Tom's Solution
Malrassic Park
..quote
Any solution to the problem of universals must not merely account for
how we form concepts from diverse similar objects, as Rand does, but
must account for the phenomenon of similarity-as-such, must account
for commensurability-as-such. In other words, when, as Rand says, we
grasp the similarity of two commensurable objects through sense-
perception, what is it in reality that we are perceiving? If two white
entities appear similar to us, and therefore commensurable, what is it
in the white entities that makes them appear similar? What is
whiteness itself? How is it that this whiteness is in two places at
once? Do the two white entities literally have something in common,
like conjoined twins might have a common breastplate, or does each
white entity have its-own-whiteness, a radically unique and particular
whiteness that we, ultimately arbitrarily, treat as if it were
commensurable with other conventionally "white" entities' own
radically unique and individual whitenesses?
If a philosopher finally answers that she believes whiteness is real,
that all white entities have something literally "in common," like
conjoined twins have body parts in common, she is a realist. If she
says that these characteristics-in-common do not depend on the
existence of particulars (entities), then she is a Platonist or
"transcendent realist." If she says that these characteristics-in-
common do depend on the existence of particulars, she is an
Aristotelian or "immanent realist" or "moderate realist." If a
philosopher finally answers that she believes whiteness does not
exist, that it is an artifact of some or other kind of naming
convention, she is a nominalist.
It is not clear whether Rand is a realist or a nominalist, because she
never addresses the metaphysical problem of universals, which is both
the historical problem of universals and the real problem of
universals. My own tentative view is that Rand was some kind of
realist, but I contend that there simply is no justification in the
texts of Objectivism for a definitive answer either way.
..endquote
Jim Klein
> In other words, when, as Rand says, we
> grasp the similarity of two commensurable objects through sense-
> perception, what is it in reality that we are perceiving?
Uh, the two white objects?
> If two white
> entities appear similar to us, and therefore commensurable, what is it
> in the white entities that makes them appear similar?
Maybe that they both reflect light in a manner that
allows our sensory mechanisms to classify them
both as "white." Whaddya think...any sense in that?
> What is whiteness itself?
What whiteness? There are only two objects there, and us
sensing them.
> How is it that this whiteness is in two places at
> once?
Oh, I get it. Make up something that isn't there and then
refer to it as "this."
There is no "this whiteness" because there is no "whiteness."
There are only two objects reflecting light waves and our
sensory mechanisms classifying that stimuli.
> Do the two white entities literally have something in common,
> like conjoined twins might have a common breastplate,
If they're conjoined like twins, then yes. If not, then no.
> or does each
> white entity have its-own-whiteness, a radically unique and particular
> whiteness that we, ultimately arbitrarily, treat as if it were
> commensurable with other conventionally "white" entities' own
> radically unique and individual whitenesses?
Are you really planning to go another whole year
thinking like this?
I can see how that thinking would lead you to conclude we
do it "ultimately arbitrarily," but as billions of others can
attest, there are other ways to go about it.
jk
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>
>Are you really planning to go another whole year
>thinking like this?
>
>I can see how that thinking would lead you to conclude we
>do it "ultimately arbitrarily," but as billions of others can
>attest, there are other ways to go about it.
That was a quote from Tom, of course, that's why it started with
..quote and ended with .endquote.
So you're saying (in response to Tom) that whiteness is not in the
objects. Then where is it?
Jim Klein
> That was a quote from Tom, of course, that's why it started with
> ..quote and ended with .endquote.
Stop wasting time. I was responding to he who was
offering the opinion.
> So you're saying (in response to Tom)
Tom isn't here, I don't think.
> that whiteness is not in the
> objects. Then where is it?
Step out of your door, start walking and don't
stop until you find it.
jk
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>On Dec 24, 7:23 pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That was a quote from Tom, of course, that's why it started with
>> ..quote and ended with .endquote.
>
>Stop wasting time. I was responding to he who was
>offering the opinion.
You were addressing me, not our absentee Tom, when you wrote, "Are you
really planning to go another whole year thinking like this?"
>> So you're saying (in response to Tom)
>
>Tom isn't here, I don't think.
Stop wasting time. That meant *in response to Tom's post*, obviously.
>> that whiteness is not in the objects. Then where is it?
>
>Step out of your door, start walking and don't stop until you find it.
Evasive. But I wouldn't expect any less from a Randroid who evades the
obvious fact of reality of being a Randroid.
Charles Bell
"Malrassic Park" <male...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:clm9j5hccsvc43no8...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:12:34 -0800, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com>
> Evasive. But I wouldn't expect any less from a Randroid who evades the
> obvious fact of reality of being a Randroid.
I think it's clear by now, after all these years on this forum, that
Malrassic Park is simply incapable of avoiding that logical fallacy known as
the ad hominem, and furthermore, his incapability is precisely due to the
fact that Immanuel Kant , his god, relied on it constantly (particularly in
the form of psychologizing) to impress his personality cult-following. (c)
Malrassic Park
Malrassic Park
<cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
..
>"Malrassic Park" <male...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:clm9j5hccsvc43no8...@4ax.com...
..
>> Evasive. But I wouldn't expect any less from a Randroid who evades the
>> obvious fact of reality of being a Randroid.
..
>I think it's clear by now, after all these years on this forum, that
>Malrassic Park is simply incapable of avoiding that logical fallacy known as
>the ad hominem, and furthermore, his incapability is precisely due to the
>fact that Immanuel Kant , his god, relied on it constantly (particularly in
>the form of psychologizing) to impress his personality cult-following. (c)
>Malrassic Park
Explain to me why Jim Klein spouts an obvious Objectivist line and
then denies being associated with the philosophy - on the basis of
some minor disagreement with it?
Charles Bell
> Explain to me why Jim Klein spouts an obvious Objectivist line and
> then denies being associated with the philosophy - on the basis of
> some minor disagreement with it?
I don't understand the point of this thread at all so I won't speak to the
details in it, but Klein (or anybody) can spout "an obvious" O'ist line and
agree with the sentiment without being an O'ist, and Klein is a
Common-Sensist probably first and foremost. Your characterization of him as
a "randroid" to the extent that that word has any meaning at all is absurd,
and his clear willingness to distance himself from a wider "post-mortem"
O'ist Movement, to the extent there really is such a thing, and stick more
closely and critically with what Rand wrote -- even when he disagrees with
Rand -- demonstrates the absurdity of your characterization.
Malrassic Park
Call it "common-sensist" with a very strong Randroid slant. It is very
common, by the same token, for Randroids to claim that their
philosophy represents or is based upon common-sense.
I must agree with Hume on this one point, however - common-sense is
the uncritical standpoint of the vulgar. And Ayn Rand stands high
among them. Indeed, from a philosophical standpoint, the use of
common-sense or empirical reasoning leads directly to error.
In the case of ITOE's error, Rand has failed to distinguish between
perception and reality, a failure which is forgivable with those who
have never thought about the issue because they don't have the
ability, but unforgivable in the case of an intellect such as Ayn
Rand's.
Charles Bell
> Call it "common-sensist" with a very strong Randroid slant. It is very
> common, by the same token, for Randroids to claim that their
> philosophy represents or is based upon common-sense.
>
I think it's clear by now, after all these years on this forum, that
Malrassic Park is simply incapable of avoiding that logical fallacy known as
the ad hominem, and furthermore, his incapability is precisely due to the
fact that Immanuel Kant, his god, relied on it constantly (particularly in
Jim Klein
> Explain to me why Jim Klein spouts an obvious Objectivist line and
> then denies being associated with the philosophy - on the basis of
> some minor disagreement with it?
You really need to try to start integrating, as in paying
more attention to the nature of reality and THEN taking
a look at your conceptualization of it. Philosophy is an
interesting thing to be sure, but to supplant the underlying
purpose--identification, of course--with the philosophy
itself, is a gargantuan mistake.
Maybe that's why your philosophy is shit. In the case
at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
/founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
summed up in the claim that plants have values.
In social ethics, I have disagreed and even ridiculed
her singular founding premise on which she bases her
entire so-called minarchist position, and that would be
the moral nature of retribution and/or retaliation in
non-self-defense situations. I say ridicule because
she was reduced to that ever-Kantian classic of a
moral imperative. To her credit, though, she at
least said what that imaginary moral imperative IS.
IIRC, Kant just let it be some sort of ethereal commandment.
What's the point in discussing anything with you if
you don't even integrate the facts that are right in
front of your nose? You're so concerned with your
word analysis and sticking to something that once
made sense to you, that you close yourself off to
any possible progress. What the hell is the point in that?
jk
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>On Dec 27, 9:40 pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrot
>
>> Explain to me why Jim Klein spouts an obvious Objectivist line and
>> then denies being associated with the philosophy - on the basis of
>> some minor disagreement with it?
>
>You really need to try to start integrating,
Randism.
> as in paying more attention to the nature of reality
Randism. That is not what "integrating" means anyway, but it is still
a Randism.
> and THEN taking
>a look at your conceptualization of it. Philosophy is an
>interesting thing to be sure, but to supplant the underlying
>purpose--identification, of course--with the philosophy
>itself, is a gargantuan mistake.
Identification is an Objectivist topic.
>Maybe that's why your philosophy is shit.
I don't hold to any explicit philosophy.
That being said, I don't believe in worshipping a particular
philosopher, but if I had to make my views on this explicit, I would
say that philosophy in general is out there for people to gain wisdom
from in order to raise themselves above the common, vulgar viewpoints.
To make philosophy a source of cultism, as with Objectivism, is to
make philosophical endeavor into the exact opposite of reason.
> In the case
>at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
>/founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
>summed up in the claim that plants have values.
Plants do have "automatic and innate" values, according to Rand. But
as I said, yours is a minor disagreement, because Objectivism could
survive without the claim that plants have values.
>In social ethics, I have disagreed and even ridiculed
>her singular founding premise on which she bases her
>entire so-called minarchist position, and that would be
>the moral nature of retribution and/or retaliation in
>non-self-defense situations. I say ridicule because
>she was reduced to that ever-Kantian classic of a
>moral imperative. To her credit, though, she at
>least said what that imaginary moral imperative IS.
>IIRC, Kant just let it be some sort of ethereal commandment.
Reasoning itself is ethereal, it is not something you can sense.
However, yours is still a minor quibble not based in fundamentals, it
is not a singular founding premise to say that force is to be used
only in retaliation against force. Rand's political foundation can be
found in this quote from her article "Man's Rights" -
""Rights" are a moral concept--the concept that provides a logical
transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the
principles guiding his relationship with others--the concept that
preserves and protects individual morality in a social context--the
link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society,
between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of
subordinating society to moral law."
>What's the point in discussing anything with you if
>you don't even integrate the facts that are right in
>front of your nose? You're so concerned with your
>word analysis and sticking to something that once
>made sense to you, that you close yourself off to
>any possible progress. What the hell is the point in that?
Extremist black-and-white thinking, accompanied by the 'witch-hunting'
mentality seen in your posts, are hallmark Randroid traits.
Charles Bell
�In the case
> at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
> /founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
> summed up in the claim that plants have values.
>
What? Rand said nothing like: "plants have values". She claimed
plants act on instinct, namely by purely physical functions -- that is
to say, *without* values.
Jim Klein
> > at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
> > /founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
> > summed up in the claim that plants have values.
>
> What? Rand said nothing like: "plants have values".
My disagreement can be "basically summed up" that way.
> She claimed
> plants act on instinct, namely by purely physical functions -- that is
> to say, *without* values.
Her founding point is that values arise from the existence
of life and the fundamental live or die alternative. I think
that's wrong and that values are a wholly conceptual thing.
Yes, she tried to cover this in her "purposive" footnore, but
I believe it was an inadequate job and has led to massive
misunderstandings. A great comedy related to this can
be found in the classic "Binswanger's Errors..." threads,
featuring Vincent Cook and good ol' Dorothy Fanyo, long
since departed.
Interestingly, I think there's a valid underlying point
to be found even in Binswanger's thesis title, concerning
the biological nature of teleological concepts. On its own,
and stated just thusly, I think it's a grand insight. The thing
is, both Rand's point and his point (if that was ever really
his point at all; I don't know) have been taken as
Tenets--exactly in the manner mal charges--to the point
where it's beyond folly and is a breakdown of the philosophy.
"Life" is not a fundamental value to non-conceptual beings,
in any manner that distinguishes it from "being at the bottom
of a hill" as a value for a rolling rock. IOW, it isn't.
As it happens, it's not even the ultimate value for most
humans. It's a /necessary/ value and it's an /omnipresent/
value (in order to have other values), but it is often
NOT the ultimate value.
jk
Jim Klein
[snip the "Randism" charges. What isn't, IYO?]
> >Maybe that's why your philosophy is shit.
>
> I don't hold to any explicit philosophy.
With all the time you spend on it? I find that
remarkable. Is your goal to prove there can
be no rational philosophy, or is it to prove
there can be one but you refuse to hold it?
> That being said, I don't believe in worshipping a particular
> philosopher,
What a coincidence. Neither do I. I don't believe in
worship at all, in fact, in the way it's usually meant.
I'll worship a value I've chosen for reasons I have, but
I won't worship any goal--let alone a person--because
it's supposedly deserving of worship inherently.
I don't believe there's such a thing as an "inherent
value" or "intrinsic value," just as there's no such
thing as an "unchosen obligation." It's not that
there /shouldn't/ be these things; it's that there
/aren't/ these things. The "should" arises from
the recognition of this fact.
Are those "Randisms"? Maybe so. "Of value...to
whom and for what" is a Randism by definition,
I suppose, since she made that phrase famous.
What does that have to do with anything?
> but if I had to make my views on this explicit, I would
> say that philosophy in general is out there for people to gain wisdom
Lovely words. So against what standard would you
like to measure that wisdom?
> from in order to raise themselves above the common, vulgar viewpoints.
Oh, listen to this. I'll tell you what's vulgar---to believe
that the final measure of a viewpoint, is what a bunch
of people have declared "vulgar." The United States was
the most "vulgar" country ever by this standard, and
Nazi Germany perhaps the least. Some standard.
Why...what the fuck do you mean by "vulgar viewpoint"?
> To make philosophy a source of cultism, as with Objectivism, is to
> make philosophical endeavor into the exact opposite of reason.
Now this, I agree with 100%...maybe more!
I don't know what you want. I even refer to myself as
a "one-trick pony" when it comes to Objectivism, and
my record is there for whatever verification you wish.
My "one trick" is exactly this point. What, you don't
understand the words "Perfect Inversion"? Who
invented that phrase and to what does it apply?
Need I seriously go on? Don't blame me that so
many so-called Objectivists go hide in their silly
cloisters, sometimes just to come by and break
the charter to advertise something.
They're doing "serious thinking," you see, and can't
be bothered with "smug arrogant pricks" and
"jerkoffs" like me.
But they always come back, and we've always got
Charles for the traditional line, though usually he
puts enough twist on it that it's not so traditional!
> > In the case
> >at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
> >/founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
> >summed up in the claim that plants have values.
>
> Plants do have "automatic and innate" values, according to Rand. But
> as I said, yours is a minor disagreement, because Objectivism could
> survive without the claim that plants have values.
Look, I'm not about to spend 200 posts discussing
what the hell "Objectivism" is. I don't care how
anyone defines it as far as I'm concerned, because
I don't claim to be an Objectivist. I care about the
/philosophy/ of the matter, and that's only because
I care about the /facts/ of all matters, and how
people think is a very important matter IMO.
> Reasoning itself is ethereal, it is not something you can sense.
"I'm sho' you be right."
Yeah...real "ethereal," like we can't see its results
in front of our damn faces.
> However, yours is still a minor quibble not based in fundamentals...
Uh huh...like maybe I'll spend 200 posts discussing with
you what's minor and what's major. Fat chance.
[snip]
> Extremist black-and-white thinking, accompanied by the 'witch-hunting'
> mentality seen in your posts, are hallmark Randroid traits.
What witch-hunting? You're just feeling self-conscious
because you've been the brunt of my focus lately. But
that's just from boredom...and the fact that you've
written some of the most absurd things ever, even for you.
If I "witch-hunt" it's after those damn self-imagined
Orthodox Objectivists who have managed to twist
some great philosophical identifications and integrations
into a misdirected and woe-begotten faith...not all that
dissimilar from yours, except for the specific Commandments.
You either haven't read my posts here very much over
the years, or you're in some sort of fog, totally blind
to either the existence of facts or these facts in particular.
Whatever the underlying cause, it sucks and it's your
problem. And in any event, you have no cause for
reacting to my (generous!) attempts to assist you,
as you have.
jk
Charles Bell
> On Dec 29, 6:04 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
> > > /founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
> > > summed up in the claim that plants have values.
>
> > What? �Rand said nothing like: "plants have values".
>
> My disagreement can be "basically summed up" that way.
>
> > She claimed
> > plants act on instinct, namely by purely physical functions -- that is
> > to say, *without* values.
>
> Her founding point is that values arise from the existence
> of life and the fundamental live or die alternative. �I think
> that's wrong and that values are a wholly conceptual thing.
>
I'm still a little puzzled at what you say. I am inclined to
criticize Rand and Peikoff for holding to a kind of pre-Darwinist
special creation of man whereby all animals *only* have instinct (thus
incapable of holding values) and all men *only* have rationality (to
the extent they choose to exercise it). It is very clear that our
simian cousins do have primitive value systems. I believe
domesticated mammals value their human owners, but in the crudest and
simplest possible way, owing to their crude cogitive abilities,
> [snip hpo discussions with which I have no familiarity ]
> "Life" is not a fundamental value to non-conceptual beings,
> in any manner that distinguishes it from "being at the bottom
> of a hill" as a value for a rolling rock. �IOW, it isn't.
>
This line is similar to Friedman's absurd attempt at refutation of
Rand's ought-from-is. The male praying mantis having his head chewed
off while engaging in coitus with his sweetheart is supposed to be a
refutation of Rand's ought-from-is? That sort of thing?
> As it happens, it's not even the ultimate value for most
> humans. �It's a /necessary/ value and it's an /omnipresent/
> value (in order to have other values), but it is often
> NOT the ultimate value.
I think that was Rand's point: it being a necessary value, it is a
morally valid value: ought-from-is. There is no *imperative* force
behind any morally valid value, however. The only criticism I may
find in this is, as I said above, is Rand's dismissive attitude toward
instinct that may be present in human beings who are still
evolutionarily animals, and not some special creature beyond animal.
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>Oh, listen to this. I'll tell you what's vulgar---to believe
>that the final measure of a viewpoint, is what a bunch
>of people have declared "vulgar." The United States was
>the most "vulgar" country ever by this standard, and
>Nazi Germany perhaps the least. Some standard.
Now we see 'Peikoff' peeking out from your Randroid point-of-view.
When will you ever adopt your own mind, your own viewpoint, your own
opinions on anything, and stop being a Randroid? The first step for
you will be to face down and accept the denial system that keeps you
from accepting it, and the fact that one cannot be a Randroid and an
egoist at the same time without self-destroying contradiction.
