Ayn Rand versus conservatives
Posted by Zenphamy 9 years ago to Philosophy
Since so much of Galt's Gulch Online content has become conservative headline aggregation posting and commentary over the last several months, let's discuss what Ayn Rand thought of conservatives and conservativism. She put forth quite a bit of commentary on the subject, particularly after Atlas Shrugged came out.
To put it bluntly, she considered conservatives as big a danger to this country as she did liberals/progressives, considering both leading the country down a path towards statism, socialism, anti-capitalism, and most importantly-anti-freedom. Following is just one quote, there are a number:
“Conservatives”
Objectivists are not “conservatives.” We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish . . .
Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics—on a theory of man’s nature and of man’s relationship to existence. It is only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as “conservatism.” . . .
Today’s culture is dominated by the philosophy of mysticism (irrationalism)—altruism—collectivism, the base from which only statism can be derived; the statists (of any brand: communist, fascist or welfare) are merely cashing in on it—while the “conservatives” are scurrying to ride on the enemy’s premises and, somehow, to achieve political freedom by stealth. It can’t be done.
The Objectivist Newsletter
“Choose Your Issues,”
The Objectivist Newsletter, Jan, 1962, 1
So What Do You Think Conservatives
To put it bluntly, she considered conservatives as big a danger to this country as she did liberals/progressives, considering both leading the country down a path towards statism, socialism, anti-capitalism, and most importantly-anti-freedom. Following is just one quote, there are a number:
“Conservatives”
Objectivists are not “conservatives.” We are radicals for capitalism; we are fighting for that philosophical base which capitalism did not have and without which it was doomed to perish . . .
Politics is based on three other philosophical disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics—on a theory of man’s nature and of man’s relationship to existence. It is only on such a base that one can formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into politics without such a base, the result is that embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility, inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely designated today as “conservatism.” . . .
Today’s culture is dominated by the philosophy of mysticism (irrationalism)—altruism—collectivism, the base from which only statism can be derived; the statists (of any brand: communist, fascist or welfare) are merely cashing in on it—while the “conservatives” are scurrying to ride on the enemy’s premises and, somehow, to achieve political freedom by stealth. It can’t be done.
The Objectivist Newsletter
“Choose Your Issues,”
The Objectivist Newsletter, Jan, 1962, 1
So What Do You Think Conservatives
No social system can stand for long without a moral base. Project a magnificent skyscraper being built on quicksands: while men are struggling upward to add the hundredth and two-hundredth stories, the tenth and twentieth are vanishing, sucked under by the muck. That is the history of capitalism, of its swaying, tottering attempt to stand erect on the foundation of the altruist morality."
My understanding of conservatism is a conservation of principals intended in our constitution.
Your right, one cannot be altruistically individual.
One can only make a choice and except the consequences, that's about as "altruistic" as it gets, however, it's still a choice. One with sound mind would never deny self but might chose to take a chance in favor of another.
Poetry to my ears.
Thanks for this input.
I simply bring to the table not a formal education in psychology or philosophy but an understanding of reality from a source external to myself.
I seek to have a dialogue within this forum, which is advocated from my understanding, to understand why your faith in reason as man's ultimate means to perception is valid.
Yes, confabulate is my objective, if that is what you really mean.
There is absolutely no means of perception on this earth that doesn't start out with first principles or precepts that must be taken on faith; therefore, with reasoning being a means of perception, its first principles/precepts must be taken on faith. Read the following as my proof of this concerning the theory of evolution.
For example, let's assume all Objectivists are atheists and by that they believe man evolved by random means over time. If that is the case, then what you call reason and your conclusions from such a process can change because you have no basis for it not to change since you believe we are evolving via random processes over time. How can you say your reasoning process is valid when you can never say that man will always reason the same way?
I am honestly trying to understand.
"Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature.[2] The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.[3]
Reason or "reasoning" is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination"
And:
"Faith is complete confidence or trust in a person or thing; or a belief not based on proof. It may also refer to a particular system of religious belief.[1] The term 'faith' has numerous connotations and is used in different ways, often depending on context"
As to man's evolution being purely a random process or set of random events, I'm not going to get into that quagmire with you. I will only say that your description of evolutionary process is incorrect, based on empirical evidence and experimentation. I fully understand that your definition is largely based on the Biblical--that God created man in his own image. But you can have no idea or concept of what God's image is, since you believe that God is unknowable and unfathomable except as revealed to the writers of your Bible.
Essentially, we're going to have a really tough time communicating until we can reach agreement on our language and accepted definitions. Your belief system of knowledge is going to keep butting heads with my fact system of knowledge. That doesn't mean that I won't continue to try, but I would ask that you do a little work on your own in reaching a little more in depth understanding of Objectivism. I was raised in your religion/faith/system until I reached a level of cognitive growth that recognized the contradictions in that system and understand it fully.
It's only fair that I ask that you put yourself on an equal footing by studying just a little of what you're arguing against.
.
I would argue that faith is required at some level for all means of perception, whether it is the laws of nature or God. The problem with faith in the laws of nature is you cannot be sure the laws of nature will not change so your reasoning from one period to the next may be inconsistent.
Thoughts?
Does anyone gain any actual, factual knowledge from that which will help him deal with his life in reality? Well no, but that's kind of the intent, you see. Now you'll be ready to support him so that he can explain all of this again to you on Sunday and maybe vote the way he tells you that God, who you can't comprehend or hear, but he can, told him to instruct you to vote that way, and keep supporting him so he can keep explaining to you how to live so that someday, after you die, and can't call him on it if he lied to you, you'll be able to meet God.
He's just made you his slave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSISi...
How do you know there was "nothing" before there was "something"? That was your assertion; and I assumed you knew what your were saying, so an explanation should be simple.
Something has always existed and it is either physical or metaphysical; therefore, I do not believe that "nothing" was before the "something" that produced matter.
If you believe it is solely physical, then how do you get meaning, value and morals? If metaphysical, and it created the physical, couldn't the metaphysical reveal meaning, value and morals?
In the absence of objective evidence, your assertions are beliefs (faith) comprised of your subjective presumptions. As a matter of faith, your belief has no more credence than any other assertion without objective evidence to support it.
Drill back into your beliefs and, at each level, ask yourself, "how do I know that?" You'll find where you believe just because you want to believe; or, you'll eventually reason your way out of faith's web of false alternatives to ideas that are supported by the evidence of existence.
It takes more faith to say God isn't the cause vs. saying He is because if He isn't the cause, then you are valueless except in your own mind, as a result of evolutionary thinking.
If you refuse to address the development of absolute (not cultural or subjective) values, then your philosophy is vapid.
Logical, Rational Reason Does Not = God. Only Belief Can = Fairy Dust, Magic Incantations, Ghosts, or Flying Pigs
Why does it matter to you what someone else believes or doesn't believe about a religion?
Just wondering...
Those you speak of get to vote in the same world I live in.
Not sure how I am proselytizing. If you know the heart of man, then you are advocating you have abilities akin to an omniscient being, which is not allowed here. Last I checked we are allowed to discuss the tenets of Objectivism, a key point of which is reason, is it not?
