Mindy Newton

Good and timely analysis, Logic. Did you notice the vacant formulation, "...all we can know...is our internal abstractions..." read that: "all we can know is what we can know." That's one logical glitch. Then that can be unpacked into assumptions that themselves are wide open to criticism: Knowledge via abstraction is invalid, or inadequate; corollary: Knowledge must be un-processed; and, more interestingly: There is more to know than our knowledge gives us! GS: Ted doesn't speak for all of us. =Mindy

Barbara, Thanks for that analysis, and the anecdote. I don't think complementary traits prevent people from being in love. I think learning from anyone is good, and from one's lover, one can learn the most profound things--it's the most profound relationship possible. However, as a technical point of theory, I disagree that having "complementary" aspects is either necessary to falling in love, or enhances falling in or being in love. Rather, I think being as much alike as possible induces high personal regard. Calling these sorts of traits "stengths or weaknesses" is just a technicality, it isn't condemnatory. Perhaps, as we are all, practically, beset with some weaknesses, it approaches a universal that people with complementary traits hit it off. Common "weaknesses" actually lead to greater psy. vis., and can be illustrative in the effort to build better habits. I find noticeable weaknesses off-putting, but much more important is a person's strengths. If I admire a person for something, I don't mind their weaknesses very much. Maybe that's tunnel-vision, I won't claim that it is desirable, just it's how things work out for me. There's a great saying, (I'll have to look up its author) "Judge talent at its best, character at its worst." I naturally follow the first part, and I think the second is right and important, only I don't yet seem to follow it without effort. The "incurable romantic's" hopefulness is more natural to me, though I know better. (Don't tell anybody.) Also, I find using a fictional character as a guide is very useful. I can't say why, but doesn't it come back to just what art is all about? =Mindy

I think you are wrong but understandably so. GS isn't stealing anything. He is deconstructing. He is not making any metaphysical claims. He is rewinding the clock of conceptual development. It is a perspective with philosophical/scientific assumptions removed. It is like imagining the state of a new born prior to the process of psychological separation and object permanence. The objects of perception are there, and they have been differentiated, but they are not yet assumed to be caused by things, existing in a permanent reality, that are separate from consciousness. The object of such an exercise is not to make any Idealistic metaphysical claim. It is to expose the assumptions we make when we do make metaphysical or scientific claims. It raises the question: How do we get from the state of a new born who's consciousness is not experienced as separate to his environment, and who hasn't yet realized that there is a reality that is independent of consciousness that gives objects a permanent existence, to a state where we are having philosophical disagreements over Rand and Popper's views on induction? The answer is that we make some crucial assumptions, we built systems of thought, the contexts of which are shaped by these assumptions, and we try to claim one context is better than the other. What are our assumptions? Paul PS--What happened to your cart and horse? I had a quip. Go ahead, I'll know what it's about. An infant who can perceive a rattle is an infant who HAS a rattle. The rattle comes first. Can't perceive what doesn't exist! Can't observe if there isn't anything in existence to be observed. Doesn't matter what assumptions anyone has regarding anything. In his first perception, the infant perceives reality. Much, much later does he frown over the relationship between his mind and that reality. Just as there is no consciousness without something to be conscious of, there is no perception, no observation, etc., without what is perceived, or observed. You know those alternative assumptions you wrote about, GS is assuming he can start with a perception that doesn't imply it's source, but that wouldn't be perception. He assumes he can start with what he finds in his mind, but that isn't possible. You've empathetically recognized his assumption, allowed it, and then realized it does, indeed make a mess of philosophy. There are no perceptions without the object perceived. That's what "perception" means. It's like saying, what if something existed, but didn't have identity, could we assign it an identity, or would it evolve one, or could we deduce its identity from its relations to other things? (I know that doesn't make sense.) No such thing exists. No perceptions preceed what they are perceptions of. =Mindy

How would you define non-critical thinking? Or by "critical thinking" do you mean, more or less, "good thinking?" =Mindy

