Forty Year Decline or Stagnation of Objectivism (1967-2007)

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Jim,

I agree with you. Let's concentrate on the positive. The world is an exciting place and there are some amazing things brewing. You recently mentioned some chemical to induce hibernating, which has some really staggering implications on longevity and survival.

Still, the topic of this thread is the spread of Objectivism as a philosophy (or lack thereof), not science.

Michael

Sorry for the hijack . I do think in order to have a vital movement you have to have something to work on to keep the most active people's juices flowing. You could just feel the pent-up juices flowing at IOS in the 1990's and I think they've recaptured some of that feeling in 2004-2006.

David Kelley once said that Objectivism could be understood on about three distinct levels. Ayn Rand's novels appeal to the intuitive level. ARI's OAC and TAS's advanced offerings work on an advanced level, but there is a paucity of really good intermediate level training in Objectivism right now. I think that's what Phil's getting at with his thread.

Jim

[william.scherk]

So let's ask: When it is "rationally appropriate" to pass moral judgment?

The answer normally given (or at least the attitude most observed) is ALWAYS, especially when one encounters evil.

I'm wondering if by 'pass' you mean make public, or if by pass you mean make. If the latter, I think that moral judgements are a constant, from the moment we make contact with the day "Rain. Bad rain," or "Rain. Good rain,' to when we end our contact with the day, "Good Night," or "Bad noisy neighbours."

It could be profitably argued that we pass thousands of moral judgements during REM.

To take another, reductive angle, the infant must make moral judgements to survive the first few days and months and years (Mother. Good) (Cold. Hunger. Shit in pants. Bad). Not a word of a lie, the ability to make such constant judgements is utterly necessary to effortless, successful function, as with proprioception or the feedback loops of our balance system.

We need look no farther than Damasio for the malfunction of the Good/Bad organs and what that entails: generally, and according to the deformation, the person can no longer navigate ordinary reality. All judgements can be rationally made, but without the affective import of the organs that are deformed or have died, the wheels of the will spin and nothing actually is ever decided or moved or wisely chosen, and without care, the person will die of misadventure.

If, Michael, my Host and Emperor, you mean 'pass' in the first instance, let me share you some wisdom of my latter years. You never ever need to make your constant judgements known to others. They are for your survival, not theirs.

To put that in a properly reductive frame, you will never know what my judgement of you actually is. And I can only guess what yours is of I, me and mine. By illustration, in another thread I have asked you why it seems you are contemptuous of Daniel Barnes. You asked me not to mistake an elbow nudge for a blow.

You must understand that I don't know what judgement you have made of Daniel save by your actions, or, more reductively, your behaviour. I may use a bit of inductive reasoning to guess that as in the last two preceding discussions with Daniel you tend to sneer and a dismissal . . . indicating by most objective measures of discourse that you find him an annoyance and a digression and not worth your best effort at understanding.

But I would be wrong in such a guess, as you have made clear. And so, we will never know if you think he is good or bad, only that your reaction to his contributions to discussion has seemed as if you were to say, 'Daniel thought. Bad." But that surely can't be good, and since you are usually always good, and because you usually mostly self-enforce your sermons, I must be wrong. I must also be wrong to imagine that you don't know what I mean when I speak of linguistic charity, or to reduce it to concept: The Principle of Charity.

I love inductive reasoning. And I love OL.

Or do I?

Consider knowledge a barn. It could be argued that you most enjoy a little hammer to the head of your more critical fellow barn-raisers, rather than the pleasure of concerted effort and striving. You appear to much better love conducting the workforce rather than finding out what barn form they have in their mind.

I beg you to consider that Daniel is a wholesome and good critic, not a bad bad boogeyman out to getcha or wreck yer barn.

Perhaps the analogy is forced and inappropriate, but since we speak of barns, it appears that you consider Barnes a most unfortunate and perhaps inapt tool, and not that by using his diamond-rough critical surface, you may hone the very edge of your own thinking.

I will always read OL when appropriate, but your recent behaviour, Michael, has made me much less likely to feel welcome in discussion. I do not understand why you domineer all threads. Is there no other function for you on OL?

EDIT: Please excuse the double post. I misposted the Bacon Screaming Pope and pushed the wrong dang button. Good. Night. Bad. William.

EDIT: removed offensive sentence,

Edited June 23, 2007 by william.scherk

[Brant Gaede]

William, you can delete the dup. post. Daniel can take care of himself. MSK is MSK, just as u is u n i is i.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

What are you talking about?

Where on earth have I "shit on Daniel"? On the contrary, I am always extremely polite to him and have on several occasions stood up for him against personal attacks.

What happens is that often I disagree with Daniel. I have perceived that he does not like to be proven wrong and when he is proven wrong, he gets really uncomfortable. I take that as a personal trait and normally do not comment much about it out of politeness.

