Mindy Newton

Mindy,

I do not find ambiguity in Paul's statement, although some of his language usage tends toward enshrining jargon and that usually puts me in a coma .

I understand him not to be a relativist with respect to metaphysics, of which he holds there is only one reality and it is the same for all of us, but he is a relativist in a different sense toward epistemology, noting that people see reality through different sets of language, ideas and focuses. This makes them perceive reality (the same reality) in vastly different manners, often to the point of expressing their perspectives in diametrically opposite ways. People often say essentially the same thing (underneath), but appear to be at odds (on the surface).

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the fundament of his thinking as I understand it. The rest builds on these premises. Also, I sense in Paul an interest in trying to see from perspectives that are different than his own for the simple pleasure of experiencing what it feels like.

Michael

My problem isn't that he is a relativist--whether he plans to be or not, but that he insults the intelligence and integrity of the people he is talking to when he resorts to such as: "You would believe that, from your 'metacontext.'" And suggests that being convinced of anything, no matter how well supported that belief is, blinds one to certain facts!! That's a deal-breaker when it comes to discussions. I don't think Paul realizes that that is what his "exploratory" theory amounts to. I would wish him to re-think using terms before he understands them, and can, if necessary, explain them. Also, I would very much like to convince him to eschew asserting biases in his opponents when he is not prepared to substantiate the claim.

I would much rather try to get him to see what he's implicitly doing than just ignore what he has to say.

= Mindy

I am not a relativist. Nor am I an absolutist. This is a false dichotomy created by too strict an alliance with what I called above, the conceptual epistemic method. The more dialectical approach (read context creating and synthesizing approach) of the contextual epistemic method would hold that we each occupy a relative physical, psychological and philosophical perspective of an absolute reality. Our choice and use of metacontexts helps us to avoid false dichotomies. Taking a position based on a false dichotomy and trying to justify it is a waste of time and effort. So is arguing with someone from the opposite pole of the dichotomy. It is not just relativism. It is dialectics.

Paul

In the above, emphases are added.

"I am not a relativist...It is not just relativism." "...we each occupy a relative...perspective of an absolute reality."

I can't tell what you think you are from the above paragraph.

"This is a false dichotomy..." if it is, prove it is. "...created by too strict an alliance with what I call the conceptual epistemic method..."(paraphrased, see above.) This is another claim without substantiation. It is also an attempt to avoid backing up your claims, by disenfranchising the point of view you disagree with! It's like an ad hominem, (though I don't know if, technically, it is.) It is like saying, "That's what XTZs believe, don't give it another thought!"

You notice that the "false dichotomy" of relativism vs. absolutism was nowhere used until you began railing against it. That's called a straw man argument.

"The more dialectical approach (context-creation and synthesizing)"--again, paraphrased, see above for full quote--here, again, you are using terms you know are not defined for the audience you are speaking to. That's argument from intimidation.

"Our choice...of metacontexts helps us avoid false dichotomies" (paraphrased) Again, you are explaining yourself with terms you yourself can't define, and which you know are (at best) confusing to your audience. Beyond that, you are again attempting to intimidate with jargon, and, the statement, even though only partly definite, is false on its face! If "metacontexts" are different perspectives and/or criteria of evidence, they would tend more to create dichotomies, (different perspectives tend to make a single thing seem different,) and they would be particularly powerless to expose false ones (remembering, I hope, that not all dichotomies are false.)

My point is that good, old-fashioned reason, in the form of logical arguments, presenting facts and analyses in a straight-forward, "western epistemic" way is fully adequate. It is fully adequate because it is based on a sound metaphysics. It is inclusive; there's not a part of reality it doesn't reach.

Your new way of thinking about things is just tired old errors, (some of which I named, above,) dressed up in new jargon. Until it proves itself, it is nonsense. Its value is a legitimate topic of discussion, mind you, but that discussion must examine "pancritical rationalism," before it could become acceptable to use it.

For now, "pancritical rationalism" should be a topic, not a tool.

= Mindy

Essentially, then, you are a troll. I don't know what value you bring to our table. I don't see how you pay for your discourse or why people here want to give you something for what seems to be nothing in return. For Objectivism, you are a Black Hole.