What "pre-scientific context," Paul? GS is claiming that science has shown that the world we observe is manufactured by our nervous systems. And what could "evidence" possibly mean in the context? Internally consistent, what he says most certainly is not. Total solipsism would be the only viewpoint from which he could be internally consistent (except for the problem that total solipsism can't be internally consistently adhered to.) Ellen There is a context in which your description of GS's perspective makes sense. The idea is that we have direct access to no reality but the reality of our own consciousness (now we have moved from Berkeley to Descartes). We are existentially alone and solipsistic. We need to connect dots, make categorical or causal assumptions, to realize the existence of another consciousness. From the context of an island consciousness, experience is "manufactured" from building blocks of qualia in the form of perceptions, imaginings, thoughts, feelings, etc. The objects of awareness are isolated patterns in the flow of consciousness. These patterns in the flow of consciousness are the "evidence" on which any knowledge is built. Once we assume that there is a connection between the objects we have isolated in the flow of awareness and a reality that exists beyond our own consciousness, we have made the first step into metaphysical and scientific thought. With more assumptions about identity, causation, time, space, etc., we can connect the dots (science) or create systematic models of the nature of existence as a whole (metaphysics), which can be turned back to account for the nature of consciousness. This is not a claim for "total solipsism." It's a claim for the evolution of consciousness out of the solipsism that we can imagine we were born with. The context of a new born, or the best we can conceive of it in thinking about the stages of the development of consciousness, is what I mean by "pre-scientific context." The value of this context is to be found in its ability to illuminate what Jung called "our presuppositions." Paul If I'm wrong about this Idealism of GS's being a case of stolen concepts, I wish somebody'd clue me in. In "to be is to be perceived," the stolen concept is "perceive." Perception implies an object. "...to be perceived" implies what is perceived. Same with "observation," to observe is to focus on something. (If there could be observation of nothing, all it would bring into existence is--nothing.) Also, without an object of perception, there is no distinction between perception and imagination. The practical consequences of acting on your perceptual knowledge are much different than the consequences of acting as if what you imagine were real! So the Idealist case must be made without terms like "perceive," "observe" because those terms presuppose the independent existence of objects to be perceived and observed! =Mindy

You know, your whole position involves a stolen concept. "Observation." =Mindy

Elwood, Are you aware of the very poor quality of textbooks and lesson materials generally, including those of the major educational publishing houses? Also, the abject disorganization of the curricula? The most motivated student couldn't get an education with texts that don't make sense and lessons that are filled with errors and inaccuracies. (This is brought up in the name of not re-inventing the wheel.) ***** I would say "critical thinking" differs from simple "thinking" in that it has a question and its answer, or a problem and its solution to evaluate. Critical thinking is re-thinking, but it has more parts to be thought through, and must address, also, the relations of those parts. So critical thinking should, perhaps, start with an analysis of the subject-matter. There are probably a limited number of paradigms for this sort of analysis--yes/no decisions, choice of options, wide-open problems, etc. To be thorough, our "critic" must look at the original question as if he were to solve it. He needs to know the full context of resources and restraints that apply. He needs to search for an answer himself, noting what the dead-ends are, refining the options, etc. Then he needs to look at the answer to see if it indeed is an answer to that question, if it is the only answer, and if it is the best answer. This is just off the top of my head, but I think preparing students to think critically is nowhere near as difficult as preparing them to think at all. Here, I suppose, you have recognized the relevance of Rand's observations about concepts and thought. Words used with approximate meaning don't foster thought. It's like drawing fuzzy lines on a map. Our primary and secondary schools are extremely sloppy in word-use and prefer "guesstimates" of meaning. The emphasis on language is on "creativity," meaning anything is OK if it is idiosyncratic. This bequeaths businesses half-literate employees. If you want thinking people, you need literate ones! If you want people to use logic, you first have to get them to use terms. Is there a plan for this in your programme? =Mindy

Hello, very glad to learn about you and your organization. Your project is a crucial one. My first thought is, what distinctions are you making? Are you distinguishing concept-acquisition, thought proper, and reason? Is your aim to invent something new or would you be happy to rediscover lost disciplines that provide the "skills" needed? Are you analyzing how our schools fail to educate, or just looking to build a program that succeeds where they fail? Also, could you better describe what's new about the "2nd age of reason" that is dawning? Looking forward to your posts, =Mindy Note: Your last post went up while I was composing this. I think I understand better what you want. I'm still interested in knowing how you are set up to go about developing your program.

