seymourblogger

Oh......something like the fate of the world depending on it? Honestly, the question leaves me feeling, Where to begin? I guess you don't know much about the long, long history of Linz having extremely strong views on world politics and on what the US ought to do and on the importance of the US doing what he thinks the US ought to do (if only we'd all listen to him, what a wonderful world it would be, that sort of self-assessed significance placed on his own views). Plus he has this thing about "loyalty." Being disagreed with about politics by persons he considers -- or formerly considered -- friends gets him, if anything, even more worked up into a rage than being challenged on aesthetics. Ellen Good grief. I have read some of his aesthetics stuff and it was so overwrought, at first I thought it was parody. If the politics are worse i will just keep avoiding. Glad I have missed the aesthetics. What a blessing. Please don't tell me where they are.

Oh......something like the fate of the world depending on it? Honestly, the question leaves me feeling, Where to begin? I guess you don't know much about the long, long history of Linz having extremely strong views on world politics and on what the US ought to do and on the importance of the US doing what he thinks the US ought to do (if only we'd all listen to him, what a wonderful world it would be, that sort of self-assessed significance placed on his own views). Plus he has this thing about "loyalty." Being disagreed with about politics by persons he considers -- or formerly considered -- friends gets him, if anything, even more worked up into a rage than being challenged on aesthetics. Ellen Good grief. I have read some of his aesthetics stuff and it was so overwrought, at first I thought it was parody. If the politics are worse i will just keep avoiding. I said I would avoid the politics over there, but I could not help reading the descriptions of candidates, one is an evil lunatic and another is a totalitarian nightmare, plus the previous idiot, and those are just the Republicans. What does he expect the US to do? Blow itself up in a tantrum? Now stop. LP just knows how to name call with over the top adjectives. Just like Michael Stuart Kelly. Realy there is so little difference , well, maybe they don't look alike.

"[D]o you believe your consciousness will survive the death of your brain (I confess to finding the evidence that this has already occurred quite strong)?" So Jabba booted this guy for repeating back at him a putdown that Jabba had just used? On the grounds that he didn't give attribution? If you say to me "Yo mama", and I reply "nah, yo mama", that's plagiarism? Jeez. That's just the precipitating straw culminating a long history. Plus, I suspect that Linz is in a generally worked-up mood because of anger at what persons he once considered friends are saying on the multiple active threads about the coming US presidential election. I don't agree that he's an "asshole." A provocateur. Very smart, prodigiously well-read, and with an eye for genuine problem areas. A shame, imo, he doesn't write up his critiques in essay form instead of employing his talents irritating posters on web lists. I guess he does his schtick just for amusement. Ellen darren doesn't irritate me. Definitely NOT an asshole. Maybe it's just that most of the rest are wondering how many angels can daunce on the head of a pin.

Darren knows better than to argue for Intelligent Design, so it could not be darren you are theorizing about. Janet, Darren IS arguing for Intelligent Design. Nearly all of his posts convey this 'message'. This would be easy to resolve if we knew the real name of the poster on Solo, as we do the one on OL. Why would you even care?

The hell he "knows better." See this very long SOLO thread on which Darren argued for Intelligent Design lengthily and repeatedly, including some arguments of his own origination along with the standard ones: Rand and Darwin - Conflict or Not? Ellen I still think not darren from your link. Not his writing style at all. Not the way he thinks at all. I could be wrong though. He might have been trying to fit into the Discourse here.

So we both agree that Rand is no post modern writer. This leaves us to examine another statement you made: Rand - a "post modern philosopher"? Post modern philosophy is: As un-Randian is as it can get. I can understand your reluctance to apply those generalizing labels, but I can't see a smidgen of 'post modern' thought in Rand's philosophy. What e. g. we perceive as reality in no way questioned a to its 'reliablilty' The same goes for "truth". I can vividly imagine how Rand would have reacted to statements like "In fact there is no truth". Can't you too imagine her reaction to that? In large parts, yes. For humanity is moving in a different direction than she predicted.Please do not give me a wiki definition like that. Irrelevant. The post modern thought in Rand's writing comes from her" sleeping in bed" with Nietzsche. Nietzsche bleeds through her linguistically. The way a mother's language bleeds through her child. An invisible transfusion. Nietzsche is the philosopher of our world now as Hegel has been for the last 300 years or so. I said or so George. And no I did not get his irony because he is so hostile all the time to me I thought he meant it as another nasty comment. As it was it was just sadistically teasing or teasingly sadistic. In relation to Nietzsche he makes her a sort of post modern disciple of his, although he repudiated disciples. I doubt that you can see Nietzsche's post modern thought in Rand. Try harder though. Sure I can imagine her reaction to "there is no truth. So what." Humanity is not moving in a different direction. It is jumping from Even to Event. If you would reply to me at SOLO it would be easier as this auto post thing is glitchy. But do as you wish.