--Brant

There is more to anyone's perspective than is contained in Objectivism, even Objectivists. GS explores that something more. This makes him more of a star that emits light in a spectrum that Objectivist can't see without the right lenses. This can make him seem like a black hole for he appears to have a gravitational attraction without any visible light.

paul

In this, I strongly disagree. If you have a complaint as to Objectivism's adequacy, state it. I don't see that GS, or you, are exploring anything except issues you haven't yet satisfactorily understood, yourselves. You are now trying simply to disqualify your opponents. "...a spectrum that Objectivist can't see..." is exactly what "metacontext" seemed to be aiming at all along.

Instead of making a claim, or an argument, and then discussing it frankly, pancritical rationalism reserves the right to answer its opponents simply by saying they "come from a different metacontext." It's just like the old standard, "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me," relativism that attempts to save face when in a failed position.

All joking--from past posts--aside, I have seen no shred of usefulness in the term "metacontext," and I believe the concept of a context has been abused beyond meaningfulness, especially in talk of creating contexts, in the posts here on pancritical rationalism.

That doesn't mean, IMO, you shouldn't continue to "explore" it, etc. But your accusations that people here disagree with you because of a fault in their ability to comprehend, (our need for a "lens," above) or due to a "bias" toward "a traditional western epistemic" represents a pernicious sort of bad faith. If I don't agree with you, point out my error, and we'll argue it out; don't disenfranchise my intellect. I suspect I'll seem too violent in my feelings about this, but that sort of rhetoric is censorial; it cuts at the root of civilization!

I asked you to explain what you meant by "metacontext," etc. I didn't get an explanation--a response, but not an explanation. You say you don't know exactly what these terms mean. OK, but then you should avoid weilding them in discussions, no?

GS was run to ground not long ago. He seems to have no memory of it. What, then, is the point of carrying on a discussion with him? I guess that's the "troll" business. Live and learn.

= Mindy

I can see if you're going for aesthetics, but there is still a problem in the long run because that weight loss won't last.

The human body is very, very efficient. For instance, the more water you drink, the less water your body will have to store (because it's getting a reliable external source). That's why you see fitness-minded folks drinking tons of it.

As well as water, the body will keep stored calories (fat) to a minimum if it's getting a reliable external source. Small meals (6 is the trend) throughout the day help stabilize your body's metabolism. Because of the low caloric intake, the body will not need to store excesses. The key here is to exercise to reduce the current fat stores of your body along with the daily food intake.

The aesthetics approach you're taking might be well and good on the short term, but it's likely that your muscle composition is taking the brunt of the punishment vs. your fat stores (the fat is the energy reserve, so used as last resort).

What does that all mean? Well, the one-a-day meals are likely getting stored as body fat (since it's not getting a reliable external source). Your metabolism is in the valley vs. the peak. If you do this over an extended period of time, your body won't adapt quickly when going to a regular diet again. It will still be thinking "I need to keep these calories because I'm not getting enough." This contributes to the quick weight gain crash dieters experience.

~ Shane

I think you misunderstand, Shane. I was saying to add those snacks to your meal-time intake.

= Mindy

Roger, I believe you somewhat misportray Ray & Radcliffe. They don't say entities don't exist apart from our cognitive processes. Rather they hold that more important metaphysically are edges, to wit:

To understand how we form our concepts of entities, we must ask how we distinguish entities from the stuff around them. One basic premise that would seem to be indisputable is that an entity is a unity. A unity is some part of reality that is bounded by an edge. The question immediately arises,

To what in reality do we refer when we use the concept EDGE?

We argue that it refers to the results of the act of selective attention whereby the subject distinguishes some portion of reality from everything else. Because we construe all entities with edges that--whatever other metaphysical properties they may trace out--are created by the subject's attention, all entities are equal. Some are more interesting than others, but all are bounded by edges of the same type and origin.

I happen to agree with Rand. In the Appendix to ITOE [....]

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

It looks to me like there's a metaphysics/epistemology mix-up, at least in Ray & Radcliffe's formulation, if they indeed "hold that more important metaphysically are edges" [MJ; my bold emphasis]. I'd say that organization is what makes something an entity, whereas edges are the primary means by which "we distinguish entities" [R&R], both visually and tactilely.