I did say, "What if..." but it is simple to note that when organisms achieve conceptual knowledge, and therefore linguistic communication, and with the advent of trade and specialization, everyone benefits from the products of the brightest, and from the collected intellectual advances of the past... It took one man to invent anesthesia, but everyone benefits from it. That means the intellectual advantages of all are shared by all. That tends to divorce the individual from his own, inherited traits. So survival value of high IQ isn't limited to the genetic individual possessing it. It doesn't tend to correlate with number of offspring, which is necessary for evolution. That's my thinking on it. I was using "evolve" in the biological sense, I guess you aren't. =Mindy

Michael, I don't think anything living has stopped evolving, but some things evolve much, much faster than other things. Sharks, for instance, are comparatively unchanged over several hundred million years. The mind doesn't evolve, of course, it just is, but the (physiologic) brain does. I know there is enough room inside the skull for IQ genius, my Father was one (189) although I am not, so why not many more IQ geniuses? I couldn't understand in school why I was so much smarter than the general conglomeration of dumb asses around me. Their brains were just as big. For the things I was dumb in it simply seemed to be a matter of lack of interest. That is why I am interested in brain enhancing drugs and the like. Today I understand that most people aren't smarter than they are because they don't have to be to be ditch diggers and truck drivers and soldiers and such and those people are needed! I once was two out of those three myself. I think it's so important for goys to have Jewish mothers who insist they get their education that Jews should rent out their mothers to Christian families. Regardless, one reason humans aren't smarter is they can't get bigger brains through the birth canal. I am not looking forward to women with wider hips so people can be smarter, so it's going to be C-sections and humans will probably lose their ability to have natural births. Then we will really learn how useless brains are for species survival, especially when we are all university professors sitting around bullshitting each other! What I think is that humans will self-evolve by modifying their brains. If you and I were to go to sleep and wake up in a thousand years the evolved humans would probably consider us moronic curiousities. Now, in regard to the alligator brain in which the fight or flight thing takes over from our normal, cognitive state resulting in such things as road rage: I don't see any value in evolving away from that for it is too generally valuable for survival. For somethings, of course, it is not so good. I went completely irrational last month, for instance, when a woman cut into line in front of me at the McDonalds' drive thru. In disgust I just left with smoke coming out of my ears. Driving home I asked myself, what if it had been a 250-pound football player? Would I have gotten quite so mad that way? No. I was programmed to go to war with a weaker foe, not a more powerful one. (I've never hit a woman, but once one hit me.) I know I've really not answered your question, Michael, that I totally went off in digression-land. I'll try tomorrow. --Brant How about this--the brain will evolve very little or not at all, because there is no advantage to having other than a conceptual faculty. The personal mind is an exemplar of evolution, except we call it development. Culture, especially in the form of technology, is "inherited" by all. The technological advantages that extend life are available to all, and commerce, that is, civilization, changes the facts about survival of the genetically fittest. So, we're it. This is essentially the form mankind will have forever. Would anyone be unhappy if that were true? --Mindy

