A problem with the Objectivist definition of reason

[merjet]

Then you should attack l_chaim29, because it was he who gave that definition, Xray was merely responding to his post. But it's apparently imperative to seize any occasion to bash Xray.

I did indirectly. l_chaim29 wrote it as if quoting somebody. I don't know whom, but it is a clear misquote if it was meant to be Ayn Rand. Xray repeats it in the same way, when she could have easily checked and found it was a misquote, but did not. But it's apparently imperative for Xray and Dragonfly to seize any occasion to bash Ayn Rand or any of her fans. Note how Xray uses a 16-month-old post to seize the occasion.

[Dragonfly]

Then you should attack l_chaim29, because it was he who gave that definition, Xray was merely responding to his post. But it's apparently imperative to seize any occasion to bash Xray.

I did indirectly. l_chaim29 wrote it as if quoting somebody. I don't know whom, but it is a clear misquote if it was meant to be Ayn Rand. Xray repeats it in the same way, when she could have easily checked and found it was a misquote, but did not. But it's apparently imperative for Xray and Dragonfly to seize any occasion to bash Ayn Rand or any of her fans. Note how Xray uses a 16-month-old post to seize the occasion.

Xray just criticized a definition in a post by l_chaim29, which in itself was not disputed by anyone on this list, so why should she check all the definitions by Rand? Apparently no Objectivist on this list found fault with the definition itself, so it's now strange to find suddenly fault with Xray, only while she points out the consequences of the definition in that post.

[Philip Coates]

The animosity of the last several posts is unnecessary and quite off-putting to readers who don't know why or where old rancors come from or why they are constantly on display. There are ways of pointing out an error without getting personal or reopening old wounds.

Edited September 15, 2009 by Philip Coates

[thomtg]

The basic error in the original post is not in correctly stating the definition of reason; the error is in equating the definition for the concept. Just as a spider-like Martian possessing reason is not a man, so a canine process that identifies and integrates perceptual material is not a faculty of reason. By Objectivist standard, a definition is a statement having the purpose of condensing one's knowledge. On a nonobjectivist standard (e.g., nominalism), a definition is a synonym for a label. The case of the latter is a case of massive context-dropping.

[Xray]

The basic error in the original post is not in correctly stating the definition of reason; the error is in equating the definition for the concept. Just as a spider-like Martian possessing reason is not a man, so a canine process that identifies and integrates perceptual material is not a faculty of reason. By Objectivist standard, a definition is a statement having the purpose of condensing one's knowledge. On a nonobjectivist standard (e.g., nominalism), a definition is a synonym for a label. The case of the latter is a case of massive context-dropping.

"...the error is in equating the definition for the concept." (ibid)

This was the original post:

Objectivists typically define reason as "the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses".

What precisely do you mean by "equating the definiton for the concept"?

"...On a nonobjectivist standard (e.g., nominalism), a definition is a synonym for a label. The case of the latter is a case of massive context-dropping." (ibid)

Could you give an example of "massive context dropping"?

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Psychology and Epistemology - Introspection, Sensory Data // A Full Answer to LChaim's Question

Contrary to the lack of respect or full attention to it of other posters, L-Chaim's original post raised a valid and intelligent question. I'm sure it's one I and others might well have raised had it occurred to us early in our Oist education. And even though well over a year has gone by, no one has fully given a fleshed-out answer to an important, reasonable challenge. (It's been so long, probably L-Chaim is long gone by now...bottoms up!...but introspection is a very important issue.) His first sentence very clearly and precisely states the issue.

