eva matthews

William, It's not the jabs against Rand. Michael Prescott can make outright whacks at Rand and it works. See Reversalism: A Philosophy for Living It Up. (It's also on his blog here. I find that hilarious. Some on the Rand side criticize me for laughing. But dammit, it's funny. ) The thing is Michael knows how to write. Man, that got me thinking. It's been a while since I've talked to him. I might go engage him on his blog in a few days. He's a good dude. The issue with this girl is she doesn't write well. The only thing she does is call people names to get some heat going. That works, but it's a brush fire. A couple of minutes pass and it's out. People move on. You and I are on different sides of an intellectual divide, but I know you have the ability to step out of the core Progressive storyline and isolate the effectiveness of what's going on. (I have the same ability on my end.) Do that and read some of her writing and come to your own conclusions. From my view, it's not the bashing or even the name-calling. It's the mediocrity. That's the problem. One of the main writing errors people of this persuasion make (but not all--there are some very good Progressive writers, frankly some very good anti-Rand writers of many different stripes**) is they keep themselves in their writing. They practically laugh at their own jokes--constantly. Their subtext is never a complement to their message, which good writers know how to do, but instead "Look how clever I am, look how I can pooh pooh my target, wasn't that last one just the mostest?" (snigger snigger...) And the more they do this, the more they fall into bashing the caricature stereotypes presented on the Progressive side. I believe this is because the only people paying attention after a while are sparring partners and the church choir, and they resonate more when stereotypes get trashed than at other times. (Yeah, I know. That's true for some mediocrities on my side, too.) I know you see this in bad writers. With your brain, you have to. And it's boring. It's not just bashing and sniggering, either. Daniel Barnes, for a great example, is always welcome on OL. I like him. (I probably satirized him a little too hard for his comfort, so it's been a while, but he's a big boy and can take it. He sure dishes it out. ) Now this guy's a Rand basher and sniggerer par excellence. The thing is he writes well. Maybe not a great writer, but good. He knows how to engage the reader by being interesting, not just snarky. I've caught this girl cheating and faking a few times so she can pretend to win an argument and make posture. That's a big deal in my world for keeping my respect. (You, for instance, I respect. We disagree a lot, but I could never imagine you making shit up to win an argument. You always come well sourced and well-reasoned.) What's worse, the girl has gotten to the Monty Python black knight level a few times. I just don't see future in that, so I've stopped taking it seriously. She's young and can learn, but those are some pretty serious bad habits. For myself, I've lost interest in engaging with her. I'm getting too old to keep swatting the flies of stubborn mediocrity. The only reason I'm discussing this right now is because the issue of talent itself is interesting and she's here in people's faces for the moment. It's a case study of sorts. Michael ** You yourself are an excellent writer and you just sit on your talent for some damn reason. William, Oh, he's just upset because I contradicted him on Kahneman: he wrote >>Systems 1 and 2 are not heuristics (that is if I remember what I studied). They are virtual-like divisions of convenience<<< My response was thatsystem 1 is 'heuristic', while system 2 is the contrary. I likewise disagreed with his use of 'virtual', which in terms of empirical research would indicate lackof real evidence (ie 'virtual' particles in quantum physics create a 'field'). Without the psychobabble or the personal denunciations, let's just say that he takes on- the- spot refutation rather seriously... Eva

I'm afraid that you've gotten the rhetoric correct, yet it's backwards. it's the right-wing of american politics that has brought up 'founding fathers' points of view. OTH, the left is far more modernist, saying, in effect, that what's past is past, so we should deal with ,modern circumstance on our own terms, not theirs. Having let the cat out of the bag, certain on the right whine that obtaining a realistc picture of FF's is 'unfair sophistry', etc... but they've only themselves to blame. EM it's the right-wing of american politics that has brought up 'founding fathers' points of view... and will continue to do so, without any reason not to. It's the left-wing that has countered with the 'argument' of 'simple facts' -- that freedom, Monticello, and UVA were all built by slave holders in Charlottesville, and so, let us use these orthogonal facts to ... throw away freedom and yet retain architecture and public universities. Its an entertaining argument when impotently spouted by foaming at the mouth fringe WFPers down on lower east side sidewalks. Safely fringe and ineffective in a free nation. The good news, Fred, is that your seemingly ad-hoc 'left' as now been reconstructed into a narratology called 'Fredoia' here at Dust Bunny U! More to the point: to the extent that slaveholders write about freedom, they're writing about their own freedom to own slaves. As for UVa itself, beyond the Fredoia that leftists want to burn the buildings, the demand is, in actuality, that the descendants of slaves be fairly compensated for their labor. EM