According to Jung I need to get you to know your own causal presuppositions before you can understand my "riddles." How are you mapping causation when you interpret what I say? You seem to be interpreting what I am saying in terms of action-reaction, which is the existing causal paradigm. Despite how well it has performed, I find this causal map to be unable to explain the subtleties of the dynamics we witness. This is why "common sense" could not keep up with the job of mapping relativity and quantum theories. This is why we continue to have debates about "free will" and determinism. This is why we do not yet have a causal map of the emergence of life and consciousness. I have created a different causal paradigm to attempt to map the subtleties reactive causation could not. Degrees of freedom is part of this approach. Action-reaction is about entities that have properties defined by pushes and pulls, and each entity experiences a change in motion only when another entity acts on it with a force that pushes or pulls it. The concept of degrees of freedom begins with an entity that has the principle of motion within. The existence and behaviour of the entities around it set limits to its motion, or systematically encourage certain motions (as in the case of a slip-stream), in which the entity can otherwise act freely according to its nature. When I talk about Shauna challenging me or encouraging me I am not talking about any specific action-reaction sequence as you are interpreting. In specific situations where she might be trying to persuade me in one direction or another, I will recognize an attempt to persuade and stubbornly act on my own judgement regardless. I am talking more about my operating in the context of the visibility Shauna affords me. She sees me, she knows me like no-one else. Her reactions to me speak to me about what she sees. Typically, her innate inability to fake reality in any way makes me confront my real self despite what grand or poor images I might have in a given moment. She has a way of grounding me. I am free to act in the context of the truth in what she sees in me. It's not her judgement that sets my limits, it's mine; my judgement of the me that is reflected in her eyes. My psychological degrees of freedom are shaped partly by the self I see reflected back at me, in the context of the potential self I want to actualize, and by the action sets I possess. I am free to act in ways that are contextually possible--i.e.: that fit the context of who I am and the contexts in which I operate. Outside of my degrees of freedom are activities that are not me, will be destructive to my self-actualization, or require action sets I have not developed. I cannot act on these because they are out side of my contextual possibility. The key is I am free to act within my degrees of freedom. I am not pushed or pulled in any way. I have spent a lifetime resisting pushes and pulls. This is one of the differences between my view of causation and reactive causation. Determinism, the view that arises from reactive causation, assumes everything to be pushes and pulls. I'm not supposed to be able to resist the pushes and pulls. My view says even the pushes and pulls can be explained by things acting within their degrees of freedom. I find it to be a better fit for mapping the subtleties of behaviour, whether psychological or physical. Paul I think I understand. Psychological visibility is the key. The revealing psychological visibility you get from Shauna, and can't get anywhere else, nor generate yourself, lets you "experience" the context of your essentail aims and goals, and with that context "brought to life" and sort of put before your eyes, by being with her, you are able to see more clearly, or judge more definitely, something like that, what you yourself would whole-heartedly wish to choose to do, or to be... She provides the psy. vis. that you use to choose well. If I'm right, I think that's a remarkable insight. (Yours, that is.) --Mindy

I second all of that; beautifully put. --Mindy

Thanks, Greybird. I've been reading Arthur Silber for quite some time now, and the man is simply brilliant, not to mention a great writer. All the horrors of the Iraq war which he predicted long before the US invasion began, horrors which have pretty much been ignored not only by the MSM but also by the entire objectivist community, have come to pass. Hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, four million refugees, two million who have had to flee Iraq and are living in squalid refugee camps, genocide, ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, US use of chemical weapons such as white phosphorus and depleted uranium, all of these unspeakable horrors have happened right in front of our eyes, and all that most people, including most objectivists, can say is that this has perhaps been an unfortunate mistake. I wonder if they would think it all nothing more than an unfortunate mistake if millions of Americans were killed and driven from their homes in an attack launched by a foreign government against us. I post here with little hope that it will change anyone's mind. I do it only because it is the truth and needs to be said. Martin I was against the Iraq war from the getgo, but when the mess got going stopped wasting my time with it. But the crap quoted abve is 95% unmitigated. As for Silber, his idea of who is a war criminal is pretty catholic. You have a lot of nerve coming here and shoveling this shit on us without so much as a single reference. --Brant A single reference to what, exactly? The death toll in Iraq? Or the number of Iraqi refugees created by the war? Or the US use of chemical weapons in Fallujah? All of these things are well documented, although the exact death toll is not known and estimates vary widely. Silber provides multiple links in the referenced article. According to Iraq Body Count, the confirmed death toll is between about 86,000 and 94,000. But these figures are almost certainly too low, given the methodology employed. The Lancet study estimated a death toll of over 600,000, and this was a couple of years ago. The ORB study estimated a death toll of over 1,000,000. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, the absolute lowest figure, the 86,000 lower estimate of Iraq Body Count. These are confirmed deaths, and their numbers are beyond dispute. Given that Iraq is a nation of about 25,000,000 people, 1/12 the population of the US, if we scale this number to the US population, this would be proportionally equivalent to about 1,000,000 American deaths, or the equivalent of more than one 9/11 for Iraq every week since the invasion of Iraq began. Based on the one 9/11 attack that the US suffered, everything is now supposed to be forever different for us, and our society is being transformed into a police state, supposedly for our own protection. Well, Iraq has suffered the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every week for the last five years. The millions of refugees created by this war is also well documented and has even been extensively reported in the mainstream media, unlike the Iraqi death toll, which I have never heard mentioned in the MSM. Rather than accusing me of "shoveling this shit on us without so much as a single reference", if you think that any of the information I have provided here is wrong, why don't you post your own references containing contrary information? Martin Your characterization of the war in Iraq needs to be argued for, not just stated. You presume to tell us, and, I guess, the whole world, what we "need to realize." You are presuming to think for us. You are trying, not to convince people of certain things, but to insert your beliefs into their minds, uncritically. Among other things, you picked the wrong place to do that! Merely in reading your post, I saw error after error in what you were saying. The "ranting" character of your post tells me it would be pointless to try to engage you in discussion of those errors. What you need to realize is you have to prove your points, and your fears and misconstruals, and general hysteria don't mean a thing. --Mindy

