Riddle of the Day

[Selene]

First off, I believe the doughnut and the doughnut hole are two separate entities...

Brad,

This is incorrect.

In philosophy an entity is an existent with a distinct existence as a whole. For instance a color is an existent, but not an entity since it is always part of something else (an entity). The doughnut's hole fits this category (shape of the entity).

Michael

Michael, would Rand would say that the donut hole is the abstraction of an abstraction that is derived from our perception of the shape of the donut?

Mary Lee

My head hurts now.

Thanks!

~ Shane

Ouch! Mary Lee now my head hurts too!

[RightJungle]

First off, I believe the doughnut and the doughnut hole are two separate entities...

Brad,

This is incorrect.

In philosophy an entity is an existent with a distinct existence as a whole. For instance a color is an existent, but not an entity since it is always part of something else (an entity). The doughnut's hole fits this category (shape of the entity).

Michael

Michael, would Rand would say that the donut hole is the abstraction of an abstraction that is derived from our perception of the shape of the donut?

Mary Lee

My head hurts now.

Thanks!

~ Shane

Ouch! Mary Lee now my head hurts too!

Didn't mean to cause a headache - I was just talking about Rand's Epistemology as it discusses the hierarchical nature of concepts (abstractions). At the bottom of the hierarchy there must be some perception of something that exists - in this case the donut. But the donut has a shape that produces the appearance of a hole in the middle. The hole is the derived abstraction. Without the donut, we would not see it or think it.

Does that feel better?

Mary Lee

[sbeaulieu]

Think, then, about this:

When one consumes the doughnut, does the doughnut hole still exist? Seeing as the doughnut can very well be the name of the space within the planes of the doughnut, is there thousands of doughnut holes roaming the universe, lacking a doughnut to give them a distinguishing factor between themselves and the other misc. "space" that exists.

Brad,

I'd have to say that the doughnut hole will no longer exist, provided you are able to place your teeth in perfect alignment to separate the border atoms of the doughnut proper from the doughnut hole. I know that when I eat a doughnut, I bite into the doughnut hole space, thereby consuming it with the doughnut proper

~ Shane

[Selene]

There is a more important theological, ontological, metaphysical and hell gynecological question!

How come there is no donut hole in a jelly donut?

Put in a call to Steve Wright, we need an immediate semantic consult...or we could ask the Professor...

He still makes much more sense than the second dumbest Vice President ever, Al Gore.

Adam

[Christopher]

In ITOE, what if anything did Rand say about the word "nothing?" Memory recall suggests she said it denotes absence but is itself not a concept, or some-such, however I can't remember the specifics. I'm sure she had said something about nothing...

(I'm really serious though... what did she say about it?)

[Alfonso Jones]

In ITOE, what if anything did Rand say about the word "nothing?" Memory recall suggests she said it denotes absence but is itself not a concept, or some-such, however I can't remember the specifics. I'm sure she had said something about nothing...

(I'm really serious though... what did she say about it?)

You may be thinking of the following passage from ITOE regarding Reification of the Zero:

One of the consequences (a vulgar variant of concept stealing, prevalent among avowed mystics and irrationalists) is a fallacy I call the Reification of the Zero. It consists of regarding "nothing" as a thing, as a special, different kind of existent. (For example, see Existentialism.) This fallacy breeds such symptoms as the notion that presence and absence, or being and non-being, are metaphysical forces of equal power, and that being is the absence of non-being. E.g., "Nothingness is prior to being." (Sartre)—"Human finitude is the presence of the not in the being of man." (William Barrett)—"Nothing is more real than nothing." (Samuel Beckett)—"Das Nichts nichtet" or "Nothing noughts." (Heidegger). "Consciousness, then, is not a stuff, but a negation. The subject is not a thing, but a non-thing. The subject carves its own world out of Being by means of <ioe2_61> negative determinations. Sartre describes consciousness as a 'noughting nought' (néant néantisant). It is a form of being other than its own: a mode 'which has yet to be what it is, that is to say, which is what it is, that is to say, which is what it is not and which is not what it is.' "(Hector Hawton, The Feast of Unreason, London: Watts & Co., 1952, p. 162.)

(The motive? "Genuine utterances about the nothing must always remain unusual. It cannot be made common. It dissolves when it is placed in the cheap acid of mere logical acumen." Heidegger.)

Is that the passage?

Bill P

[Alfonso Jones]

In ITOE, what if anything did Rand say about the word "nothing?" Memory recall suggests she said it denotes absence but is itself not a concept, or some-such, however I can't remember the specifics. I'm sure she had said something about nothing...