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>My "one trick" is exactly this point. What, you don't
>understand the words "Perfect Inversion"? Who
>invented that phrase and to what does it apply?
I found a reference to a "perfect inversion" in an1858 Farmer's
Magazine. But I doubt if anybody can be said to have invented the
phrasing.
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>> Reasoning itself is ethereal, it is not something you can sense.
..
>"I'm sho' you be right."
..
>Yeah...real "ethereal," like we can't see its results
>in front of our damn faces.
.... as if to say that thinking directly produces objects. If you came
down from your high horse for a change maybe you'd see what the world
is really like, Jim Klein.
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>> However, yours is still a minor quibble not based in fundamentals...
>
>Uh huh...like maybe I'll spend 200 posts discussing with
>you what's minor and what's major. Fat chance.
Then just run off and hide behind one of Rand's or Peikoff's books.
That's easier than facing the reality that you might be wrong.
Ray
news:bb6e8c62-c964-4f4e...@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 30, 7:01 pm, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> On Dec 29, 6:04 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>
> I'm still a little puzzled at what you say. I am inclined to
> criticize Rand and Peikoff for holding to a kind of pre-Darwinist
> special creation of man whereby all animals *only* have instinct (thus
> incapable of holding values) and all men *only* have rationality (to
> the extent they choose to exercise it). It is very clear that our
> simian cousins do have primitive value systems. I believe
> domesticated mammals value their human owners, but in the crudest and
> simplest possible way, owing to their crude cogitive abilities,
>
snip
Look around you where you live, and in the jungle.
To me it is very clear that man is a special animal.
As to values, simians and other mammals operate on the perceptual level.
They appear to have values but their minds operate automatically.
snip again
>
> I think that was Rand's point: it being a necessary value, it is a
> morally valid value: ought-from-is. There is no *imperative* force
> behind any morally valid value, however. The only criticism I may
> find in this is, as I said above, is Rand's dismissive attitude toward
> instinct that may be present in human beings who are still
> evolutionarily animals, and not some special creature beyond animal.
Adult persons do have instinct but of a simple type: reflexes, which
Rand probably did not count as instincts. Instincts are a series of
reflexes strung over time. While reflexes are a gross motor response
to a single group of sensory stimuli. Newborns start off with reflexes
and instincts. As their brains mature they begin to play a lesser role.
I don't fault Rand for her "dismissive attitude toward instincts".
I hope I'm making sense. I only drank half a bottle of champagne and
a few Irish whiskeys.
Ray
Charles Bell
"Ray" <ray...@embarqmail.com> wrote in message
news:hhk6po$mcu$1...@vulture.killfile.org...
> "Charles Bell" <cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:bb6e8c62-c964-4f4e...@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
>> On Dec 30, 7:01 pm, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>> On Dec 29, 6:04 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>
> snip
>>
>> I'm still a little puzzled at what you say. I am inclined to
>> criticize Rand and Peikoff for holding to a kind of pre-Darwinist
>> special creation of man whereby all animals *only* have instinct (thus
>> incapable of holding values) and all men *only* have rationality (to
>> the extent they choose to exercise it). It is very clear that our
>> simian cousins do have primitive value systems. I believe
>> domesticated mammals value their human owners, but in the crudest and
>> simplest possible way, owing to their crude cogitive abilities,
>>
> snip
>
> Look around you where you live, and in the jungle.
> To me it is very clear that man is a special animal.
> As to values, simians and other mammals operate on the perceptual level.
> They appear to have values but their minds operate automatically.
>
Rand's and Peikoff's description of how the mind works: Sensation >
Perception > Conceptualization lack a description of a process of cognition
that "connects the dots" automatically in a passive (automatic) way that is
like concept-formation but not consciously (or conscientiously) logical.
After perception, which is automatic but beneath any level of abstraction,
Rand-Peikoff do not acknowledge human conscious conceptualization that is
not *active* in the sense of being fully aware and according to some logic
formalism. David Kelley, however, in his book /The Evidence of the
Senses/ posits *at least* a stage he calls perceptual judgment: "the
conceptual identification of what is perceived. Transforming our perceptual
awareness of the world into conceptual form, it gives a way to retain and
communicate what we perceive and to express the evidence of the senses in a
way that can bring it to bear on abstract conclusions. [...] These
identifications are normally automatic for an adult." [p208-9].
I claim that all higher-order animals have this ability which is far more
advanced than an instinctual sense-and-reflex that Rand-Peikoff are only
willing to give animals.
Moreover, I further claim that there can be an active-conscious
connect-the-dots mental apprehension that is like an initial stage of human
abstraction in animals.
A dog can learn the individual names of toys he is told to fetch, and yet it
is claimed that this is a mere Pavlovian response to sounds uttered in
command, but how is it is different when a two-year-old child is taught to
do the same thing? I do not claim that a dog could ever comprehend the
making of the toy or even why it exists, but then, how many two-year-olds
can, too? The dog is engaged in purposive, and to him necessary, action
that in no way corresponds to a sense-and-reflex automatic response but more
likely according to an evaluative process of his wanting to please his
master.
>> I think that was Rand's point: it being a necessary value, it is a
>> morally valid value: ought-from-is. There is no *imperative* force
>> behind any morally valid value, however. The only criticism I may
>> find in this is, as I said above, is Rand's dismissive attitude toward
>> instinct that may be present in human beings who are still
>> evolutionarily animals, and not some special creature beyond animal.
>
> Adult persons do have instinct but of a simple type: reflexes, which
> Rand probably did not count as instincts. Instincts are a series of
> reflexes strung over time. While reflexes are a gross motor response
> to a single group of sensory stimuli. Newborns start off with reflexes
> and instincts. As their brains mature they begin to play a lesser role.
> I don't fault Rand for her "dismissive attitude toward instincts".
>
Attachment and emotional identification cannot be described as reflexive
responses and yet are abundant in the lower animals. Capuchin monkeys adopt
orphans and assist the handicapped -- but -- only up to a point, indicating
a cognitive selection process. Koko the gorilla asked (via sign language)
to select a kitten as pet and cared for the cat as a pet and showed signs of
bereavement when told (via sign language) the cat had been killed, only
eased when she was able to adopt another cat. Inter-species adoption
happens and can no more be described as some maternal instinct gone awry
than it can be justly described thus in humans. There is some evaluation
process going on.
In humans, the single greatest argument against instinct as a mere reflexive
response is in the sex drive. There is a Gordian Knot of tangled mental
activity, conscious and unconscious, emotional and rational, going on there
to which human reason rarely reaches satisfactorily.
> I hope I'm making sense. I only drank half a bottle of champagne and
> a few Irish whiskeys.
>
In any "cognitive state" you make more sense than most here.
Charles Bell
> Interestingly, I think there's a valid underlying point
> to be found even in Binswanger's thesis title, concerning
> the biological nature of teleological concepts. �On its own,
> and stated just thusly, I think it's a grand insight. �The thing
> is, both Rand's point and his point (if that was ever really
> his point at all; I don't know) have been taken as
> Tenets--exactly in the manner mal charges--to the point
> where it's beyond folly and is a breakdown of the philosophy.
>
In that thread I found this:
"... I will argue that in fact there is an emergent phenomenon-- goal-
directed action-- which exists in two forms: the purposeful and the
non-purposeful, according to whether the action is conscious or
vegetative, and that biologists can and should employ both mechanical
and teleological explanations for living actions." (page 24)
Now, I would like to ask -- if this is Binswanger's thesis -- is this
dumb or is this very dumb?
Is this supposed to draw a distinction between acting on instinct and
acting rationally? Or is it suppose to explain how an insect can roll
down a hill non-purposefully, but a human being will roll down a hill
purposefully?
I do not think this is thoughtful Objectivism, even with Rand's
special-creation-of-man mistake, but I can see how people like David
Friedman can go on with his praying mantis argument if he really
thought that this is Objectivism.
Charles Bell
> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:35:28 -0800, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com>
> > �In the case
> >at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
> >/founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
> >summed up in the claim that plants have values.
>
> Plants do have "automatic and innate" values, according to Rand. But
> as I said, yours is a minor disagreement, because Objectivism could
> survive without the claim that plants have values.
>
I thought this sounded odd. Here is what Rand wrote (ITOE, 1.):
<< A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic
and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are
the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of
value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions
it encounters in its physical background--such as heat or frost,
drought or flood--and there are certain actions which it is able to
perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some
plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight. But
whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's
function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for
its own destruction. >>
First, Rand did not say "a plant has values". Second, Rand was
inappropriately anthropomorphizing the words "goal" and "value" to
plants in light of what she wrote in succeeding sentences. Third, Rand
said the "value" is chosen in an entirely deterministic way by the
nature of the plant. The first sentence says it all: plant cannot set
a goal or have a value in way a conscious being can.
As for conscious beings . . .
<< The lower of the conscious species possess only the faculty of
sensation, which is sufficient to direct their actions and provide for
their needs. >>
Therefore, we''ll have David Friedman pick the very lowest of the
conscious beings to prove that a conscious being will act to self-
destruct (in sexual instinct of the male praying mantis) rather than
honestly stating that perhaps the demarcation right at plant-animal
for all behaviors is not so clear; an insect will be sometimes like a
plant in that some goals are set entirely deterministically.
Something which Rand does later in the same paragraph say: "The higher
organisms possess a much more potent form of consciousness . . " so
that an honest critic unlike David Friedman might choose a higher-
level organism closer to a human being to make a point about human
behavior and what Objectivism has to say about choosing values for
life and not for self-destruction.
Jim Klein
> > Her founding point is that values arise from the existence
> > of life and the fundamental live or die alternative. I think
> > that's wrong and that values are a wholly conceptual thing.
>
> I'm still a little puzzled at what you say. I am inclined to
> criticize Rand and Peikoff for holding to a kind of pre-Darwinist
> special creation of man whereby all animals *only* have instinct (thus
> incapable of holding values) and all men *only* have rationality (to
> the extent they choose to exercise it). It is very clear that our
> simian cousins do have primitive value systems.
I don't think that's very clear. At the very least, I'd say
it's a poor usage of <value>.
Nonetheless, I completely agree with you about both Rand's
and Peikoff's tendency to ignore the existence of "instinct"
or natural drives in humans. Their important point, which is
accurate, is that it can be trumped with volition. Still, I
think plenty has been missed for the refusal to recognize
humans as animals.
> I believe
> domesticated mammals value their human owners, but in the crudest and
> simplest possible way, owing to their crude cogitive abilities,
I was going to continue on the value point, "But this would just
be a continuation of our differences regarding the nature
of the various types of awareness," but you beat me to it!
I can't see "value," at least in a precise usage, without the
ability, at the very least, to conceptualize alternatives. IOW,
I'd be inclined to say that to be a value, it has to be compared
to something else. I see this as different than the typical
so-called "pain/pleasure" reaction of other animals. They
don't react affirmatively to pleasure because they
"value" it over pain.
But that's semantics, and we're surely not going to get
anywhere debating whether other animals conceptualize.
> > [snip hpo discussions with which I have no familiarity ]
> > "Life" is not a fundamental value to non-conceptual beings,
> > in any manner that distinguishes it from "being at the bottom
> > of a hill" as a value for a rolling rock. IOW, it isn't.
>
> This line is similar to Friedman's absurd attempt at refutation of
> Rand's ought-from-is. The male praying mantis having his head chewed
> off while engaging in coitus with his sweetheart is supposed to be a
> refutation of Rand's ought-from-is? That sort of thing?
You're 0 for 2 there. Firstly, David's point--and it's accurate--
with the praying mantis is that IF we're going to define some
value as "automatically present" in all life forms in the
manner that Rand implies that survival is, then that value
would have to be reproduction. Prescott takes this to a
whole new level with his speciesism and while I think he's
got that all wrong and totally messed up, they're both
fundamentally right that reproduction is a more, shall
we say, defining characteristic of life, than survival.
Now me, I wouldn't use "value" in the first place in that
manner. My example is intended to point out that if a
plant can value ANYTHING, in ANY manner, then it's
also a value for a rolling rock to be at the bottom of a hill.
> > As it happens, it's not even the ultimate value for most
> > humans. It's a /necessary/ value and it's an /omnipresent/
> > value (in order to have other values), but it is often
> > NOT the ultimate value.
>
> I think that was Rand's point: it being a necessary value, it is a
> morally valid value: ought-from-is.
Obviously I'm not trying to argue that it's anything but
a morally valid value. The key word was "ultimate,"
and it's not that.
> There is no *imperative* force
> behind any morally valid value, however.
Of course. But notice that this includes the one for
which she explicitly said there is...retaliation.
You'll retort, "But she didn't really say that, since she
offered her reasons for it." The thing is, she didn't. She
offered (as I recall) a single sentence, roughly, "All the
reasons which make the initiation of force a moral
wrong, make the response to it with force a moral imperative."
Except they don't. WHICH reasons? And WHY do they
imply this moral imperative? In fact, she really offered
no more than any other moral imperative, which is nothing.
Hence you OUGHT to judge it as it IS!
> The only criticism I may
> find in this is, as I said above, is Rand's dismissive attitude toward
> instinct that may be present in human beings who are still
> evolutionarily animals, and not some special creature beyond animal.
And I'll reiterate my agreement with this. For a philosophy about
life, there is a gaping hole on this matter, most obviously seen
in the short shrift children get in her philosophy.
jk
Jim Klein
> >My "one trick" is exactly this point. What, you don't
> >understand the words "Perfect Inversion"? Who
> >invented that phrase and to what does it apply?
>
> I found a reference to a "perfect inversion" in an1858 Farmer's
> Magazine.
Look, say. Look, say.
A phrase is what it MEANS and you DID NOT find
any reference to any perfectly inverted philosophy
in the 1858 Farmer's Magazine.
You found the WORDS "perfect inversion."
What, did you think I was implying that I was the first
person to utter those words?
> But I doubt if anybody can be said to have invented the
> phrasing.
Right...it exists but didn't necessarily have a first
occurence. Do you believe that about all words,
or just these?
jk
Jim Klein
> Adult persons do have instinct but of a simple type: reflexes, which
> Rand probably did not count as instincts. Instincts are a series of
> reflexes strung over time. While reflexes are a gross motor response
> to a single group of sensory stimuli. Newborns start off with reflexes
> and instincts. As their brains mature they begin to play a lesser role.
> I don't fault Rand for her "dismissive attitude toward instincts".
"Can't we have both?"
> I hope I'm making sense. I only drank half a bottle of champagne and
> a few Irish whiskeys.
"Yes, we can have both!"
jk
Jim Klein
> > Interestingly, I think there's a valid underlying point
> > to be found even in Binswanger's thesis title, concerning
> > the biological nature of teleological concepts. On its own,
> > and stated just thusly, I think it's a grand insight. The thing
> > is, both Rand's point and his point (if that was ever really
> > his point at all; I don't know) have been taken as
> > Tenets--exactly in the manner mal charges--to the point
> > where it's beyond folly and is a breakdown of the philosophy.
>
> In that thread I found this:
>
> "... I will argue that in fact there is an emergent phenomenon-- goal-
> directed action-- which exists in two forms: the purposeful and the
> non-purposeful, according to whether the action is conscious or
> vegetative, and that biologists can and should employ both mechanical
> and teleological explanations for living actions." (page 24)
>
> Now, I would like to ask -- if this is Binswanger's thesis -- is this
> dumb or is this very dumb?
AFAIK, that was his thesis and I know for sure that that's
how it's taken. IMO Rand was every bit as guilty of this
sin as Binswanger, and that he got the premise from her.
That's why she needed that damn footnote, to try and
weasel her way out of something she recognized as
not solid. SHE invented this dichotomy of "goal-directed
behavior" as purposive or not, as if directing toward a
goal could be anything other than purposive.
> Is this supposed to draw a distinction between acting on instinct and
> acting rationally? Or is it suppose to explain how an insect can roll
> down a hill non-purposefully, but a human being will roll down a hill
> purposefully?
I'm no Rand expert, but the genesis seems sort of obvious
to me. Just like you or me, she was trying to develop a
very solid "ought from is" philosophy. To do that, she
needed an unarguable, undefeatable fact to lay as the
cornerstone. The nature of "goal-direction" as an emergence
of life, was her answer. AFAIK, Binswanger just went with
it, taking it from a simple mistake to the basic foundation
of ethics.
Don't get me wrong...technically Rand did that too. The
thing is, she had so much right that even a mistake like
this didn't bring down the whole thing...at least not in its
result. The problem is that since SHE offered it as a
founding premise, the conclusions brought therefrom
are reasonably brought into question. And once
Binswanger was made a Cardinal...well, that was that.
> I do not think this is thoughtful Objectivism, even with Rand's
> special-creation-of-man mistake, but I can see how people like David
> Friedman can go on with his praying mantis argument if he really
> thought that this is Objectivism.
Again, I think that's a separate issue, albeit related.
Among other things, David's saying, "Well, if she
misidentified the fundamental 'value' or 'goal' of
life, then how can we trust the conclusions that
follow from that." And then it's off to the races
with how Prudent Predation serves the ego far
better than honesty and reputation and therefore
nearly everything she wrote is open to question.
Interestingly, pure Objectivism has no great argument
against this, except for a recitation of the Virtues. Only
thoroughly solid egoism can defeat the Prudent Predator
argument and while Rand was surely a leader in the
area of egoism, she really wasn't its strongest
proponent ever...especially when compared with
a few egoists of our modern day.
Too bad the modern version (or should I say
Perfect INversion) of Objectivism takes everything
she said as the Holy Writ except, "Check your premises."
Meanwhile, I remain intrigued that Binswanger could
write such folly about goal-direction, while somehow
managing to title the thesis as indicative of
something very insightful.
I've never read the thesis in its entirety and I only
know the parts I've seen cited, so it could be that
there's something very valuable in there. But given
what I know about the goal-direction point, combined
with what I know about Binswanger and the Church,
I'm inclined to think it's merely coincidence.
jk
Jim Klein
> << A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic
> and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are
> the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of
> value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions
> it encounters in its physical background--such as heat or frost,
> drought or flood--and there are certain actions which it is able to
> perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some
> plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight. But
> whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's
> function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for
> its own destruction. >>
That's the footnote, yes?
> First, Rand did not say "a plant has values".
Cut me a break willya..."CAN BE BASICALLY
SUMMED UP AS..."
> Second, Rand was
> inappropriately anthropomorphizing the words "goal" and "value" to
> plants in light of what she wrote in succeeding sentences.
Yes! It was INAPPROPRIATE. IOW, it was WRONG. It
was a misidentification; it was a faulty premise; it was
an error, a mistake.
Not a big deal really, but SHE offered it as a founding
premise of her ethics.
> Third, Rand
> said the "value" is chosen in an entirely deterministic way by the
> nature of the plant. The first sentence says it all: plant cannot set
> a goal or have a value in way a conscious being can.
