Robert Tracinski's article "What Went Right"

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Michael,

The problem with "flocking" in this case is that I don't think you get a representative sample of Objectivists on the internet. The motivation many ARI Objectivists have for making statements like this is obvious. They want control of "authoritative" information. Before, they simply cut people off from information if they didn't do what they wanted. Now, they cut people off from "authoritative information" and try to discredit the rest. The internet is one of the main ways information gets disseminated.

However, the internet is a double-edged sword. There really is a lot of junk out there and sifting the junk in Objectivism is hard. You have to critically read the Rand corpus and most of the secondary material. Back in college I can remember having a discussion with Linda Reardan about some of the concerns she had with even some of the first Objectivist Graduate Center students not having read all of the extant material in the Objectivist corpus.

I was actually glad looking back that I spent pretty much my first 3 years of exposure to Objectivism on my own with it. I was able to formulate my own opinions without having people tell me what I should think about it.

I also think telling a bunch of people they should study philosophy because they liked Rand is the wrong message. Many of the Objectivists who will have important things to contribute will come from other fields: psychology, physics, neurology, cognitive science, economics, intellectual property law and others. Applying what you know to a second field is, I think, the truest test of understanding Objectivism because there aren't any pat answers and you are in unknown territory. That's when you find out how effective your thinking models are and how reality oriented you really are.

Jim

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Michael,

If you liked Arie De Guis, I think you'd also like a book by Michael Schrage called Serious Play. It's about how fast prototyping and model-building affect the growth of companies. This is what I also find strange about the Peter Schwartz position on sanction. There is a whole body of interesting technology-driven libertarian thinking you could miss out on if you took it seriously.

Jim

[Charles R. Anderson]

Jim,

I am trying to get a clear idea of what you were saying in your last post. I think it may be that an important route to knowledge and an understanding of reality is trying things out which you have not had the time opportunity to evaluate sufficiently to even expect them to work. That is, to use your time efficiently, as well as other limited resources, you try things to see how they will work in the confidence that some aspects may work and that those aspects that fail will be instructive. In other words, efficient learning approaches expect mistakes and learn from them.

This is one of the problems that most philosophers have. They never seem to have the same concern for limited resources such as manpower, time, and money that many other occupations impose upon those who practice them well.

In my lab, we have a very limited time in which to produce useful results for our customers and a limited budget. In different cases, we find that their material or their process failed because:

1) Explanation A, which is 95% certain, or

2) Explanation A, which is 60% likely, or Explanation B, which is 30% likely

3) The explanation is not Explanation A as the client expected.

In different cases, any of these results may prove very valuable, though none may say that the explanation is such and such with 100% certainty. Generally, with more time and money we could raise the certainty levels. 1) says tweak your process to eliminate problem A and you are probably back in production. 2) says try the path that would correct A as your first choice and if it does not work try B. 3) says that all the resources you are putting into solving the problem on Path A are being wasted, you must look elsewhere for the solution. Such is the real world, where things are complex and we must try various partial understandings out and put them to the test of reality.

The fundamental problem with Schwartz was that he does not understand the complexity of the real world, he is afraid of making mistakes, he does not understand that intelligent and rational people use mistakes, often even planned mistakes, to learn and understand the complexity of the real world, and that a wrong idea is not therefore necessarily an evil idea, though we may call it a failed idea. If a failed idea demonstrates what does not work, it is not evil really, however evil it would be to continue using that idea when its failure has been demonstrated. The failure to learn may be an evil act, when the idea was simply unworkable or inconsistent with reality. Saying that socialism is evil is really a shortcut for saying that socialism makes the life of man much less happy than does capitalism and the determined socialist is therefore evil in so far as he has failed to learn that very clear lesson.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Tolerance should be the virtue of respecting the effort that goes into creating and developing ideas. This respect carries over to the individual who has created and developed an idea. If the idea is inconsistent with reality, then we are evil if we willfully ignore that inconsistency. Moral men should point out when an idea is observed to be inconsistent with reality. The tolerant man does not maintain that ideas that are inconsistent with reality are to be either embraced or that they are unimportant. On the contrary, he is highly concerned with creating and testing ideas against reality to find out if they are valid. The difference between the rational, tolerant man and the intolerant man is that the former is happy to make objective evaluations of ideas tested against reality, understands that mistaken ideas are often a part of even rational lives, and that the only really evil act is the refusal to create ideas and then to correctly assess them against reality.

