An Atlas Commission for Rational Scientists

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Stolyarov_Theorem.html

Greetings.

During my intellectual exchanges with Objectivists and persons of related persuasions, I have encountered and benefited from works of music, visual art, poetry, and fiction that clearly spring from a fundamental devotion to reason on the part of their creators and are thoroughly infused with Objectivist principles. To a significant extent, I have partaken in these developments myself.

Given the popular notion (in mainstream thought, at least) that esthetics and the natural sciences must be compartmentalized into their own unrelated sferes, it may surprise some that I am also quite an enthusiast of sound mathematics and have in fact delved into new territory with explorations of Stolyarovian Functions (http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Stolyarovian_Functions.html) as well as a series of works in which I gradually discovered a quite complex but also intricately systematic method of deriving all known Fundamental Pythagorean Triples.

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Corollaries

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Macroperiodicity.html

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Further_Corollaries.html

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Stolyarovs_Twelfth_Corollary.html

I would like to know whether there are other rational thinkers on this forum who have worked (either as a career choice or a personal hobby) on matters related to either mathematics or the so-called “natural sciences,” which are primarily concerned with the integration of empirical data. Here is my request for those individuals:

Write an article (of whatever length reasonably explains your endeavors) concerning your undertakings, with a particular focus on your objectives and the principles you use in reaching them or having reached them. Assume that readers will be familiar with terminology approximately at the level of an introductory college science or mathematics course, but please define any special vocabulary that is required to grasp your endeavor.
Write about the influence that Objectivist principles and/or related rational convictions have had in regard to your work in this field.
Submit this article to my magazine, The Rational Argumentator, whose Master Index is accessible at http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/masterindex.html. This can be done in numerous ways. You can post the article here or e-mail it to rationalargumentator@yahoo.com, or even post it on TRA’s forum at http://rationalarg.proboards24.com. You may, of course, submit it to any other publications as you see fit.
If the article is printed on TRA, you will receive 50 Atlas Points (this will require you to have at least 10 distinct posts and/or gallery items on SOLO that I had not yet sanctioned, but, even if you do lack that number at present, this should not be a problem). If you employ my orthografic innovation (i.e. putting “f” in place of “ph” where it should be pronounced as “f” fonetically), you will receive an additional 10 Atlas Points.

I hope that many individuals will respond to this offer, and I look forward to reading about the choice endeavors of rational men of science in an age when mainstream paradigms have become stale, orthodox, repressive, and inconsistent with the Law of Identity. (This is also an experiment with the allocation of Atlas Points; if they are indeed intellectual currency, then they ought to be used as a basis for “commissions” such as these).

I am

G. Stolyarov II

Post 1

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 - 2:44pm

Greetings.

I am pleased to note that Mr. Paul Hibbert (Sam Erica) has responded to this commission with a work that has been a project of his since his university days as an engineering student. You can read his work: "SABRE: Stress Analysis by REflection" at http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/SABRE.html.

It may be supplemented by additional diagrams in the future.

You, too, can respond to this commission, as it does not have a time of expiration.

I have, however, noticed, somewhat to my dismay, that my first post has received a vote of non-sanction from a Level 2 member of SOLO. (I assume he will do the same for this one). What does he have against the exchange of scientific ideas to mutual benefit?

I suspect that this is the same individual who has been responsible for the withdrawal of about 50 Atlas Points from Citizen Rat just because the latter had stated his views in a tactful, civil manner. The present withdrawal of sanction from me may be a result of my public discouragement of this use of the non-sanction option and for my stating that Citizen Rat's ideas and activism may exhibit substantial value to us in the defense of capitalism. So, now, in the eyes of this unknown individual, I seem to have, like Citizen Rat, become persona non grata.

There are other ways to resolve differences than clicking the "X" button. Communication, open and private, are options that this individual may not have considered.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 2

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 - 2:57pm

Mr Stolyarov:

Didn't you X off a bunch of Regi's posts? We must recognize that a system of voting such as this has two votes "for" and "against" or "agree" and "disagree" If the purpose is only to vote for something and never against something what's the point? Agree or shut up? I don't think that serves any useful purpose. In any case, Bill and any others can get back to non-moderated level by adding content, not merly waiting to be "sanctioned" so there is a way around the whole thing.