Since I am going to need an example to back that up, here goes. One time I decided to make a small poke and even playfully referred to "gotcha." He mentioned that I was contradicting the definition of a word (as if there were only one meaning), then gave a link to an online dictionary. When I went there, I encountered 27 definitions and my understanding was included in several. Rather than say, "Oops," the denials and changings of subject and morphs, etc., I witnessed were almost painful to watch, so I dropped it. I have usually tried to avoid stepping on that bunion. My interest is not verbal dueling and I don't like to make people feel bad gratuitously.

At times I do not understand Daniel, but I always seek precision, just like I do with anyone. Sometimes during an attempt to understand (or clarify), I perceive that he gets into a sort of semantic maze where he criticizes a topic or a person (with Rand usually being the final target), then the terms or arguments he uses morph into other meanings during a discussion. So I try to clarify the precision: i.e., which meaning is being used at the present, the one he gave at the beginning, the one in the middle or the one at the end. I usually provide quotes to show that I am not being needlessly nitpicking. My motive is honestly to put the discussion on a level where it is clear and understandable to me, not some ghosts of ideas constantly being insinuated.

You just wrote: "... in the last two preceding discussions with Daniel you tend to sneer and a dismissal," and here I have a problem with precision, also. You got it backwards. The person who was dismissed was me and he did the dismissing, sneer and all. Look:

Mike:

>Let's talk about an actual idea. That other stuff is boring.

If you were really interested in the actual ideas behind mathematical epistemology, Mike, I think you would have read or genuinely tried to learn at least something about the subject at some stage in your life. But it's quite clear you haven't, so I can only assume that at bottom you aren't all that interested. This lack of both knowledge and interest, however, does not seem to stop you holding some strong and even highly dismissive opinions on the subject. Who knows why you do, but you do. So given all that, I'll sit this one out, thanks anyway.

Not only was I told what I think and how much I know (which are bad habits with anyone, and I even admitted several times that I needed to learn more about the traditional stuff before I could answer any more than I did), I was dismissed for both. He claimed I was dismissive, but that was just words, not acts. In action, he was the one who dismissed me.

I even answered in good faith and to my best ability every question he asked me during that exchange. He did not bother to answer my question, except to say that I missed the answers which were right in front of my nose. Maybe you see that kind of thing as a clear answer, but I get really tired of it, and especially when the discussion turns into constantly morphed meanings. I want to discuss an actual idea instead of "you said, and you said."

On that thread, soon after the above post, Roger Bissell arrived with an good idea about math. Merlin Jetton, Greg Browne and Bob Kolker (Ba'al) chimed in with others. I learned something. I am pretty sure several readers did also. (I even screwed up something badly trying to learn it and I am glad I did.)

With Daniel's preceding arguments, I learned nothing except that he doesn't seem to like Rand very much. But I already knew that and I have accepted it without any problem. Do I need to read it again as if it were something new? Read his posts during that exchange starting with his question to me—look at the content—and then compare them with those of the gentlemen I just cited. See if you can find any idea he presented other than a negative opinion of Rand (or her followers by insinuation). After hearing a gratuitous belittlement of Rand come out of the blue for the gazillionth time, and engaging in one more bout of verbal sparing that doesn't seem to go anywhere except to play verbal morph games to try—in the end—to show what a fool Rand was, that gets boring. So I said so and it is. Yada yada yada full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Rand was a pooh-pooh head. Nyah-nyah. Don't take me at my word for it. Let's use his words, shall we?

Do you seriously think the various problems of epistemology were just there when Ayn Rand woke up in the morning?

Think about what that means. What do you think it means? I know what I think and I see the word "fool" aimed at several quarters embedded quite nicely.

I find that stuff sooooooooooo tedious. I want a real discussion. Daniel has a good mind and he is better than that. If there are epistemological problems that interest him and if he wants to discuss them instead of belittling Rand (and others), I am sure he is perfectly capable of citing them.

I know you like Daniel (and so do I), but how do you miss this kind of stuff and misinterpret my call to get on topic as "shitting on someone"? You are normally extremely perceptive and light years in front of people.

That's just one exchange. I don't know what you mean about the other discussion with Daniel (as in "the last two"), but I have spent far too much time on this one. I only did it because I like you (a lot).

But honestly, did you gain anything with this? I don't perceive very much that I gained. My life is not richer in any meaningful manner, except to the extent that I spent some of the precious minutes of it addressing a person I value to talk about another person I value. But frankly, I would have preferred to talk about more positive things, especially positive things about Daniel (and some of the ideas he holds).