I have enjoyed most of the nose-tweaking and fanny-paddling you have done over at RoR, Eva, and a number of the entries you have made here. Your posts show a confidence in swinging the axe of criticism -- even if those wounded by your axe were hardly needing such attacks, or so many whacks. I must mention though that here as elsewhere in the Objectivish online world, boundaries are drawn deeply, and defended with great enthusiasm. You will cross these otherwise invisible boundaries whenever you take a whack at what makes other folks gather: a high regard for Ayn Rand in all her areas of accomplishment. This is a long-winded way of saying that folks will be outraged here over comments that "out there" would pass without a word. It offends folks to take issue with Rand, to undermine her genius, to slag her and her works. I am by no means an Objectivist, finding Rand's psychology to be crude and unwarranted, but I do understand a bit about groups dynamics, having been posting (as a critic of Objectivism) since 2005. Folks are going to get wound up about your interjections here. If this is your aim, have at it. If you on the other hand want to engage with others, you will likely need more than one 'voice' or register. Here is Brant making it personal, assigning you to the bad side of the ledger, and essentially trying to insult you off the board, or to at least rope you and bridle you, in an effort to make you observe the verities. You strike the bone when you subtly or not-so-subtly imply that those who follow Rand or rank her high in the Pantheon are rubes, dullards or cult members. All in all, this is an officially welcoming place (as evidenced by MSK, forum owner and policeman, and welcome wagoneer), but at times a pretty insular bunch. It does not take too many jabs at Rand for the bristles to stiffen and for discussion to be degraded. William, Thanks for your kind and constructive advice. I have no ulterior motive. Rather I'm bringing into this forum the same hardball zeitgeist that I encounter at college. But here, unlike college, people are permitted to stonewall, their hostile comments not withstanding. re hostility: Three years ago, as a seventeen year old freshman, a rather huge guy choked me from behind with is forearm, in an attempt to rape me. This last fact was made clear by his thingy hanging out of his unzipped pants: it's amazing how hard that erection can get when you're dead! Likewise, what boots and concrete can do to a skull. In short, after that physical attack, I can handle the verbal sticks n stones & give back what I got. And if someone says anything about my family, i'll give them more. My first goal is to dialogue with Rand-followers, in order to learn more. My second is to measure their pov against my own, obviously brainwashed at Dust Bunny U. This is important because of the mutual hostility between colleges and Rand, as if they speak two separate languages. So i'm for a reconciliation, of sorts, yet acknowledge that there will be none if the hard questions aren't asked. To this end, I'll only quit prodding when I finally decide that Randism is totally worthless, and by consequence should be looked upon as a a cult activity. Hopefully, this will not happen. And if it were only a coding activity, I could have gotten sufficient data from just going on site and observing. This is not a psycho-anthropological field trip. Lastly, you're the third person who's written me about the fissile element, although the first to suggest that Randism is 'fissile' by intent. The demerit to this behavior is to cultify the group by driving people away. We can therefore assume that many more out there are intimidated because they're simply not as used to the verbal rough and tumble I am. So is this the intent of the site administrator? Sincerely, Eva

Brant, That's no bully. That's a loudmouth hack with no punch. Who reads that stuff? You? Me? Another whole five people? Do like this. Imagine that post being published for purchase. Even tidied up. Bestseller material? A mover of hearts and minds? Heh. A real world-shaker, that one. Noemi, I certainly hope so. Lots of people thought you were her. Some probably still do. Except she's in Georgia and you live near where I do. Michael Dear fellow Rand-lovers, Actually, I do intend to publish the worked-upon version, entitled, 'Who is Ayn Rand? Therefore, your comments 'qua' Objectivist are welcome. Wth sincere thanks for your anticipated comments and constructive critism, Eva

