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buttonion
Calmly Watching
Registered: 04/04/02
Posts: 303
Loc: Kansas
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Objectivism: What a load of..
#1544639 - 05/13/03 09:20 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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From a site on Objectivism:
"Human Nature Man is a rational being. Reason, as man?s only means of knowledge, is his basic means of survival. But the exercise of reason depends on each individual?s choice. "Man is a being of volitional consciousness." "That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call ?free will? is your mind?s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character. Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions)."
I think the source of some dispute in the advertising thread (and many others) is expressed in this tenant of objectivism, to which a few of you seem to subscribe. "Any form of determinism" is being rejected- the rejection of the idea that we are what we are because of forces that are completely out of our control and awareness...???
We have not found a satisfactory answer to the problem of freewill vs. determinism, but this does not mean that you have to "take a side." You have to be delusional or in complete denial to assert that we are not, at least in part, the products of our environment.
This speaks to the claim that those who cannot critically think are "lazy," as if many of them don?t have all of the cards stacked against them. If you assume to begin with that we are and have been in complete control of the course of our lives, then you will naturally understand the absence of critical thought as the "choice not to think" (i.e., laziness). I think holding this opinion is a better example of intellectual laziness. Time for an assumption reevaluation.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Sclorch
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1546202 - 05/13/03 06:35 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think there is a certain threshold of experiences that we must accumulate before we can transcend the fear/insecurity cycle and, thus, form a consciousness that can experience true free will. I don't feel sorry for those who have not reached this threshold... but I don't look down on them either (unless they impede my freedom). Making money off them isn't a big deal either... my problem comes when the bullshit rhetorical/psychological tactics used in advertising create value systems (in the minds of these inhibited individuals) that THREATEN MY FREEDOM. That's MY problem.
-------------------- Note: In desperate need of a cure...
Edited by Sclorch (05/13/03 06:37 PM)
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Malachi
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Sclorch]
#1546310 - 05/13/03 07:33 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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yeah, ayn rand and the libertarians are fucking crazy. Objectivism isn't a philosophy, it's a cult. it's total bullshit that neo cons use to make seem like capitalism and reason are bound by a causal link. crazy libertarians defeat the whole point o f capitaism (informed consent) by denying the right to education.
-------------------- The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side. - Paul Tillich
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infidelGOD
illusion
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Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of [Re: buttonion]
#1546459 - 05/13/03 08:24 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think the source of some dispute in the advertising thread (and many others) is expressed in this tenant of objectivism, to which a few of you seem to subscribe. "Any form of determinism" is being rejected- the rejection of the idea that we are what we are because of forces that are completely out of our control and awareness...???
I think you can reject determinism and still have compassion for those who made the "wrong choices" or those whose will is no match for the environmental forces around them. Objectivism seems to make the case that somehow "free will" can overcome "fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions"... maybe some people can, but that's completely unrealistic.. I'll say that (and I don't want to sound like a compatiblist here) free will doesn't exist in a vacuum. There are always other factors... other forces at work which influence (not determine) the path your life will take.
their definition: 'the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control' does not sound like an accurate definition of determinism to me... it sounds... almost political. It seems like objectivism isn't just rejecting "any form of determinsm". it's rejecting certain beliefs that have nothing to do with determinism.
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Phred
Fred's son
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1546536 - 05/13/03 08:44 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion quotes:
Quote:
Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions)."
You have the emphasis on the wrong part of that sentence, and you haven't considered the context of the paragraph as a whole -- that every man (except the most profoundly retarded) has the power of reason and possesses free will.
There is no evidence that God exists or that fate determines our destiny, but plenty of evidence that we can reason and that we possess free will. Upbringing and genetics does not determine our ultimate fate either -- there are countless examples of siblings differing radically; same genetic parents, same upbringing, one is successful and the other is a bum. Economic conditions the same -- plenty of useless trust funders, plenty of heroes from terrible economic conditions.
The dominant factor in determining what kind of life you will have is how willing you are to utilize whatever intellectual capacity you happen to have to its utmost. Thinking is hard work. If you choose not to think, or not to think very often, your life will be of significantly lower quality than if you consciously choose to think as often as possible.
...the rejection of the idea that we are what we are because of forces that are completely out of our control and awareness...
That idea is a cop out. Once you reach a certain stage of maturity, you have to accept responsibility for your own life. And if such mysterious "forces" are beyond our awareness, in what possible way can they have an effect on us? Through telekinesis?
You have to be delusional or in complete denial to assert that we are not, at least in part, the products of our environment.
The key word phrase here is "in part". The fact that someone left school three years earlier than his peers does not doom him to failure. He will have to work harder than others, but he is FREE to work harder, IF HE SO CHOOSES.
This speaks to the claim that those who cannot critically think are "lazy," as if many of them don?t have all of the cards stacked against them.
The quote you picked DOES refer to the intellectually lazy. It is precisely analagous to someone who is physically lazy. The word is well chosen, because it refers to those who CHOOSE not to think, not to those (the profoundly retarded, for example) who lack the CAPACITY to think. Similarly, one would not refer to a wheelchair-bound person as physically lazy, but you could appropriately apply it to a healthy young person who chose to lounge in front of the TV every waking moment.
If you assume to begin with that we are and have been in complete control of the course of our lives, then you will naturally understand the absence of critical thought as the "choice not to think" (i.e., laziness)
You are missing the point completely. One does not need to be in complete control of one's life in order to choose to think. But that is really the one true thing in your life which you CAN control. You can't control your genetics, or choose your upbringers, or outduel God or fate (if either exists) or beam yourself in an instant from the slums to a mansion. Hence --
...that which you call ?free will? is your mind?s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom.
I think holding this opinion is a better example of intellectual laziness. Time for an assumption reevaluation.
Think it through again.
pinky
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Phred
Fred's son
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1546571 - 05/13/03 08:54 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Malachi writes:
yeah, ayn rand and the libertarians are fucking crazy.
Why?
Objectivism isn't a philosophy, it's a cult.
Incorrect. It is a philosophy. It may not be a philosophy you agree with, but it is most definitely a philosophy. Rand originated almost none of the ideas expressed in Objectivism (except for her epistemological work on concept formation) -- virtually everything she outlines was said long ago by Aristotle and/or numerous Enlightenment Era philosophers. Her true accomplishment was arranging those concepts into a coherent system which covers everything from metaphysics to politics.
it's total bullshit that neo cons use to make seem like capitalism and reason are bound by a causal link.