Ellen

___

Ellen, I (think I) agree with you.

The edge of an entity is its boundary(s). It is the limit(s) of the spatial extension of the entity. Just as the beginning and end of an event are the limits/boundaries/edges of the temporal extent of the event. The edge of an entity is thus an ~attribute of an attribute~ of an entity. It is what limits the extent of the entity, and is thus what we focus on to "mark off" the entity in our field of awareness. But there has to be an entity first in order for us to be able to use this attribute of it (actually this attribute of its attribute of spatial extension) in order to grasp it perceptually. There has to be a ~something~ in order for us to perceive its ~limit~ as setting it apart from ~everything else~ in our perceptual field.

I still say (to Merlin et al) that Ray & Radcliff (and David Jilk in JARS) were arguing that ~all~ entities are simply products of our awareness of reality, and that entities do not exist independently of our awareness. All that exists is whatever-it-is, and entities are the form in which we perceptually grasp this whatever-it-is. That is why (they argue) that there are no metaphysically privileged entities (such as mountains vs. piles of dirt, the latter not being an entity according to Rand).

REB

I don't get the need to reify "edges" for entities. Edges have a large role in perceptual psychology, but to retro-fit all physical things with edges seems backwards. Take a child's ball. Does it have an actual edge? It does perceptually, against a contrasting background. Put the ball against a background that provides no contrast whatsoever, and is there an edge? The ball has a surface. Outwardly, it stops at its surface. Does it also have an edge?

It seems like this is a metacontextual error (DID i just say that? ) of interpreting an epistemological fact as a metaphysical one.

Different point: Surely we all recognize that a pile of dirt is an entity, it's just not a mountain. A pile of dirt has characteristics over and above those of the dirt it consists of. It can stop a rolling log, or shield your fire from the breeze. Isn't a pile of dirt exactly like a valley or society?

= Mindy

For Pete's sake, Bob, it would be taught in school. No implication?

Right. It won't be taught in a class on creation myths (an innocent hypothetical that won't happen), but as as a serious alternative to evolution, don't kid yourself.

Even if it were taught in a class on myths, the implication of being part of the curriculum is that it has intellectual merit. I know how poor curriculula are these days, believe me, but I still wouldn't call such material in any way "innocent," if it is assigned a place in school.

Including"Intelligent Design" alongside evolution would grant it credibility it cannot rightfully claim! Nonsense can't safely be interjected in the classroom. An education is supposed to be important to one's whole future, and thus worth working hard and long for. The truth of that must be manifest in the coursework. A "throw-away" attitude towards the student's time and effort is a killer, motivationally and intellectually.

= Mindy

Baal, you missed the point. The question is, are both the doughnut, and the doughnut hole entities? Then you can argue about why some entities are more filling.

= Mindy

An entity is something that is. There are things that are, but not in the real physical world. Like points and lines, for example. These are artifacts of our intellect or figments of our imagination.

Ba'al Chatzaf

It was a joke. I'll be Aspbergers-obvious :poke: next time!

I'm a "Tardy Poster." :yes:

I'm a "genuine analyst." I need to "try to embrace the imaginative, creative part of my personality more often," to "try moving beyond the things I find comfortable." I have many friends (not true) but I only trust a few. I should be cautious when judging people, and I need to be more intuitive.

Sounds like Paul Mawdsley's analysis of me.

= Mindy

Here is a recipe for those yummy chicken satay. They can be served as an appetizer or main course. It is very good served with a cucumber salad.

Chicken Satay

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 tablespoons light soy sauce

PEANUT SAUCE

1/4 cup trans-fat free peanut butter

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 packet sugar substitute (Splenda)

add up to 1/4 cup water (to desired consistency)

sprinkle of cayenne pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

To make peanut sauce: Place the ingredients in a bowl and stir well. Microwave for 30 seconds.

Pound chicken breasts between pieces of plastic wrap to a uniform thickness. Rub each breast with about 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce. Then season both sides of each breast with a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Place in a skillet and grill a couple minutes per side. Remove and cut into strips or cubes and thread onto skewers. Dip into peanut sauce and enjoy.

Cucumber Salad

1 cucumber, sliced thin (best if sliced, salted, and placed in ice water for 30 minutes before using)

1/2 red onion, sliced thin

Rice or apple cider vinegar to cover

1 packet Splenda

Salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

Let marinate for at least 1 hour or more before eating.