Actually, my point is that I deeply respect her. She did what she had to do to earn a living in a time and place that was dripping with anti-Jewish, anti-women and xenophobic hatreds. She gave the rubes what they wanted to hear, and made lots on money doing so. 'Hardly anger, but rather delight on my part. So no, a communist would have denounced her as a liar. Rather. yes, I'm a pragmatic libertarian who's been trying to dialogue my way through Objectivist philosophy by asking a lot of hard questions. After all, you Objectivites are 'spozed to be allies, yes? And i get called a 'bully' for my efforts...and worse, a term mis-appropriated from the guy whose work directs half of my own (Kahneman)? When will the injustice end? EM

This is very interesting. Many thanks. More to come. Eva

>>>The current hypothesis is that the non-Keplarian motion is due to the gravitational effects of matter that does not emit light (electro-magnetic radiation). That might be the case. It also might be the case that our gravitational theories are not right. This is matter they remains to be resolved.>>> Wyl geometry does give the correct calculations for this. It's the (non-Keplarian) math 'of' gravity, not a 're-calculation of gravity itself. in other words, the Wyl model, borrowing from Einsteins; mathematical source (again, Riemann) demonstrated general relativity in places unknown at the time of Einstein himself. He, btw, believed in an 'infinite universe' at whose farthest point the spacetime continuum would pass into a useless singularity, due to the non-presence of gravity itself. EM

>>>There is very little doubt the the cosmos is expanding at an accerlating pace.>>>> The 'why' is that it's simply allowable in terms of general relativity. The big bang is not an explosion. Rather, it's like a gazillion balls rolling downwards from a slope of increasing curvature. This is to say that of the four possible Reimannian tensors, the 'increasing positive works to explain the phenomena. EM

Evidence is indeed prohibitive to the cognatively dissonant. re cartoon: I suppose the message is that to a ten year old, 'A=A' and 'existence exists' sounds profoundly philosophical. Likewise, a juvenile would be impressed with saying things like 'consciousness is axiomatic'--Wow! just like triangles 'n stuff!!. Then he/she will hopefully go to college and learn that all this--if accepted by adults-- is philosophy gone retarded. Rand, however, never believed this stuff for a moment. She was a smart, well educated kid from a good Petrograd family who instilled in her the European virtues of rational skepticism. Belief in systems is what royalty, peasants and workers did. For me and mine it's the same, looking upon middel amerika as a mass of consumers who want something to believe in order to make their otherwise worthless lives meaningful. So i understand her well. Rand's moral education came with two violent intellectual ruptures of the sort that shakes one out of a dogmatic slumber. First, at 15, there was the confrontation with Hawthorne and Hester. To her delightful dismay, Rand discovered that only one in twenty students understand the true heroism of Ms Prynne. The other 19 students, sanctimonious fools that they are, will judge her character in absolutes of black and white: they simply didn't understand Hawthorne. 'So this is Amerika', thought our young Russian princess, so now, how can I possibly make some rubles by writing what they want to hear, da? Then came screenwriting. Perhaps her head was filled with Pudovkin, Eisenstein, and German impressionism--the cinema of interrogation. Then told by the moguls who ran Hollywood that what we're writing is entertainment, not questioning or messages, she quickly changed her tune to happy endings, but with an interesting twist. Having been raised on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Rand cleverly integrated the 'higher thematic' with existential angst. And of course, this being Amerika, what 'higher' purpose is served other than the pursuit of wealth? Enter the individual struggling against social norms in order to become rich! So my thesis begins with two facts: * Rand's background was rational-skeptic, and she never changed. Rather , to make money she wrote to appeal to the morally self-righteous for whom ethics exist as an objective principle. * that she was a Hollywood screen writer says enough. hapy endings and strong, assertive heroes is what's produced. The skill of Rand was to transfer her talents to novels, where her work became schlock, and to philosophy, where it became nonsense. Yet lucrative, which was the point. This ends part one of my thesis, Who is Ayn rand? Or, never give a sucker an even break.. More to come.... EM