Right, but supposedly it has goals in some meaningful
sense of that word. That would be fine, except that
it's false. It doesn't. There is no sane interpretation
of "goal-direction" such that plants have it but rocks
don't. The only way to get there--as more than a few
have tried--is to simply define "having goal-direction"
as fully synonymous with "being alive." This was
the whole point of that thread, IIRC.
Besides, one footnote is not sufficient to override a
major premise that is fundamentally in error.
> As for conscious beings . . .
>
> << The lower of the conscious species possess only the faculty of
> sensation, which is sufficient to direct their actions and provide for
> their needs. >>
>
> Therefore, we''ll have David Friedman pick the very lowest...
Well, you gotta thing for David. While I think he's got plenty
wrong, I don't see him as the Darth Vader of philosophy.
Okay, maybe I do in some senses! Still, he's got an awful
lot of facts at his avail and that alone makes him worth
something to me. And while I'm not here to defend the
purchase of evil as anything better than the vote for evil,
you've got a bit of explaining of your own to do, to
demonstrate why you feel it's so much worse than it!
jk
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>>
>> I found a reference to a "perfect inversion" in an1858 Farmer's
>> Magazine.
>
>Look, say. Look, say.
Oh I get it now, your mind works like the instructions on a shampoo
bottle: Read Rand essay. Repeat. Read Rand essay. Repeat.
Malrassic Park
<cbe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Dec 28 2009, 11:50�pm, Malrassic Park <malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 18:35:28 -0800, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com>
..
>> > �In the case
>> >at hand, I have very publicly disagreed with various
>> >/founding/ premises of her ethical system, basically
>> >summed up in the claim that plants have values.
..
>> Plants do have "automatic and innate" values, according to Rand. But
>> as I said, yours is a minor disagreement, because Objectivism could
>> survive without the claim that plants have values.
..
>I thought this sounded odd. Here is what Rand wrote (ITOE, 1.):
..
><< A plant has no choice of action; the goals it pursues are automatic
>and innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water, sunlight are
>the values its nature has set it to seek. Its life is the standard of
>value directing its actions. There are alternatives in the conditions
>it encounters in its physical background--such as heat or frost,
>drought or flood--and there are certain actions which it is able to
>perform to combat adverse conditions, such as the ability of some
>plants to grow and crawl from under a rock to reach the sunlight. But
>whatever the conditions, there is no alternative in a plant's
>function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for
>its own destruction. >>
..
>First, Rand did not say "a plant has values".
You're evading already, Charles. Nourishment, water, sunlight are the
values its nature has set a plant to seek. Does a plant seek values?
And once it has attained nourishment, water, and sunlight, has it not
attained values?
>Second, Rand was
>inappropriately anthropomorphizing the words "goal" and "value" to
>plants in light of what she wrote in succeeding sentences.
I simply cannot believe that Rand could manage to anthropomorphize in
a context where she only refers to a plant's automatic and innate
functions. It would be like admitting that human valuation works
because of automatic and innate functions.
>Third, Rand
>said the "value" is chosen in an entirely deterministic way by the
>nature of the plant. The first sentence says it all: plant cannot set
>a goal or have a value in way a conscious being can.
Putting scare-quotes around the word "value" won't help your argument.
And it won't help you understand Rand's argument. It was important for
her to base her case for a volitional morality around the *general*
concepts of life and values.
In this way, Rand was able to argue that all life requires values, but
the fact that human beings have volition and not instincts does not
negate the fact of value for them. It only means that a man's values
are chosen by him, and not for him by nature.
Rod Nibbe
Jim Klein wrote:
> On Dec 31 2009, 6:40 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>This line is similar to Friedman's absurd attempt at refutation of
>>Rand's ought-from-is. The male praying mantis having his head chewed
>>off while engaging in coitus with his sweetheart is supposed to be a
>>refutation of Rand's ought-from-is? That sort of thing?
> You're 0 for 2 there. Firstly, David's point--and it's accurate--
> with the praying mantis is that IF we're going to define some
> value as "automatically present" in all life forms in the
> manner that Rand implies that survival is, then that value
> would have to be reproduction.
FWIW, it turns out that this behavior was observed in
just one or two species of mantises (there are >2000),
and concluded to be a behavioral artifact of captivity.
No evidence exists that I'm aware of indicating that
mantises behave this way in nature, and hence not
evidence that male mantises "value" reproduction over
survival.
> Prescott takes this to a
> whole new level with his speciesism and while I think he's
> got that all wrong and totally messed up, they're both
> fundamentally right that reproduction is a more, shall
> we say, defining characteristic of life, than survival.
A entirely arbitrary claim if you ask me. Certain
biological evidence could be interpreted to support
either view.
> Now me, I wouldn't use "value" in the first place in that
> manner. My example is intended to point out that if a
> plant can value ANYTHING, in ANY manner, then it's
> also a value for a rolling rock to be at the bottom of a hill.
I don't think anyone has ever argued non-living things
like a rock can "value", in any sense of the word. I
agree with you that plants don't value, but it's not
a ridiculous consideration on its face. It is with
respect to a rock, tho.
-RKN
Jim Klein
> > Prescott takes this to a
> > whole new level with his speciesism and while I think he's
> > got that all wrong and totally messed up, they're both
> > fundamentally right that reproduction is a more, shall
> > we say, defining characteristic of life, than survival.
>
> A entirely arbitrary claim if you ask me.
Yes, I know that!
> Certain
> biological evidence could be interpreted to support
> either view.
If you'd care to share, I'd be
interested in an example or two of what you
have in mind.
> I don't think anyone has ever argued non-living things
> like a rock can "value", in any sense of the word. I
> agree with you that plants don't value, but it's not
> a ridiculous consideration on its face. It is with
> respect to a rock, tho.
Why don't you believe they're equally ridiculous
considerations? What sort of goal is it not
ridiculous to imagine that a plant has?
jk
Jim Klein
> > I don't think anyone has ever argued non-living things
> > like a rock can "value", in any sense of the word. I
> > agree with you that plants don't value, but it's not
> > a ridiculous consideration on its face. It is with
> > respect to a rock, tho.
>
> Why don't you believe they're equally ridiculous
> considerations? What sort of goal is it not
> ridiculous to imagine that a plant has?
Sorry, Rod...I should've use "value" there and
not "goal." So without defining "being alive"
as "having values," why is it not ridiculous
to imagine plants as having values?
jk
Rod Nibbe
Jim Klein wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:26 am, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>Certain
>>biological evidence could be interpreted to support
>>either view.
> If you'd care to share, I'd be
> interested in an example or two of what you
> have in mind.
Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
trumps reproductive success; risking your life
to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
>>I don't think anyone has ever argued non-living things
>>like a rock can "value", in any sense of the word. I
>>agree with you that plants don't value, but it's not
>>a ridiculous consideration on its face. It is with
>>respect to a rock, tho.
> Why don't you believe they're equally ridiculous
> considerations?
To value - in any sense of the word - presupposes
life. Rocks are dead. Plants are alive. That's why
I said it's not prima facie ridiculous to consider
that plants *might* be able to value.
> What sort of goal is it not
> ridiculous to imagine that a plant has?
I don't think that's the way to frame the question.
The way to frame the question is to ask if there is
some minimum biology required to be a valuer. I argue
there is - a valuer must have the minimum "molecular
machinery" enabling it to compare alternatives and
select (at least) one. (There is no requirement that
this be a human brain, btw). But there's no evidence
that plants have any molecular machinery to compare
alternatives, even on the most rudimentary level. See
my argument with Sollars sometime ago re:"can plants
value".
-RKN
James E. Prescott
> Jim Klein wrote:
> > If you'd care to share, I'd be
> > interested in an example or two of what you
> > have in mind.
>
> Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
> trumps reproductive success; risking your life
> to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
I wouldn't say reproduction trumps survival. What I have
expressed here many times is that life, fundamentally, is
reproductive action, and that successful reproduction is
what survival means.
Individuals do not survive. They live for as long as necessary,
and then they die. Always. (Well, except for some bristlecones
in CA, I suppose.)
Only a species survives.
Childless by nature or childless by choice makes no difference.
Organisms that are naturally incapable of reproducing
nonetheless contribute to the reproductive success of members
of their species,and then they die. If they don't contribute to
reproductive success then natural selection would weed out the
genetic traits that produced them in the first place.
Men and women who choose to be childless are part of this
same process. They, too, die, just like everyone else. Nothing
survives, except a species.
So, the notion that "survival" is an organism's "goal" is
not just at obvious variance with the observed fact that
organisms do not survive; it is logically absurd. Where
would the organism get such a goal? Organisms do not
evolve. Only a species can evolve. The only traits that
natural selection can select are traits that exist because
they resulted in reproductive success.
To postulate "survival" as what an organism "by nature"
seeks to do (an ultimate goal, so to speak) is to posit
a logical contradiction. "By nature" means arising from
the natural and self-serving process of trait selection
and evolution during reproduction. And "self" here, of
course, means the species, which evolves, and which
survives; not the individual, which does not evolve,
and which does not survive.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Malrassic Park
<jep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Individuals do not survive. They live for as long as necessary,
>and then they die. Always. (Well, except for some bristlecones
>in CA, I suppose.)
>
>Only a species survives.
Then you've never heard of species extinction?
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/9777-extinct-species-of-goat-brought-back-to-l
ife-through-cloning/
http://snurl.com/ty49m
Charles Bell
In another post you will see that I said that Rand did NOT say:
"Plants have values." She said: "A plant has no choice of action";
plants have set, not chosen, goals; only conscious beings can have
chosen goals. Of course, the choice of the word "goal" to apply to
plants is only slightly less problematic than the word "value". Rand
is guilty of anthropomorphizing "a beneficial end result" into
"goal". Another matter over which one might quibble with Miss Rand
would be: "The functions of living organisms . . . are actions
generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the
maintenance of the organism's life. [VOS p 17]. If a non-conscious
living organism like a plant has set goals (beneficial end results),
it is a matter of supposition that all goals are directed to the
maintenance of the organism's life, for there is no choice involved in
any case. Moreover, a demarcation between plant and animal as the
point in which goals can become chosen, for the reason that the latter
has consciousness, is also a matter of supposition, and something over
which an intellectual fraud like Friedman can choose an insect to
reject the major premise of "beneficial end result in maintaining
life" because of a minor incorrect supposition that is ameliorated by
Rand's statement that at a higher the level of consciousness, "an
animal is guided, not merely by immediate sensations, but by
percepts." All in all, the mistake Rand has made is supposing a
discrete demarcation between plant and animal and then between animal
and man in describing the evolution from set goals to completely
chosen values and mixing at times interchangeably the words
"beneficial end results" , "goals" and "values".
> IOW,
> I'd be inclined to say that to be a value, it has to be compared
> to something else. I see this as different than the typical
> so-called "pain/pleasure" reaction of other animals. They
> don't react affirmatively to pleasure because they
> "value" it over pain.
Nor, I might add, do humans. Rand and Objectivists over-use the word
"value" to this extent, but surely a man *can* choose pain in
masochism, if he wills it, something very different from lower
animals. However, I will add that a dog in a dogfight to protect its
territory or its master will choose to suffer pain in that instance.
Right? It is valuing pain over non-pain in this instance because of a
greater goal than avoiding pain: the property/master being of greater
value than being without pain. Fobbing off this action to mere
instinct makes no more sense than to say a human will do exactly the
same thing as if only by instinct. I believe the truth lies in a
mxture of what is instinctual (territoriality) and rational evaluation
(choosing a fight that can be won) for both dog and human.
>
> But that's semantics, and we're surely not going to get
> anywhere debating whether other animals conceptualize.
>
Actually, that is the major problem I have with Objectivist tenets in
this discussion in that I believe that higher-order animals, but
certainly not Friedman's insects, can conceptualize but at a passive
level of consciousness that Objectivists, except perhaps Kelley, do
not think exists.
> > > [snip hpo discussions with which I have no familiarity ]
> > > "Life" is not a fundamental value to non-conceptual beings,
> > > in any manner that distinguishes it from "being at the bottom
> > > of a hill" as a value for a rolling rock. IOW, it isn't.
>
> > This line is similar to Friedman's absurd attempt at refutation of
> > Rand's ought-from-is. The male praying mantis having his head chewed
> > off while engaging in coitus with his sweetheart is supposed to be a
> > refutation of Rand's ought-from-is? That sort of thing?
>
> You're 0 for 2 there. Firstly, David's point--and it's accurate--
> with the praying mantis is that IF we're going to define some
> value as "automatically present" in all life forms in the
> manner that Rand implies that survival is, then that value
> would have to be reproduction.
No, it is a supposition that all insects (and plants) do everything
for individual survival. Rand might be wrong in that particular
applied universally, but Friedman is wrong in not pointing out that
Rand also said that insects will do insect things and men will do
human things. " . . .protecting man's survival *qua* man." as Rand
wrote in several ways. The matter of the sexual practices of one
particular species of mantis is a matter of an evolutionary fluke that
has persistence value. Friedman is doubly wrong in that Rand
specifically pointed out that lower-order living organisms do not have
the sort of choices in goals that higher-order animals do, and hence
do not evaluate
> Prescott takes this to a
> whole new level with his speciesism and while I think he's
> got that all wrong and totally messed up, they're both
> fundamentally right that reproduction is a more, shall
> we say, defining characteristic of life, than survival.
>
> Now me, I wouldn't use "value" in the first place in that
> manner. My example is intended to point out that if a
> plant can value ANYTHING, in ANY manner, then it's
> also a value for a rolling rock to be at the bottom of a hill.
>
Although you are correct in pointing out a misuse of the word "value",
an over-used word in Objectivism as it is, a three-word summation of
Objectivism in "Plants have values" is as false as the four word
summation of Objectivism in "The senses are infallible." Moreover,
keeping to a distinction between animate and inanimate objects almost
goes without saying even if one were to say "plants have values, but
rocks do not" because plants do act and rocks are acted upon, and a
rock cannot have a goal or value in any manner at all,
anthropomorphizing "value" to any extent.
> > > As it happens, it's not even the ultimate value for most
> > > humans. It's a /necessary/ value and it's an /omnipresent/
> > > value (in order to have other values), but it is often
> > > NOT the ultimate value.
>
> > I think that was Rand's point: it being a necessary value, it is a
> > morally valid value: ought-from-is.
>
> Obviously I'm not trying to argue that it's anything but
> a morally valid value. The key word was "ultimate,"
> and it's not that.
>
I would attach the word "ulitmate" to the phrase "morally valid" in
all contexts where life is better than death in the evaluation of the
individual. The statement "Survival is often NOT the ultimate value
for human beings" makes no sense to me. Please explain if that is
what you mean.
> > There is no *imperative* force
> > behind any morally valid value, however.
>
> Of course. But notice that this includes the one for
> which she explicitly said there is...retaliation.
>
Actually no, Rand did not say that. A properly constituted government
is morally compelled to act in retailation because that is why it
exists as a moral institution, and a government which does not do what
it is constituted to do is an immoral government. Compelling agents
of goverment to do their duty voluntarily entered into (limited
government) is not the same as supposing any individual has a mystical
force compelling him to do anything (anarchy).
> You'll retort, "But she didn't really say that, since she
> offered her reasons for it." The thing is, she didn't. She
> offered (as I recall) a single sentence, roughly, "All the
> reasons which make the initiation of force a moral
> wrong, make the response to it with force a moral imperative."
>
A moral imperative FOR GOVERNMENT (or specifically its agents). This
is one of the few times she actually comes out and says that
government is nothing other than Force but nothing more (coercive) or
less (passively persuasive).
Anarchists, on the other hand, think that the moral imperative is out
there magically forcing individuals to behave, and then there is the
buffoon David Friedman claiming that the imperative is not even a
moral imperative pixie dust but some kind of utilitarian pixie dust.
Rod Nibbe
James E. Prescott wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:23 am, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>Jim Klein wrote:
>>>If you'd care to share, I'd be
>>>interested in an example or two of what you
>>>have in mind.
>>Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
>>trumps reproductive success; risking your life
>>to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
> I wouldn't say reproduction trumps survival. What I have
> expressed here many times is that life, fundamentally, is
> reproductive action, and that successful reproduction is
> what survival means.
Jim asked me for an example of both views,
given the supposition that an individual
member of a species had been endowed with
"automatic values". How this accords (or
not) with your view on what "life" means
wasn't relevant to my answer.
> Individuals do not survive. They live for as long as necessary,
> and then they die. Always. (Well, except for some bristlecones
> in CA, I suppose.)
So? The question put to me was what evidence
is there to support that a member of a species
values x more than y (or visa-versa), supposing
a member possessed "automatic values."
> Only a species survives.
And whole species die. So what?
> Childless by nature or childless by choice makes no difference.
It does to the question I was asked.
> Organisms that are naturally incapable of reproducing
> nonetheless contribute to the reproductive success of members
> of their species,and then they die. If they don't contribute to
> reproductive success then natural selection would weed out the
> genetic traits that produced them in the first place.
All gay and lesbian men and women contribute to the
reproductive succcess of the human species? Or maybe
you'll argue that natural selection is presently
"weeding" this trait out of humans. Or maybe you'll
argue that since some lesbians and gays adopt, that
this action contributes to the reproductive success
of humanity (It takes a village!).
("Because they must be doing *something* to contribute
to the reproductive success of humanity because that's
what the theory concludes! Or wait, is it a premise?
Whatever, must be the case!")
> Men and women who choose to be childless are part of this
> same process. They, too, die, just like everyone else. Nothing
> survives, except a species.
Except many species don't survive,
"they, too, die."
> So, the notion that "survival" is an organism's "goal" is
> not just at obvious variance with the observed fact that
> organisms do not survive; it is logically absurd.
No it's not. Survival can be meaningfully discussed
in the context of what an organsim is doing minute
to minute, day to day or year to year. Just because
organisms ultimately die doesn't mean they don't
survive for a time. *That* would be absurd.
-RKN
Charles Bell
> On Jan 1, 9:22 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Interestingly, I think there's a valid underlying point
> > > to be found even in Binswanger's thesis title, concerning
> > > the biological nature of teleological concepts. On its own,
> > > and stated just thusly, I think it's a grand insight. The thing
> > > is, both Rand's point and his point (if that was ever really
> > > his point at all; I don't know) have been taken as
> > > Tenets--exactly in the manner mal charges--to the point
> > > where it's beyond folly and is a breakdown of the philosophy.
>
> > In that thread I found this:
>
> > "... I will argue that in fact there is an emergent phenomenon-- goal-
> > directed action-- which exists in two forms: the purposeful and the
> > non-purposeful, according to whether the action is conscious or
> > vegetative, and that biologists can and should employ both mechanical
> > and teleological explanations for living actions." (page 24)
>
> > Now, I would like to ask -- if this is Binswanger's thesis -- is this
> > dumb or is this very dumb?
>
> AFAIK, that was his thesis and I know for sure that that's
> how it's taken. IMO Rand was every bit as guilty of this
> sin as Binswanger, and that he got the premise from her.