In some Objectivist circles, any idea inconsistent with reality is termed evil. Since few choose to be evil, there is a great fear of making a mistake or of creating an idea, which might prove inconsistent with reality. So, they create few ideas and they test few ideas against reality. This is an insult directed toward reality. It also hugely crimps their ability to learn about reality. An atmosphere in which men grant one another the occasional mistake, is much more conducive to learning and makes society much more creative and efficient.

Ayn Rand was motivated to formulate the philosophy of Objectivism because she had a vision of highly creative and independent thinkers living very efficacious lives by strictly committing themselves to identifying reality in a society that valued thinkers and creators. We do not actually get to see very much of the creative process in Atlas Shrugged, with the exception of Hank Rearden and his long and arduous path to creating Rearden Metal and his subsequent change of plans for Dagny's bridge design. If mistakes are part of the technical process, they surely must be a part of the political and generally social relationships process too. We do get to see something of the creative process with Howard Roark too, where again he makes mistakes in the art and engineering of his building designs, only to improve on many of them. Mistakes are an essential part of the creative life and rational people recognize this. Any good work group should be tolerant of mistakes as long as members of the team are learning from them in an efficient manner. Objectivists should become such an efficient work group.

Making a mistake is not evil. The failure to objectively evaluate an idea for its consistency with reality may be due to limited intelligence or it may be due to an evil intent. We all have limited intelligence, but we need to have the firm intention of making reality primary in our lives. The failure to do this is what makes a man evil. If one were to make Rand's philosophy one's primary, this would be evil. All ideas must be tested by man for consistency with reality.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The problem with "flocking" in this case is that I don't think you get a representative sample of Objectivists on the internet.

Jim,

I disagree. On OL we are getting all kinds of Objectivists and a very representative sample, if the 2006 TAS Seminar is a standard. I admit that I prune the crackpots (very few) and work hard to keep abrasive behavior toned down (which is not as easy as it seems since fairness has to be judged constantly). Also, ARI types do not come here, but they don't go anywhere except within their own circle.

I am fine with the spontaneous flocking that goes on here. (That is what the PM's are for, too.) This has been very productive learning-wise in several cases that I know of. This leads me to believe that there are many other productive cases I do not know about.

Michael

[Bidinotto]

There's a lot of wisdom packed into Jim's post #101.

I had the benefit of discovering Rand during my teens and devouring her work in relative isolation, during the late 1960s.

For the most part, my first few years of study of Objectivism was, like Jim's, conducted pretty much on my own in college. In retrospect, it was fortunate for me that I wasn't around NBI or any organized Objectivist presentations. This meant that I had to try to make sense of it all on my own. Specifically, the great advantage of this go-it-alone process is that it honed my ability to think in principles and to painstakingly "check premises" all along the way, rather than simply ingest various ideas in clumps, as part of canned presentations by some authority figure. I had to think it all through, link by link, without the dubious advantage of some "expert" (which today too often means: "spin doctor") injecting his own interpretations, emphases, and slants. Instead, I had to progress, step by difficult step, from intellectual positions I'd previously held (especially regarding religion) to a systematic understanding of Rand's ideas.

Along the way, I did bounce her ideas off a lot of very smart non- or even anti-Objectivists, as well as a few Objectivists, in stimulating, after-hours college bull sessions. Those critics challenged various Objectivist premises, compelling me to think through tacit assumptions and key linkages. Today, at least to some extent, "bull sessions" of this sort have migrated online, where global invitees now participate and challenge each other. Like most bull sessions, online discussion forums are often chaotic and filled with interruptions and side tracks. At their best -- assuming they attract some high-quality intellects -- you can learn a lot, and be exposed to perspectives you never thought of. But the signal-to-noise ratio is seldom very good online. In your dorm room, you could at least shut the door selectively, and keep the noise-makers from interrupting or diverting a fruitful debate.

I also agree with Jim about the dubious importance (at least, in the life contexts of many individuals) of a rigorous, formal study of the history of philosophy. I do not mean at all to diminish the value, to some intellectuals in certain fields, of studying and learning about the historic progression of philosophical influences. But, for me and the purposes of my life, I was always far more interested in learning whether ideas were true or false rather than memorizing their pedigrees.

Learning how to "think on my feet" -- how to think through ideas as they were presented to me -- was, I think, a much more valuable skill than knowing whether a given idea had emerged from the ruminations of Thales, Kant, or Rorty. Put another way, my preferred form of argument is not: "Oh, you're just repeating Hegelian nonsense!" -- but rather: "That idea is nonsense, and here's why..."

Turning this back to the subject of this thread:

The thing that has impressed me about Mr. Tracinski is that he seems to be guided by a similar set of cognitive priorities. He has proved himself willing to challenge hand-me-down assumptions about (for example) the Objectivist philosophy of history -- at least as it has been widely promoted and understood. He is not just swallowing and regurgitating some party line; he is looking at the world first-hand, applying reason, and going to where evidence and logic take him -- not primarily to square his conclusions with previously established Objectivist doctrine.

