kalch

ive been lurking but not posting.

The global warming conspiracy is, a bit of a hardline, radical view of what's going on today.

I'll just put out there that environmental and atmospheric chemistry is really not up for debate. A chemical reaction is a chemical reaction.

The issues at hand today and the lack of environmental damage seen today is zero, pretty much.

I look at the global warming fear mongering, like telling a 13 year old kid not to eat mcdonalds everyday cuz he's gonna die at 70 instead of 90 of a heart attack of heart disease.

We are in the infancy of the impact on the environment of the industrialization of the world, and the impact won't be seen for many many many thousands or millions of years, but we have to stop eating the cheeseburgers and fries today and make that timeline even longer...

Garbage is conveniently disposed of from your curb without understanding of the chemistry involved in breaking it down. Same with industrial and other waste.

A high school chemistry experiment of titrating pH or buffering an acid shows that even solutions with a high ability to be buffered have a point of no return. The atmosphere, comprised of essential gasses is exactly the same as a beaker full of acid or base or another solution that can be buffered with it's available ions.

If someone can provide me with the chemistry outlining a buffering sink that is endless in equalibrium, im all ears.

For the love of god, will someone please think of our great great great great great great great grandkids?

Murder is a sub-category of homicide which is a sub-category of killing.

--Brant

You're right, it's not the same thing. But I would be surprised if even the most primitive tribes didn't have "laws" against murder.

BillP

i see your point,and i still have some issues though trying to put myself within a culture of which I know nothing of, where the moral code is not as progressed as post scientific/industrial revolution.

Maybe we can't imagine living in a world completely dominated without a sense of understanding of our moral code of right an wrong.

Murdering someone is wrong because of the value systems we have in place. Murder in the case of "execution" or "war" is not where I was going with this, but more of a social code of acceptable or not. We have laws here to put an exclamation mark on the lack of morality with murder, whereas fighting and murdering someone may be valued as a sign strength or survival in the rainforest?

First, I think you need a basis for morality that is being discussed in other posts (like "The True Evolution of Morality"). With this background, you might start to wonder whether human beings have boundaries on the level of moral relativism they can assume. For example, humans automatically empathize with other humans. This is innate and structurally hardwired. Therefore, any moral code based on causing pain to others will cause suffering in those who follow it (unless those who follow it disassociate or disown aspects of themselves).

The same could be said of life. If the entire human biological code is hardwired to support life, then any extension of that code in a social context ought to be built upon the same life-supporting systems. Indeed the moral code truly is extended into a social context when we consider that humans are cognitively wired to associate and support in-groups versus outgroups. Meaning: humans are built to quite commonly associate an aspect of their personal identity to a group; therefore, any attack on the group is psychologically experienced as an attack on the self (unless those who do so disassociate or disown aspects of themselves).

Christopher

Sure, but that's using reason as evolved using your environment, past experience, and societal norms, but you can't assume that everyone reasons the same way, as value systems do vary between cultures.

Not entirely convinced a strong argument doesnt exist for both.

Watson,

In general, "endowed rights" is seen as a premise kind of argument. I see it differently. I see it as one of the greatest intellectual outsmartings of the power class in the history of mankind. Thus I see it as a stopping point in mankind's history on the way to a truly free society, not as a justification that should be continued to be used.

Before, the intellectual premise of power had been the divine right of kings. So the idea of distancing God from direct contact with man by making Him run through "Nature" first was brilliant. Whereas it was difficult to sell the idea that God had changed His mind on something like divine rights (because of centuries of tradition), it was easy to peg God's will to His own creation, "Nature," then claim that he made man in a form where man interacts with Nature according to the laws He made—laws that govern all of Nature. Who could argue with that?

Then they slipped "inalienable rights" for all men into "Nature," came up with "Natural Law," and suddenly they had "God's will" concerning "divine rights" without favoring this person or that. Nature meant all men. Once this premise was accepted, it was hard for monarchs to justify their entitlement to power based on simply being born as a "Chosen One."

Nowadays, it is time to move on and realize that there are no "divine rights" at all, not even through Nature, and that we make of society what we wish. If we want individual rights to be a cornerstone of a social structure, we will make it that way. If we still want "divine rights" of certain individuals (say, the descendants of Mohammad), we will make it that way.

There is a debate about what constitutes individual rights that has not been resolved, even in the Objectivist/libertarian world. One of the main accepted divisions has been positive and negative rights. That division works wonderfully for productive adults, but does not work so well for infants or other weak stages of life where otherwise productive adults (or potential productive adults like infants) have no means of survival other than being cared for.

These weak stages of life constitute an enormous monkey-wrench in all arguments I have seen so far—and that holds true for all sides. At the extreme ends, on the individual liberty side, justifications for depraved indifference are advanced as The Good, and on the collectivist side, justifications for footing the bill for parasites are advanced as The Good. Both extremes turn reasonable people off (as I think they should).