I am sure this forum is not designed for only blind Objectivists.
" Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone."
Bye now.
Did Ms. Rand just give up?
I think that she hit a wall in her philosophy and reasoned the unknown (limitations of reason) is unknowable. How unfortunate...
Lastly, you won't find my responses including derogatory terms such as "silly," "stupid," "dumb,", etc... because I intend to explain my position because I know it is valid and I believe if others have a legitimate question (not a question to be pejorative or condescending) I am more than willing to answer it. I am not above it.
If you're unable to use reason in a logically rational way, you have nothing of value to offer to an Objectivist,
An example of a necessary fiction of great value, the irrational belief in a God. To paraphrase Napoleon, "Religion keeps the poor from murdering the rich" which is way beneficial for we rich. It is a NECESSARY fiction because it improves my quality of life.
In fact, a new necessary fiction for the season: " I will not gain 10 pounds between T-Giving and the Superbowl."
Old dino follows his own path.
You get to decide what is yours in a free society.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/p...
Since I plan to once again vote for the Libertarian candidate (which I have done since 1972), my choice is already easy.
As Rand said when you think you have a contradiction check your premises one or more of them will be wrong.
First off the center as you were no doubt taught is the center of the left not the true center of political discourse. That would be the Constitution.
On the left the Democrats are the left wing of the left and primarily socialist statist/corporatists. the Republicans for the most part including their majority and their leadership are are the right wing OF THE left and primarily socialist corporatist/statists.
Both of them believe in control of people by Government.
The Constitution is the constant int he center the pivot point - used or not.
Opposed to the Republicans and the Democrats who together form what I call the Government party are people who believe
Citizens control Government as their temporary servants
The two opposites are Government Control and Citizen Control. We have the first and do not have the second. Since since 1913.
Your position is somewhere in the middle something like JFK who was an economic conservative and liberal in most other areas.
The term used by the left is bi-conceptualism meaning you see and agree with part of one concept and disagree with another. Makes you a target for both. This is where two other terms come up bi-partisanship and cross-partisanship and the notion can't we all get along. No we can't and we shouldn't.
But the arrangement is such you think you have only two choices. You don't and are not limited to left or right. I
The opposite of your dilemma is since the candidates at the controlled or State Economics end of the spectrum are all all pandering to the religious and secular left on social and moral issues. Neither one of the recognizes your position as valid only as a hunting ground for votes.
Now look around and see who or what philosophy might allow you the one thing that's missing in both parts of the Government Coalition.
You don't get to think for yourself . No independent thought and conclusions and no freedom of choice.
Where might you find that situation. Libertarians? Some of the Splinter parties. discussions here in the Gulch and other forums but you will never find it with the Rino Controlled Republicans nor the Democrats. It isn't allowed don't you know? Not cricket.
Last sentence using the above model or construct leads you to where you are at but with less confusion and less chance of being co-opted but what in fact is The Left Government Over People.
When in doubt check premises do your research, ask questions. Also For any question another good Rand Quote. There are three answers. Right, Wrong, and Compromise which makes a total of two Wrong and one Right answer.
Congratulations you are almost there.
I'm not a Libertarian myself I'm a Constitutionalist. Not a party but a belief.
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require.
That particular portion would require an amendment. (OR an Obamative)
Why is it so egregious to believe/hope for in an afterlife? Why does it matter to anyone how the teachings of Rand fit into my moral code or anyones?
Unless I'm pushing what I believe on you or anyone I do not understand why people get so bent each time I mention faith in any context. A moral code doesn't have to be yours or mine, its simply a measure. If a politician is willing to put his neck on the line professing his moral code then its there to be chopped off if he fails to live up to it.
No skin off my nose.
If anything, all of us should hope to know as much about a candidate and why he/she makes the decisions he/she does (whether we believe as they do or not). A profession of faith make knowing easier.
A few months ago, there was a science article about the possibility of life on an exoplanet. In a casual conversation I brought up with him, his remarks to me were “You don’t really believe in the possibility of life elsewhere do you?” His point of view is a religious point of view where he believes in creation and the whole store right out of the bible. He’s a good guy and I can respect his views without having to incorporate them as my own.
Even though it’s a logical fallacy to prove a negative and we do have proof of evaluation, he still believes what he believes. You see, science is never done, it’s never settled and we should always keep an open mind. The vast majority of people on our planet believe in a higher being, which alone is a metric that needs to be included.
Just because I don’t recognize a property that you do (faith) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I personally don’t sense a higher being but I leave the possibility that said higher being has choosing not to speak with me. If you ask this person if they have proof of their higher being and almost always they will respond “no, I just know”. Sounds illogical but to the vast majority of our population, this is what they sense/believe. As a rational being, how can I rule out the possibility of a higher being given the fact that I’m an extreme minority.
If you asked color blind man to describe red, what would he say?
I completely believe that you can be rational while believing in a faith. I personally have choosing not to answer this question, I’ve choosing the path of an agnostic.
You can reject the supernatural out of hand because it is based on faith, without proof. That is atheist -- a-theist, meaning rejecting theism -- not agnostic. When someone makes arbitrary claims based on his feelings you properly reject it as cognitively irrelevant, not "gee, maybe". Possibility requires evidence.
If in addition the claims are contradictory, which they usually are beyond the most vague notions, then you know it can't possibly be true. Whether or not you are in the minority is irrelevant. No majority can tell you as an individual with your own reasoning mind what you must believe is or is possible, insisting that evidence and reason are irrelevant. Intellectual integrity means you do not submit to it.
The color blind man lacks the perceptual ability to distinguish colors, just as everyone else lacks the ability to perceive the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is far more than the range of visible light. It's not an argument for faith. A color blind man can't perceive colors the way you do (either entirely or partially) but he can understand the phenomenon abstractly when you explain physics to him.
He can in principle understand it conceptually based on reason, just as we understand much of physics today in realms that are not perceived directly -- from atomic and subatomic physics, to light and electromagnetism, to infrared astronomy, all of which are understood conceptually through proper concepts and principles based on observation and experimental confirmation. A physicist who tried to claim he "just knows" without explanation and proof would (or should) properly be dismissed out of hand along with the theists. It's not science. A physicist can and must pursue hypotheses he has some reason to believe may be true, and try to confirm or disconfirm them through experiment, but he cannot make claims to truth based on faith. Attempting to dress up faith with imaginative rationalizations as has been typical in the church and in modern Creationism, is neither reason nor science.
A person cannot simultaneously be rational while claiming knowledge from faith. They are opposites. He can try to rationalize his mysticism, but rationalization with floating abstractions to "derive" or claim to "explain" beliefs from faith is not reason -- it's the old religious endorsement of 'reason' as the 'handmaiden of faith'. He can however 'compartmentalize' and behave rationally in some realms but not others. Anyone who rejects reason entirely cannot live. Belief on faith is a constant danger of polluting and destroying rational knowledge, but some people have successfully kept them apart in some realms enough for very successful thinking, including some prominent scientists through history. If they hadn't been able to break away from the mysticism at all to achieve scientific success despite their religion, we would not be where we are today.
