The Epistemology of Intimidation by Hatred

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

It doesn't run mine.  I run on logic, reason, good sense, mathematical consistency and above all FACTS.  I never let a philosophical impulse blind me to facts. 

Such is your philosophy.

--Brant

[anthony]

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

So true.  People who think that way provided you with the computer and the network  with which you just expressed yourself. 

...and the mind you expressed yourself with.

Bob wants his science to transcend mind and humanity, and mankind just can gratefully take the techno rewards and bow to Scientism.

[jts]

10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

It doesn't run mine.  I run on logic, reason, good sense, mathematical consistency and above all FACTS.  I never let a philosophical impulse blind me to facts. 

You have a religion. That's worse than philosophy. Religion is based on faith. Philosophy is, at least in intent, based on reason.

 

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, jts said:

You have a religion. That's worse than philosophy. Religion is based on faith. Philosophy is, at least in intent, based on reason.

 

Physical science is not only Reason Based,  it is Fact Based.   Facts never go in the way of metaphysics,  but metaphysics sure got in the way of Facts.  It held up physical science for over 1000 years.  The came was lost back in the 4 th century BCE  when the philosophers of Athens  skunked the Ionian Philosophers  who ploughed the road for genuine physical science.  The Ionians  (mostly) got rid of the gods  and substituted abstract rules and principles where are the bedrock both physical science and philosophy.   The philosophers lost out in the long run because they did not check their conclusions empirically.   Kant, in his fashion,  did the sciences dirt by regarding our empirical experience as a mere reflection of the illusions our brain creates. 

[Brant Gaede]

21 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Physical science is not only Reason Based,  it is Fact Based.   Facts never go in the way of metaphysics,  but metaphysics sure got in the way of Facts.  It held up physical science for over 1000 years.  The came was lost back in the 4 th century BCE  when the philosophers of Athens  skunked the Ionian Philosophers  who ploughed the road for genuine physical science.  The Ionians  (mostly) got rid of the gods  and substituted abstract rules and principles where are the bedrock both physical science and philosophy.   The philosophers lost out in the long run because they did not check their conclusions empirically.   Kant, in his fashion,  did the sciences dirt by regarding our empirical experience as a mere reflection of the illusions our brain creates. 

Okay, how do you know the effect of metaphysics on physical science? It does seem obvious the effect the latter had on the former, but--c'mom, all you do is assert this without an iota of demonstration. There is too much historical complexity and it involves much more than science and its lack or metaphysics locked away in obscure texts finally rediscovered over a thousand years later.

--Brant

it's like Rand over-emphasizing the role of philosophy without demonstrating it was the preceding or the following or a mixture--that a philosophy is seminal in a human being doesn't mean it is seminal in a society

[BaalChatzaf]

37 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Okay, how do you know the effect of metaphysics on physical science? It does seem obvious the effect the latter had on the former, but--c'mom, all you do is assert this without an iota of demonstration. There is too much historical complexity and it involves much more than science and its lack or metaphysics locked away in obscure texts finally rediscovered over a thousand years later.

Read the history books on Athens  and Alexandria.  Read what happened to Galileo.  Read what Aristotle  had to say (he got about half of everything wrong).  See what Aristotle failed to do  (check his conclusions  carefully and quantitatively).  Read how the followers of Aristotle and Plato made things difficult for -real-  science.   It is all a matter of historical  fact. Philosophy was the mother of science (to begin with)  and ended up being a millstone around the neck of science.  Philosophy/metaphysics  :: physical science   =  alchemy :: chemistry.  (approximately). 

However empiricism had a downside.   It held up the development of a theory of atoms  for over 100 years.  Atoms  were far too small for humans to perceive directly and the Aristotelian doctrine of indivisibility was deeply embedded in European thought.  Even after Aristotle  was ditched,  there was a school of scientific thought that regarded atoms as convenient  fictions.  It was not until Albert Einstein published his paper on Brownian Motion that the existence of atoms  was securely established (in 1905!). Atoms (the concept)  were finding good use in the development of chemistry in the 19 th century but the literal and actual existence of atoms  was not fully accepted until the early 20 th century (after nearly 2400 years when Democritus and Luekipus proposed them). The positivist view of limiting physical science to only what is measurable was also an inhibiting factor.  Even a modern philosophy like positivism can interfere with the progress of physical science. 