Brant, There is no predominant. One cannot exist without the other. Here is the acid test: Eliminate the human race. Will there be any individual humans left? No. Eliminate all individual humans. Will there be a human race left? No. Michael You are still simply conflating epistemological and metaphysical realities. The former is always subordinate to the later. You naturally insist on being a bull in my china shop so I'm closing up (re this discusion). It's too painful to watch you in action. --Brant It seems to me you are both right, however unlikely that sounds. Brant is being "Humeistic" in recognizing the truth that only individual humans exist, have existed, or ever will exist as regards the human species. The species is nothing but those individuals. That's his "metaphysical" point. The fact that those same individuals may be referred to as a species is "epistemological." There are two epistemological terms, "man" and "species" for one "metaphysical" fact: all the past, present, and future individual homo sapiens. Michael, on the other hand, is stating the glaringly simple and obvious fact that he himself is a mid-stream particular in the life of the species, and that the species thus pre-dates him, and thus existed when he, himself, didn't. Brant thinks Michael is saying the species can exist even if no particular man does, but Michael isn't saying that. Michael thinks Brant is denying (or missing) the fact that the species existed before he, MSK, did. I'm sure Brant doesn't disagree with that. I don't mean to be patronizing, but: You don't disagree. --Mindy

To exist independently of consciousness means to exist whether or not anybody knows about it. It is a denial of Idealism. Consciousness also exists whether or not anybody knows about it. (Example: an unconscious person lost in the wilderness, rescuers don't know if he survived, and he isn't conscious at all, but as a living human possesses the faculty of consciousness. OR: Hermit whom nobody knows about, avidly reading a book, and not at all self-conscious at the time. His consciousness is active, but un-observed.) Technically, "independent of consciousness" means independent of being the object of consciousness. Our hermit is exercizing his consciousness, his consciousness exists, but his consciousness isn't the object of anyone's consciousness, not even his own. --Mindy

Harking back to measurement omission itself, one of the problems I have with that theory is that a true sentence could state, in its predicate, just the measurement that was omitted in forming the concept of the subject. For example, Rand tells us that the particular length of a pencil is an omitted measurement. A true sentence such as, "This pencil is four inches long," would then be synthetic! Whatever way one classifies what is "omitted" in forming a concept, it is possible to form true sentences that predicate precisely an omitted "measurement," and thus fail to be analytic on LP's A/S dichotomy discussion. My solution to this is to recognize the distinction between abstract conceptual meaning and reference, which is the accomplishment of a concept plus grammar. So, while "pencil" omits the measurement of length, "This pencil..." includes it through referring to the entire thing, including all its traits, even unknown ones, etc. No matter how abstract the concept in a reference is, e.g., "This object is four inches long," the reference is to the whole of the thing referred to. Since it is to the complete thing, in all details, anything the predicate states of it, if true, is part of the reference. Notice we could contrast, "This pencil is a pencil," with "This object is a pencil." In both cases, being a pencil is equally "contained" in the subject of the sentence, because the subject of both sentences is the same. The subject of both sentences is the four-inch-long pencil. The subject concept of one is "pencil," and of the other is "object," but the import, the meaning, of both subjects is the same. The concepts are different, but the references are the same. Thus, I would say that it is not concepts that mean everything about the things they refer to, including the yet-to-be discovered, as Rand has it, but that grammatical references imply every such trait, etc. The meaning of a concept is not at all the same epistemological thing as the meaning of a subject (or object) of a sentence, i.e., a reference. (Here it is unavoidable to seque into the third point I wanted, originally, to make.) The third point is that it is a mistake to describe conceptual meaning as determinate. At the risk of giving details already well known by the reader, I'll point out that "abstract" means a part taken away from the whole (or, left behind, whichever way you take your coffee.) "General" means pertaining to multiple particulars. They don't mean the same thing. Confusing the two is widespread. The opposite of "abstract" is "determinate." "Determinate" means including every specific detail about the referents. Rand's description of conceptual meaning, paraphrased above, has it that concepts are determinate. Of course, that can't be true. A determinate account has no generality. Generality is only achieved by abstraction. I imagine Rand was confusing referential meaning with conceptual meaning. It is fundamental to human epistemology that we refer through abstractions, and the two are very intimately connected. I very strongly believe that this distinction is needed in Objectivist epistemology. (There are other ways in which the distiniction is theoretically useful.) --Mindy

