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Post 20

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 1:20amSanction this postReply
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It is most unfortunate, seen from the humane and, thus, also the intellectual side of it, that finally people like Brady Lenardo, Leibniz and Claude Shannon have to be confined to the area of Dissent, mostly due to the fact that there comes a time when the few shreds of composure with which they start attacking reason and its strict bulwark, Objectivism, breaks down to reveal their real character, filled with offensiveness, malicious remarks, snideness and scorn, rejection to recognize proven facts, presenting evidently false statements which they leave unanswered as soon as these assertions are pointed out as the evident straw men they are, gratuitously trying to heap ridicule on the challenger without giving any hint of the reason for doing so, and accusing the opponent of being what he evidently is not. Unable to demonstrate the existence of any "god" (which they know is required to place their "arguments" on the firm ground they need but lack) and unwilling to accept the proofs of its nonexistence (which I demonstrated in "Ayn Rand, I and the Universe", thus making their "argumentation" fallacious and, hence, unnecessary); unwilling to recognize the total lack of morality of their religious "systems" and unable to accept the correctness of the Objectivist morality, they live in a mesh of falseness and the contradictions that result from it.

 

However, confining such people to an area where they can no longer spew their venom and maliciousness and where they know that any newcomer will immediately know that they have been isolated due to their disgusting behavior, is the utmost civil way in which they can be treated, particularly when the fact is considered that at other times and even today, in other so-called "cultures", antagonists are imperiled with persecution, torture and/or murder, as soon as it becomes evident that groundless "arguments" have run aground on the firm terrain of reason (the attack against the Danish cartoonists and the killing of Theo van Gogh prove this sufficiently).

 

Hence, there is a deep sense of historic justice when confining such people into the area of "Dissent". Since men of reason thoroughly reject having to use force against any opponent, this way of procedure is the clearly intellectual manner to lecture that while we are at all times ready to discuss everything in a civil manner (Alas, every discussion can bring up treasures of thought of which Objectivists themselves are sometimes unaware!), we are by no means standing in line for the onslaught of hatefulness and further offensive behavior. As John Armaos said in Post 103 of "Religion is Totalitarian", nobody should "be surprised to see a little retaliation once in a while in response to an endless barrage of insults".

 

All this is a additional testimony that in a society based on reason, which is an Objectivist society, malignant manners originating in groundless hostility (since Objectivists, following the basic rules of their philosophy, are not allowed to initiate any kind of force against anyone wanting to peacefully follow the sound of another drum) will only be tolerated up to the point where the opponent shows his evidently hostile purpose.

 

Perhaps - and hopefully -, the Objectivist way will finally penetrate their up to now impervious but wrong standpoint. Though for the time being such change in the way things have been handled up to now can, unfortunately, be only applied in small areas such as "Rebirth of Reason, it is, at any rate, the clear testimony of a new kind of justice in that Objectivist society that is slowly but steadily built by its early followers.


Post 21

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 2:53amSanction this postReply
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Reply to post 19.

Of course not! As I type this I am aware that I am conscious. My neurons are firing as they should. Consciousness is a physical/physiological process taking place mostly in the brain with some collateral glandular activity.

Everything about consciousness is physical. It is, as I have, said primarily a neurological process. Ions are transported through semi permeable membranes.

There is not an iota of non-physical goings on involved in consciousness.

Bob Kolker


Post 22

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 8:11amSanction this postReply
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Of course not! As I type this I am aware that I am conscious. My neurons are firing as they should. Consciousness is a physical/physiological process taking place mostly in the brain with some collateral glandular activity.

Everything about consciousness is physical. It is, as I have, said primarily a neurological process. Ions are transported through semi permeable membranes.

There is not an iota of non-physical goings on involved in consciousness.
I'm still confused. You say "consciousness is a physical/physiological process," by which I assume you mean both physical AND psychological. Then you say, "Everything about consciousness is physical" and "There is no an iota of non-physical goings on involved in consciousness." What happened to the psychological part?

- Bill

Post 23

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 9:21amSanction this postReply
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Jim Henshaw, I have a summary outline of OPAR in the Books section of this site.

You can also get OPAR as an audio book via http://www.audible.com if you like.