This sounds delicious! I wonder if you know a recipe for Chicken Lo Mein?

= Mindy

I have a weight-loss scheme that works for me. Assuming you are getting a reasonable amount of exercize: I eat an egg white (hard-boiled) and drink a can of V-8 juice mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Then, I'm just not very hungry at mealtimes or in-between. I enjoy these two things, but even if you don't, you can get them down pretty quickly, and V-8 now comes in those juice flavors. I eat meals normally, but conservatively, and the egg and V-8 are added on.

Another one that's surprising but works is to drink something like "Ensure" a couple of times a day, then just eat conservatively. It has a couple hundred calories, but gives you complete nutrition, which tends to cut your appetite. If you don't eat a balanced meal, your body will "crave." You feel hungry, but craving isn't specific enough to make you want the needed food-stuffs. You snack, but still feel hungry, because you didn't eat what your body needed. A multi-vitamin is also a very good idea, for the same reason.

A comment about that one-meal-a-day diet that loses two lbs. a day-- a lb. of body fat consists of about two days' worth of calories. Other than water-weight, which, of course, you just gain back, there isn't a normal-life way to lose at that rate, and Kat's right, of course, that it is very dangerous.

= Mindy

When you say, "the work of Northrop is similar to this," in reply to Paul's comment about alternative "epistemic perspectives," one of which is Ayn Rand's, aren't you implying that you are familiar with Rand's epistemology?

No, I'm not. For the record, the only thing I have read by Rand is what I've found on this list and other places on the net. I am not interested in reading Rand, I am interested having discourse with people on this list.

You would have to be familiar with it to claim it is similar to Northrop's view, right?

Yes, you would.

Essentially, then, you are a troll. I don't know what value you bring to our table. I don't see how you pay for your discourse or why people here want to give you something for what seems to be nothing in return. For Objectivism, you are a Black Hole.

--Brant

I have to disagree, Brant. Nothing comes out of a black hole.

=Mindy

That woman thinks that creationism should be taught in public schools!!!

As long as it is not in a science class, I see no problem. It could be taught in a class on creation myths along with turtles standing on the backs of turtles. As long as there is no implication that the Christian creation myth is in any way factual, I see no problem.

Ba'al Chatzaf

For Pete's sake, Bob, it would be taught in school. No implication?

= Mindy

We start with empty file folders (whether you consider these to be conceptual entities themselves or contexts that integrate entities and their properties-- all a matter of whether you are applying a part-to-whole or a whole-to-part orientation of consciousness; Rand's vs Popper's epistemic perspectives or everyone vs MSK's perspective; it's the same principle as wave/particle duality) all the time. Starting with an empty file folder is the nature of the academic approach to learning: here is a new word, "epistemology"; now go and figure out what it means-- i.e.: fill the file folder with a concept by using these authors as a guide.

Interesting Paul, as I think I mentioned here before, the work of Northrop is similar to this. He describes 2 basic kinds of concepts, concept by intuition, roughly equivalent to an idea formed from observation, like a pencil, and concept by postulation, which is an idea formed from a symbolic description, like a quark. Then there is a constant interplay between these concepts in our brain which he calls epistemic correlation.

GS,

When you say, "the work of Northrop is similar to this," in reply to Paul's comment about alternative "epistemic perspectives," one of which is Ayn Rand's, aren't you implying that you are familiar with Rand's epistemology? You would have to be familiar with it to claim it is similar to Northrop's view, right?

= Mindy

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

Is the donut more real, as real or less real than its hole?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I don't know how your question relates to what I wrote. I think "as real." But maybe you should ask Homer Simpson.

Baal, you missed the point. The question is, are both the doughnut, and the doughnut hole entities? Then you can argue about why some entities are more filling.

= Mindy

You now have a file folder for "metacontext." Who knows, you may find some existent to fill it with some day so it won't seem like such an empty concept to you.

Paul

You can't open a file folder without a concept, an idea of a kind of thing. You can't just take a word and label a space and expect ever to file anything beyond new occurrences of that word in speech. I, also, am against jargon.

