Is there really such a concept as "Existence"?

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

Once again, your inability to actually understand that I am chuckling as I posted that article continues to amuse me.

Mr. Selene,

It sticks out a mile that you resort to "chuckling" whenever you have run out of arguments.

That is, you use ridiculing sideshows to distract from the issue at hand.

Three more to go!

# 3 is :

"Value" is that which one acts to gain or keep. The concept "value" is not a primary; it presupposes ans answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of asn alternative.

Where no alternative exists, no goals ond no values are possible." (Rand)

Which of course rules out plants attributing value.

Ms. Xray:

See here again you have your annoying double standard razzle dazzle semantic.

First, since you apparently value correcting other people's post for spelling and I actually being a teacher will call your attention to your errors.

asn

So make your corrections and then I will respond.

Adam

[Xray]

Ms. Xray:

See here again you have your annoying double standard razzle dazzle semantic.

First, since you apparently value correcting other people's post for spelling and I actually being a teacher will call your attention to your errors.

You, a teacher? In what field?

Corrected the typos. What "double standard razzle dazzle semantics"? Would you explain please.

Edited November 25, 2009 by Xray

[Selene]

Ms. Xray:

See here again you have your annoying double standard razzle dazzle semantic.

First, since you apparently value correcting other people's post for spelling and I actually being a teacher will call your attention to your errors.

You, a teacher? In what field?

Corrected the typos. What "double standard razzle dazzle semantics"? Would you explain please.

Ms. Xray:

A teacher of Rhetoric, Argumentation, Debate, Sensitivity training, small group communications...I started teaching at the University level when I was barely 20 years old. Shall I continue?

As to the ole razzle dazzle...I prefer to show you ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn5-VN3SH1o

Adam

I did not notice your correction of asn were you thinking of writing asinine to describe me...

[Xray]

N. Branden's essay "The Stolen Concept"

Nathaniel Branden, PhD

This essay was originally published in The Objectivist Newsletter in January

1963.

http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/articles_essays/the_stolen_concept.html

I would think that if there is to be a prosecution for stealing a concept, the Defendant is entitled to know exactly what a concept is and what concepthas been stolen in order to prepare a defense against the accusation. However, although Mr. Branden has many words to say about idiots who believe "that the contents of man's mind need bear no necessary relationship to thefacts of reality," there is nothing about what a concept is or is not.

Since as far a I know, a concept is a "conceived idea of", I have to wonder how one goes about stealing a concept. I can understand a concept being true, or being false, but how either becomes the object of theft, I do not know.

"In this article, I shall confine myself to the analysis of a single

principle—a single fallacy—which is rampant in the writings of the

neo-mystics and without which their doctrines could not be propagated.

We call it "the fallacy of the stolen concept."

To understand this fallacy, consider an example of it in the realm of

politics: Proudhon's famous declaration that "All property is theft."

"Theft" is a concept that logically and genetically depends on the

antecedent concept of "rightfully owned property"—and refers to the act of

taking that property without the owner's consent. If no property is

rightfully owned, that is, if nothing is property, there can be no such

concept as "theft." Thus, the statement "All property is theft" has an

internal contradiction: to use the concept "theft" while denying the

validity of the concept of "property," is to use "theft" as a concept to

which one has no logical right—that is, as a stolen concept." (NB)

In other words, the phrase, property is theft, is a self-contradictory concept. OK. I see that. Where does the stealing part come in? Exactly what concept was stolen? If the concept was stolen, it must have been stolen from someone, thus, depriving the person of ownership of said concept. How does this work? Since a concept is an idea, does theft include entering a mind and absconding with a idea leaving the victim without it?

The definition of the term, concept, reveals the absurdity of the idea of stolen concept. In Branden's non definitive usage, the denotation of the term is abandoned with the word interjected in a most nonsensical manner.

Of course, he got the idea and phrase from Rand:

"As they feed on stolen wealth in body, so they feed on stolen concepts in

mind, and proclaim that honesty consists of refusing to know that one is

stealing. As they use effects while denying causes, so they use our concepts

while denying the roots and the existence of the concepts they are using." (Rand)

Peikoff chimes in:

"The "stolen concept" fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy

of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of

an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends." (LP)

Does not the term, steal, necessarily include something that is subject to being stolen? Since a concept is a conceived idea existing in mind, therefore, not subject to theft, not subject to depriving the "owner" of the idea, is the concept, stolen concept, self contradictory and a "stolen concept" itself?

