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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...


Registered: 01/30/03
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Metaphysical Absolutism of Nature
#5349698 - 02/28/06 02:27 PM (17 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Dear Comrade Spassky:
I have been watching with great interest your world chess championship match with Bobby Fischer. I am not a chess enthusiast or even player, and know only the rudiments of the game. I am a novelist-philosopher by profession.
But I watched some of your games, reproduced play by play on television, and found them to be a fascinating demonstration of the enormous complexity of thought and planning required of a chess player - a demonstration of how many considerations he has to bear in mind, how many factors to integrate, how many contingencies to be prepared for, how far ahead to see and plan. It was obvious that you and your opponent had to have an unusual intellectual capacity.
Then I was struck by the realization that the game itself and the players' excercise of mental virtuosity are made possible by the metaphysical absolutism of the reality with which they deal. The game is ruled by the Law of Identity and its corollary, the Law of Causality. Each piece is what it is: a queen is a queen, a bishop is a bishop - and the actions each can perform are determined by its nature: a queen can move any distance in any open line, straight or diagonal, a bishop cannot; a rook can move from one side of the board to the other, a pawn cannot; etc. Their identities and the rules of their movements are immutable - and this enables the player's mind to devise a complex, long-range strategy, so that the game depends on nothing but the power of his [and his opponent's] ingenuity.
....
Nature [reality] is just as absolutist as chess, and her rules [laws] are just as immutable [more so] - but her rules and their applications are much, much much more complex, and have to be discovered by man. And just as a man may memorize the rules of chess, but has to use his own mind in order to apply them, i.e., in order to play well - so each man has to use his own mind in order to apply the rules of nature, i.e., in order to live successfully.
....
Philosophy: Who Needs It
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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MushmanTheManic
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Aside from this letter seeming totally dogmatic and extremist, (the term "metaphysical absolutism" made me shiver), whomever wrote this confused the Law of Identity and the Law of Causality with necessary truth.
Edited by MushmanTheManic (02/28/06 02:57 PM)
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it stars saddam
Satan

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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said: (the term "metaphysical absolutism" made me shiver)
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SkorpivoMusterion
Livin in theTwilight Zone...


Registered: 01/30/03
Posts: 9,954
Loc: You can't spell fungus wi...
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whomever wrote this confused the Law of Identity and the Law of Causality with necessary truth.
As the author, Miss Rand, wrote much about differentiating between the metaphysical and the man-made [and consequential suffering from lack thereof], rest assured that your assumption is inaccurate.
Rather, the rules of chess were made analogous to the LoI and LoC - not the same at all.
-------------------- Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love.
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Fospher
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Spassky also forfeited that game (or one of the five) due to his suspicion of Fischer, or some airborne chemicals in the room hypnotizing him.
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MushmanTheManic
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Registered: 04/21/05
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(Forgive me, for I am bored.)
a bishop is a bishop
A is A, Persia is Iran; these are identical because they both refer to the same thing. If a bishop is a bishop, than anything done to bishop-1, following the Law of Identity, will undoubtedly happen to bishop-2. Can America bomb Iran without bombing Persia?
If bishop-1 and bishop-2 are not causally effected in the exact same manner, they cannot be identical. The laws concerning the bishops may be identical, but the bishops themselves are not. This logic seems fundamental and I hope what Ms. Rand was trying to say was "A bishop is itself."
Edited by MushmanTheManic (03/01/06 02:38 PM)
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