MQM?

[Xray]

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Ach, Du weißt Du bist nun einmal das Prügelmädchen hier...

Stimmt. Habe gerade Ellens letzte Posts gelesen; die Rollenzuschreibung ist eindeuting. Ist schon interessant, die Gruppendynamik hier. Sozialpsychologisch betrachtet könnte man sagen, dass ein gemeinsam erkorener 'Gegner' zur Stabilisierung der Gruppe beiträgt ;)

(Wenn sie das übersetzt haben wollen, werden sie's schon sagen).

Xray miscopies me:

This thread has become a mess -- the typical result when "Xray" gets into it. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. I do wonder if "Xray" is someone's attempt at an elaborate Turing Test game. The lack of "integration" from one discussion to another is extraordinary.

Fascinating to what wild speculations online debates can lead. Don't worry, Ellen, I'm not playing any Turing test games.

Note: The sentence "I do wonder [....]," which Xray duplicated, appears only once in the original post -- see.

I think that her main purpose here is proselytizing for her particular variant of absolutist relativism, and that she tries to manipulate people into responding to her -- and that her typographical sloppiness is disrespectful to her readers.

You make a mountain out of a molehill. You don't believe I did this on purpose, do you. I simply overlooked the accidental double sentence, probably wrote that post in a hurry, and am also a bad typer in general. It has nothing to do with lack of respect. I just don't see many of my typos, and those I do see I try to weed out.

When my husband hands me his manuscripts to read, I always say: "Don't expect me to spot any typos".

I think that her main purpose here is proselytizing for her particular variant of absolutist relativism, and that she tries to manipulate people into responding to her -- and that her typographical sloppiness is disrespectful to her readers.

Well, Ellen, since a forum is a place of exchange, expecting replies to one's posts are included in the concept.

As for your 'proselytizing' reproach, the mere thought of having any "proselytes" would be sheer horror for me. I often ask myself from where prescriptive moralists derive the right to tell others how to live their lives.

I'm interested in checking premises, which is an entirely individual issue.

So if you think any philosopher so far has been able to disprove Hume's fundamantal 'no ought from an is', please name the philosopher and demonstrate.

(If I scan rapidly down a page of a thread where Xray is posting, I can tell just sailing past which posts are hers from the messy appearance. Requiring of readers that they make extra effort simply to discern where paragraph breaks are, and sometimes who's being quoted, and to untangle other instances of poor typographical display is an imposition on one's readers' time.)

I personally find that quoting too large chunks of posts is far more cumbersome and tedious to entangle for the reader. If you want to address specific point, quoting the specific passage is all you need.

As for whom I'm quoting, I always pay attention to get it correct.

We all have different styles of layouts in our post, it's mostly a matter of taste. For example, I don't like the large blank spaces you often have in your posts, but so what?

Since messy content is far more detrimental than messy appearance, I prefer to focus on that.

What she's arguing is that her ethics is the only ethics by which a biologically human creature *can* survive, that all other ethics lead to literal or varying degrees of living parasitic death.

The "biologically human creature" has survived most succesfully without the help of any philosopher and will continue to do so long after Rand's prescriptive ethics will have been regarded as historical as e. g. Rousseau's or Comte's morality are today.

I make a science out of science. Physical science is the best way we have of knowing the world. Everything else pales in comparison. Science succeeds, philosophy and religion fail.

Do you have a philosophy, and has it failed you?

Claiming that philosophy and religion fail is a philosophical position as well.

A philosophy is like a head - everbody has one. ;)

Ba'al wrote "Physical science is the best way we have of knowing the world. Everything else pales in comparison. Science succeeds, philosophy and religion fail." This is Ba'als philosophy.

When he stated that "philosophy and religion fail", this refers to the irrefutable fact that science has often been able to expose the premises as false on which philosophical and religious thinkers throughout history based their concept of "man" and the world. Two typical exampes are the tabula rasa premise, or that the earth is the center of the universe.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

When he stated that "philosophy and religion fail", this refers to the irrefutable fact that science has often been able to expose the premises as false on which philosophical and religious thinkers throughout history based their concept of "man" and the world. Two typical exampes are the tabula rasa premise, or that the earth is the center of the universe.

The doctrine of tabula rasa is most closely associated with John Locke. By tabula rasa, Locke meant that we are not born with innate ideas. (This is also how Rand used the term.) Locke was thinking in particular of Edward Herbert (Lord Cherbury) and his Cartesian contention that we are born with an innate idea of God.