Edited November 25, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Xray, you need to give proper references. You only gave one, the most important, out of three. Just "Rand" and "Peikoff" don't cut it.

--Brant

needed a new thread, too

Edited November 25, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[merjet]

If the concept was stolen, it must have been stolen from someone, thus, depriving the person of ownership of said concept. How does this work? Since a concept is an idea, does theft include entering a mind and absconding with a idea leaving the victim without it?

Jeesh! Suppose the following. Somebody buys some software, e.g. Microsoft Office. Without the buyer's permission somebody else takes the CDs, installs the software on his own computer, and returns the CDs to where they were. The buyer doesn't know what happened. The second person uses the software and never tells the first person.

Do you believe it is absurd to call what the second person did "stealing"? Did the second person deprive the first person of using the software?

steal -

1. to take or appropriate (another's property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner (source, my bold)

[Xray]

Xray, you need to give proper references. You only gave one, the most important, out of three. Just "Rand" and "Peikoff" don't cut it.

--Brant

needed a new thread, too

Peikoff and Branden are simply repeating Rand.

What exactly do you mean by 'proper references'? The publications in which Rand and Peikoff made their claims about the "stolen concept"?

[Xray]

If the concept was stolen, it must have been stolen from someone, thus, depriving the person of ownership of said concept. How does this work? Since a concept is an idea, does theft include entering a mind and absconding with a idea leaving the victim without it?

Jeesh! Suppose the following. Somebody buys some software, e.g. Microsoft Office. Without the buyer's permission somebody else takes the CDs, installs the software on his own computer, and returns the CDs to where they were. The buyer doesn't know what happened. The second person uses the software and never tells the first person.

Do you believe it is absurd to call what the second person did "stealing"? Did the second person deprive the first person of using the software?

steal -

1. to take or appropriate (another's property, ideas, etc.) without permission, dishonestly, or unlawfully, esp. in a secret or surreptitious manner (source, my bold)

What does pirating a CD have to do with the current issue, i.e, Branden's "stolen concept" wherein the self-contradictory

phrase, "property is theft" is called a "stolen concept", and not at all connected to anyone's real or alleged property?

The issue is in the realm of epistemology and linguistics. Unlike your rewrite, Branden's version of "stolen concept" neither expresses nor implies property. There is nothing said about stealing someone else's real property; nor is Branden's "stolen concept" about stealing an idea.

That's the point. NB uses the term, stolen, when neither property nor idea is the object of theft. Your rewrite inclusion of property inadvertently reveals the absurdity of Branden's "stolen" without property or idea involved in the alleged larceny.

One may argue pro or con as to whether an idea is subject to theft. However, this is not the issue in Branden's use of the term, "stolen concept." There is nothing about stealing a particular idea, that is, a particular concept. The spiel is that the self-contradictory concept, "property is theft", constitutes a "stolen concept."

How does a self-contradictory concept such as "property is theft" constitute a "stolen concept" in reference to the definition of concept? That's all I'm asking.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Xray, you need to give proper references. You only gave one, the most important, out of three. Just "Rand" and "Peikoff" don't cut it.

--Brant

needed a new thread, too

Peikoff and Branden are simply repeating Rand.

What exactly do you mean by 'proper references'? The publications in which Rand and Peikoff made their claims about the "stolen concept"?

Yes, and if books, page numbers too. I trust you aren't spinning your quotes off a CD.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

nor is Branden's "stolen concept" about stealing an idea.

Yes it was. The idea of property by giving it false attributes corrupting the idea. Obviously the "stolen" in "stolen concept" is a metaphor. "Illness" in "Mental illness" is a metaphor too. Because stupid doctors took it literally many people were grossly harmed by their "treatments." You want a demonstration of the literal truth but absent such is not a refutation. People with "mental illness" do have something wrong with them but it's not an actual illness. The concept is not actually stolen.