CHALLENGE:

> Objectivists typically define reason as "the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses". This definition, however, leaves no room for identification or integration of concretes observed through introspection. [l-chaim29]

ANSWER [this is my own answer/formulation; I didn't get it from the Objectivist literature; reference works are in quotes]:

What is introspection? "Contemplation of one's own thoughts, feelings, and sensations; self-examination." Any looking inside as opposed to seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, looking outside at data coming from the normal five senses. Note first that the five senses are not all the senses we have upon which we can base observation, concepts, memories, and higher levels of reasoning==>

Wikipedia - "sense" -->

(") There is no firm agreement among neurologists as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. One definition states that an exteroceptive sense is a faculty by which outside stimuli are perceived. The traditional five senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste...Humans are considered to have at least five additional senses that include: nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance), proprioception & kinesthesia (joint motion and acceleration), sense of time, thermoception (temperature differences), with possibly an additional weak magnetoception (direction)[3], and six more if interoceptive senses are also considered...A broadly acceptable definition of a sense would be "a system that..responds to a specific physical phenomenon, and that corresponds to a particular group of regions within the brain.."(")

I would make three points in defense of the idea that -all- introspection, both perceptual and conceptual (reason) identifies and integrates data provided by the senses:

1. The above wikipedia entry, by adding to our over-simplified list of five senses [Rand never said there were only five. did she?], explains how "raw" or largely perceptual introspective awareness -- of pleasure or pain or bodily discomfort (dizziness, inner ear) and so on -- are based on the data of the senses.

2. "Processed" introspection (and often heavily conceptual and reasoned in large measure), I would point out, though L_Chaim doesn't list anything, would include things psychothearapists and counselors are always asking: Why are you so angry? Why do you dislike that person? What attracts you to her? Or advising: Be in touch with your emotions! "A reflective looking inward: an examination of one's thoughts and feelings".."desires and conduct"..

//.."observation or examination of one's own mental and emotional state, mental processes, etc.; the act of looking within oneself." [dictionary.com] ...Synonyms: 1. self-examination, soul-searching./Dictionary.com Unabridged/ Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009. //

In part you are retrieving data and memories placed in there by a process involving concepts based on the sense long ago. Evaluation - good for me, bad for me, etc. - which creates emotion is a conceptual process discussed in the Oist literature, but long known by Magda Arnold, other psychologists.

3. Timing and Amassing: One misconception would be to think that the identification and integration has to be *simple or immediately after the sensory awareness*. It doesn't and can be enormously complex. Let me give a personal example: It has only been after the first couple decades of -extrospection- building upon sense data and simple conceptual identifications, that I began slowlyto get where I want to be in -intropection-. So breakthroughs in that area, in introspective psychological awareness, being in touch with certain emotions, or, say in identifying properly my reactions to works or art, my judgments and feelings about people are built upon a myriad of data, both conceptual and sensory, reflecting on life experiences, etc.

It is in that sense that introspection is built on the evidence of the senses. Why? Because we are born tabula rasa as far as data is concerned. So there is nowhere else for it to come from.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

> Neither does it leave room for the possibility of identifying or integrating the concretes of the internal states of others, as these can only be inferred (in part) from the exisence of one's own awareness of one's own internal states. [L-Chaim]

Another long topic. I'll give an example and stop for now: When someone is insulted and you see their fists clench and face grow red and teeth are bared, that is sensory data which you integrate with conceptual information you already possess (a) the statement that was made and how people react to insults, (B) the bodily indicators and how they are similar to one's you have experienced and don't fit other interpretions beides anger, like pleasure, amusement. © You are contextually certain that the inner state is, at least in part, anger.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

QUESTION: I haven't read "Evidence of the Senses". Did David Kelley deal only with the (largely extrospective) five senses only?

Or did he consider any of the other (often more internal) senses or the introspective issues I have just started to work through in post #31?

Edited September 16, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Christopher]

Phil,

I've been dealing with Rand's assertion that all internal events (introspection) are necessarily generated initially from external stimuli. Of course, according to empiric-analytic thinking, this statement can be neither proven nor disproven; therefore it has no validity.

However being philosophical,

1. I can generate a host of imaginative events that might be created from sensory input but do not exist: for example, blue unicorns. Even though it might be generated from an amalgamation of sensory stimuli recombined, what does it really mean (or matter) to say that these imaginitive building blocks were observed externally?

2. Structure of logic. Language learning structures are not tabula-rasa, they are innate. This means we can draw information simply from our mind without requiring reflection from the senses. How many structures on internal thinking can be built upon innate information? Logic, for example:

All blue creatures are lovely

Unicorns are blue creatures

Therefore, unicorns are lovely.