Gee, who poured all that into you? For a 20yo you sure know a lot about a lot. Everywhere you go on OL you drop these knowledge/evaluative bombshells. --Brant I see craters Who didn't pour Kipling into you at 15? EM

I'm a senior, actually, & I try to contribute to Wiki, in an altruistic spirit of sharing I know a lot of psych & physics because of mom & dad, who both do research & teach. And because i scored ex-hi in math at 14, I've been helping mom with coding & stat method. This likewise gives me an understanding of the math of physics. My spinoffs are philo & the lit theory that my best friend, Sissy, constantly yammers about when she's not trying to become the first under- 20 Nobel laureate in poetry. Re other interests. far too many spend a lot of useless time hanging. OTH, when I'm with friends, we do. For example, last night was 'Medea'--i arguing endlessly afterwards over the theme; she was called 'Medea' , the 'medean' as an outsider (ektos). this was lost on the americanized-modern interpretation which makes her out for revenge for infidelity. What I find most disgusting is how middel amerika judges everyone & everything else by its incredibly low standards. Foe example, you expect me to be & behave like an 'average 20-year old despite a background clearly to the contrary . Well, Meno ektos to that. Otherwise, i'm developing a thesis that Rand herself was just playing a game to earn money, and meant nothing of what she said or wrote. I'llpost when i accumulate sufficient evidence. EM

A field is just an assignment of a quantity to every point in space-time. It's a technical way of describing the "stuff" that the laws of physics act on. Sometimes these quantities are just ordinary numbers, like in scalar fields. Or they can be vectors, like in vector fields. In General Relativity, space-time and matter are both described in terms of tensor fields. And if you want to know why nobody understands Quantum Mechanics, it's because quantum mechanical fields are really fucking abstract. A quantum mechanical system that only has pure states is described by an infinite-dimensional complex vector at each point in space-time. Obviously, the 'illusion' citation is a mis-attribution by Michael. Scalar, vector,and tensor are three ways of measuring fields. What we assume are particles that cause a perturbation that causes an energy ripple sort of like assuming that if you see a wave on a pond, something was thrown in to have caused it. But the energy ripples are clerarly there....I'll be happy to elaborate if you like. Eva

It is an observed fact that the cosmos is expanding at in increasing rate. We don't know why. It is also a fact that the rotation curves of stars at the outer part of galaxies do not have Keplarian motion. It could be that our gravitational theories are wrong or it could be there is some kind of gravitating matter out their which we cannot see in the electro-magnetic spectrum. The terms "dark matter and "dark energy" are currently place-holders for our ignorance. Either way it is a problem that has to be worked out. Ba'al Chatzaf Rotation of outer-end stars correspond to Wyl geometries (Riemann). Kepler would not be expected. EM

For galaxies to spiral, there must be far more mass than accounted for by a summation of all the masses of the known stars withi Likewise, light is bent in places and intensities in which gravitational fields are said to be far too weak to do so.