“Red” is primary sensory input. We directly experience it in the presence of light of certain wavelengths. Even sighted, non-color-blind persons can describe it only through examples of objects that emit or reflect such light. “God” is not a sensory input at all, and descriptions given by believers are all over the map.
Majorities do not determine truth. Was the earth flat at a time when only an extreme minority believed otherwise?
I personally would like to see our philosophy become more mainstream, people do not have to agree with everything to be an objectivist, just enough to get the points. We have to be more inclusive!
These arguments about objectivism vs. conservatism or is religion “okay” for an objectivist are juvenile. We have enough in common we should be finding common ground and encouraging other to incorporate more aspects of objectivism. If they choose to believe in a higher being, it affects me in no way what so ever.
If a person values his or her own life and well-being, and those of others, that person (using reason) will derive one system of ethics that separates “right” from “wrong”. If instead a person’s highest value is obedience to the dictates of some deity or earthly ruler or “society”, that person will derive a different system of ethics and a different conception of “right” and “wrong”.
A person’s values are shaped by a complex mixture of genetics (nature), upbringing (nurture) and most of all, the amount of thinking that person chooses to do regarding the nature of the world and his or her place in it. The values that each person adopts lead (through the use of reason) to the system of ethics that he or she adopts.
A culture that encourages its members to value life is more “fit” and able to survive and flourish than one that does not.
I have asked this multiple times in this forum and for some reason, no one will answer me directly.
Ok, so if Objectivist value the life of others, whose life has higher value? Can an Objectivist reason to needing to murder someone because they are diminishing your value? If Objectivism doesn't say "You should not murder," then how can one not reason to doing it, in an absolute sense? From where I sit, Objectivism doesn't have an answer to that.
I am not asking this because I like to stir the pot. I am asking because I think Objectivism is inherently flawed and leaves all its followers without extra-anthropic Truth.
Hiding me doesn't change the validity of my questions.
I am not sure why I cannot get a straight answer to fundamental questions and it seems to expose the lack of substance of Objectivism.
For example, scientists using the scientific method have faith that certain observed "laws" of nature are immutable, else, they cannot conclude anything absolutely. Since atheists believe we are here by random events over time, then any "law" observed can change at any given time, given enough time.
The only way this would not happen is if something outside of the material world is controlling the material world, keeping the identified "laws" from mutating. The question is who or what could that be?
uillotine. The term changed somewhat to 'source of power' and for a while on the west shore of the Atlantic it was the idea of citizens over government.
Changed once again and now it's one party system of government who get's to define their own center and all the trimmings... way off to the left
Isn't that just divine?.
How is a divinely provided morality subjective? Because we do not know if the divinity will change?
So if that is the case, then reasoning within a system that doesn't allow absolutes for morality and all assignment of value is subjective, then there truly is no value in anything so Objectivism is absorbed into Nihilism. How can it be otherwise?
So can I reason to murder all people and it be proper? What about reasoning to that would make it improper?
Additionally, I am not saying you rationalize faith to get to reason....you have to have faith in reason to see it as man's ultimate/highest means of determining reality.
As soon as you interact with others a standard must be in place to normalize interaction between people, to respect each persons rights as human beings. Even here among objectivist's there is a desire to explore every aspect of the code and apply it because a standard is needed.Imagine an Atlantis with a hodgepodge of morality and no common personal thread (philosophy) providing mutual respect; it won't work.
The issue I see with all your statements is that it is man developing morals from experience based on his own desires/needs/wants, etc.... If a man seeks to deal with someone else because he has an agenda, then he would seek terms only to achieve the agenda and nothing more. If his agenda is to help that other person, again, setting terms to achieve the agenda would be the goal and nothing more.
At the end of the day, man is still setting the terms and those terms can shift just as readily has his desires/needs/wants.
In this situation, there is absolutely no absolute morality for man to live by which restricts his desires.
This is where Objectivism leaves off and faith begins. Objectivists belief this is how things should work, but there is nothing absolute that they can rely on to be sure, so faith is required. Inputs are necessary for any system of reasoning/rationality; therefore, either the inputs are available by purpose or by accident.
This must be solved, else, the holes in the bottom of the Objectivist bucket will never be plugged.
Objectivists don't develop morals, nor do they set the terms and they certainly don't have beliefs. They rely on objective facts and reality and their choice to utilize reason in a rational and logical manner. Objective facts and reality are what exists outside of your mind and perceptions whether you're there to perceive them or not. They can be observed, measured, tested, and are repeatable by others also using rational and logical reason. And from those facts and reality, knowledge is gained, confirmed, built on, and passed on to others.
But reason is at all times volitional and each man must decide for himself whether to subject his perceptions and thoughts to it or not. If he chooses not to reason, then his irrational and illogical meanderings are of no value.
"Objectivists" are not a sect of believers adhering to dogma. They're just people that recognize, understand, and agree with the rationale of Objectivism. As with any 'normal' group of people, there are varied levels of learning and comprehension. Who they are and what they do does not define Objectivism.
In response to information about existence, there is a point at which the "inevitable human question" becomes absurd. Reality is the final arbiter.
Taking a point for what I said is as petty as it is myopic.
You're mixing premises and conflating definitions.
The real tragedy is how many on this forum have repeatedly and often maligned faith without having any real idea of what it is. Faith is the belief that propels one's self to action without a sure knowledge of the future. Faith is the core of the entrepreneur and inventor: they want to believe that something better than what they have is out there, but without the action to step into the unknown - and the risk of failure - they are just like everyone else who prefer the well-lighted room of comfort.
Reason helps us determine what already happened and why. Reason deals with the past. Faith deals with what may be. Faith deals with the future. They are neither exclusive nor in opposition. Together, they allow one to determine where one has been and chart a course for where one may yet go.
Faith is not "the future" and reason is not the "past". We act on principles established that tell us what will happen. People also act on confidence without full certainty in the real world, based on what they do know. That is not a metaphysical faith in a speculated supernatural. You are equivocating as an apologetic for religion.
Evidence of what? If you need evidence to know reason works, then that is a circular argument to legitimize reason correct?
I am simply saying that if you place reason as man's ultimate means for determining reality, then you are taking that on faith, else you are saying I reason to reason and that is no argument for reason at all to have this place in the world of perception.
Faith demands no reason nor any evidence. Therefore it has to be preached and cannot be taught except by repetition of meaningless syllabics all of which can be defined as 'obey' obey obey obey obey obey or in our languages Obeyme.
Evidence comes from the senses sight, hearing, touch, taste That rock is heavy, this rock is heavy every rock I pick up has weight. Gradually, if faith enters into it at all one reasons the probability of all rocks having some degree of weight it's a faith in your own inate ability to reason which evolves into I think therefore I am.
Those who are into the faith side of the house to the exclusion say the real world is unknown all that i see, touch, hear, taste, smell is but a facade and I shall never know the real world the spiritual world which is forever hidden from me. That is reserved for a special few 'interpreters' who bid me have faith in my interpretation. I am special you are common.