I wonder whether this structure necessarily requires sensory perception of the universe to validate. Maybe for content (and I use content loosely since unicorns do not exist)... but for structure? Other philosophers posit that logic and language only exist interpersonally, although the structures are consistent and rest on rules... therefore, these structures represent valid interpersonal environments that are not sensory-stimuli based. It's good to think about.

3. Emotions. Emotions arise from a host of sources, least of which is simply our body; the most complex emotions seem to arise out of consciousness manipulations (meditation).

I don't fault Rand. She started from the premise that the mind was tabula-rasa and went from there (a valid premise 60 years ago). As we know today, the mind is not tabula-rasa. I wonder how that would have changed her impression of what introspection actually represents.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Pure Rationalism and Detached Academic Jargon

> according to empiric-analytic thinking

Say what?

> this statement can be neither proven nor disproven

!!!

> I can generate a host of imaginative events

...Or you could bother to address the very real ones in my post

> Language learning structures are not tabula-rasa, they are innate. This means we can draw information simply from our mind without requiring reflection from the senses.

HUH ???? What kind of Kanto-Chomskian crap is this?

> the most complex emotions seem to arise out of consciousness manipulations (meditation).

mediation !!!!! wow!!!

Christopher, no offense, but based on these and similar kinds of assertion in your post, I am going to guess you are a college student or recent grad student who has recently taken a sequence of fairly worthless courses in recent or contemporary philosophy and has taken some of its more destructive doctrines and thinking methods seriously. I have seldom seen a response to a carefully reasoned out post of mine which is more floating, more rationalistic outside of linguistic analysis....nor a more arbitrary string of strange assertions. Like philosophy students I have met, you've created your own little Platonic world out of jargon fashionable in some academic circles. In some cases your statements are literally incomprehensible - only you and Wittgenstein or A.J. Ayer would know what you meant.

What you posted was enormously depressing and discouraging to read. The part that is -infuriating- is that my post was a very important one.

I carefully constructed a series of logical steps -based on evidence- and nowhere did you come into contact with the aspects of reality I pointed to. Or address the specific details or pieces of evidence. It's as if the factual arguments are not to be allowed to break the fantasy reality you and some professors have created.

Which is how "rationalism" can work.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Xray]

The basic error in the original post is not in correctly stating the definition of reason; the error is in equating the definition for the concept. Just as a spider-like Martian possessing reason is not a man, so a canine process that identifies and integrates perceptual material is not a faculty of reason. By Objectivist standard, a definition is a statement having the purpose of condensing one's knowledge. On a nonobjectivist standard (e.g., nominalism), a definition is a synonym for a label. The case of the latter is a case of massive context-dropping.

"...the error is in equating the definition for the concept." (ibid)

This was the original post:

Objectivists typically define reason as "the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses".

What precisely do you mean by "equating the definiton for the concept"?

"...On a nonobjectivist standard (e.g., nominalism), a definition is a synonym for a label. The case of the latter is a case of massive context-dropping." (ibid)

Could you give an example of "massive context dropping"?

While awaiting Thom's reply, here's some thoughts on Rand's elaboration on "Reason".

"Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses." (Rand)

Sensory may be the primary input, but by no means the total of mental calculations. Whether true of false, ideas are formed and integrated as well. They are all treated by the same mental process of integration.

This does not only apply to humans, but also to non-human animals with a brain and senses. They too have sensory input and integrate beliefs. They could not survive without doing so. While there are of course degrees in complexity, there is no absolute difference.

"Reason integrates man's perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions,..." (ibid)

Same with some other animals. Mentally abstract by difference and categorize on similarities. Animals other than human do it all the time.

"....thus raising man's knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach." (ibid)

I presume AR is saying that animals other than "man" cannot categorize. From what observation(s) did she get such an idea? None would survive without entity identity AND categorizing.

"The method which reason employs in this process is logic—and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification." (ibid)]

Logic is a natural mind function of integrating. No choice involved. Choice comes in when choosing what is to be integrated. Choosing to integrate the idea that animals other than humans do not abstract and categorize is choosing to integrate a fallacy.

"non-contradictory identification?" Is there some other kind?

