dan2100

Agreed. But I'm not so sure that less government is going to remedy your concerns about poor education. I'd probably be less concerned about republicans in office if I didn't think it would filter into the school systems, but right now I'd be just as concern with local control of school systems. Can you imagine what history classes would be like , right now 2010, without at least some standards? I actually shutter to think about complete local control of schools in areas like the deep South or the bible belt. Kelly But this is an excellent argument to remove government completely from education. It's like you've asked, in the Soviet Union as it was collapsing, "I'd probably be less concerned about Nationalists in office if I didn't think it would filter into the economic systems, but right now I'd be just as concern with local control of the economic system. Can you imagine what production and distribution would be like , right now 1991, without at least some standards? I actually shutter to think about complete local control of the economic system in areas like Central Asia or Siberia." To be sure, yes, I probably won't like decisions made locally, but I'm much more afraid of centrally made decisions -- even when I agree with their content. Why? The form they take is a diktat from on high and the wider lesson they teach is "control the center and you control the whole system and need not worry about that frustrating thing known as individual choice."

And one word forms my political position: liberty. That implies no government, of course. Those who want government will get less liberty ultimately -- even if that's not what they intend.

This I have never understood properly. How is it that with limited, imperfect, and easily fooled senses that our knowledge can be anything but unreliable? How do you know that the senses are unreliable or less reliable than, say, the intellect -- presuming the two to be different? I honestly do not understand the question. I don't think it matters how unreliable they are. The point is simply that if they (senses and/or intellect) are wrong sometimes, they are unreliable. Since this obviously is indeed the case, I don't understand the argument to the contrary (if there is one). Bob There's a difference between sense perception and perceptual judgment -- between, say, feeling something to be cold to the touch and judging it to be cold or, with the more classical example, between seeing a stick in water and judging it to be bent. In this sense (pun not intended), the senses merely give evidence; they don't, per se, contain judgments. It is the judgments, though, that might be right or wrong. Think about it this way, one would never say, I think, that a rock is wrong for, say, falling or staying in place on a ledge, but one might be wrong about judging whether the rock will fall or will stay in place. (For example, if you close your eyes, assuming you have roughly normal human eyes, and press on them, you'll see colors, maybe green. Your visual system is literally detecting this, but this is not because it's wrong. You would be wrong, however, to judge that the inside of your eyelids are green. Or so I've been led to believe.) Moreover, doubt (of any sort) always presupposes a standard by which to doubt something. Typically, the presumed standard for the unreliability of the senses is other evidence of the senses. To stick with the stick in water example, you view the stick out of water and say, "A ha! It's not really bent!" But this means trusting sensorily reliability -- in this case, trusting your eyes when viewing the stick out of water. (I believe David Kelley brought up the example of why no one uses the argument that the same stick in tar looks like part of it no longer exists as a skeptical attack on sense perception: it's too easy to confute.) In this case, as Coppleston (IIRC, in his multivolume history whilst discussing Berkeley) and others have pointed out, it takes sense perception out of context: the stick is always supposed to appear the same regardless of context. (The same criticism can be used against the square tower, the different perceived heat of buckets (put one hand in ice water, another in hot water, then, after a few minutes, place both hands in another bucket of lukewarm water; to one hand it will feel hot, to the other cold), and how objects seem larger as one moves closer to them. All these skeptical arguments presume that some perceived features should remain constant despite varying conditions of perception.)

This I have never understood properly. How is it that with limited, imperfect, and easily fooled senses that our knowledge can be anything but unreliable? How do you know that the senses are unreliable or less reliable than, say, the intellect -- presuming the two to be different?

Which teachings of Jesus? Reading the Gospels alone, there is some textual support in there for coercing people. Think of Luke 14:23, for example -- and there are others. And this is just focusing on the Gospels -- not the rest of the New Testament, not the Old Testament, and leaving aside whether the Gospels are the actual teachings of Jesus and whether there was such a person in the first place. And regardless of what Jesus might have taught, most conservative Christians appear to have little or no problem with coercion. Yes, they might talk about personal salvation and individual responsibility, but, in terms of coercion, most of the ones I've talked to or read are not libertarians.