>
After reading more of that thread, I can see that Binswanger was
trying to impose a needed discipline on the biological sciences which
has had since its inception difficulty in sorting out mechanisms
(deterministic) versus purposive actions (near-deterministic and
possibly tychist) using Objectivist suppositions. Steve Davis,
however, wanted to infer backwards that intent onto Objectivism
generally. Unfortunately, Objectivism has difficulty in saying very
much about anything that is not clearly deterministic, and Objectivist
arguments involving "purposive" versus "non-purposive" actions fall
flat, having nothing at all very positive to say about Chance (being
one source of non-purposive action) as a metaphysical existent.
> That's why she needed that damn footnote, to try and
> weasel her way out of something she recognized as
> not solid. SHE invented this dichotomy of "goal-directed
> behavior" as purposive or not, as if directing toward a
> goal could be anything other than purposive.
I think the problem is almost entirely semantic over "goal" in the
first place.
<< "Value" is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept
"value" is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of
value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting
to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative
exists, no goals and no values are possible. >>
But then . . .
<< Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it
is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated,
goal-directed action. >>
"Can have" and "has the capacity" but not "must have" or "necessarily
have".
>
> > Is this supposed to draw a distinction between acting on instinct and
> > acting rationally? Or is it suppose to explain how an insect can roll
> > down a hill non-purposefully, but a human being will roll down a hill
> > purposefully?
>
> I'm no Rand expert, but the genesis seems sort of obvious
> to me. Just like you or me, she was trying to develop a
> very solid "ought from is" philosophy. To do that, she
> needed an unarguable, undefeatable fact to lay as the
> cornerstone. The nature of "goal-direction" as an emergence
> of life, was her answer. AFAIK, Binswanger just went with
> it, taking it from a simple mistake to the basic foundation
> of ethics.
Again, a semantic problem of reserving "goal" to conscious beings, and
even though Rand said that plants have goals, those goals are not
chosen but a given. "Ought" can only apply to beings which can make a
choice.
> Again, I think that's a separate issue, albeit related.
> Among other things, David's saying, "Well, if she
> misidentified the fundamental 'value' or 'goal' of
> life, then how can we trust the conclusions that
> follow from that."
The point is: she did not really misidentify goal or value [see
previous post] but semantic difficulties make it easy enough for
Friedman to find a grammatical-context wedge to commit his fraud -- in
a very similar way Mal has been trying to convince us that Rand did
not solve the Problem of the Universal (when she really thought that
problem was a strawman argument). If Rand had specifically said that
a praying mantis does everything it can and at all times to live, then
Friedman would have a clear-cut objection, but she never even thought
of insects as a generality but rather used plants, and if Friedman
could have thought of a suicidal plant species to show up Miss Rand,
then that would be only superficially interesting, supposing the
suicde was purposive.
> And then it's off to the races
> with how Prudent Predation serves the ego far
> better than honesty and reputation and therefore
> nearly everything she wrote is open to question.
>
Again, she did not really misidentify value in that for man it is
exists in morality, which does not exist for plants and insects, but
morality does not exist in Friedman's utilitarianism, thus making ir
suitable for plants and insects. Only if one takes Rand's "goal" as
she applied it to plants out the context that she was clear that no
such goal is up to choice of the plant whereas "value" for man is up
to choice does Objectivism reduce to Friedman's (morality-free and
choiceless-goal-oriented) utilitarianism. This is the intellectual
fraud and/or malfeasance Friedman typically inflicts on Objectivism:
Objectivism is just a failed utilitarianism.
Rod Nibbe
Charles Bell wrote:
> On Jan 1, 11:29 pm, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> If Rand had specifically said that
> a praying mantis does everything it can and at all times to live, then
> Friedman would have a clear-cut objection,
Actually not.
From my reply to Jim:
FWIW, it turns out that this behavior was observed in
just one or two species of mantis (there are >2000),
and concluded to be a behavioral artifact of captivity.
No evidence exists that I'm aware of indicating that
mantises behave this way in nature, and hence not
evidence that male mantises 'value' reproduction over
survival."
-RKN
Charles Bell
Thanks for the information. I have had an inclination to suppose that
the truth lay outside of Friedman's presentation but biology and
particularly entomology are not in my interests and scope of
knowledge. At any rate, that sort of thing is an evolutionary fluke at
most, let's say like homosexual behavior with respect to "value vs.
reproduction", and I am suspicious of anyone using it as a good
example of anything.
James E. Prescott
> James E. Prescott wrote:
> > [...] What I have expressed here many times
> > is that life, fundamentally, is reproductive action,
> > and that successful reproduction is what survival
> > means.
> Jim asked me for an example of both views,
> given the supposition that an individual
> member of a species had been endowed with
> "automatic values". How this accords (or
> not) with your view on what "life" means
> wasn't relevant to my answer.
Oh. I thought it was relevant to the discussion. You
said I had things totally messed up in supposing that
reproduction somehow trumps survival, and you said
"either view" could find support in scientific evidence.
This was a mistake, in my view, and put your answer
to Jim off the mark; and that's what I was trying to
address.
[...]
> > Only a species survives.
> And whole species die. So what?
So everything. As I explained, organisms are programmed
by natural selection to act for survival, and survival means
survival of the species, not of the organism itself. Now and
then a whole species dies out, but that is not how a species
is designed. Organisms always die. They are made that way,
so evolution progresses and the species lives on.
> > Childless by nature or childless by choice makes no difference.
>
> It does to the question I was asked.
>
> > Organisms that are naturally incapable of reproducing
> > nonetheless contribute to the reproductive success of members
> > of their species,and then they die. [...]
> All gay and lesbian men and women contribute to the
> reproductive succcess of the human species?
Not all. Not all traits contribute to survival. However, traits that
are "naturally selected" -- like the behavior of worker bees -- do
contribute to species survival, or else they could not be selected.
This should be obvious.
And, yes, homosexuality, as a naturally selected trait, does
indeed, in general, contribute. This is not a matter of what
certain individuals may or may not do, nor a matter
of what certain traits may or may not do. It is a matter of how
evolution works.
> Or maybe
> you'll argue that natural selection is presently
> "weeding" this trait out of humans. Or maybe you'll
> argue that since some lesbians and gays adopt, that
> this action contributes to the reproductive success
> of humanity (It takes a village!).
Non-reproducing organs and organisms do contribute
to the reproductive success of species in general. For
humans I would argue that evolutionary forces are
fundamentally changed or eliminated due to the fact
that humans remake their environment to suit themselves,
rather than the other way around. But that gets off the
point.
> ("Because they must be doing *something* to contribute
> to the reproductive success of humanity because that's
> what the theory concludes! Or wait, is it a premise?
> Whatever, must be the case!")
It is the case. You suppose how I will argue. I would love to
argue but I need a counter-argument to address.
So, is there something, anything in what I wrote that you
take issue with? (Other than suggesting again it isn't
relevant, of course.)
> > Men and women who choose to be childless are part
>> of this same process. They, too, die, just like everyone
> > else. Nothing survives, except a species.
>
> Except many species don't survive,
> "they, too, die."
I'm not sure your intention with the word "except," here. Many
species do die, do go extinct, of course, but still, just as I said,
nothing survives except species. Do you really mean to
postulate an "exception" to this rule. Show me an organism
that does not die, and then tell me how its species managed
to evolve without the death of its organisms.
> > So, the notion that "survival" is an organism's "goal" is
> > not just at obvious variance with the observed fact that
> > organisms do not survive; it is logically absurd.
>
> No it's not. Survival can be meaningfully discussed
> in the context of what an organsim is doing minute
> to minute, day to day or year to year.
Meaningfully, but not logically, I'm afraid. Yes, you can
narrow your focus, but only by (and for) ignoring the
context in which organisms act. Survive means stay alive
over time in spite of hazards. Organisms do survive
many hazards, but never survive the programmed
senescence and death that contributes to the biological
"goal" for which they exist, act, avoid hazards and
reproduce. It is logically absurd to suppose that their
"ultimate goal" (removing the blinders of narrowed
focus) is their own survival. Where would such
a goal come from? God?
> Just because organisms ultimately die doesn't
> mean they don't survive for a time. *That* would
> be absurd.
Just because a man falling from a thousand feet
without a parachute "survives" until he hits the ground
does not mean "the man survives." He does not
survive. He dies. Organisms do not survive. They
die. They might "survive" this or that hazard of the
moment, but "ultimately" they must die because nature
has programmed them that way -- in order that the
species survives. The fact that some species go
extinct is irrelevant. Species DO survive, and ONLY
species survive.
That is why there is life on earth.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Charles Bell
> > > [...] What I have expressed here many times
> > > is that life, fundamentally, is reproductive action,
> > > and that successful reproduction is what survival
> > > means.
One wonders if Prescott googles his name daily in order to afford
himself the opportunity to defend his uniquely false banalities.
James E. Prescott
Googles, yes. To defend, yes.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Charles Bell
And who ever said that intuition is an invalid means of apprehension?
James E. Prescott
> On Jan 2, 7:07�pm, "James E.Prescott" <jepr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 2, 5:14�pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > > himself the opportunity to defend his uniquely false banalities.
>
> > Googles, yes. To defend, yes.
>
> And who ever said that intuition is an invalid means of apprehension?
Not Sinatra.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Rod Nibbe
James E. Prescott wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:54 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>James E. Prescott wrote:
>>>[...] What I have expressed here many times
>>>is that life, fundamentally, is reproductive action,
>>>and that successful reproduction is what survival
>>>means.
>>Jim asked me for an example of both views,
>>given the supposition that an individual
>>member of a species had been endowed with
>>"automatic values". How this accords (or
>>not) with your view on what "life" means
>>wasn't relevant to my answer.
> Oh. I thought it was relevant to the discussion. You
> said I had things totally messed up in supposing that
> reproduction somehow trumps survival,
No. I didn't know anything about your view
wrt survival versus reproduction. I do recall
the essence of Friedman's claim in this
context, and that's what I criticized.
> and you said
> "either view" could find support in scientific evidence.
> This was a mistake, in my view, and put your answer
> to Jim off the mark; and that's what I was trying to
> address.
Willfully deciding not to have children is evidence
that the people who do so (they number in the tens
of thousands) don't value reproductive success as
highly as survival, your peculiar definition of
"survival" notwithsanding.
>>>Only a species survives.
>>And whole species die. So what?
> So everything. As I explained, organisms are programmed
> by natural selection to act for survival, and survival means
> survival of the species, not of the organism itself.
That's your peculiar and tendentious definition of
survival, certainly not one that I agree with or,
for that matter, one that any biologist is likely
to agree with.
>>All gay and lesbian men and women contribute to the
>>reproductive succcess of the human species?
> Not all. Not all traits contribute to survival. However, traits that
> are "naturally selected" -- like the behavior of worker bees -- do
> contribute to species survival, or else they could not be selected.
> This should be obvious.
Obvious, no; tautological, yes.
>>("Because they must be doing *something* to contribute
>>to the reproductive success of humanity because that's
>>what the theory concludes! Or wait, is it a premise?
>>Whatever, must be the case!")
> It is the case. You suppose how I will argue. I would love to
> argue but I need a counter-argument to address.
> So, is there something, anything in what I wrote that you
> take issue with? (Other than suggesting again it isn't
> relevant, of course.)
Yes, your peculiar definition of survive. And peculiar
is being generous.
>>>Men and women who choose to be childless are part
>>>of this same process. They, too, die, just like everyone
>>>else. Nothing survives, except a species.
>>Except many species don't survive,
>>"they, too, die."
> I'm not sure your intention with the word "except," here. Many
> species do die, do go extinct, of course, but still, just as I said,
> nothing survives except species.
Your view of what it means "to survive" is peculiar,
and merely repeating it is not convincing.
> Do you really mean to
> postulate an "exception" to this rule. Show me an organism
> that does not die, and then tell me how its species managed
> to evolve without the death of its organisms.
"To evolve" != "to survive".
>>Just because organisms ultimately die doesn't
>>mean they don't survive for a time. *That* would
>>be absurd.
> Just because a man falling from a thousand feet
> without a parachute "survives" until he hits the ground
> does not mean "the man survives."
Correction: it doesn't mean he *hasn't* survived. Past
tense.
> He does not
> survive. He dies. Organisms do not survive.
Survive does not mean "inevitably avoids death."
Survive merely denotes the continuance of existence.
It's a biological feature, commonly used in the
comparison of outcomes of one or more living things
(typically whole organisms, but could be cultured
cells, for instance), faced with similar conditions.
-RKN
James E. Prescott
> James E. Prescott wrote:
> > On Jan 2, 1:54 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> >>James E. Prescott wrote:
> > Oh. I thought it was relevant [...[.
> No. I didn't know anything about your view
> wrt survival versus reproduction. [...]
My mistake? I don't think so.
> [...] That's your peculiar and tendentious definition
> of survival, certainly not one that I agree with or,
> for that matter, one that any biologist is likely
> to agree with.
Make an argument if you can. My definition was clear
and correct. Survive means, as I said, to stay alive over
time in spite of hazards. Biologists agree.
> > Organisms do not survive.
>
> Survive does not mean "inevitably avoids death."
It means to avoid death. Organisms do not survive.
They die. Species survive. Do you have a counter-
argument?
> Survive merely denotes the continuance of existence.
No, It denotes the continuance of life. Existence is not
at issue. Inanimate objects do not survive, or die. They
merely exist,
Living things survive, or die. What continues, what
survives, or dies, is life, Individual organisms "survive"
only until they reproduce or until they fail to reproduce,
and then they die. All of them. None of them survive.
Such is the nature of life.
Species,on the other hand, go on. They persist. They
survive. (Well, some of them die, but that's the exception,
the end state, that all extant species have avoided.) Such
is the nature of life. If there is a biologist out there who
disputes this, I'd like to meet him.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
James E. Prescott
> On Jan 2, 10:13�pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>
> > [...]
> [...] Individual organisms "survive" only until they reproduce
> or until they fail to reproduce, and then they die. All of them.
> None of them survive.
Well, I should have said, none but that damn(ed) bristlecone pine in
California. It hasn't died. Yet.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Rod Nibbe
James E. Prescott wrote:
> On Jan 2, 10:13 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>[...] That's your peculiar and tendentious definition
>>of survival, certainly not one that I agree with or,
>>for that matter, one that any biologist is likely
>>to agree with.
> Make an argument if you can. My definition was clear
> and correct. Survive means, as I said, to stay alive over
> time in spite of hazards. Biologists agree.
And I have stayed alive for 49 years now, in spite
of hazards. I have survived. Biologists agree.
-RKN
Jim Klein
> > If you'd care to share, I'd be
> > interested in an example or two of what you
> > have in mind.
>
> Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
> trumps reproductive success; risking your life
> to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
Since there's no debate that volition trumps instinct
in humans (generally), I was sort of hoping for a
non-human example or two. Do you have any?
> To value - in any sense of the word - presupposes
> life.
As you note, it presupposes other things too. Put
in epistemological terms, the question is whether
that class of presuppositions is inclusive of rocks,
plants and/or other existents.
Naturally the discovery of one exception to any of
those presuppositions is sufficient to place something
out of the class, which is your point with plants and
life. I'm saying, and you apparently agree, that there
are other presuppositions for which plants fall just
as obviously exclusive, as rocks.
> Rocks are dead. Plants are alive. That's why
> I said it's not prima facie ridiculous to consider
> that plants *might* be able to value.
>
> > What sort of goal is it not
> > ridiculous to imagine that a plant has?
>
> I don't think that's the way to frame the question.
> The way to frame the question is to ask if there is
> some minimum biology required to be a valuer.
A hammer would ask if there's some minimum nailing!
> I argue
> there is - a valuer must have the minimum "molecular
> machinery" enabling it to compare alternatives and
> select (at least) one.
Okay, that's good enough for me. That's all I was
saying, maybe more cryptically.
After a month or two of nothing but bullshit trolling
here, we've finally got a couple of experts about
something interesting. Naturally that's when I get
super-busy and so can't keep up. But I'll thank
at least you and Prescott for taking on some of this
stuff, and anyone else who offers anything sensible.
It leaves me something good to anticipate when I get
back from chores in a day or two. Thanks.
jk
Rod Nibbe
Jim Klein wrote:
> On Jan 2, 1:23 am, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>>If you'd care to share, I'd be
>>>interested in an example or two of what you
>>>have in mind.
>>Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
>>trumps reproductive success; risking your life
>>to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
> Since there's no debate that volition trumps instinct
> in humans (generally), I was sort of hoping for a
> non-human example or two. Do you have any?
I'm not sure I understand why the fact that we
(humans) have volition makes this a bad example.
Humans express their volition when having and
not having children. If a human volitionally
decides not to have children then that indicates
they care less about their reproductive success
than someone who uses their volition to have
children. And that's not what we would expect,
assuming humans are the product of natural
selection.
In terms of non-human examples, I suppose that
any instance of an organism who avoids or delays
an opportunity to reproduce is consistent with
them "valuing" other inborn directives more highly
than their reproductive success.
>>To value - in any sense of the word - presupposes
>>life.
> As you note, it presupposes other things too. Put
> in epistemological terms, the question is whether
> that class of presuppositions is inclusive of rocks,
> plants and/or other existents.
> Naturally the discovery of one exception to any of
> those presuppositions is sufficient to place something
> out of the class, which is your point with plants and
> life.
Yes, exactly.
> I'm saying, and you apparently agree, that there
> are other presuppositions for which plants fall just
> as obviously exclusive, as rocks.
Other exclusionary presuppositions? I can't think
of any off hand.
>>Rocks are dead. Plants are alive. That's why
>>I said it's not prima facie ridiculous to consider
>>that plants *might* be able to value.
>>> What sort of goal is it not
>>> ridiculous to imagine that a plant has?
>>I don't think that's the way to frame the question.
>>The way to frame the question is to ask if there is
>>some minimum biology required to be a valuer.
> A hammer would ask if there's some minimum nailing!
See above. Hammers are dead, and out of class!
In order to value, the valuer has to have the minimum
biology (i.e. "wetware") required to express values.
I don't think plants have the minimum wetware, but I
think Gorodn thinks they do!
> After a month or two of nothing but bullshit trolling
> here, we've finally got a couple of experts about
> something interesting.
Shucks, I'm no expert. But at least I understand what
"survive" means! ;-)
-RKN
Charles Bell
> Jim Klein wrote:
> > On Jan 2, 1:23 am, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> >>>If you'd care to share, I'd be
> >>>interested in an example or two of what you
> >>>have in mind.
> >>Childless by choice humans suggest that survival
> >>trumps reproductive success; risking your life
> >>to save your wife and children suggests the opposite.
> > Since there's no debate that volition trumps instinct
> > in humans (generally), I was sort of hoping for a
> > non-human example or two. �Do you have any?
>
> I'm not sure I understand why the fact that we
> (humans) have volition makes this a bad example.
Because Rand intended to connect the "is" of all conscious beings in
nature generally to the "ought" of humans in particular.
Consequentialists and utilitarians do not have a problem so much with
an is-ought connection for humans but balk at generalizing the idea to
a universal fact of nature which is Rand's argument.