I am emphatically not saying that he is ignorant of or indifferent to Objectivism -- far from it. It's just that he has his priorities straight. That speaks volumes for his character.

It also speaks volumes about the characters of those attacking him, and the merits of their criticisms. The overwhelming thrust of those attacks has been to the effect that Mr. Tracinski is departing from "Objectivism" in this way or that -- "Objectivism" as defined by the critics, who, incidentally, refer mostly to their own writings and speeches, and not to Ayn Rand's. Their criticisms drip with "arguments from authority," which amount to: "How dare he challenge the expertise of this or that well-known 'Objectivist intellectual'!" Their criticisms also reek of ad hominems, psychologizing about his alleged intellectual processes and moralizing about his supposed motives.

I'd highly recommend that people show their support of Mr. Tracinski in a practical way: by subscribing to his publication, as I am doing now. I have no doubt that, in the jihad against him, a number of ARI types have cancelled their subscriptions to The Intellectual Activist. Nothing would be more encouraging to him, I would imagine, than replacing that lost income with new subscriptions.

And nothing would be more just.

[Chris Grieb]

Robert; Excellent post! Great idea! Thanks!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Being a person who had to do it alone, even in more isolation than you did since in Brazil NOBODY knew about Ayn Rand, I not only appreciate your experience, I lived it.

I agree with you about there being a lot of noise online, but we seem to part ways on the value of online learning and interacting. I think it is a mistake to lump together the different Objectivist forums, e-mail lists and blogs that exist and say the "signal to noise" ratio is seldom very good. This is like lumping Objectivist magazines together and making some kind of negative generalization based on the worst one.

I find the "signal to noise" ratio is far better in some places than in others. For example, I can point to any number of threads right here on OL where your observation is not the case and there is some damn fine quality interaction in terms of Objectivism and in terms of original thinking. And our public and membership is relatively small. There are a small number of OL threads where the noise has become overbearing, but they are few (and I have allowed them to develop on a case-by-case basis). In general, I think you will find the quality to be pretty high.

Added to this, I personally met Barbara, you and a host of people who have enriched my life online. I also met Kitten. I am not sure I would have met you all if it had not been online.

A very special value is that I have been able to filter out some really neurotic people I do not wish to associate with in the Objectivist subculture. I have been able to evaluate them by observing how they act and react and sometimes I have had personal interaction with them just to make sure.

Yes, the more I think about it, the more value I find in Objectivist forums. I think the Internet forum is a wonderful invention and one of the blessings of capitalism. This is why Kat and I invest in one.

EDIT: btw - I mentioned above, and I still maintain, that the best place to learn about Objectivism is from Rand's works. I believe we agree on this point (at least we should). As a matter of fact, part of the purpose of a forum like OL is to discuss issues with people who have read Rand's works.

Also, I fully endorse your words about Tracinsky.

Michael

[Charles R. Anderson]

Like James and Robert, I agree that it can be a very good thing to emphasize the personal development of an understanding of Objectivism. There comments seem to be directed at the corrupting influence that some others interested in Objectivism may have on you. Some of them do and it is helpful to avoid contact with them when in the early stages of learning about Objectivism. But, more important yet is to emphasize the importance of using one's own knowledge, experience, and reasoning powers to evaluate every tenet of Objectivism before you accept it as true and that you make this an on-going process.

I read The Fountainhead in 1964 while a senior in high school at the suggestion of a friend who had just finished reading it . My friend devoured The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged very quickly and told me he was an Objectivist. When he went to college, he soon found out that he could not hold up his ideas in debates and he soon fell away from Objectivism. This is actually a very common pattern.

I paced myself very deliberately through both novels and found that they were mostly consistent with my thoughts already, that they greatly helped me to integrate many of my different ideas, and that they helped me to identify some errors and find new areas that I needed to think about. But, my approach was always to test all of Rand's ideas and conclusions against my own experience and all that I had read. Admittedly, I had not read much philosophy, but I had read a lot of history and I had read newspapers, newsweeklies, and business magazines for many years. Each of Rand's ideas had to be tested against everything else I knew and I worked very hard at making that evaluation late in my senior year and through the summer before going to college. When 14 and 15, I had been committed to my variant of Christianity, which on moving to Tulsa, I discovered was quite inconsistent with the religion that most people practiced. I found that I had no respect for that religion and was starting to re-evaluate all of my own ideas of religion when I started reading Rand. I had already been a committed capitalist and believed in very limited government. I acquired all of the back issues of The Objectivist Newsletter and read them and carefully evaluated every article. I never forgot that only my evaluation could determine which of Rand's ideas were right and which were not. I knew that there were definitely nuances of understanding on which we differed, but I was very impressed with the totality of her ideas and very grateful to have been exposed to them.