I don't have all the answers, although some inklings of suggestions are starting to appear in my thinking. There is one thing I am sure of. I am convinced that for this issue to be clarified in rational terms that can be applied consistently—and no longer run the risk of being voted out of existence—the concept of human beings endowed with inalienable rights by a Creator or by Nature has to be abandoned in the same manner divine right of kings was.

Human beings have individual rights because we—as individuals—choose to define those rights according to standards we set. We, as individuals, choose to live according to them. If we don't choose this, and openly declare that we are the ones to choose, and fight for it, bullies will govern by force. Those are the only real alternatives. There are no others.

If we decide that we are endowed with rights by a Higher Power (whether God or Nature), we are ultimately at the mercy of those who claim they speak in the name of God or Nature. Traditionally these folks are heard. They gather followings and their messages are accepted by large groups of people. Also, they have been traditionally friendlier with bullies than with pro-individual people. Bullies are always glad to get an intellectual sanction from people with followings.

Voila. There you have the Attila and Witch Doctor idea. Rand's notion was to replace these power-seekers with the producer and the intellectual.

I'm OK with that, but I have come to the conclusion that when an intellectual promotes the idea of people endowed with rights by a Higher Power, he is fundamentally promoting Bully Heaven and the divine right of power of some individuals over all others. In theory, the words say "all men," but in practice, it is always the individuals sanctioned by the spokespeople for these different Higher Powers who end up gaining power over others.

As a form of wrenching power from monarchs, "endowed rights" emanating from a Higher Power was a great idea. As a form of continuing on to a fully free capitalist society, it is intellectual poison. We need a universal standard that can be observed by anyone who wishes to look, not a universal endowment, a gift so to speak, that needs to be explained and re-explained and ultimately accepted on faith.

An old humorous saying (that is not so humorous in this context) states that you just can't get there from here. It's time for a change of premise.

Michael

Hmmm..

Interesting. What I can walk away from this is the following: we can't get into the brains of the authors, but we can learn and evolve and rationalize from what was written. I still am holding on the ropes that just those that believe in god can provide a starting point for rational thought and reason, outside their passion to believe in a god, as they do value freedom and happiness.

I find it interesting that the following statement that there are "certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" ascribed in the declaration of independence in the USA.

What i find more interesting, especially that i see those words written here often is that preceeding those words are the words "

"...endowed by their Creator with..."

I just find it interesting that the DoI attaches some value to the god thing.

I hope i don't get attacked for this, I just find it interesting that the words preceeding the famous part is rarely stated. Perhaps this is why there has never really been a separation of church and state in the United States??

Further, it also says to me that regardless of someone's belief in a god, reasonable and rational ideas can surface and result in a solid philosophy. The writters of the DoI obviously had a strong religious foundation to include that preamble. It's statements like the above that encourage me to critically read and extract the good that can come from all sources of information, not just religous or aetheist viewpoints.

I try to take a 60000 foot view of the world, and can't seem to shake that an isolated tribe in the rainforest may have a completely different moral code than an evolved/industrialized, evolutionary and technologically advanced society where we have had the opportunity to evolve our morality to include placing a high morality on life and safety.

Murder is wrong in an advanced society that values life, and I just don't know if it doesn't carry that kind of value in such a rain forst tribe. If they believe in an afterlife, perhaps life or living is just part of the journey of their soul? How can they have such different values, well, they know no different and value the afterlife in an equal manner to that of heart-beating life.

Even taking the life with or without consent of another human in either a ceremonial or non-ceremonial event may be equivalent in their society to maybe an uprovoked or even a provoked drunk throwing a punch at a bar in north america equivolent to an assault - a petty crime pretty much here.

But don't forget some people get turned off of learning by bad teachers or pushy parents etc. When you speak about 'volition' I think about something that's highly variable. If you can motivate people then you can effect their volition.

GS,

You can also feed people bad food (by volition) and impact their biology. So what? These elements still exist.

Of course they all impact each other because they are not isolated existents. They are all part of the same human being. If you impact the human being in a drastic manner, you impact the human being's components.

You just mentioned the part of the triad above that is called "environment" or "nurture." Are you trying to say that this component is existentially more important than the others?

I will admit that volition is highly variable. It has to be. This is one thing that drives crusader-like folks bananas (I am not saying this is your case). They want to control others and an individual's volition is exercised by... er... the individual. As there are many different kinds of individuals, there are many different exercises of volition. To the dismay of those who wish to control others, all those little suckers just won't act right.

I say thank God they don't.

Michael

The evolution or acquisition of cognition, and relative reasonable emotional response could be deduced to be a result of environment, to some degree. If there is a community or collective that conditions each generation in a particular manner to emotionally respond to, I would have to conclude a couple of things: Firstly, as I think has been demonstrated that emotions are a response to environmental stimuli (pain, sensory perception including voice tone; smell, taste, sound; etc), and perhaps from a biological point of view, some level of morality may be humanly either learned and deduced or part of the neural network from such. Secondly, if this is the case and due to a combination of evolution and environmental influences, relative/cultural morality may be something to consider.