Ethan

Post 3

Tuesday, April 20, 2004 - 2:59pm

FWIW I have unsnactioned several of Bill's posts that I disagreed with, but non of yours Mr Stolyarov. With your level of Atlas points, you are hardly persona non grata :-)

Post 4

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 12:01pm

Mr. Dawe,

You wrote: If the purpose is only to vote for something and never against something what's the point? Agree or shut up? I don't think that serves any useful purpose.

There is a purpose in voting against a given post when it demonstrates incivility and a contempt for other parties in the discourse. However, honest disagreement is vital to any effort to discover truth. It can serve to genuinely challenge one's value premises or at least provide ample intellectual practice. This should not be penalized, but rather encouraged. The trap in which many Objectivists have become mired and stagnated is that of dogmatism, which is in part caused by an insufficient checking of one's premises through intellectual exercise. A dogmatist's implicit mindset is "I am right a priori, and you have hurt me simply by disagreeing with me. Therefore you deserve to be deprived of sanction/ostracized." This is too reminiscent of the mindset of Politically Correct leftists whom we, I am sure, all detest.

By the way, you are correct that, if current trends continue, I am still (and will be) the best shielded against them. But yesterday I have received two additional non-sanctions for such innocent matters as either 1) attempting to publicize scientific research or 2) criticizing current trends in allocation of Atlas Points by certain SOLOists. That someone would do this without communication with regard to either of these subjects is an ultimate manifestation of dogmatism and disdain on that person's part.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 5

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 1:54pm

Just two small comments here: (1) it is easy to click the wrong icon, even if they are close together (as they should be, paradoxically enough, to minimize this problem); and (2) the word "Sanction" is a poor choice of label--several times I myself have misinterpreted it to mean what it means in relation to Iraq.

Post 6

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 7:55pm

Stolyarov:

" But yesterday I have received two additional non-sanctions for such innocent matters as either 1) attempting to publicize scientific research or 2) criticizing current trends in allocation of Atlas Points by certain SOLOists."

why do you worry about non-sanction votes? they really do not say much except for the opinion of an audience too timid to explicitly reveal itself and speak its mind, and, whatever the worth or non worth of atlas points, you need not worry about ever lacking them. your point count is immense and consistently increasing, even with minute drawbacks such as this

Post 7

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 7:48am

Mr. Stolyarov,

I am one of those people who voted to not sanction some of our resident Catholic's posts. Not all, or even most, but some. The reason I did this was not because he was not civil, polite, or tactful. I did it because I disagreed with the content of his posts. I left the majority of them alone but the ones I voted to not sanction were the ones I thought were in direct opposition to my fundamental values.

Civility, politeness, and tact are all a part of the virtue of benevolence. Benevolence is good when it comes to two or more rational individuals trading or cooperating with each other. It is next to meaningless when you are dealing with someone who is making an all-out concerted effort to argue against the fundamental principles that an Objectivist (or any rational individual) would hold. Ellsworth Toohey from "The Fountainhead" is an example of an intelligent, civil, and tactful individual, especially when compared to the sometimes rude Howard Roark. Would you sanction Toohey over Roark?

For an example from my own life, when a distinguished gentleman in a presentable suit from the Sierra Club eloquently explained to me (with accompanying charts and spreadsheets) why the deaths of millions of humans does not compare to the cutting down of a tree or the extinction of a species of insect, it does not matter much to me that he said "good morning", "please", or "thank you" where appropriate. What he is saying to me is wrong and all the civility in the world will not change that. Needless to say, he did not get a dime from me!

Byron

Post 8

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 8:41am

Mr. Stolyarov,

I have a couple more things to add . . .

You would be right to say that a person with a claim to knowledge either "a priori" or knowing of the evidence to the contrary is a dogmatist. I am sure the majority of the active members of SOLO are not interested in Objectivism because of "a priori" knowledge. Dogmatism is more the province of ARI who sometimes takes The Good Word of Ayn Rand on faith (e.g. "tiddlywinks" is the best form of music and Beethoven is evil).

