Philosophy Attacks Objectivism and objectivity


Victor Pross

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I meant of course an intellectual response.

For other posters, the reason I don't respond is a combination of time constraints, dislike of the tone adopted, and the conviction that hope lies in reaching young minds that are starting from scratch rather than trying to persuade old, closed minds.

Why do I sometimes do it? Well, assuming they fail to persuade you, by interacting with opponents you can learn something and arrive at a much deeper grasp of the truth.

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I have to say that most of the criticisms of Ayn Rand I encounter are either dishonest or just plain nuts. However, I discovered Ayn Rand a few years after graduating from college, so I wouldn't know much about academic criticisms.

But thats not why I decided to respond on this thread. The story about "Mr Hail" at the Gary Hull lecture reminds me of an essay I read once called "The Four-Lights Club". Dictators don't want people who are certain of whats right and wrong or about whats true. They want people who are unsure of themselves, unsure of their senses and reality, so they can be easily intimidated and dominated.

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I'll just say here what I said on another thread:

-----

To toot my own horn here a bit, I believe that the essay mentioned in my signature significantly builds on Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology in these ways:

1. I offer an alternative explanation to that of Ronald Pisaturo and Glenn Marcus, which as far as I know is the only currently recognized Objectivist theory on the topic, of how number concepts arise in the human mind.

2. I account for the fact that mathematical development occurs mostly parallel to the rest of conceptual growth, by pointing up a new connection between the two realms.

3. I tie “imaginary” and “complex” (two-dimensional) numbers to reality in a different way than Pisaturo and Marcus.

4. I show how I used this understanding to independently stumble upon “hypercomplex” (multidimensional) numbers, which I had never heard of but which are part of higher mathematics. This shows not only the correctness of my thinking, but also the power of philosophy to inform and direct the special sciences. It’s a good answer to the views of “Dragonfly” (“Calopterix splendens”), Daniel Barnes, “Next Level,” and others, who believe that philosophical thought must continually look and bow to what they call “science” regardless of the topic.

Normally I would dive into the message boards with my views, but I put in a lot of deep thought about mathematics to arrive at them, and decided not offer these ideas for free!

-----

Edited by ashleyparkerangel
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Rodney Rawlings:

>4. I show how I used this understanding to independently stumble upon “hypercomplex” (multidimensional) numbers, which I had never heard of but which are part of higher mathematics. This shows not only the correctness of my thinking, but also the power of philosophy to inform and direct the special sciences. It’s a good answer to the views of “Dragonfly” (“Calopterix splendens”), Daniel Barnes, “Next Level,” and others, who believe that philosophical thought must continually look and bow to what they call “science” regardless of the topic.

This is a very odd dig at me, Rodney. If you want to debate me, please feel free to. If not, don't bring me up. Or if you say my name three times in the bathroom mirror, I might appear! :devil:

Exactly how your mathematical insights are informed by Objectivism might be interesting, should you want to expound on the subject. I won't be able to reply, as I'm off shortly, but would be certainly interested in reading them. Your "good answer" seems rather short on specifics so far however. After all, profound mathematical insights have been gained by people of all kinds of background philosophies - religious, mystical, rationalistic - even people in insane asylums. So the proposition that such discoveries must be necessarily informed very directly by a specific philosophical method like Objectivism strikes me as fairly unlikely.

Incidentally, have you had your work peer-reviewed yet? If so, how did it go?

Edited by Daniel Barnes
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I'll just say here what I said on another thread:

-----

To toot my own horn here a bit, I believe that the essay mentioned in my signature significantly builds on Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology in these ways:

1. I offer an alternative explanation to that of Ronald Pisaturo and Glenn Marcus, which as far as I know is the only currently recognized Objectivist theory on the topic, of how number concepts arise in the human mind.

2. I account for the fact that mathematical development occurs mostly parallel to the rest of conceptual growth, by pointing up a new connection between the two realms.

3. I tie “imaginary” and “complex” (two-dimensional) numbers to reality in a different way than Pisaturo and Marcus.

4. I show how I used this understanding to independently stumble upon “hypercomplex” (multidimensional) numbers, which I had never heard of but which are part of higher mathematics. This shows not only the correctness of my thinking, but also the power of philosophy to inform and direct the special sciences. It’s a good answer to the views of “Dragonfly” (“Calopterix splendens”), Daniel Barnes, “Next Level,” and others, who believe that philosophical thought must continually look and bow to what they call “science” regardless of the topic.

Normally I would dive into the message boards with my views, but I put in a lot of deep thought about mathematics to arrive at them, and decided not offer these ideas for free!

-----

In regard to 2., I don't understand how Archimedes managed to invent the Calculus. Might it have to do with his discovery disappearing until Newton?

--Brant

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To Brant: I don’t understand the question; but I think it is not germane to my thoughts, which concern development in the individual mind and not over history.

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I'm arriving late to this thread; my excuse is that my academic job has been keeping me extremely busy lately...

There has certainly been unwarranted hostility toward Rand's ideas in certain parts of academia.

When I say "unwarranted," I mean that the hostility has been accompanied by the purposeful avoidance of scholarship. An epistemologist who reads Rand's book on concepts and after careful consideration ends up criticizing some of Rand's claims may or may not be correct, but cannot be faulted for unwarranted hostility. On the other hand, a philosopher who reduces Rand to her presumed politics and refuses to inform himself as to whether her political theory is as presumed--like the guy at McGill a few years back who compared Rand to Hitler--is definitely indulging in unwarranted hostility.