[anthony]

On 8/22/2017 at 3:14 AM, Wolf DeVoon said:

We disagree. There is no virtue in romance, combat, or reputational risk. Each flies in the face of common sense, risks one's life and too often takes it. I was very much affected by Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, available on Netflix. Art kills. If you have children, perhaps you know what I meant about romance or could guess what it implies for women in particular. The pages of history are strewn with valiant sacrifice for no good reason apart from a fighting madness that does not happen in training or as a result of successful propaganda. I read Kelley as a pragmatist who risked nothing and won nothing except wertfrei sexuality.

Yup, romance can be life-threatening, alright... Not to mean, life, physically. Spiritually. Flying "in the face of common sense" are the things one does, which - when successful - produce a pay-off greater than the calculated risk. IOW, a value such as money, one's energy or time -rationally- given to gain a greater value, is not "sacrifice", it's value-profit.

"...valiant sacrifice for no good reason..." The popular, emotional take upon sacrifice and self-sacrifice, is one glaring area that shows why emotion isn't a cognitive tool. This is all over the place around you, overtly and covertly: the "virtue" and "nobility" of personal sacrifice - put forth especially in literature, movies, the media and song lyrics. "Art kills" in such a way. While it may be enjoyably emotive to get a tearful buzz from a fictional hero's self-sacrifice (in romance, combat, etc.) - this is artful, not real. For the individual in reality, the gradual acts of voluntary value-surrender diminish him and his resources, material and spiritual, until he's of lesser worth (and use) to himself. Leave alone, of worth to those in whom and what he places value, subverting too any assistance he might want to render in future, to helping others out (whom he sees value in and feels sorry for).

Self-sacrifice, or its superficial parody, is ignoble, rather, and nearly always abhorrent for all involved. E.g. the guy who is lauded and accepts the credit for making years of so-called  'sacrifices' to make the money to put a daughter into college - which carries the inference that his daughter is of lesser value to him than were his efforts! She is degraded by this. Give people their due, I found if you put it to them this way, what sacrifice logically is and isn't, some quickly change their tune.

You will have to make clearer where we disagree. You know of course that O'ist virtues aren't ends in themselves. (Rationality, integrity, independence, productiveness -- courage, I believe is a derivative virtue) they are your invaluable means to the purpose of identifying, finding and creating your values, and of keeping and nurturing them. 

[Brant Gaede]

10 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Read the history books on Athens  and Alexandria.  Read what happened to Galileo.  Read what Aristotle  had to say (he got about half of everything wrong).  See what Aristotle failed to do  (check his conclusions  carefully and quantitatively).  Read how the followers of Aristotle and Plato made things difficult for -real-  science.   It is all a matter of historical  fact. Philosophy was the mother of science (to begin with)  and ended up being a millstone around the neck of science.  Philosophy/metaphysics  :: physical science   =  alchemy :: chemistry.  (approximately).

These don't explain a thousand and more year gap. Not even Galileo. Did the followers of Plato and Aristotle make things difficult for real science in the year 917--give or take a hundred years? Give me one good history of science supporting your thesis covering the 1800 years between Aristotle and Plato and Galileo. That would be a monumental work of scholarship and I doubt it's been done. All I'm getting from your asseverations is confirmation bias. It is an idea worth investigation, however. My own bias is to look forward, not backward. All I need to know is Aristotle bad, real science good. Spare me those 1800 years. It's not like proper science would have prevented the dark ages. It's more like the dark ages prevented proper science.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

11 hours ago, anthony said:

enjoyably emotive to get a tearful buzz from a fictional hero's self-sacrifice (in romance, combat, etc.)

Nope. We misunderstand each other. The problem of art is a personal matter, having sacrificed much to practice it, such as it is, and I certify that it has not been profitable, to the extent that I aimed at something higher than trash. Ahem. Meanwhile and more importantly, self-sacrifice in romance and combat is real world stuff, with which I am likewise intimately familiar, but there are many millions who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives. Brant had the right idea. It's biology, not rationally chosen values.