Are you claiming that science has proven that we are in fact born with innate ideas? If so, what would some of those innate ideas be? Is "god" one of those innate ideas, as earlier proponents of the doctrine believed?

In other words, what are the concepts that a baby has at birth (perhaps even at conception), prior to any experience of the world and prior to engaging in any conceptual thought? And how did those concepts get there? The rationalists who upheld the doctrine of innate ideas claimed that they are implanted by God, but I assume that "science" has given us a better answer.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Ought there be any oughts at all?

--Brant

ought there be an answer?--let it be, let it be

[Dragonfly]

The claim that Rand meant by tabula rasa only the absence of innate ideas is incorrect. She claimed that nobody is born with any kind of talent, implying that for example Mozart's accomplishments were only due to diligent practice and had nothing to do with an innate talent; elsewhere she claimed that someone with an IQ of 110 can raise it to 150 if he wants. See for example this discussion.

[BaalChatzaf]

In other words, what are the concepts that a baby has at birth (perhaps even at conception), prior to any experience of the world and prior to engaging in any conceptual thought? And how did those concepts get there? The rationalists who upheld the doctrine of innate ideas claimed that they are implanted by God, but I assume that "science" has given us a better answer.

Ghs

Genetics and neurophysiology. We come pre-wired with many abilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I certainly admire and appreciate your ability, DF, to pull up these old discussions. It's pretty obvious that Rand frequently over-stepped her knowledge and in an unjustified, authoritative way. I could not go back in time, if that were possible, and have any kind of give and take with her, either personal or intellectual, not with what I know today that I didn't know then. And I count myself lucky not to have had such a relationship. It couldn't have lasted very long, regardless, not out of the 1960s' NBI milieu. (It couldn't have been the 1950s as I would have simply been too young.)

There's not too much to be made of this as I would have handled Vietnam much differently also. Looking backward is quite different from looking around. The perspectives are radically different. The past is not happening; it happened. The present is what properly engages us in the primary sense. The rest is where we go for our education. We might respect that back then Rand's context was quite different than ours today and cut her enough slack to appreciate and understand her accomplishments and not animadvert too severely upon her perceived and understood shortcomings.

--Brant

Edited June 27, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

The claim that Rand meant by tabula rasa only the absence of innate ideas is incorrect. She claimed that nobody is born with any kind of talent, implying that for example Mozart's accomplishments were only due to diligent practice and had nothing to do with an innate talent; elsewhere she claimed that someone with an IQ of 110 can raise it to 150 if he wants. See for example this discussion.

I certainly admire and appreciate your ability, DF, to pull up these old discussions. It's pretty obvious that Rand frequently over-stepped her knowledge and in an unjustified, authoritative way. I could not go back in time, if that were possible, and have any kind of give and take with her, either personal or intellectual, not with what I know today that I didn't know then. And I count myself lucky not to have had such a relationship. It couldn't have lasted very long, regardless, not out of the 1960s' NBI milieu. (It couldn't have been the 1950s as I would have simply been too young.)

There's not too much to be made of this as I would have handled Vietnam much differently also. Looking backward is quite different from looking around. The perspectives are radically different. The past is not happening; it happened. The present is what properly engages us in the primary sense. The rest is where we go for our education. We might respect that back then Rand's context was quite different than ours today and cut her enough slack to appreciate and understand her accomplishments and not animadvert too severely upon her perceived and understood shortcomings.

--Brant

I hope George H. Smith reads the 'tabula rasa' discussion Dragonfly ('Calopterix Splendens' on RoR) linked to. http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1725_3.shtml#77

Should also be interesting to reread for Ellen Stuttle, who in #86 confirmed that DF was correct in his assessment of Rand's position. http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1725_4.shtml

George himself pointed out what fatal consequences premises exposed as false can have for a philosophy.

When I copied the excerpts from Galt's Speech posted in #45 -- from which I left out some segments with details I think need working on -- it became really clear to me that Rand did *not*, as I've often thought she did, and as I've read numerous people saying she did, make a flying leap in her logic from "sheer" survival to "flourishing" survival.

What she's arguing is that her ethics is the only ethics by which a biologically human creature *can* survive, that all other ethics lead to literal or varying degrees of living parasitic death.