> In terms of non-human examples, I suppose that
> any instance of an organism who avoids or delays
> an opportunity to reproduce is consistent with
> them "valuing" other inborn directives more highly
> than their reproductive success.
>
That is a problem: utilitarians and Prescott claim that reproduction
for animals other than humans (and for Prescott probably for humans as
well) trumps absolutely anything, and you (and I, and maybe Klein)
disagree.
> > I'm saying, and you apparently agree, that there
> > are other presuppositions for which plants fall just
> > as obviously exclusive, as rocks.
>
> Other exclusionary presuppositions? I can't think
> of any off hand.
>
What about the fact that animate things act and inanimate things are
acted upon?
Rod Nibbe
Charles Bell wrote:
> On Jan 3, 7:40 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>Jim Klein wrote:
>>In terms of non-human examples, I suppose that
>>any instance of an organism who avoids or delays
>>an opportunity to reproduce is consistent with
>>them "valuing" other inborn directives more highly
>>than their reproductive success.
> That is a problem: utilitarians and Prescott claim that reproduction
> for animals other than humans (and for Prescott probably for humans as
> well) trumps absolutely anything, and you (and I, and maybe Klein)
> disagree.
My position wrt humans, who we all agree are
"valuers", is that the value of their own
reproductive success is evidently widely
variable. With other organisms, if one
accepts for the sake of argument that they
have been endowed with "automatic values",
then I still don't think the evidence only
and overwhelmingly supports that their
"ultimate" value is reproductive success.
More likely the order of their values is
temporally quite elastic, and probably
variable over individual members of the
species as well.
>>>I'm saying, and you apparently agree, that there
>>>are other presuppositions for which plants fall just
>>>as obviously exclusive, as rocks.
>>Other exclusionary presuppositions? I can't think
>>of any off hand.
> What about the fact that animate things act and inanimate things are
> acted upon?
Possibly, except I would say "can act" is implied
by "is alive", so I'm not sure it adds anything.
-RKN
Jim Klein
> I'm not sure I understand why the fact that we
> (humans) have volition makes this a bad example.
Because we're trying to find an underlying non-volitional
mechanism of life that we're euphemistically calling an
"ultimate value." Since we agree that volition trumps
non-volitional mechanisms in humans, what humans
do doesn't help too much on that point.
> Humans express their volition when having and
> not having children. If a human volitionally
> decides not to have children then that indicates
> they care less about their reproductive success
> than someone who uses their volition to have
> children. And that's not what we would expect,
> assuming humans are the product of natural
> selection.
Were it not for the fact that we're trying to pinpoint
the causes and effects of natural selection and that
we agree that volition trumps those mechanisms, this
would be some sort of evidence. As it is, it isn't.
> In terms of non-human examples, I suppose that
> any instance of an organism who avoids or delays
> an opportunity to reproduce is consistent with
> them "valuing" other inborn directives more highly
> than their reproductive success.
Right, and that's what I was asking. This is sort of
crazy anyway, since we agree (I think) that there's
no valuing going on. We're trying to pigeonhole
actions into a concept that we agree doesn't apply.
Still, the odd praying mantis shows that there are at
least /some/ organisms that are driven to reproduce
even at the expense of life itself. I was just wondering
if there are examples of non-human organisms that
will choose (ugh) staying alive /over/ their drive to
reproduce.
[snip]
> > I'm saying, and you apparently agree, that there
> > are other presuppositions for which plants fall just
> > as obviously exclusive, as rocks.
>
> Other exclusionary presuppositions? I can't think
> of any off hand.
But you offered at least one, and do so again...
[snip]
> In order to value, the valuer has to have the minimum
> biology (i.e. "wetware") required to express values.
Right. So that's a presupposition for the existence of
values for which plants don't qualify. Really, I prefer
the way you worded it before IIRC. The valuer has to
have the minimum biology to /create/ values. Since
we agree that at a minimum, this requires the ability
to conceptualize and choose from alternatives, it
seems clear that plants don't qualify.
> I don't think plants have the minimum wetware, but I
> think Gorodn thinks they do!
Firstly, Gordon believes that thinking reduces down--"all
the way down" in his words--to conjecture. With conjecture,
anything goes as long as we can imagine it. So for him,
the idea of rocks having values is not wholly different from
the idea of plants having values. He might use some set of
evidence for one conjecture and against another, but in
the end they're just conjectures anyway.
I'm pretty sure we're both beyond that sort of thinking.
To avoid the concepts of value and drive and intention
and all of that, I'm guess I'm just saying that it seems
reasonably evident that replication and reproduction
are the fundamental mechanisms involved with living
things, particularly as opposed to non-living things.
Does that strike you as an innocent claim?
jk
Jim Klein
> Because Rand intended to connect the "is" of all conscious beings in
> nature generally to the "ought" of humans in particular.
> Consequentialists and utilitarians do not have a problem so much with
> an is-ought connection for humans but balk at generalizing the idea to
> a universal fact of nature which is Rand's argument.
Right, which is why it fails, at least in the manner she
presented it. If there's a "universal fact of nature"
involved here, it's that living cells and organisms
replicate.
The thing is, not all cells replicate and neither do all
organisms. This lends a drop of sense to Prescott's
speciesism, though where he goes with it in regard
to humans hasn't a drop of sense at all IMO.
[snip]
> > Other exclusionary presuppositions? I can't think
> > of any off hand.
>
> What about the fact that animate things act and inanimate things are
> acted upon?
Well, that's self-generation or something close to it. The
thing is, it gets a little tough when talking about sponges
and even plants. Do plants really act so differently than
rocks? I'm inclined to think not when it comes to these
matters, even as their functions are those of living things
and the rocks are not. But that's just a definitional
argument and doesn't really say anything beyond that
plants are alive.
I think Vincent Cook presented a logical way of
distinguishing life from non-life in that thread, but
I don't recall exactly what it was.
jk
Rod Nibbe
Jim Klein wrote:
> On Jan 3, 7:40 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>I'm not sure I understand why the fact that we
>>(humans) have volition makes this a bad example.
> Because we're trying to find an underlying non-volitional
> mechanism of life that we're euphemistically calling an
> "ultimate value." Since we agree that volition trumps
> non-volitional mechanisms in humans, what humans
> do doesn't help too much on that point.
If you accept that humans are a product of natural
selection, then the traits we have were selected for
reproductive success. Volition is a trait (albeit
with complex genetic undepinnings). If we use that
trait to achieve outcomes inconsistent with
reproductive success (e.g., willfully not havng
children) then that's a contradiction to the theory
of natural selection. The example casts doubt on
the claim that all traits in organisms are selected
for reproductive success, and further casts doubt
on the claim that all organisms "value" reproductive
success most highly. And that's what you asked for.
>>Humans express their volition when having and
>>not having children. If a human volitionally
>>decides not to have children then that indicates
>>they care less about their reproductive success
>>than someone who uses their volition to have
>>children. And that's not what we would expect,
>>assuming humans are the product of natural
>>selection.
> Were it not for the fact that we're trying to pinpoint
> the causes and effects of natural selection and that
> we agree that volition trumps those mechanisms, this
> would be some sort of evidence. As it is, it isn't.
But supposedly volition is a product of natural
selection. Is it your view that volition is a
trait that somehow transcends selection?
>>In terms of non-human examples, I suppose that
>>any instance of an organism who avoids or delays
>>an opportunity to reproduce is consistent with
>>them "valuing" other inborn directives more highly
>>than their reproductive success.
> Right, and that's what I was asking. This is sort of
> crazy anyway, since we agree (I think) that there's
> no valuing going on.
I am more generous than you in terms of my willingness
to consider which organsims can "value", but for the
sake of this argument I can stipulate that I agree with
you, yes.
> We're trying to pigeonhole
> actions into a concept that we agree doesn't apply.
I agree with this. But if I recall correctly, in the
course of related arguments on this ng you have
readily accepted the premise that to the extent
all organisms have been endowed with "automatic
values", then the ultimate one is likely reproductive
success over, for instance, survival.
> Still, the odd praying mantis shows that there are at
> least /some/ organisms that are driven to reproduce
> even at the expense of life itself.
As I've pointed out a number of times now, that
"evidence" turned out to be artifactual. Thus
male mantises have not been selected to sacrafice
their own life in favor of reproductive success.
> I was just wondering
> if there are examples of non-human organisms that
> will choose (ugh) staying alive /over/ their drive to
> reproduce.
See, your frustration (ugh) indicates the question isn't
even legimitate, because of your belief that organisms
other than humans can't choose to begin with! Imagine
where that leaves me trying to answer the question.
The best I have to offer on this whole matter is
what I said to Charles upthread recently; effectively
that putative "values" in all organisms are temporally
and individually quite variable.
>>In order to value, the valuer has to have the minimum
>>biology (i.e. "wetware") required to express values.
> Right. So that's a presupposition for the existence of
> values for which plants don't qualify. Really, I prefer
> the way you worded it before IIRC. The valuer has to
> have the minimum biology to /create/ values. Since
> we agree that at a minimum, this requires the ability
> to conceptualize and choose from alternatives, it
> seems clear that plants don't qualify.
Close. I have actually proposed that it requires the
ability to deliberate and judge over alternatives. I
can imagine - but offer no evidence- that more primitve
forms of life than humans may be able to achieve that
without necessarily possessing full conceptualization
as we know it in humans. At least I'm willing to
consider it.
> To avoid the concepts of value and drive and intention
> and all of that, I'm guess I'm just saying that it seems
> reasonably evident that replication and reproduction
> are the fundamental mechanisms involved with living
> things, particularly as opposed to non-living things.
> Does that strike you as an innocent claim?
You'll get no disagreement from me that most all
organisms have the "fundamental mechanism" of
reproduction, assuming by that you mean biological
mechanism. But they have all sorts of complicated
physiological mechanisms which nominally have nothing
to do with reproduction, unless of course you believe
they must, you know, becasue it must be all about
reproduction ;-)
-RKN
Arnold Broese
news:1a876d93-9d80-4bcc...@t12g2000vbk.googlegroups.com...
>
> Still, the odd praying mantis shows that there are at
> least /some/ organisms that are driven to reproduce
> even at the expense of life itself.
There is no plan in evolution, and no plan to reproduce when it comes to the
mantis. If it didn't live long enough to reproduce, the species dies out,
otherwise it lives as long as it should. All life must end, and HOW it ends,
is not that important. The mantis doesn't choose, it just follows it's
nature. I really have never understood why all this is a problem.
--
Arnold
Arnold Broese
>
> Right, which is why it fails, at least in the manner she
> presented it. If there's a "universal fact of nature"
> involved here, it's that living cells and organisms
> replicate.
But reproducing does nothing for the survival of a particular living
organism, and are we not dealing with particular living organisms? 'Species
talk' only confuses the issue, because it is another ball of wax which deals
with things not living - the future.
--
Arnold
Rod Nibbe
I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
"ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
that if an organism had an any "ultimate value" it
would have to be reproductive success, in keeping with
the mantra from evolutionary biology. As evidence, it
was observed that certain male praying mantises were
cannibalized by the female during or immediately after
copulation. Supposedly a male mantis wouldn't risk its
own life just to reproduce, unless it valued reproduction
over its own survival.
Turns out the behavior was most likely an artifact
of captivity, or at least highly controversial among
biologists.
-RKN
Charles Bell
> On Jan 3, 8:26 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > Because Rand intended to connect the "is" of all conscious beings in
> > nature generally to the "ought" of humans in particular.
> > Consequentialists and utilitarians do not have a problem so much with
> > an is-ought connection for humans but balk at generalizing the idea to
> > a universal fact of nature which is Rand's argument.
>
> Right, which is why it fails, at least in the manner she
> presented it. �If there's a "universal fact of nature"
> involved here, it's that living cells and organisms
> replicate.
>
Therefore, Rand's argument does not fail. Organisms act to generate
themselves.
Do you think of all the other living things on earth than man, only a
few male mantisses that have been observed to do so, commit acts of
volition by choosing to give up their lives for the sake of
reproduction? Do you really serious consider Friedman's lie that that
a mantis will have the presence of mind to regret to have but one life
to give for his species? Which is it? Are there some organisms other
than man who have volition or not?
> The thing is, not all cells replicate and neither do all
> organisms.
All organisms act to survive. When it *appears* that one does not, or
there is a pattern of many who do not, there is an explanation other
than altruistic suicide. Mantises engage in cannibalism (like many
insects) when there is scarce alternative food supply. Female
mantises who kill and eat their mates do so to survive in face of
scarce food supply. [As Rod Nibbe mentioned, this is a rare artifact
of two species of two thousand species in captivity.] Do you believe
Friedman's lie that the male mantis is a willing participant in
cannibalism? Does a male mantis know beforehand his fate?
> �This lends a drop of sense to Prescott's
> speciesism,
No, it does not.
> > What about the fact that animate things act and inanimate things are
> > acted upon?
>
> Well, that's self-generation or something close to it.
Yes.
>�The
> thing is, it gets a little tough when talking about sponges
> and even plants.
No. Sponges self-generate. Rocks do not. Sponges act (even if within
itself). Rocks do not.
> �Do plants really act so differently than
> rocks? �
Yes. A rock comes through the window into your house. Do you think
the rock threw itself? A plant grows through a crack in the sill of a
window into your house. Do you think the plant grew itself into your
house?
> I'm inclined to think not when it comes to these
> matters, even as their functions are those of living things
> and the rocks are not. �But that's just a definitional
> argument and doesn't really say anything beyond that
> plants are alive.
>
Inanimate things are acted upon and animate things act. How is that
so difficult? Aristotle said every animate being is a living thing
which can move itself only because it has a soul (an animus). So it is
a matter of defining what constitutes this "animus" that distinguishes
the animate from the inanimate.Is it either the passive capacity of a
substance to be changed in the case of the inanimate, or in the case
of animate beings its active capacity to produce change in other
substances in determinate ways, as Aristotle asked. A living organism
is "an entity possessing the capacities of internally generated
action, of growth through metabolism, and of reproduction," Rand
said. Animus = self-generating action. How is that so difficult?
Charles Bell
If you found a rock inside your house, do you think it got there by
itself? If you find a plant inside your house, is it possible that it
got there by itself?
x.
xx.
xxx.
xx.
x.
Arnold Broese
news:4B428488...@rknibbe.com...
>
>
> Arnold Broese wrote:
>> There is no plan in evolution, and no plan to reproduce when it comes to
>> the mantis. If it didn't live long enough to reproduce, the species dies
>> out, otherwise it lives as long as it should. All life must end, and HOW
>> it ends, is not that important. The mantis doesn't choose, it just
>> follows it's nature. I really have never understood why all this is a
>> problem.
>
> I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
> Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
> "ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
> that if an organism had an any "ultimate value" it
> would have to be reproductive success, in keeping with
> the mantra from evolutionary biology. As evidence, it
> was observed that certain male praying mantises were
> cannibalized by the female during or immediately after
> copulation. Supposedly a male mantis wouldn't risk its
> own life just to reproduce, unless it valued reproduction
> over its own survival.
I se no such 'decisions' being made. Organisms live then die. If an animal
is eaten just after reproduction, so what? It dies, like everything
eventually dies. There is no grand plan of species survival; rather it is
the result of certain actions, that by the literal process of elimination,
results in reproduction itself surviving. Regardless, living things are
programmed to continue that process for as long as their nature allows. A
mosquito is programmed to hone in on living animals (those that don't, die).
It is also programmed to reproduce (those that were not, died out).
"Values" in regard to non human life, is simply OUR understanding of what an
animal requires for survival. Animals don't understand values, but they are
programmed to seek them. Reproduction is likely nothing more than responding
to hormonal drives, not an evaluation of values.
There is no grand plan in life, such as the survival of the species. There
is only a set of behaviors that either dies out, or lives on.
--
Arnold
James E. Prescott
> Arnold Broese wrote:
> > "Jim Klein" <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> >> Still, the odd praying mantis shows that there are at
> >> least /some/ organisms that are driven to reproduce
> >> even at the expense of life itself.
> > There is no plan in evolution, and no plan to reproduce
> > when it comes to the mantis. If it didn't live long enough
> > to reproduce, the species dies out, otherwise it lives as
> > long as it should. All life must end, and HOW it ends, is
> > not that important. The mantis doesn't choose, it just
> > follows it's nature. I really have never understood why all
> > this is a problem.
It was never really a problem, nor ever even an exception
to the "general rule." The rule is, all organisms are
programmed by natural selection to (to seek to/to strive to)
survive, long enough to reproduce or, like worker bees, to
serve the reproductive success of their relations -- and then
ALL are programmed to die.
As you (Arnold) say, how the individuals happen to die is
not so important. As Darwin said, survival is achieved not by
the strongest nor by the most intelligent, but by the most
adaptable. In evolutionary terms, organisms do not adapt;
species adapt. Extant species have the gene-pool trait of
adaptation over time to changes in their environments.
Senescence and natural death are vital elements of this
adaptive process.
> I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
> Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
> "ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
> that if an organism had an any "ultimate value" it
> would have to be reproductive success, in keeping with
> the mantra from evolutionary biology.
Evolutionary biology is a redundancy. There is no other
kind. David agreed with this, Rod, but he injected a mistake
similar to Ayn Rand's mistake. He saw, in all organisms, a
fundamentally "self-serving nature," much as Ayn Rand
did, but he argued (fond of Dawkins) that the "self"
being served was really just the gene(s) of the individual
organisms, the propagation of themselves, so to speak.
Though I'm an Objectivist (or call myself one; take your
pick) and I advocate a thoroughgoing egoism in ethics,
I took a radical, seemingly anti-Objectivist position
in many enjoyable debates with David. At the organism
level (I said and I say) a fundamental "altruism" prevails
in biology (so to speak; these are mere metaphors) .
Nothing matters in biology but survival of the only thing
that does in fact survive, namely, the species of which
organisms are members -- or, by just another name,
the "gene pool" of which "one's own genes" are
mere members.
> As evidence, it was observed that certain male praying
> mantises were cannibalized by the female during or
> immediately after copulation. Supposedly a male mantis
> wouldn't risk its own life just to reproduce, unless it valued
> reproduction over its own survival.
It is not so much that reproduction is valued "over" survival.
Life itself is replicative action. The reproduction of organisms
is how species survive. A male mantis is pre-programmed
to die whether or not it succeeds in reproducing itself, and
in this respect it is no different whatsoever from any other
living organism. It "values" (so to speak!) its own death,
because its own death serves the multi-generational
adaptation process (evolution) that accounts for the nature
and the continued existence of its species.
> Turns out the behavior was most likely an artifact
> of captivity, or at least highly controversial among
> biologists.
The behavior of mantises may well be controversial. But
what ought not be an issue is the fundamental replicative
and adaptive nature of life itself. Genes, cells, organs
and organisms are all mere parts of an overall process
that has only a single "ultimate aim:" the continuation
of the process, i.e., the "survival of the species."
Yes, of course, organisms do act for their own survival,
temporarily, as nature has programmed them to act. And
then, inevitably, they cause their own demise, whether
by senescence and natural death or by sacrificing them-
selves in defense of their offspring or by giving up life in
the act of copulation itself makes no difference at all.