Followers of Plato are in two classes. Those that obey and turn their backs on their ability to think and reason and those that prey upon them and use them. The inheritors of the special exempt class who invariably end up with a totalitarian conclusion.
Of course the witch doctor approach as codified into some sort of semi, semi, semi science by the Plato lineage lists Philosophers of his line of thinking as the special exempt class and fighting amongst themselves Republicans vs. Democrats are a fine example.
Think of the Star Wars state. "Luke, trust your feelings was that exclusive of the first five?" to a follower of Plato and his line yes. To a follower of Aristotle no and the sixth sense is reason the ability to think.
Platoists deal with the answer of the moment, if it feels good do it. That sides contracts AIDs and celebrates the passing of the millenium a year early and thorugh its lineage accepts the will of the stern leader or father figure ESPECIALLY the followers of secular progressivism who while told they are in a nuturant non thinking womb are really nothing better than good little goose steppers with der Fuhrer Yoda as their Pied Piper.
Even to the point of recognizing and redefining name, and characteristics of their arch enemies as something they are not and refusing to accept as valid any of the in between viewpoints. instead viewing them as potential cannon fodder and baby factories (bi-conceptuals) is their frame, form, universal this time around.
As to religion all of them have one thing in common perhaps two or three. They recognize without evidence (except one) facts in evidence to prove their belief. And I will give you this religion in one of it's many forms is important to those who have no 'faith' in themselves and have consigned themselves to a lifetime of being afraid of the dark. It comforts them in moments of stress (emotional or an overloading of the five senses for they have not prepared themselves to handle reality.)
They all have a Father Figure sometimes cast as a female as leader-in-charge who is infallible. Some with Napoleonic complexes delude themselves into that role. For some it' s Comrade Soros or Comrade Lakoff who wear a false mantle as a Mommy but brook no deviation from their dogma just like the Daddy figure they warn against. No problem really as long as they are the Daddy even dressed like a Mommy.
They all have their concept of good and bad or acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Too include considering themselves independent of or part of a greater mass and surrendering or not surrendering their ability and their will to think and reason.
The sole exception is found primarily in the hard sciences in any abundance who using the six senses and developing extensions of them have determined the current size, shape and make up of what we call the Universe, Direction of expansion and deduced from that point of origin and stated a hypothesis some probable answers - except to the three universal unknowns What started it (source of power to create), Will it stop expanding and then what? (when it runs of energy if at all.)
I look it at a bit more simply in a works for me attitude. If the source of power, the void, God or Gods in whatever form or any other description want me to know they or it will invent or cause to exist someone who comes up with the answer. In the meantime using my abilities.
I've found out there is no need to be afraid of the dark. I need no amulet nor special dispensation from some poseur who seeks only to control my mind I reject though will test the simplistic solution of the moment and reject those that have proved faulty countless times and continue to examine facts on the ground as an individual thinker who perpetuates the work of others. Without having to think about it i just turn on a light or let my eyes adjust using dark adaptation.
Except of course those who whose senses are buried in the ground while they pollute with their gasses the ozone layer. They invariably cower in fear or ruin others night vision by turning on too much light.
Conclusion the argument is circular only if you are stuck in a rut and forgot or never learned the purpose of the steering wheel.
The attempt to claim reason is only for the past and faith is required to act is a profound philosophical skepticism that is self-refuting. It is a consequence of abandoning reason for faith. Faith is not a source of knowledge, leaving one with no way to know, i.e., skepticism. Skepticism also follows an inability to understand how to think, leading some to in turn embrace a leap into faith because they can't find anything else. Either way the consequences are devastating.
Therefore, what is the reason for those things we experience empirically which are not anthropogenic? Are they relegated to non-reason, or irrationality? Is it irrational that trees exhale oxygen and we exhale CO2 in a symbiosis? Cannot non-anthropogenic existence have reason without our deducing it? Is man the ultimate determiner of value in both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic existence? If he is, then one man's value which results in murder is just as equal to another man's value to save a life.
Help me understand how reason isn't self-contradictory if two men can reason to opposing positions.
The limitations of reason are not a problem. Anything that exists has a specific identity, which limits it to what it is and nothing else. That is not a problem, it's a fundamental fact. If your reason had no identity it wouldn't exist. The "limited" nature of reason is your specific means of knowing anything as the distinctly human form of conscious awareness.
Knowledge does not mean omniscience. Being aware of the world does not mean taking everything in a giant mystic insight. Your five senses are limited to the identity of each in the kinds of sense data of which you can be aware. Your are your means of detecting sounds of a particular kind. Your eyes are your means of detecting electromagnetic radiation in a certain part of the spectrum. Your ears don't detect ultra high frequencies and your eyes don't detect electromagnetic radiation outside the range of 'visible light' from red to purple.
Your ability to think conceptually allows you to discover much more, from a finite base of knowledge, but always still "limited" to what it is. There is always more to discover and more to learn. If we were not "limited" to something in particular, we wouldn't be anything, i.e., would not exist. Omniscience versus total ignorance is a false alternative and both are impossible. Omniscience means beyond any limit, i.e., no identity, i.e., does not exist. Total ignorance would mean you would have no reasoning power, i.e., would not be human.
If your answer would be that Objectivism doesn't allow just anyone to do whatever they want, then I would say...why not? If the answer there would be, because man must value himself and value others, or things won't work, then how do you value someone else? On what basis? If it an anthropogenic basis, then why cannot a man value another to cannabalism? A philosophy has to be able to deal with this issues else it is just a straw man.
I can't really get behind that statement. I can absolutely assert that there are things I know with almost perfect confidence and that the derivation of such were the result of reason. I can also absolutely assert that there are some things I started out believing first (based on faith) and which subsequent experience and logic confirmed to be true. My children sometimes have to take what I say to be authoritative, like "that hot pan will burn you". Until they touch the pan, they take my statement based on their faith in my position as their caretaker and based on my expressed love for them (reason extrapolated into expectation for future).
"Help me understand how reason isn't self-contradictory if two men can reason to opposing positions."
I don't assert any conflict between reason and faith. The real question is one of premises. One can have faith that one's self is the greatest thing since sliced bread: see our current President. Because his faith is based on a false premise it is void. Did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak believe that they had a product that was of such benefit to the rest of the world that it would be commercially viable? Yes. But they had no proof of such until after they founded Apple Computers and were several years into selling their products. They could certainly go back and analyze or use reason to determine that their faith in their own abilities - questionable at first - was sound because they could see the results. But one should contrast this with the vast majority of other entrepreneurs who held similar views of themselves and yet failed. Did this show that faith itself is a false concept? No. Just that their object of faith failed to hold up to scrutiny, ie their premises were flawed.
Again, faith is the principle which allows one to build on reason to project into the future and move one to act. It in no way precludes or excludes the exercise of reason. Faith is what allows us to proceed forward based on imperfect information about the future, but it in no way dictates what that future will be. Reason allows us to extrapolate likely results for projection and is in this area exclusive to faith, which must rely on reason's results!
Therefore, if you need to at least take experience as your basis for making decisions, then that is a belief that those experiences will result in predictable results...again, whether you have faith in some religion, or faith in your experience, faith is required.