--Brant

[Xray]

Xray, you need to give proper references. You only gave one, the most important,

out of three. Just "Rand" and "Peikoff" don't cut it.

Source of the Peikoff quote:

Editor’s footnote to Ayn Rand’s "Philosophical Detection", AR, Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 22

Source of the Rand quote:

"Galt’s Speech", AR, For the New Intellectual, p. 154

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/stolen_concept--fallacy_of.html

Obviously the "stolen" in "stolen concept" is a metaphor.

In that case (figurative speech), it would be simply connotative use of language, i. e. a non-epistemological comment subjectively valuing/disvaluing something.

It is then on the same level as the very phrase NB accused of its author stealing a concept by stating "property is theft". For "property is theft" is connotative use of language as well, expressing subjective disapproval.

Edited November 27, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Xray, you need to give proper references. You only gave one, the most important,

out of three. Just "Rand" and "Peikoff" don't cut it.

Source of the Peikoff quote:

Editor’s footnote to Ayn Rand’s "Philosophical Detection", AR, Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 22

Source of the Rand quote:

"Galt’s Speech", AR, For the New Intellectual, p. 154

http://aynrandlexico...fallacy_of.html

Obviously the "stolen" in "stolen concept" is a metaphor.

In that case (figurative speech), it would be simply connotative use of language, i. e. a non-epistemological comment subjectively valuing/disvaluing something.

It is then on the same level as the very phrase NB accused of its author stealing a concept by stating "property is theft". For "property is theft" is connotative use of language as well, expressing subjective disapproval.

It's kind of hard to interpret this too many big words not saying much it seems. However, Branden did make too much out of this "fallacy." If you want to be effective in this particular argument ("All property is theft") you need only point out how it is self contradictory and sophistical. You won't get far by saying "that's argumentum stolum fallicio!" When Peikoff gave a course on logical fallacies 40 years ago he didn't mention this one once, if I recall correctly. In fact, the only logical fallacies it seems worth pointing out are ad hominem and appeals to force and authority. Perhaps argumentum subjectivocious?

--Brant

trying to make her use up her five so we can have fun, fun, fun the rest of the day (if DF and DB only go away!)

[Roger Bissell]

Roger's effort to partition Ayn Rand the individual-particular into open-ended time slices so as to become units to be subsumed in the metaphorical "Ayn Rand" file folder, cannot work because the measurement of psychological time is the very quantitative relationship that is already abstracted and retained by the few known axiomatic concepts. (ITOE 56-57) Roger's theory would in effect explode the number of axiomatic concepts to correspond to every individual particular in existence.

No. I am ~not~ attempting to set up additional axiomatic concepts. Nor, more importantly, would my approach even explode the number of concepts in general to correspond to every individual particular in existence.

As Rand explained, concepts are not formed willy-nilly, ad infinitum, but according to cognitive necessity -- i.e., when and as they are needed, and by whom they are needed. I am not saying that ~everyone on earth~ needs to form a concept and/or mental file-folder for Ayn Rand. Indeed, why would ~any~ of us form a concept and/or mental file-folder for Ayn Rand, except insofar as she was a “person of interest” to us, someone about whom we had accumulated a considerable amount of data that needed organizing and retaining? But by the same token, why would any of us ~not~ form a concept and/or mental file folder for Ayn Rand, since she ~is~ a "person of interest"?

The same is true for any concept of individuals, such as “Milwaukee, Wisconsin” or “Mars” (the planet) or “Mars” (the Roman god of war), etc. If you do not ever have need to organize retain facts about the Roman god Mars, why would you keep a mental file-folder about him? If you did need to organize and retain facts about him, why would you not do so?

As for the issue of "psychological time measurements," the only thing this approach to treating particulars has in common with Rand’s explication of axiomatic concepts is to acknowledge that any sum total or totality, at any specific point in time, has a specific past, present, and future – and that one omits the details of any given past-present-future partition in integrating those details into a concept that is symbolized metaphorically by a mental file folder.

However, the issue that Roger is addressing is a legitimate one: how to deal with universals and particulars uniformly at the next level of cognition, namely, at the propositional level. When difficulties do arise at a more complex level, one should question the validity of its underlying levels. In the present case, the underlying level, the distinction between abstractness and concreteness, is bedrock epistemology. In which case, by modus tollens, one should identify and question the nature of the difficulty at the more complex level. And indeed, I think here is where Roger is mistaken.

