peterdjones

if our lives are determined, they will be whatever they are determined to be. Maybe we are determined to be irrational optimists Well that wasn't a bunch of subjective whims...stone cold fact there, Mr Objectivist!!

He said that Peikoff said "only one possible action", which he did, and that Rand approved his words before publication, which she did. "A thing cannot act against its nature, i.e., in contradiction to it's identity, because A is A and contradictions are impossible. In any given set of circumstances, therefore, there is only one action possible to an entity, the action expressive of it's identity."--LP I wasn't aware that all scientists are determinists. Or condemn the science that gives rise to them as "irrational". Objectivists are still arguing against the Big Bang 50 years down the line. To name but one. This is getting funny. Rand is supposed to be this pragmatic, open-to-correction character, and then out she comes with "absolute certainty" That's a contradiction. If something is ever "stated with certainty" that does put a cap on it. OTOH, of everything is open ended, nothing is certain Can its nature change?

Rand meets Sartre!

Where did I say what Objectivists say? Determinism can be argued any number of ways. I find little value in any determinism argument, even my own. Why? Not enough data. Here we are. We make choices. One choice cancels out those not chosen. This appertains to free will, something we know a little more about. That human things are determined by this or that doesn't mean all things are (purely) determined but represent an admixture for obviously our nature as humans, individually and collectively, will have a lot to do with the choices we make, but none of this tells us what determinism generally speaking is. We can posit this and posit that until the cows come home and keep on positing until the end of time and all our positings will be controversial, at least out of present knowledge. Determinism is a doctrine. Free will is action. We can say it's not action, but the action will still exist. Call it something else. Determinism yes or no is yes or no words only. We can put them up or out or zip our lips. I'm sure you haven't been determined to come here about determinism. Not unless your Objectivist brother beat you with a stick when you were very young. --Brant So much for philosophy

Why would anyone care if you could or couldn't? People who care about truth and consistency tend to care about that sort of thing How can they have freedom if they are determined? (I care about consistency) You seem to be saying that determinism can only be argued on the basis of complete predictability. But objecivists don't argue it that way, for a start.

Can you toss determinism and keep the Law of Causality?

I don't see why. Determinism might predict that they behave the same under the same circumstances, but they are never going to be under exactly the same circumstances because they have to occupy different volumes of space Chaos Theory and randomness are interesting anti-deterministic concepts too. Uh-huh. Well, Rand didn't believe in determinism when it is called Determinism, but she likes it just fine when it is called Causality.

No, it is equivalent to me asking you for the correction you say I need. and not getting it. You wrote a response to my comments. I responded to that in turn. As far as substantive debate goes that was it. The ball was left in your court. You did not make a further response to my comments. What argument? Your comments were themselves contradictory. I pointed that out and you apparently took umbrage I made an effort in perfectly good faith to respond to you. If you write a sentence, and then another contradictory sentence, as you did, I can't respond to that as if it were a cogent argument because it isn't.

Uh-huh. How do you know? Have you measured it?

I have quoted Peikoff as saying FW and causality are contradictory. You seem to be proposing a kind of null compatibilism (saying they are compatible, without offering an explanation how)). That is not great philosophy...but the actual situation is much worse.

If the decision making is an uncaused cause that doesn't come from the general deterministic process, determinism is false. If determinism is true. decision making is not free of determinism. The issue of whether decision making contributes to causality is irrelevant: the problem lies in where it comes from, not where it goes to. Ignorance is not bliss: if we are determined we are not free. Our ignorance of how we are determined does not make us free, any more than out ignorance of how we will die makes us immortal.

As it happens, I have my own theory of FW. However, I have no motivation to "improve" objectivism, since I would just be up against people who think it is perfect, and that I am failing to understand it in some unspecified way.

The pertinent point is that I found facts to support the conclusion. You cannot prove someone to be contradictory by selective ommision, hence, whatever I am doing, I am doing nothing wrong. I am not just repeating that Rand is wrong: I am quoting her contradicting herself. Am I making a mistake of interpretation? If I am, no one will say what it is. Why is that? Like is say, I am quoting her directly.

The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature . . . . The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. For the New Intellectual Galt’s Speech, For the New Intellectual, 151. To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature, i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the law of identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities of the elements involved. Philosophy: Who Needs It “The Metaphysical and the Man-Made,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 25. Since things are what they are, since everything that exists possesses a specific identity, nothing in reality can occur causelessly or by chance. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Leonard Peikoff “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,”

She espouses determinism in the quote I have given before: "All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe, from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life, are caused and determined [emph. added] by the identities of the elements involved". --AR Likewise, Peikoff states on page 14 of The Objective Philosphy of Ayn Rand, "A thing cannot act against its nature, i.e., in contradiction to it's identity, because A is A and contradictions are impossible. In any given set of circumstances, therefore, there is only one action possible to an entity, the action expressive of it's identity."' I gave the same quotes before, so my assertions were not baseless. Peikoff may well have said that determinism is false as well as saying it is true (not to mention saying it is true for non humans and false for humans). He's like that.

I am not going to accept that I have made any mistakes unless sombody can explain them to me. Yes. I am arguing that Rand is wrong since she is contradictory. Why not? The title of the thread is "objectivist contradictions". so that is a relevant message. I have quoted her directly. If you are implying that no one can criticise Rand on this forum, then I don't take it seriously.