Few if any admitted "neo-cons" are more than grudging admirers of Ayn Rand. And the link between reason and Laissez-faire Capitalism is not an illusory one.
crazy libertarians defeat the whole point o f capitaism (informed consent) by denying the right to education.
The whole point of Capitalism is not "informed consent", but freedom from coercion. As for the "right" to education, which Capitalist has ever said people have no right to educate themselves or their children? Source, please.
pinky
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AislingGheal
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1546604 - 05/13/03 09:07 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Let me preface this post by saying that I lean toward objectivism as a philosophy, I've said so in other posts as well, but I do not think that objectivism is a perfect system, to me it's a good model but not sacrosanct. The following quote is an explanation by an objectivist concerning the dilemma of freewill vs. determinism, I think it finds the middle ground you were alluding to: "What kind of freedom is there in our free choice ? Our choices cannot and obviously should not be totally free from (or fail to take into account) our knowledge, values and perceptions of our environment and ourselves. Our choices are not free from past thoughts and decisions or from external influences. Our choices can also not transcend the laws of nature, ie. do the impossible. The freedom we find in freewill is not the elimination of influencing factors as such, but the expansion of our choice by our unique ability to deal with abstract concepts (language), by our self-awareness, our imagination, our ability to seek out knowledge and project the future and, most importantly, by our awareness of and monitoring of our own thinking. This is the source of our freedom; this is what makes us self-determined. This is the crux of the proper understanding of freewill: Not free from influences, but free to make intelligent choices.
How does freewill differ from "normal" choice, the kind a machine or an animal may make ? The advance of human choice over that of (current) machines and animals lies in our ability to think abstractly and in our awareness of ourselves and our own thinking. This creates the freedom of choice that freewill represents. We understand. Machines and animals have knowledge, but they have little or no understanding. I use the term knowledge in a limited sense: Facts of reality as may be contained in an encyclopedia or a computer program, or an animal's knowledge of nutritious food. We, too, sometimes have knowledge without understanding. Our schools often encourage rote learning of such facts as the dates of Napoleonic wars or the Latin name for a frog's tonsils. Understanding, in contrast, implies the integration of knowledge with other existing knowledge and its relationship to ourselves and to our primary means of knowledge, our senses. Until we relate knowledge to our own existence and our perceptual knowledge of reality, it is not understood. All knowledge, including abstract concepts, has to be integrated with and related to fundamental experience. A thermostat has knowledge of a temperature change, but not understanding. A flower has knowledge of the rising sun, but no understanding. An animal has the knowledge to feed itself, but only understanding food's significance allows us to farm or select a healthy diet.
There are degrees of freewill similar to degrees of intelligence or compassion. There are also degrees of understanding. Animals have varying degrees of understanding, limited by their inability to think abstractly and their limited awareness of themselves and their thought processes (3). True understanding requires a grasp of the concept of "consciousness" (though not necessarily knowledge of the word) and of the "I" which is experiencing and thinking. The freedom of choice that we enjoy is in a different class than that available to animals; that is why we correctly give it the title "freewill". There is no absolute cut-off point between "normal" choice and freewill; children's freewill develops and surpasses that of chimps at an early age. We recognize this fact of developing freewill in the way we treat babies as compared to how we treat children or adults. All conscious humans have the capacity for freewill, but the scope of actual utilization is variable. We determine the degree of freewill ourselves, we are self-determined. We may do this by implicit, subconscious default or by explicit, conscious decision.
To summarize, freewill is not choice free from the "wiring" of our brains (genes and chemical factors), our life's experiences (environmental influences) or prior thoughts and decisions. Freewill is the extra freedom to create and evaluate options by understanding their implications. The scope of freewill depends on the actual utilization of this unique cognitive ability." - Peter Voss
-------------------- "I hate having to pick between the lesser of two evils. But I'm glad Obama was elected. McCain was another war monger. I'd rather deal with our country going into debt than trying to take on afghanistan...oh wait FUCK!" - Fungus_tao
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Malachi
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: AislingGheal]
#1546777 - 05/13/03 10:21 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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pinksharkmark said,
"Rand originated almost none of the ideas expressed in Objectivism (except for her epistemological work on concept formation) -- virtually everything she outlines was said long ago by Aristotle and/or numerous Enlightenment Era philosophers. Her true accomplishment was arranging those concepts into a coherent system which covers everything from metaphysics to politics."
-right, that's what philosophers do. the "arranging those concepts into a coherent system" part is a philosophy. crazy fucks like charles manson and billy graham also have philosophies. their ideas are also traceable to aristotle. rands philosophy doesn't make any sense. I've heard that their are two branches of objectivism, and that only one of them are really crazy... but in my experience, objectivist are freaky. I mean, why reduce humanity to such a base level? it's so... reductionist. go to
http://www.friesian.com/rand.htm
to read about rand.
"The whole point of Capitalism is not "informed consent", but freedom from coercion. As for the "right" to education, which Capitalist has ever said people have no right to educate themselves or their children? Source, please."
-how can you be free to choose and prioritize all of the elements that create a lifestyle if you have no appreciation for the range of human thought and activity? ignorance is coercion. therefore everyone, even people who have technical vocations, need to be educated in a liberal arts curriculum. I didn't say that capitalist want to prevent people from educating themselves... I said libertarians would not support public education. but now that you mention it, yeah, modern day "capitalists" aren't playing by the rules, they aren't allowing the masses freedom from coercion, because people are not informed enough to vote and purchase (dollar vote) in a manner that accurately reflects their true desires. I base this argument on adam smiths discussion of the importance of liberal arts education in wealth of nations. .
-------------------- The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side. - Paul Tillich
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Evolving
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1546968 - 05/13/03 11:44 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
crazy fucks like charles manson and billy graham also have philosophies.
How does this have any bearing on the merits or shortcoming of Objectivism?
Quote:
rands philosophy doesn't make any sense.
Have you tried English courses?
Quote:
I've heard that their are two branches of objectivism, and that only one of them are really crazy...
So you're basing your assessment of something on someone else's opinions without understanding the topic you are criticizing?
