Why wasn't Eddie Willers invited to Galt's Gulch?

[anthony]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Appearances to the contrary, only men can be compassionate.

 

 

 

The down side, only men can be cruel - consciously and purposefully so.

There can't be a "cruel animal", no such thing, it must always act on its instinctive nature whether injuring or tearing other animals and sometimes people to pieces  - defending its 'territory', hunting prey, fighting for a mate.

(There's indeed no 'bad' dog except when trained to be and abused by humans to behave outside its nature).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

If evolution had bred those characteristics into those species...

Tony,

Is this an example of anthropomorphism?

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

MSK. How can one not see...

Tony,

Keep working on it.

Someday you'll get there.

I have faith in you.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Well I'm dying to see where Rand contradicted herself about instincts. A rarity.

In her novels, the context matters.

Tony,

No you're not dying to see that. On the contrary, I think the idea of looking at that pains you and irritates you. The good news, for you, is I am only going to do the donkey work of producing such a list if I ever write an article about this. I probably will, too, but not in the immediate future. I don't want to play gotcha with this level of research, though. Gotcha, for me, is good for banter. Otherwise, it is a big waste of time.

So you can pretend other examples don't exist because obviously I'm bluffing, right? Go on. Take it. I'm giving it to you as a present. I won't debunk you just to win a gotcha (and then make you rationalize and say instinct means instinct for Rand except when it doesn't  ).

Go on and say you won whatever you think you won. I don't mind. Seriously.  

 

My thing is the ideas, not the competition.

I have already said we should agree to disagree.

Besides. Contradiction is not the term I would use. I said Rand was not consistent. (If you want to know the issue, I've seen a scope problem in some of Rand's ideas. And, when present, this usually causes inconsistency in her use of certain words and ideas. This blank slate-instinct issue is one such case.)

Anyway, your post is a perfect example of normative before cognitive thinking. You have already judged something before identifying it.

That's about as close to acting on instinct as one can get with the conceptual part of the mind.

 

Michael

[anthony]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

No you're not dying to see that. On the contrary, I think the idea of looking at that pains you and irritates you. The good news, for you, is I am only going to do the donkey work of producing such a list if I ever write an article about this. I probably will, too, but not in the immediate future.

No, no. Untrue. I would actually ¬like¬ to see instances of Rand being inconsistent in her philosophy, (please to be considered separate from her art).

I am far beyond irritation on such minor matters, and don't believe Rand was perfect, as you seem to cast me. I prefer to see things as they are. But I have put to the toughest tests and know Rand's methodology works, and it's only one's own errors that lead to contradictions/inconsistencies.

There have already been mistaken suppositions about me here.

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

Is this an example of anthropomorphism?

 

Michael

Yes, fair enough.;) Like I might say - I "instinctively" did so and so - in a casual manner of speaking. It's not like such words are to be banned. "Bred", non-literally puts across the long and complex mutation process of species everyone knows of, and "instincts", they can safely be used as metaphors.

[anthony]

6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

No you're not dying to see that. On the contrary, I think the idea of looking at that pains you and irritates you. The good news, for you, is I am only going to do the donkey work of producing such a list if I ever write an article about this. I probably will, too, but not in the immediate future. I don't want to play gotcha with this level of research, though. Gotcha, for me, is good for banter. Otherwise, it is a big waste of time.

So you can pretend other examples don't exist because obviously I'm bluffing, right? Go on. Take it. I'm giving it to you as a present. I won't debunk you just to win a gotcha (and then make you rationalize and say instinct means instinct for Rand except when it doesn't  ).

Go on and say you won whatever you think you won. I don't mind. Seriously.  

 

My thing is the ideas, not the competition.

 

 

Michael

My thing is only for truth in ideas, always derived from reality. I am known for that by those who know me and for being forthright. What else have I been going on about, but--ideas?

You see my 'gotchas' where they are non-existent, Michael.

I don't play at sophistry. You've seen that by now. That puts me at a disadvantage when any others are in competition 'to win'.

[anthony]

It's the human attraction to 'human instincts' which was absorbing for me. Why anyone should want it. I can't understand the attraction, why human beings would like to be less than what we are.

