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Post 20

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 1:12amSanction this postReply
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Equators, like points, lines or any other mathematical curve or object live in our heads. There is no such thing in the physical world. (Robert Kolker)
If there is no such thing in the physical world, then how is it that I crossed it in the physical world?

I wrote, "Either God exists or he doesn't." Fred Seddon replied:
Either angels exist or they don't. Rand thought they didn't exist, but that did not keep her from using them for heuristic purposes when trying to teach Peikoff about the way human, as opposed to angelic, minds work. One can use fictional entities for rational purposes. Think of Atlas Shrugged. Kant used God the way Rand used angels and Galt.
I don't understand this. Are you saying that, according to Kant, "God" was an imaginary ideal that we should try to emulate -- an archetype of rationality? If so, how would this differ from an ideal human being?

I wrote, "By the way, I don't regard the equator as an imaginary place."
I was using it in the standard sense. For example, from Wikipedia, 'The equator is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface..." The equator is imaginary, the Rockies are real. Hope that helps.
Well, okay. I understand your point. There is no physical line that one can visually identity, like a line of chalk drawn on a blackboard. But, as I said, the equator is still a physical place that be crossed, like the Rockies. It is not an imaginary entity, like an angel.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/13, 1:34am)


Post 21

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 2:02amSanction this postReply
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Merlin,
Nice to hear from you.

But you're dropping or maybe changing the context. "An imaginary number (or purely imaginary number) is a complex number whose squared value is a real number not greater than zero."

The way I was using "imaginary" has nothing to do with this math concept. Imaginary is merely opposed to a real physical entity. The equator is not a physical entity but an imaginary line that divides the earth into two hemispheres.

Speak louder, I Kant hear you.

Fred

Post 22

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 2:35amSanction this postReply
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William,

"I don't understand this. Are you saying that, according to Kant, "God" was an imaginary ideal that we should try to emulate -- an archetype of rationality? If so, how would this differ from an ideal human being?"

No. Kant is not saying we should try to emulate God. For one thing God has a holy will and we have a good will, i.e., we can choose either good or evil whereas God cannot. He necessarily does the good. God, along with other regulative notions, serve only to direct "the understanding towards a certain goal upon which the routes marked out by all its rules converge as upon their point of intersection. This point is indeed a mere idea, a focus imaginarius, from which, since it lies quite outside the bounds of possible experience, the concepts of the understadning do not in reality proceed." (CPR A644/B672)

"There is no physical line that one can visually identity, like a line of chalk drawn on a blackboard. But, as I said, the equator is still a physical place that be crossed, like the Rockies. It is not an imaginary entity, like an angel.

Do you mean to imply that, although you cannot see or touch the equator, it is a physical entity. Then I give you that. But I think there may be a problem with the use of the concept "cross." Not only can one cross the Rockies, but one can fail to cross them by smashing into them. You cannot, it seems to me, crash into the equator. A story may make my point. When I crossed the Article Circle, our pilot announced, very dramatically that we were about to "cross" the circle. Then he jerked the wheel of the plane and asked, "Did you guys feel that?" Of course, everyone laughed. They got the joke. The article circle is not the kind of physical thing that can bump a plane.
My point was that Kant and Rand use God and angels respectively to make epistemological points.

Fred

Post 23

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 4:57amSanction this postReply
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Philip Coates,

I was having a little fun with Fred.

A spoon or two of sugar on cereal is enhancing. Emptying the sugar bowl on it is not.

Your didactic personality is starting to show.  :-)


Post 24

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 5:49amSanction this postReply
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Whatever God was for Kant, I was, of course, talking about Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic, for whom God was a being to be worshipped, to pray to, to believe in, and who will punish sinners, etc.  Maybe Buckley didn't grasp the fine nuances of Kantian theology which do not easily fit with this RC position when he made reference to the idea that because morality exists, God must also exist.  But that is an accurate paraphrase of what he wrote to me.

Post 25

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 6:20amSanction this postReply
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Hey, Fred:
You said
...we can choose either good or evil whereas God cannot. He necessarily does the good.
Does God do it because it is good, or is it good because God does it?  I know it's a dumb question, but Hume-er me. : )
Thanks,
Glenn


Post 26

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 10:39amSanction this postReply
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Glenn,

"Does God do it because it is good, or is it good because God does it?"

Neither. He is necessitated to do the good by his nature and has no choice about it.

Fred




Post 27

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 11:24amSanction this postReply
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Fred wrote:
He [God] is necessitated to do the good by his nature and has no choice about it.
What does "good" mean here? In Rand's words, by what standard or moral code?

I'm assuming you are speaking for Kant. Correct?

 


Post 28

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 1:47pmSanction this postReply
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Kant is not saying we should try to emulate God. For one thing God has a holy will and we have a good will, i.e., we can choose either good or evil whereas God cannot. He necessarily does the good. God, along with other regulative notions, serve only to direct "the understanding towards a certain goal upon which the routes marked out by all its rules converge as upon their point of intersection. This point is indeed a mere idea, a focus imaginarius, from which, since it lies quite outside the bounds of possible experience, the concepts of the understanding do not in reality proceed." (CPR A644/B672
I still don't see why God is necessary under this conception. If God is serving merely as an imaginary standard of judgment or morality, then you don't need God. You can have an abstract standard of judgment or morality without him.