Quote:
in my experience, objectivist are freaky.
What does this mean, that you judge the merits of a philosophy based on the social graces of some of it's adherents?
Quote:
I mean, why reduce humanity to such a base level?
Don't you mean basic level? What is wrong with trying to understand the essence of something?
Quote:
-how can you be free to choose and prioritize all of the elements that create a lifestyle if you have no appreciation for the range of human thought and activity?
These are individual choices, not everyone incorporates the same elements into their personal lifestyles. How does Objectivism exclude the appreciation for the range of human thought and activity? (if this is what you meant)
Quote:
ignorance is coercion.
This makes no sense, ignorance and coercion are two different concepts.
Quote:
... therefore even people who have technical vocations, need to be educated in a liberal arts curriculum.
Please define need in this context and how you arrive at this conclusion.
Quote:
modern day "capitalists" aren't playing by the rules,
What 'rules' are you referring to? Perhaps the legal codes of the particular countires in which these "capitalists" are running their businesses?
Quote:
they aren't allowing the masses freedom from coercion,
There are laws against this in the U.S., what country are you from?
Quote:
because people are not informed enough to vote...
Yes, democracy is a pretty shitty system that way.
Quote:
... and purchase (dollar vote) in a manner that accurately reflects their true desires.
This makes no sense. Are you saying that consumers don't know their own desires? How did you determine this? I say that each individual (other than you) is much more cognizant of his own desires than you.
-------------------- To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.
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AislingGheal
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1546974 - 05/13/03 11:47 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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"...but in my experience, objectivist are freaky. I mean, why reduce humanity to such a base level? it's so... reductionist."
Some objectivist are zombies no doubt, but you can find freaks following any various philosophy, religion, or ideology. Some people are happy to settle on a system and defend it ruthlessly, it's easier and more comfortable that way.
I enjoyed the link you provided, I think it is beyond doubt that Ayn Rand was at times extreme, that she made mistakes along the way. To me that's the human condition, everyone makes mistakes, the friction comes down to do you side with Kant or Rand. I still side more with Rand but that could change, I'm still learning and open to the consideration of other models.
-------------------- "I hate having to pick between the lesser of two evils. But I'm glad Obama was elected. McCain was another war monger. I'd rather deal with our country going into debt than trying to take on afghanistan...oh wait FUCK!" - Fungus_tao
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buttonion
Calmly Watching
Registered: 04/04/02
Posts: 303
Loc: Kansas
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: AislingGheal]
#1548114 - 05/14/03 12:25 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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NOMAD: ?their definition: 'the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control' does not sound like an accurate definition of determinism to me... it sounds... almost political.?
I agree. Such emotion-arousing wording should be used sparingly when trying to make you case on reasonable grounds.
Pinksharkmark: Thanks for your comments. See below
AislingGheal: Thank you for the quote. I concede that it appears objectivists are not as polarized on the freewill vs. determinism continuum as I thought. SMILE
Now let?s just take a quick look at Rand's definition quickly.
Quote:
The advance of human choice over that of (current) machines and animals lies in our ability to think abstractly and in our awareness of ourselves and our own thinking. This creates the freedom of choice that freewill represents.
So i.e., due to our ability to create a model of reality, and the application of this ability to model the self, we are able to not only accumulate raw data (ayn?s knowledge) but integrate this with knowledge of reality and our self (ayn?s understanding). This gives us the capacity for making intelligent decisions. She seems to be saying that due to this abiliy, we have many more "choices" upon which to act.
The question I still have, that she did not answer (and is really at the heart of freewill), is- is the capacity to use this ability equally distributed amongst all of us? I.e., is whether we use this ability (that I agree most us have) equally likely for all individuals? No, I don?t think it is. Conditions out of our control affect whether we use this ability, and, thus, to make the sweeping comment that all individuals who do not use it, "choose not to" is overlysimplistic.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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atomikfunksoldier
T'was born oftrue in the yearof the cock!
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1548128 - 05/14/03 12:28 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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ayn rand sucks. she was a total creep, in the 50's, during america's insane period of communist paranoia, she was on the forefront of the persecutions. she was part of the "house on un-american activities". which ex-communicated anyone in the hollywood community who wasnt on the extreme right.
-------------------- enjoy the entertaining indentity i have constructed for you while you can.
Edited by atomikfunksoldier (05/14/03 12:29 PM)
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Murex
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Sclorch]
#1548130 - 05/14/03 12:28 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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my problem comes when the bullshit rhetorical/psychological tactics used in advertising create value systems (in the minds of these inhibited individuals) that THREATEN MY FREEDOM.
I agree with this. Society is shaped by TV.
-------------------- What if everything around you Isn't quite as it seems? What if all the world you think you know, Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, Is it all you want it to be?
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Sclorch
Clyster
Registered: 07/12/99
Posts: 4,805
Loc: On the Brink of Madness
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Murex]
#1548622 - 05/14/03 03:43 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Sclorch: my problem comes when the bullshit rhetorical/psychological tactics used in advertising create value systems (in the minds of these inhibited individuals) that THREATEN MY FREEDOM. Murex: I agree with this. Society is shaped by TV.
I think it's important to note that it's more like a feedback loop. Cycles like this are hard to break.
-------------------- Note: In desperate need of a cure...
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Malachi
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Sclorch]
#1548900 - 05/14/03 05:33 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Evolving --
I was saying that it's more discriptive to call objectivism a cult than a philosphy. pinksharkmark argued that it's more discriptive to call objectivism a philosophy. his grounds for this argument where that ayn rand is just updating aristotle. I said that's bullshit cause you could just as well say that mansion was just updating the bible. I don't think that english courses will make me understand why I shouldn't feel bad when I see starving people. objectivism trys to tell me that I shouldn't care about starving people. I don't like that. maybe you should take some english courses so that you could compose a more substantial criticsm than one liners.
Informed consent.Informed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consentInformed consent
adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.adam smith.vadam smith.adam smith.vvadam smith.
-------------------- The ultimate meaning of our being can only be fulfilled in the paradoxical leap beyond the tragic-demonic frustration. It is a leap from our side, but it is the self-surrendering presence of the Ground of Being from the other side. - Paul Tillich
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Sclorch
Clyster
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1550028 - 05/15/03 01:05 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think the main problem here is one of thought articulation... accurately putting ideas into words isn't easy. Becoming defensive when someone doesn't get your idea doesn't help.
