A Tale of Two Defintions: The definition of "Logic"

[BaalChatzaf]

I twit Michael now and again for inapt analogies. As he suggests, it is my touchy elbow. The 'eureka' snap of concepts falling into place is great fun, but always needs checking. One of my favourite dumb analogies (this spouted out in the context of visionaries/crackpots/pseudoscientists like Velikovsky): "You may laugh at his theories -- they laughed at Galileo!"

-- to which many wits have retailed the only proper answer: "They also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

Galileo was not laughed at. He was arrested and tried for heresy.

As for Bozo the Clown, yes, they laughed at him. Especially after he claimed he could trisect a general angle with compass and straight edge.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ Galileo WAS 'laughed at'...with a vengeance. However, that's called an authority-backed condescending-and-official 'sneer'...when one has the political power to advertise one's laughter, and enforce it as being continued a-n-d applauded by sycophants and passive acceptors.

~ Now, Bozo, Clarabelle, or Ronald, I really don't know about. But Crusty, well, here's a guy who's got some bright ideas (just look over his head) which are very anti-authoritarian. --- Wonder what The Inquisition would've done with him?

(A SOUTHPARK fan)

LLAP

J:D

Edited October 29, 2007 by John Dailey

[BaalChatzaf]

Selene,

Bob is great for telling people what is impossible.

I would loved to have known him with us both living in, say 1870 or so, and me telling him that in less than a 100 years, a person could be in the USA and watch and hear another person in China doing things and talking at the time he was doing them and talking, and this would happen because invisible waves were sent from China, bounced off of a piece of metal circling the earth, and the ricochet would be received by a box where he could view and hear it all.

I think Bob would have laughed his butt off.

Michael

In 1843 Samuel F.B. Morse was communicating at near light speed with an associate miles away. By electromagnetic telegraph. So in 1870 I would not have laughed any part of my anatomy off. The construction of the Transatlantic cable in 1866 was the version 0.1 of today's world wide web. The principles have not changed much, but the technology has leaped forward. When I was born the fastest computation was done with a Frieden desk calculator. When I was a young man I programmed computers that could do a million arithmetic operations a second. Such computers filled entire rooms. I am now working with a computer that can do nearly a billion operations a second and sets nicely on my desk.

I would not have laughed at the idea of heavier than air flight, either. Birds are heavier than air so we know it is possible. Is it feasible? In 1870 there was no engine with sufficiently high power to weight ratio to propel a vessel through the air at sufficiently high speed to produce enough lift. The principles of lift have been known since Bernouli in the 18th century. In 1903 a pair of bicycle manufacturers produced just such an engine.

You should make a distinction between impossibility (as in a logical contradiction or a contradiction of a well established physical law) and impracticality (as in not having the technology necessary to do a task, at hand). The former is a show stopper, the latter is a matter of time and effort to overcome.

Unlike you, I make the distinction between difficult and impossible. You should try to learn that distinction too.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Roger Bissell]

Baal:

~ Galileo WAS 'laughed at'...with a vengeance. However, that's called an authority-backed condescending-and-official 'sneer'...when one has the political power to advertise one's laughter, and enforce it as being continued a-n-d applauded by sycophants and passive acceptors.

~ Now, Bozo, Clarabelle, or Ronald, I really don't know about. But Crusty, well, here's a guy who's got some bright ideas (just look over his head) which are very anti-authoritarian. --- Wonder what The Inquisition would've done with him?

(A SOUTHPARK fan)

LLAP

J:D

John, I thought Crusty (Krusty?) was from The Simpsons, yet you allude to Southpark....?

reb

[BaalChatzaf]

Baal:

~ Galileo WAS 'laughed at'...with a vengeance. However, that's called an authority-backed condescending-and-official 'sneer'...when one has the political power to advertise one's laughter, and enforce it as being continued a-n-d applauded by sycophants and passive acceptors.

~ Now, Bozo, Clarabelle, or Ronald, I really don't know about. But Crusty, well, here's a guy who's got some bright ideas (just look over his head) which are very anti-authoritarian. --- Wonder what The Inquisition would've done with him?

(A SOUTHPARK fan)

LLAP

J:D

It was Galileo who did the laughing at the Aristotelean/Thomist crowd running the Church. Mr. G held his one-time friend Pope Urban VII up to ridicule by personifying him (and all those who thought like him) as Simplicio, one of the three persons in the dialog. In a word, G made the Pope look stupid, which he was not. Wrong maybe, but not stupid. If you read what happened to Mr. G in 1632 when he was forced to face the Inquisition, you will discover there was not one bit of fun or humor on the Church side. Galileo was hauled in on charges of -suspicion of vehement heresy- (Bruno was burned at the stake for being an unrepentant vehement heretic). Mr. G was shown the instruments of torture as in incentive for him to admit to his heresy and purge himself of his "wrong" attitudes. If you call having your knees broken by the gang enforcer laughing I suppose you could say Mr. G. was laughed at. The Church gang made a very proud and arrogant man grovel for his life, which is more painful in a way than having one's knees broken.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[UncleJim]

It's strange that Rand just went out and came up with her own definition instead of also investigating others.

--Brant

See the blue highlight above. What evidence do you have that supports your claim this is what she did?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Uncle Jim,

Unfortunately one of the ugliest marks against Rand's scholarship was the following statement in the "Introduction" to The Virtue of Selfishness (p. vii):

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word "selfishness" is: concern with one's own interests.