There are no exceptions to the rule. All organisms
(mantises included) struggle to stay alive and then
to reproduce (or to contribute to the reproductive
success of others). And then, successful or not,
they die. They die by their own design, not by mere
accident. They die because that is how species
adapt and survive.
Best wishes,
Jim P.
James E. Prescott
wrote:
> [...]
> There is no grand plan in life, such as the survival of the
> species. There is only a set of behaviors that either dies
> out, or lives on.
Oh, but Arnold, that IS the grand design! Living on is
what life does, by replicating itself over and over again,
and by, in this replicative process, adapting itself to the
environment so that "itself" (this replicative process
itself) continues without end.
Or, as you say, it simply dies out.
Where it does not die out, you find the extant species
of the earth, existing because they have adapted to a
changing world, a world of which they themselves are
part of the changes. Such is life. And so the behaviors
we observe today are not mere random occurrences,
nor creations of some grand designer-in-the-sky, but
are the grand design of the blind forces of nature, the
result of how life lives.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Charles Bell
> I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
> Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
> "ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
> that if an organism had an any "ultimate value"
. . . Rand never put the argument in that way: "that an organism has
an ultimate value".
(1) Do you accept Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
altruistic death?
(2) Do you deny Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
altruistic death?
(3) Does the female mantis act to survive by cannabalism or . . .
(4) Does she act that way because she is just pissed off?
Rand's "footnote" to which Klein referred is this:
<< When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions
of an organism, the term "goal-directed" is not to be taken to mean
"purposive" (a concept applicable only to the actions of a
consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological
principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term "goal-
directed," in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic
functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that
they result in the preservation of an organism's life. >>
(5) Do you accept this as a true premise?
(2) and (3) and (5) are true, or do you believe that a mantis is a
sentient animal?
Rod Nibbe
Arnold Broese wrote:
> "Rod Nibbe" <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote in message
> news:4B428488...@rknibbe.com...
>> Arnold Broese wrote:
>>> There is no plan in evolution, and no plan to reproduce when it comes
>>> to the mantis. If it didn't live long enough to reproduce, the
>>> species dies out, otherwise it lives as long as it should. All life
>>> must end, and HOW it ends, is not that important. The mantis doesn't
>>> choose, it just follows it's nature. I really have never understood
>>> why all this is a problem.
>> I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
>> Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
>> "ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
>> that if an organism had an any "ultimate value" it
>> would have to be reproductive success, in keeping with
>> the mantra from evolutionary biology. As evidence, it
>> was observed that certain male praying mantises were
>> cannibalized by the female during or immediately after
>> copulation. Supposedly a male mantis wouldn't risk its
>> own life just to reproduce, unless it valued reproduction
>> over its own survival.
> I se no such 'decisions' being made. Organisms live then die. If an
> animal is eaten just after reproduction, so what?
It was presented as evidence that the "as-if" value system
of the mantis ordered reproduction over survival. Emphasis
on "as-if". Don't blame me if you find the metaphor silly,
my only purpose was to remind people how this started. I
don't buy it either, for reasons that I have talked about
here over the last couple days.
-RKN
Rod Nibbe
Charles Bell wrote:
> On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
>>Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
>>"ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
>>that if an organism had an any "ultimate value"
> . . . Rand never put the argument in that way: "that an organism has
> an ultimate value".
You're wrong.
"Life can be kept in existence only by a constant
process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that
action, the ultimate *value* which, to be kept, must
be gained through its every moment, is the organism's
*life*."
-Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics", VOS
*=emphasis in italics by Rand
> (1) Do you accept Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
> altruistic death?
No.
> (2) Do you deny Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
> altruistic death?
I don't think that was his premise
with respect to this matter.
> (3) Does the female mantis act to survive by cannabalism or . . .
Cannabilism is not required for a female mantis
to survive, so far as I know.
> (4) Does she act that way because she is just pissed off?
It is possible. If I recall correctly, that was one of the
reasons proposed to account for the behavior in captivity.
-RKN
Rod Nibbe
James E. Prescott wrote:
> On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> Evolutionary biology is a redundancy. There is no other
> kind.
Of course there is. I recently recieved my PhD in one.
-RKN
James E. Prescott
Congratulations on earning a PhD, Ron. Doesn't change anything,
though, nor represent an argument. What I wrote is correct.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Rod Nibbe
James E. Prescott wrote:
> On Jan 5, 1:22 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>James E. Prescott wrote:
>>>On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>>Evolutionary biology is a redundancy. There is no other
>>>kind.
>>Of course there is. I recently recieved my PhD in one.
> Congratulations on earning a PhD, Ron. Doesn't change anything,
> though, nor represent an argument. What I wrote is correct.
Thank you, and it's Rod, not Ron. And what you wrote
is not correct. There are many other kinds (fields)
of biology than evolutionary biology. That's not an
argument, it's a fact.
-RKN
James E. Prescott
> Charles Bell wrote:
> > On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> >>I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
> >>Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
> >>"ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
> >>that if an organism had an any "ultimate value"
> > . . . Rand never put the argument in that way: "that an organism has
> > an ultimate value".
>
> You're wrong.
>
> "Life can be kept in existence only by a constant
> process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that
> action, the ultimate *value* which, to be kept, must
> be gained through its every moment, is the organism's
> *life*."
>
> � � � � -Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics", VOS
>
> *=emphasis in italics by Rand
Ron is absolutely correct here, Charles. Ayn Rand
wrote of non-sentient living things pursuing "values,"
and of their "ultimate value." Life. She described
life as the context in which the very concept of value
arises.
She was wrong, and it's better if Objectivists simply
concede her error and move on.
> > (1) Do you accept Friedman's premise that a male
> > mantis chooses an altruistic death?
>
> No.
That wasn't Friedman's premise. The idea that death
in the service of species survival is, in a metaphorical
sense, "altruistic" was mine, not David's.
> > (2) Do you deny Friedman's premise that a male
> > mantis chooses an altruistic death?
>
> I don't think that was his premise
> with respect to this matter.
Right.
>
> > (3) Does the female mantis act to survive by cannabalism or . . .
>
> Cannabilism is not required for a female mantis
> to survive, so far as I know.
Cannablism is not a manner of survival for organisms of any
species, though it may sometimes occur. Death and killing
are rather common, however, as lions kill cubs.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
James E. Prescott
Sorry about the Ron, Rod!
There are many fields of biology that do not specifically
involve the /study/ of evolution. However, when you wrote,
disparagingly I thought, of the "mantra of evolutionary
biology," I took you to mean that you believe there is a
kind or a field of "biology" that, like "Creation Science"
either denies or lies outside the context of the central
unifying foundation of all of the biological sciences, which
is the theory of evolution.
If you do believe such a thing, you are wrong, But I'm
not here to merely offer claim and counter-claim. If there's
an argument for some /such/ "non-evolutionary" biology,
I'd be delighted to hear and to address it. Especially as
it may touch on Objectivism. Ayn Rand herself was
guilty of a similar mis-understanding about life.
Best Wishes, Rod.
Jim P.
Charles Bell
> Charles Bell wrote:
> > On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> >>I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
> >>Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
> >>"ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
> >>that if an organism had an any "ultimate value"
> > . . . Rand never put the argument in that way: "that an organism has
> > an ultimate value".
>
> You're wrong.
>
> "Life can be kept in existence only by a constant
> process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that
> action, the ultimate *value* which, to be kept, must
> be gained through its every moment, is the organism's
> *life*."
>
No . . the "goal of that action, which is to say: constant process of
self-sustaining action" is the "ulitmate value". That is *NOT* the
same thing as saying "an organism has an ultimate value" but is
existenitally related to the "ultimate value" by that action. This
most empaticically does *NOT* also translate to all organisms
(including plant and other non-sentient enitites) have values. If
Rand wanted say: plants have values, should would have said: "plants
have values" -- being a lot clearer.
>
> > (1) Do you accept Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
> > altruistic death?
>
> No.
>
> > (2) Do you deny Friedman's premise that a male mantis chooses an
> > altruistic death?
>
> I don't think that was his premise
> with respect to this matter.
Of course it was. He chose to mention the death of the male but not
the subsequent survival of the female, who needs to eat. Why do you
suppose he left that fact out? Why is the "ultimate value" of the
process *reproduction* and not the more simple and immediate
satisfying the female's hunger? Why do also suppose Friedman also
failed to mention that possibility?
>
> > (3) Does the female mantis act to survive by cannabalism or . . .
>
> Cannabilism is not required for a female mantis
> to survive, so far as I know.
It needs to eat, and the fact that, as you mentioned, this is a
limited phenomenon within capitivity might also mean a disruption to
the natural hunger abatement of the female at that circumstance.
> > (4) Does she act that way because she is just pissed off?
>
> It is possible.
Really? So you believe in insect consciousness? On par with human?
> If I recall correctly, that was one of the
> reasons proposed to account for the behavior in captivity.
Insect consciousness on par with human? Do you think Friedman's pal
Cass Sunstein, who thinks it reasonable for dogs to be afforded legal
representation to sue their so-called "owners" knows about this?
James E. Prescott
> On Jan 5, 1:11 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> [...] If Rand wanted say: plants have values, should would have
> said: "plants have values" -- being a lot clearer.
She was clear, Charles. Later in the piece Rod cited she said,
The goals [[a plant]] pursues are automatic and
innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water,
sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek.
Its life is the standard of value directing its actions.
A plant, she held, has values as well as goals, all serving
an ultimate value, its own life.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Rod Nibbe
Charles Bell wrote:
> On Jan 5, 1:11 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>Charles Bell wrote:
>>>On Jan 4, 7:15 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
>>>>I think it was David Friedman years ago who said that
>>>>Rand's premise that an organism's survival is its
>>>>"ultimate value", was wrong. Instead, it was claimed
>>>>that if an organism had an any "ultimate value"
>>>. . . Rand never put the argument in that way: "that an organism has
>>>an ultimate value".
>>You're wrong.
>>"Life can be kept in existence only by a constant
>>process of self-sustaining action. The goal of that
>>action, the ultimate *value* which, to be kept, must
>>be gained through its every moment, is the organism's
>>*life*."
> No . . the "goal of that action, which is to say: constant process of
> self-sustaining action" is the "ulitmate value". That is *NOT* the
> same thing as saying "an organism has an ultimate value" but is
> existenitally related to the "ultimate value" by that action.
Stop wiggling, will you. She said, explicitly (and
emphatically), that the goal of the action *is* the
ultimate value. That means "is equal to" or "the same
thing as", *not* is "existensially related" to, else
*that* is what she would have wrote.
> This
> most empaticically does *NOT* also translate to all organisms
You may not think so, but clearly Rand did. Again,
she said, explicitly, "organisms." By that she
subsumed the class of all organisms, of which a plant
is a member.
> (including plant and other non-sentient enitites) have values. If
> Rand wanted say: plants have values, should would have said: "plants
> have values" -- being a lot clearer.
What, for every organism she thought this applied to
you would have her enumerate them?
You know, there's no real shame in admitting you were
wrong now and then.
-RKN
Charles Bell
> On Jan 5, 3:23�pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 5, 1:11 pm, Rod Nibbe <use...@rknibbe.com> wrote:
> > [...] If Rand wanted say: plants have values, should would have
> > said: "plants have values" -- being a lot clearer.
>
> She was clear, Charles. Later in the piece Rod cited she said,
>
She was clear in not saying anything like "plants have values" -- not
in any way shape or form However, on the word "goal" she allowed
herself (and readers): a refined meaning on a problematic word (in
that, just like "value", there be an anthropomorphizing):
<< When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions
of an organism, the term "goal-directed" is not to be taken to mean
"purposive" (a concept applicable only to the actions of a
consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological
principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term "goal-
directed," in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic
functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that
they result in the preservation of an organism's life. >>
> � � �The goals [[a plant]] pursues are automatic and
> � � �innate, determined by its nature. Nourishment, water,
> � � �sunlight are the values its nature has set it to seek.
> � � �Its life is the standard of value directing its actions.
>
A goal for a plant to "pursue" does not help the problematic use of
the word "goal" in anthropomorphizing, but in that the distinction
here is exactly to eliminate *choice* (in contrast to conscious
beings) the pursuit is not as a man or higher-conscious being would
pursue -- as in purposive teleology. "Values its nature has set to
seek" is not the same thing as "A plant has values" . Technically, a
seeking of a value is not the same as having a value, especially as it
is specified no purposive action is involved. The problem in
understanding is grammar, and I repeat: If Rand wanted to say that
plants have values she would have said: "Plants have values" and not
"values its nature has set it to seek" and in point of fact she says
it is a value, life as a standard, that has the plant.
James E. Prescott
> [...] Technically, a seeking of a value is not the same as
> having a value, especially as it is specified no purposive
> action is involved. [...]
Give it up, Charles. You're just being silly here.
You would be correct, however, to say simply that plants do not
have (or seek) values. Values pertain, as you say, to purposive
action, and with respect to insentient things the most we can
properly say is that they act /as if/ they had values, and that the
metaphorical application of the terms value and goal and good
and bad is a useful device when discussing life.
However, that is NOT what Ayn Rand said. She spoke wrongly.
She did not say plants pursue values metaphorically speaking;
she said they pursue values /literally/, and she even said that
without biological life the very concept of value is impossible.
She was wrong. The concept of value depends on the capacity
for benefit or harm, pleasure or suffering, and nothing more.
Neither a plant nor an entire species benefits from life
or is harmed by the loss of life. Biology is simply not relevant
to ethics.
So, Ayn Rand made a MISTAKE grounding ethics in biology.
The mistake was all the worse for the fact that biological
action is not even analogous to egoism in any fundamental
sense. She wrote that all the actions of all living organisms
are "aimed at" self-preservation. Well, of course, that's just
plain nonsense. Any grammar school student can tell you
what the reproductive systems of organisms is aimed at,
and it's certainly not self-preservation. Ayn Rand was
brilliant; but she was also capable of committing some
really bizarre mistakes and then of motivating slavish
followers to invent bizarre rationalizations defending those
mistakes.
Face it. And, as Rod suggested, you ought fess up to your
own mistakes, and move on.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Arnold Broese
news:9080fb11-f305-4f08...@21g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
>>
> The behavior of mantises may well be controversial. But
> what ought not be an issue is the fundamental replicative
> and adaptive nature of life itself. Genes, cells, organs
> and organisms are all mere parts of an overall process
> that has only a single "ultimate aim:" the continuation
> of the process, i.e., the "survival of the species."
There is no 'aim', any more than a rock rolling down a hill has an aim to
reach the bottom. Animals are programmed not by design, but by events (of
elimination). This is an important distinction, because it removes intent or
design, from maintaining the species. Ascribing goals such as 'selfishness'
to genes is misleading. The process of evolution is not one of design,
because that implies a designer. Random events in nature are not designs,
they are simply events that turn out one way or another.
You say,
" Oh, but Arnold, that IS the grand design! Living on is
what life does, by replicating itself over and over again,
and by, in this replicative process, adapting itself to the
environment so that "itself" (this replicative process
itself) continues without end."
No, that is not "design", only a series of happenings. That some events
result in continuation via reproduction, does not alter the fact that it is
no more than an event. Within some of those events, (such as survival)
certain self sustaining actions are an obvious given. From a human
perspective, we see life as a goal, and deduce the values that are required
for that goal. We add manure to our plants, because we observe the value of
the nutrition to the plants. The plants automatically (not intentionally
seeking value) absorb the food; once again, no goal.
I have no argument with Rand's view, because I never took Rends expressions
of a plant seeking values or having a goal, in the full literal sense, and
her footnote was not needed for my understanding of what she meant. She
simply observed the given of an organisms nature, and noted it's actions
(naturally and obviously) were to continue with life in accord with it's
nature.
>
> Yes, of course, organisms do act for their own survival,
> temporarily, as nature has programmed them to act. And
> then, inevitably, they cause their own demise, whether
> by senescence and natural death or by sacrificing them-
> selves in defense of their offspring or by giving up life in
> the act of copulation itself makes no difference at all.
Sacrifice and altruism are not applicable here. Animals do what they are
programmed to do, and what they are programmed to do, is the result of
previous events - nothing more - no goals or aspirations.
> There are no exceptions to the rule. All organisms
> (mantises included) struggle to stay alive and then
> to reproduce (or to contribute to the reproductive
> success of others). And then, successful or not,
> they die. They die by their own design, not by mere
> accident. They die because that is how species
> adapt and survive.
That's backwards. Species survive because individuals die and their
offspring may be more suitable for a changed environment. Your expression
implies they die for a purpose, which they don't. There is no purpose,
either to live or reproduce or die. Only the result of what has happened in
nature, leads to the specific behavior we seem to think has an ultimate
goal, of species survival. One again, there is no such goal in the real
sense of the word, even though we may view it as such.
--
Arnold
Charles Bell
> On Jan 5, 5:49�pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > [...] Technically, a seeking of a value is not the same as
> > having a value, especially as it is specified no purposive
> > action is involved. [...]
>
> Give it up, Charles. You're just being silly here.
>
No, sorry, you are being silly. Again, quote Rand as saying plants
have values. She does not say or mean to say that.
> You would be correct, however, to say simply that plants do not
> have (or seek) values. �
I am correct in arguing that Rand said that a plant's nature in the
goal of continued living -- that it is automatically set to seek --
seeks value in certain things which give it life, where "value" means:
the positive quality that renders something of worth, as in, water,
light and CO2 has worth/value for a plant to carry on photosynthesis.
Only for a conscious being would "value" take on added meaning of
something *desirable* and subject to choice in value-judgment.
> Values pertain, as you say, to purposive
> action,
No, not necessarily, as Rand states. But the value in discrete
concretes (like air, light, and water) "a plant's nature sets it to
seek" is by definition here different than, though related to "values
a person has." One is talking about two different, but existentially
related, things. Someone saying otherwise is being silly, or, in
Friedman's case, an ass.
> and with respect to insentient things the most we can
> properly say is that they act /as if/ they had values,
No. I agree that Rand makes a leap in narrative from a value a plant
is set to seek and a man's moral values but reading carefully enough
and paying careful attention to her grammar and syntax makes the leap
possible -- if one is not being silly or an ass.
> and that the
> metaphorical application of the terms value and goal and good
> and bad is a useful device when discussing life.
Only if one does not lose track of the fact that it *is* a metaphor as
Dawkins does with his own Selfish Gene. However, I disagree that
"value" for a plant is but a metaphor for a man's moral values. It is
just a difficult argument to follow the existential connection if one
is not willing to make the transition in meanings of goal and value
from automatic (plant) to purposive (human)
>
> However, that is NOT what Ayn Rand said.
Well, I guess that is what I just said Rand said, so you are the one
who is wrong in this.
> She spoke wrongly.
No. You don't follow closely enough. Peikoff's OPAR, for once, is
helpful rather than muddling Here is an example: <<The metaphysically
given [writes Ayn Rand] cannot be true or false, it simply is -- and
man determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they
correspond to or contradict the facts of reality. The metaphysically
given cannot be right or wrong -- it is the standard of right or
wrong, by which a (rational) man judges his goals, his values, his
choices. >> p 27
The values a plant's nature set it to seek and a man's moral values
are no different in this : metaphysically given to and by nature.