"Living parasitic death" - what on earth is THAT?

So-called "parasitism" btw is a form of life successfully practised by organisms in nature. Therefore bringing up 'parasitism' as being 'anti-nature' makes no sense.

As for Rand's 'ultimate value, man's life' as DF mentioned in a past post: so-called human "parasites" can actually thrive and flourish in life.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

The claim that Rand meant by tabula rasa only the absence of innate ideas is incorrect. She claimed that nobody is born with any kind of talent, implying that for example Mozart's accomplishments were only due to diligent practice and had nothing to do with an innate talent; elsewhere she claimed that someone with an IQ of 110 can raise it to 150 if he wants. See for example this discussion.

I stand corrected. Rand was obviously wrong on some of these issues, but I'm not sure that her statement about emotions can be so easily dismissed. I have never agreed with Rand that all emotional "programming consists of the values his mind chooses," but from this it does not necessarily follow that some of our specific emotional responses are innate. There are other possibilities, such as early childhood experiences.

In any case, Rand used tabula rasa only a handful of times in her published writings. With the one exception quoted in your link, she always used the expression in the conventional Lockean sense, e.g.:

"But ultimately the content of your consciousness, since it begins tabula rasa, consists entirely of your awareness of the outside world."

"At birth, a child's mind is tabula rasa; he has the potential of awareness—the mechanism of a human consciousness—but no content."

The same is true of Peikoff, e.g.:

"Man is born tabula rasa; all his knowledge is based on and derived from the evidence of his senses."

"The mind at birth (as Aristotle first stated) is tabula rasa; there are no innate ideas."

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I hope George H. Smith reads the 'tabula rasa' discussion Dragonfly ('Calopterix Splendens' on RoR) linked to. http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1725_3.shtml#77

So let me get this straight. When you spoke of science having refuted "the tabula rasa premise," you were thinking not of how this term has been used for centuries in philosophy but rather of one particular and eccentric usage by Ayn Rand, even though you never mentioned Rand in your comment.

Yeah, right.

So I ask you again: When and how did "science" disprove the tabula rasa premise that we are not born with innate ideas?

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

In other words, what are the concepts that a baby has at birth (perhaps even at conception), prior to any experience of the world and prior to engaging in any conceptual thought? And how did those concepts get there? The rationalists who upheld the doctrine of innate ideas claimed that they are implanted by God, but I assume that "science" has given us a better answer.

Ghs

Genetics and neurophysiology. We come pre-wired with many abilities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

An ability is not the same thing as a concept, or idea. Who has ever denied that we are born with certain abilities? It didn't take genetics or neurophysiology to convince people of this. Plato discusses different innate abilities, and he wasn't the first.

Ghs

[Ellen Stuttle]

What she's arguing is that her ethics is the only ethics by which a biologically human creature *can* survive, that all other ethics lead to literal or varying degrees of living parasitic death.

The "biologically human creature" has survived most succesfully without the help of any philosopher and will continue to do so long after Rand's prescriptive ethics will have been regarded as historical as e. g. Rousseau's or Comte's morality are today.

The biologically human creature can only survive if some biologically human creature (whether that particular creature or another) is paying sufficient effortful attention to what is so as to provide at minimum the food required for survival. It's been this way since long, long, long before there were any philosophers identified as such. "Effortful attention to what is" -- what she calls in a lump and unfortunately ambiguous term "thinking" -- is the core of Rand's ethics.

As to parasitism, it's only successful as long as the hosts aren't killed off. Human parasitic living only works as long as some humans are living non-parasitically sufficiently often so the parasite has something to parasitize. The ethics of a parasite can't successfully be universalized.

Ellen

[Dragonfly]

As to parasitism, it's only successful as long as the hosts aren't killed off. Human parasitic living only works as long as some humans are living non-parasitically sufficiently often so the parasite has something to parasitize. The ethics of a parasite can't successfully be universalized.

But why should they be universalized?

[Brant Gaede]

Of the 6.2 billion humans on earth, how many fit the MQM category?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Producers--without going into myriad and interminable direct and indirect examples.

--Brant

[Xray]

"At birth, a child's mind is tabula rasa; he has the potential of awareness—the mechanism of a human consciousness—but no content."

No content? Isn't our common ancestral heritage stored in the mind?