[anthony]

10 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Nope. We misunderstand each other. The problem of art is a personal matter, having sacrificed much to practice it, such as it is, and I certify that it has not been profitable, to the extent that I aimed at something higher than trash. Ahem. Meanwhile and more importantly, self-sacrifice in romance and combat is real world stuff, with which I am likewise intimately familiar, but there are many millions who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives. Brant had the right idea. It's biology, not rationally chosen values.

Gave their lives. Ultimate sacrifice. What's wrong here? There is anything bigger than one life? ("Many millions", if collective numbers count above the principle of individualism).

No one should buy into the type of emotionality connoted with sacrifice - of body or spirit. Many emote about self-sacrifice in the abstract, and just might be upset to see its effects in reality (probably not for most, and only if some few are enough aware to perceive the human effects) and they are not pretty.

The great effortful output, one's work, is the one that consumes one, conceived out of selfish value not from "self-sacrifice". And if the final results don't meet expectations, well, nobody has a guarantee of "success" (however that is measured) nor is omniscient.

The good romance is one in which not a single action, one for the other, is "sacrifice", i.e., giving up a larger value for a lesser or non-value. Since, what does that say about her, and oneself? Only: She's not worth it, you're not worthy. If there were to be genuine "self-sacrifices" made, out of duty and such, one'd know the romance was nearly dead.

Similarly, the great country is the one that refuses willing self-sacrifice and rejects making coerced sacrifices. That is the one that a valuing individualist could voluntarily contract to ~risk~ his/her life to defend. Ask not what "you can do" for your country (and what it "can do" for you).

[Brant Gaede]

Watch out for that "great country" meme. Both your idea and others' ideas. It's the great suck in.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

The good romance is one in which not a single action, one for the other, is "sacrifice", i.e., giving up a larger value for a lesser or non-value. Since, what does that say about her, and oneself? Only: She's not worth it, you're not worthy. If there were to be genuine "self-sacrifices" made, out of duty and such, one'd know the romance was nearly dead.

Sorry, Tony, but this is ideological stupidity. Either that or your lucidity failed you here. You can read your first sentence two ways. Either one wrong action and the romance is no longer "good" or that the wrong action doesn't matter that much as it's subsumed by the "good" relationship. The problem with the latter is it verges on a tautology. No quite; almost.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

11 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Nope. We misunderstand each other. The problem of art is a personal matter, having sacrificed much to practice it, such as it is, and I certify that it has not been profitable, to the extent that I aimed at something higher than trash. Ahem. Meanwhile and more importantly, self-sacrifice in romance and combat is real world stuff, with which I am likewise intimately familiar, but there are many millions who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives. Brant had the right idea. It's biology, not rationally chosen values.

You can transcend the biology. That's what the brain's for.

--Brant

but you won't get as far as you might think--it depends on the scale of human variability and where on it you are

 

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Watch out for that "great country" meme. Both your idea and others' ideas. It's the great suck in.

--Brant

Notice I didn't say "perfect" country. History teaches that every attempt for Utopia has finished up a Dystopia. "Great", conversely, is I think (and Rand's intention, it looks clear)for each person having the freedom in said country to think and live for himself, his ideas and what he values, including being free to make his own mistakes. With the one caveat, not at a cost to others.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Sorry, Tony, but this is ideological stupidity. Either that or your lucidity failed you here. You can read your first sentence two ways. Either one wrong action and the romance is no longer "good" or that the wrong action doesn't matter that much as it's subsumed by the "good" relationship. The problem with the latter is it verges on a tautology. No quite; almost.

--Brant

Yes, there is a lot of detail that disappears into the small chinks of even the best relationship, and that's okay, as I view this. The little things can be safely ignored by both parties who have confidence in the other. At times, it "feels like" one or other is being sacrificial. Then, one likely objectively reviews the entire thing and usually realises it is not, actually. The greater value of what he/she IS - and which one had first perceived and still does - wins out, subsuming the small, incidental, details.

[Brant Gaede]

12 minutes ago, anthony said:

Notice I didn't say "perfect" country. History teaches that every attempt for Utopia has finished up a Dystopia. "Great", conversely, is I think (and Rand's intention, it looks clear)for each person having the freedom in said country to think and live for himself, his ideas and what he values, including being free to make his own mistakes. With the one caveat, not at a cost to others.

Who would have said "perfect country"?  Who goes out and dies for a "perfect country"?

--Brant

no one's talking about Utopia--or did I miss it?