Everyone has been guilty of this.
-------------------- Note: In desperate need of a cure...
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1550185 - 05/15/03 03:12 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
objectivism trys to tell me that I shouldn't care about starving people. I don't like that.
I haven't read Rand myself, but this comment makes me curious. Does objectivism actually say that you shouldn't care about starving people? That sounds strange coming from Rand who must have seen the effects of Lenin's great famine with her own eyes.
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Phred
Fred's son
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Malachi]
#1550286 - 05/15/03 05:40 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Malachi writes:
his grounds for this argument where that ayn rand is just updating aristotle. I said that's bullshit cause you could just as well say that mansion was just updating the bible.
If you claim Objectivism is not a philosophy then you must similarly reject the philosophies of Kant and Aquinas and Hegel and Hume and Bastiat and Dewey and dozens of others.
objectivism trys to tell me that I shouldn't care about starving people.
Objectivism says no such thing.
maybe you should take some english courses so that you could compose a more substantial criticsm than one liners.
And your one-liner about Objectivism and starving people doesn't count, I presume?
From the comments you have given us in this thread, it is apparent you yourself have read little if any Objectivist writings, and instead are condemning it on the basis of what others have said about it.
pinky
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Phred
Fred's son
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Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1550288 - 05/15/03 05:44 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Rhizoid writes:
Does objectivism actually say that you shouldn't care about starving people?
No. Not even close.
That sounds strange coming from Rand who must have seen the effects of Lenin's great famine with her own eyes.
She left Russia around 1920 or 1921, if I recall correctly. The worst famines were still to come.
pinky
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1550356 - 05/15/03 07:16 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well well my dear friend, this seems to be just the sort of thread you were asking for all those long months ago. I remember very well you opining that there were no threads about this subject.
Let me make as many comments here as time allows. First of all let me, as moderator, bestow upon upon you the rank of "Vanguard of Reason", a title of high honor, for your answers in this thread and many many others. Wear it with pride. If you would like any spore print that I have in my possession you may pm me and receive it free of charge.
When discussing Objectivism and Ayn Rand you will find the usual Ad Homs, Red Herrings, Straw men, etc from those unacquainted with logical disputation. The bottom line is, and always has been, whether or not we, as rational beings will allow ourselves to be led by reason, or go kicking and screaming against it every step of the way.
Now, Objectivism may have a few minor flaws but as a philosophy I have found very few.
Those that argue against it, I have found, do so from some internal need to rail against a world they see as cold and heartless. Buttonion, a brilliant mind, has been uncomfortable with the idea that there is a universe outside our minds. He has been, as I have known him, a fan of Idealism ala Berkeley. I don't think you could stray further from "Objectivism". In fact, I owe him an explanation of why Goedel's Theorum isn't evidence against the rationalist's or realist's position for months. (Don't worry buttonion, I will get to it eventually)
I find that arguing these kinds of precepts and concepts for too long against those who cannot or will not accept the refined common sense with which they are offered an exercise in futility.
In the meantime I will pop a new batch of popcorn as continue watching the show for the remainder of the thread injecting only where I see absolutely necessary.
Carry on.
Cheers,
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infidelGOD
illusion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1550358 - 05/15/03 07:18 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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I read that objectivism has been embraced by corporate executives. not surprising, really... but it's not exactly an endorsement, if you ask me.
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1550366 - 05/15/03 07:22 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion writes:
The question I still have, that she did not answer (and is really at the heart of freewill), is- is the capacity to use this ability equally distributed amongst all of us?
How could it be otherwise? Clearly it is a matter of individual choice. "To think or not to think, that is the question." All of us have the capacity (although not necessarily the inclination) to use whatever intellect we possess whenever we want to.
I.e., is whether we use this ability (that I agree most us have) equally likely for all individuals?
Ah -- you ask two different questions, then. First you asked about capacity, now you ask about likelihood. Clearly, some are more likely to choose to think more often than some others will. So what? Again, it is a matter of choice. The same is true of our physical abilities. One chooses to be active physically or to move just barely enough to get by.
Conditions out of our control affect whether we use this ability...
This is the second time in this thread you mention "conditions out of our control". Please give us a specific example. What condition outside your control can prevent you from choosing to think? The only one I can think of offhand is if someone kidnaps you and dopes you to the gills with Thorazine or something similar.
...and, thus, to make the sweeping comment that all individuals who do not use it, "choose not to" is overly simplistic.
Read my comments above and get back to me. There is nothing short of unconsciousness or heavy sedatives that can take away your choice to think or to not think.
pinky
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1550428 - 05/15/03 08:06 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
There is nothing short of unconsciousness or heavy sedatives that can take away your choice to think or to not think.
If this choice is truly and completely free, shouldn't we see an even 50-50 distribution of people who choose to think and people who don't? Because if the distribution is skewed to, say 30-70 or 1-99, then there is clearly a bias present.
Or to borrow terminology from information theory: if the probabilities of the various choices are not equal, then our information does not have maximum entropy, and this makes the choice predictable and predetermined to a certain degree.
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buttonion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1551765 - 05/15/03 04:14 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Mr. Mushrooms: This is not about valid reasoning, this is about our fundamental assumptions of human behavior. Some think that whether we exercise our powers of reason is outside of the causal chain of influence, while others do not.
PinkSharkMark: So I think this is where we are at right now: We all agree that the average human has the capacity for critical, logical thought. The remaining question is, Is the choice to use the capacity of critical thought completely exempt from causal influence?
The pro-objectivists say it is, Rhizoid and I say it is not. IT ISN?T? ALL RIGHT?!!!!!
So what could have an affect on whether somebody uses critical thought to evaluate a decision? This is an empirical question so...time to put on my behavioral scientist cap.
Many factors, but here is a specific (and very interesting) example of one. Studies have shown that when people are reminded of their mortality, they strongly dislike those who hold beliefs inconsistent with their own. Here are the details. A participant is reminded of either their mortality or a neutral (but aversive) topic. He then reads an essay written by someone who is anti-American (or against one of many other commonly held positions). After this, the participant indicates the appeal of the author, the intelligence of the author, and the truth of the author's essay. Consistently, those who are reminded of death rate the author lower on all of these qualities relative to the control condition. This study has been replicated at least 50 times, in many different forms, with people from about 7 different cultures, both lazy and non-lazy, both critical thinking and not, and the results are the same.