On that note, do you want to discuss some of Daniel's good qualities? Or your own? I'm more than game.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I have perceived that he does not like to be proven wrong and when he is proven wrong, he gets really uncomfortable....Rather than say, "Oops," the denials and changings of subject and morphs, etc., I witnessed were almost painful to watch, so I dropped it. I have usually tried to avoid stepping on that bunion. My interest is not verbal dueling and I don't like to make people feel bad gratuitously....I always seek precision...I perceive that he gets into a sort of semantic maze...the terms or arguments he uses morph into other meanings during a discussion. So I try to clarify the precision: i.e., which meaning is being used at the present, the one he gave at the beginning, the one in the middle or the one at the end...My motive is honestly to put the discussion on a level where it is clear and understandable to me, not some ghosts of ideas constantly being insinuated.

Sounds like a typical damn four-floushin' philosophical scoundrel to me. Nice of you to try to guide him out of his ever-morphing "semantic maze" however.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

See?

This is one of Daniel's excellent qualities: his good humor. I love this about him and I am serious about that.

(I don't like to say it out loud too much so he doesn't get a fat head. The "damn four-floushin' philosophical scoundrel ever-morphing in a 'semantic maze'" approach is better for public issues. It keeps him on his toes. )

Michael

[Philip Coates]

Daniel Barnes said: "Rand made out that philosophy is a kind of master discipline for all knowledge, and that without the correct philosophy as a guide - that is, Objectivism - whatever knowledge you hold must be in error in some fundamental way.

This results in the following situation: whatever an Objectivist thinks on any subject, - even if they know next to nothing, and they're really just cruising on their intuitions or guesswork, they believe is nonetheless fundamentally right. And whatever anyone else thinks on a subject, no matter how experienced and knowledgeable, must be fundamentally wrong. After all, you started in the correct place, and they didn't, right? So you've got this built-in sense of intellectual supremacy from the start. Hence you have the remarkable sight of the newbiest newbie Objectivist feeling sufficiently qualified to dismiss complex theories like say, quantum physics, or even relativity, simply because they find them difficult and counter-intuitive. Hence they become reluctant to learn anything new, as surely all these weird sounding problems must be philosophic in origin - due to some underlying Kantian or Platonic influence, no doubt - which can in turn only be resolved by turning back to fundamentals, of which they are already fully and reassuringly persuaded.

Trouble is, this sense of instant and fundamental intellectual supremacy does not seem so far removed from simply demanding the unearned - claiming some kind of overriding authority for yourself over all human knowledge on the basis of not a whole hell of a lot; and the constant diversion of all matters to "fundamentals" can easily become a pattern of self-reinforcing, if perhaps rather comfortable, ignorance.

The problem will of course vary between individuals, but obviously this kind of "demanding the unearned" is a powerful magnet for the very people I would suppose you would want least in Objectivism.

"

,,,,

Daniel, really excellent points. The problem is that this *very large* subcategory of Objectivists are Platonists, not Aristotelians. Not inductive or empirical or patient or universally explorative and 'construtive' minds. They try to deduce everything from the most abstract principles (usually that they absorbed from Rand in an unintegrated fashion), from philosophy. They often have a comfort zone intellectually, returning over and over to flog the same points as smaller or non-growth oriented minds do. They often don't like to learn other disciplines . . . especially in the humanities or about other people and social skills and how to make things work or succeed in an organzation or a movement.

They found some brilliant ideas in their youth, but like a sharp-edged sword in the hands of a munchkin, you can't simply start wielding it without a lot of work...and mastery...and training.

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I have perceived that he does not like to be proven wrong and when he is proven wrong, he gets really uncomfortable....Rather than say, "Oops," the denials and changings of subject and morphs, etc., I witnessed were almost painful to watch...

For anyone that's interested, btw, the site of my supposed humiliation, complete with "denials and changings of subject and morphs, etc" is this thread.

Michael's mighty "gotcha!" is here.

Me, apparently being made "really uncomfortable" by this, to the point where it's "almost painful to watch" is http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ost&p=26812.

Parental advisory, some scenes may disturb.

[Brant Gaede]

Daniel, really excellent points. The problem is that this *very large* subcategory of Objectivists are Platonists, not Aristotelians. Not inductive or empirical or patient or universally explorative and 'construtive' minds. They try to deduce everything from the most abstract principles (usually that they absorbed from Rand in an unintegrated fashion), from philosophy. They often have a comfort zone intellectually, returning over and over to flog the same points as smaller or non-growth oriented minds do. They often don't like to learn other disciplines . . . especially in the humanities or about other people and social skills and how to make things work or succeed in an organzation or a movement.

They found some brilliant ideas in their youth, but like a sharp-edged sword in the hands of a munchkin, you can't simply start wielding it without a lot of work...and mastery...and training.