The question Roger asks, "Is there really such a concept as 'Existence'?" is a really good question, and I agree with his first answer: No. The universe, too, isn't a concept, and neither is Ayn Rand.

But Roger wants to make them into concepts. Why? So he can deal with them uniformly in logical statements. This then is the core issue. Must logical statements, following traditional doctrinal logic, be regimented only into four neatly cornered forms? Given the evident validity of bedrock epistemology, it would have to be, no.

No, I do NOT want to make existence or the universe or Ayn Rand into concepts. They are what they are, and I cannot make them into anything other than what they are, any more than I can make groups of similar existents into anything other than what they are -- things that exist, whether as individuals or totalities or groups of similars.

What I want to do is to form concepts about them. And the reason I want to do that is NOT to "save traditional logic" and Aristotle's Square of Opposition, but to fully pursue the cognitive and epistemological implications of Rand’s file-folder model of concepts – and thus to formalize the fact that we actually do have mental file-folders for particulars of interest, just as we do for ~groups~ of similar particulars that we find interesting. If this essential point is brushed aside or not acknowledged, then there will understandably be puzzlement over how to handle singular propositions, whether similarly to or differently from universal propositions, and attempts to use arbitrary rules or ad hoc devices for doing one or the other.

The key problem must be resolved at the propositional level, not to be retrofitted at the conceptual level, which is what Roger's proposal is about.

Unlike Thom, I see the solution to various perplexities in propositional logic to be found precisely in getting ruthlessly clear on the level of "bedrock epistemology." Which, in this case, means realizing that beneath the distinction between particularity and abstractness, there is a common factor of INTEGRATION, which is performed in the minds of individuals when they gather and retain their knowledge of individuals and totalities, no less than of groups of similars.

David Kelley, presumably reading H. W. B. Joseph's, identified the same issue as follows: Subject terms and predicate terms serve different functions in a proposition. Traditional logicians, taking the rationalist interpretation of Aristotle's Prior Analytics, treat them identically, hence their theory of term distribution. Kelley carefully writes:

A categorical proposition can be regarded as an assertion about the relations among classes. ... Every categorical proposition says that a certain relationship exists between two classes. ... Is the proposition "New York is a large city" universal or particular [proposition]? It isn't either, really, because "New York" does not name a class; it names a particular, individual city. ... The mark of a singular proposition is that the subject term is a name, pronoun, or phrase standing for a single object. ... These propositions have traditionally been treated as universal...

Notice his distancing himself from traditionalists.

The solution in my view is to return to the Aristotelian position before the traditionalist error, which aggravated the modernist reaction. Aristotle in P. A. names another method of inference, ekthesis [pdf], which relies on the setting up of a singular proposition as a mediated premise. The Objectivist logic, or any new science of logic, therefore needs to acknowledge the separate category of singular propositions from general propositions against traditionalists...

Correction: singular propositions have traditionally been treated not as though they were universal, but in the same way as universal propositions are treated. Although the ultimate justification for this similar treatment has not been clearly spelled out, it is really simple: for all affirmative propositions – universal, particular, and singular – the same thing(s) referred to by one or more of the units subsumed by the subject term is also referred to by one or more of the units subsumed by the predicate term.

Rand’s unit-perspective model of the concept – and its metaphorical expression, the file-folder model of the concept – is the fundamental basis of valid propositional structure and of propositional truth and falsity. So, the reason why Kelley’s explication of categorical propositions is correct is that, more fundamentally, every categorical proposition – indeed, EVERY proposition – says that a certain relationship exists between one or more of the units referred to by the subject term and one or more of the units referred to by the predicate term.