This is an example of how are critical thinking abilities can be affected. Without getting into a theoretical interpretation of these findings, the fact is that a factor (thinking about death) can have an affect on our judgment of something else, i.e., whether we use our critical thinking skills is not simply "a choice" not to.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1551815 - 05/15/03 04:24 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Rhizoid writes: If this choice is truly and completely free, shouldn't we see an even 50-50 distribution of people who choose to think and people who don't? It is not an either/or situation, though -- i.e. half the people thinking furiously every waking hour and the other half never thinking at all -- everyone must spend at least some time thinking. It is impossible for any man to survive unaided without doing some thinking. The point is that thinking is a volitional activity -- if one chooses to just zone out at every opportunity, one may barely get by, but the level of one's existence is likely to be subsistence and no more. Maybe not even that unless aided by others. All that Objectivist philosophy states is that the more often one chooses to think, the better the chances are that one will be proficient (rather than merely adequate) at surviving. Or to borrow terminology from information theory: if the probabilities of the various choices are not equal, then our information does not have maximum entropy, and this makes the choice predictable and predetermined to a certain degree. Man is not mechanistic. The existence of free will makes information theory inapplicable to the situation under discussion. We're not talking about throwing dice out of a cup. pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (05/15/03 04:50 PM)
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1551925 - 05/15/03 04:47 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion writes: Studies have shown that when people are reminded of their mortality, they strongly dislike those who hold beliefs inconsistent with their own. Here are the details... (snipped to save bandwidth) ...and the results are the same. I fail to see the relevance of that example. If that study is legitimate, all it indicates is that when people are reminded of their mortality, some tend to be less tolerant of those who hold opposing viewpoints. So what? Do they suddenly forget the difference between food and poison? Do they come to believe that playing three card monte is a wiser investment than a diversified investment portfolio? This is an example of how are critical thinking abilities can be affected. I don't see that. All I see (again presuming this study is legitimate) is that they tend to rely more on their own judgment than the judgment of others who hold opposing views. ...the fact is that a factor (thinking about death) can have an affect on our judgment of something else... Yeah, and when I am distracted by the thought of getting into the pants of the hottie at the bar stool next to me I might make a decision that I wouldn't make if she had a face like a trout. What's your point? Look, decisions are not made in a vacuum. The more information one considers (including the undeniable fact of one's mortality), the greater the likelihood that one may make the correct decision. One is still thinking, and presumably basing one's actions on whatever the end result of that thought chain may be. ...whether we use our critical thinking skills is not simply "a choice" not to. Of course it is a choice -- no one can force you to think. Conversely, no one can prevent you from thinking. The choice to think or not to think is always your choice, no one else's. The fact that you may not always make the "perfect" decision (and Objectivism does not claim that man is infallible) doesn't alter the fact that you make the decision. pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (05/15/03 04:52 PM)
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buttonion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1552014 - 05/15/03 05:16 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
The choice to think or not to think is always your choice, no one else's. The fact that you may not always make the "perfect" decision (and Objectivism does not claim that man is infallible) doesn't alter the fact that you make the decision.
Fine, you ultimately make the decision, but your decision can be biased by external factors that are, yes, out of your control.
Do you agree with the statement: "We make all decisions, but we may be inclined to decide one way or another because of external influences."
If so, what kind of free choice is that? And how can you then ignore these external influences that affect whether a person chooses to engage in critical thought, which is what you are doing when you call him lazy?
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1552072 - 05/15/03 05:41 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Let's throw this into a pragmatic realm.
I am up for a new microscope. Before I buy it I will review many different scopes and buy the best one that fits my application.
What are these "ominous" external forces preventing me from using my critical thinking skills as I make my choice of which one to buy?
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iglou
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1552120 - 05/15/03 05:58 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1552616 - 05/15/03 09:18 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion writes:
Fine, you ultimately make the decision, but your decision can be biased by external factors that are, yes, out of your control.
It seems that with each succeeding post you stray further and further from the original claim from your opening post: that Objectivists imply that those who make less than optimal decisions are "intellectually lazy". Nothing could be further from the truth. Objectivists label as "intellectually lazy" those who choose not to make the effort to think, not those who think as best they can yet still come up with a less than optimal answer. I repeat, Objectivists do not hold that man is infallible. You are beating the wrong dead horse.
Thinking is hard work. Thinking clearly is harder still.
Do you agree with the statement: "We make all decisions, but we may be inclined to decide one way or another because of external influences."
Of course I agree with that statement. That is precisely why it is so important not to be lazy in your thinking. You must expend the effort to identify such bias or inclination or tendency or habit or prejudice or whatever you want to call it, and adjust your final decision accordingly. The intellectually lazy don't bother to expend that effort. If so, what kind of free choice is that?
You are free to expend the mental effort or not. What more do you want?
And how can you then ignore these external influences that affect whether a person chooses to engage in critical thought which is what you are doing when you call him lazy?
Which "external influence"? The fact that on your drive home while listening to the radio you heard someone talking about the innate mortality of every human? Or the fact that just as you lock your car door before entering your apartment to discuss with your wife the state of your marital relationship, you catch a glimpse of a stunning and apparently available young lady across the street?
What you seem to be getting getting at here (unless I miss your point entirely) is that one's emotional state can tend at times to override one's reason, unless one is intellectually rigorous enough to recognize that emotions are not tools of cognition. To stop and remind yourself of that fact is part of the effort that the intellectually non-lazy normally expend. The intellectually lazy don't make that effort -- if it "feels" right at the moment, they "go for it". That's the lazy way out.
pinky
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buttonion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1552788 - 05/15/03 10:30 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well my own time constraints require me to answer you and Mr_Mushrooms in this one post. I really do think we arriving at the fundamental disagreement here.
You say: Quote:
Objectivists label as "intellectually lazy" those who choose not to make the effort to think
Quote:
The intellectually lazy don't bother to expend that effort.
And we seem to agree on this:
"We make all decisions, but we may be inclined to decide one way or another because of external influences."