Phil, it doesn't sound like you've got Aristotle right except he's better than Plato. I think the "subcategory of Objectivists" does, but they aren't a subcategory. Aristotle + Archimedes is what Objectivism is missing and is what you mistakenly think Aristotle is. The one big thing Objectivism offers re education is vertical, hierarchical integration of philosophy from metaphysics to politics and the exclusion of contradictions--what it means to be rational and conceptual. BTW, the idea of using Objectivism as a weapon automatically puts all non-Objectivists and many Objectivists at odds with the sword wielders. If Objectivism is shrinking this continual state of both foreign and civil war probably explains a lot.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Oops.

I went on memory. There were 22 definitions, not 27. But they were from the first dictionary. There were other definitions from other dictionaries.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

The one big thing Objectivism offers re education is vertical, hierarchical integration of philosophy from metaphysics to politics and the exclusion of contradictions--what it means to be rational and conceptual.

Well put. I agree completely, Brant. Thank you.

W.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Michael wrote:

One must pass moral judgment when one's values are involved and as a practical matter, only then. That is selfishness. Otherwise, a person's life will become an entanglement of constant arguments about affairs that are of no value to him.

A moral comment once in a while about a news item or something like that is no problem since the value is the person's leisure, not the issue itself. Nobody reads newspapers for a living or dreams of becoming a master newspaper reader as his life's goal. This is his time off, so he can analyze something from a distance. However, undue focus on—and moral judgments about—current events, to the detriment of personal values that he is pursuing, is not rational. That, in fact, is when it is irrational to pass moral judgment.

If someone says that Objectivism is a value, so he is "protecting the philosophy" (or some other weird notion like that) by making a career of calling other Objectivists "evil," i.e., that he is trying to keep Objectivism from being contaminated, he is showing what he values. But what he says and what it is is are different. Objectivism might be involved, but he really values the party line and tribes and dogma. He also values people who submit and forfeit their minds to his way of thinking. He really, really values the sense of belonging to a collective.

Moral judgment presents Objectivists with a quandary. The best way to pass moral judgments is on fundamental ideas and on important actions and only sparingly on individuals. Ayn Rand pronounced moral judgment most of all on archetypes of bad philosophy that captured the fundamentality of what was wrong. She excoriated Kant as a representation of unreason and the duty ethics. She created archetypes like the Witch Doctor and the Attila as the dual sides of the mind-body dichotomy.

However, as much as these represent ideas that are morally bad, that does not mean that those ideas are evil. Marxism, Nazism and Maoism represent evil ideas because they threaten naked force. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were evil people because they killed people.

Beyond the threshold of a killer, moral judgments should be used sparingly because they must be proved. We can evaluate something or someone as good or bad for us without making a universal or categorical statement about it or them. Likewise we can evaluate someone while reserving judgment.

Jim

[Chris Grieb]

Jim; Small point. Ayn Rand credits Nathaniel Branden with the archetypes of Attila and the Witch Doctor. Footnote on page 14 of FNI.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Jim; Small point. Ayn Rand credits Nathaniel Branden with the archetypes of Attila and the Witch Doctor. Footnote on page 14 of FNI.

Small point granted, of course . Thanks Chris!

Jim

Edited June 22, 2007 by James Heaps-Nelson

[BaalChatzaf]

Beyond the threshold of a killer, moral judgments should be used sparingly because they must be proved. We can evaluate something or someone as good or bad for us without making a universal or categorical statement about it or them. Likewise we can evaluate someone while reserving judgment.

I agree. I do not even know what a -universal moral judgment- is. I DO know what is good for me and mine and what is bad for me and mine. In areas where I know what I am doing, I can make judgments. I really do not know what is good for the world, and frankly I do not care. My task in life is pursuing my interests, and the interests of those I hold dear (mostly my family and friends). I do not know that the interests of mankind in general are, and I really don't care since I do not pursue what is good for mankind in general.

My general rule in judging the acts of others is something like this: if they don't scare the horse and they don't keep folks away at night, I tend not to concern myself with their acts.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[william.scherk]

William,

What are you talking about?

I am talking about being wrong, correcting mistakes, goals of discussion, the appropriateness of moral judgements -- things like that. This fits with my metatheme, the ick factor. Refer to my online profiles and my stated aims and my repeated avowals that I am a critic (such as here, in my first post to this forum, May 6, 2006):

"Just make sure you observe every civility here (always) that you demand of others anywhere on earth. Never exceed your own speed limit. : )."

In my second post here, I stated, "As court jester, Your Majesty, I may once in a long while tweak your nose over a royal misstep or misrule in matters of State. I ask for credit on this account at this time, payable in cold hard laughter to the Bank of Charitable Humour."

