’s theorem. These requirements, as listed in the Introduction, include the locality condition of Bell, and hence by respecting them our model fully endorses the view that the quantum mechanical description of reality is incomplete. Moreover, since this view is reinforced by three different local realistic derivations of the violations of the CHSH inequality, and since all three of them agree with the corresponding predictions of quantum mechanics in quantitatively precise manner, the statistical interpretation of the entangled singlet state becomes the most natural interpretation of this state, as anticipated by Einstein. It is therefore hoped that—strengthened by the results of the present paper—the counterexample of would rejuvenate the search for a unified, locally causal basis for the whole of physics, as envisaged by Einstein.

This means that Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen are vindicated and QM is not a complete model of reality provided Christian's work stands.

Here is a link to Gideon Reich's blog where he discusses in detail the history of this controversy.

Link to Armchair Intellectual Blog

I think it is reasonable to assume that the stimuli would have existed before the evolution of the nervous system, but there is a huge difference between stimuli and objects.

Mr general semanticist could you elaborate on this by describing the concepts you here mentioned? Could you also describe the concepts of existence, identity, consciousness as well? Thanks.

Best and Good

RB

Good Evening Friends: It is my hope all are well, living long, prospering and deservedly so.

Today I googled up a recently published paper that clarifies Bell's Theorem. Written by A D Boozer of the Department of Physics at California Institute of Technology. His paper is intended to clarify the issues of hidden variables, Bell's Theorem, and nonlocality. Boozer notes that QM theories can be constructed that are deterministic and use local hidden variables. Here is the link to the paper published in the European Journal of Physics. (Users must register for free access.)

Hidden variable theories and quantum

nonlocality

Boozer concludes with:

We have clarified the meaning and implications of Bell’s theorem by showing how it applies

to a simple model system, and by constructing three example hidden variable theories. The

discussion should help illustrate two important points that are often misunderstood. First,

Bell’s theorem does not rule out all hidden variable theories; rather, it imposes a constraint on

the types of hidden variable theories that can be constructed. Second, Bell’s theorem does not

even rule out local hidden variable theories unless it is supplemented with additional physical

principles; as we have seen, it is logically possible to construct local hidden variable theories

that do agree with quantum mechanics. We described one such local hidden variable theory in

section 8, and noted that this type of theory is usually ruled out on the grounds that it requires

advanced action.

Boozers result shows that an irrational faith in quantum indeterminacy and nonlocality used to inform a commitment to idealism or nominalism is unwarranted and unjustified. Deterministic local hidden variable theory that makes the same predictions as standard QM are possible as is confirmed by de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) theory.

If this is wrong, could you clarify in more precise language what you believe to be responsible for the forms of things we behold in our smudging manner and somehow appear to identify?

Yes I can explain. Objects exist as a result of the interaction between our nervous system and the stimuli acting upon it. The nervous system integrates or abstracts from the the stimuli to produce what we refer to as objects.

Thank you Mr. general semanticist for that concise summary. Strongly suspecting you've answered the following question before, I wish to assure you, I'm not trying to be disrespectful despite the possible appearance as such due to simplistic issues involved.

First a definition: I'm using the concept of all that is as existence. This is the broadest of concepts encompassing all that is or occurs including all mass, matter, energy, actions, fields, potentials, space, and duration.

My question is what is the origin of existence, if "Objects exist as a result of the interaction between our nervous system and the stimuli acting upon it." then wouldn't it be the case that there would have been no existence prior to the evolution of our species or some species of organic beings with a central nervous system and a brain that was capable of awareness of existence? Was there no existence prior to evolution of life capable of conscious awareness?

Thank you for taking time to read my scribblings.

Best Regards and Wishes

Unfortunately, what we call electrons, for example, sometimes act like waves and other times act like particles. This means that the distinction between particles and waves appears as a human perceptual artifact.

What is unfortunate about that?

If we could measure down to Planck Length we would probably find that electrons are not really point charges, but highly localized fields. Wave-Particle duality is a function of the crudeness of our measurements and the limitations of our mathematical ability.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Greetings Friends: In 1997 Travis Norsen penned Berkeley and Quantum Mechanics (Copyright © 1997) His very informative essay addresses the distortion posted by Mr general semanticist. Norsen points out how Physics by QM has adopted idealism as its control belief. The fact is that measurements have a physical casual effect on tiny particles.

Norsen wrote (and I'm only quoting a brief fair use passage) that:

There does exist a realist explanation and interpretation of the result. Because the measurement process is an interaction between the particle-to-be-measured and some sort of measuring device, it makes sense that the measurement should disrupt the state of the particle in some way. This is just an application of the fact that a measurement necesarily takes place via some physical agency. In shining light on the particle to discover its location, for example, the light itself imparts some (generally unknown and unpredictable) momentum to the particle. Similarly, the physical process involved in measuring the momentum of a particle will generally displace the particle in some unknown and unpredictable way. The particle exists in some particular state which, because of the nature of the measurement process, cannot be known to us precisely. Seen in this light, the uncertainty relation is understood to be a natural outcome of the physical identity of the measurement process itself, and not a failure of the particle to actually possess definite properties. Under this interpretation, our knowledge is limited, but the facts of reality remain, independently of the state of our knowledge.

Mr general semanticist is also ignoring that which I posted in post #18 last night. I bears repeating.

Denis describes how de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) theory explains quantum phenomena without resort to indeterminism. .... The following newer work supports Denis' assertions. Time in relativistic and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics by H. Nikolic

To Summarize:

Measurement effects account for some or all uncertainty.

de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) theory explains quantum phenomena without resort to indeterminism

Consequently there is no justification for adopting idealism as Norsen explained.

Cheers and Best Regards