I remember that one. Tedious + obnoxious. Hope he’s not coming back!Darren knows better than to argue for Intelligent Design, so it could not be darren you are theorizing about.

Wrong premise on your part, Janet: I have never been an Objectivst. Nor have I ever adhered to any philosophy hook line and sinker. Instead I prefer to pick and choose from different philosophies and patchwork it together individually. Maybe Janet assumed that regulars on a Rand-based site would all be Objectivists. She seemed to think I was one, and was also under the misapprehension that I am a "serious adult." Well if you aren't a serious adult why won't you play with me? Because you don't play nice. They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing that I see the game. - Knots - R. D. Laing

Wrong premise on your part, Janet: I have never been an Objectivst. Nor have I ever adhered to any philosophy hook line and sinker. Instead I prefer to pick and choose from different philosophies and patchwork it together individually. Maybe Janet assumed that regulars on a Rand-based site would all be Objectivists. She seemed to think I was one, and was also under the misapprehension that I am a "serious adult." Well if you aren't a serious adult why won't you play with me?

Carol, A milder form of apophenia (one that actually corresponds to reality) is garden-variety induction. The apophenia I'm talking about is not related to reality except for a coincidence-with-label-on-it in the apophenics mind. But there's a problem. You can't sell it--hell, you can't even sell the label--because nobody's buying. People are not in your head. So you need to wed it to the Texas Sharpshooter technique before anyone will take it seriously. Otherwise people will just leave the apophenic babblers to babble on all alone. Look at the following explanation, then look at the cases with strong commonality I mentioned above, i.e, post-modernism, conspiracy paranoia and backwater revival tent meetings. It's a perfect fit. We already have the epistemology: bullshi,.. er... coincidence. Now for the marketing. Here's how the Texas Sharpshooter thing works. (btw - I have no idea why it's called "Texas," but there it is.) You take a rifle and go to a barn. Make sure nobody's around. This is because you don't want to shoot anyone by accident. You are, after all, a terrible shot. But you also don't want anyone to see you. Take along several cases of ammo. Start shooting at the side of the barn and keep shooting all day long. When you run out of ammo, go up to the side of the barn and notice the places where the bullet holes are clustered together. If you used enough ammo, there should be a few that look impressive. Draw a bulls-eye around the thickest sets of holes. Finally, bring your friends around and show them the bulls-eyes with multiple holes in them. Then brag about how good your sharpshooting is. Is that Baudrillard or is that Baudrillard? Be careful with THEM, though. THEY'RE everywhere! Praeeze Jaeeezzhus! Michael Actually you are talking about yourself Michael Stuart Kelly. It's called projection. Anna Freud. Jung liked it a lot as an explanation for human psychology. You're too easy to hit though. Like my bf who could hit a target with his eyes slitted almost closed and the gun lying on his lap. Sexy though.

Close, but no cigar. The modern era ended on Feb. 10, 1949. And it ended in Japan, where a child was born. Ghs The Modern era ended around 1950. <b>around</b> is the important word here. Around is a modifier. Around means about, not exactly .

Indeed, so I think the big question ought to be: on what date did she actually celebrate it? Does anyone know? The choices ought to be January 20 or February 2; either way her sign was Aquarius: http://en.wikipedia....rius_(astrology) You put a lot of energy into forming opinions and hold to them strongly. Driven by two planets, each representing opposite principles you frequently display a ‘wild’ side, linked to planet Uranus and prompting eccentric leanings, as well as a structured ambitious hard working Saturnian side. You are most happy when you are doing something different in a big ambitious way. You are the thinker of the zodiac, your key phrase: “I serve humanity”.Yeah. Uh-huh. Nailed it. Maybe someone can look up what her Chinese animal was. For example, this is the year of the Dragon, last year was year of the Rabbit. Obviously, it was the Groundhog. What a fascinatingly interesting post. i can hardly wait to read your next one.