I hope George H. Smith reads the 'tabula rasa' discussion Dragonfly ('Calopterix Splendens' on RoR) linked to. http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/1725_3.shtml#77

So let me get this straight. When you spoke of science having refuted "the tabula rasa premise," you were thinking not of how this term has been used for centuries in philosophy but rather of one particular and eccentric usage by Ayn Rand, even though you never mentioned Rand in your comment.

I was thinking primarily of the nature/vs nurture controversy which has philosophical implications; for example, the idea of tabula rasa finding its way into gender politics. In the 1970s, feminists used to argue that gender identity is mostly a result of external influences, but it looks like there is lot more pre-wired here than they thought.

I was thinking of Rand as well, and yesterday was just about to post what she had said about "talent" when I read DF's post where he already mentioned it.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Xray

[Ellen Stuttle]

As to parasitism, it's only successful as long as the hosts aren't killed off. Human parasitic living only works as long as some humans are living non-parasitically sufficiently often so the parasite has something to parasitize. The ethics of a parasite can't successfully be universalized.

But why should they be universalized?

Are you serious? If one is proposing -- as Rand was -- an abstract code which can serve as a guide for each human individually, it has to be practice-able by all humans, each individually, without contradiction. Sure, anyone can follow any code he or she pleases, but a code which, if followed consistently by all humans, would soon result in the demise of all humans does have its drawbacks as an abstract guide.

Ellen

[Dragonfly]

Are you serious? If one is proposing -- as Rand was -- an abstract code which can serve as a guide for each human individually, it has to be practice-able by all humans, each individually, without contradiction. Sure, anyone can follow any code he or she pleases, but a code which, if followed consistently by all humans, would soon result in the demise of all humans does have its drawbacks as an abstract guide.

That's what I call the baker fallacy. The fact that if all humans became bakers this would soon result in the demise of all humans is no argument against becoming a baker. Hypothetical situations that will never arise are not relevant. There is no logical reason that a morality should be egalitarian, i.e. for everyone the same. You may prefer such a system (so do I), but that is a personal opinion, not something that can be proven as being "the best" for humanity (however you want to define that in a non-circular way).

[Ellen Stuttle]

DF, I wasn't giving an argument against being a parasite. I was answering why an abstract code needs to be universalizable. (By the way, I wouldn't use the term "egalitarian" for something potentially practice-able by everyone.) Rand of course had no expectation that everyone *would* practice her code. It was offered as guidelines for those who choose to live as rational beings. The others could go their way to destruction as they wished.

Ellen

Edited July 1, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Xray]

DF, I wasn't giving an argument against being a parasite. I was answering why an abstract code needs to be universalizable. (By the way, I wouldn't use the term "egalitarian" for something potentially practice-able by everyone.) Rand of course had no expectation that everyone *would* practice her code. It was offered as guidelines for those who choose to live as rational beings. The others could go their way to destruction as they wished.

Ellen

Imo Rand's concept of "man as a rational being" reflects the problems she herself had with feeling empathy.

I'm convinced that e. g. Rand actually had no idea that her affair with NB (and the arrangement to have the sexual enounters take place in their bedroom) would hurt and humiliate Frank - after all, wasn't it the affair a "rational" decision to which Frank even had consented? See what I mean? This attitude totally blanks out the devastating emotional effects allegedly "rational" decisions can have on those affected by it, but if a person is unable to feel empathy, he/she can't see this.

The heroes and heroines in Rand's novels all have a problem with feeling empathy, but this problem is presented as a virtue. They are admiringly described as ruthless, cold, unable to feel, etc.

Roark's "I'm not thinking of you" is often admiringly quoted as the statement of an independent personality. I can imagine legions of teenagers have been impressed by Roark and wished to be like him, since teenagers often suffer from feelings of "not measuring" up to standards, and the thought of being rejecetd by their peers is agonizing for them.

And a teenager with no sexual experience may also not fully grasp the brutality of the sexual assault scnene in TF.

But for those whose first encounter with Rand's novels was at a more advanced age, imo Roark's lack of empathy (to put it mildly) can hardly be missed.

I also believe that the lack of empathy in the Objectivist doctrine is the main reason why followers who actually tried to live this have encoutered massive problems with self-denial and emotional repression.

Therefore to thoroughly examine what Rand actually knew/ignored about "man qua man" is crucial.

Edited July 3, 2010 by Xray