How is identification made if not by mentally abstracting by difference?

"[Reason] is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort." (ibid)

How on earth can one choose to think or not to think?

She did say choice, didn't she? One may choose what to think about, but being conscious and choosing not to think is a contradiction.

As for survival, "reasoning" is a matter of degrees among different animals; not a divisive absolute. There is a mind and physical correlation in survival. Also, there are many examples of animals other than "man" "reasoning"; that is, calculating in the abstract to know the consequence of an action without taking it.

"In order to sustain its life, every living species has to follow a certain course of action required by its nature." (Ibid)

However, there is no natural requirement for all members of all species to choose to live, nor choose any particular lifestyle.

"... The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: "(ibid)

Intellectual and physical are correlative in survival, not primary and secondary.

"What you feel tells you nothing about the facts;..." (Ibid)

Right. Feeling that other animals don't "reason", and feeling that "man" is an entity with a "life proper to man" is not based on fact.

"...it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts. Emotions are the result of your value judgments; they are caused by your basic premises, which you may hold consciously or subconsciously, which may be right or wrong." (Rand)

Right again; and the premise of "man" as in "proper to man" is based on "ought" as Rand's subjective personal preference, not objective discovery.

"The conflict of reason versus mysticism is the issue of life or death—of freedom or slavery—of progress or stagnant brutality. Or, to put it another way, it is the conflict of consciousness versus unconsciousness." (Ibid)

"consciousness versus unconsciousness?" ??

The subjective value judgment of "rational", "absurd", whatever, does not alter objective reality. A belief is either true of false by conforming or not conforming to reality and personal preference has no power to change this.

In Christian mythology, an omnipotent god is posited as the root premise. A mind will integrate this premise in a logical fashion to arrive at a logical conclusion. The logical conclusion says nothing about the premise being false or correct, but truth can never be derived from false premises.

But there exists the reality of individual existence and the reality of infinitely variable subjective value. So the notion of "god's will" and "one set of valuations fits all" clashes head on with the actual variations of subjective valuations.

This is also true for every one "size fits all", valuations presented by philosophers.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

I simply think of reason as logic applied to facts.

--Brant

[jeffrey smith]

Subject: Pure Rationalism and Detached Academic Jargon

> according to empiric-analytic thinking

Say what?

> this statement can be neither proven nor disproven

!!!

> I can generate a host of imaginative events

...Or you could bother to address the very real ones in my post

> Language learning structures are not tabula-rasa, they are innate. This means we can draw information simply from our mind without requiring reflection from the senses.

HUH ???? What kind of Kanto-Chomskian crap is this?

> the most complex emotions seem to arise out of consciousness manipulations (meditation).

mediation !!!!! wow!!!

Christopher, no offense, but based on these and similar kinds of assertion in your post, I am going to guess you are a college student or recent grad student who has recently taken a sequence of fairly worthless courses in recent or contemporary philosophy and has taken some of its more destructive doctrines and thinking methods seriously. I have seldom seen a response to a carefully reasoned out post of mine which is more floating, more rationalistic outside of linguistic analysis....nor a more arbitrary string of strange assertions. Like philosophy students I have met, you've created your own little Platonic world out of jargon fashionable in some academic circles. In some cases your statements are literally incomprehensible - only you and Wittgenstein or A.J. Ayer would know what you meant.

What you posted was enormously depressing and discouraging to read. The part that is -infuriating- is that my post was a very important one.

I carefully constructed a series of logical steps -based on evidence- and nowhere did you come into contact with the aspects of reality I pointed to. Or address the specific details or pieces of evidence. It's as if the factual arguments are not to be allowed to break the fantasy reality you and some professors have created.

Which is how "rationalism" can work.

Philip--

On the contrary, Christopher brought two things up which seem to argue that there is something innate in our minds before the first bit of sensory data reaches our awareness: the nature and structure of language, and the nature of emotion. Think of this: a baby is born, and is poked, prodded, or otherwise made uncomfortable within moments of birth. So it cries! And if it doesn't, we immediately know something is wrong. This is a universal constant. Babies cry and make the same basic set of noises to the same basic sorts of stimuli wherever and whenever anyone has bothered to note down their reactions. It's a universal thing that happens well before the baby can have processes the information that says entities external to it (which entities it will eventually learn to label as mother, father, relatives, nurses,etc.) will respond to its noises. If there was nothing innate, babies would react differently to different sorts of stimuli, only gradually learning when to cry and wail, and when to make cheerful noises.