Just a note: "objects" is a highter abstraction than "trees." Trees, men, dogs, forks, airplanes, etc., etc., are all objects. Perhaps you meant we isolate a similar group of objects and call them, "trees?" --Mindy

Yes, how my wife complements me is important to why I love her. I recognize this importance because of how I have come to see causality operating in my world. I view causality differently to most. You asked me about "degrees of freedom" on another thread. How people act with one another and react to one another encourages a set of behaviours and discourages another set of behaviours. In this way we create a system of interaction in which individuals are free to act according to their natures within the limits set by the system. This is a fundamental causal principle true in any social dynamic (or, I would suggest, any physical dynamic). Our degrees of freedom in romantic love, not only contribute to shaping our behaviour in the moment but, since the relationship touches all parts of our personality (ideally) over many years, our degrees of freedom in our romantic relationship contributes to shaping our individual evolution over time. That this effect exists does not negate the reality that we are independent and willful individuals. It is simply the context in which we, as independent and willful individuals, act. I can see, on reflection and in the moment, this dynamic unfolding, and I love her for it. I love the degrees of freedom my wife creates for me. This is how she complements me. After 11 years of marriage, it is part of why I am who I am today. She doesn't try to fix me or change me. She is too wise for that and I am too self-determined. She challenges me when I need to be challenged and encourages me when I need to be encouraged. Through the degrees of freedom she offers, she allows me to be more fully me than anyone else on this earth. Being more fully me in my most important relationship has enabled me to continue to evolve at what seems to be an ever increasing rate; personal evolution is my highest personal value. My relationship with Shauna is no more my identity than my relationship with my particular quasi-capitalist society. What a thing is determines what it does in the context of the degrees of freedom created by other things. Who I am determines what I do in the context of the degrees of freedom created by my relationships to other people. What I do, and the context I do it in, determines the information available for me to process and so, shapes who I become. Shauna is not part of my identity. She is my most important context. How's that for romantic? (You can just imagine the wonderful poetry that flows from talk of causality and context. There's a reason I write about this on OL instead.) Paul Paul, Thank you very much for the praise. That means a lot to me. I don't think I am defining "degrees of freedom" the same way you and Ted do. I came across the term originally in statistics. I'm trying to translate it into human action from your useage. Help me out. If your wife (and it sounds like a terrific relationship!) appropriately "challenges" you, she is guiding you to re-think something, right? If she encourages you, she is strengthening your resolve? So within the variability of your own tendencies, she more or less sets boundaries, and when you cross those (very sensible boundaries, I am supposing) her response is a check on your course. That would seem to be the opposite of degrees of freedom. Let me be clear that what you describe sounds terrific as an interpersonal dynamic, I'm just confused as to why you term it "degrees of freedom." This is a situation in which you love your wife for strengths you lack (at least at times) and to love her for those strengths is, of course, entirely right and appropriate. But you would admire her for her good judgment whether or not you had equally good judgment (either all the time, or at times, I'm simplifying here, don't take this as you.) Perhaps you feel gratitude for her guidance, you appreciate how lucky you are to have her, etc., and because you also love her, you mix that gratitude in with the larger emotional response, though it itself is not love. You appreciate her strength all the more when it helps you out, but I wonder if the dependency of those times isn't actually a detriment to romance, as a more or less technical point? One way to test this is to take it to its extreme and see if it produces an absurdity. If you were dependent on your wife for her "challenges" and "encouragement" most of the time, wouldn't you feel yourself not to be her equal, and wouldn't you be unable to love her, though you admired and respected her in the extreme? --Mindy