I wrote, "There is no physical line that one can visually identity, like a line of chalk drawn on a blackboard. But, as I said, the equator is still a physical place that be crossed, like the Rockies. It is not an imaginary entity, like an angel."
Do you mean to imply that, although you cannot see or touch the equator, it is a physical entity.
Well, if the ship I was on crossed it, then it was positioned on the equator at the time it made the crossing. Otherwise, it could not have crossed it. I could see the area of the ocean located at the equator when I crossed it and I could have touched it, if I had had the opportunity.
But I think there may be a problem with the use of the concept "cross." Not only can one cross the Rockies, but one can fail to cross them by smashing into them. You cannot, it seems to me, crash into the equator. A story may make my point. When I crossed the Article Circle, our pilot announced, very dramatically that we were about to "cross" the circle. Then he jerked the wheel of the plane and asked, "Did you guys feel that?" Of course, everyone laughed. They got the joke. The article [arctic] circle is not the kind of physical thing that can bump a plane.
No, but that's hardly the criterion for whether something is real or imaginary. The arctic circle is a location on the earth that one can fly over.
My point was that Kant and Rand use God and angels respectively to make epistemological points.
I've never heard Rand use angels to make a philosophical point. When did she do this?

Glenn asked, "Does God do it because it is good, or is it good because God does it?" You replied, "Neither. He is necessitated to do the good by his nature and has no choice about it."

Then what he does is not "good." The concept "good" presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of choice in the face of an alternative. Where no choice or alternatives exist, no morality is possible. If God has no choice about an action, then his action is neither good nor evil.

- Bill


Post 29

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 2:39pmSanction this postReply
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Bill: "I still don't see why God is necessary under this conception. If God is serving merely as an imaginary standard of judgment or morality, then you don't need God. You can have an abstract standard of judgment or morality without him."

You say that as though that point is obvious, Bill =) Of course, Objectivists know it's true. But I've learned that it's not at all obvious to many other people who eschew moral relativism.

For example, I know that Alan Keyes, prominent spokesman for social conservatism and perennial Republican presidential hopeful, has repeatedly said that God is necessary to "complete the argument" that individual rights are above man-made law (which he believes justifies outlawing abortion). He dismisses out of hand the notion that an alternative to a God-given moral code could exist. And many other well-known conservatives take the same view.

Post 30

Friday, March 14, 2008 - 12:57pmSanction this postReply
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Merlin,
Kant defines the good as, "that which by means of reason commends itself by its mere concept." CJ Section 4.
You're right of course. Using Rand's definition as that which furthers the live of the being in question, there can be no good for God since nothing is beneficial or inimical to his existence; he is eternal.

Fred

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Post 31

Friday, March 14, 2008 - 1:11pmSanction this postReply
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William,

"I still don't see why God is necessary under this conception. If God is serving merely as an imaginary standard of judgment or morality, then you don't need God. You can have an abstract standard of judgment or morality without him."

You are right. You could use Dagny or Galt or the ideal man or whatever, Kant just happened to have used God. Today he probably would not.

"No, but that's hardly the criterion for whether something is real or imaginary"

Well, how do you define the "real" as opposed to the "imaginary." My on line dictionary defines the "imaginary" as existing only in the imagination. Given that there is a sense in which you can't cross the equator. Of course there are senses in which that locuation makes sense.

"I've never heard Rand use angels to make a philosophical point. When did she do this?"

Peikoff reports this in the Q&A to the lectures on Aquinas in his History of Philosophy series. He also states that she is the greatest authority on Aquinas' angels that he ever met. And this was said a few miles from Fordham, a Jesuit university. Hm.

Fred




Post 32

Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 4:32amSanction this postReply
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So what? Alan Keyes is whistling in the dark. (To think that, say, Aristotle or Spinoza lacked an ethics or was a relativist is nuts.)

Post 33

Saturday, March 22, 2008 - 11:33amSanction this postReply
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Machan: "So what? Alan Keyes is whistling in the dark. (To think that, say, Aristotle or Spinoza lacked an ethics or was a relativist is nuts.)"

I guess you're responding to my comment from over a week ago.

No one I know of has claimed that Aristotle or Spinoza lacked an ethics or was a relativist, by the way. I said that many intelligent people today believe you CAN'T have an absolute morality without God. I cited Alan Keyes as an example, because he's a well-known conservative spokesman who has said exactly that.

Post 34

Sunday, April 6, 2008 - 11:17amSanction this postReply
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Old Dogs

Psychologically, the idea that God is a necessity in a world with a real morality is plausible and powerful, even if invalid. I think it stems from our natures as mammals who are inculcated in good behavior by our parents. God becomes for most people the abstract personification of parental authority.

I myself was raised Catholic, and even when I began to be a freethinking deist at about age 13, I retained the notion of God for two reasons - as a first cause and as the final arbiter of morality. Once I read Rand's arguments (at age 16) in The Objectivist Ethics, it quickly became evident that a personal God was an hypothesis of which I had no further need.

Why Buckley never progressed that far is an open question. I suspect that like many people he had become too invested in the idea by early adulthood to suffer the discomfort of reconsidering his position and uprooting his belief system. Rand herself said that there's no point in trying to convert one's parents. I think Buckley was a comfortable old man from a very young age.

Ted Keer

Post 35

Sunday, April 6, 2008 - 8:00pmSanction this postReply
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Gore Vidal finally posted something about Buckley:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080320_gore_vidal_speaks_seriously_ill_of_the_dead/


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Post 36

Sunday, April 6, 2008 - 9:42pmSanction this postReply
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I read the piece by Gore Vidal and I certainly think that these two (Buckley and Vidal) roundly deserved each other, if for no other reason than they were both pompous asses whose shared trait was a fondness for mangling language to the point of incomprehensibility. Why use one word when twenty will do.

Regards,
--
Jeff
(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 4/06, 9:43pm)


Post 37

Saturday, September 19, 2009 - 8:28amSanction this postReply
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The equator is not unreal. It is simply not an entity, not a body. Rather, it exists relationally, like a shadow, or a fever, or the axis of spin of a child's ball.

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