Calling Janet's activities an attempt to "stuff Rand in there" expresses it well. But since Rand simply does not fit in there, all of Janet's efforts are in vain.I want to make something clear: I have no objection per se to reading Rand (or any other writer) from various perspectives, whether Nietzschean or otherwise. <...> In picking up Carol's comment about Janet "trying to stuff Rand in there", I was referring to more than a mere reading of Rand from a certain perspective, (as in e. g. pointing out where Nietzschean thought may have influenced her. I was referring to Janet's flat-out categorizing Rand as a post-modern writer, and I think she is wrong there. For example, post-modern writers often play with the reader's expectation of reality, and frequently demolish this expectation in their fiction. I can't see anything in Rand's work remotely resembling this. Re the quote Janet lists in her profile "An object does not exist until and unless it is observed" - does she seriously believe Rand would have endorsed this subjectivist view? The quoted statement is the very opposite of Objectivist thought. As are Janet's attacks on truth allegedly not existing in what she calls 'simulated reality' here. As if forum posters were no different from post-modern fictional characters ... In her posts, Janet is mostly parroting stuff she took from her postmodern 'gurus'. Her enthusiastic attitude is an indicator that she is still lightyears away from reaching a stage where she would critically examine the philosophy of her gurus. Important as gurus can be at a certain phase in an individual's life, I think there also comes a point where it becomes equally important to continue the intellectual/philosophical journey on one's own, without being dependent on the guru's thought system. I was referring to Janet's flat-out categorizing Rand as a post-modern writer, and I think she is wrong there. For example, post-modern writers often play with the reader's expectation of reality, and frequently demolish this expectation in their fiction. I can't see anything in Rand's work remotely resembling this. I have never characterized Rand per se as being a post modern writer. She wrote in the 1940's and 1950's. The Modern era ended around 1950. What i have said explicitly is that her fiction is a forerunner of post modern thinking, and I detest that label as much as any of you, but I am using it as a ready-made, for want of something better that would not take a paragraph to say. There are others we can place in this category: Borges; Klossowski, Robbe-Grillet, Rand, and of course, Nietzsche. There are many more but these are the ones that came off the top of my head right now. Fictional artists are often clairvoyant about the future. Do you dispute Rand's ability in this? None of these writers were consciously setting forth a platform for post modern thinking. they were writing. They were artists. The ones writing in the post modern vein now are often aware of it. DeLillo for one, although he will not acknowledge that. It is impossible that so accomplished and acclaimed a writer - late in his career BTW - who has read as widely as he has, would not know anything about post modern thinking. The fact that people here know nothing about it does not make it irrelevant. It just makes you culturally deficient. For some reason x-ray I don't exactly see you this way. You are quite as I was in the early 60's when I bought the whole package of objectivism, hook, line and sinker. As it does sink your thinking. They rhyme in English.

How do you know whether I am lying or not. This is simulated reality. there is no true and no false. There is only credibility. You are ilogicalo as you decide I am telling the truth in regards to your above, but think I am lying about the hacking of my computer. Contradictions, contradictions. A pity.

Are you a tad obsessed with me?

Oh, good. I'm glad you did that. I have copies of some of it, but I'd like to see how the whole discussion developed. There is a certain amount of philosophic interest to me in the back-and-forth between Angela and Janet. Plus there's a post (one which I copied) in which Janet describes some early perception research when she was a student. I'd like to find references to that research if any of it was published. I don't know if she said anything further about it elsewhere in the thread, since I didn't have time to read all the posts. Ellen I published a portion at my blog here, in a post "The most open Objectivish forum?" Only OL members have access to it. I will also post the entire thread in a blog post, if nobody minds. It is a bit fudgy in terms of format, but the road to inanity is clear ... If you want my thesis just search janet ballard abbey in google and it should come up. Stereoscopically Induced Subjective Contour . Actually my work was a forerunner of those dots you see in the newspaper that have a hidden design if you can look at it in a relaxed way. After I left I took my secret with me and it took 25 years for the world to catch up to me on that problem. The secret was: you don't need a steroscopic device to "see" the subjective illusion. It had great potential for clinical evaluations. That's what you get for fucking a black married grad student with children when the local drug store counter just got integrated 2 years before. And an office mate who can't think his way out of a wet paper bag. And refusing a NASA grant because it was a federal grant based on other people's tax money. You do not turn down one of those and continue to have a career. Saved me from a terrible productive life doing silly psychological research. There would have been no psychoanalysis, no art history, no performance art, no free school experimentation, no writing, no poetry, no endless movie viewing. Wasn't I lucky! As Badurillard said,he rad Nietzsche early, when he was very young, and he read him deeply and seriously. He thought he lucked out on his major exams when both parts of it concentrate on Nietzsche. Alas they didn't like his reading of Nietzsche and failed him. He laughed in the interview and said it saved him from something worse as Nietzsche would say. But I did love illusion problems. They cured me of Rand's authoritarian pronouncements. And most others.

Brant, Heh. That dog sure didn't sing. But it did bark at him. Even raised it's lip and snarled some... That's the bitch about the dog whistle. It sounds pretty and makes you want to do something nice since nobody else hears it, but the damn dog can't sing. Michael Actually dogs can sing. I listened to a musician on lat night radio of jazz etc and he came on with his guitar, music and dog, and the dog sang lovely. Then he talked about how the dog had learned. Lovely man too.

