 Mister Know Enough
by Luke Setzer
I don't claim to know it all. I don't even claim full accuracy of what I think I do know. I only claim to know enough not to need pesky spammers. In other words, I am not "Mister Know It All." I am "Mister Know Enough." (Read more...)
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 Ayn Rand, Libertarianism, and ARI
by Tibor R. Machan
In a recent letter to the editor to The Los Angeles Times, Jeff Britting of the Ayn Rand Institute writes as follows:
"Ayn Rand did not write novels of "uncompromising libertarianism." In her view, libertarianism has no philosophy to uphold uncompromisingly.
Libertarianism rejects the need for a consistent, objective, philosophic defense of liberty and regards politics as primary. Rand was a defender of reason and recognized that political freedom requires a philosophy of reason and egoism. That is why Rand repeatedly condemned the libertarian movement, regarding herself, instead, as a "radical for capitalism." For further explanation, see Rand's novel of uncompromising objectivist, not libertarian, ideas — "Atlas Shrugged" — celebrating its 50th anniversary this year." (Letters, March 30, 2007) (Read more...)
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Four Freedoms
by Michael F Dickey
"Liberty and Freedom, you can make a distinction between them. Liberty perhaps being political rights, freedom; not being enslaved. The ancient Athenian had only one word "Eleuthera" …and to him it was the noblest and defining character of his nation. To be free." – J. Rufus Fears – “The History of Freedom” Lecture... (Read more...)
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 How Do You Prove Photography To A Blind Man?
by Skeptico Blog
A believer in psychic phenomena poses a question to a skeptic: "How would you prove to a blind man that photography exists?" Here's the skeptic's reply, which didn't make the believer happy. (Read more...)
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Organized Labor: Fascist Looters
by Michael E. Marotta
During the so-called "Great Depression," labor unions attempted to seize control of the steel mills. The result was a series of pitched battles. One of these was the Chicago Memorial Day Massacre of 1937. (Read more...)
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Property Rights Redux
by Tibor R. Machan
A little while ago I had occasion to spend time with some fine legal minds. For one thing, they were all convinced that the right to private property is central to a just legal order. And many of them were involved in striving to get this idea established and strengthened within the American legal system, in the various ways that’s possible to do through the legitimate avenues of advocacy, litigation, scholarship, and so forth. (Read more...)
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Thoughts on Free Will and Determinism
by Joseph Rowlands
The debate on Free Will vs. Determinism rages on over the years, even the centuries, without an end in sight. Objectivists are not immune to the topic. And surprisingly, even with a philosophy aimed at clarity and objectivity, it seems to be one giant muddled mess with people talking past one another. (Read more...)
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 Mark Skousen on Ayn Rand and 'Atlas Shrugged'
by Andre Zantonavitch
A brief look at libertarian Mark Skousen's views of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. (Read more...)
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 Five Words That Spell Liberation
by Luke Setzer
Many speakers invite you to "make the connection" -- whatever that means. I invite you -- yes, I do mean you -- to make the disconnection. Disconnect yourself from the obstructionists, the life drainers, the destroyers. Set yourself free from the Gordian knots of troublemakers so that you can live your life your way. (Read more...)
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 Balance vs. Integration
by Joseph Rowlands
Years ago I attended an Objectivist meeting where the participants discussed short-term vs. long-term interests. What struck me at the time was that neither standard made sense as a complete moral standard. (Read more...)
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Foundation of all Axioms the Axioms of Consciousness
by Frank De Silva
A description of consciousness leads to a contradiction with the postulation from special relativity that there can be no connections between simultaneous event. Consciousness consists of two distinct components, the observed U and the observer I. The observed U consist of all the events I is aware of. A vast majority of these occur simultaneously. Now if I were to be an entity within the space-time continuum, all of these events of U together with I would have to occur at one point in space-time. However, U is distributed over a definite region of space-time (region in brain). Thus, I is aware of a multitude of space-like separated events. It is seen that this awareness necessitates I to be an entity outside the space-time continuum. With I taken as such, a new concept called concept A is introduced. With the help of concept A a very important axiom of consciousness, namely Free Will is explained. Libet’s Experiment which was originally seen to contradict Free will, in the light of Concept A is shown to support it. A variation to Libet’s Experiment is suggested that will give conclusive proof for Concept A and Free Will.
(Read more...)
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Is Free Will Incredible?
by Tibor R. Machan
As someone who became convinced early in my life and even more so in my career as an academic philosopher that human beings normally possess free will, I have been fighting something of an uphill battle about the issue despite how ubiquitous the assumption is that we indeed do have this capacity. Anytime we hold people responsible, or urge that they alter their conduct, resist a temptation, battle some bad habit, and so forth, the free will idea lurks in the background. The criminal and even tort law, of course, assumes people could have done otherwise than they did, all things being equal. Politics, with all of its blaming and praising, is in the same situation, as is personal morality where none of it would make sense unless we had the capacity to choose how we act and thus can be faulted for failing to do what’s right. As the famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant said, "ought" implies "can." (Read more...)