I would note, in closing, that the reason Kelley has problems in his textbook with the issue of Existential Import, as well as the issue of the nature of singular propositions, and the reason that he apparently does not know whether to side with the traditional Aristotelian logicians or the modern Frege-Russell perspective, is his failure to penetrate to the unit-perspective level of propositional structure. This insight has been sitting for 45 years, implicit in the first two chapters of Rand’s ITOE, like an over-ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. It is long past time for Objectivists to take this epistemic power-shovel into the wider, academic arena and start cleaning out the Aegean stables of modern logic.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

I would note, in closing, that the reason Kelley has problems in his textbook with the issue of Existential Import, as well as the issue of the nature of singular propositions, and the reason that he apparently does not know whether to side with the traditional Aristotelian logicians or the modern Frege-Russell perspective, is his failure to penetrate to the unit-perspective level of propositional structure. This insight has been sitting for 45 years, implicit in the first two chapters of Rand's ITOE, like an over-ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. It is long past time for Objectivists to take this epistemic power-shovel into the wider, academic arena and start cleaning out the Aegean stables of modern logic.

REB

Kurt Goedel cleaned the stables of modern mathematical logic in 1931. That is 80 years ago.

It was Boole and Frege that released us from the horse collar of existential import. To assert that all A is B is not to assert there is an A.

Any consistent logical system capable of formulating arithmetic is deductively incomplete. There are (model) true formulas which are not provable nor are their negations provable.

The empty set is a set in good standing.

What more do you want?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

I would note, in closing, that the reason Kelley has problems in his textbook with the issue of Existential Import, as well as the issue of the nature of singular propositions, and the reason that he apparently does not know whether to side with the traditional Aristotelian logicians or the modern Frege-Russell perspective, is his failure to penetrate to the unit-perspective level of propositional structure. This insight has been sitting for 45 years, implicit in the first two chapters of Rand's ITOE, like an over-ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. It is long past time for Objectivists to take this epistemic power-shovel into the wider, academic arena and start cleaning out the Aegean stables of modern logic.

REB

Kurt Goedel cleaned the stables of modern mathematical logic in 1931. That is 80 years ago.

Not until January 1! Plus, I think that Goedel's slingshot is more of an assault, employing modern mathematical logic, on the concept of truth as correspondence to reality and facts than it is a remedying of flaws in MML.

It was Boole and Frege that released us from the horse collar of existential import. To assert that all A is B is not to assert there is an A.

Yes, it is. It's not necessarily the case that there ~is~ an A, but saying that all A is B most certainy ~is~ saying that there is an A, correct or not.

But if you don't find this convincing, what do you make of the fact that they (and MML in general) say that asserting that SOME A is B IS to assert that there is an A? They claim there is not existential import for universal (All) propositions, but there is for particular (Some) propositions. This simply cannot be, and arguments to the contrary are contradictory and based on unwarranted assumptions. I'll be happy to argue this in detail, if you like.

Any consistent logical system capable of formulating arithmetic is deductively incomplete. There are (model) true formulas which are not provable nor are their negations provable.

This is bull-crap on stilts.

The empty set is a set in good standing.

Yes, and one of its principal subsets seems to be the set of all true assertions about modern mathematical logic.

What more do you want?

More than I expect. Acknowledgment that MML is full of crap, for one.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

This is bull-crap on stilts.

Proved in 1931. No mistake has ever been found in Goedel's proof. It is as true as the theorem of Pythagoras.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

This is bull-crap on stilts.

Proved in 1931. No mistake has ever been found in Goedel's proof. It is as true as the theorem of Pythagoras.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Sorry, the proof is invalid. It relies on the arbitrary assumption that "this" in the statement "this sentence is false" refers to some sentence with a truth value. It's as profound as a business card, with the words "Want to know if you're an idiot? Turn this card over" printed on both sides.

[BaalChatzaf]

This is bull-crap on stilts.

Proved in 1931. No mistake has ever been found in Goedel's proof. It is as true as the theorem of Pythagoras.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Sorry, the proof is invalid. It relies on the arbitrary assumption that "this" in the statement "this sentence is false" refers to some sentence with a truth value. It's as profound as a business card, with the words "Want to know if you're an idiot? Turn this card over" printed on both sides.

The math Goedel used was basic number theory. Not only that the two Incompleteness Theorems have been proved in other ways. The theorem is correct. You don't know what you are talking about.

However, ignorance is a remediable condition. Read Goedel's Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse by the late Torkel Franzen.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 29, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[regi]

In science the only thing that can be proved is the incorrectness of an hypothesis. Positives cannot be proved scientifically, negatives sometimes can. I leave it as an exercise to show why.