= Mindy

A very flattering picture you paint of me. I assume you are describing me as the one who has a file folder without a concept and who is using (meaningless or empty) jargon. This certainly doesn't match my self-concept.

You say I don't have a concept for the metacontext file folder? Wrong. It is an idea of an epistemic process. All we have established is that you and Roger don't have a concept for it; or are you claiming clairvoyance? It's only jargon if it's an empty concept. It's not.

The interesting thing is I have seen evidence of the existence of this epistemic process in your writing; whether you have isolated it as a concept or not. There are two sides you have expressed: one is committed to a fixed central context and looking to justify your position (which you are doing here and which Rand did in developing Objectivism); and the other is looking to learn and grow through creative context building and systematically eliminating errors through exposure to criticism and falsification (the process I assume was necessary to produce your wonderful insights into romantic visibility and is the essence of scientific progress). These are two different epistemic metacontexts, or orientations of consciousness, which determine how you process information based on different assumptions. The first is based on an assumed need to take a fortified offensive/defensive stand relative to competing positions (take a look at the history of philosophy). The second is based on the assumption of personal security, a playfulness in generating new ways of looking at things and an open and defenseless position relative to criticism and falsification (this most commonly occurs within the privacy of our own minds but is made systematic in the ideal of scientific testing and peer review).

It's unfortunate people generally assume the need to take a fortified defensive stand relative to competing positions. Dialogue would be much more productive if people could get past this. Psychologically, it's because we attach our egos to the position rather than to the process of generating and reevaluating positions. Philosophically, it's because we commit ourselves to the first epistemic metacontext rather than the second.

Now it's time for me to do more reading than writing. If I'm still clear as mud, so be it.

Paul

No, Paul, I was talking about Roger, to whom you made the remark about now having a file folder. I'm all for exploring and discovering, but I have a mulish attitude against new terminology when it doesn't seem to be accompanied by new facts or new formulations. Call it (for my sake) a taste for parsimony.

When words are used in a puzzling way, or when a set of new terms shows up in a context I'm familiar with, my (mulish) tail starts swishing. "Pancritical rationalism," "metacontext," "subcontext," and "creating contexts" were all crowding into a space barely big enough to round-pen a gelding!

When I read that "metacontext" was an attitude (read bias) toward a new "position," I felt like I'd been rode hard and put away wet! (It's late here, and my pre-frontal cortex has already gone to sleep.) "Metacontext" was supposedly a term on a par with "context," but here it was being used as a claim of bias towards certain philosophical stances. (I'm taking this not from your use of that term, but from the link you provided.)

I agree that people can have one or the other of those two mind-sets when arguing, and that it is a good thing to know about it. But that perspective is psychological, not philosophical. While I might seem to sometimes have one attitude, and at other times the other, how can you be certain that there are underlying "assumptions" at work? How do you know that I am not sincere in what I'm saying? I know my criterion for entertaining psychological explanations for what someone says (or does) is: manifest irrationality. If the person flies in the face of his own knowledge, or the explicit factual context, he's not thinking or reasoning, and knowledge or truth are not his goal. And I hold that one must always err on the side of caution in coming to this judgment.

Perhaps, if you point out one or two instances of my falling into (or out of?) a metacontext, I could see if I can spot the change. I wonder if your metacontext isn't just dissing my metacontext...

Anyway, I did not mean any disrespect for you, Paul, assuming, that is, that I may continue to abstract you from pancritical rationalism.

=Mindy :angel:

(And thanks for the kind words.)

((Clear as mud? What's a little mud when you've got a muck bucket nearby!))

Thanks for bringing de Bono up Mindy. This is helping me to work through my ideas.

You're welcome. I do see your point. His approach is somewhat undisciplined, fails to be thorough, misses fundamentals, and, I find, is overly dependent on jargon.

He is deliberately formulating down-and-dirty heuristics for problem-solving and critical reviews. He self-consciously chooses jargon as labels for these heuristics. The influence of marketing considerations comes through loud and clear. He However, I think he's on the right track by emphasizing alternatives, exploration of the "problem space," etc., and in making explicit some hindrances to effective thinking--like hurry or familiarity/comfort with an alternative.