At college I quickly found myself in many bull sessions with most of the other freshmen being of decidedly more socialist persuasion, while a minority held religious and more conservative ideas. For months, I was the only Objectivist, until Larry Bellows, an applied math major, heard about my bull sessions and introduced himself to me. Larry was mostly interested in the politics of Objectivism and was a very intelligent guy, and he became a friend. Larry then met a philosophy major named Roger Donway and brought him over to introduce us. Roger was an extraordinarily well-read freshman and it was very interesting to discuss issues with him, though we often saw things from somewhat differently nuanced perspectives. Contact with Roger was rather limited, however, until we were juniors and he met David Kelley and introduced him to Larry and I. Especially in my freshman and sophomore years though, I spent a lot of time as the sole Objectivist discussing issues with one or very commonly several students, most of whom were socialists or at least highly mixed economy people who believed in altruism.

These self-induced trials of first testing myself and my ideas in a very deliberate way against Rand, both her and me against everything I knew about reality, and then the many, many debates with other students served me well. But through this all, there was never any question but that it was my analytical and critical judgment that was my foundation, it was not Ayn Rand's work. Her work was immensely valuable only as an aid to my understanding things, but it was not understanding unless it was consistent with what I knew of reality. However highly I regarded her judgment, it could never be better than mine. I do not mean when I say this that without her I would have exceeded her understanding of reality in time. I mean that the only means I ever had to evaluate and judge her understanding was by means of my own understanding.

Whether I agree or disagree with Ayn Rand on a particular matter is not of fundamental importance to me. This is the major reason that I very rarely quote her. Doing so relieves me of no part of my responsibility to defend my viewpoints and ideas. So, for those who wish to learn Objectivism, my posts are pretty useless, if Objectivism is taken to be the same thing as Rand's ideas. But because I mostly agree with Rand's ideas, I find that there are people at OL who are interesting to discuss ideas with and who are able to give me ideas well worth my giving more thinking to. I do not come here primarily to learn about Objectivism, I come here to learn about reality.

I happen to think that as schools of philosophy go, Objectivism has the best handle on reality, especially if one holds it to its central principles and allows it to continue to develop as a means to integrate much of our knowledge of reality. If it is a dead philosophy, as some would have it (the closed philosophy crowd), then it is only of historical interest and all rational men are philosophically isolated individuals. The only alternative is to define a new word for a growing, open philosophy which largely starts off from that time when Objectivism was closed and identifies carefully such ideas of Rand's as were wrong. I still think that Objectivism was too good a start to be shut down, however.

[Charles R. Anderson]

I have read Trucinski's TIA Daily for about 9 days now and I am finding it interesting reading. I expect to convert my free 30 day trial subscription into a paying subscription.

[Chris Grieb]

Charles; Great post. The Spanish saying "Take what you want and pay for it." that Rand quotes kept running through my mind when I read your post.

[Charles R. Anderson]

Thanks Chris. I do not seem to be getting much feedback lately on OL. I seem to be putting up a lot of dead-end posts lately. Makes me think my failure to quote Ayn Rand might be making me seem like a low signal-to-noise poster to many people. Actually, I am pretty sure that some people do make that assessment, but I thought they were mostly from other viewpoints on Objectivism than are prevalent here.

Or maybe what I think is interesting is just too quirky lately. Take the zero responses to my post on the genetic diversity article in the Science section as an example. As individualists, I believe that scientific finding is fascinating. Then because the focus on the Trucinski article What Went Right? was only on the role of philosophy in history and I thought that other issues he raised were interesting, I started a thread called Pessimism or Confidence in Others in the Objectivist Living Room. Few readers and no comments on the problem of pessimism in the Objectivist movement and how it is coupled with a low regard for non-Objectivists. Apparently, I have wandered off into left, no right field lately and whatever I write is irrelevant to most people's interests. Perhaps I have become too old and settled deep into my own quirky ruts. Hmm... I should start a new thread asking for everyone's evaluation of just how strange and irrelevant I have become! Or, have I just wandered too far outside the closed system bounds of Objectivism and most people feel uncomfortable exploring these interests of mine. The tether to Ayn Rand is becoming too weak?