I haven't had time yet to read either of the reviews by Michael Quante which I linked. I only quickly skimmed them. The impression I pick up is very much along the lines you're saying. Same from a couple other things of his I found. I think Quante is subtly pushing for state control of medical decisions, maybe even with a "eugenics" underlay. I hadn't heard of him, and was curious to find out why a quote from him would be used in the endorsements for Against Autonomy. Presumably, his is a name that "those in the club" would recognize. Seems that he's got a substantial number of publications, and a large interest in biomedical ethics - as well as in Hegel, on whom he's written several books and multiple articles. Ellen PS: I'll be back with further comments next week. Haven't time today. Uncle Fred, You really need to get over this 'tribalism' thing of yours. It's a bad metaphor. 'Tribe' is the social organization that refers to a hunter-gatherer-milpa farming subsistence group. It's religions tend to be somewhat animistic--a worship of natural forces--for obvious reasons. Lkiewise, group coherence is rigidly enforced. When you're out there on horseback trying to hunt down buffalo, everyone has a job to do. Many large 'state' societies have been known to break down into tribals due to either positive or negative change in economic circumstance. For example, the Sioux broke down into tribalism with the arrival of the horse, thanks to the Spanish, ostensibly because riding a horse is more fun than extended farming. Others, in Amazonia, were not so lucky, Huge cities were destroyed by the Spanish presence (garlic, germs, steel), thereby resulting in all the different groups known and loved by the anthros here at Dust Bunny U. So the lack of individuality in the modern world has modern roots-- the question here being, to what exytent do we need to conform? That for its own sake only reinforces authority and power. By consequence, it's evil because it has no rational basis set within the context of economic survival. EM .

"So what do you think of Kipling?" 'I don't know, I've never kippled." Kipling was a racist imperialist who justified colonialism. What more might be said of his content? As for form, it's still nevertheless meningful to ask what such- and- such poet accomplished in the way of asking the Spinozan question of poetry, 'What can words do?' In other words, does Kipling's use of language make us see the world any differently than before? Obviously not. He's a cheep takeoff on Browning, and without his sense of humaor and irony, as well. His rhyming coupets are trite, high-skool stuff, meant only to impress said high-skoolerrs to take up the cause, and join the army! But of the fuzzy-wuzzies, beware-- They broke the hollow square! See how easy it is--i can kipple, too! EM

Blah blah blah... Facts are hard things to morph like words are. System 1 is a group of heuristics. It is not a heuristic itself. But I'm not going to waste more time showing quotes from the guy who did this to a person who refuses think. No interest whatsoever in playing the word games of people with self-image problems. Eva, I'm no longer interested in what you have to say. Go play with people who like this shit. Michael You wrote: >>Systems 1 and 2 are not heuristics (that is if I remember what I studied). They are virtual-like divisions of convenience<<< I wrote, "which is clearly in error, as I duly corrected. System 1 is 'heuristic', as developed in the 70's" Whether or not 'heuristic' means .'system of' or 'in itself' is clearly irrelevant as is, of course, your psychobabbilish assesment of me as having 'self-image problems'. What is relevant is your explanation of what's cited in >>> <<<. This, you're free to explain (blah, blah, blah), or not. .Factually speaking, you're likewise free to morph your citation into anything coherent enough to warrant consideration. Otherwise, it's indeed plain shit with no further interest on my part with said word games or what you have to say. EM

I'm afraid that you've gotten the rhetoric correct, yet it's backwards. it's the right-wing of american politics that has brought up 'founding fathers' points of view. OTH, the left is far more modernist, saying, in effect, that what's past is past, so we should deal with ,modern circumstance on our own terms, not theirs. Having let the cat out of the bag, certain on the right whine that obtaining a realistc picture of FF's is 'unfair sophistry', etc... but they've only themselves to blame. EM

System 1 and System 2 certainly are virtual-like terms of convenience. Try fictitious characters without any one part of the brain they can call home. All you have to do is read. It's right there in front of you. If that doesn't describe virtual-like, I don't know what does. And if a fictitious character designating a part of the mind is not a term of convenience, then we are not speaking English. After this crap, my enthusiasm for you just evaporated. Ah... it doesn't matter. I'm bored with this shit now. I thought you had something, I thought I saw something, but I was mistaken. I'm sorry I wasted our time. Enjoy the forum and please stay within the posting guidelines. Michael You wrote: >>Systems 1 and 2 are not heuristics (that is if I remember what I studied). They are virtual-like divisions of convenience<<< ...which is clearly in error, as I duly corrected. System 1 is 'heuristic', as developed in the 70's. You then went on to say that the two systems were 'virtual'. I disagreed, writing that 'virtual' would indicate lack of experimental data. Much of this, in fact is that which Kahnemabn offers himself, ie non-Bernoullian behavior. In passing, note that since the seventies, countless other researchers have employed the 'heuristic vs reason' model to derive results on their own. Yet what Kahneman says is true: the holy rail of places within the brain have yet to be found, if ever they will. So if Kahneman wants to describe this lack in literary terms, that's fine. He's writing for a well-informed public and, ostensibly under the advice of his editor, is searching for the 'just right' metaphor. But if you want to call this 'virtual', then I disagree, because within the context of research, the word means 'no data'. In other words, one proceeds with data-discovery without the expectation of ever finding brain places from which the data arises. In this context, to label data conclusions 'virtualities' would be to indulge in metaphysical nonsense. As far as the correct philosophical use, you might want to consult Deluze's 'virtual vs actual', which describes the imaginary nearly-there to concrete , lived existence. EM