There are different processes whereby complementary differences lead to self-discovery and self-actualization, and complementary differences lead to codependence. The difference is in the attained level of separation and individuation of the individuals involved. Independent individuals stand on their own two feet even when they are complementing one another's self-exploration and growth. Dependent individuals will allow the complement in another to crush any potential for self-exploration and growth. I don't see insult in one's growth being guided by another's strength. Paul PS--Of course, there is also the way the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when entities' properties are complementary. I don't want to be part of some greater whole, not as my identity. I don't want to collaborate on who I am. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful for help and guidance. But to be loved because you would make a good project for the other person? Or to love because you can see yourself fixing the other person? No way. Ask yourself how your partner complements you. Is that particular aspect of your relationship important to why you love or value her/him? I don't think so. I don't think you must see yourself as perfect, nor have to see your lover as perfect. If the essentials are solid, and if there is a meeting of minds, a very significant parallel in the other person's experience of the world and your own...if you find that the other sees things as you do, judges as you do, understands and evaluates as you do, then you seem to be in each other's minds. You seem to be able to read the other's mind, because you know he sees and feels as you do. For me, anyway, that is when the sparks fly. Once the sparks start flying, normality REQUIRES being together. When you are apart, its OK only because you will be together at the end of the day, etc. You store up parts of your day's experiences to tell your spouse at day's end. You look forward to telling him, and in telling him you both re-live it and you get "closure" on that event in getting his response to it. This is the mundane of being in love. Sharing your experiences gives you a retroactive psychological visibility of your role in them. It doesn't have to be a practical matter, something you need to inform him of, or a decision you both must make. This sharing of what you find significant in daily existence helps bring you both to the same place, psychologically. It maximizes your grasp of your partner's state of mind. The profound psychological visibility starts the sparks flying over and over again. I believe it is that that "keeps love alive." It is also, I think, behind the point of view that if partners keep the "channels of communication open" they succeed. I think one uses one's lover the way Rand talked about using a hero from literature: asking oneself what that person would do. When Dagny looks out her window and muses about "him" who is out there somewhere, she is doing that. When she crashes in the Gulch and says to Galt, half-awake, the bit about not taking things seriously, that is what she is doing. And the fact that she can see who he is just from a moment's look "into his eyes" is, for such highly developed personalities, realistic. That looking into your lover's eyes, so much celebrated in romantic song, literature, movies, etc., is a very real thing (not that I don't think the reader knows this.) I think what happens, and why lovers can gaze into each other's eyes for embarassingly long periods of time is that there is a series of realizations going on in each of them at the same time. First look tells you how this person views the particular reality you are both in. When that is mutually sympatico, you both next think of each other, because you have both just been impressed with that mental similarity. It is easy to see in a person's expression this change of focus. But then you both realize that you are both thinking about the other person. If no-one blinks at this point, to deliberately break off the interaction, you both then become self-conscious of the romantic significance of your shared focus and evaluations. You both realize that the other person "likes" you. If it is profound, it's love. Someone who is in a partnership will presumably break this sequence off, interrupt it by changing the subject, etc. Not to do so is, I believe, a betrayal. If you get that far with someone not your partner you break it off, realizing that you now have a huge decision before you. If it were me, I'd try to observe this new person but avoid personal interaction, at least one-on-one. No more gazing into eyes. I would begin re-examing my current relationship, and gather as much information about the new person as I could. I would introspect whether I were slacking, bored, etc. in my current relationship. One must be very severe on oneself at this point. If, finally, I were convinced that I preferred the new person, I would first end my current relationship. That must be done before there is any understanding between you and the new person. If you are willing to go so far, your feelings are indeed profound. I'm digressing somewhat, but hopefully not too much. --Mindy