I do not mean to imply that Robert, who made the low signal-to-noise comment about Objectivist forums, was directing that comment at me, mind you. It is just that his phrase stuck in my mind as being applicable in a different context. At least I hope it is different! :devil:

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Charles,

There is another option about your "dead-end posts" you did not mention. (I know this is my case and I suspect it is the case of several others.) You stated so well what I think that I could think of nothing to add to it.

I do admit to missing the one in the Science thread, so over there I will go. It is easy to forget that people greatly appreciate feedback. (I know I do.)

Michael

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Charles,

I've enjoyed your recent posts immensely, especially the one about mistakes being part of the learning process. It is just taking me some time to unpack some of what you said and process what I think about it. When I was a kid and learning to play tennis, I used to see a bunch of adult tennis players with permanently crippled games earnestly try to keep the ball in play with crummy strokes. They had probably spent a bunch of time doing things the wrong way.

Learning is a trial and error process and we should go at it with gusto and abandon. However, we have to also be careful about how much we may be automating the wrong things in our thinking process. One of the things that I think is still lacking in Objectivism but may not properly be part of its project is a generalized view of how to lead a creative life. Others in positive psychology, most notably Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, have taken on this project.

I just think Objectivists need to be more clear about whether they are just trying out ideas they think might work and when they are communicating ideas that they think are important for others to adopt. One of the things that has mildly annoyed me typically about some Objectivists is that they are very pushy about ideas. A good idea, if clarified properly, will sell itself. Another thing that has mildly annoyed me is that many Objectivists don't seem very ambitious about reality orientation. I posted something earlier about a crackpot theory about quantum mechanics, the Theory of Elementary Waves, that has briefly surfaced in Objectivist circles. In the hard sciences, as opposed to philosophy, you can go out in the lab and try something out and most of the time you don't publish until you've done due diligence in this regard.

Jim

[Bidinotto]

Charles,

Your posts are invariably filled with wisdom -- reason applied to life-long experience -- and very valuable. And I usually agree with you. Please never take my silence as indicating boredom or indifference. I am so busy that I usually post something only when it hits a particular hot bottom of mine, or some subject closely allied to things I'm currently working on. But your words certainly aren't falling into a black hole.

[Dragonfly]

Another thing that has mildly annoyed me is that many Objectivists don't seem very ambitious about reality orientation. I posted something earlier about a crackpot theory about quantum mechanics, the Theory of Elementary Waves, that has briefly surfaced in Objectivist circles. In the hard sciences, as opposed to philosophy, you can go out in the lab and try something out and most of the time you don't publish until you've done due diligence in this regard.

Many years ago the crackpot aspect was in fact the first thing that made me look with a more critical eye at Objectivism, when I read Peikoff's Ominous Parallels. If Objectivists ever want to be taken seriously by the scientific community they should absolutely distance themselves from Peikoff in his ramblings about science. It's really embarrassing to hear the nonsense he and Harriman are spouting in the DIM lectures. The curious thing is that ARI has in Travis Norsen a much more competent scientist (who also made short shrift of the theory of Elementary Waves, which is now probably only supported by Stephen Speicher, if at all), who as far as I know officially has been silent about the comic duo Peikoff/Harriman, but who cannot but disagree violently with their primitive views. This must be the source of a lot of hidden tension within ARI. When will the next schism occur?

[Chris Grieb]

I have heard a little about Peikoff-Harriman views on physics. Very brief conversations with David Saum inform me that people who know something about physics say these two worthies are full of it. Can someone tell me more. I don't want to have to buy lectures from ARI. I don't have the money.

Edited February 11, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Ellen Stuttle]

Take the zero responses to my post on the genetic diversity article in the Science section as an example.

Charles,

I read that post when it first appeared, and I almost entered a quip, "Where were you when we had the talent discussion?" You would have been useful countering some misunderstandings about genetic-diversity issues. I think you'll see, if you take a look at the 32-page Talent thread, why I had no eagerness to restart that debate.

Your Pessimism or Confidence in Others thread, I admit to not having noticed. There are a lot of threads I don't notice on this vast website. In general, as regards your posts, though, I, too, as others have said, often think you've stated something so clearly I have nothing to add. For sure, I don't think the lack of response is because people here feel you've "wandered too far outside the closed system bounds of Objectivism." I'm unaware of anyone here who's tethered within those bounds.

Ellen

___

Edited February 11, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Charles R. Anderson]

I appreciate all the feedback and I apologize for the fact that this is an aside on this thread.

Michael, The people here have so many perspectives and so many good ideas, that while I had thought of the possibility that others thought I had expressed an idea so well that they might have nothing to add, I dismissed it as a thought that would be an expression of megalomania! I thought you guys always had something to add, both given history and my regard for your intelligence and the richness of your experience in life (and that of many other posters here).