My posts often added concerns about linguistic charity, and I recently invited interlocutors to offer it to Daniel. I had uncertain results, Michael:

"If I understand Daniel . . . he is trying to show that we may sometimes reduce an analysis too far, to a level which obscures our mutual goals. Once we reduce discussion of words and their meaning to their indivisible units, we lose the means to understand each other, and discussion stalls and dies."

On June 19th I answered a question about moral judgements. I used one aspect of moral judgement to press the point that such judgements need never be expressed publicly. I then urged you to examine your unstated moral judgements (your good/bad matrix of utterances re: Daniel and his stance and psychology).

I don't post that often here or anywhere. I put my positions as clearly as I am able, and strive for integrity in my utterances. I fail, which was the other point (drilled through my many evocations of tools and goals and self-awareness). I fail, I am wrong, I am prolix, I am diffuse, I am proud, too proud, of myself and my scrabbling after knowledge and understanding.

Michael, please take the time to read my last four posts to your forum, using the Principle of Charity**. They are of a piece, a critical piece.

Here I begin to answer your other questions to me:

. . .

[s.13] With Daniel's preceding arguments, I learned nothing except that he doesn't seem to like Rand very much.

[ . . . ]

[O.1] Read his posts during that exchange starting with his question to me—look at the content [refers to the thread, "Objectivist Living Forum > Outer Limits > Chewing on Ideas > 'The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,'" particularly posts 453 and later]

[ . . . ]

[O.2]See if you can find any idea he presented other than a negative opinion of Rand (or her followers by insinuation).

On Jun 18 2007, @ 9:03 PM, Barnes the Critic wrote:

Mike:

>So this question has developed from one of epistemology to one of history of philosophy.

Not at all. Do you seriously think the various problems of epistemology were just there when Ayn Rand woke up in the morning? Obviously she didn't - she addressed her replies, no matter how vaguely or disparagingly, to various prior thinkers. They are questions with a history, not questions about history!

It seems to me you believe Rand has the all answers in a field like mathematical epistemology but are none too clear on what the questions are. smile.gif

Etcetera.

To answer the implied suggestion/query at O.1, I must reiterate first: "I am confused by what I sense is a contempt for Daniel and his positions."

That said, I find that Daniel offered a humourous statement bound in a rhetorical question**, in essence reading "Ayn Rand addressed her epistemological statements to a contemporary audience, but she addressed issues (such as 'universals/concepts') that had troubled philosophy for the ages. Do you disagree, MSK, smiley.gif?"

And so, the following statement/query to you is a tool of inquiry: "It appears you trust Rand on mathematical/epistemological/ontological answers, but you are yet unfamiliar with the questions."

Michael, you are bound by your own strictures, no? One of your most interesting and apt informal strictures, I have noted before, is one I strive to live by also:

"I have observed that even after I consciously chose to always be honest with myself (decades ago), I still did a lot of bad stuff. Even today, I catch myself sometimes leaning toward a self-flattering interpretation of events that does not always correspond to reality."

-- I shall approach the subsequent and preceding questions as the day grows old.

Michael: often I disagree with Daniel. I have perceived that he does not like to be proven wrong and when he is proven wrong, he gets really uncomfortable.

[ . . . ]

Using the principle of charity†, I would say, Okay, I understand. Can you provide a reference to the thread where Daniel was proven wrong? It is true that most of us feel discomfort when called upon to correct our premise/argument, or to 'capitulate.'

Not using it, I might immediately seize on "he gets really uncomfortable." I might muse about psychological insight, etc.

[s.3-4] He mentioned‡ that I was contradicting‡ the definition of a word‡ (as if there were only one meaning‡), then gave a link‡ to an online dictionary. When I went there, I encountered 27 definitions and my understanding‡ was included in several‡.

[ . . . ]

[s.5] Sometimes during an attempt to understand (or clarify), I perceive that he gets into a sort of semantic maze‡ where he [barnes] criticizes a topic or a person‡ (with Rand usually being the final target), then the terms or arguments he uses morph into other meanings‡ during a discussion.

[ . . . ]

[s.10-12] Not only was I told what I think and how much I know (which are bad habits with anyone, and I even admitted several times that I needed to learn more about the traditional stuff before I could answer any more than I did), I was dismissed for both§

[ . . . ]

[s.13] With Daniel's preceding arguments°, I learned nothing except that he doesn't seem to like Rand very much.

[ . . . ]

[Char.1,S.14] a gratuitous belittlement of Rand come out of the blue for the gazillionth time

[ . . . ]

[Char.2,S.15,16] and engaging in one more bout of verbal spar[r]ing that doesn't seem to go anywhere except to play verbal morph games

[ . . . ]

[Char.3,Psy.1,S.14] to try—in the end—to show what a fool Rand was, that gets boring.