I would not be so quick to denounce those using faith...you may be one of them.
When dealing with philosophical issues, it is important to define the specific meaning of “faith” that is being discussed. One can have confidence in the future and still be an atheist.
The scientific method is a perfect example of the exercise of faith in determining reality. One uses logic to build upon what one knows in order to derive a potential future event and its probability. Then one constructs a test in order to verify the hypothesis. But the construction of the test and its actual performance are based on faith itself. The results only confirm to us whether or not our logic was sound in the first place.
Example: I can reason that because of my experience with my car, if I push down on the gas pedal (and verify that the transmission is set to "Drive") that the engine will engage, fuel will undergo combustion, the explosive force of that combustion will result in the movement of pistons, which connected to my drive shaft will result in my car moving forward. By my logical calculations regarding past behavior, I anticipate this activity. But none of the logic actually pushes down the pedal. I act in faith expecting the outcome logically derived to be a future event to become the reality of the now.
Faith becomes an even more pronounced feature of action when dealing with autonomic/sentient actors. We can anticipate to some degree how they will act, but the reality is often frustrating because both parties more than likely are operating on different information and some is likely to be fallacious (I won't go into the often illogical acts).
I think one of the things that many people get confused about faith is that they relegate faith only to the realm of actions relating to outcomes which may or may not come following death. Because they envision no method with which to verify any conclusions (and reject existing ones), they are discounted as potentially valid motives. As a result they conclude that faith itself is flawed, rather than there simply being a shortfall in imagining a test of validation.
Again, to me, logic is a method of extrapolating from the past what we can expect to happen in the future. Faith is the impetus propelling us to act on that logical derivation. If the action does not result in the desired outcomes, it does not indicate a lack of faith, it indicates a flaw in either our premises or logical derivation.
Perhaps Rand's most important point was the importance of living a life that is free of contradiction, and on that I agree with everyone in here.
Ayn Rand's message to conservatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpp5E...
It should be noted that she never said she was against conservatives only that "many today" approached the argument from those false angles. That was why the video was described as "Rand explains how many conservatives attempt to justify capitalism on fallacious grounds."
We still here repeatedly the Hayek line trying to defend freedom because no one is good enough to be a dictator, and of course the a-philosophical appeals to "tradition" are everywhere. The attempts to defend limited government by appealing to "the founders" because they said it, and to "faith", with no regard for a philosophical basis and explanation, and rarely even a mention of the Enlightenment, are all around us from conservatives. Another form of the "tradition" argument is the Pragmatist version appealing to "experience" of what "works" with no regard of the standard of deciding what works with respect to what goal, as if "experience" is all that must be mentioned as a principle.
None of that is principled argument against collectivism and the statism required to enforce it, which is why so many conservatives are helpless to argue against the moral case of the left and is why they so often sanction and promote the welfare state themselves.
Conservatives also argue particular political and economic consequences, but have no defense of the basic moral principles on which they rest their arguments for freedom (when not arguing for statism themselves), and that is what Ayn Rand was talking about.
Liberals want to make change fast by any means needed and why not they are the outsiders.
So which group are the true conservatives today?
The rest is just yesterday's news and a bit of shopworn history.
I'm still chewing on "the argument from self-esteem" as the best way to defend capitalism (at the end of the video).
I'm also going to remember the term, "semantic pretzels."
Rand was right, political freedom cannot be achieved by stealth. Those who fight for it must have a completely consistent philosophy down to its first premises. Ayn Rand has defined that philosophy, and for that those of us who choose to fight owe an incalculable debt of gratitude. Thanks again, Zenphamy, for highlighting an issue that goes to the core of an important philosophical conflict.
If you are really an Objectivist you are in a small minority group...
Consider,
While Spock could, no doubt, run/Captain the Enterprise that role was best served and executed by Kirk? Odd.
I've seen quite a few episodes in which Kirk has left the bridge to Spock and in which he saved the ship and Kirk. I think I remember one in which, at least a partial explanation of why he wasn't a Captain; having something to do with him not as able as Kirk in thinking out of the box and often unwilling to challenge the odds as Kirk consistently did.
These things, among others, are some of the items that prevent my full acceptance of objectivism.
I'll admit, my Star Trek analogy wasn't entirely precise, still it was accurate enough. Spock was logical, he used reason and logic to make his decisions and it hindered his ability to lead.
As to national identity, that seems to be a somewhat nebulous description that has changed numerous times over the last 200+ years, particularly as the 'defender of individual rights and freedom'. And I can't think of a single President in our history that has not abused that description to one extent or the other.
Note in my original posting I said "I have wondered" and that was enough of a catalyst to be shown the door.
In the second term of the O president the US would be well on the way for the US to again be the richest country in the world in terms of per capita GDP. The opportunities for all people who wanted to be productive would be overwhelming and unemployment would be almost unknown. The economic success of the US would result in decreased tensions throughout the world.
During his term the O president would be attacked by conservative every step of the way. Then when the overwhelming success of his policies were clear to almost everyone, the conservatives would mount a two prong attack. On the one hand they would want to take credit for all the successes and say they were the result of christian values and on the other hand they would complain about the loss of traditional values. The liberals of course would create a new environmental Armageddon and complain about wealth inequality.
The founding fathers were pretty much O presidents or leaders, including Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison etc. They were not conservatives. Modern conservativism had not been invented and old fashion conservativism was the christian church which had plunged Europe into 1000 years of untold human misery and ignorance. This is exactly what the Founders were fighting against.
AJ it is clear that you are not exploring objectivism anymore. You are not interested in rational, evidence based discussions, you just want to spread your passionate distaste for Objectvism and reason. I think perhaps it is time that you took a vacation from the gulch
But just as meanings change maliciously, they also evolve naturally. For example, you discuss Conservatives and Liberal Republicans as if they are the same thing. And that just goes to show how little you understand what is happening. Real Conservatives, at the heart of it, are closer to Objectivists than any other political group or denomination. While there are rarely perfect Conservatives, you only need to look to the schism in the Republican party when the likes of Goldwater or Reagan rise to power. And most importantly how Liberal Republicans go far out of their way to put them down (most of the time successfully, I might add).
It often strikes me that there's really only two types of human; those who want others to be controlled and those that can't imagine why anyone else would have the right/authority to control them.
Yes, perhaps I've worn out my welcome. I certainly have with you.
Of course it would help if the rest of the country were not all trying to play left field with a catchers mitt.l
To wit, the assumption gets made that reason and rational thinking requires the elimination of passion and emotion. This is not true.
Use your reason to make decisions using all available information. Use your passion to drive you on the course of you decisions.
Objectivists are not emotionless, neither was Spock.
Why does it have to be Objectivism or Conservatism?
Why not take the best from both and meld them together?
(Granted I have a lot more studying to do about both)
The problem that one ultimately runs into, however, is that pesky question of the purpose of being. Both Conservatives and Objectivists agree on the notion of existence, but they spar on the origin and purpose of that existence. That fundamental question is the true test of any philosophy/religion.
