Dglgmut

Morality is emotional. Your sense of right and wrong doesn't intensify or diminish, but how present it is depends on your understanding of the situation. You don't learn something is right or wrong, you learn implications of events that you weren't previously aware of... those implications are inherently right or wrong from your perspective.

I don't think your level of morality changes... you just become more aware of unfairness in situations you didn't analyze closely enough before.

Is it irrational to take advantage of someone who's principles you disagree with? Say the bank is, believed so by you, to be in bed with a corrupt government. Is it irrational to take the unattended money if you know for sure there's no way you'll be caught and you know of many moral ways to spend it? Morality precedes rationality. The question might as well be, "Is doing the right thing always rational?" That depends on whether or not you think morality is a key to happiness. Maybe you have no morality... in which case, why is what other people deem moral important to you? Well, we're talking about conscious decisions. We are aware of countless options in every choice we make... The drug addict knows he has the option to put down the pipe or the needle, but he is likely convinced, temporarily, at least, that it's not going to kill him to take one more hit. Committing suicide is a choice too... a choice between the life they have and the unknown. Is it rational? To end any opportunity to be happy seems irrational... If they've decided they will never be happy again... I mean, every conscious choice we make is rational to us.

What has the afterlife to do with this? She believed to accomplish this in her lifetime.Why would she want to accomplish something if she would not be around to benefit from it? The accomplishment may bring her happiness, but surely that makes the choice emotional, rather than rational. But then we get to Hume's point: every choice we make is primarily emotional; rationality is more about how effectively we choose in order to attain what we want. I guess I just assumed everyone agreed with that, but maybe it doesn't align with Objectivist beliefs? If you agree with Hume, then anything we do could be looked at as rational. If happiness doesn't follow, though, then we obviously misjudged what we wanted. So it comes down to how well we can interpret our own feelings. It could have been rational for Rand to spread her philosophy for the same reason it could be rational for a singer to go on a global tour. Whether or not a choice is rational comes down to whether or not we attain what we really want. Did it make us happy? So, in order to be rational in our pursuit of happiness, we must try to understand what, exactly, makes us happy. I'll bring up the Lego blocks again... human beings love to create. We love to perpetuate whatever it is that we call the "self"... That passion is ego. Anyway, Adam, sorry for the stupid questions. I ask them to scrutinize, not to criticize. I think scrutiny is very rational, though.

If rights are man made, who should protect our rights? And for what in exchange? And about this "rational selfishness" being thrown around... What does that even mean? Selfishness is just as emotional as altruism. Why do you want to live? You just feel like it... Well, I don't think selfishness carries forward to the afterlife, especially for someone who I'm sure didn't believe in one.

Sir: If you intend to display your ignorance of Ayn and her intentions, please do not display it so high on the flagpole. You did not know the woman. She absolutely believed that Atlas Shrugged would change the world. A great many of us who read it and understood the concepts it was based on thought so also. If by laissez-faire capitalism you mean completely unregulated by the state, then it is certainly not a compromise between collectivism and ultimate individual responsibility, but I do not think that is what you mean by laissez-faire capitalism. Adam What I meant was the only government spending would be towards a police force protecting the lives and property rights of others. That is still not ultimate individual responsibility. A government funded police force is a collective effort. The laws and punishments are also the result of collective actions. And come on... Ayn believed that her philosophy was going to change how the US government was run, so much and so quickly that she would personally benefit from the changes in her lifetime? As if she couldn't be more selfish any other way? Again, should we not want as much responsibility for ourselves as possible? Meaning: wanting no aid in any aspect of life. Freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand as far as the individual is concerned... right?

Question: Laissez-faire capitalism with property laws is still a compromise between ultimate individual responsibility and collectivism, is it not? Based on Objectivist principles, would it not be a good rule of thumb to say the more responsibility put on the individual the better for everyone? Should we not want as much responsibility for ourselves as we can possibly have? Honest question. Also, Rand said the reason she went out of her way to teach her philosophy was out of selfishness; it was in her interest to improve the world she lived in. That is obviously BS. She knew she wasn't going to change the world in her lifetime... it actually seems ridiculous for her to try to defend her actions that way. I find it much more believable that she would want to improve the world over time, even after her death, so that people like her could have more opportunities than if she did nothing. We want to improve things for the same reason we want to build things and for the same reason Lego's are a popular children's toy... we just like to add things to the world through creativity that comes from us, not mindless work to achieve a goal we do not agree with.