But if you agree, then why can?t you apply this idea to the act of "deciding" whether to engage in critical thought i.e., to expend the effort to think? How can you hold the above position and not acknowledge that the "decision" to critically asses a claim made by a commercial is subject to external influence? Is this a special case that is exempt from external factors?
....because if the decision to engage in critical thought can be influenced by external factors, then to say that the sole cause of not engaging in it is the person's choice (i.e., they are just lazy) is not valid.
If you still think a dead horse is being beaten, then there must be a semantic gap here that I cannot bridge. Anyone else want to add their two-cents?
Quote:
What you seem to be getting getting at here (unless I miss your point entirely) is that one's emotional state can tend at times to override one's reason
This is an interesting line of thought, but I don't think we need to go there. Or maybe we do. I don't know.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1552798 - 05/15/03 10:33 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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I still don't see an answer to this:
"I am up for a new microscope. Before I buy it I will review many different scopes and buy the best one that fits my application.
What are these "ominous" external forces preventing me from using my critical thinking skills as I make my choice of which one to buy?"
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Murex
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1552839 - 05/15/03 10:50 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Society and Governments view the population as units. Viewing them this way is somewhat justafied, because most everyone in society, grows up being tought the values of thatir society and government. We are mindless when we watch TV; we sit and stare, allowing the screen to take every bit of our attention and mind power. We are then weak. The longer this goes on (depending on what shows are watched and their message or tone), our minds will atrophy.
Tecknology makes our lives easier, but some would rather stop our expansion and exploration to sit down and let things come to them. Material objects do this too to some extent, but it clutters our minds and warps our values.
Marketing is a psycological game. The ones who bite are usually fools. Society is meant to produce an ongoing supply of fools who will grow up to fight for a wrong cause, believe a certian religion, or buy a Big Mac and get fat and lazy (allowing for more of the same). We are being injected with thought for as long as we have known......but I smell change.
-------------------- What if everything around you Isn't quite as it seems? What if all the world you think you know, Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection, Is it all you want it to be?
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1552902 - 05/15/03 11:19 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion writes: And we seem to agree on this: "We make all decisions, but we may be inclined to decide one way or another because of external influences." Not in the sense that said "external influences" reach into our minds and flip a switch or something, no we don't agree. These "external influences" or "forces beyond our control" of which you have spoken are nothing more than data -- the opinion of a friend, the artwork in a magazine ad, homilies from your Sunday School teacher, an admiring smile from a pretty girl... whatever. The difficult task (which the intellectually lazy seldom choose to undertake) is assessing that data and determining whether or not that data has any relevance to whatever topic you are reasoning through at the moment. ...why can?t you apply this idea to the act of "deciding" whether to engage in critical thought i.e., to expend the effort to think? Again, we are getting further and further removed from the essential principle under discussion here -- that each man is free at all times to think or not to think. The fact that at times it may be a distasteful chore to expend a lot of mental energy doesn't alter the fact that one is free at all times to do so. Your claim (as I understand it) is that the life experiences one accumulates over the years (see my short list above for a few examples) alter one's inclination to choose to think. Once again I must use the analogy of a middle-aged person with a beer belly and a cushy job who no longer feels he needs to exercise. His inclination is to sit in front of the TV rather than going to the gym. He still has the ability to be physically active, and he almost certainly knows that his chances of living longer increase the more physically active he chooses to be. No one is preventing him from exercising -- he chooses to be physically lazy. The "outside influences" in his case may be a perceived lack of time for exercise (clearly fallacious if he has time to watch TV), the memory of the time he got teased at the gym when he was struggling to bench press 100 pounds, a wife who believes he exercises not for his health, but to meet buff young hotties... whatever. All these "outside influences" increase his inclination to remain a couch potato. Yet he can if he wishes, choose to exercise, can he not? How can you hold the above position and not acknowledge that the "decision" to critically asses a claim made by a commercial is subject to external influence? Because no matter what "excess mental baggage" one has picked up along the way by being exposed to "external influences", one always retains the ability to critically assess new experiences, if one chooses to bother with the effort such assessment requires. pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (05/15/03 11:24 PM)
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1553101 - 05/16/03 12:40 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Man is not mechanistic. The existence of free will makes information theory inapplicable to the situation under discussion.
I don't see what being mechanistic has to do with it. If I observe a man making choices, and if I predict (correctly) that a certain proportion of his choices will be one way and not the other, then I can calculate the amount of prior information I have about those choices by using the mathematics of information theory. No mechanistic assumptions are required.
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1553158 - 05/16/03 01:05 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Okay Mr Mushrooms, I'll take a shot at your microscope example. I can think of a number of reasons why a person can't make an optimal decision about which microscope to buy. Maybe he never learned the skills required (good old logic, scientific reasoning, how to navigate the markets, etc). Maybe he is in a hurry so he has to trade time invested in examining the alternatives for time to do whatever he needs the microscope for. Or maybe he makes mistakes while he is collecting the facts, or maybe someone presents him with misleading facts.
Some, or none, or all of this may affect the results of the decision process, depending on the conditions of the particular case.
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1553489 - 05/16/03 06:43 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Rhizoid writes:
I can think of a number of reasons why a person can't make an optimal decision about which microscope to buy.
So can I, and so can Mr Mushrooms, I'll bet.
But his question (and this entire thread) has nothing to do with making optimal decisions -- it has to to do with the freedom to use one's reason in making decisions. Clearly the freedom to make decisions involves the freedom to make less than optimal decisions. For the third time in this thread I point out that Objectivists do not claim that man is infallible. Mr. Mushrooms had asked:
"What are these "ominous" external forces preventing me from using my critical thinking skills as I make my choice of which one to buy?"
So far no one has identified an "external source" which can prevent one from choosing to think.
pinky
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1553551 - 05/16/03 08:02 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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And all I am saying really is that determinism is a relative thing. It depends on how much is known, and how much isn't. Determinism seems to increase by degree every time we increase our information about some process. Determinism is nothing more than controlling the variables actually! And since we can never control all the variables, we will never see anything in the real world that is guaranteed to be 100% determinated. This is my viewpoint. But I don't understand why it's so important for objectivists to distance themselves from determinism in the human brain?
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buttonion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1553671 - 05/16/03 09:28 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Again, we are getting further and further removed from the essential principle under discussion here -- that each man is free at all times to think or not to think.
OK, let?s try to keep this simple and focused.