[ . . . ]

[Epith.1,S.15] Yada yada yada full of sound and fury signifying nothing

[ . . ]

[E.1]QUOTE(Daniel Barnes @ Jun 19 2007, 1:03 AM)

Do you seriously think the various problems of epistemology were just there when Ayn Rand woke up in the morning?

[Q.2] What do you think it° means?

[ . . . ]

It means, more or less, in context, "these problems have been around a long long time. Are you familiar with this stuff? Are we on the same page, here? Did you want to pecksniff and pettifog or get some larnin' done, pawdner?"

[s.17-19 (PsyM.1), ~S.14bis] I find that stuff sooooooooooo tedious. I want a real discussion. Daniel has a good mind and he is better than that.

!!!

EDIT: ADD

[(PsyM.2),S.20, Q.3-4,S.21,R1] I know you like Daniel (and so do I), but how do you miss this kind of stuff and misinterpret my call to get on topic as "shitting on someone"?

[ . . . ]

[s.22-24] I don't know what you mean about the other discussion with Daniel (as in "the last two"), but I have spent far too much time on this one. I only did it because I like you (a lot).

[ . . . ]

[Q.5] But honestly, did you gain anything with this?

[ . . . ]

[Q.6-7,S.25] do you want to discuss some of Daniel's good qualities? Or your own? I'm more than game.

+++++++++++++++

** rhetorical in the sense that the generally-accepted answer is unstated and agreed

† see "Charity, Self-Interpretation, and Belief" Henry Jackman [

PDF

] Journal of Philosophical Research

Source: Papers on Line

‡ percepts as building blocks of houses, er, concepts

° "it" and "the argument" are bound together. Are the percepts accurate in light of new information?

§ Daniel, to MSK: "lack of both knowledge and interest, however, does not seem to stop you holding some strong and even highly dismissive opinions on the subject [mathematical epistemology]"

Edited June 27, 2007 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

That said, I find that Daniel offered a humourous statement bound in a rhetorical question**, in essence reading "Ayn Rand addressed her epistemological statements to a contemporary audience, but she addressed issues (such as 'universals/concepts') that had troubled philosophy for the ages. Do you disagree, MSK, smiley.gif?"

William,

Before the day grows older, allow me to disagree up to a point. If that were the only message—or even the point of the message, which it was not—I would have no problem with it. My problem is in constantly being told what I think and various "rhetorical questions" that somehow constantly end up landing on negative connotations about Rand.

After a few times, one could say this is only coincidence and look at the one communication (or more than one communication) with charity. After many times of the same thing, another communication parameter should be engaged as part of the mix. Wouldn't you agree?

I am perfectly justified to say, "Let's stop the broken record and get on with the discussion. I already know you don't like Rand and you like to tell others what they think." (Another broken record is "Obectivists have difficulty thinking correctly.")

Repetition does account for something. Ideas are important. Opinions less so. Repeating an opinion over and over in different forms with rhetoric does not somehow transform it into an idea worth discussing. (Let me stress that I make this comment in good will, as I know Daniel has lots of ideas in his head worth discussing.)

Let's put it another way. An artistic rule I learned as a composer is that the more you use an effect, the less effect it has. Save your goodies or you dilute their impact and they eventually become tiresome. An opinion in public discussions follows the same principle, especially when ideas become secondary and distant.

Michael

[william.scherk]

William,

You wrote: "... Once we reduce discussion of words and their meaning to their indivisible units, we lose the means to understand each other, and discussion stalls and dies." So let's ask: When it is "rationally appropriate" to pass moral judgment?

The answer ... normally given is ALWAYS ....

I'm wondering if by 'pass' you mean make public, or if by pass you mean make.

I have asked you why it seems you are contemptuous of Daniel Barnes. You asked me not to mistake an elbow nudge for a blow.

Yet I read:

Yada yada yada full of sound and fury signifying nothing

I beg you to consider that Daniel is a wholesome and good critic, not a bad bad boogeyman out to getcha or wreck yer barn.

William,

You just wrote: "... in the last two preceding discussions with Daniel you tend to sneer and a dismissal," and here I have a problem with precision, also. You got it backwards.

Okay, I understand. Can you provide a reference to the thread where Daniel was proven wrong? It is true that most of us feel discomfort when called upon to correct our premise/argument, or to 'capitulate.'

William,

What are you talking about?

I am talking about being wrong, correcting mistakes, goals of discussion, the appropriateness of moral judgements -- things like that. This fits with my metatheme, the ick factor. Refer to my online profiles and my stated aims and my repeated avowals that I am a critic [ . . . ]

That said, I find that Daniel offered a humourous statement bound in a rhetorical question**, in essence reading "Ayn Rand addressed her epistemological statements to a contemporary audience, but she addressed issues (such as 'universals/concepts') that had troubled philosophy for the ages. Do you disagree, MSK, smiley.gif?"