What a relief. There's no more philosophy to discuss. The "natural law" answers everything. Dump morality and ethics, dump volition and self-interest, dump self-consciousness - we are all just animals, right? That makes everything OK - we can hunt in packs, pull down the weakest prey, shun a wounded brother, screw our asses off, and never for a second ask Why? The good of the herd is 'why'. Until you are the frail or weakling, and must be sacrificed by your community. It's a jungle out there, and we must fight for survival: eat, or be eaten. Yeah? I repeat, Man faces a metaphysical and individual struggle -- not a species/tribal competition to exist. (No wonder Capitalism struggles to survive in this climate of ignorance!) If I read "We are, after all, a product of nature" once again, I think I'll puke. Others have misused and abused Rand's derivation of Man's morality from what he is, (METAPHYSICALLY) recently on OL, turning it into an argument from Man's physical nature - but I don't believe you are deliberately doing this, Calvin. There isn't a natural law for us, we have to find it. Oh, and your mind is a product of nature. What do you choose to do with it? TonyI think you're misinterpreting my post. I think we agree about this. I'm saying even if Darwinism is at work, that doesn't change the fact that we choose how we live, and what we think is fair. So if we reject a Darwinian society, then that too is part of the process. (And the thing about us being natural: I guess I just meant we can't 'surrender' to nature as we are part of it.)

I meant that to be aimed at those arguing for the facilitation of Social Darwinism. If it is a natural law, then we don't even need to talk about it... we are, after all, a product of nature. Whatever we end up doing is what will be said to "work".

But it's not up to people to impose or facilitate any form of Darwinism if it's already in action. If you believe that's the way things are, then there's no reason to change anything anyway... because you can't... what's "fittest" will prevail. What if individualism survives? Then is it not a product of Social Darwinism?

It had some good reviews on amazon. I'll have to add it to my list. We are not what we could be? As in, we generally don't live up to our potential? Progress is such a dominant theme in society... What are we trying to achieve, and why? The most any individual can hope to achieve is to affect the experiences of others. All the recent inventions: iPad's and smartphones and all that; they are achievements only because people like them. Being funny is such a desirable trait, isn't it? Most people would love to be able to make people laugh... Intentionally making someone laugh is probably the truest display of power. Anyone can pull a trigger, or whatever else we might associated with power...

I don't think it's wrong to explore reality! I think it's great... but it's nothing more than a way to pass the time. You should find out all you can about the universe, if that's what you find interesting... But this thread is not about the universe, or what we experience... it's about what experiences. If you don't find that interesting, fine, but I don't see what's wrong with wondering about that kind of stuff. Is it a waste of time? Is talking about gravity a much better use of time? Should understanding the universe take priority over understanding myself? Hmm... another question: How could we possibly care about something other than ourselves? Here's an example: If a blind man was an amazing painter, is it possible for him to want to paint a picture he would never see, if he knew nobody else would ever see it either? If it is entirely wasteful, how could he possibly want to paint it? If there's no joy from the experience itself, and no result to be appreciated... I think we definitely do see ourselves in others... I just can't imagine a completely selfless action.

Again, it's not whether it exists or not... It's how or why.

But questioning existence itself is obviously pointless, right? Not whether or not it exists, but how it does... And the same for our own existence. That's not interesting to anyone here? That we don't know HOW we exist? But gravity is interesting???

What, is objectivism's slogan: Why wonder about anything? It'll only make your head hurt. What about self-esteem and all that? We should avoid mysticism and spirituality? We don't even know how we can think. How can someone criticize mysticism and then say, "There are some things we simply can't know." Is that reasonable?

We have very limited control over our experience. I think power can only exist relative a separate power. Total freedom/power can't exist. You cannot do whatever you want without first having something to want.

All we have is our memories and our senses. Everything else is us; singular and non-physical.

I asked earlier in this thread: What am I without memory? You can't describe it.

What choice is involved in one's own intelligence? Is there limited choice, or no choice what-so-ever? Is the choice to seek knowledge an intelligent one?

I know I am not my personality. Why? Because I have a brain. That brain creates an experience so totally encompassing that I cannot conceive of being without it. If I am not my brain, how do I know I depend on it? At what point do we stop saying, "One day we may understand," and just accept that some things are just not logical, but can only be identified through the use of logic? The fact that we are singular is enough to eliminate the possibility of us being anything physical...