"Each man is free at all times to think or not to think"
to me means that
"whether we think or not (validly or invalidly) is a freely chosen act, i.e., not susceptible to external influence."
Is this what you are saying? Bear with me.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1554298 - 05/16/03 02:19 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Yes, I see what you are saying but you missed the question. Let me repeat it with added emphasis:
"I am up for a new microscope. Before I buy it I will review many different scopes and buy the best one that fits my application.
What are these "ominous" external forces preventing me from using my critical thinking skills as I make my choice of which one to buy?"
Now obviously there are those with deficient mental abilities or those who are prone to lazy thinking that can be swayed by external forces. But we are not talking about them. We are talking about the ability to think and reason. And we are specifically talking about my choice.
Try to answer that one. I am very interested in your answer. And since I specifically asked about myself the personalizing stricture is lifted.
BTW, I am enjoying this immensely!
Cheers,
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1554749 - 05/16/03 05:46 PM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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buttonion writes:
"whether we think or not (validly or invalidly) is a freely chosen act, i.e., not susceptible to external influence."
You are still conflating two entirely separate issues here --
1) the fact that to think or not to think is a volitional activity
2) the fact that certain individuals for whatever reason (either through their personal inclination or through learned experiences or a combination of both) find the act of thinking to be a chore.
For example, I personally hate shaving, mainly because I am lazy. Why shave every day when the damn whiskers are just gonna grow back tomorrow? This doesn't change the fact that I have the ability to shave. I just choose not to whenever I can get away with it. I am not intellectually lazy, I am depilatorily lazy.
So, when you state "whether we think or not (validly or invalidly) is a freely chosen act..." you are correct. However, to then go on and qualify that true statement by tacking on "...i.e., not susceptible to external influence," you make the entire statement invalid.
Of course the frequency with which we choose to exercise our ability to think can be affected by our collected life experiences, if that is what you mean by "external influences". For example, I choose to think a lot more frequently now than I did thirty-some years ago because I ended up in some pretty hairy situations due to not thinking things through before acting. I am sure I am not unique in this. In every case without exception, introspection after the fact showed that if I had expended more energy in thinking up front, I would have avoided a hell of a lot of trouble. As a side benefit, I would have had a hell of a lot more money, too. Unfortunately, we cannot "rewind the tape" of our lives and try it again.
I cannot help but note that you have still not given us a single example of any "external influence" that can prevent one from thinking.
pinky
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buttonion
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1555922 - 05/17/03 09:14 AM (20 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
You are still conflating two entirely separate issues here --
1) the fact that to think or not to think is a volitional activity
2) the fact that certain individuals for whatever reason (either through their personal inclination or through learned experiences or a combination of both) find the act of thinking to be a chore.
So whether or not we think is a freely chosen act that can be affected be external factors.
???!!!...
I am running out of ways to state my position here. And providing an kind of example would accomplish nothing until we can straighten this blatant contradiction out. The way I see it, these 2 statement cannot both be true. I don?t understand how these are ?two separate issues.?
DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THE CONTRADICTION HERE???!!!
We need 3rd party intervention or else this thread is issue will be thrown up in the air in frustration by both of us.
Clarifying question: What do you say about an act when you call it ?volitional??
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Phred
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1556451 - 05/17/03 03:43 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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buttonion asks: So whether or not we think is a freely chosen act that can be affected be external factors. No. The only "external factors" that can prevent you from thinking once you have chosen to do so is someone knocking you unconscious or doping you senseless. Note that both of these examples involve the initiation of physical force against your person. *edit* There is another situation I can think of -- illness severe enough to induce delerium. In this case my comments re the profoundly retarded apply. And providing an kind of example would accomplish nothing until we can straighten this blatant contradiction out. There is no contradiction here, blatant or otherwise. The only person who decides whether buttonion thinks or doesn't think is buttonion. Some people may try to persuade you not to think, of course, but you always have the option to ignore their blandishments, or to pretend to acquiesce and then think anyway. Examples: - Someone gives you a million bucks to sit and "zone out" for a day. You accept the money, but while sitting in the chair pretending to zone out, you are actually composing poetry in your head, or planning a corporate takeover. - Someone kidnaps your wife and threatens to kill her unless you sit in a chair and zone out for a day. You acquiesce, and sit there motionless looking stunned for 24 hours, but you are actually plotting the exact sequence of steps you will take to punish the kidnappers once your wife has been returned. What do you say about an act when you call it ?volitional?? It is an act that you may or may not undertake -- an act that you choose to undertake. Examples: a pretty girl makes it plain she would appreciate spending some time with me. I consciously decide to go over and chat her up. The next night, a butt-ugly girl flashes me the signal. I choose to pretend I didn't see her. In each case the decision to approach (or not) the girl/s was my decision. I could have talked to both, ignored both, talked only to the cute one, or talked only to the ugly one. My inclination leads me to talk to the pretty one and ignore the ugly one, but the fact of the matter is that if I had thought things through with great thoroughness, I might have come to the realization that the pretty one was more likely to be a stuck-up snob who would take a fair bit of work to bed, and would probably make me nuts with her preening -- while the ugly one would be so grateful that I could sleep with her immediately and get not grief for my efforts, but gratitude. In this case, the "external influence" tending to incline my decision towards the pretty one is her appearance. Yet I am not forced to choose her over the bow wow -- as a matter of fact, from an "intellectually non-lazy" perspective, the few minutes I spend thinking it through more completely benefits me. I still end up getting laid, but with a lot smaller investment of time and less chance of emotional grief. You seem to be trying to say that since many things you observe during your life (such as hearing someone talk about human mortality, or watching too many stupid beer commercials) will tend to make thinking either more palatable a chore or less palatable a chore, then it follows that these things you observe in some way restrict your freedom to choose to think or not. Clearly they do not. You are always free to think, just as you are always free to shave or brush your teeth. It seems that to you, any factor (which for some reason I still can't seem to fathom you label an "external force beyond our control") which tends to reduce your willingness to expend effort is equivalent to preventing you from expending effort. This is not the case. pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (05/17/03 03:53 PM)
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1557432 - 05/18/03 07:00 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Now obviously there are those with deficient mental abilities or those who are prone to lazy thinking that can be swayed by external forces. But we are not talking about them. We are talking about the ability to think and reason. And we are specifically talking about my choice
Mr Mushrooms, I can't think of any external force that prevents you, personally, from thinking critically. I don't even know you, and even if I did it probably wouldn't be possible for me to know enough about your environment to deduce what things might play a part in determining your thinking. The only person who could answer such a question is your current or future self, or maybe your wife... My wife sometimes scares me when she reveals things about me that I didn't know myself. And at the same time I always tend to see her as a complete mystery. Isn't life unfair?