William,

Before the day grows older, allow me to disagree up to a point. If that were the only message—or even the point of the message, which it was not—I would have no problem with it. My problem is in constantly being told what I think and various "rhetorical questions" that somehow constantly end up landing on negative connotations about Rand.

Okay, I understand.

I don't know what you mean about the other discussion with Daniel (as in "the last two"), but I have spent far too much time on this one.

how do you ... misinterpret my call to get on topic as "shitting on someone"?

But honestly, did you gain anything with this?

Do you want to discuss some of Daniel's good qualities?

Or your own?

The other discussion was in my favourite reading thread, The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy, still going strong with 525 posts to date! I removed my scatological reference two days ago. I apologize for riling you, Emperor. Smiley.gif

I gained a lot of free entertainment. Smiley.gif. I gained an e-friend in Daniel Barnes . . . I answered all your questions to the best of my ability. I raised a couple of points. I got lashings of fan mail. I got respect from two people whom I thought thought me a pigignoramus. I got to sharpen my intellectual tools against a formidable argumentator. I got to integrate lessons and experiments from my work world in the Oish world. I got to play in your garden without causing you harm or alarm. I got to think. I got to read and re-read these two threads. I got to parse statements for sense using a voice synthesizer. I got to read more about Hillary Putnam. I got to read some Popper. I got to re-read ARCHN.com or whatever it's called. I got to admit mistakes and be glad about it. I got to ask a couple of difficult questions. I got to . . . well, yeah, I gained a lot, and I thank you for hosting me.

Here's another non-orthographic metaphor, I hope not as fraught as my scat reference: What if "Sunny Days Ahead for SOLO" was re-written as "Sunny Days Ahead for OL"?

Do I want to discuss Daniel's good qualities? I would love to. I will post to the Scherk Blog. Good idea.

Do I want to discuss my own good qualities? Well, not discuss them, no. I would rather sorta beat my breast about them and kinda bask in the reflected glory of gushing acolytes and devotees of my virtue.

If we have to discuss my qualities, I would rather discuss my bad ones. I may be unaware of a few of them or unaware that they are getting out of my control. Like a ballerina, I accept critiques from my peers with professional attention. I can only prosper by integrating the help and guidance of my fellows.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

There's a reason I love you.

Dayaamm you are funny!

With the recent exposure of the high volume of Pross plagiary (and my extreme irritation about it, principally at myself), I really needed this laugh. The tears are still streaming down my face.

I have a problem on another completely different matter (not public yet) I will be discussing with you behind the scenes if you are agreeable. I would like to draw on your wisdom as input to help me think. Let me clean up some of the plagiary droppings peppered all over the damn place and I will be in touch.

Michael

[william.scherk]

I have a problem on another completely different matter (not public yet) I will be discussing with you behind the scenes if you are agreeable.

With respect, Michael, no.

There is much better wisdom elsewhere on this list. If an ethical matter, consult Ellen Stuttle, if a scientific matter, consult Dragon Fly, Our Danielyanna, RCR and so on, if logic, consult our resident experts, if manners, Phil, if Objectivism beyong 101, ask Barbara, if relationships, I charge 350 bucks an hour for counselling, if a list issue, ask Robert Campbell or Ellen Stuttle. If art, ask anyone but me, if politics, ask Ellen Stuttle. If it concerns a mistake you may have made, ask the entire list, as there is hidden wisdom that you may not be aware of.

In any case, I don't trust the software, as the blobs in the standard forum database are not encrypted. None of the so-called private messages are thus completely private, when a database key shows real text.

Considering its readership, the most private place to put a question to me is in the comments of Scherk Blog, to which I have now finally retired for good with this post.

Thank you again for the wonderful hosting. See you elsewhere.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Dayaamm again!!!

(For the record, the problem does not involve any of the areas mentioned, but I shall respect your wishes.)

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Daniel,

The thing is Rand didn't treat it that way. She knew that other disciplines such as psychology, physics, economics, biology etc. had to be built from the bottom up by empirical work and then generalization and integration. The thing was that what she knew about psychology told her to reject the dominant practitioner in the field at the time: B F Skinner (who bears an uncanny resemblance to her characterization of Floyd Ferris) and the crazy philosophical things coming out of modern physics gave her heartburn so there is a bequeathed disdain in some Objectivist quarters for those subjects.

Modern physics (even with its incompleteness) is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs in the -entire history- of our species, some 250,000 years. Especially quantum physics, the very physics that Rand and L.P. disdained the most. Bottom line: Rand and L.P. were ignoramuses with regard to physics and mathematics. Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant.

Not that there is any shame in being ignorant, mind you, since we are all born ignorant. What is shameful is that they chose not to learn better. Their ignorance was (in Rand's case) and is (in L.P.'s) case invincible.