We are moving. Time makes it so. Existence in time is to pass through time, moving from one point to another to another. The $64 million question is where we started from and where we perceive we are headed.
I did get an "A" on the book keeping portion and the next year took the elective class and learned double entry but never forgot the lesson of time with no value. From which comes the idea of don't waste time even if it's learning slide rules the year before computers or belt mounted pocket calculators became available.
But I still am unable to place a value on reading AS except as ' more valuable than whatever else I could have been doing.'
Conservatively speaking the value of objectivism is 'without measure.'
"Conservatively speaking the value of objectivism is 'without measure.'"
What you essentially assert is that you haven't attempted to conceive of any possibility where an alternate view would get you closer to your goal. The curious part of this is that your previous statement admits that you haven't conceived of the actual goal you are pursuing. Personally, I find it difficult to evaluate the value of any particular decision without knowing my end goal. If you have found a way around this, I welcome your input.
I don't accept your redefinitions at all. i'm happy just following the three laws of objectivism I am, Because I am cognizant ( and by choice can think), and the Law of identity. Another part of it is Rand's admonishment to continually test all possibilities and your difficulties are not mine. Mine are not yours. Non applicable.
As to value, I welcome your view on the matter as a check on my premises. If value is not a comparison against an independent standard, what is it?
(not sure who took the point, but thanks)
By definition, therefore, she was not a conservative.
I can understand some of the attraction of self described conservatives to Objectivism, but I think they miss the point of the philosophy and completely ignore the antipathy of Objectivist to them. They simply don't have any consistency in their philosophies and seriously mistake the principles of individual rights, freedom, and laissez faire capitalism.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
and it was voted down to Zero and garnered a mere 8 comments.
and now find it quite interesting. . there is one glaring problem, though.
Rand didn't say that it was appropriate for government
to know who has guns. . considering her history, it seems
very unlikely. . this conclusion puzzles me. -- j
.
Rand said that the problem was not particularly important to her. She also said that she had no way to balance your right to self-defense with the licensing of handguns. As a philosopher, she would not just stand on the Second Amendment. She would have needed reasoning from first principles supported by facts. But she did say quite clearly: "Forbidding guns or registering them is not going to stop criminals from having them; nor is it a great threat to the private, non-criminal citizen if he has to register the fact that he has a gun."
A government which uses that monopoly against it's citizens or refuses to protect them 'switches roles to that of a criminal.'
Which leads one to the reason for two other conditions The Second Amendment and the oath of office of the Military.
Assuming an ability (State Militia formations, free and uncontrolled voting rights, to protect citizens against a criminal government.) to implement.
And also by switching roles they signal 'the biggest gang on the block is in control.'
There is no right to license at the Federal Level. That is a State function if allowed by the people of that state. The crack in that wall was the Gun Control act which excluded certain weapons and that occurred with the advent of a socialist government 1913 to present.
Same applies to much else.
But with a government that uses the economic version of a cycle (or circle) of repression and refuses to honor it's legal functions and worse moves to ensure citizens cannot honor their legal functions such a government is no longer valid...
How it's replaced is another discussion. No way I can see through the present political system EXCEPT at that bottom and ONLY by not supporting the left which means Democrats and no Republicans.
The other choice is learn how to click your heels when the students become the next SS/KGB as they have done before.
(Of course the first place they 'controlled' were the ranks of college professors so if history repeats their is a certain justice...)
in my book -- it can only lead to control of those registered
which tends to violate the 2nd amendment's claim that
we are free to arm ourselves. -- j
.
First of all, the Constitution as well as the Objectivist view of the right of self defense are quite clear not permitting any 'infringement' of the 'right to bear arms and the associated right to self defense.
What the Hell that has to do with the right to privacy of a sex offender is beyond me. While we may wish to afford a sex offender privacy after he's paid his debt to society, that has nothing whatsoever to do with the right to bear arms and the right to self defense.
the technique of registration, applied to guns, is like pretending that
they are like sex offenses. . this is an inappropriate pretense
and I disagree with it.
I suppose that I was not clear. . make sense now? -- j
.
People really are looking to this current political race, as always, expecting to be saved - expecting to turn the country around. Not going to happen. The oppressive boot will start increasing its downward pressure on their faces more and more as time goes by. At least they seem to like it. So, that's good.
The Conservative movement (philosophically) traces its roots to David Hume and Edmund Burke. David Hume is best known for his attack on causation, induction, and his "is ought" attack on ethics. Burke also attacked reason, because he thought the French Revolution was the logical result of unrestrained reason. F.A. Hayek picked up on the idea of Hume and Burke and created his idea of cultural evolution, which is also an attack on reason. The modern day conservative movement includes Austrian Economics, many libertarians, and of course the religious right. Conservativism is fundamentally an attack on reason, which is why it attracts so many religious people. Objectivism and Conservativism are fundamentally incompatible (something I have shown by exposing the irrational foundations of Austrian Economics) and any nominal agreement that both want a smaller government is coincidental.
That's not pro-liberty, Objective, or even constitutional..
Let's at least get moving in the right direction. The ideal is off on the horizon behind us. Right now we need to be more concerned with the cliff dead ahead.
So sure, let's take the crumbs that are offered and just keep on losing more individual freedom.
We aren't going to get there in one day. The alternatives are to do things one day at a time, or to go to the extreme of starting completely over and living through all that pain and bloodshed. I will freely admit that the economics of our current situation lead me to believe that there is an imminent reef ahead and incremental changes now may not provide enough of a course correction to avoid the reef. It may also be that an attempt at such a radical course change will result in capsizing the boat and a result not much different than striking the reef.
If you want to use that excuse to hide me, that's your own rationalization speaking - not logic. The other option is simply to say you disagree and leave it at that.
1)Youtube
Hayek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fszzh...
Mises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkEyY...
2) Articles
Menger http://hallingblog.com/2015/11/16/car...
Mises http://hallingblog.com/2015/09/08/pra...
Hayek http://hallingblog.com/2015/03/04/hay...
What is perhaps less well known is David Hume’s influence on U.S. conservatives and Friedrich Hayek. The blog The American Conservative calls Hume “The First Conservative” and the First Principles, a conservative philosophical journal agrees. Hume gave us the problem of induction, denied that causality exists, and most importantly for this article, he rejected Locke’s natural rights and the idea of ethics based on reason. Locke’s natural rights are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, form the basis for the Bill of Rights, and was the foundation of most of common law at the time. Ultimately, Hume attacks reason and science in order to make room for religion and tradition.
Hayek was highly influenced by Hume. This paper entitled, Hayek on the Role of Reason in Human Affairs, Linda C. Raeder, Palm Beach Atlantic University, explains:
For Hayek, the rules of morality and justice are the same as they were for David Hume: conventions that have emerged and endured because they smooth the coordination of human affairs and are indispensable, given the nature of reality and the circumstances of human existence, to the effective functioning of society. For Hayek as for Hume the rules of morality and justice are not the products of reason and they cannot be rationally justified in the way demanded by constructivist thinkers. And since our moral traditions cannot be rationally justified in accordance with the demands of reason or the canons of science, we must be content with the more modest effort of “rational reconstruction,” a “natural-historical” investigation of how our institutions came into being, which can enable us to understand the needs they serve.
http://hallingblog.com/2015/08/17/the...