James, That no else picked up on the mistakes post above was also a disappointment to me. It was largely a take-off from your prior post, which triggered my interests in the complexity of reality and toleration as a tool for learning. The creative thinking process and its needs very much crosses the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy and psychology. I tend to think of Objectivism more as a worldview and a framework for thought than only as a philosophy, though I have called it a philosophy as a shorthand notation. It seems to me that the promotion of creative thinking lies at the very heart of Objectivism. It seems that it is easier for scientists to understand the role of mistakes in learning than it is for many people in other fields, so it is important for us to pass this understanding on, with its implications for toleration as a rational concept (it often being used in irrational and even contradictory ways). As scientists, we test our hypotheses against reality fairly rigorously and identify those which are mistakes and throw them out, but in other fields, the mistakes do often take on a longer lifetime. Nonetheless, they still should be regarded as hypotheses that did not work and tested against reality and then thrown out when they are shown to fail. Thanks for your comments.

Robert, It is wisdom that I have most aspired to achieve in life, so your comment was the most positive comment I could hope to hear. Thanks for your interest in my viewpoints. When you do have a reservation on any of my ideas or viewpoints, I am particularly eager to hear about them, even those cases where there is a difference in nuance rather than a fundamental difference. I would think that there are times and topics when your role with TAS must cause you not to enter the fray on some topics, which I will try to understand. But because I think you (and David and Ed) are among the wisest of men, I am always eager to hear what you have to say.

Ellen, The Talent thread sounds like an interesting topic and I would certainly find your views on that very interesting. I see that it was a hot topic from 2 Nov through early January when the press of work in the lab was out of this world heavy and I had to totally deprive myself of the pleasure of visits to OL. I am sorry to have missed it. Where I have sufficient knowledge to evaluate what you say, I almost always find your comments to be wise and interesting. Where I might have supported your side in that discussion, I am sorry to have let you down by not being there. I am sure it would have been a pleasure. Issues of talent go far beyond the usual talents for music or drawing that are commonly given as examples of talent. You are certainly one who is not tethered to Ayn Rand's writings and I greatly admire your independent thinking and your spirit.

Thank you all for your re-assurances that I am not throwing my ideas or my time into a black-hole. That many of the people I most admire here have responded so positively is very much appreciated.

[Philip Coates]

> If Objectivists ever want to be taken seriously by the scientific community they should absolutely distance themselves from Peikoff in his ramblings about science. It's really embarrassing to hear the nonsense he and Harriman are spouting in the DIM lectures.

Dragonfly, I think I'd need to hear specifics (quoting what they said & why is nonsense) before I would know it I agree. But, of course, that would require its own thread with a self-explanatory name (physics mistakes by Objectivist intellectuals?), since this is a thread on Tracinski's articles.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Dragonfly's criticism of Peikoff and Harriman (and Objectivist science and arts) is all over OL. Here is a post I found on a quick search. If you ask him something more specific, I am sure you will get a more than satisfactory technical answer. Besides, he loves to bash the pompous and sanctimonious when they cannot back themselves up with facts.

Technically, Dragonfly is an incorrigible reductionist, a world-class painter, engineer, musician, Rand admirer (but he would rather die than admit it), Dennett advocate, probably a gourmet cook, some other goodies, and he is my friend (online only so far).

He knows so many in-depth facts about so many fields that I frankly cannot keep up with him. We disagree at times, but I have an enormous amount respect and admiration for him.

His only real defect appears that he is Dutch...

(ducking...)

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Dragonfly, I think I'd need to hear specifics (quoting what they said & why is nonsense) before I would know it I agree.

I’ve tried to write down as well as I could some short quotes from the lecture. My English is not good enough to decipher all of Peikoffs croakings, however. To discredit modern physics Peikoff follows his usual method (which he also used in his Ominous Parallels) of cherry-picking a few quotes from some scientists as “proof” of their corruption, and he even uses an article in the New York Times as an argument – I wonder what he would say if we based our judgment of Objectivism on articles in the New York Times. Now he does no such thing with his big hero Newton, the perfect integrator according to his system, who had also a lot to say about religion, alchemy and astrology however. Of course that doesn’t in any way invalidate his brilliant work in physics – which is exactly the point that Peikoff misses when he attacks modern scientists. For those who are unacquainted with Peikoff’s DIM hypothesis: I = integration (the good guys), M = misintegration (the bad guys) and D = disintegration (the very bad guys). M and D come in two versions: 1 (still some redeemable qualities) and 2 (hopeless cases).