All that heartburn material has left us with semi-conductors and molecular physics up to our nostrils. It has made modern life --- well --- modern. Rand and L.P. with regard to mathematics and physics are among the greatest intellects of the 15-th century.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited June 27, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[bmacwilliam]

Modern physics (even with its incompleteness) is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs in the -entire history- of our species, some 250,000 years. Especially quantum physics, the very physics that Rand and L.P. disdained the most. Bottom line: Rand and L.P. were ignoramuses with regard to physics and mathematics. Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant.

I think you need to add evolution to the list.

"Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant. "

I suspect it was willfull because of the implications.

I wrote a little more detail about this here.

Bob

Edited June 27, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Ellen Stuttle]

Modern physics (even with its incompleteness) is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs in the -entire history- of our species, some 250,000 years. Especially quantum physics, the very physics that Rand and L.P. disdained the most. Bottom line: Rand and L.P. were ignoramuses with regard to physics and mathematics. Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant.

I think you need to add evolution to the list.

"Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant. "

I suspect it was willfull because of the implications.

I wrote a little more detail about this here.

Bob

Bob,

I'm strongly resisting becoming engaged in substantive debate on this list at this time, but I will once again register my view that you're being anachronistic in your charges against Rand on the subject of evolution. In fact, Rand's environmentalist perspective was thoroughly in keeping with that of the dominant theories of her era in anthropology, sociology, psychology. In all these fields, the prevailing opinion was that culture had taken over as the determinant of human behavior, that biological evolution had basically ceased to be relevant. Where Rand differed from mainstream environmentalism was in not being a determinist, not in not being a nativist.

See an excellent essay which discusses this subject in Stephen Boydstun's journal Objectivity (which can be found online): "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique," by Ronald E. Merrill, Volume 2, Number 5.

The evolutionary psychology sorts of theories to which you subscribe only began to be popularized toward the end of Rand's life. The first edition of The Selfish Gene was published in 1976. By then, Rand had had an operation for lung cancer; she wasn't in good health; her husband was in severe decline and requiring the assistance of nursing personnel. He died in November 1979; she died in March 1982. Much of the evol psych research and theorizing you cite was only published after her death.

Although I myself always found her lack of interest in evolution odd, it wasn't near so odd as you indicate. She'd formed her basic views by the time Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The kind of evolutionary theories you fault her for not knowing about were just beginning to be proposed to the world at large then and hadn't reached the stage of development and sophistication attained over the last about quarter century. It's hardly possible, for instance, for her to have been ignoring the thesis of The Selfish Gene, not pulished until 1976, while she was working on Atlas, published in 1957.

Ellen

___

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Modern physics (even with its incompleteness) is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs in the -entire history- of our species, some 250,000 years. Especially quantum physics, the very physics that Rand and L.P. disdained the most. Bottom line: Rand and L.P. were ignoramuses with regard to physics and mathematics. Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant.

I think you need to add evolution to the list.

"Almost totally ignorant. Rock hard ignorant. Bottom of the barrel ignorant. "

I suspect it was willfull because of the implications.

I wrote a little more detail about this here.

Bob

Bob,

I'm strongly resisting becoming engaged in substantive debate on this list at this time, but I will once again register my view that you're being anachronistic in your charges against Rand on the subject of evolution. In fact, Rand's environmentalist perspective was thoroughly in keeping with that of the dominant theories of her era in anthropology, sociology, psychology. In all these fields, the prevailing opinion was that culture had taken over as the determinant of human behavior, that biological evolution had basically ceased to be relevant. Where Rand differed from mainstream environmentalism was in not being a determinist, not in not being a nativist.

See an excellent essay which discusses this subject in Stephen Boydstun's journal Objectivity (which can be found online): "Objectivist Ethics: A Biological Critique," by Ronald E. Merrill, Volume 2, Number 5.

The evolutionary psychology sorts of theories to which you subscribe only began to be popularized toward the end of Rand's life. The first edition of The Selfish Gene was published in 1976. By then, Rand had had an operation for lung cancer; she wasn't in good health; her husband was in severe decline and requiring the assistance of nursing personnel. He died in November 1979; she died in March 1982. Much of the evol psych research and theorizing you cite was only published after her death.

Although I myself always found her lack of interest in evolution odd, it wasn't near so odd as you indicate. She'd formed her basic views by the time Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. The kind of evolutionary theories you fault her for not knowing about were just beginning to be proposed to the world at large then and hadn't reached the stage of development and sophistication attained over the last about quarter century. It's hardly possible, for instance, for her to have been ignoring the thesis of The Selfish Gene, not pulished until 1976, while she was working on Atlas, published in 1957.

Ellen

___

Thank you, Ellen! That's why it's so important to continuously review Rand in certain areas in light of new evidence.

Jim