Kallikanzarid

tmj, so when talking about metaphysical properties, how do you answer questions that I raised in the OP? It seems that your version of metaphysics is too barebone to be a useful foundation for anything.

True

BaalChatzaf, of course

tmj, I guess I call attributes what you call properties or characterisitcs.

tmj, ok, I got your position.

tmj, so you *do* believe that in some form attributes exist even when minds don't? Can you answer the questions I posed about such attributes in the first message of the thread?

I have read the section 6. You claim that in classical mechanics, sufficiently chaotic systems are not deterministic in the long run. It is not true, they are merely unstable. There's a difference. Generally, the laws of classical mechanics are formulated as ordinary differential equations. Under mild restrictions, they have unique solutions given any initial conditions. For classical physical systems (for which the forces in the appropriate coordinate systems have potentials proportional to 1/|x|^(-n), n >= 1) Lipschitz continuity always holds in a system constrained by the following assumptions: That the energy is conserved (or, equivalently, that laws of physics don't change with time in the sense that a time translation of a valid solution is a valid solution), and in fundamental systems this always holds. That the initial total energy of the system is finite (which is equivalent to saying that no two particles have coinciding coordinates).Since the Lipschitz condition holds everywhere for a system constrained by energy conservation, it has a unique global solution for any initial conditions. That's really it, that's determinism in classical physics in a nutshell. It's math, you can't disprove it by marveling a waterfall and appealing to intuition. Off topic: real numbers (which can be defined as equivalence classes of sequences of rational numbers) are in general not computable. So your claim that all "non-random" sequences can be computed by algorithms is false. Edit: I've just realized that I've made a stupid assumption that all forces in the system are repellent. In fact, there are cases when particles could bump into each other: for example, consider two uncharged particles of positive mass initially at rest. I'm not sure if the energy is defined when they have the same coordinates, and on such distances quantum effects become noticeable, anyway, so classical mechanics breaks down. It's not relevant to most systems of classical mechanics, though: Matter in most everyday scenarios is composed of atoms, and atomic cores are positively charged (and electron shells are negatively charged, I'm not sure what matters more), so atoms can't collide in the above sense classically (instead they smoothly repel each other in a way that merely looks like rigid collision on large scales). Such collision solutions are not likely, in the sense that even the slightest perturbation ensures that they don't happen, and given random initial conditions with a continuous probability distribution, they have zero probability of happening, assuming that the number of particles is not 2.So, here's a limitation to the existence of global solutions in classical systems. It still can't "conceal" free will, though, because the system is still well-behaved enough so that solutions, where they exist, are unique. Thus, if you want free will you'll have to ponder quantum mechanics, which is deterministic in the above sense in between measurements. And in cases of measurements the hypothesized indeterminism is constrained by the free will theorem, assuming that it is indeed correct.

tmj, before you said: "All attributes do really exist, or at least they do in my version. I believe in the existence of mental constructs , mine and others'." Didn't you mean that attributes are mental constructs? What did you mean? Also, can you explicitly answer questions in my first post in the thread, please?

tmj, so before the first mind existed, existents were featureless blobs? That's a bold statement.

whYNOT, I wouldn't consider Peikoff an expert on modrn philosophy

Unless you take at least some attributes as really existing, your version of Objectivist metaphysics is trivial: you basically say "things exist" and that's it. Not that I mind (I'm skeptical to the idea that any metaphysics is more than idle guesswork), but Rand certainly would object here

That's a surprise 0_o Can you back it up with a quotation?

Leonid, I'm afraid that's not very helpful.

Brent, it has more to do with lack of clarity on what "existence" and "identity" exactly mean in this context.

Stephen, thank you for the link. I'm afraid it's over my head for now While your clarification helped somewhat, you didn't touch my main two questions. If Rand didn't identify an attribute with a predicate, then what is the difference between the two? Predicates are usually part of some logic and thus there are many logical operations and axioms defined which affect them and allow us to study them. Did Rand assume something like that? I'm insisting on clearing this up because there are mathematical implications: are paradoxes of naive set theory relevant? Can the Yoneda lemma be applied? And so on... Also, like I mentioned above, our ability to reason about metaphysical counterfactuals depends on predicates' independent existence. And before that, the status of logic(s) needs some clearing up. Is there a logical system that Rand thought is engraved in the fabric of reality? Or there a systematic way by which any logic or some class of logics (e.g. consistent ones) can be applied to Rand's metaphysics? I didn't understand this part at all.