I'm debating with myself whether his techniques--like the six hats, the "pros, cons, and interesting" categories, etc., belong to thinking proper, or to a slightly higher level, such as the "critical thinking" I distinguished in my early post on this thread. His "matrix" of characteristics of a product, and the exercize of permutating them in search of a new product, or product improvement is a good one, I think.

I originally read his book on lateral thinking long ago, and didn't think it was very original. I will look at his subsequent work more closely. If I find anything particularly interesting, I'll mention it here.

= Mindy

I was wondering how you look on de Bono's work?

= Mindy

If I could, I'd change the thread title to "Rain" since Mindy hijacked it

Sorry, but I don't think anybody's seen your movie.

I'd love to hear how you guys would state the theme of Rain.

= Mindy

One can absolutely prove that an argument is false.

=Mindy

I don't agree.

Because...? :logik:

= Mindy

That's possible, English is not my native language, but I found some 1300 hits for the phrase, so I thought it would be ok... Hey, I even found a quote of McCain in the New York Times with that phrase!

Well, I certainly never suspected that English was not your native language! "I learned long ago..." would be fine, or "I have learned..." or "I had learned, long ago," (can't recall if it is past perfect, or plusperfect, or what, but your verb tense contradicted your adverbial phrase.)

= Mindy

Actually standard. One presents their evidence/reasoning and then presents their conclusion drawn from it. One cannot convince someone of something without stating what that is, their conclusion. And one cannot convince someone of something without presenting their evidence/reasoning for it.

Well you should say your position still stands and so does mine. It's not possible to say either position is absolutely "proven". At best we can accept the premise or not as stated.

One can absolutely prove that an argument is false.

=Mindy

You now have a file folder for "metacontext." Who knows, you may find some existent to fill it with some day so it won't seem like such an empty concept to you.

Paul

You can't open a file folder without a concept, an idea of a kind of thing. You can't just take a word and label a space and expect ever to file anything beyond new occurrences of that word in speech. I, also, am against jargon.

= Mindy

Ray's essay is fundamentally not about boundaries, but about the metaphysical status of entities. Her essay, "Entities, Edges, and Existence," co-written with Thomas Radcliffe and delivered in June 2000 to the TOC Advanced Seminar, was explicitly aimed at arguing, against Rand, that there are no metaphysically privileged entities that exist as entities apart from our cognitive processes. Quoting from the opening paragraphs of the Ray/Radcliffe essay:

We argue that, for some part of reality to be classifiable under the concept ENTITY, it is both a necessary and sufficient condition that there be a knowing subject who abstracts that part from the rest of reality by an act of selective attention. On this view, all entities are equal. This view is in direct disagreement with Rand's contention that "metaphysically they (entities) are not all equal" (IOE, p. 273). Apparently, it is her view in at least part of the discussion portion of the second edition of

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

, that entities are unities in virtue of a uniting principle that is independent of any conscious subject’s awareness or attention. She grants entitihood to mountains, but not to piles of dirt...It is our contention that this distinction is not consistent with

a fully-developed Objectivist epistemology

, and that in fact the distinction requires a concession to realism with regard to universals. We shall nonetheless refer to this as "The Received Objectivist View", to be distinguished from the fully

conceptualist

version of Objectivism we put forward here. [underscoring added]

Roger, I believe you somewhat misportray Ray & Radcliffe. They don't say entities don't exist apart from our cognitive processes. Rather they hold that more important metaphysically are edges, to wit:

To understand how we form our concepts of entities, we must ask how we distinguish entities from the stuff around them. One basic premise that would seem to be indisputable is that an entity is a unity. A unity is some part of reality that is bounded by an edge. The question immediately arises,

To what in reality do we refer when we use the concept EDGE?

We argue that it refers to the results of the act of selective attention whereby the subject distinguishes some portion of reality from everything else. Because we construe all entities with edges that--whatever other metaphysical properties they may trace out--are created by the subject's attention, all entities are equal. Some are more interesting than others, but all are bounded by edges of the same type and origin.

I happen to agree with Rand. In the Appendix to ITOE a professor asks her: “On the metaphysical priority, isn't there a basic classification of things as entities which comes before all these special cases, rather than seeing them all as equal?”