In the same way, emotion too seems to be inborn; we learn to refine it and learn its relations to outside events and stimuli, but the raw emotions are already there.

To these two things I would add the psychological archetypes, which reflect soemthing at work in the mind which can't be explained by anything other than innateness. There are certain groups of concepts and images which seem to appear linked together throughout human history, and lead to seemingly odd correspondences. If there were no innate ideas, it would highly improbable for such patterns to repeat as they do. [Edit to add:] There is no need to posit anything mysterious to explain such ideas: they may be part of our instinctual inheritance as descendants of the primeval apes that became the primeval hominids--but they stem from something other than individual sensory experience in the way that the tabula rasa hypothesis demands.

I think you are being misled by the fact that human language, and therefore communication, is almost totally derived from sensory data: but this merely means that the human mind expresses itself in a way that derives from sensory input--not that all the data on which it relies is so derived.

BTW, I found Christopher's post pretty easy to understand. So I'll sign myself off as

Jeffrey Wittgenstein-Ayer

PS: I also disagree with you on the onset of introspection: while intentional introspection may start fairly late in a given individual, introspection itself commences with the first moment that a child becomes aware that it is happy, sad, angry, in pain, or whatever first makes it aware that it is thinking thoughts, and what the content of those thoughts are. (Think for a moment: you can't intentionally start introspection unless you have become aware through unintentional instrospection that you are capable of performing introspection--and this awareness itself is the result of a further act of introspection.)

Edited September 17, 2009 by jeffrey smith

[Philip Coates]

Jeffrey, I already made this distinction in my post between:

1......"raw" or largely perceptual introspective awareness -- of pleasure or pain or bodily discomfort (dizziness, inner ear) and so on -- are based on the data of the senses.

and

2. "Processed" introspection (and often heavily conceptual and reasoned in large measure.

Note also that 'tabula rasa' does not mean that man has no emotional or reflexive mechanism, but that his conceptual knowledge comes from experience. He doesn't have concepts/abstractions already.

Onset of introspection of type 1 comes before first onset of type 2.

Obviously, a baby cries and that physical/neural/reflexive mechanism is wired in. But the anti-tabula rasa Chomsky types are claiming much, much more...as was Kant.

(Wittgenstein and Ayer are a different issue - they are related to the rationalist, linguistic analysis-like manner of using concepts in a floating manner.)

Signing Off,

Philip Aristotle-Locke-Rand

Edited September 17, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Xray]

I simply think of reason as logic applied to facts.

--Brant

Your definition of reason contains no subjective value judgement on the part of the definer, but goes to 'drawing logical conclusions after considering and assessing facts'.

As for survival, "reasoning" is a matter of degrees among different animals; not a divisive absolute which only "man" is capable of. There are many examples of animals other than "man" capable of "reasoning"; that is, calculating in the abstract to know the consequence of an action and then decide whether or not to take it.

J. Smith:

Jeffrey Wittgenstein-Ayer

P. Coates:

Philip Aristotle-Locke-Rand

Dear me, what a select party to post with - such illustrative company!

Edited September 17, 2009 by Xray

[Christopher]

Subject: Pure Rationalism and Detached Academic Jargon

> according to empiric-analytic thinking

Say what?

> this statement can be neither proven nor disproven

!!!

> I can generate a host of imaginative events

...Or you could bother to address the very real ones in my post

> Language learning structures are not tabula-rasa, they are innate. This means we can draw information simply from our mind without requiring reflection from the senses.

HUH ???? What kind of Kanto-Chomskian crap is this?

> the most complex emotions seem to arise out of consciousness manipulations (meditation).

mediation !!!!! wow!!!