If you're referring to the Limitations section: Conflation of indeterminism and free will: I'm well aware of that, that's why I restated the theorem in weaker terms above.The criticism of Goldstein et al: I haven't noticed it before I'll read up on it, it seems like an interesting topic.The pressuposition of indeterminism: I don't think that it applies to the most famous formulation, because it merely constrains indeterminism and does not attempt to "prove" it. It could be, it depends on the precise distinction. I don't understand what you mean by indeterministic processes within classical physics. Fundamentally, classical mechanics is deterministic, and stochastic systems are characterized by randomness, and they are not fundamental. But assuming you're talking about some kind of stochastic system, how can you base volition on randomness yet still maintain that it's qualitatively different from simple indeterminism? I can't say much about it just by reading the abstract, except that I'm skeptical that there is "a choice to think". Yes, I've read the whole novel. Back in my Objectivist days I was mostly getting my Rand's non-fiction fix at ARI and various links at OO. And then there was a small compilation translated to Russian that I found in a library. Edit: I was considering myself an Objectivist for roughly 3 years: from 2006 to late 2008. I read Atlas Shrugged in 2007 (before that I was reading stuff freely available on the Internet).

How does Objectivism address the following issues with the free will hypothesis: The free will theorem states under very mild conditions that if humans are indeterministic, then so are elementary particles. Humans have evolved biologically from more primitive species. Also, studies of animal intelligence show that other mammals have (limited) capacity for abstract thought.Both facts highly suggest that if free will is there, it's not limited to humans. In particular, if one wants to maintain "human exceptionalism", the following questions need to be answered: What is the difference between simple indeterminism and free will? What human ancestors had free will? By which process had free will evolved?

It's not really about that. Before we can ask the question of whether or not attributes define the entity completely, we need to agree on what the attributes are.

Rand's fiction is being sold in book shops. Nonfiction is virtually impossible to find except through web stores, although I did find a single small compilation book in a library. The philosophy itself is virtually unknown here.

Thanks I think it's fairly obvious that she worked backwards trying to make a political point. I also agree with a criticism that despite praising induction she was mostly making purely deductive arguments, often twisting definitions to make her look right at expense of trivializing the matter at hand. I'm skeptical here, I doubt she said anything worthwhile that analytical philosophers didn't say better (although I'm not well read, so I can't say with certainty). Yet I still see personal value in separating things that can be solidified from garbage, because they still are subtly influencing my thought. Yes. I'm 23, formal education is behind me (for now). I'm currently reading Ayer. I like the bits of Hume, Descartes, and Popper that I've absorbed indirectly. I don't know much philosophy, so I'm afraid I can't say.

A fair warning is due: I'm an ex-Objectivist. Back when I liked Rand's ideas, I didn't have enough money to read her seminal non-fiction works, so I'm going by bits and pieces here. Also, I've only recently have overcome the shame I used to feel for having been a randroid (in the worst way possible), so if you look up my messages on other resources, you will see a lot of inflammatory comments. I'm sorry I've made them, I made a promise to be more considerate in the future. The following is patched together from my Reddit posts. The discussion there didn't take off, and eventually I was redirected here. My goal is to "scientifically" break down Objectivism to see what it's made of and how the pieces fit together; I'm doing it to get some closure for myself.I'm starting this thread to ask for some clarification and hopefully to start an interesting discussion. Here is my parsing of the description of Objectivist Metaphysics on Wikipedia: Existence (the sum of everything existing) is non-trivial, which is self-evident. To be conscious is to be conscious of existence Existence is composed of entities, which are completely defined by their attributes. There are no contradictions in reality.The first two statements are the familiar cogito ergo sum, told backwards. That is, where Descartes used deduction to arrive from (2) to (1), Rand simply posited both separately as self-evident. While (1) and (2) are easily understandable, (3) and (4) give me trouble. On the subject of (3). What are attributes? Suppose we have an entity X, and an attribute P. How does P work? Is it akin to a logical predicate that we can evaluate at X to get some truth value P(X)?If so, can we apply it to another entity, some Y, to get P(Y)? From Rand's description it seems that we shouldn't be able to. Firstly, P is something X has, but this description suggests that P exists independently of X; for example, should X cease to exist, P may still exist if it is applicable to some Y. Secondly, if P is applicable to more than just X, then the sum of all entities to which P is applicable - what is it? Is it a concept? But we haven't described epistemology yet. Is it a Platonic ideal? Rand doesn't describe such a thing. Is it yet another entity? And is P then an entity in and of itself? Does it, in turn, have attributes? Suppose, on the other hand, P is not something that can be applied to other entities (we'll denote it X.P then). Then what is it? Consider two attributes of X: X.P and X.Q. What distinguishes them?On the subject of (4). What exactly is a contradiction? I'm serious. Contradiction is usually defined as a part of some logical system (like natural deduction). But Rand doesn't specify how any logical system is connected to reality. We could try and save contradictions by using (4) as a definition, but there is something in the way: while it makes sense to say that contradiction is something that cannot exist in reality, it is clearly not enough to say that contradiction is something that doesn't exist in reality. To be able to say the former, we have to introduce the notion of possible reality (something that could exist, but doesn't). And if in the discussion of (3) we decided that an attribute is not something that can be applied to multiple entities then such a notion is impossible, because if we replace one entity X with another entity Y, how do we compare their attributes if not by applying them to both X and Y?