Post 24

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 10:55amSanction this postReply
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There is no psychological (the root word is psuche or soul). There is only a physical process. Why can't you comprehend this. All of what happens with us is atomic a molecular. There is nothing else to us.

No soul. No spirit. No ghost. No gods. The closest thing to immaterial are the quantum fields the constitute the interactions.

Forget you ever heard the word psychology. It is misleading. There only complex electrochemical physiological processes. We are made of -stuff-. Subatomic particles, atoms, molecules and fields. That is IT.

Bob Kolker


Post 25

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 11:08amSanction this postReply
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We are made of -stuff-. Subatomic particles, atoms, molecules and fields. That is IT.


If that is the case, what is the difference between a human and a robot, or is there?

[other than degrees of sophistication]

(Edited by robert malcom on 4/07, 11:09am)


Post 26

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 11:29amSanction this postReply
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Luke, thanks for the link.  I'm sure OPAR has great insights, but I just couldn't see myself trying to slog through another 430 pages of Peikoff's writing.  When you keep having to reread a paragraph over and over because your mind keeps wandering to other stuff that's more interesting to you, it's kind of a sign that the book in question isn't right for you, however much it worked for the people who recommended it to you.

Luke, your summary of OPAR is WAY more interesting and readable (for me, at least) than OPAR itself.  Perhaps an "OPAR for Dummies" should be written using this summary and a lot of easy to understand illustrations, or at least have a summary like this put at the beginning of the OPAR so people like me who find it tedious can read a Cliff Notes version and walk away understanding the essence of Objectivism.

Some specific points in your summary I had questions about (Bill Dwyer or whoever else is reading this, feel free to jump in with your own thoughts about these items):

Chapters 1 through 4: No questions. Agree with everything there.

Chapter 5: Re this: "Any appearance of conflict between mind and emotion is, in fact, a clash between conscious and subconscious ideas."  It seems possible for a conflict between mind and emotion to be a clash between two conscious ideas or values that are mutually irreconciliable.  For example, a married person might have an emotional response to another person he (or she) knows, and at an emotional level want to have an intimate relationship with them, but their mind might say that acting on that emotion would end a marriage they value.  It seems that both the mind and emotions can have both conscious and subconscious aspects, unless you try to paper over the problem by defining mind to be strictly conscious thought and emotion to be strictly subconscious, in defiance of what most would consider reality.

Re this: "An arbitrary claim is one for which there is no evidence, either perceptual or conceptual."  This definition seems a bit fuzzy to me.  For example, the foundation of the Mormon church is an alleged incident called the First Vision, where Joseph Smith claims he saw God and Jesus as corporeal beings who spoke to him.  There is no objective evidence that any of us can sift through to prove 100% whether or not this event actually happened, but it is based on a claim of a physical event occurring, a claim that is either true or an utter fabrication.  So, by the definition above, is this an arbitrary claim because people currently living have no hard physical evidence to prove or disprove it, and can thus be dismissed out-of-hand, or is it a non-arbitrary claim because it is based on an alleged one-time non-repeating physical act that was allegedly perceived, and thus we can use reason to assign an (extremely low) probability to it being true?

Re this: "skepticism claims that knowledge of reality is impossible to man by any means".  This appears to be a redefinition of skepticism that is at odds with the common useage, where a Venn diagram would show skepticism to be a circle with Objectivism as a subset within it -- that is, skepticism in common useage is basically the rejection of mysticism, including both those who say reality is impossible to know and those who say it is possible to know.  This is similar to the Objectivist definition of altruism, which is at odds with the common useage where altruism includes both the bad kind obhorred by Objectivists, versus helping certain selected others because that is a value you think is more important than not helping them.

I'll stop here for now, since I'd like to get these items clarified before proceeding further through Luke's summary of OPAR.

(Edited by Jim Henshaw on 4/07, 1:04pm)


Post 27

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 4:33pmSanction this postReply
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Jim, thanks for the compliments.

I will let Bill Dwyer and others address your points as Bill particularly can do a better job at patiently elucidating these finer points that I can.

Perhaps if enough people can flesh this material for you clearly then you will find yourself more motivated to slog through OPAR.