But let me turn the tables: what if the "choosing to think" is not a choice at all? What if everyonge actually is compelled, by the nature of the wiring in their brains, to do as much thinking as they are capable of? What we call intellectual laziness could just be the result of bad information-processing skills. Maybe the will to think is there for everyone, but the focus of the thinking is sometimes very bad due to low quality input during a person's development?
I re-read the thread from the start before writing this reply. And it seems to me that Sclorch summed up the essence of the problem very well in the second post of this thread:
Quote:
Sclorch: my problem comes when the bullshit rhetorical/psychological tactics used in advertising create value systems (in the minds of these inhibited individuals) that THREATEN MY FREEDOM.
And I agree. We should care about which value systems we propagate, right?
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1557473 - 05/18/03 08:54 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Of course we should care. Otherwise I wouldn't bother sharing the little that I know. There are those who say that every thought is "determined" by something and we have no free will. Such is determinism which has zero evidence. As I said earlier such claims are merely clever ways for people to exculpate themselves from any personal responsibility.
A clear example like my making a choice about buying a microscope shows what a load of rubbish it is.
Cheers,
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Rhizoid
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1557606 - 05/18/03 10:32 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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I still don't see why determinism is seen as so important for the question of how much freedom of choice we have.
Assume for a moment that everything that happens in the universe is caused by previous events (the law of cause and effect). If you had information about all those previous events you could determine all new things by creating a calculating device that works out all the effects from all the causes, according to the rules (the laws of logic and physics). The universe itself is an example of such a calculating device. In some cases the calculations are so easy that we inhabitants of the universe can perform simplified simulations of the actual events, where we pre-calculate what will happen. In such cases we have epistemological determinism. In the remaining cases we don't, even though we may speculate about whether or not there is some underlying metaphysical determinism in those cases too. But we have no information about that.
So is it metaphysical determinism we are talking about, or is it only epistemological determinism? I think it's perfectly clear that we don't have epistemological determinism. But I don't think anyone was disputing that either.
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Deiymiyan
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1557794 - 05/18/03 01:04 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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"As I said earlier such claims are merely clever ways for people to exculpate themselves from any personal responsibility." -------------------
Those are "excuses" people put forth to justify "stupidities"... I agree people do that...
I also believe, that the ones who "know better", should help guide in terms of personal responsibility... Everyone's actions will at one point be held accountable.
"A clear example like my making a choice about buying a microscope shows what a load of rubbish it is." ----------------
You think so? ... lol... Just like when Neo sat down and claimed he did so because he chose to?.. sorry for making an example out of a movie... It's just that it was a good point.
-------------------- Dei Gratia de integro, Veni Vidi Vici: In Nomine Domini..
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Rhizoid]
#1558035 - 05/18/03 03:23 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think the proper terminology is methodological determinism and materialistic determinism. But I understand what you are driving at. These issues are made over-complex. There is no escaping this. It is incontrovertible and inarguable.
There are plenty of resources to use if one has the desire to do so. Most people don't. They like to cling to prejudices without ever critically examining them.
Let me leave you with a quote:
"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age, or his nation, from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason...."
Don't let that be you.
Cheers,
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buttonion
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Posts: 303
Loc: Kansas
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: Phred]
#1558952 - 05/18/03 10:21 PM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
It seems that to you, any factor (which for some reason I still can't seem to fathom you label an "external force beyond our control") which tends to reduce your willingness to expend effort is equivalent to preventing you from expending effort. This is not the case.
No. Back to the advertising thread and the idea of laziness, which is what prompted this thread, I am saying that if factors can indeed reduce our willingness to expend mental effort (as you appear to admit), to place the locus of responsibility solely on the person with the reduced willingness (by calling him lazy) is to be blind to these factors. That?s it.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Deiymiyan
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1559184 - 05/19/03 12:41 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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"methodological determinism and materialistic determinism" ------------------------
Hey !!! Those are a couple terms that I have never heard of.... Would a little explanation be possible, Mr?
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"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age, or his nation, from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason...." --------------------
Is that the same as being a "sheep"?
-------------------- Dei Gratia de integro, Veni Vidi Vici: In Nomine Domini..
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1559609 - 05/19/03 08:58 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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That's pretty clear and as I said a while ago all your postulate wants to do is negate personal responsibility. A lot of high flown theory vanishes into thin air when confronted with a pragmatic question and answer. Otherwise I would have received one about the microscope long before now.
[puts back of hand to forehead]
That poor poor rapist, we all know he's just a victim of society.
Yeah, right.
Reductio ad absurdum.
Fine. (the end)
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buttonion
Calmly Watching
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: ]
#1559621 - 05/19/03 09:13 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
That's pretty clear and as I said a while ago all your postulate wants to do is negate personal responsibility. A lot of high flown theory vanishes into thin air when confronted with a pragmatic question and answer.
OK, I admit that asking society to account for the many factors that affect human behavior would throw the idea of personal responsibility and society as we know it in limbo. I?m just trying to clarify what really is going on. By placing the onus of responsibility solely on the individual, we are choosing to be blind to what has shaped and what continues to shape him. But how should we look at the situation? That?s an entirely different question.
-------------------- Concepts which have been proved to be useful in ordering things easily acquire such an authority over us that we forget their human origins and accept them as invariable.- Albert Einstein
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Anonymous
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Re: Objectivism: What a load of.. [Re: buttonion]
#1559629 - 05/19/03 09:19 AM (20 years, 10 months ago) |
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Here's how I answer that question.
Take any habituation, like smoking tobacco for example. In the beginning I have a choice to smoke or not to smoke (I always found it amusing that Sartre smoked). After I have conditioned myself I lose some if not all of the ability to chose.
I view every point in a person's life that way. Even an unruly child has the option of obeying or continuing a course that leads to unfortunate circumstances. Everything else is a slippery slope towards determinism.
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