Albert Einstein is the most outstanding example of M1 in physics, he represents a mixture of empiricism and rationalism.

Einstein does make an effort to reduce matter and space to mathematics. Matter is reducible to fields, which are defined by equations. Space is [studied?] by geometry.

All this rationalism [..] had very negative results on his physics. Quoting Dave: his gravitational theory is extremely unphysical, forces are not propagated by any physical means.

Oh, and what about his hero Newton? Are his forces “propagated by any physical means”? He just poses that there is some mysterious, instantaneous action at a distance. Is that more of a physical explanation than Einstein’s model?

The equations constitute a brilliant extension of Newton’s theory, but the interpretation is completely unphysical and rationalistic.

What is “completely unphysical and rationalistic” about a theory that can make correct predictions of phenomena that otherwise couldn’t be explained, like the anomaly in Mercury’s orbit, bending of starlight, gravitational lensing, orbital decay due to graviational radiation or gravitational redshift?! Is there any Objectivist scientist who has a better theory to explain these phenomena? Objectivists are very loud and outspoken in their denunciations of modern science, but where are the results of an "Objectivist" science?

Big Bang: a total floating theory, and as Dave pointed out: not a single correct quantitative prediction has been made from the theory nor of course has there been any validation, inductive or otherwise of the Big Bang. It is an issue of faith in the religious sense.

The Big Bang is a prime example of a theory that became generally accepted after one of its most famous predictions was confirmed: the existence of a black-body cosmic background radiation, which was predicted in 1948 by Gamow, Alpher and Herman and was discovered accidentally by Penzias and Wilson in 1965. As there were still large uncertainties in the original version of the theory the original estimates of the temperature of the black-body radiation varied from 5 to 50 K. The lower estimate was close to the observed temperature of 2.7 K. The radiation is quite uniformly distributed over the sky, but the theory predicted very small variations, which were later found, confirming the theory.

The Big Bang is now treated as a religious doctrine rather than a scientific theory. Cosmologists play the role of theologians, protecting the faith.

When the Big Bang faces a problem, they invent the arbitrary conjectures necessary to save it. The observed mass-density of the universe is about 20 times too low by their prediction, so they invent an unknown form of invisible dark matter.

Harriman apparently doesn’t know that there is a lot evidence for dark matter that is completely independent of the Big Bang model, as the speed distributions in galaxies and of galaxies in clusters, and gravitational lensing observations. Apparently Harriman doesn’t know much about current science.

Dave in a brilliant [coined?] calls them the mystics of particles, which is a [irely??] memorable phrase, which should be the title of a book on the people, and it’s obvious that they are.. they simply rewrite science the way history was rewritten in 1984.

No comment necessary.

In regard to Einstein, his whole view of eh... trying to reduce so much of physics to geometry, I mean, that is a classic rational dream, and his whole view of [treating?] gravitation as simply a geometric construct of space-time, that’s a complete floating abstraction, that is central to his physics.

Is geometry somehow metaphysically inferior to algebra? And how can something be a "floating abstraction" if it can make succesful predictions of phenomena that are verified and can't be explained otherwise? I think the term "floating abstraction" is an Objectivist bromide for "a theory I can't refute".

It’s an empty mathematical formalism. What’s right about it is the mathematical formalism, but it is not a physical theory.

I would classify Feynman as a D1.

Question from the audience: What is chaos theory, and is that an oxymoron?

...they developed their own approach and called it chaos theory basically, and they have given up causality, so the only way they can think of to describe the messy physical world we observe is in terms of statistics, so they describe random statistical outcomes of complicated systems, and that is chaos theory.

Harriman apparently doesn’t know that chaos theory is a strictly deterministic and causal theory, which is not limited to complicated systems: the simple Newtonian 3-body problem can also display chaotic behavior. This confirms our earlier conclusion: Harriman doesn't know much about modern science. Apart from that, what is wrong with statistical physics? Classical statistical mechanics is the only way to give a microscopic description of a gas, which gives for example a mechanical foundation for the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Does Harriman perhaps think that the only valid physics would be to calculate the trajectories of every single molecule in the gas? I wonder: does he have any ideas other than that modern science is "corrupt"?

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Big Bang was originally proposed by a physicist who was also a priest.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that the laws of classical mechanics were originally proposed by a physicist who was also a theologian, an alchemist and an astrologer, who wrote more about religion than about science. Yes, complete bullshit of course, but so is Harriman’s statement.

I believe that theory came more from the metaphysics of Augustine than that it did from observational evidence.

Harriman apparently has never heard of the observed expansion of the universe, which lead by backwards extrapolation to the notion of a big bang. No doubt most astronomers couldn’t care less about the metaphysics of Augustine. Who is in fact here defending religious dogma?