"Citizen Rat" has tried to present arguments that our consciousness is explained by some method other than reason, i.e. "faith". He goes on further to say that consciousness is apart or exempt from casuality. He does this by (incorrectly) equating casuality with a "cause-and-effect materialistic determinism" and asserting that science is all about discovering "chains of cause-and-effect". None of his arguments are reason for me to depart from Objectivism. In fact, it would be a cold day in Hell (figuratively) before I can agree with him. Why? The primacy of existence is a fundamental axiom of Objectivism, as opposed to the primacy of consciousness, and for good reason. Anyone who denies the former in favor of the latter is evading reality. "Citizen Rat" is an evader, plain and simple. There is no way around that. You can have an honest disagreement as to whether homosexuality is evil or a woman can be President. You cannot have an "honest disagreement" about the primacy of existence.

Byron

Post 9

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 2:57pm

Mr. Garcia,

You present your case clearly and honestly; your case needed such a presentation-- this does not prevent me from disagreeing with it, however, just as a similar approach would not prevent me from disagreeing with Toohey or Citizen Rat's ideas on consciousness. However, I do not embrace your comparison of Citizen Rat to Toohey, as Toohey embraces the creed of sacrifice and totalitarianism whole-heartedly, and his civility is a mere deliberate mask for a moral monster. On the other hand, Citizen Rat has admitted that he loves the material world, that he seeks deregulation and genuine capitalism, and that he holds certain moral standards of excellence, decency, and courtesy (as applicable to his personal conduct and to the general culture; see his discourse on my article, "The Orwellian Popular Culture of Modernity.") http://solohq.com/cgi-bin/SHQ/SHQ_Forum.cgi?Function=FirstUnread&Board=2&Thread=556.

This means that, even despite fundamental disagreements which should not be ignored, Citizen Rat possesses values to offer Objectivists in the intellectual sfere. Argue against him all you will on the subjects of volition and theism-- I will be likely to agree with you and sanction your words where you eloquently present your case, but I think that the non-sanctioning symbolizes that Citizen Rat's very presence and presentation of his arguments are not welcomed by certain SOLOists. This is a suggestion that we should avoid, as, even in the hypothetical scenario where the entirety of Citizen Rat's argument is false, he still provides a worthy intellectual challenge and training for our own argumentation.

You wrote: "You can have an honest disagreement as to whether homosexuality is evil or a woman can be President."

Granted. I would think that "honest disagreements" among Objectivists can extend to any periferal (i.e. non-fundamental) topic. Do you agree?

A final question: do you think it is possible for any given individual to be intellectually honest and yet not hold explicitly Objectivist convictions, though his ideas may be closely related in many cases? Why or why not?

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 10

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 5:02pm

Mr. Stolyarov,

Thank you for your candid response. I will try to answer all your questions to the best of my ability.

First, I did not intend to compare Toohey with Citizen Rat, at least not directly. I gave Toohey as an example of why civility and tact in itself is not a barrier to me not sanctioning what someone says. I gave Roark as an example of why an Objectivist may give their moral sanction to someone who was not very tactful. It was my impression that you were arguing otherwise since you wrote earlier on this thread that the purpose of voting against a post is if it demonstrates incivility or contempt. It appeared to me that you were saying the presentation of an argument is of equal or greater significance to the argument itself. It never mentioned the values that Citizen Rat offers . . . or did I miss another post where you did make that argument? From what posts of his I have read, Citizen Rat does defend capitalism, but not on the basis of rational egoism. He defends it on the basis of altriusm, which makes him not that much different from the Republicans and other conservatives. I would take a conservative to a liberal any day, but they are a far cry from being a libertarian. Otherwise, I find nothing wrong with working with a conservative to cut taxes, or a liberal to promote free speach, if achieving like goals was the extent of the relationship.