Scholars have long noted that no one has found that dictionary Rand mentioned and her critics have a field day with this point. If you like, I can look up some comments, but a simple Google search will afford you with plenty enough reading.

Rand's research sloppiness does not negate the concept of what she was proposing, but it does provide an unnecessary side-issue where she was shortcoming. Her critics have used this to cast doubt on the underlying concepts. She should have known this would happen, too. The sad truth is there was no excuse for her to do that. No excuse at all.

I will be more than glad to stand corrected if someday that dictionary should surface. But even if it does, it will still be a strange fact that most all of the dictionaries on the market do not use that exact "dictionary definition" she used.

There are many other cases of sloppy scholarship. (Merrill's criticism immediately comes to mind, but there is much more out there.) Rand was a brilliant original thinker, but a very poor scholar.

Chris Sciabarra has been doing a wonderful job of overcoming this handicap by publishing a peer-reviewed journal of academic studies on Rand's thought: The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. As you can see on the link, this journal is indexed at enough places to be readily available as an accepted source at most colleges and institutions of higher learning. TAS and ARI have also been making some good academic inroads and there are several college professors of sound standing connected with those organizations.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

It's strange that Rand just went out and came up with her own definition instead of also investigating others.

--Brant

See the blue highlight above. What evidence do you have that supports your claim this is what she did?

You aren't my uncle and I'm not a moron.

--Brant

[UncleJim]

It's strange that Rand just went out and came up with her own definition instead of also investigating others.

--Brant

See the blue highlight above. What evidence do you have that supports your claim this is what she did?

You aren't my uncle and I'm not a moron.

--Brant

That was not my question. Read it again.

(edit) Never mind. Michael just did that.

Edited February 15, 2008 by UncleJim

[UncleJim]

Uncle Jim,

Unfortunately one of the ugliest marks against Rand's scholarship was the following statement in the "Introduction" to The Virtue of Selfishness (p. vii):

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word "selfishness" is: concern with one's own interests.

Scholars have long noted that no one has found that dictionary Rand mentioned and her critics have a field day with this point. If you like, I can look up some comments, but a simple Google search will afford you with plenty enough reading.

Rand's research sloppiness does not negate the concept of what she was proposing, but it does provide an unnecessary side-issue where she was shortcoming. Her critics have used this to cast doubt on the underlying concepts. She should have known this would happen, too. The sad truth is there was no excuse for her to do that. No excuse at all.

I will be more than glad to stand corrected if someday that dictionary should surface. But even if it does, it will still be a strange fact that most all of the dictionaries on the market do not use that exact "dictionary definition" she used.

There are many other cases of sloppy scholarship. (Merrill's criticism immediately comes to mind, but there is much more out there.) Rand was a brilliant original thinker, but a very poor scholar.

Chris Sciabarra has been doing a wonderful job of overcoming this handicap by publishing a peer-reviewed journal of academic studies on Rand's thought: The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. As you can see on the link, this journal is indexed at enough places to be readily available as an accepted source at most colleges and institutions of higher learning. TAS and ARI have also been making some good academic inroads and there are several college professors of sound standing connected with those organizations.

Michael

OK. Perhaps she could have documented her sources better.

But this brings up an interesting dilemma. What if there are no reliable sources? What then. If you were to go back in time far enough you would find a time when there were no pre-existing sources what so ever. What's a person to do then?

This is perhaps where Ayn Rand found herself. Her solution is called thinking.

Edited February 15, 2008 by UncleJim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Uncle Jim,

I agree that her solution is called thinking (and even really good thinking). But it needs to be clear that thinking is not an excuse for poor scholarship and false representations.

A is A, to use her own formulation.

Rand worshipers (and I am not saying you are one) like to pretend that she was perfect and did not have any such defect because this does not fit with the "savior of mankind" image they hold. But Rand did have such defect and what's worse, when she got around to misrepresenting and oversimplifying the works of other philosophers, she was not only a poor scholar making false claims, she had an attitude. She had a chip on her shoulder about it.

I personally value Rand's original thinking—and I value it highly enough to run a forum on it (and name my two boys after her characters). But I take all of the historical and scholarly information she presented as needing verification and some solid clarifying. Much of it is flawed.

Michael

[UncleJim]

Uncle Jim,

I agree that her solution is called thinking (and even really good thinking). But it needs to be clear that thinking is not an excuse for poor scholarship and false representations.

A is A, to use her own formulation.

Rand worshipers (and I am not saying you are one) like to pretend that she was perfect and did not have any such defect because this does not fit with the "savior of mankind" image they hold. But Rand did have such defect and what's worse, when she got around to misrepresenting and oversimplifying the works of other philosophers, she was not only a poor scholar making false claims, she had an attitude. She had a chip on her shoulder about it.

I personally value Rand's original thinking—and I value it highly enough to run a forum on it (and name my two boys after her characters). But I take all of the historical and scholarly information she presented as needing verification and some solid clarifying. Much of it is flawed.

Michael

I trust you will not be surprised to learn I have reservations about the depth to which she pursued important issues like life, survival, love, ethics, morality and; yes, even god. To name a few.

Edited February 15, 2008 by UncleJim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Uncle Jim,

As I stated before, I like your spirit.

Michael

[UncleJim]

Uncle Jim,

As I stated before, I like your spirit.

Michael

Hey!!!!!!!!

Is that a religious remark?