D2 – the arch-example is quantum mechanics, [?] math, Gödel in math, the uncertainty view.

We’re looking now at nihilism in physics, in other words, the explicit assault on any principle making possible integration in physics, even on the low level of the [croak?]

No integration? What about the successful integration of the theory of weak interactions (manifest in radioactive decay) and electromagnetism (electroweak theory)?

No generalizations can be validated on this theory by any amount of observation and logic, because their viewpoint is that anything is possible with some degree of probability, which is inherently inexplicable.

“Anything” is possible is certainly not true, but some things are in principle possible, but the probability is so low that such things won’t happen in practice during the lifetime of the universe or even a trillion times longer. But that is not something unique to QM: if we let a glass drop so that it explodes in thousands of shards and splitters, it is in Newtonian physics theoretically possible that all these fragments fly up again and form an unbroken glass. The probability of that happening is so extremely low however that we’ll never see it happen.

To the extent that he [Einstein] got anything right, he got it inductively.

So poor Einstein got at least something right?

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Dragonfly,

Thank you! That crosses another piece of ortho-Objectivist material off my list. To qoute Wolfgang Pauli, Peikoff and Harriman are "not even wrong" with regard to science.

Jim

[Brant Gaede]

My late friend Petr Beckmann considered Einstein's relativity wrong and wrote a book refuting him, "Einstein Plus 2," and started what he called an anti-Einsteinian journal. Petr was a physicist and a friend of the likes of Edward Teller who did NOT agree with him about Einstein. However, unlike many critics of Einstein, most not physicists I suspect, Petr thought he could explain how conventional (Newtonian) physics was all that was needed to explain what relativity explained, such as anomaly in Mercury's orbit.

What bothered me was why he was anti-Einstein, because Einstein wasn't, really--in my layman's understanding, anti-Newton. I think, perhaps erroneously, that Einstein more supplemented or complimented rather than refuted Newton. The idea that the effects of gravity were instantaneous throughout the universe was just understandable ignorance, not a philosophical position.

A smart fellow, Jack Wheeler, not a physicist, says that Einstein's basic mistake was not that he was wrong, but that he called his theories relativity. Instead, he posits, that the speed of light should have been referred to as "the cosmological constant" (if I remember this right).

I can respect Petr as a physicist having an opinion about physics on the nuts and bolts level. The same with Dragonfly. But I cannot, as a layman, say Einstein was right or wrong, about what, etc. I do know Petr sometimes went off on a tangent about things I knew about and he was wrong. For instance, he thought the Osprey tilt-wing aircraft was the next big thing in aviation. I knew it was a complicated and dangerous and expensive dead-end and told him so and why and why it wasn't needed commercially in the first place. Some years later one of these suckers crashed in Marana, Arizona, just north of where I live, killing over 20 Marines.

That Leonard Peikoff would debate or explicate on physics powered by his queer understanding of Objectivism is ludicrous, megalomaniacal and stupid. Dragonfly is entitled to an authoritative opinion. I am not. Peikoff is not.

--Brant

Edited February 14, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[reason.on]

Albert Einstein is the most outstanding example of M1 in physics, he represents a mixture of empiricism and rationalism.

Einstein does make an effort to reduce matter and space to mathematics. Matter is reducible to fields, which are defined by equations. Space is [studied?] by geometry.

All this rationalism [..] had very negative results on his physics. Quoting Dave: his gravitational theory is extremely unphysical, forces are not propagated by any physical means.

Oh, and what about his hero Newton? Are his forces “propagated by any physical means”? He just poses that there is some mysterious, instantaneous action at a distance. Is that more of a physical explanation than Einstein’s model?

The equations constitute a brilliant extension of Newton’s theory, but the interpretation is completely unphysical and rationalistic.

What is “completely unphysical and rationalistic” about a theory that can make correct predictions of phenomena that otherwise couldn’t be explained, like the anomaly in Mercury’s orbit, bending of starlight, gravitational lensing, orbital decay due to graviational radiation or gravitational redshift?! Is there any Objectivist scientist who has a better theory to explain these phenomena? Objectivists are very loud and outspoken in their denunciations of modern science, but where are the results of an "Objectivist" science?

There can be no such thing as "Objectivist" science, of course; such things only exist in the deluded fantasies of the profoundly religious.

My understanding of Newton, Einstein, and the subsequent QM world is amateurish at best, but even so, LP's raven-cloaked sermons make me cringe. In terms of "knowledge", the rational process, the progress of human-kind, and any sort of positive legacy left by Rand, the man is THE bête noire.

RCR