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 Consciousness
by Joseph Rowlands
One of the big metaphysical concepts is consciousness. It's something we experience and are aware of directly. You know your own mind. You think, you feel, you focus, you remember, and you perceive. It's so immediate that some philosophers started with an awareness of their minds, and posited it as being primary. Reality you only know through your senses, but your mind! You know that first hand! (Read more...)
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New Zealanders flock to AdultSheepFinder.com
by Lester Haines
Bloody Australians! This is almost certainly because we thumped them three-nil in the cricket... (Read more...)
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Abortion Debate Redux
by Tibor R. Machan
Sometimes a debate or discussion goes completely astray because concepts are used that are entirely confusing. The abortion debate is a case in point. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 21, 2007 |
Sanctity of Reason
by Joseph Rowlands
It's one thing to reject reason in favor of the mystical. People do that all the time. But they do more than simply reject reason. They pervert it. (Read more...)
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Revisiting Human Nature
by Tibor R. Machan
False alternatives are often presented as if there is nothing else to choose—like, love me or hate me, or being kind or mean. But in most cases there are many other options. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 14, 2007 |
PROPEL(TM) Universal Club Brochure
by Luke Setzer
This article contains the text of the proposed PROPEL™ universal club brochure. To appreciate it fully, download the Portable Document Format (PDF) version of the file here. Note that the Web address has not yet gone live. (Read more...)
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Unauthorized Government is Wrong
by Tibor R. Machan
What has been most horrible about the bulk of political history is that some people have ruled others, often to the point of using them entirely against their will, even sending thousands and thousands of them to their deaths or using their lives for purposes they had no part in choosing. The big deal about the American revolution was the idea that one owns one’s life—the Lockean idea of the unalienable right to one’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. This was so radical a notion—although here and there expressed by earlier thinkers but never really given official endorsement—that even now most folks just don’t get it. No one owns you—not your country, not your family, not your neighborhood, not your community, no one. You are the one who owns your life and properly gets to say what will be done with it. To reiterate what Lincoln so aptly said about this, "No one is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent." In some respects everyone has an inkling of this idea—it is entirely unacceptable for a doctor to operate without the patient’s consent, or for an auto mechanic to work on your car without your giving permission, and so forth. Plain as anything can be! (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 7, 2007 |
Announcing PROPEL(TM)
by Luke Setzer
Creating a name with a catchy acronym that encapsulates the best of local Objectivist clubs proved a challenge. The honor of identifying that name belongs to the RoR Global Distributor J. J. Tuan. We call it: PROPEL™: Passionate Rational Objectivists Promoting Exuberant Living™. (Read more...)
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Causality and Change
by Joseph Rowlands
We discussed the Law of Identity, but there are two related issues that have confused people in the past. First, it's fine to say that something exists in a particular way, but what happens when it changes. For instance, your own mind has a particular identity, but as you learn new things or direct your attention to something else, it's not the same anymore? Is it no longer the same entity? Are you no longer who you were yesterday? And the other question is how do things act and react? If I put a piece of paper into a fire, it act different from how an ice cube acts. Why? What's the nature of cause and effect? (Read more...)
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Lexus Parallel Parking not For All
by Tibor R. Machan
One of the annoying elements of advertising is that it often treats us all as if we were just one person. So, for example, because some people may benefit from a product--say Lexus's new automatic parallel parking device—it appears to be suggested in the ad that this is something for us all. Of course, very few products or services being promoted to us are really for all of us. But back when advertising used to come mainly from the radio and TV industry, and both of these were oligopolies, ads were indeed usually addressed to millions of people all at once, with no differentiation among them possible. With diversified commercials now possible, targeting people in markets whose interests it is possible to anticipate, this apparent one-size-fits-all assumption in ads has subsided. (Read more...)
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 J. R. Simplot: a Legendary American Capitalist
by Michael E. Marotta
In 2006 he was estimated to be the 80th richest person in America, with $3.2 billion. He was 16 when he invested his earnings from a winter in the Idaho desert, buying 18000 acres along the Snake River. He went from onion powder to frozen potatoes and helped revolutionize how we eat.
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Human Happiness: The only kind there is.
by Ed Thompson
The subtitle to this piece indicates that's there's only one kind of true happiness (ie. the human kind). It has to do with how humans uniquely experience the act of living. A contrast with non-human beings (animals) may help illuminate what it is that human happiness is. What is required (for the illumination) is to somehow differentiate happiness from mere elation and the mere satisfaction of current desires (those things most close to happiness; which animals also experience). (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 24, 2007 |
Scientists: Earth Is Flat
by Alexander Butziger
If there had been something like an encyclopedia in the late 1400s, one entry might have read like this: (Read more...)
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