But you originally said the reason we are curious of anything is because curiosity is hard-wired into us... So you can choose not to be curious, but the only reason we have the option is because it's hard-wired into us? What do we base our choices on? On what would you possibly base the choice of whether or not to be curios? There are some things that, we can say for certain, we have no choice about. Those things, at the very least, strongly influence our choices. ...And animals don't lack the mental capabilities to choose... they lack the mental capabilities to identify things on a level that would offer more choices. Anyway... I was thinking about ownership... We may think of experience as the most basic form of ownership. If you are experiencing, you must "have" that experience... I don't see it as my property, though. Our senses, a slightly less conceptual version of our experiences, do not belong to us either... When we have our eyes open, we have absolutely no control over what we see. If we have no control over something, it can't be on a fundamental level of ownership. So that leaves us with our bodies. Our bodies must be our most primary possession. We don't have complete control over our bodies, though... If you get knocked unconscious, you just temporarily lost possession of your body, as well as a lot of your brain. I think the mind is really a tool... or a toy, even. I think consciousness exists separate from a mind.

Thanks. That is what I was getting at. I guess I could have chosen better words. I would have edited my last post if it still allowed me to do so, just because it got a little confusing and I wasn't clear in my own mind what exactly I was talking about... To try to better explain my understanding: Our memories exist primarily on a subconscious level. When we "think" we are just remembering. We focus on bits of memory, and through association, more bits of memory pop to the surface. There is no personality to our brains. All we have are sensations and memory of sensations... We don't experience emotions, we become emotional and experience the resultant sensations. To be determined is to be completely identifiable, which I believe we are. However, the only information we have of ourselves is conclusive through analysis of our actions. We can't see consciousness, but we can see the effects of consciousness. There is no limit to the experiences consciousness can react to, and therefor there's no limit to how much we can learn about ourselves.

And why do you care? You can say things like, "It's hardwired into us," to simplify the issue, but it doesn't take into account why you follow that instinct. If you are implying that you are being forced, then we don't need to waste anymore time talking about volition, deliberation or choice anymore. And I wasn't referring to anything other than what the words I chose are normally interpreted as meaning. + Without memory we have nothing but sensory information. However, I believe, like very simple living organisms, we could function without memory. The context of experience, which I was talking about, may just be the relation between memories and sensation. It may be that emotion is an automatic response to experience, and is not experienced itself. To want something is not to feel desire, it's something we do. If you were asked to isolate the "feeling" of emotion, you would only be left with sensory information that wouldn't point you to anything, other than your physical body. Memory, and the context we create for our present situation, adds to the complexity of our experience, and leads to our emotional response. Understanding, for example, of how a physical process occurs, is just memory. I can "understand" gravity, because I remember, vividly, how objects fall to the ground. I remember how they accelerate, and so I can imagine it/recreate the sensations (how it looks). Memories are the only thing that we "create", and nobody can explain how we do that.

I guess there's two kinds of beliefs: Those that instill self-esteem and those that undermine it... both are likely pretty vicious cycles. With a belief system that instills self-esteem, we are inhibiting any opportunity of replacing beliefs that prove irrational... We can't let them go, obviously, because they are the reason we believe we are capable of knowing anything! And with a belief system based around the idea of, "I can always be wrong," we will be incredibly open minded, but never building on beliefs because none of them can serve as a solid foundation. I think there's a delicate balance... If you value the truth, you can't let self-esteem take priority over open mindedness... Ba'al: The question, "Why do I think?" was meant as a form of introspection. How can I choose to think, before I've thought? I'm theorizing that the emotion, curiosity, I guess, comes before reason. You don't need a reason to be curious.

I don't think you can manipulate your own beliefs, you can only decide to keep digging or stay where you are. There aren't many reasons I can see for someone choosing not to learn, but people make that choice all the time... Maybe it's because they're satisfied with what they believe, and they don't see any reason to go out of their way to change their perspective... or they honestly believe they know everything that's worth knowing. I guess it's the nature of consciousness to cling to truth. Maybe the value of truth is so high we cannot bear to accept when we are wrong, and we protect our irrational beliefs in order to maintain our confidence in our capacity for reason. If we admit we are wrong, we admit that truth may be unattainable by our imperfect minds.