I don't think anyone here claims that hypocrisy or inconsistency invalidates principles. However, it does mean one should be careful with appealing to the Founders instead of their principles. (The same holds true with any person, including Rand. I would never say, "You should accept Rand's principles because of her character.")

Would you please state clearly your "main point" "about Kant and skepticism"?

While I wish Ron Paul's substantive view were more popular and perhaps embraced as the US government's policy, I think one must be careful to distinguish between some ofthe rhetoric of the Founders and their actual policies and actions.

Sorry, I haven't read that one yet, so I can't provide much in the way of informed commentary on it.

That sounds too frequent for the Malinkovitch cycle. Ba'al Chatzaf Correct me if I'm wrong -- and I don't want to Google at the moment -- but aren't Malinkovitch cycles around 100K years (and have to do with the Earth's orbital variations)? The authors do not -- I don't have the book handy at the moment (still in my luggage) -- make the claim it's Malinkovitch cycles. And Malinkovitch cycles aren't the only cycles involved in climate, no? The are several natural (non man made) cycles involved in climate changes. Yes, or that's my understanding. I located the book again and it looks like they mean two much shorter solar cycles combine to form a longer one of about 1,500 years. This is overlaid on the much longer and more powerful cycles. More on this later. Agreed. I also think the sort of panic mentality now reigning makes it very hard for most to reasonably evaluate the differing views here. (And this pattern is rampant. Think of any political policy and how it's offered up as needing to be implemented immediately without debate or discussion.)

One of which no doubt is A = A. Seriously, what are the four equations? Has anyone here, aside from me, read Penrose's massive tome -- the one abounding in equations, the one that might as function as a grand tour of mathematics? I read the Big Penrose Book. It is loaded to the gills with equations some of them involving tensors and other linear forms. Yes, but he works up to those in a way that I think the diligent reader might be able to handle. I'd expect some of this, but I don't think a heavy mathematical treatment is necessary. (In fact, much philosophy of physics avoids this -- even, in my opinion, excellent works such as those of Lawrence Sklar on spacetime stuff do, such as his classic Space, Time, and Spacetime.)

That sounds too frequent for the Malinkovitch cycle. Ba'al Chatzaf Correct me if I'm wrong -- and I don't want to Google at the moment -- but aren't Malinkovitch cycles around 100K years (and have to do with the Earth's orbital variations)? The authors do not -- I don't have the book handy at the moment (still in my luggage) -- make the claim it's Malinkovitch cycles. And Malinkovitch cycles aren't the only cycles involved in climate, no?

How much do you expect from a book on physics with only four equations? Ba'al Chatzaf Exactly how many equations are required for you to take a book seriously? Is there a minimum number? I was under the impression that Harriman's book is about the philosophy of physics (and possibly the philosophy of science generally), in which case oodles of equations may or may not be relevant. In any case, I find it curious that people are so eager to dismiss a book that they haven't even looked at, much less read. Ghs For the record, I'm not dismissing Harriman's book. I hope to at least listen to the audiobook version of it this summer. I was merely curious about which four equations were in the book.

One of which no doubt is A = A. Seriously, what are the four equations? Has anyone here, aside from me, read Penrose's massive tome -- the one abounding in equations, the one that might as function as a grand tour of mathematics? I'll put in a bet for F=ma as one of them. I bet you're right. I did listen to an excerpt from the audiobook version and it was praising Newton as the seal of the prophets for physics. (Actually, not that I'd disagree: Newton was brilliant and probably had the major impact on physics for the new few centuries if not up until today.) Yes, The Road to Reality. I think it's a fairly good mathematical introduction to physics, including some recent theories (he doesn't just end with "and them came quantum weirdness"). I recommend it, but one has to be willing to put in the effort to understand the math.

http://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Every-Years/dp/0742551172 I'm about 30 pages into this one. Wanted to read more of it on the flight back, but was too tied. Anyhow, basic idea: the Sun is behind the current warming trend and this is part of a roughly 1500 year cycle -- hence the subtitle. They present several independent lines to back this claim. Extensively footnoted, so anyone with access to Nature, Science, etc. should be able to weigh their evidence -- well, at least what they cite. The book is also full of charts and graphs, some more helpful than others.

One of which no doubt is A = A. Seriously, what are the four equations? Has anyone here, aside from me, read Penrose's massive tome -- the one abounding in equations, the one that might as function as a grand tour of mathematics?