I know I had to read it twice and write the summary just to "get it" myself.

I would prefer to continue this exchange in the discussion thread directly tied to the book review rather than hijack this thread.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 4/07, 4:35pm)


Post 28

Monday, April 7, 2008 - 10:54pmSanction this postReply
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Jim,

When you quote Peikoff from OPAR, would you give the page numbers, so I can establish the context of his statements? That way, I can better respond to your criticisms.

Thanks.

- Bill

Post 29

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - 9:39amSanction this postReply
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Jim Henshaw had some issues with Peikoff's statements in OPAR. For instance:
Chapter 5: Re this: "Any appearance of conflict between mind and emotion is, in fact, a clash between conscious and subconscious ideas." It seems possible for a conflict between mind and emotion to be a clash between two conscious ideas or values that are mutually irreconciliable. For example, a married person might have an emotional response to another person he (or she) knows, and at an emotional level want to have an intimate relationship with them, but their mind might say that acting on that emotion would end a marriage they value. It seems that both the mind and emotions can have both conscious and subconscious aspects, unless you try to paper over the problem by defining mind to be strictly conscious thought and emotion to be strictly subconscious, in defiance of what most would consider reality.
Jim, I don't have the context offhand, because you didn't give the page number, but I suspect that Peikoff means something different from what you're taking him to mean. By "conflict between mind and emotion," he means that you judge something to be in your interest, say, but have an emotional aversion to it. In that case, there is a conflict between your conscious evaluation (your "mind") and your subconscious evaluation (your "emotion"). On Page 157, he gives the example of the boy who believes that his mother is worthy of his love, but who nevertheless hates her. I suspect that that's the kind of thing he's talking about.
Re this: "An arbitrary claim is one for which there is no evidence, either perceptual or conceptual." This definition seems a bit fuzzy to me. For example, the foundation of the Mormon church is an alleged incident called the First Vision, where Joseph Smith claims he saw God and Jesus as corporeal beings who spoke to him. There is no objective evidence that any of us can sift through to prove 100% whether or not this event actually happened, but it is based on a claim of a physical event occurring, a claim that is either true or an utter fabrication. So, by the definition above, is this an arbitrary claim because people currently living have no hard physical evidence to prove or disprove it, and can thus be dismissed out-of-hand, or is it a non-arbitrary claim because it is based on an alleged one-time non-repeating physical act that was allegedly perceived, and thus we can use reason to assign an (extremely low) probability to it being true?
Let's be clear on what claim it is we're evaluating. If the claim is that Joseph Smith claimed to have seen God and Jesus, then that claim is not arbitrary. We have evidence that he did indeed make such a claim. But if the claim is that God and Jesus actually appeared to Joseph Smith, then since there is no evidence to support that claim, it is arbitrary. In other words, we have no evidence that Smith witnessed this event or could have witnessed it, especially since the existence of God is itself logically incoherent and bereft of evidence. Suppose that Smith had claimed that the Easter Bunny appeared to him and gave him a golden egg. It isn't just that there is a low probability of this having occurred. A low probability means there is some evidence, though not much, to support it. In the example you gave, there is no evidence whatsoever that the event occurred.
Re this: "skepticism claims that knowledge of reality is impossible to man by any means". This appears to be a redefinition of skepticism that is at odds with the common useage, where a Venn diagram would show skepticism to be a circle with Objectivism as a subset within it -- that is, skepticism in common useage is basically the rejection of mysticism, including both those who say reality is impossible to know and those who say it is possible to know. This is similar to the Objectivist definition of altruism, which is at odds with the common useage where altruism includes both the bad kind obhorred by Objectivists, versus helping certain selected others because that is a value you think is more important than not helping them.
Jim, you're evidently not familiar with philosophic terminology. The kind of skepticism Peikoff is referring to is not at odds with common philosophical usage. He is referring to epistemological skepticism, which is a standard position in philosophy. Philosophical or epistemological skepticism says that no actual knowledge is possible, a view which has its origins in ancient Greek philosophy.

- Bill



Post 30

Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - 12:19pmSanction this postReply
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Bill,

Jim can't give you page numbers from OPAR because his quotes are from Luke's summary/review.

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