I am more than willing to hear any argument contrary to Objectivism and I do find much value in engaging in a rational debate . . . to a point. That point for me is when the other person makes a willful and deliberate claim to knowledge through some other method than reason. It is at that point that a rational person cannot persuade the whim-worshipper through reason alone. If the argument is limited to what we can know through reason, then all is fair game. Yes, we can honestly disagree on any periphereal issue, perhaps even some essential issues (except axioms such as "existence exists"). Human knowledge is contextual, i.e. based on the best of our knowledge at any given time. There is some room for an innocent error. For example, when Ayn Rand first said homosexuality is immoral, scientists and psychologists did not know as much about homosexuality as we do now. I am sure if she knew what we know now, she would reconsider her stance. Then again, reading the books written by the Brandens lead me to believe she was not the paragon of rationality that some Objectivists would hope for.

With that, it is possible for a non-Objectivist to be intellectually honest if he or she bases his or her arguments on reason and reality. This is more so because the definition for "Objectivist" is, well, not very objective. If Objectivism is defined by the work Ayn Rand published during her life, I cannot honestly call myself an Objectivist, nor can the majority of individuals who are members of SOLO or TOC. She publicly said and wrote that she did not leave any room for any disagreement with her. It is unfortunate she never wrote a treatise that defined, once and for all, what Objectivism is and is not. I agree with Nathaniel Branden's and David Kelley's take on it as an open system, but I am eagerly looking forward to reading what Diana Hsieh has to say on the subject of her break with TOC.

Byron

Post 11

Monday, May 10, 2004 - 12:32pm

I read through this:

http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Stolyarovian_Functions.html

I am not a 'professional mathematician' in the sense of being an academician. However, as a person who uses advanced mathematics at work on an everyday basis, I think this notation is unnecessary.

To elaborate, consider a mapping/function T: X->X (the domain and range are an appropriately defined space X), the notation T^2(x), in modern mathematics, means T(T(x)) [I am using the LaTeX notation ^ to denote power]. Note that if T:X->Y, where X and Y are two different spaces, the notation is meaningless because T(T(x)) is not defined. Adding an additional star, for instance, can make it ambiguous. For example, should T^{2*} be interpreted as the 'new' function notation or as the complex conjugate of T^2(x)?

In mathematics, although one can make the notations very precise, it is often simpler to infer the meaning of a symbol or a statement from the context. Thus one comes across statements like 'the topological space X' where in actuality the reference is to the underlying set X and a collection of its subsets that forms the topology.

Notations must be concise, consistent and clear within the context. When clarity is required, it is often better to write explicitly than to invent a new notation. I agree that one sometimes comes across expressions like ln^2 x and wonders, at first sight, whether it means ln ln x or (ln x)^2. But most often, a second look will clarify the situation.

Notations are just a means of conveying an idea; they are not the primary.

One of my favorite discussions on this topic, the ideas of which I have borrowed, is in chapter 2 of Walter Rudin's "Real and Complex Analysis" (McGraw Hill Book Company, New York. I don't have the book right now to quote page numbers.).

coaltontrail

Post 12

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 - 2:11pm

Greetings.

coalton trail, you have given interesting feedback. You claim that the nature of a function can be inferred from its context, even if notation is ambivalent.

But, let us analyze the following situation, where we are given an equation:

ln(ln(y))= (ln x)²

It may be that it is desired to discover the derivative of y with respect to x, or just solve for one variable in terms of the other. If your suggested “inference of notation from context” is used, and ln(ln(y)) is written as ln²y, and someone could interpret (ln x)²as being equivalent to ln²x (from a variety of precedents, including sin²x and cos²x, as well as the not so uncommon way of writing (ln x)²as ln²x) one could mistakenly infer that x=y, despite the fact that this could not be further from the truth.

On the other hand, if one writes:

ln^˜y= ln²x

There should be little to no confusion as to the nature of the functions.

Mathematics is the foundation of the observational sciences much as filosofy is the foundation of the humanitarian disciplines. No ambiguity must be brooked in either. In mathematics, there should be as strict and logically consistent a definition of terms as Ayn Rand insisted on in filosofy, and there should be no room for equating non-A with A or equating ln²x with ln^˜x.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 13

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 - 8:59am