But in what specific ways? Also, this is far different than the usual view offered up of innate ideas. I also wouldn't use it merely to explain away aspects of a given thinker you disagree with or for faults you find in a given system.

My experience: page after page saying to myself what the hell is this? Just detached drug induced ramblings, with nothing enjoyable or enlightening mixed in, and no plot to speak of. There's supposed to be a good dose of humor, but I wasn't getting it. Sudden, seemingly random jumps. It's kind of like Tropic of Cancer meets Finnegan's Wake, but not as evocative or erudite as the comparison would suggest. Gravity's Rainbow bears some comparison to it also, but with Pynchon there's a payoff for the effort, and the process is usually enjoyable. It didn't help that the person telling me I must try this book later chided me that I was just too rational for it. Anyway, I gave up, so I don't want to suggest I have more knowledge of WSB than I do. Thanks. I'd have to read that novel to see if I have the same reaction. And, I recall liking the Cities of the Red Night novels. I think I devoured all three in less than a month.

I'd judge the law too in spite of any oath I took. Of course if I started arguing in deliberations that the law was wrong or evil and the verdict should be "Not Guilty," someone on the jury might send a note to the judge and get me removed from the jury. The principle of jury nullification, though, is one of the legal principles this country was built on going back to colonial times. The court's instructions to judge the evidence only is dictatorial arrogance of the first order and completely common. Juries are supreme respecting a not-guilty verdict. --Brant Yes, and oaths not freely entered into are not really oaths anyway.

On light of Woods' book on Nullification -- http://www.amazon.com/Nullification-Resist-Federal-Tyranny-Century/dp/1596981490 -- I wonder where participants here stand on nullification, including jury nullification.

Just a minor point: she didn't write either of the books in toto. They are compilations of her writings along with those of Nathaniel Branden and others. I also think 30 pages into The Virtue of Selfishness you'll know much more about Objectivism and Rand's thinking than 30 pages into any of her big novels. And most people I've talked tend to read nonfiction more critically than fiction. So I feel one is more likely to get a thoughful reaction rather than someone merely adoring the heroic portrayals and falling for the emotional impact. There's, of course, nothing wrong with the latter -- and it's not entirely absent from the nonfiction. But, in my experience, most people tend to approach nonfiction in a different way than fiction. I wouldn't denigrate forums, including this one. But a big problem with coming to a knowledge of Rand or Objectivism via a forum -- and this applies to any thinker or system of philosophy -- is that, I feel, it's no substitute for reading the core works. It's an excellent way to broaden or deepen one's knowledge, but I believe it's not the best introduction. Of course, this probably depends much on the person entering the fray. But my experience has been coming across people who are completely unfamiliar with the ideas and then get exposed with some debates on a forum come away with a tiny grab bag view of the philosophy. And rarely, if they don't work at it and read the core works, are they able to do much with it. I've never known a time when Rand's main works weren't readily available from a variety of sources. I could see if we were talking about some more obscure works by some lesser known lights in the libertarian movement, but Rand has almost always been easily available, no?

This might explain some of Rand's contradictions. She might not have been explicitly following her premises because she had an interpretation of those premises beforehand that wasn't true to the letter of her word, so-to-speak. It might or it might not. Also, I want to stress that starting from a particular point is not necessarily wrong. One might start with what would appear to be a highly derived area of knowledge and work toward foundations or from foundations out to derivations. Nothing is wrong with this. Even so, if my reading of the history of thought is correct, often people who work first from foundations tend to ignore or reject derivations that don't fit often flippantly. If you merely mean by the time people get to considering philosophy they already have lots of intellectual baggage, I agree. This doesn't prevent them from, however, attempting a rational reconstruction of the current views. If that was Campbell's view, I think Plato had him beat by many centuries. And Plato is hardly the only one to hold such a view. But what do you mean here? What do you think people bring to the table at birth? (I think there's some confusion here, especially since there's a great deal of confusion between things like an innate language ability and inborn concepts. This doesn't knock out the latter, but I see many today not separating the former from the latter and so believing any demonstration of the former validates the latter.)

I actually prefer The Virtue of Selfishness over Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. But then that was my introduction to Rand and her ideas. Still, I think it's more tightly focused.