However, academia is not monolithic. Even philosophy departments are not. Eric Mack and Doug Rasmussen and Stephen Hicks and Aeon Skoble all teach in philosophy departments, as do Tara Smith and Bob Mayhew and some others who are affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute.

And there is interest in Rand elsewhere. In English departments (e.g., Mimi Gladstein). In Psychology departments (e.g., Tal Ben-Shahar, or yours truly). Dare I mention Schools of Business?

I think there are alternatives besides planting a few philosophers with ARI affiliations in a hostile milieu and abandoning the entire system of higher education to rotten relativism.

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies is about to finish Volume 8...

Robert Campbell

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I'll just say here what I said on another thread:

-----

To toot my own horn here a bit, I believe that the essay mentioned in my signature significantly builds on Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology in these ways:

1. I offer an alternative explanation to that of Ronald Pisaturo and Glenn Marcus, which as far as I know is the only currently recognized Objectivist theory on the topic, of how number concepts arise in the human mind.

2. I account for the fact that mathematical development occurs mostly parallel to the rest of conceptual growth, by pointing up a new connection between the two realms.

3. I tie “imaginary” and “complex” (two-dimensional) numbers to reality in a different way than Pisaturo and Marcus.

4. I show how I used this understanding to independently stumble upon “hypercomplex” (multidimensional) numbers, which I had never heard of but which are part of higher mathematics. This shows not only the correctness of my thinking, but also the power of philosophy to inform and direct the special sciences. It’s a good answer to the views of “Dragonfly” (“Calopterix splendens”), Daniel Barnes, “Next Level,” and others, who believe that philosophical thought must continually look and bow to what they call “science” regardless of the topic.

Normally I would dive into the message boards with my views, but I put in a lot of deep thought about mathematics to arrive at them, and decided not offer these ideas for free!

-----

In regard to 2., I don't understand how Archimedes managed to invent the Calculus. Might it have to do with his discovery disappearing until Newton?

--Brant

Sorry, I thought you were speaking historically.

--Brant

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  • 1 month later...
4. I show how I used this understanding to independently stumble upon “hypercomplex” (multidimensional) numbers, which I had never heard of but which are part of higher mathematics. This shows not only the correctness of my thinking, but also the power of philosophy to inform and direct the special sciences. It’s a good answer to the views of “Dragonfly” (“Calopterix splendens”), Daniel Barnes, “Next Level,” and others, who believe that philosophical thought must continually look and bow to what they call “science” regardless of the topic.

Normally I would dive into the message boards with my views, but I put in a lot of deep thought about mathematics to arrive at them, and decided not offer these ideas for free!

-----

Please read the following article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercomplex_numbers

I assume you are aware that is the dimension of the hypercomplex algebra increases, various algebraic properties are lost. For example the quaternion field is non-commutative. The octonian algebra is non-associative etc.

From the above article:

"Quaternion, octonion, and beyond: Cayley-Dickson construction

All of the Clifford algebras Cℓp,q® apart from the complex numbers and the quaternions contain non-real elements j that square to 1; and so cannot be division algebras. A different approach to extending the complex numbers is taken by the Cayley-Dickson construction. This generates number systems of dimension 2n, n in {2, 3, 4, ...}, with bases \{1, i_1, ..., i_{2^n-1}\}, where all the non-real bases anti-commute and satisfy i_m^2 = -1.

The first algebras in this sequence are the four-dimensional quaternions, eight-dimensional octonions, and 16-dimensional sedenions. However, satisfying these requirements comes as a price: each increase in dimensionality introduces new algebraic complications. Quaternion multiplication is not commutative anymore, octonion multiplication additionally is non-associative, and sedenions do not form a normed space with multiplicative norm.

Because quaternions and octonions offer a (multiplicative) norm similar to lengths in four and eight dimensional Euclidean vector space respectively, these numbers can be referred to as points in some higher-dimensional Euclidean space. Beyond octonions, however, this analogy fails since these constructs are not normed anymore."

Have you derived any results that are not already in the literature which can be gotten for free?

If I may offer you some advice: if you are going to do mathematics you should first research the area you wish to work in so you do not

1. you do not repeat stuff that is already there

2. you do not miss stuff that you ought to know.

This is simple basic scholarship.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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  • 1 month later...

Pross Recycled this plagiary in another article he posted on the Ayn Rand Meetup forum, for which I busted him earlier:

Victor Pross - Philosophy Attacks Objectivism and Objectivity - 2006

"Today’s intellectuals, media commentaries, or just standard-issued people with intellectual inclinations—all of whom know Ayn Rand--are predominately products of the modern education system, which has bombarded them with the tenets of skepticism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, altruism, pragmatism: knowledge is impossible, no one can know anything for certain, there is no independent reality, all ethics are arbitrary..."

Michael Smith - Post on "Public and Intellectuals" on Objectivism Online - 2004

"Today's intellectuals are predominantly products of the modern education system, which has bombarded them with the tenets of skepticism and pragmatism: knowledge is impossible, no one can know anything for certain, there is no independent reality, all ethics are arbitrary, etc."

--Dan Edge

(Note from MSK: Thank you, Dan. Duly edited.)

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