(I'm really serious though... what did she say about it?)

Here's another passage, from the seminars portion (second portion) of the book:

Prof. D: "Nothing."

AR: That is strictly a relative concept. It pertains to the absence of some kind of concrete. The concept "nothing" is not possible except in relation to "something." Therefore, to have the concept "nothing," you mentally specify—in parenthesis, in effect—the absence of a something, and you conceive of "nothing" only in relation to concretes which no longer exist or which do not exist at present.

You can say "I have nothing in my pocket." That doesn't mean you have an entity called "nothing" in your pocket. You do not have any of the objects that could conceivably be there, such as handkerchiefs, money, gloves, or whatever. "Nothing" is strictly a concept relative to some existent concretes whose absence you denote in this form.

It is very important to grasp that "nothing" cannot be a primary concept. You cannot start with it in the absence of, or prior to, the existence of some object. That is the great trouble with Existentialism, as I discuss in the book [page 60]. There is no such concept as "nothing," except as a relational concept denoting the absence of some things. The measurements omitted are the measurements of those things.

Prof. A: Does the concept of "non-existence" refer only to an absence? Is there no valid concept of sheer non-being, of something that never was and never will be?

AR: That's right. Non-existence as such—particularly in the same generalized sense in which I use the term "existence" in saying "existence exists," that is, as the widest abstraction without yet specifying any content, or applying to all content—you cannot have the concept "non-existence" in that same fundamental way. In other words, you can't say: this is something pertaining to the whole universe, to everything I know, and I don't say what. In other words, without specifying content.

You see, the concept of "existence" integrates all of the <ioe2_150> existents that you have perceived, without knowing all their characteristics. Whereas the concept of "non-existence" in that same psycho-epistemological position would be literally a blank. Non-existence—apart from what it is that doesn't exist—is an impossible concept. It's a hole—a literal blank, a zero.

It is precisely on the fundamental level of equating existence and non-existence as some kind of opposites that the greatest mistakes occur, as in Existentialism.

Bill P

[Christopher]

Thanks Bill, that sounds like what I was thinking. I'm still trying to jog my memory: sounds like she was saying generally that such words as nothing are negations as opposed to concepts.

Back to the donut hole, here's a quip: a donut hole is a dough-not! And a donut whole has no donut hole and is therefore just dough!

Edited March 2, 2010 by Christopher

[Alfonso Jones]

Thanks Bill, that sounds like what I was thinking. I'm still trying to jog my memory: sounds like she was saying generally that such words as nothing are negations as opposed to concepts.

Back to the donut hole, here's a quip: a donut hole is a dough-not! And a donut whole has no donut hole and is therefore just dough!

I suspect it's the second quote I posted which you will find most on target.

Bill P

[Christopher]

You see, the concept of "existence" integrates all of the <ioe2_150> existents that you have perceived, without knowing all their characteristics. Whereas the concept of "non-existence" in that same psycho-epistemological position would be literally a blank. Non-existence—apart from what it is that doesn't exist—is an impossible concept. It's a hole—a literal blank, a zero.

I read this as: it is our use of non-existence as an existent that causes confusion. How easy it is for man to believe that non-existence exists, and in believing so it chips away at the integrity of one's conceptual thinking.

So we can refer to a hole or a nothing as long as we recognize that such a reference does not posit the existence of such, but rather the absence of existence within the designated spot. e.g. a donut hole represents an absence of space within a donut, unless of course we talk about donut holes on sale (as tangible objects). In fact, donut holes were created by a baker after Rand walked in and said "there's no such thing as a donut hole!" to which the baker replied: "au contraire"

I appreciate you pulling up this quote so quick.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Christopher

[Leonid]

Riddle of the Day: Is the hole of a doughnut something or nothing? If it is something, what is it, what is its nature, what it is made of? If it is nothing, how can be speak of it and even point to it?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Leonid]

Contrary to Existentialism there is NO such a THING as absolute NOTHING.

Here is another riddle for you: if you have it your are poor and if you eat it you are dead.

[Selene]

According to the Physicist Lawrence Krauss, there is a lot of there there in the whole of the donut.

[sbeaulieu]

Contrary to Existentialism there is NO such a THING as absolute NOTHING.

Here is another riddle for you: if you have it your are poor and if you eat it you are dead.

Nothing.

~ Shane

[Christopher]

Hey Bill,

For some reason your posting of the exchange between Rand and Prof. D didn't show up yesterday when I responded to your other posts (weird). That was a nice exchange, and I think it explains exactly what I was trying to recall. Thank you!