Christopher, no offense, but based on these and similar kinds of assertion in your post, I am going to guess you are a college student or recent grad student who has recently taken a sequence of fairly worthless courses in recent or contemporary philosophy and has taken some of its more destructive doctrines and thinking methods seriously. I have seldom seen a response to a carefully reasoned out post of mine which is more floating, more rationalistic outside of linguistic analysis....nor a more arbitrary string of strange assertions. Like philosophy students I have met, you've created your own little Platonic world out of jargon fashionable in some academic circles. In some cases your statements are literally incomprehensible - only you and Wittgenstein or A.J. Ayer would know what you meant.

What you posted was enormously depressing and discouraging to read. The part that is -infuriating- is that my post was a very important one.

I carefully constructed a series of logical steps -based on evidence- and nowhere did you come into contact with the aspects of reality I pointed to. Or address the specific details or pieces of evidence. It's as if the factual arguments are not to be allowed to break the fantasy reality you and some professors have created.

Which is how "rationalism" can work.

Philip,

Rand was pretty clear that she thought the mind was tabula-rasa and that all knowledge was derived primarily from sensory-empirical data and transferred into conscious conceptual knowledge. She even wrote that abstract concepts such as justice can be reduced to premises that exist within the world. I'm cool with that.

However, the mind is not tabula-rasa as every leading theory in modern psychology has demonstrated (with experimental data). We have internal events that arise from our biology and not our senses. These biological structures in our mind focus attention on certain aspects of the environment (thereby influencing the shape of our concepts) and actually form data together in certain patterns consistent with whatever innate mechanisms exist.

Fear of spiders for instance has to do with biology far more than learning. The common argument is that we should be more afraid of cars than spiders since cars both from a sensory and logical perspective appear bigger and more dangerous.

So, since we have universal internally-arising events that can be inconsistent with the totality of sensory experience within the world, quite obviously data can be gathered from internal experiences that has real-world validity, yet is totally unrepresented by sensory-analysis - information incorporated into our genes from evolution. In other words, we can learn about reality by learning about ourselves to some degree. Duh!

[Xray]

How many structures on internal thinking can be built upon innate information? Logic, for example:

All blue creatures are lovely

Unicorns are blue creatures

Therefore, unicorns are lovely.

Good example of the logic applied in a syllogsm not needing to refer to reality at all.

Logic is a natural mind function of integrating. No choice involved. Choice comes in when choosing what is to be integrated. For example, choosing to integrate the idea that animals other than humans do not abstract and categorize is choosing to integrate a fallacy.

Example

Only humans beings can abstract and categorize.

My dog Mira is an animal.

Conclusion: Mira can't abstract and categorize.

Wrong of course.

"The Categories places every object of human apprehension under one of ten

categories (known to medieval writers as the praedicamenta). They are

intended to enumerate everything which can be expressed without composition

or structure, thus anything which can be either the subject or the predicate

of a proposition." ......The ten categories, or classes, are...."

(Categories (Aristotle), From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

How on earth have past and present animals, including human beings, survived without knowing this?

My dog couldn't care less about Artistotelian classes. Set before a hungry dog a bowl of hamburger and a platter of steel nails, the dog with go for the hamburger every time. All this without ever having read a word by Aristotle or consciously deliberated on Rand's 'concept formation'. How on earth does the dog manage this?

Edited September 17, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Christopher:

I don't fault Rand. She started from the premise that the mind was tabula-rasa and went from there (a valid premise 60 years ago).

What is the validity of a philosophy based on premises later proven to be false?

Edited September 17, 2009 by Xray

[Philip Coates]

--This website was down again today.

--Just got home and it's back up.

[Christopher]

I feel obliged to add that we cannot form certain conceptions about events without explicitly referring to internal experiences. What is an orgasm? Define it, point to it. We can't. It arises internally, is defined and encapsulated by an internal experience. It is mutually understood only to the degree that individuals are directly familiar with the internal phenomenon. We could point to a potential external stimulus that results in an orgasm, but the sum of those stimuli are not sufficient to define and fully understand the concept orgasm.

I just thought I'd add this. It's a bit different than the evolutionary approach I took a moment ago, but does re-emphasize the necessity of internal awareness as having a validity distinct from specific external events.