For the record, yes, different individuals have different capacities to learn. I don't think scientists know why, but the answer is yes, and the extrapolation to coritcal evolution or application is a mystery. It's a normal curve if using some quantitative type measure.

Can anyone think of examples?

Evolution of morality

http://www.thestar.com/Comment/article/593720a

I am a scientist but havent had the opportunity to read the primary reference for the news article i link to above.

Things to note:

1. University of Toronto is a world reknowned university for it's research (I'm not sure about the authors of this research)

2. The journal it is published in, Science, is in the top 3 of scientific journals to have research published in. So, the peer review process of the research would have been scrutinized by experts in the field of the area of focus of the article.

Maybe someone who has access through a university proxy server can get the actual source article?

brant,

enough...

Troll i am not.

web presence?

I have nothing to hide.

I have my corporate wbsite and a quasi functional blog - industry and recruiting combined - im a sole practioner executive search consultant for the biotech industry.. I also dont want to mix personal research with my corporate profile.

Id be happy to share this info with you, but not on an open forum, where web crawlers can pick up my name more than it already is.

i don't think i completely understand what a troll is. I'm off to read the other threads that may provide further insight into objectivism.

Unfortunatley, you lost a fan and potential individual who wants to learn more. By labelling so quickly, without information (which I guess I should have put in my profile) is probalby more damaging than being open minded about curiousity.

Again, I find this paranoia about what I don't know, interesting. Obviously, there's been some negative exchanges on this website that has lead to defense mechanisms being immediately used. As I said above, I'm off to other parts of this website not to criticize but to learn, ask questions and accept and challenge opinions, without trolling.

Greetings from Tucson, AZ, USA.

--Brant

Hi,

My name is Mike. I am a PhD scientist by education and a business guy in the biotech industry by day.

I like the different classifications of objectivist types. I am a secular (atheist) jew, and like Objectivism, I can pick and choose how to integrate certain thinkings, ideology and applications to my daily filter.

Thanks for hosting this community.

not trolling.

You guys are paranoid. About what I dont know.

I do find this interesting. And to seek the truth before applying a label is not nice.

Michael, thanks for the link.

what does that mean ?

i still don't understand the paranoia before answering questions. Brant, I sent you a PM, at some point, hopefully we can connect off the board for you to feel comfortable that I am just a guy asking questions.

k,

now i'm confused. Brant, you seem angry at something.?

what's with paranoid replies?

Why aren't questions just responded to?

I am an I, not a they.

I am being villified for no reason!

Asking questions, and hearing opinions is a valuable way to learn. Being attacked and accused is a turn off, as I can tell that you may have had some negative interactions previously.

I find the tones of the responses different to what I expected from this forum.

I don't understand the visceral response. I would think you would hold a positive as opposed to antagonistic approach to someone continually learning.

I am truly a bit shocked that stuff is sometimes thrown into a "pile".

Understandibly, you have to moderate your board, while allowing all people to voice their opinions, whether or not you agree with them, no?

Again, I'm trying to figure this whole thing out as well.

I'll explore the boards more, and hope to see both incredibly positive things about applying objectivism to life, as well as questioning the objectivist philosophical approach, and acknowledging that there may be incredible benefits, as well as some deficiencies (nothing is perfect).

Keer, don't ever post big pictures of Nixon again. That is just foul.

Cleansing moment:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm

rde

eew

I don't participate in the Objectivist community much, but just a few things i want to say:

1. I am a PhD biologist (scientific view of the world)

2. I admire the objectivist points of view, and like to read writings of individuals. However, I do feel that many writings of objectivism, lack funny enough, an objective, and scientific view. Not withstanding, objectivism has influenced much of the view of many. In fact, psychological and scientific findings can be related to the objectivist philosophy, including maslow's heiarchy.

3. Unfortunately, for me, i suppose in this forum, I have a tinge of agreement with the original poster that the objectivist "movement" has a bit of a religion smell to it. And many of the movements promotions are similar to any movement, including religious. And there is NOTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT THIS! It is simply the only known way to convey to others your ideological view.

For example, there are leaders of the movement. There are books and literature (fictional i remind you) from which the ideology is founded (traditional religions have this too). Scientific and a rational explanation of the world comes from emperical and comparative data, not drawn from opinions or philosophy. Plus, an ideolog is just that, an ideolog. Science does change the way we define reality sometimes. I can provide a plethora of examples in medicine to demonstrate this.

4. When i read objectivist writings, i sometimes find there is a lack of both sides of an argument presented, just more of the objectivist side - somtimes antagonistic, this is where i find staying very close to the objectivist world as not beneficial. I love the two sides of the story. There's nothing more powerful to refute an argument than to know the other side better than your opponent. I encourage instead of espousing the great things of objectivism, that both sides, with equal depth, be explored, and then rationally explain the deficiencies in the philsophy that doesn't make sense to you.

5. keep up the debate, i thoroughly enjoy it, and hope not to be banned for expressing my mind. I would hope that anyone who classifies themself as an "objectivist" would eagerly explain why some of the basic tenets of any traditional relgion-without the god aspect - don't apply to objectivism.