I think it is possible that differences of temperament are highlighted in a relationship because we expect "soul mates" to be alike. Differences stand out, attract our attention, evoke comment. This gives, I would suggest, the appearance that love involves complementary personalities, when in fact differences are not necessary to, and do not enhance a relationship. A person with weaknesses will feel comfortable with a person whose strengths in that arena make his or her life easier. An introvert's socializing is made less effortful when that person is escorting an extrovert, etc. But if a person is aware of their weakness, they dislike it, and would dislike it in another, though they might be "understanding." For the most important personal traits, one's values are imbedded in how we are, and a person who presented a contrast in that way would not share, or not represent that value. For traits that don't differ in terms of strength and weakness, both people would suffer gaps in the psychological visibility they receive due to those differences. A well-educated person will not get psy. visibility from a poorer-educated spouse. A witty person will not get psy. vis. from a plain-spoken partner. Lots of people pair-off without actually finding love, and for those matches, all kinds of motives and incentives can be found. But we're talking about being in love, and if, as Aristotle puts it, a friend is another self, then a lover is as much like oneself as could be. A couple of times, "we complement one another" has been suggested or urged on me. I know I instantly felt insulted at the idea. I'm insulted, I think, because there is an implicit claim of superiority in that claim, along with the idea that one would be content to have a short-coming shored up by one's association with a friend or lover. At the same time, I do know the feeling of being "completed" by my lover. I don't think that has anything to do with personality traits, but with sexual partnership and deep psychological visibility. With such a person by my side, I feel that I can, through my own efforts and abilities, live and be happy. In a loving marriage, I/we are fully independent of the world of people. There is a metaphysical sense of freedom in the completeness of a loving marriage. Only in marriage am I fully self-sufficient. Only in a loving marriage can I count on happiness. So a loving marriage is a "full complement," because sexual need and psychological visibility require the right "other." --Mindy

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

Michael, I'm afraid I'm not following. But I may be able to clear up one thing: I was not taking the position that "universe" or other singular things cannot be conceptualized! My distinction between "lattitudinal abstraction" and "longitudinal abstraction" was to offer a way that such things can be conceptualized though they cannot be compared to other instances. That way is through longitudinal abstraction which basically pulls out the constant aspects of a thing and omits the varying aspects. No matter what exactly exists in it, the universe always encompasses all that exists. The invariance is its being all-encompassing, the variations are what exactly it contains as time goes by, things change, and objects are created or destroyed. I still don't see what problem you are addressing with "holon." I guess I need to read about them. The size at which things are really things, or are recognized as such...I don't know what that's about. --Mindy

Romance is not about expecting the bitch to stay wrinkle free. It's about making the effort yourself to woo your wife, as if you were worthy of her continued interest. Selfishness is about maintaining the self, not expecting others to do it for you. Wooing. How Romantic. Speaking as a person married over fifty years, I can tell you it is more about being and staying friends than it is about Romantic Twaddle. I would not give a plugged nickle for Romance. It is ... silly. How long have you been married for? Ba'al Chatzaf You are so wrong!

Mindy, I find there to be plenty. Even Rand stated that the act of identification was based on integration and differentiation (similarities and differences). Look at the rest of existence and see what is similar and what is different. You thus have a unit of one. But setting aside the math, doesn't holon resolve this issue very nicely? btw - You said "single instance" and this gives a connotation of time. "Single existent" would probably be more exact. Rand even talked about entity. Michael "Instance" can mean time, but that's not its first meaning, and I didn't mean time, but you saw that. You can't "integrate" over one instance or existent, nor can you differentiate a thing from itself... since it is a singular existent, it won't have a group of similar things to be compared to. That is for the case of conceptualizing unique things, such as "universe." A name is meant to individuate things, the opposite of grouping things, as a concept does. As I understand it, a "holon" pertains to living and social systems...I don't know how it is being used here. --Mindy

I believe the problem with abstracting from a single instance is that there is nothing to guide the separation into what is omitted and what is retained. The commonalities among different individual things of the type is normally what sets that up. It may be that "universe," though a singular instance, demonstrates abstraction that is "longitudinal" rather than "lattitudinal." I mean by that that the universe changes over time, in terms of what is in it, while remaining at all times what encompasses everything. The identities of particular things have this sort of abstraction. You are you whether you are sitting or standing, talking or silent, etc. Your identity is abstract, omitting all the sorts of changes a person can go through over time. That is "longitudinal abstraction" while "lattitudinal abstraction" is the usual sort of side-by-side comparison of multiple, similar things in concept-formation. --Mindy Also, Merlin, that link didn't work. --Mindy