She replies: “Right, they're not all equal metaphysically. A valley, for instance, or society—those epistemologically can be regarded as entities. But a mountain is a primary entity; the valley is not, it's a dependent—it's actually an indentation between two mountains if you regard them together. But then what is the primary entity? Recall what we said about the pile of dirt vs. the mountain: it has to be a unit of some kind, tied or welded or integrated together, which has certain properties, and with actions being possible to it as a whole. Such as, you can climb a mountain, but you can't do anything with the pile of dirt, unless you glue it together.”

What Rand seems to appeal to here is the idea of unity. That is my thesis as well, with the addition that it is organization that provides the foundation of unity. Ray & Radcliffe seem to hold that edges provide the foundation of entities. However, I have a partial problem with that. Edges exist within entities as well as distinguish an entity with its background.

Very interesting.

One might point out that more abstract nouns, like "valley," always have a metaphysically primary description also. A valley is a piece of land. When there are two mountains on either side of it, that piece of land is sheltered from cross-winds, and its weather pattern is affected by the mountains, and it receives the run-off from the near mountain slopes, etc. Thus we need a term for such pieces of land, because they all share these features, which have practical significance for us. "Valley" comes into use. The piece of land between the mountains is metaphysically as primary as the mountains. But it's being a valley is dependent on the mountains. The mountains could be removed, and the piece of land would remain, but the valley would be gone. In fact, one mountain could be removed, and the rest remain, but the valley would be gone.

I think, fundamentally, Ray and Radcliffe are missing the point of what Rand said. She pointed clearly to the epistemological nature of the distinction. A valley or a society are grammatically entities, because they are nouns, they are used to refer. And they are real things, not just different names, in that they have "new" characteristics. However, they aren't additional existents to their constituents. There isn't the land between the mountains, and the valley. There are not the twenty thousand people living in College Park, plus the society, College Park. When we say the child is the father of the man, we aren't talking about three members of homo sapiens. We're talking about three developmental stages, each of which involves distinctive characteristics. (The metaphorical meaning depends on this.) That is their status as metaphysically derivative. The child will cease to exist without anyone dying. A forest has no additional roots to those of its trees. Still, a forest is a home to various wildlife only because its trees are closely related.

It isn't about things, it's about language. It's about language that recognizes entities. It points out that that language has two categories, call them simple and complex. The term "entity" refers to both simple and complex things. Complex things involve simple things. Complex things have characteristics their simple things didn't.

If I read them correctly, Ray and Radcliffe are thinking Rand is proposing that some existents aren't as "real" as others. That's not her view, IMO.

On a more technical level, Ray and Radcliffe commit a logical howler in their statement of the problem, when they move from how all entities are abstracted to the conclusion that all entities are therefore metaphysically equal. Being abstracted in the same way does not confer metaphysical status, of course, so this is technically, implicitly, a case of primacy of consciousness. They re-offend in this way when discussing "edges." So, Roger, your take, which Merlin disputes, is logically astute, even though Merlin is right that it isn't what they meant to say.

Their statement of the conditions necessary and sufficient to identify an entity is also problematic, but I doubt that's of interest.

= Mindy

I've learned long ago to save intermediate versions of a post to avoid such disasters...

"I have learned long ago?" That's an odd grammatical mos.

All I can say about morality generally is that it is a means of social control, from the family to the state.

--Brant

It's not clear to me, Mindy, why I need morality to figure that out...

--Brant

When you figure that out, you are practicing ethics. Assuming you are thorough in considering long-term and short-term consequences, in thinking about collateral effects, etc., you simply are being moral. That's it.

The reason we write it out as a "code" is that there are plenty of choices and decisions out there that are hard to figure out. Principles of moral conduct, or a hierarchy of reasoned values to consult makes it easier to know what you'd choose if you were omniscient.

= Mindy

Now you are simply talking about morality, not necessarily Objectivist morality. I know a lot about the former. There is not so much to understand about the latter. That's because the former takes in human beings in all their complexities. The latter is essentially an Ayn Rand fantasy projection for her heroes redacted for her followers. It's not so much wrong as so much not enough. All choices have an essential moral component; that's the nature of choice and morality.

--Brant

Exactly, that's morality. Yes, choices are "moral" because "moral" is the term for good choices.

Whether or not Objectivist Ethics is adequate is another discussion, right?

= Mindy