There's an observable desire for predestination, to be as equally 'good' - without effort - as the rest of the "instinctual" animal kingdom; so, lacking the need for cognitive application, free will and moral choice one cannot be faulted nor held morally self-responsible.

How could mankind want any less than the autonomous, volitional consciousness it has? Do they not realize the mind-independence, individualism and *understanding* they'd give up? Not so strangely, one may notice this appeals most of all to secular-humanists, usually on the so-called Left.

"Instinctive" determinism for humans, the left's social-collective replacement for godly supernaturalism and religion? Makes sense. The herd instinct, the hive morality, people all laboring, harmoniously for the common good - in "natural empathy"...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

8 hours ago, anthony said:

I would actually ¬like¬ to see instances of Rand being inconsistent in her philosophy...

Tony,

That's easy. Go look.

8 hours ago, anthony said:

It's the human attraction to 'human instincts' which was absorbing for me. Why anyone should want it.

There are two issues here.

1. The either-or people. Either humans have instincts or they have volition. Neither consider that humans have both. The bad guys fall into this category and try to sell it to get power. You, also, fall into this category, but I won't speculate about what you gain. Rand, at times, fell into this category. When she did, she was fighting the bad guys.

2. The law of identity. Humans have both instincts and volition. Humans evolved. Humans are still evolving. There is plenty of evidence for this and even Rand acknowledged it at times. In addition to her inconsistencies about instincts, she wrote an essay called "The Missing Link" about her suspicion that the anticonceptual mentality was an evolutionary transformation stage. This shows she was not as certain as you are about this issue.  She was groping to understand what her eyes kept telling her despite her previous arguments.

I find your comment "Why anyone should want it" kinda funny. I hear it like this: Why anyone should want humans to have two legs is beyond me. That is determinism, leftwing collectivism. Religion.  

 

Michael

[anthony]

11 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Tony,

That's easy. Go look.

There are two issues here.

1. The either-or people. Either humans have instincts or they have volition. Neither consider that humans have both. The bad guys fall into this category and try to sell it to get power. You, also, fall into this category, but I won't speculate about what you gain. Rand, at times, fell into this category. When she did, she was fighting the bad guys.

2. The law of identity. Humans have both instincts and volition. Humans evolved. Humans are still evolving. There is plenty of evidence for this and even Rand acknowledged it at times. In addition to her inconsistencies about instincts, she wrote an essay called "The Missing Link" about her suspicion that the anticonceptual mentality was an evolutionary transformation stage. This shows she was not as certain as you are about this issue.  She was groping to understand what her eyes kept telling her despite her previous arguments.

I find your comment "Why anyone should want it" kinda funny. I hear it like this: Why anyone should want humans to have two legs is beyond me. That is determinism, leftwing collectivism. Religion.  

 

Michael

Michael, There is the false-alternative that a supporter of human instinct would raise, not me. There is no such human capability, instinct by man is not included in your "law of identity" (neat! :)) Man has his animal biology but barely a remnant of instinct.

How and why it could be evolved back into man, I see little possibility and purpose.

But the evolutionary causes aren't what this is about no matter how interesting. The evidence and personal experience and lack of, is.

I have yet to be showed solid evidence of human instincts, let alone their effectiveness, despite the assertions.

Can one know how to cross the street with instinct?

Can one, by instinct, detect and respond and feel fear ('self-preservation') of the proximity of a lion out in the wild? Without foreknowledge, or observing threatening behavior by it, how does one even know "lion" poses the slightest danger?

Whatever instinct for dangerous wild animals was clearly lost to humans. An inborn instinct (along with much greater sensory capacities: sight, smell and hearing) that every gazelle on the plains has.

Human animals aren't anywhere near equaling a gazelle in that regard: Staying alive. If we have lost that most basic survival 'skill' one can be sure we lost all of them.

And anything about our (instinctual) feelings of the plight of other humans - how very Woke-ist, btw - I've answered to. There isn't either-both. There's no alternative option to rationality.

 

 

[tmj]

The path to infallible rationality has to go through the lens of intergration.

What evolutionary steps lead to humans losing sensory capacities that are currently existing in contemporaneous mammalian species ?

[anthony]

56 minutes ago, tmj said:

The path to infallible rationality has to go through the lens of intergration.