[Xray]

I feel obliged to add that we cannot form certain conceptions about events without explicitly referring to internal experiences. What is an orgasm? Define it, point to it. We can't. It arises internally, is defined and encapsulated by an internal experience. It is mutually understood only to the degree that individuals are directly familiar with the internal phenomenon. We could point to a potential external stimulus that results in an orgasm, but the sum of those stimuli are not sufficient to define and fully understand the concept orgasm.

I just thought I'd add this. It's a bit different than the evolutionary approach I took a moment ago, but does re-emphasize the necessity of internal awareness as having a validity distinct from specific external events.

You are obviously trying to apply Rand's terminology, but could you state in your own words what precisely you mean by "concept orgasm"?

For of course the term "orgasm" can be defined.

I suppose you are referring to the difficulty (if not impossibility) to put in words the feeling associated with the phenomenon, but imo this is true for all feelings.

As for definition in general:

There exists no such thing as a "private definition". That is, one can't arbitrarily decide to define e. g. "teapot" as ' cotton ball' and then use the term "teapot" for 'cotton ball' without getting into serious trouble with one's surroundings.

But gurus seem to think they are exempt from that rule; I suppose they have always counted on their fervent followers' motivation to do mental contortions to justify even the most blatant nonsense in order to keep the guru on the pedestal.

Those 'private definitions' by gurus are by no means harmless, but can have quite detrimental effects.

Connected to the topic in your post, a classic example here is Sigmund Freud, whose cluelessness about female sexuality led him to claim that here exists such a thing as a "vaginal" orgasm allegedly experienced by "mature women". Pure nonsense of course, but Freud's fallacy has been preached as gospel for many decades, even by so-called 'experts' who parroted his "private definition" of an alleged "vaginal orgasm", despite it having no connection to fact.

Bottom line:

Beliefs presented by gurus as alleged fact require examination, which involves checking the gurus' premises.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Rand on reason:

"[Reason] is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort." (Rand)

Here is an example of what Rand "thought" was "proper" to man:

AS: p. 684 (her own thoughts being presented via the characters in the novel):

"When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind, - and it's proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

Again, this is a mere personal value attributed by Rand (to smoking cigarettes), but which she claimed to be "proper to man"; a value which Rand thought a man "should have".

Edited September 18, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

I ask myself more and more WHY Rand found the percept/concept stuff so important. What prompted her to go into that at all?

Yes indeed humans (as well as non human animals) can mentally abstract and categorize.

But that's nothing new, is it?

Was it her admiration for Aristotle which made her want to establish some 'modernized' version of categorizing of her own?

Edited September 18, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

(sigh)

I hope this thread doesn't have to go to the Garbage Pile, too.

Michael

[Xray]

This is another example of Objectivists who cannot read. Xray wrote "Per this definition, a dog for example possesses reason too.", referring to the definition given by l_chaim29: "the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses", and she's of course right that this definition also applies to a dog, and that's all she says. That Rand may mean this only for humans is totally irrelevant, Xray's post just shows that this meaning is not warranted by the definition, as it does not exclusively apply to humans.

This is another example of a critic who cannot read. The alleged definition was not written by Ayn Rand. It was attributed to "Objectivists typically", which is highly ambiguous. It was also an obvious distortion of what Ayn Rand in fact said.

Isn't it amazing that Dragonfly acts like it is fine to use "Objectivists" and simultaneously declare that Ayn Rand's words are irrelevant?

Let's compare l_chaim29's and Rand's statements:

l_chaim29 wrote: "Objectivists typically define reason as

"the faculty which identifies and integrates the data provided by one's senses".

Rand wrote verbatim:

"Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses."

What l_chaim29 wrote was no distortion of what Rand said. He/she merely replaced some words without changing the meaning of Rand's definition.

Edited September 20, 2009 by Xray

[merjet]

What l_chaim29 wrote was no distortion of what Rand said. He/she merely replaced some words without changing the meaning of Rand's definition.

This is another example of Xray's sloppy reading. I didn't say l_chaim29 distorted anything; I said "misquoted". Xray did the distorting, by attributing Rand's use of "reason" to apply to dogs, when Rand clearly included only humans.