I am not arguing for or against free will. I am arguing that Rand held a mutually contradictory set of views on the subjecct So you say. However, we appear to be made out of the same quarks and electrons as everything else So you say. Explaining how emergence works is not easy, and Rand doesn't. So you say. However, the vast array of possibilities you appeal to is contradicted by the Rand-Peikoff claims about determinism.

I am not arguing for or against free will. I am arguing that Rand held a mutually contradictory st of views on the subjecct So you say. However, we appear to be made out of the same quarks and electrons as everything else So you say. Explaining how emergence works is not easy, and Rand doesn't. So you say. However, the vast array of possibilities you appeal to is contradicted by the Rand-Peikoff claims about determinism.

Thankyou All thinkers have toe express themselves in words. To the listener there is no discernible difference between wonderful concepts expressed poorly and poor concepts expressed well. Hence being non-semantic is nothing to pride yourself on. That isn't a problem in this case because Rand and Peikoff say causality/determinism is universal and applies to all existents. The LoI is precisley what is held up as making determinism applicable to everything. If you want to say humans are an exception (as Peikoff sometimes does, when not contradictorilly saying causality is exceptionless), you cannot consistently hold that determinism is a corollary of the LoI. I have no idea what that is a reference to. Either its future choices are determined or not. Whether they are "spatial" is irrelevant. Do you think minds are outside of space. Of course the outcome of a specific act of choice one one occasion is a specific outcome, and on another occasion another choice and another outcome. It is hard to see what you are objecting to here. You might be saying that causality/nature/identity things doesn't involve to events, including events of choosing. But a notion of causality that doesn't include events is useless for science: we can no longer say that a ball starts rolling when pushed, because being pushed is an event. Moreover, if determinism only applies to things an not events, we cannot say future events are fixed..but that is just what Rand does say: "All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of elements within the universe, from a floating speck of dust to the formation of a galaxy to the emergence of life, are caused and determined [emph. added] by the identities of the elements involved". You just said "it can choose to choose, or choose not to choose". Make your mind up. So now you are saying there is only one possible outcome for all entities, in contradiction to your previous claim that there is more than one for volitional entities. I think that if all events are determined, the mental event of choosing is determined. If you think choice is some sort of causeless cause, the you are simply denying one of the Rand/Peikoff claims. I fail to see what relevance it has. Determinism has it that one event causes another, and if it applies universally it must apply to the kind of event that is an act of choice. That you need to have a faculty of choice to choose has no bearing on that Who is doing that? Obviously to make a choice you need the faculty of choice as a precondition. And equally obviously, the specific details of a choice made under a particular set of circumstances aren't determined by the general possession of the faculty, they are determined by the background assumptions of the individual, the factors weighing up the choice many other fine details. But so what? How does any of this show that you can make free choices in a determined universe? That isn't remotely clear. That a a faculty of volition (or anyhing else) is a necessary precondition of something has nothing to do with determinism. Necessary preconditions are compatible with a situation having more than one outcome. Rolling the die is a precondition, but any of 6 numbers can come up. The incompatibility between determinism and free choice comes in with the claim that a situation has only one outcome, and that is a claim that has been made by Rand and Peikoff. If you think that causality doesn't mean that, but just means necessary preconditions, you have a better theory than them, and you have a different theory than them, and they are still contradictory as I said! That's a blunt assertion of a contradiction. If people choose, their actions aren't determined; and if the future is fixed, so are their future decisions, and they therefore have no free choice. That contradicts your own statement: "The nature of volition results in a determined future outcome" Don't forget the causality is a corollory of identity, and applies to everything.

Determinism means that there is only one possible outcome to a situation, not that there are a number of impossible outcomes. That is what it means in the general debate on free will, and that is what it means in Objectivism: ""A thing cannot act against its nature, i.e., in contradiction to it's identity, because A is A and contradictions are impossible. In any given set of circumstances, therefore, there is only one action possible to an entity, the action expressive of it's identity."' OPAR Inasmuch as this is about understanding the correct use of words, it is very properly "semantics".

So you say. But I don't believe you.

So you say.Asserted without proof. It's freedom from determinsim can only be freedom from determinism. Rand's contradiction lies in asserting determinism and volition and incompatibilism. You may have achieved a non-contradictory stance by dropping incompatibilism, but that does not free Rand form contradiction. Doesn't work. Entities perform particular actions at particular times because of particular events within them.

"I can explain it, just not to you" will not work either

The issue is whether all events are caused, including mental events that bring about actions. If all events are deterministically caused, then there is no basis for saying that events that lead to actions are free. If agents are just another stage in a deterministic chain, then the claim that they exert some special causality is merely honorific. We are not un free because we are material. However, if we are material AND determined, we do not have incompatibliist free will. Incompatiblisis free will is free from determination That is compatibilism, which Rand rejected.

Just to make things crystal clear: I am not going to accept that my criticisms are invalid until I see a good clear argument to that effect. "I have Wonderful Proof, but the margin is too small to contain it" will not work. "I can argue against that, but it's below my pay grade/I'm too busy making $$$$" will not work. "I don't the argument against that, but some unspecified person does" will not work "It's in the books somewhere, but I don't know where" will not work. And none of the other standard evasions will work either.