What evolutionary steps lead to humans losing sensory capacities that are currently existing in contemporaneous mammalian species ?

"Infallible rationality"? But men can be fallible.

[anthony]

Tmj, As I see it, infallible instinct or infallible rationality both follow the identical wish for 'perfect knowledge': philosophical intrinsicism (effortlessly 'revealed to man', Revelatory).

[anthony]

1 hour ago, tmj said:

 

What evolutionary steps lead to humans losing sensory capacities that are currently existing in contemporaneous mammalian species ?

Which interests me too. Just take the incredible vision of eagles and the intense smell and hearing by dogs/mammals and where are we humans? Very average or sub-par.

Somewhere along the way the greater faculties, early man began to develop, rendered his extreme sense capability less essential? A guess.

[Peter]

1 hour ago, tmj said:

What evolutionary steps lead to humans losing sensory capacities that are currently existing in contemporaneous mammalian species ?

Interesting. We lose instincts as we gain rationality. Was it a good trade? Hell yes! 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

We lose instincts as we gain rationality. Was it a good trade? Hell yes! 

Peter,

There was no trade.

The human brain did not lose instincts.

It added rationality on top of them.

Like I said, there was no trade. There was a gain.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The more fundamentalist religious people do not believe in evolution.

Unfortunately, here is a version of the same thing in a different accent.

3 hours ago, anthony said:

But the evolutionary causes aren't what this is about no matter how interesting. The evidence and personal experience and lack of, is.

Why bother discuss anything else about this? Dogma is dogma.

3 hours ago, anthony said:

I have yet to be showed solid evidence of human instincts, let alone their effectiveness, despite the assertions.

Bullshit. You've been presented with solid evidence several times. You've been shown where more exists, too.

You won't look.

You've said so several times. When cornered, you've even said you look "beyond" the evidence.

 

You can't have it both ways and be rational. They contradict each other. You can't be presented with evidence, refuse to look, then claim you haven't been presented with evidence. 

I don't mind this. People believe all kinds of silly things. And many are good people, too (like you).

As to our impasse, I'm wearying of this discussion. 

You're wrong. You don't think you are and you think I am. OK. This is going on way too long just to keep saying this same thing over and over.

Let's give it a rest. At least I am going to.

Michael

[Peter]

Michael wrote: “Like I said, there was no trade. There was a gain.”

A consideration might be how far back we consider human evolutionary development. Living in trees to monkeys up a limb to Neanderthals? If we have lost or sublimated “instincts” but have gained a more rational and efficient human brain where will evolution, whether natural or guided, lead us up the next step UP the ladder? I think clued in electronics (phones, PC’s etc.)  COULD lead to a lessening of totalitarianism and onto the next step of evolution.  Peter      

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

48 minutes ago, Peter said:

If we have lost or sublimated “instincts” but have gained a more rational and efficient human brain...

Peter,

We did not lose or sublimate instincts. We added rational thought to them and became aware of ourselves and existence in a manner that includes the past and future--in other words, enough to process them as stories (narratives, schema or whatever you want to call it).

Just because a new sheriff came to town, that doesn't mean the law enforcement already in place disappeared. The new sheriff got added to it.

As to where we will go with evolution from here on out, I think it will be cool. (I personally think we will eventually become aware of parts of reality we do not process at present.)

However, addiction to scrolling through social media screens hours on end will lead to nowhere good. Neuroplasticity is already kicking in re changing the brains of the younger folks.

Some learned skills are atrophying in the young, too. Like reading.

Also, attention spans have become shorter. This is not only seen in their behavior, but in observing their neurochemical activity in labs.

There are several things like this developing.

Fortunately, there are many good things evolving in the brain, too.

Also, both brain drugs, addictive pain medication and recreational drugs are taking their toll. And so are covert widespread experiments by technocratic eugenicists.

Most of all, the current explosion of autism in the young is not good for human evolution. But I do believe this is a reaction of the brain to modern environments, whether dietary, medicinal (including vaccines), chemicals in the air, broadcast waves, etc. 

Michael

[tmj]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Which interests me too. Just take the incredible vision of eagles and the intense smell and hearing by dogs/mammals and where are we humans? Very average or sub-par.

Somewhere along the way the greater faculties, early man began to develop, rendered his extreme sense capability less essential? A guess.