> She was wrong. The concept of value depends on the capacity
> for benefit or harm, pleasure or suffering, and nothing more.
> Neither a plant nor an entire species benefits from life
> or is harmed by the loss of life. Biology is simply not relevant
> to ethics.
>
Biology and ethics are grounded in nature. That is to put it too
simply, but as it is, your statement is certainly wrong. "Man
determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they
correspond to or contradict the facts of reality", and a goal that a
plant is set to seek (by some hypothetical twist of nature -- like
suddenly the only source of water turns highly saline) that kills it
means just the same for the plant as it would be for a man who would
make a value-judgment in contradiction to the facts of reality
(supposing he chose to drink salt water). That is the is-ought
connection Rand makes.
What you suggest is that a man can make an ethical choice -- by value-
judgment though "ought" -- IN CONTRADICTION TO THE FACTS OF NATURE
because, after all, "biology is simply not relevant to ethics."
James E. Prescott
> On Jan 5, 6:22 pm, "James E. Prescott" <jepr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > [...]
> [...Q]uote Rand as saying plants have values. �She
> does not say or mean to say that.
She meant what she said, what she said was wrong,
and I think you've had enough quotes.
> > and with respect to insentient things the most we can
> > properly say is that they act /as if/ they had values,
>
> No. [...]
You just can't win for losing, Charles. So now they DO
have values? Make up your mind.
>�[...] I agree that Rand makes a leap in narrative from a
> value a plant is set to seek and a man's moral values
A leap in narrative? You must be kidding. It was the whole
direct point of her presentation. But I'm glad you agree
about something.
> > [...T]he metaphorical application of the terms
> > value and goal and good and bad is a useful
> > device when discussing life.
>
> Only if one does not lose track of the fact that it *is* a
> metaphor as Dawkins does with his own Selfish Gene.
As Ayn Rand did in /the Objectivist Ethics/.
Actually, Dawkins was wrong, but not as far wrong as
that. He explained it was a metaphor, but he had taken
his cue (the bait) from Ayn Rand, I'd say. He took her
grossly unscientific but novel and popular ode to selfish-
ness and gave it a scientific tone, one it did not deserve.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Jim Klein
all here. My POV is closest to Arnold's, by far. As
he put it succinctly,
--------------------------------------
No, that is not design', only a series of happenings. That some events
result in continuation via reproduction, does not alter the fact that
it is
no more than an event.
--------------------------------------
I think that's exactly right.
Charles, you are being silly IMO. You already agree that
her choice of "goal" was inappropriate, and she made a
clear connection between that and value and "fundamental
alternative." She still got to the right place with regard to
humans, and that's what's important. Still, her desire to
offer a biological basis was misdirected...not misdirected
in intent, but misdirected in result. "Goal," "value,"
"alternative"...none of those are apt for any organism
except one able to abstract alternatives and choose
from among them.
Of course, neither are they apt for species, which makes
Prescott's POV somewhat less sensible. I think as a
metaphor of sorts, it's alright and I still think his discussion
of the role of recessivity was a fascinating piece. I keep
losing it, but if I find it or he reposts it yet again, I think
Rod would find it pretty interesting.
On Jan 5, 8:24 pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> No, sorry, you are being silly. Again, quote Rand as saying plants
> have values. She does not say or mean to say that.
They already put up the cites. No, of course she didn't
mean it the wrong way, but it was a shit way of saying
the right thing. As I said early on, that footnote does
nothing to really clarify the issue; it's just her way of
rationalizing her misuse of "goal."
She should've done what you should do---acknowledge
that there's no sort of goal-oriented behavior in any
fashion among non-volitional organisms. That's what
the whole "Binswanger's Errors" threads were about.
> > You would be correct, however, to say simply that plants do not
> > have (or seek) values.
>
> I am correct in arguing that Rand said that a plant's nature in the
> goal of continued living -- that it is automatically set to seek --
> seeks value in certain things which give it life, where "value" means:
> the positive quality that renders something of worth, as in, water,
> light and CO2 has worth/value for a plant to carry on photosynthesis.
But then Prescott's position is just as sensible. I say
throw 'em both out and acknowledge what Arnold
says...these are events happening and they're
happening in accordance with the entities' natures.
Arnold gives Rand a bye because he's so focussed
on what she obviously believes. That's alright, but
it's more important IMO to focus on what she wrote,
since that's the common thing to which we all have access.
> Only for a conscious being would "value" take on added meaning of
> something *desirable* and subject to choice in value-judgment.
But that's the only sensible meaning, which is the
resolution to this particular sub-topic. From OUR
POV, the plant getting sunlight is "valuable" for it.
Trust me...the plant doesn't give a shit.
> > Values pertain, as you say, to purposive
> > action,
>
> No, not necessarily, as Rand states. But the value in discrete
> concretes (like air, light, and water) "a plant's nature sets it to
> seek" is by definition here different than, though related to "values
> a person has." One is talking about two different, but existentially
> related, things. Someone saying otherwise is being silly, or, in
> Friedman's case, an ass.
Well, you think Friedman's an ass no matter what he says,
so that doesn't help much! This is just you rationalizing
about values, similarly to how Rand rationalized about
goals. Let's face it---both concepts are inappropriate.
> > and with respect to insentient things the most we can
> > properly say is that they act /as if/ they had values,
>
> No. I agree that Rand makes a leap in narrative from a value a plant
> is set to seek and a man's moral values but reading carefully enough
> and paying careful attention to her grammar and syntax makes the leap
> possible -- if one is not being silly or an ass.
Now this is very wrong IMO. Just like Rand, you are
committing yourself to a tack which simply won't work.
You want them different but similar, just as she did
with goals.
> > and that the
> > metaphorical application of the terms value and goal and good
> > and bad is a useful device when discussing life.
>
> Only if one does not lose track of the fact that it *is* a metaphor as
> Dawkins does with his own Selfish Gene. However, I disagree that
> "value" for a plant is but a metaphor for a man's moral values. It is
> just a difficult argument to follow the existential connection if one
> is not willing to make the transition in meanings of goal and value
> from automatic (plant) to purposive (human)
There were hundreds of posts in those threads, I'm sure,
and apparently the point went right over your head.
There is NO meaning of "goal" in which the plant has
goals and a rock doesn't. The thesis is wrong, period.
If the plant has "automatic goals," then so does a rock.
The only difference between them, is that the plant is
living and the rock is not. That's a huge difference
that brings in tons of distinctions, but "goal-oriented
behavior" is NOT one of them.
> The values a plant's nature set it to seek and a man's moral values
> are no different in this : metaphysically given to and by nature.
Big deal...so are the rock's. They value inertia!
> > She was wrong. The concept of value depends on the capacity
> > for benefit or harm, pleasure or suffering, and nothing more.
> > Neither a plant nor an entire species benefits from life
> > or is harmed by the loss of life. Biology is simply not relevant
> > to ethics.
>
> Biology and ethics are grounded in nature. That is to put it too
> simply, but as it is, your statement is certainly wrong. "Man
> determines the truth or falsehood of his judgments by whether they
> correspond to or contradict the facts of reality", and a goal that a
> plant is set to seek (by some hypothetical twist of nature -- like
> suddenly the only source of water turns highly saline) that kills it
> means just the same for the plant as it would be for a man who would
> make a value-judgment in contradiction to the facts of reality
> (supposing he chose to drink salt water). That is the is-ought
> connection Rand makes.
>
> What you suggest is that a man can make an ethical choice -- by value-
> judgment though "ought" -- IN CONTRADICTION TO THE FACTS OF NATURE
> because, after all, "biology is simply not relevant to ethics."
I don't recall anyone saying that, so I'm inclined to think
it's you imposing that opinion on the basis of how you
interpret their arguments.
Obviously biology is VERY critical to ethics, since (as
you note) it references our nature. When conceptualizing
and choosing from among alternatives, far better to
choose those that are consistent with our nature.
The part you're not getting is that this has NOTHING to
do with why a plant turns to the Sun or avoids salty
water. That nature is part and parcel of what life is,
and how species evolve. It's not "better" for a plant
to avoid deadly things; the plant is just as good whether
it does or not. WE have concluded that it's better to
live, which makes sense for a singular conceptual
organism able to choose. For us, there ARE goals
and staying alive is a mighty big one. So is
reproducing and so are various social functions.
The difference is that these are goals BECAUSE we
choose them. Without that choice, they are just
Arnold's "events." A scientist like Rod is interested
in discovering what those events ARE; it's only
philosophy that starts to confuse things with
goals and values and metaphors.
Besides, as it happens, it turns out that neither
survival nor reproduction are the most sensible
"ultimate" goal or value for a person. Epicurus
figured that out long ago. As he wrote in a
letter to Menoeceus,
"So we must exercise ourselves in the things which
bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have
everything, and , if that be absent, all our actions
are directed towards attaining it."
Case closed. BOTH sides of the reproduction/
survival argument were wrong!
jk
Jim Klein
> Actually, Dawkins was wrong, but not as far wrong as
> that. He explained it was a metaphor, but he had taken
> his cue (the bait) from Ayn Rand, I'd say. He took her
> grossly unscientific but novel and popular ode to selfish-
> ness and gave it a scientific tone, one it did not deserve.
Maybe, and she did that too. Still, it's worth noting
that it DOES deserve "a scientific tone," just not
any that have been presented yet, at least not
by those two authors.
There is an is-ought connection. For my money,
Greg Swann has come the closest yet, by a
long shot. You will value your life based on how
you judge yourself, and valuing your life is the
most valuable thing you can do.
Those aren't his words, but mine. Still, the
relevant discoveries were all his, so I give
him the credit and hope I don't mess it up.
jk
Jim Klein
> Actually, Dawkins was wrong, but not as far wrong as
> that. He explained it was a metaphor, but he had taken
> his cue (the bait) from Ayn Rand, I'd say. He took her
> grossly unscientific but novel and popular ode to selfish-
> ness and gave it a scientific tone, one it did not deserve.
Maybe, and she did that too. Still, it's worth noting
James E. Prescott
wrote:
> "James E. Prescott" <jepr...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:9080fb11-f305-4f08...@21g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
>
> > The behavior of mantises may well be controversial. But
> > what ought not be an issue is the fundamental replicative
> > and adaptive nature of life itself. Genes, cells, organs
> > and organisms are all mere parts of an overall process
> > that has only a single "ultimate aim:" the continuation
> > of the process, i.e., the "survival of the species."
>
> There is no 'aim', any more than a rock rolling down a hill
> has an aim to reach the bottom.
I agree. That's why I put the words "ultimate aim" in quotes,
above. A useful metaphor, that's all.
It is handy to say, for example, that the "purpose" of kidneys
is to cleanse the blood. I don't mean this to be taken literally
as purposive action, and I (unlike Ayn Rand) am careful to
point out at every opportunity that this is only metaphor.
It just so happens that eons of evolution has produced organs
that function "as if" they were designed by gods.
> [...] Random events in nature are not designs,
> they are simply events that turn out one way or another.
Be careful here. Random is not quite the alternative to
design that applies to evolution. Darwin wrote that
he himself found it nearly impossible to believe random
mutations could ever have fashioned an organ so sublimely
functional as the human eye. He was right to have
expressed such healthy skepticism about his own
conclusions. His theory was incomplete. Of course
there was no Grand Designer. But evolution, we know
today, works systematically though genetic mechanisms
that were unknown to Darwin.
> You say,
> " Oh, but Arnold, that IS the grand design! Living on is
> what life does, by replicating itself over and over again,
> and by, in this replicative process, adapting itself to the
> environment so that "itself" (this replicative process
> itself) continues without end."
>
> [...] From a human perspective, we see life as a goal,
> and deduce the values that are required for that goal.
> We add manure to our plants, because we observe the
> value of the nutrition to the plants. The plants auto-
> matically (not intentionally seeking value) absorb the
> food; once again, no goal.
Of course. Well put.
> I have no argument with Rand's view, because I never
> took Rends expressions of a plant seeking values or
> having a goal, in the full literal sense, and her footnote
> was not needed for my understanding of what she meant.
> She simply observed the given of an organisms nature
> [...]
That's fair. So far.
> [...] and noted it's actions (naturally and obviously) were
> to continue with life in accord with it's nature.
That's not all she did. She didn't say just "continue with life."
Expressing what she thought was something "natural and
obvious," she wrote something utterly at odds with nature
and patently false.
On the physical level, the functions of all
living organisms, from the simplest to the
most complex--from the nutritive function
in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood
circulation in the body of a man--are
actions generated by the organism itself
and directed to a single goal: the maintenance
of the organism's life
The maintenance of an organism's life is not what
all physical functions of organisms are aimed at,
metaphorically or in any sense. Physical functions
"serve" (so to speak) the continuation of the species
of which an organism is a member. Ayn Rand should
have known this. But she needed "self-service" for
her ethics of egoism. She was right that his own
happiness is properly a man's highest moral purpose,
but the way she chose to get there (biology of all
things) was just bad, very bad, and sad.
> > Yes, of course, organisms do act for their own survival,
> > temporarily, as nature has programmed them to act. And
> > then, inevitably, they cause their own demise, whether
> > by senescence and natural death or by sacrificing them-
> > selves in defense of their offspring or by giving up life in
> > the act of copulation itself makes no difference at all.
>
> Sacrifice and altruism are not applicable here.
Oh, I agree. Neither are self-service and egoism applicable
here. But if you insist on using an ethical metaphor, well,
use the correct one. Nature has crafted organisms that
produce slightly modified versions of themselves and
then die, allowing the next generations to continue with
the unending evolutionary process known as life.
Organisms do not (metaphorically) "serve themselves,"
except to the extent that their own survival is a part
of the survival of their species. If we had to choose an
ethical metaphor for this behavior, it would be altruism, not
egoism.
> > [Organisms] die because that is how species
> > adapt and survive.
> That's backwards. Species survive because individuals
> die and their offspring may be more suitable for a changed
> environment. [...]
Okay, sure. But it's really six-of-one, half-dozen of the other.
Yes, of course, species survive because organisms die. But,
at the same time, organisms die because they are members
of a surviving species. They get their internal programming
from their parents.
> Your expression implies they die for a purpose, which they
> don't.
Again, I don't mean to imply that. Sorry if I did.
But compare my words, where I have consistently called
this a metaphor and employed quote marks and "so-to-
speak!" here and there, with the words of Ayn Rand,
who exercised no such care. Yes, she averred that
she did not mean to imply purposive action in insentient
life, but that's not really the issue. She /explicitly/ subsumed
the *values* (emphasis hers) that keep insentient beings
alive and the values that are the objects of ethical action
under the /same/ concept. That was a bad mistake.
> There is no purpose, either to live or reproduce or die.
> Only the result of what has happened in nature, leads to
> the specific behavior we seem to think has an ultimate
> goal, of species survival.
Agreed. Well put.
> [...T]here is no such goal in the real sense of the word,
> even though we may view it as such.
Precisely right.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
James E. Prescott
> I don't want to write 20 replies, so I'm putting them
> all here. �My POV is closest to Arnold's, by far. �As
> he put it succinctly,
> --------------------------------------
> No, that is not design', only a series of happenings. That some events
> result in continuation via reproduction, does not alter the fact that
> it is no more than an event.
> --------------------------------------
Good post, Jim. Thoughtful, temperate, well-reasoned throughout.
> [...] "Goal," "value," "alternative"...none of those are apt
> for any organism except one able to abstract alternatives
> and choose from among �them.
>
> Of course, neither are they apt for species, which makes
> Prescott's POV somewhat less sensible.
But I agree they are not apt for a species. I have only argued
that IF one insists on applying metaphorical language to
insentient biological action, THEN altruism would be the
appropriate metaphor because the programmed actions of
organisms are ultimately "aimed at" (so to speak; ultimately
of such a nature as to tend to result in) the survival of the
organism's species, not survival of the organism itself. IF
there are said to be, in biology, intermediate steps toward
an "ultimate aim," THEN an organism's life would be an
intermediate step "toward" the continuation of its species.
>�I think as a metaphor of sorts, it's alright and I still think
> his discussion of the role of recessivity was a fascinating
> piece. �I keep losing it, but if I find it or he reposts it yet
> again, I think Rod would find it pretty interesting.
Thank you. I don't have it handy myself and it may really be
too far afield of Objectivism for a repost.
> There is NO meaning of "goal" in which the plant has
> goals and a rock doesn't. �The thesis is wrong, period.
>
> If the plant has "automatic goals," then so does a rock.
> The only difference between them, is that the plant is
> living and the rock is not. �That's a huge difference
> that brings in tons of distinctions, but "goal-oriented
> behavior" is NOT one of them.
This is correct. I would only add that better clarity is
needed about the distinction between living and non-living
things. Ayn Rand made another serious error. She
defined life as a process of self-sustaining and self-
generated action. That definition ignores the most
fundamental distinction between life and non-living
chemical (and other) self-sustaining and self-generated
actions. The sun would be "alive" by Ayn Rand's
definition. Life is in fact self-sustaining /replicative/
molecular action. A living thing gathers energy from
its environment and uses that energy to manufacture
copies of itself. These copies then do the same,
producing a growth, an expansion of life.
Absent such an understanding and appreciation
of life's fundamental nature, you can't help but fall
into all sorts of confusions, as illustrated by the
rest of her essay.
> > What you suggest is that a man can make an ethical
> > choice -- by value-judgment though "ought" -- �IN
> > CONTRADICTION TO THE FACTS OF NATURE
> > because, after all, "biology is simply not relevant to ethics."
>
> I don't recall anyone saying that, so I'm inclined to think
> it's you imposing that opinion on the basis of how you
> interpret their arguments.
Good point, Jim. I never meant such a thing, but it's not
the first time someone has imposed or attributed to me
an opinion I don't hold based on a misinterpretation of
of my words.
> [...A]s it happens, it turns out that neither
> survival nor reproduction are the most sensible
> "ultimate" goal or value for a person. �Epicurus
> figured that out long ago. As he wrote in a
> letter to Menoeceus,
>
> "So we must exercise ourselves in the things which
> bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have
> everything, and , if that be absent, all our actions
> are directed towards attaining it."
Perfect. A well-selected quote.
> Case closed. �BOTH sides of the reproduction/
> survival argument were wrong!
Yes. My only quibble is that I myself am on the Epicurus
side of things. Appealing to the fairness of your recollection,
I have always, have I not?, argued here for thoroughgoing
egoism, for the Objectivist tenet that a man's own happiness
is his highest moral purpose, and for the notion that it is only
in the context of purposive, goal-directed action that the
literal (not metaphorical) concept of "value" has any logical
meaning.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
James E. Prescott
> [...]
> There is an is-ought connection.
Certainly. And what a man is determines what he ought
to do. Ayn Rand was clearly right about that.