Why do people say things like this? I wonder where they live. Thousands and thousands of scientific hypothesis have been proven, conclusively and irrefutably. Or perhaps you are not using an electronic device--I wonder how you are communicating here. Perhaps you do not believe it has been proved an electric current can be produced in a wire by moving it in a magnetic field.

Or perhaps you still doubt that heavier-than-air human flight is possible. Or that anesthesia is possible. Or that the principles of lazed light is true.

Originally these were all hotly disputed hypotheses, rigorously debated by scientists.

Regi

[BaalChatzaf]

Why do people say things like this? I wonder where they live. Thousands and thousands of scientific hypothesis have been proven, conclusively and irrefutably. Or perhaps you are not using an electronic device--I wonder how you are communicating here. Perhaps you do not believe it has been proved an electric current can be produced in a wire by moving it in a magnetic field.

Or perhaps you still doubt that heavier-than-air human flight is possible. Or that anesthesia is possible. Or that the principles of lazed light is true.

Originally these were all hotly disputed hypotheses, rigorously debated by scientists.

Regi

Some general hypotheses (such as Newton's Law of Gravitation) are refuted later on by new data not originally available at the time the hypothesis was formulate. This is because new technology makes new data available. In the 19th century the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury indicated that Newton's Law of Gravitation was not quite right which means it was incorrect. Einstein later provided an explanation why this is the case. The gravitational field itself, gravitates. This is unlike electric and magnetic fields which themselves have no charge.

The assertion that heavier than air flight is possible (meaning some instance of it has occurred) is not a general statement but an existential assertion. It is proven by providing specific instances of heavier than air flight. Look! Up in the Sky! Its a bird! Its a plane! No - it is not Superman!

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 29, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[regi]

Some general hypotheses (such as Newton's Law of Gravitation) are refuted later on by new data not originally available at the time the hypothesis was formulate.

So you think at some later time that light can be made coherent is going to be disproved.

Your statement was that no scientific hypothesis can be proved. I just mentioned a handful of the thousands that have been proved. I'm not arguing every hypothesis can be proved, but to say no hypothesis can be proved is absurd. The hypothesis that says no hypothesis can be proved has already been disproved thousands of times.

Most people who say things like, "scientific hypotheses can only be proved false," think they are arguing Popper's view, but they get it all wrong. Popper's point was that no hypothesis is a legitimate scientific hypothesis if it is not falsifiable, which means: there must be some test that will prove the hypothesis false if it is false. The point is to prevent just any wild conjecture from being put forward as a hypothesis.

What this means is, if you have a legitimate hypothesis, because there is a test that will prove it false, if it is false, if you than make that test, and the test fails to prove the hypothesis false, it has been proven the hypothesis correct. Remember, the falsifiability test will prove a false hypothesis false, so, if the test fails, it means the hypothesis cannot be false, and must be true.

There is absolutely no basis in logic or heaven or hell (well perhaps hell) for saying no scientific hypothesis can be proved. What do you think proof is?

Regi

[regi]

Hi Roger,

This is a little section from an introduction to metaphysics I wrote some time ago. I haven't changed my view on this, although, if I were writing it today, I would skip the reference to Rand. I thought you might be interested.

Reality Verses Existence

In one sense reality and existence refer to the same thing. The meaning of a concept is its referents. The meaning of the word, (actually the concept the word represents) dogs, for example, is every (or any) actual dog that did, does, or will ever exist. In that sense, the words "reality" and "existence" mean the same thing; because they both refer to, "everything that is." But they are not the same concept. They identify the same thing; but, the intention or purpose of that identification is different.

(This fact is important to epistemology. Existence and reality are not the only words that have the same meaning, with regard to referents, but different meanings, with regard to intention or connotation.)

The essential difference in these two words is this:

existence refers to all that there is, without explicit reference to the nature of what is or the manner in which it exists;

reality also refers to all that there is, but explicitly includes in its meaning, the nature or mode of existence.

This distinction is extremely important and requires additional explanation, but before we do that, there is some confusion about the meaning of existence itself that must be dealt with.