[BaalChatzaf]

23 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

Who would have said "perfect country"?  Who goes out and dies for a "perfect country"?

--Brant

no one's talking about Utopia--or did I miss it?

Warriors rarely fight and perhaps die  for their country or king.  The risk their lives for their families,  their buddies in the ranks  and for pride.  Fighting and perhaps dying  is a masculine thing, partly driven by testosterone.   Women will die to protect their children.   That is a very XX  thing.  These basic impulse  arose as a result of evolution.  Primates that had these impulses tended to survive to the age of reproduction,  primates without these impulses didn't do so well in reproducing.  In evolution that last one standing  is the winner in the struggle for life.

[Wolf DeVoon]

10 hours ago, anthony said:

Yes, there is a lot of detail that disappears into the small chinks of even the best relationship, and that's okay, as I view this. The little things can be safely ignored by both parties who have confidence in the other. At times, it "feels like" one or other is being sacrificial. Then, one likely objectively reviews the entire thing and usually realises it is not, actually. The greater value of what he/she IS - and which one had first perceived and still does - wins out, subsuming the small, incidental, details.

Puzzles the heck out of me. My parents had five children, all boys. They devoted themselves, gave their lives, suffered for it. Not how romances begin. You can say they weren't omniscient, couldn't reasonably predict an unwanted outcome, or perhaps their shared "highest value" was a life of progressive deterioration, as their youth failed and burdens multiplied. Or maybe they just weren't good enough to pull it off and The Greatest Generation was, in fact, The Stupidest. Some millions of them came home from war beaten and broken, other millions didn't come back at all. Were the lives and loves of Germans and Russians and Britons nothing? -- cultures rich with music, literature, science -- caught in a history not of their making or choosing.

It's good that Ayn Rand wrote stories and shared ideas. Her personal life was something else.

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Puzzles the heck out of me. My parents had five children, all boys. They devoted themselves, gave their lives, suffered for it. Not how romances begin. You can say they weren't omniscient, couldn't reasonably predict an unwanted outcome, or perhaps their shared "highest value" was a life of progressive deterioration, as their youth failed and burdens multiplied. Or maybe they just weren't good enough to pull it off and The Greatest Generation was, in fact, The Stupidest. Some millions of them came home from war beaten and broken, other millions didn't come back at all. Were the lives and loves of Germans and Russians and Britons nothing? -- cultures rich with music, literature, science -- caught in a history not of their making or choosing.

It's good that Ayn Rand wrote stories and shared ideas. Her personal life was something else.

Wolf, 200,00 Americans lost their lives in WWII. Off the cuff that sounds too high for me, but I'd be surprised if many less did die. But not "millions"--not even in the American "Civil War."

Facts, please, not fancy. Work off facts.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Wolf, 200,00 Americans lost their lives in WWII. Off the cuff that sounds too high for me, but I'd be surprised if many less did die. But not "millions"--not even in the American "Civil War."

Facts, please, not fancy. Work off facts.

--Brant

edit 200,00 to 200,000 which is approximately right.  In the Civil War 650,000 died either of battle wounds or various infections like cholera or typhoid fever.  1,500,000 were maimed losing at least one limb. The total population of the counter was  32,000,000  so about 6.5 % of the population were casualties of the Civil War.  Using the current population as a base that is equivalent to  20,000,000 casualties. 

All of the dead and wounded in all the wars following the Civil War  do not add up to the actual total of casualties in the Civil War.  So the Civil War is the grand-daddy of of all our wars.   At the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing)  alone  more people were killed than in all the war preceding the Civil War.  The only military man who had any idea of what the butcher's bill would be was William T. Sherman who was considered insane when he said the casualties would be in the hundreds of thousands.  The Civil War was the first Total War fought in modern times.  Civilians in the Confederacy had their lives utterly disrupted by the war.  It was the same William T. Sherman who determined that the only way to make the South quit was to utterly disrupt  civilian life,  destroy property,  trash the crops and uproot civilians by demolishing their homes.  And he did exactly that in Georgia when he marched his army from Atlanta (which was burned to the ground)  to the Atlantic Ocean.   I can tell you from first person witness that there are  folks in Georgia are still talking about what Sherman did.  For us it is an historical item.  For many folks in Georgia it is a painful memory,  even to this day. 