Seems akin to a philosophic allergy.
Only individuals have minds and only individuals can think. There is no group thought or supernatural thought, which is mysticism. The question is how to do it, i.e., how does the individual properly think, not what mystic or group authority to rely on. That only individuals can think does not make all thought "subjective". One can think objectively or not -- through subjective imagination cut off from reality and/or employing non-logical methods.
Here we are talking about the "objective" as epistemological, not metaphysical as reality apart from people. The objective is in contrast to both subjective and intrinsic (mysticism). Ayn Rand wrote a whole book on concepts in objective thought: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and Leonard Peikoff devoted an entire chapter to "Objectivity" in his comprehensive book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
This concept of dishonesty is interesting within an Objectivist discussion. How can one be dishonest in Objectivism if one can reason to any end and it be valid for the reasoner?
They entrench and fortify and defend much as the liberals are doing now for they are liberal in one sense but the NEW Neo conservatives in the other.
Once entrenched with such protections as controlling who can be a candidate on a ballot and how votes are measured and counted they are smug, dumb and happy.
Along comes someone of more liberal view than their present law or voting regulations and says. Let's emulate the Army and the Air Force who will ask after a target evaluation. "Are they fortified and entrenched or just clustered in a target rich environment fire sack - Feursach and is it the schwerpunkt the center of their defenses.. If I have the German correctly spelt? How best may we attack?"
We then ask what is our equivalent of a fuel Air bomb. After some thought the outsiders realize they have built their own in house destruction of an IED FAE (love those initials) and named the Hillary Mark II. The only question is how to set it off?
Which answers itself. Just ask it questions.
The bomb explodes and the well entrenched fortified group in power safe and snug in their fire sack existence are no more. The schwerpunk is a vacuum the teeter and the totter collapse.
Then it's a race as to who takes over and typicall they guess what. Fill the fire sack for yet another go round destruction.
Reasoning that out after being cognizant of the facts in evidence or facts on the ground cut my problem solving to a find a fuze and light it.
Now I have real faith in my abilities.
That our thinking is not infallible is why we need proper methods of thinking, employed through the most careful focus and effort as any scientist. It is not a matter of "purity" (whatever that means), leading to acceptance of anything you dream up, imagine, or rationalize claimed to be "reasoning".
There are no other means of perception beyond the five senses on which our faculty of reason is based. All perception is through known sense organs. No "sixth sense" has ever been discovered accounting for faith or revelations, but we do know that people have the capacity for imagination and fantasy, mentally reconstructing aspects of reality, such as in cartoons. Imagination, fantasy, revelation, cartoons, etc. are not a means to knowledge. Not "limiting" yourself to reason does not give you additional knowledge. The fantasies confused with infallible knowledge corrupt your thinking and further limit and destroy what you can know.
Liberal: One who wants to be liberal with others' life, liberty and property by initiating force and fraud, exacted by the state.
It's obvious from your comment that you really haven't made the effort to understand the philosophy or the concept of reason.
To the extent that man, as he evolved from the earliest times, used his conceptual faculty to understand the world, he used reason, and in that sense it has always "been around before Aristotle", whether or not used properly.
Plato was the first philosopher to systematize philosophy, and he formulated most of the basic questions. But Aristotle was the first to systematically identify and uphold the validity of reason as the means of knowing within the role of consciousness as grasping existence, and the purpose of personal happiness in this world as the ideal -- in contrast to Plato's mysticism and sacrifice, and his misuse of conceptual thought to rationalize both.
The intellectual battle ever since has been a duel between Plato and Aristotle.
Man by his reason alone cannot get to why he is here in the first place, but you have to deal with that. Existence exists is a copout, I'm afraid because origins has a bearing on everything. If start off with just our ability to reason without knowing how we have the ability to do so in the first place, then there is nothing to keep reason from being surmounted by another means of perception in the future because you cannot know it will not be.
Ayn Rand identified the 'problem of universals' as epistemological, not metaphysical, and explained the mental integrations in terms of similarities in accordance with commensurate measurements differing only in degree. She provided an objective account in contrast to the intrinsicists and the subjective nominalists with their arbitrary grouping. There is no need to "tie" anything to the mystical and the attempt to do so is destructive.
Man understands, by reason alone, "how we got here" in the same way we understand everything we know through science, in this case biology and evolution. Supernatural fantasies explain nothing.
We start out using our ability to reason because it is the faculty we are born with. Perceptions and elementary integrations of the simplest concepts are automatic. We are born with the faculty but not the cognitive content, which is learned. We don't need to understand how it works in order to begin thinking any more than we need to know how the digestive system works to begin eating and digesting food.
We learn over time to think in ever increasing complexity of abstractions and method, using our reasoning ability to do so as in any science. Reason is not "surmounted" by faith, and not knowing what is not yet objectively discovered and known, about cognitive methods or anything else, does not prevent us from knowing and progressing in what we do know. Substituting faith and mysticism is corrosive and destructive. Starting with recognition of existence and living in it is not a "cop out".
"Most people can't think, those that try mostly don't do it well, but the very few that can, they are the only ones that count."
The enlightenment worked on the epistemology of reason and made some good progress, but ultimately failed to solve some problems that were exploited by David Hume and Kant. Many people are still working on the epistemology of reason, including David Kelley who wrote the book Evidence of the Senses. Like the sciences of physics, chemistry, etc. it is likely that there will always more to be learned about reason and how it works.
I am asking whether the understanding of conscience (not the little guy on your shoulder whispering ethical advice, but a quality of being aware you exist) is worthy of the same scientific investigation you are suggesting for reason.
Do you believe we have conscience? If not, then how do you reason anything? They are related, are they not?
If by conscience you mean a sense of right and wrong, most people absorb principles of right and wrong, often bad principles, from what they are told and absorb from the culture around them, which was inherited from common beliefs and confused philosophy for millennia, just as they acquire all other basic philosophical ideas and their sense of life without systematic thought. See Ayn Rand's "Philosophy and Sense of Life" in her book The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature. All branches of philosophy should be pursued as a science, systematically and objectively and based on the nature of man and reality, not tradition of mysticism. See the opening chapter "The Objectivist Ethics" in Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism, and Leonard Peikoff's comprehensive Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.
The conscious generally means the 'I', the ego, self awareness. Reasoning is a process of the mind. Rational, logical, reasoning is that process, performed in a disciplined, systemized method to reach a truth, and tied to the reality we live in, and communicable to others. And yes, the study of consciousness is not only worth of scientific investigation, and has been subjected to that investigation for several decades and is ongoing.
Is that the hand you are willing to play?
That the form of our consciousness has evolved to be what it is does not mean that it's "just another term for identifying how chemicals" do anything. Consciousness and its relation to existence as awareness of existence is an axiomatic concept, not chemistry. The actions of the nervous system are how it works, to the extent it is now known, not a reductionist replacement for the fundamental fact of awareness of reality, which is more, not "nothing less" (whatever that is supposed to mean) than "chemicals yielding thoughts and actions".