Existence, a Thing and a Quality

Objectivism regards existence as an, "axiomatic concept." The axiom is sometime stated, "existence exists," but it might just as well have been stated, "existence is," or, "there is existence." These statements are propositions, and Ayn Rand explicitly states the "axiomatic concepts" are not propositional; so these statements are not, themselves, axioms; they are true, because the concept existence itself is axiomatic.

These statements are also a bit misleading. The Objectivists do not make explicit what existence is, and these statements all suggest it is a thing or an entity. The word existence, however, is actually used for two different interdependent concepts, a quality, and everything with that quality.

Existence, as a "quality," just as "redness" or "roundness" are qualities. The interesting thing about existence is, unlike "red" which is a quality of very few things, "existence" is a quality of everything that is. As a quality, "existence" means "is." (In plain language we do not say somethng "has redness," we simply say it is red, so we would not normally say something "has existence," but simply say it exists, which means it has the quality existence, because it "is.")

Existence, as a "thing," is a collective noun, like, "society," and includes everything with the quality, "existence," or "everything that is." Used in this collective way, the word existence has the same intention as the word society has. Just as there is no such thing as society without people, there is no such thing as existence without existents, and just as a society includes all the people in it, existence includes all the existents there are.

This is why we talk about "existence" as though it were a thing, because, unlike other qualities, such as "redness," which require there to be some existent things that have those qualities, the quality, "existence," for anything that has it, means that it is. That is why we can wave our arm, indicating the entire world, the heavens, the universe, and say, "this is existence," which is to say, "everything that is, is." If everything had the quality red we could say everything is red, but, while we cannot say that about redness, we can and must say it about existence.

[BaalChatzaf]

So you think at some later time that light can be made coherent is going to be disproved.

That is an existential and specific assertion. We already have instances of coherent light. That is a fact. it won't go away. Universally quantified hypotheses, however can be falsified by refuting data which is gathered later by sufficient technology.

Apparently you have a difficulty distinguishing between (x)P(x) and ExP(x) which is for all x P(x) and there exists x such that P(x). Once you discern the difference your difficulty will vanish.

As I said before; ignorance is remediable difficulty. Just learn what you are missing and you are less ignorant.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Rand was apparently confusing "Existence" with "existent."

Correct. Existents exist, but a phrase like "Existence exists" makes no sense. It's as absurd as saying "Hunger hungers" or "Love loves".

She made the same mistake with "Consciousness is conscious" btw. It's like saying "Thirst is thirsty."

The basic problem with Rand's theory of concepts is not of epistemological, but of linguistic nature.

For her "theory of concepts" is about something as simple as forming lexical classes and subclasses. The technical terms in linguistics are hypernyms (sometimes also called hyperonynms) and hyponyms.

Example: "Dog" is the hyponym of the hypernym "mammal"

"Mammal" in turn is the hyponym of the hypernym "animal".

Every hyponym is a hypernym, (but not vice versa). For example, the class of dogs is contained in the class of mammals, but not every mammal is a dog.

Every member of class h (hyponyms) is contained in class H (Hypernyms).

That's all there is to it. Now what Rand tried in vain was to transfer a simple pattern of abstraction [focusing only on one section of linguistics (lexical semantics)] to the complexity of existence itself. Here's the rub.

While lexically categorizing the world is necessary for us, how we categorize it is another story.

Example: in the Western world, we don't even have a lexical equivalent for the Chinese term "qi" because it does not figure in our idea of reality. Trying to translate it witb 'energy flow' or 'élan vital' does not nearly cover it.

I personally have doubts that this "qi" even exists, but every doctor practising Traditional Chinese Medicine would tell me that I would not exist if I did not have it.

So here's an opportunity for those who believe in Rand's theory of concepts - which, let us not forget this premise - claims that (bolding mine) "Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is an audiovsual symbol that denotes a concept, i. e. that stands for an umlimited number of concretes of a certain kind" (ITOE, p. 109) to demonstrate how it works:

My question: What are the unlimited number of concretes the audioviual symbol "qi" (denoting a concept) stands for?

Edited October 29, 2010 by Xray

[regi]

As I said before; ignorance is remediable difficulty.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Good to know, in spite of your evidence to the contrary. But, good luck with that.

Regi