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Facts, please, not fancy. Work off facts.

--Brant

About 25 million military deaths in WWII, per Wikipedia. Rand was a Russian, but okay, they were subhumans, all Japs and Krauts deserved to die.

[Brant Gaede]

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

edit 200,00 to 200,000 which is approximately right.  In the Civil War 650,000 died either of battle wounds or various infections like cholera or typhoid fever.  1,500,000 were maimed losing at least one limb. The total population of the counter was  32,000,000  so about 6.5 % of the population were casualties of the Civil War.  Using the current population as a base that is equivalent to  20,000,000 casualties. 

All of the dead and wounded in all the wars following the Civil War  do not add up to the actual total of casualties in the Civil War.  So the Civil War is the grand-daddy of of all our wars.   At the Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing)  alone  more people were killed than in all the war preceding the Civil War.  The only military man who had any idea of what the butcher's bill would be was William T. Sherman who was considered insane when he said the casualties would be in the hundreds of thousands.  The Civil War was the first Total War fought in modern times.  Civilians in the Confederacy had their lives utterly disrupted by the war.  It was the same William T. Sherman who determined that the only way to make the South quit was to utterly disrupt  civilian life,  destroy property,  trash the crops and uproot civilians by demolishing their homes.  And he did exactly that in Georgia when he marched his army from Atlanta (which was burned to the ground)  to the Atlantic Ocean.   I can tell you from first person witness that there are  folks in Georgia are still talking about what Sherman did.  For us it is an historical item.  For many folks in Georgia it is a painful memory,  even to this day. 

And if the Japanese were up on their history even thinking about attacking the United States would have made them shit in their pants. 

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

12 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Puzzles the heck out of me. My parents had five children, all boys. They devoted themselves, gave their lives, suffered for it. Not how romances begin. You can say they weren't omniscient, couldn't reasonably predict an unwanted outcome, or perhaps their shared "highest value" was a life of progressive deterioration, as their youth failed and burdens multiplied. Or maybe they just weren't good enough to pull it off and The Greatest Generation was, in fact, The Stupidest. Some millions of them came home from war beaten and broken, other millions didn't come back at all. Were the lives and loves of Germans and Russians and Britons nothing? -- cultures rich with music, literature, science -- caught in a history not of their making or choosing.

It's good that Ayn Rand wrote stories and shared ideas. Her personal life was something else.

I don't mind Rand having her affair with NB. What I mind is her not knowing when it was over and letting it go. Or NB not telling her the same while she was still young enough to go get another guy if she wanted one. Instead she had this rationalization about people sleeping with their highest value to justify her wanting her highest value getting back in bed with her. So this living in the world of Atlas Shrugged nonsense went on for quite a few years before it blew up in everybody's faces in 1968. 

It was my nonsense too, way back then. When I was 24 I'd have thought I'd died and gone to heaven if I could have had her. I couldn't understand why NB hadn't spent the 1960s in bed with her. Too old for him? Not too old for me. That's what testosterone and an idiot philosophy about sex can do to you. A young man is a sex machine first. When he calms down then romantic love enters the room--maybe. In the meantime--while figuring out the "highest value" thing--keep it going. Why not? Biology cares not a whit about romantic love. Biology wants adolescents to make babies. When the kid arrives the father protects and provides. The family unit is formed. Everybody has a role. Even the baby. The baby's role is to be adorable so the adults don't kill it.

--Brant rant

[Brant Gaede]

6 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

About 25 million military deaths in WWII, per Wikipedia.

Yes. And about 70 mil dead overall. All because France and Great Britain just had to kick Germany and Germans in the balls right after WWI.

--Brant

and then didn't have the balls to get rid of Hitler in the mid-1930s

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

And if the Japanese were up on their history even thinking about attacking the United States would have made them shit in their pants. 

--Brant

Correct.  That was Sherman's idea too.  He figured after he trashed  Georgia and South Carolina (where the secession began)  the Southrons would never again contemplate secession or war.  So far he is right.  The Japanese were scared straight also.  Since 1945  Japan has not had a full strength standing army or air force.  It has a self defense force capable of fighting off an invasion,  but not strong enough to threaten other nations.  The Japanese have pursued the ways of peace and commerce ever since 1945.  That is 72 years.  I think they finally got it.