> �For my money, Greg Swann has come the closest
> yet, by a long shot. �You will value your life based on how
> you judge yourself, and valuing your life is the
> most valuable thing you can do.
I recall Greg's approach. I always regarded it as a kind
of mushy, touchy-feelly sort of egoism that tried to
make self-appraisal consequences a rational for
complying with traditional precepts of social ethics.
When I say "thoroughgoing," I mean it precisely
as disavowing any such psychological "be kind or
dislike yourself" approach.
Sharply and simply, I would rightly trapple over
corpses if it served the interest of my own happiness
(as it happens, it does not) and I would not dislike
myself for doing what in such a case would be
perfectly right and moral and worthy of self-praise.
I say further, however, that there are very simple,
practical, reality-based reasons why cooperation
with one's fellow man and a staunch dedication to
/law/ are the way to find happiness in life.
This is a practical approach, I say, referencing the
objective consequences for one's own health,
wealth and security, and so has nothing to do
(except indirectly, and as a welcome side-benefit)
with a mere emotional self-appraisal.
I, too, though, hope I do not do an injustice to Mr.
Swann's views.
Best Wishes,
Jim P.
Arnold Broese
>
> I say further, however, that there are very simple,
> practical, reality-based reasons why cooperation
> with one's fellow man and a staunch dedication to
> /law/ are the way to find happiness in life.
Here is where I think evolution also had a hand in the nature of man. Man
survived best when working cooperatively with others. Those who had no
empathy were unlikely to be helpful or associate with others, and would have
had to face the saber tooth tiger on their own, without someone standing
guard while they slept. Those who were most helpful and cooperative survived
to produce like minded individuals. Sociopaths are an exception. I think
most people have an inbuilt empathy that is part of the evolutionary nature
of man. This is an empathy born not out of altruism, but of self interest.
--
Arnold
Charles Bell
> On Jan 5, 8:24�pm, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > On Jan 5, 6:22 pm, "James E. Prescott" <jepr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > [...]
> > [...Q]uote Rand as saying plants have values. �She
> > does not say or mean to say that.
>
> She meant what she said, what she said was wrong,
> and I think you've had enough quotes.
>
I have had always more success with people are who ignorant rather
than those who are malicious, but there is nothing to be done with
those who are both.
> > > and with respect to insentient things the most we can
> > > properly say is that they act /as if/ they had values,
>
> > No. [...]
>
> You just can't win for losing, Charles. So now they DO
> have values? Make up your mind.
>
See, now I think you are not just being ignorant of the meaning of the
words before you, but malicious in deliberate misinterpretation. I am
quite clear when I say that Rand never wrote that "plants have values"
but also that "plants act /as if/ they had values." Choosing to
ignore and snip the subsequent rendering of what Rand meant by
"values" with respect to a plant -- discrete concretes of worth --
that have value -- which its nature is set to seek, such as air, water
and light, demonstrates more than just ignorance on your part.
> >�[...] I agree that Rand makes a leap in narrative from a
> > value a plant is set to seek and a man's moral values
>
> A leap in narrative? You must be kidding. It was the whole
> direct point of her presentation.
No, she never specifically made explicit connections, rather thinking
her readers were more educated in interpretating language than
evidence proves.
>
> > Only if one does not lose track of the fact that it *is* a
> > metaphor as Dawkins does with his own Selfish Gene.
>
> As Ayn Rand did in /the Objectivist Ethics/.
>
There is no such metaphor in ITOE.
Charles Bell
>�ｿｽYou already agree that
> her choice of "goal" was inappropriate,
In that it is anthropomorphizing: "an end with beneficial results
without intention". In view of the fact that I cannot come up with
another word that does any better, I don't expect Rand to have done so
either.
> > No, sorry, you are being silly. �ｿｽAgain, quote Rand as saying plants
> > have values. �ｿｽShe does not say or mean to say that.
>
> They already put up the cites.
Rand does not say "plants have values".
> �ｿｽNo, of course she didn't
> mean it the wrong way, but it was a shit way of saying
> the right thing. �ｿｽAs I said early on, that footnote does
> nothing to really clarify the issue; it's just her way of
> rationalizing her misuse of "goal."
>
> She should've done what you should do---acknowledge
> that there's no sort of goal-oriented behavior in �ｿｽany
> fashion among non-volitional organisms. �ｿｽ
"Goal" literally means an end that has a beneficial result. There is
not necessarily an intention. The "footnote" states that very clearly.
Suppose a couple has a goal to create a child but they are utterly
ignorant of how to do that. At the same time they frequently engage in
coitus utterly ignorant of anything other than it gives much pleasure,
and they only *consciously* do so for that reason. They produce a
child, that is: reached a goal, without even knowing how. That is as
much as we can attach non-purposive goal-oriented behavior that is
automatic to humans as it would be for a plant. Notice also how the
pursuit of pleasure (something of value) reached a beneficial result
( a goal) without consciousness of the connection. This is very
roughly Obectivist morality as it would be if man were a being without
consciousness and choice, like a plant.
That's what
> the whole "Binswanger's Errors" �ｿｽthreads were about.
>
She took out the purposive nature of "goal" for insentient things but
keep the meaning of an end (with beneficial results) that does have an
end-purpose (in living). "Binswanger's Errors" was a complete cockup
on Steve Davis' part, as far as I can tell, that is now no longer
worth talking about without having read Binswanger's book to determine
exactly what he was doing, and even then it may require more knoweldge
of the biological sciences than I have.
> > > You would be correct, however, to say simply that plants do not
> > > have (or seek) values.
>
> > I am correct in arguing that Rand said that a plant's nature in the
> > goal of continued living -- that it is automatically set to seek --
> > seeks value in certain things which give it life, where "value" means:
> > the positive quality that renders something of worth, as in, water,
> > light and CO2 has worth/value for a plant to carry on photosynthesis.
>
> But then Prescott's position is just as sensible.
No, Rand never meant to apply "values" to plants in mere metaphorical
fashion (a la Dawkins' Selfish Gene) because there is nothing in her
words and their syntax to justify that interpretation. When she
applied "values" to plants she applied it in this way: a plant has a
nature which seeks discrete concretes of things of worth, such as
light, air and water, and the plant will pursue a goal --
automatically and not in any teleological way -- of survival in that
its nature can do no other.
�ｿｽ
Charles Bell
>CB > What you suggest is that a man can make an ethical choice -- by value-
>CB > judgment through "ought" -- �IN CONTRADICTION TO THE FACTS OF NATURE
>CB > because, after all, "biology is simply not relevant to ethics."
>
> I don't recall anyone saying that, so I'm inclined to think
> it's you imposing that opinion on the basis of how you
> interpret their arguments.
Gee, why don't you actually read what Prescott wrote inasmuch as he
wrote: " Biology is simply not relevant to ethics.'
>
> Obviously biology is VERY critical to ethics,
Then argue your point with Prescott who disagrees with you.
x,
xx.
xxx.
xx.
x.
Jim Klein
> > Case closed. BOTH sides of the reproduction/
> > survival argument were wrong!
>
> Yes. My only quibble is that I myself am on the Epicurus
> side of things. Appealing to the fairness of your recollection,
> I have always, have I not?, argued here for thoroughgoing
> egoism, for the Objectivist tenet that a man's own happiness
> is his highest moral purpose,
In words, sure. It's even pretty obvious to me that
you honestly believe this.
The thing is, you ignore what causes a man's own
happiness, and that's where Swann has it all over
you. In the simplest of terms, it's his own judgment
of himself.
Even more fundamental to the nature of man than his
ethics, is his ability to identify. After all, that's all that's
going on---we have evolved into basically the first
organism on Earth capable of full abstraction.
The ethics /follow/ from that. That's at least one thing
everyone involved agrees about, with the possible
(but doubtful IMO) exception of Rod.
You can write flowery explanations about natural
resources and continuation of the species and how
"tolerable" is some sort of objective standard, but
in the end your claim reduces to the idea that one
person (or some people) have some sort of
dominion over others.
Leaving aside the ethics for a moment, this is simply
false-to-fact. It is the /nature/ of a cognitive self-
motivating organism that /nothing/ has dominion
over it.
jk
Jim Klein
> I recall Greg's approach. I always regarded it as a kind
> of mushy, touchy-feelly sort of egoism that tried to
> make self-appraisal consequences a rational for
> complying with traditional precepts of social ethics.
Traditional? I didn't know a force-free agora was
such a standard position.
> When I say "thoroughgoing," I mean it precisely
> as disavowing any such psychological "be kind or
> dislike yourself" approach.
Why disavow that which is true? That's gotta be
a mistake.
> Sharply and simply, I would rightly trapple over
> corpses if it served the interest of my own happiness
Maybe that's why so many think you're a sick duck!
But no matter, since this is so wildly afield of the
facts of the actual situation, that it serves no
purpose at all.
> (as it happens, it does not) and I would not dislike
> myself for doing what in such a case would be
> perfectly right and moral and worthy of self-praise.
But all you're doing here is using various /parts/ of
the referents of the concepts, to draw your
conclusion. You'll have to get in line to do that
around here!
It would /not/ be "perfectly right" nor "moral" nor
"worthy of self-praise." Sure, if you reduce the
actions to /only/ "perfectly right and moral and
worthy of self-praise," then they would be
wonderful actions. So would living forever in Heaven.
> I say further, however, that there are very simple,
> practical, reality-based reasons why cooperation
> with one's fellow man and a staunch dedication to
> /law/ are the way to find happiness in life.
Obviously I agree with the first part and strongly
disagree with the second. It's not so much that
I can't imagine scenarios where "dedication to
law" would be conducive to happiness; it's just
that it's very clear our existence doesn't take
place in any of those scenarios.
You have this odd standard of "tolerable" to
determine when the law goes too far or
something like that. That leaves slavery
(literal slavery I mean, not the proxy sort
we have today) as being conducive to the
happiness of both the slaves and the slave-
owners. After all, slavery existed in "full
dedication of the law" and most of the
individuals lived through it. Apparently,
that renders it some sort of "tolerable."
> This is a practical approach, I say, referencing the
> objective consequences for one's own health,
> wealth and security, and so has nothing to do
> (except indirectly, and as a welcome side-benefit)
> with a mere emotional self-appraisal.
The thing is, one's emotional self-appraisal (though
I'd prefer "one's factual self-appraisal") IS the
cause of one's happiness in large part. It trumps
health, wealth and security. That's why some
especially talented people can be happy even
in the absence of any of those.
jk
Jim Klein
> See, now I think you are not just being ignorant of the meaning of the
> words before you, but malicious in deliberate misinterpretation. I am
> quite clear when I say that Rand never wrote that "plants have values"
> but also that "plants act /as if/ they had values." Choosing to
> ignore and snip the subsequent rendering of what Rand meant by
> "values" with respect to a plant -- discrete concretes of worth --
> that have value -- which its nature is set to seek, such as air, water
> and light, demonstrates more than just ignorance on your part.
I'll try one last time. You are not seeing that even
your generous interpretation fails. Even the claim,
"Plants act /as if/ they had values" fails in /any/
way to distinguish plants from rocks. On the
point of value--whether literally or metaphorically--
there is no stinkin' difference between a plant
and a rock. The difference is that the plant is
alive, so its "as-if goals" are different than those
of a rock. And the rock's are different from the
Sun's, which are different from molten lava.
They're all just doing as they're doing. As Arnold
said, they are "events." Those events cannot be
distinguished on the basis of actually having goals
or values (none of them do) nor can they be
distinguished on the basis of acting "as if" any
of them had goals or values.
The best you can do is, "Plants have as-if values
that are closer to our own actual values than the
rock or Sun or lava." That much is true, but identifies
no fact at all. It's a description of a cognitive
element--our classification of values and goals--
and not a description of plants.
> > > Only if one does not lose track of the fact that it *is* a
> > > metaphor as Dawkins does with his own Selfish Gene.
>
> > As Ayn Rand did in /the Objectivist Ethics/.
>
> There is no such metaphor in ITOE.
I'm not sure what "such metaphor" is here, but she
sure as hell used goals, values, as-if goals and
as-if values to distinguish living organisms from
non-living entities.
And she sure enough did it in TOE, since it
was the founding basis of her argument.
jk
Jim Klein
> "Goal" literally means an end that has a beneficial result.
This is getting old. So what's the benefit to the plant
if it lives, versus if it dies?
There is none, that's what. What you are actually
saying is that the event of a plant living is closer
to our own imagination of our own goals, than is its
dying. That's true enough but it's a comment on
/our/ goals, not /anything/ that has to do with the plant.
> There is
> not necessarily an intention. The "footnote" states that very clearly.
> Suppose a couple has a goal to create a child but they are utterly
> ignorant of how to do that. At the same time they frequently engage in
> coitus utterly ignorant of anything other than it gives much pleasure,
> and they only *consciously* do so for that reason. They produce a
> child, that is: reached a goal, without even knowing how.
Aw, this is ridiculous. I read it wrong the first time and
thought the goal was the desire to have the coitus
with no awareness of the production of the child. So
I wrote this...
---------------------------
Uh, no, and this is what's throwing you off maybe.
In this scenario, they DID NOT reach ANY goal.
Well, except for the enjoyment of the coitus, of course.
The production of the child WAS NOT a goal, nor
was it any sort of "as-if goal." Not any sort.
What happened was a (non-goal) event that
happened to coincide with what is frequently
a goal of humans, occured
------------------------------
Okay, that's wrong since you stipulate that it is
a goal to have a child. The thing is, you're
stipulating a goal that's totally devoid of any
facts about its nature. There are no goals
like that. There might be goals for which we
don't know exactly how to get there, but there
are no rational goals that exist contextlessly,
which is what you're proposing here.
And if they're not rational goals, or at least
consistent with the identifications that we've
already integrated, then using the word "goal"
to describe them is an error. They are fantasies
then, not goals.
The closest we can come to your stipulation is
having a fantasy and then having a another
fantasy that the fantasy is really a goal.
Simply put, one cannot have a "goal" to have a
child in the complete absence of any awareness
of what a child is, which includes /some/ awareness
of how they come to be.
> She took out the purposive nature of "goal" for insentient things but
> keep the meaning of an end (with beneficial results) that does have an
> end-purpose (in living).
Exactly, which was her error. Don't you see?
"Beneficial results" is an /imposition/ of ours,
not a distinguishing identification of the event.
> No, Rand never meant to apply "values" to plants in mere metaphorical
> fashion (a la Dawkins' Selfish Gene) because there is nothing in her
> words and their syntax to justify that interpretation. When she
> applied "values" to plants she applied it in this way: a plant has a
> nature which seeks discrete concretes of things of worth, such as
> light, air and water, and the plant will pursue a goal --
> automatically and not in any teleological way -- of survival in that
> its nature can do no other.
Yes, once again this is exactly what she did. And what
you refuse to see, is that it's FALSE. Those "discrete
concretes" are neither "sought" nor "of worth," except
when judged by OUR standards. If you remove that,
then there is simply no difference between the plant
and the rock.
And as important as our judgments are, they are
not discrete entities that exist outside of our
consciousness. Hence, as a matter of so-called
objective fact, the claim is false.
jk
Rod Nibbe
Charles Bell wrote:
> On Jan 5, 11:17 pm, Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>They already put up the cites.
> Rand does not say "plants have values".
Correct, she said organisms have values, which
subsumes plants.
-RKN
Charles Bell
> On Jan 6, 7:38 am, Charles Bell <cbel...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > "Goal" literally means an end �that has a beneficial result.
>
> This is getting old. �So what's the benefit to the plant
> if it lives, versus if it dies?
>
Don't you have a dictionary? Benefit = Something that aids or
promotes well-being. There is nothing in that defintion that requires
consciousness.
> > There is
> > not necessarily an intention. The "footnote" states that very clearly.
> > Suppose a couple has a goal to create a child but they are utterly
> > ignorant of how to do that. At the same time they frequently engage in
> > coitus utterly ignorant of anything other than it gives much pleasure,
> > and they only *consciously* do so for that reason. �They produce a
> > child, that is: reached a goal, without even knowing how.
>
> Aw, this is ridiculous. �I read it wrong the first time and
> thought the goal was the desire to have the coitus
> with no awareness of the production of the child. �So
> I wrote this...
>
> ---------------------------
> Uh, no, and this is what's throwing you off maybe.
>
> In this scenario, they DID NOT reach ANY goal.
> Well, except for the enjoyment of the coitus, of course.
>
Yes, they did -- without conscious intention of the means -- just like
a plant. This (for reproduction) applies to any living organism other
than humans (and even some of those). Their goal was achieved by the
effort they extended and for no other reason though they did not know
the reason. This proposition further trashes Friedman's male mantis
as a suicidal copulater.
> The production of the child WAS NOT a goal, nor
> was it any sort of "as-if goal." �Not any sort.
>
I said that they wanted a child, having seen the advantages of
families of their neighbors, but were unaware of how to get one, and
their neighbors told them that is was simply some kind of magic. They
had a goal -- to have a child -- that is a fact you are not entitled
to deny, being the very hypothetical posed. You can only quibble
over awareness of how that goal is to be achieved. The plant does not
have any more or less awareness than this couple about goals -- only
having no consciousness *of* goals at all. This is Rand's footnote.
>
> Okay, that's wrong since you stipulate that it is
> a goal to have a child. �
Yes.
> The thing is, you're
> stipulating a goal that's totally devoid of any
> facts about its nature. �
Perhaps, as I elaborated above in the desire to have a family just
like their neighbors'.
> There are no goals
> like that. �
This is actually not all that relevant. Yes, it is true that modern
man is different than all other organisms in teleological awareness.
That is Rand's footnote.
> There might be goals for which we
> don't know exactly how to get there, but there
> are no rational goals
>
> Exactly, which was her error. �Don't you see?
> "Beneficial results" is an /imposition/ of ours,
> not a distinguishing identification of the event.
>
I see that you have limited access to a dictionary. Look up "goal"
and you will find: the end toward which effort is directed. I do not
understand why you find no existenital difference between a live plant
and a dead plant.
Charles Bell
No, she never said: "organisms have values"
She said, in various ways: the requirements of an organism's life make
the existence of values possible. In word, grammar, and meaning this
is not equivalent or even similar to: "Organisms have values."
Jim Klein
> She said, in various ways: the requirements of an organism's life make
> the existence of values possible. In word, grammar, and meaning this
> is not equivalent or even similar to: "Organisms have values."
This is starting to get slimy.
Your translation is, "Organisms have requirements for life
and those requirements give rise to the existence of values,
but those values have nothing to do with the organism whose
requirements gave rise to those values' existence."
Besides being absurd on its face, it can also be carried
to the actions of binary stars--or any other thing in the
universe--"making the existence of values possible."
Well, yes. If everything didn't do as it does, then presumably
what is, might be something different. I'll concede that,
but I'm not sure what it says that has any relevance at all.
Things are as they are; I don't think this is under debate.
We're debating what the nature of values are. I'm saying
those values have no nature--indeed, literally no existence--
outside of a context of a cognitive abstracting being.
You're still working on what you're saying, so I'll just
be patient and kill the time until you decide!
jk