James' wild leap from a physical brain as the center of conscious awareness to "leaving out any basis for existence whatsoever" is bizarre. Existence is everything that is. It requires no "basis". Our consciousness is awareness of it in the particular human form. Consciousness is not a means to create existence out of alleged metaphysical nothingness, which does not exist. Recognizing that is not "playing a hand". If you think that this forum is to be exploited by endless sophistry intended to rationalistically manipulate people into a game of satisfying religious faith in the guise of honest questions you are sadly mistaken. This is a serious forum for the discussion of Ayn Rand's philosophy of reason and egoism. We do not "play hands" here.
Thus
reason vs faith, objective vs. subjective, practical vs pragmatic split took place in those times. It seemed far enough for the purpose.
This may help.
" Plato was a typical playboy from a wealthy, connected Athenian family until he met a man named Socrates, who taught him that the surest path to wisdom was rational contemplation, and that being a “lover of wisdom” or philosopher was the highest form of life.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...
the article continues I just gave the beginning
Plato taught his students that all of us want to be part of something higher, a transcendent reality of which the world we see is only a small part, and which unites everything into a single harmonious whole. All of us, he said, want to crawl out of the cave of darkness and ignorance, and walk in the light of truth.
“There is no other road to happiness,” Plato concluded, “either for society or the individual.”
Plato’s most brilliant pupil, however, arrived at a very different view. Growing up in a family of Greek physicians, Aristotle learned early on the value of observation and hands-on experience. We don’t live in a cave, was his reply to Plato; we live in the real world. “Facts are the starting point” of all knowledge, Aristotle wrote. So instead of accepting his teacher’s belief in pure contemplation, Aristotle said our path to knowledge comes through logical, methodical discovery of the world around us–and the facts that make it up.
Aristotle asks: “How does it work?” Plato asks: “Why does it exist at all?”
Plato asks, “What do you want your world to be?” Aristotle asks, “How do you fit into the world that already exists?”
Plato asks, “What’s your dream?” Aristotle replies, “Wake up and smell the coffee.”
Two different world-views; one great debate. And here are five important lessons we can learn from both of them.
A second source introduces Epicurus who varied with Aristotle in application covering metaphysics and epistemology...but besides the sample below better to it for yourself
"
Aristotle never really did use the term "metaphysics," but he did call the area of that particular subject matter as first philosophy or the study of being qua being. Like Ayn Rand, Aristotle believes in an external objective world that is set apart from any man's consciousness. When he means is that "A is A," everything is an objective reality and our minds can only perceive reality, not create it. Although everything is set in an objective standard, each and every human being can perceive objects in many different ways. The world is made up of independent entities that nothing exist separately from and that all else depends on.
Aristotle believes that there are axioms used in all reasoning. Axioms, to Aristotle, are the most fundamental principles that he uses before explaining what substance and essence entail. These axioms are self-evident laws that do not need proof. Therefore, he also states that we must be concerned with the principle of non-contradiction. This principle means that one thing cannot at the same time be and not be, nor can an attribute at the same time belong and not belong to the same object in the same respect. This is his first principle and, therefore, it is not derived from anything else."
The article continues ...
http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/W...
Aristotle was one of the first to look back to how reason might have begun and subscribes reason as the major difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom (who are instinctive in nature.)
But all else aside, I do count the neo-cons as evil to liberty and the door openers to Obama and his cohorts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Co...
You're absolutely right, they had legislation ready to trot out so that a "crisis would not go to waste".
Rather than try to lecture on a subject you've inadequately grasped, you could just try to explain your own beliefs and see where that goes.
All I can see in your comments is you attempting to be rhetorically clever and trying to play sophist games. We all know exactly where you're trying to direct the discussion in asking Objectivists to give you some type of concrete, absolute answer to the simplistic question you try to pose.
Provide your definition and description of what you mean by murder.
I don't believe in fairy dust, magic incantations, ghosts or flying pigs, but as a former liberal agnostic I have gone through somewhat of a long evolution in which I logically and rationally reasoned there is a God.
I'm not sure of her later years, but for a while, Ms. Rand was quite active in politics. In doing so, she had to choose sides, and she fought hard for those whom she supported. Today's choices are not quite as clear-cut as Roosevelt versus Wilke, what with myriad of Republicans vying for the nomination. The sure-to-be Democrat Candidate is Ms. Clinton, guaranteed to be Obama's third term. Leading the Republican pack is a Crypto Conservative businessman, followed by a religious zealot, followed by Marco the giant killer. Every one brags of their Conservative credentials. What to do? To paraphrase, "Of two weasels, pick the lesser." Meaning, the one who'll do the least damage. If you can't wrap your head around that, then drop out. If you do and the greater weasel-evil gets in, then you are partly responsible.
The result is raising the amount of people who refuse to accept the candidates offered by a single party system of two faces both of whom are similar in political beliefs.
It's also the only morally acceptable way to go.
I don't vote for evil period. Someone else can take the blame next time. Since no candidates are running that are not either Left wing statist corporatist fascist or left wing corporatists statists which is the definition of Democrats and Republicans or Dinos and Rinos the only choice is to not play their game especially when they keep strengthening their defenses against ever having free and honest elections.
I'm far from opting out. Down to and including reminding the military of their oath of office. And I don't have to violate my moral values to take those options.
In this case the game is rigged so never mind getting in the arena even buying a ticket to the fight gives aid and comfort to the wrong side. the only way to win is by NOT participating and thankfully we still have that provision in whats left of the Constitution.
I don't vote the openly leftists at all and it's a way of punishing the Republicans for going left and turning traitor to the nation and he Constitution
Meanwhile I will probably vote no on every tax increase and every measure that is antithetical to freedom and independence. Another blank space is judges that run unopposed and non-partisan candidates on the local level. No such thing as non partisan.
The other three options are don't vote at all, don't register and especially not for Republicans or Democrats and three wait for the military to uphold their oath of office.
But voting for any form of left wing socialist fascism isn't going to happen. I'm a Constitutionalist not a traitor.
I think Rand would have appreciated the initial support but would have had a falling out fairly quickly.
1)Youtube
Hayek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fszzh...
Mises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkEyY...
2) Articles
Menger http://hallingblog.com/2015/11/16/car...
Mises http://hallingblog.com/2015/09/08/pra...
Hayek http://hallingblog.com/2015/03/04/hay...
To get votes, politicians need breadth of support, not depth. So we can candidates that feel like the lesser of two evils. We get an industry of commentators struggling for attention by saying, "OMG, President Bush/Obama will destroy the country." (Who am I kidding about them using the proper title, "President"? They're more likely to call them childish names.)
If we cannot elect Rand Paul or someone like him, the rational thing to do is to lobby the politicians for policies that favor liberty and ignore the histrionics.
I think you're right that politics "leads a path towards statism, socialism, anti-capitalism, and most importantly-anti-freedom." At first I thought that was a famous Ayn Rand quote, and then I realized you wrote.
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