George is just dressing out his game. --Brant The train wreck you can't look away from. From me who knows zero about computers, the idea of a lady with what, four blogs, at least two current forum memberships, and who knows how many past ones (she wrote something once about "the gestapo came in the middle of the night" from one of them) emails and conducts all her business online --- and maybe somewhere in the world a few people who don't like her --- gets hacked, and decides that her new/old computer's autism is due to that pesky OL vaccine. Janet, your lovely hackerboy geniuses are just feeding your paranoia. You said they gave you $1000 worth of services, but there really is no free lunch. However superior a customer and cheap a tipper you are. Is that a fact?

Brant. In reality? Who knows? I, myself, seriously doubt it. But it doesn't matter in this game. She's pissed in the story she tells. She has to be for her imagined payoff. That's the important part... Michael So brant is wondering if I am pissed off? Hmmmmmmm.

Fraid not.

Google didn't delete my blog. It's stil there. Just not accessible from this site or google search. No one gets to me through that way anyway. And the one that was messed with here is exactly the one with the Rand post brant was so upset about.

For the uninformed the faux site is what is known as a "MIRROR SITE" in which the link goes to a fake site. Google wasn't hacked. That was just what I said in an email that the hacker read. It disappeared after the hacker read it but it's back again because the hacker now knows that I was lying. Because I knew my email was being hacked and read. How come you know what I said in an email MSK? I like your damage control MSK. Either you were in on it or you were had? You are following Guy de Maupassant's advice to Duroy in Bel ami (late 19th century) Following Baudrillard in the instructions given to him for his journalism: Things should be hinted at in such a manner as to allow of any construction being placed on them, refuted in a manner that confirms the rumor, or affirmed in such a way that no one believes them. (BA 120 1910 ed) And of course Rand in her JournaAl, the part where she is researching the character of Wynand through W.R. Hearst, showing that he did not report the news, he made the news. This is far from over.

Interesting analysis MSK. Faux site was put up again. H-E-R-E and of course will appear in google search for awhile. But the originnal is still fine and well and receiving hits from elsewhere, just not from here anymore. God forbid anyone at OL could link directly or paste to my blog and read a different opinion fr9om the party line. and if you past the original in google search you get the more recent nintellectualterrorism2.blogspot.com Now who do you suppose would put up a faux site and put an n in front of Intellectual? A pun on Not? Someone from OL put up a faux site. I certainly didn't. Wait, maybe I could have just to throw you a floating sign to act as a mask? What is true and what is false in this simulated reality of ours. Are you in on it MSK or have you been had? And how can we ever know the objective truth? Even if you tell us the truth, will you be telling the truth or will you be lying? Here's Guy de Maupassant in Bel Ami on that. Advice to Duroy: Following Baudrillard in the instructions given to him for his journalism: Things should be hinted at in such a manner as to allow of any construction being placed on them, refuted in a manner that confirms the rumor, or affirmed in such a way that no one believes them. (BA 120 1910 ed) Not even to mention Rand's Journal entries on researching the character of Wynand by reading through W.R. Hearst. How Hearst made the news, not reported the news. This is far from over.

You mean you prevented me with your "excess" from using it a third time? I think you are trying to bait me or pat yourself on the back or both. However, you are like the fireman who arrives after the fire and starts it up again. --BrantThen stay out of my way completely, Always. Is there any part of that you don't understand? I want no comments on anything I write. No still hot matches to start any fires.

In short, you are attacking truth in the name of truth. Classic case of what is called 'stolen concept' in Objectivism. The nature of stolen concepts is their 'stickiness': the attackers are unable to free their minds of the very concept they are attacking. It even sticks in their mind so much that they base their case on it, like in denying truth in the name of truth. You are mixing up truth with mere belief/personal opinion/subjective value judgements. . TIA for providing the link. But of course there are opposites. For example, the 'reality' of surgically interfering with body fat is to oppose another reality that was there before: fat one wanted to have removed. Therefore, on the factual level, there exists no such thing as 'simulated reality': there is only reality. Another illustrative example is lying: the liar is trying to conceal a fact, a truth that he/she wants to keep hidden. But the act of lying itself belongs to reality.No. Not in simulated reality. The whole dust up about Foucault was to prove that to you. Alas gone. Cowards all. There was no way to prove or disprove it. No way to "know for sure" it was true or false. Only whether it was credible or not. It wasn't of course. But anyone can put out anything and then because it is out there it is credible. Maybe. It can generate a repeat of what we saw in the last few days. A fury! Raging ping-pong! I am sure brant will never use that particular RUMOR on me for a third time. That's the way to get rid of something. Excess leads to implosion.