My question was more a statement than question. Your reasoning here is akin ( ) to the detractors in the 'Scopes monkey trial'. 

" aint no way we came from monkeys"

The detractors didn't understand that that was not what was being said. Evolution as theory never said humans 'came from' monkeys, chimps or the great apes. All phenotypes are the result of the evolutionary process, evolution isn't alchemy in the sense that you can look at a contemporaneous species and make a claim that a similar contemporaneous  species evolved 'out' of the first group.

 

[anthony]

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The more fundamentalist religious people do not believe in evolution.

Unfortunately, here is a version of the same thing in a different accent.

Why bother discuss anything else about this? Dogma is dogma.

Bullshit. You've been presented with solid evidence several times. You've been shown where more exists, too.

You won't look.

Michael

I have not been presented evidence of human instincts*. I have not seen any nor found any.

Nothing that cannot be fully explained by rational phenomena of human biology, brain and the mind.

If this matters, let me see the solid evidence once again.

*Definition, examples and explanation:

Instinct -

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Instinct (disambiguation).

"Instinct or innate behaviour[citation needed] is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour. The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.

A baby leatherback turtle makes its way to the open ocean.

Any behavior is instinctive if it is performed without being based upon prior experience (that is, in the absence of learning), and is therefore an expression of innate biological factors. Sea turtles, newly hatched on a beach, will instinctively move toward the ocean. A marsupial climbs into its mother's pouch upon being born. Honeybees communicate by dancing in the direction of a food source without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behavior, internal escape functions, and the building of nests. Though an instinct is defined by its invariant innate characteristics, details of its performance can be changed by experience; for example, a dog can improve its fighting skills by practice.

An instinctive behavior of shaking water from wet fur

Instincts are inborn complex patterns of behavior that exist in most members of the species, and should be distinguished from reflexes, which are simple responses of an organism to a specific stimulus, such as the contraction of the pupil in response to bright light or the spasmodic movement of the lower leg when the knee is tapped. The absence of volitional capacity must not be confused with an inability to modify fixed action patterns. For example, people may be able to modify a stimulated fixed action pattern by consciously recognizing the point of its activation and simply stop doing it, whereas animals without a sufficiently strong volitional capacity may not be able to disengage from their fixed action patterns, once activated.[1]

Instinctual behaviour in humans has been studied, and is a controversial topic."

Wikipedia

 

[anthony]

2 hours ago, tmj said:

My question was more a statement than question. Your reasoning here is akin ( ) to the detractors in the 'Scopes monkey trial'. 

" aint no way we came from monkeys"

The detractors didn't understand that that was not what was being said. Evolution as theory never said humans 'came from' monkeys, chimps or the great apes. All phenotypes are the result of the evolutionary process, evolution isn't alchemy in the sense that you can look at a contemporaneous species and make a claim that a similar contemporaneous  species evolved 'out' of the first group.

 

"Ain't no way we came from monkeys". By detractors of evolution.

And,

"You can(t) look at a contemporaneous species and make a claim that...evolved out of the first group".

Look like contradictory statements. Both are rebuttals of evolution.

What is evolution, but a species emergence from what came before, "out of the first group"?

Of course men descended from the apes.

evolution

/ˌiːvəˈluːʃ(ə)n,ˈɛvəluːʃ(ə)n/

See definitions in:

All

 

Biology

 

Chemistry

 

Military

 

Mathematics · Dated

noun

 

1. 1.

   the process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

 

[anthony]

3 hours ago, tmj said:

 Your reasoning here is akin ( ) to the detractors in the 'Scopes monkey trial'. 

 

 

"Akin" it is not.

I have always been an enthusiastic supporter of the evolution theory.

Whatever you guys' stereotyping of my position.

[tmj]

Apes and man descended from a common ancestor. ( ultimately I think it was a mole/shrew like creature that survived one or other global near life extinction 'event')

[anthony]

11 minutes ago, tmj said:

Apes and man descended from a common ancestor. ( ultimately I think it was a mole/shrew like creature that survived one or other global near life extinction 'event')

Fine with that, yes the mole. As with birds emerging from the dinosaurs, there didn't have to be a direct lineage.

The debate is whatever our animal roots, they had instinctual behavior we don't.