Eva, You mean like there's fundamental stuff we might not know yet? I'm cool with that. I have speculated before that humans are still evolving and it would be a huge conceit--nothing more than vanity based on whimsy--that somehow the human species stopped evolving with us, meaning that that all there is to the universe is already available to the 5 senses and consciousness and nothing else could possibly exist. To use a simple example, light does not exist for a living organism that has no eyes. But that does not mean light does not exist at all. So I share your discomfort, maybe not in the same manner you do, but I think open is a lot better than closed when addressing the unknown to try to identify it. Michael I hasten to add that my 'discomfort' is with the math, not the metaphysics. On the one hand, there's no question that an assortment of elementary particles is the basis of everything; what's missing is an overlaying theorem that would put them together. What we do know is that 93% of the universe is missing in the forms of dark matter and energy. EM

But the meaning of "metaphysics" is the exact opposite of "reality". The Greek prefix "meta" means 'beyond', therefore 'meta'physics refers to what is beyond, what transcends (the physical) reality. Religions for example are based on a metaphysical concept (transcendence).Actually 'meta' also refers to the written 'beyond' as well. For his editors, the book after 'physics' (nature) was called meta---- . Our assumption that Aristotle intended to conjoin them into a whole is unfounded. These is no notation from him other than the four causes being obviously about science. EM

Is anyone stopping you from discussing the subject? Note, it was you who "slid over into the realism of photography as such" by making pronouncements which were challenged by someone - Jonathan - who you might by now have realized is an accomplished and knowledgeable visual artist. Looks to me as if you're hoping that Michael will intervene to head off your being creamed. Ellen Jonathan knows how to paint. That hardly makes his ex-cathedra pronouncements on either photography or optic neurology either 'knowledgeable or in any way correct. You seem to fall for the 'artiste' bit. I don't. EM

Eva, His or yours? And please use the right terms. Systems 1 and 2 are not heuristics (that is if I remember what I studied). They are virtual-like divisions of convenience. But I think I'll look it up later to find his exact words, Michael No, you didn't 'study', Kahneman, but rather read his popular book on his life's work, book, Thinking,, fast and slow. The heuristic articles date from the seventies. and form what was later called 'System 0ne'. What's of astounding importance is that these articles demonstrate that everyday thought isn't based upon reasoning things out. Rather, more of less 'first impressions'. In any case, neither are 'virtual-like terms of convenience'. They're real because they give distinguishing experimental results. EM

Eva, You'll learn over time (hopefully). Try cognitive before normative. I see you often do the contrary, you judge something or someone without correct identification first. But how can you evaluate something correctly without knowing what it is for real? That's pure System 1 thinking--sometimes turning System 2 off on purpose. Your identification of Pete Reidy is based on extremely limited contact and observation, and a bit of flare-up. Mine is based on years. He is an excellent thinker who has contributed a lot over the years--and he has a good heart. He's a good man who brings a ton of value to the table. This applies to some others around here, too. Michael My identification of Reidy is based upon his sneering remark about my identity and 'endgame'. As he's made no other contribution to this thread, he's not in the game by definition. re Kahneman, you've totally misunderstood his heuristic. EM

End or not, it's my business--not accessible to someone who has never posted anything of content to begin with. On other words, as you're not in the 'game', how would you know?