Rand on Concepts
fred...@papertig.com
> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 05:11:31 +0000 (UTC), R Lawrence
<RL0...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> >And then I asked myself, "What is it that my mind does when I use
concepts
> >? To
> >what do I refer, and how do I learn new concepts?" And within half
an hour, I
> >had the answer.
>
> Yes, that is how RAND used concepts. Whatever happened to the use of
> science and scientific studies to determine such things generally
> rather than just for one specific individual? Blank-out.
Whatever happened to your grasp that philosophy is not approached that
way, i.e. that it is universal and applies to man and his relationship
to reality *as such*. In other words, once again, take your head outa
your ass.
Did Aristotle have to run experiments before identifying the laws of
logic? Did Kant for the Categorical Imperative? Did Popper for the
"falsification" principle?
She explained what she did next which is essentially all that is
required:
"Now it took me longer than that to check it, to apply it to various
categories
of concepts, and see if there are exceptions. But once I had the
answer, by
the logic of it, I knew that that's it. And that's it."
The key here is "by the logic of it".
So the criticism of it, if one wants to criticize it, is not "science
and scientific studies". It is, "No, here are a group of concepts which
are not formed by measurement omission. So, therefore the logic of it
fails."
So, do you have any? If you had, one rather suspects we would have
heard from you on the subject already.
And while your at it, Mr Head Up His Ass, tell us the "science and
scientific studies" behind *anything* in Kantianism. Tell us for
example what experiments Kant conducted to demonstrate that all we
perceive are "appearances" and not "things-in-themselves".
Fred Weiss
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 05:11:31 +0000 (UTC), R Lawrence
><RL0...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> >And then I asked myself, "What is it that my mind does when I use
>concepts
>> >? To
>> >what do I refer, and how do I learn new concepts?" And within half
>an hour, I
>> >had the answer.
.
>> Yes, that is how RAND used concepts. Whatever happened to the use of
>> science and scientific studies to determine such things generally
>> rather than just for one specific individual? Blank-out.
.
>Whatever happened to your grasp that philosophy is not approached that
>way, i.e. that it is universal and applies to man and his relationship
>to reality *as such*. In other words, once again, take your head outa
>your ass.
.
>Did Aristotle have to run experiments before identifying the laws of
>logic? Did Kant for the Categorical Imperative? Did Popper for the
>"falsification" principle?
Rand used herself as the sole subject of an empirical scientific
investigation. Rand was employing science, only incorrectly,
definitely not philosophy. Objectivism, as always, comes down to a
reliance on science for its answers. Kolker wins.
>She explained what she did next which is essentially all that is
>required:
>"Now it took me longer than that to check it, to apply it to various
>categories of concepts, and see if there are exceptions. But once I had the
>answer, by the logic of it, I knew that that's it. And that's it."
>The key here is "by the logic of it".
I.e., a priori, that is, by the pure logic of her empirical approach,
which is the same dogmatic approach Aristotle used
to engage in philosophical pursuits. Objectivist epistemology (or
O-epistemology) should be defined as the science of concepts
dogmatically grounded.
>So the criticism of it, if one wants to criticize it, is not "science
>and scientific studies". It is, "No, here are a group of concepts which
>are not formed by measurement omission. So, therefore the logic of it
>fails."
>So, do you have any? If you had, one rather suspects we would have
>heard from you on the subject already.
>And while your at it, Mr Head Up His Ass, tell us the "science and
>scientific studies" behind *anything* in Kantianism. Tell us for
>example what experiments Kant conducted to demonstrate that all we
>perceive are "appearances" and not "things-in-themselves".
You are confusing Rand's failure to employ science correctly with the
idea that she did not employ it at all, and she may have claimed to be
doing philosophy anyway. But she wasn't doing philosophy, she was
*grounding* philosophy, using a dogmatic Aristotelian approach to
science. Looking inward at her own concepts is known as "reflection"
in Kantian circles, and he did indeed call his approach to this issue
a science, the science of Critique. Translating Aristotle's forms into
methodological terms, taken them out of ontology entirely, is a
classic 20th-century move originated by Kant.
So her attempt still reminds me of that in the Critique of Pure
Reason, although the CPR is not grounded dogmatically. It only
refused to relinquish syllogistic logic. But as usual, Rand thought
her instincts were right on target, and so she was only waiting for an
Objectivist predecessor to come along and ground them with more
logical precision. I certainly don't consider ITOE to be a thoroughly
grounded work, although this could be done. What exactly is an
"implicit concept" anyway? I know what Rand said about it, but her
explanation is weak. It seems to be part perceptual and part
conceptual, although in the latter case pre-verbal. There needs to be
more work done here. And yes I'm taking this seriously, it's just that
I'm not the one to do it. Her foundational work probably needs to be
about three times longer than ITOE to be satisfactory, with or without
science helping it along. The book is so short I wouldn't even
consider it an introduction, it's more like a synopsis of ideas that
badly need to be fleshed out, stripped of their polemical rhetoric,
mere intuitions, and scientific dogma, and then brought back down to
the level of bare-bones philosophy.
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fred...@papertig.com
> Rand used herself as the sole subject of an empirical scientific
> investigation.
So? On what basis would she assume that in regard to this or any other
*epistemological* matter her mind is somehow different from the rest of
mankind? That the validity of the senses is axiomatic is only true for
her mind, but not any other? The laws of logic only apply to her mind,
but none others? Essences exist in objects for other minds, but not
hers?
> >The key here is "by the logic of it".
>
> I.e., a priori, that is, by the pure logic of her empirical
approach,...
Except that is not "a priori",i.e. independent of or apart from
experience. That it doesn't pertain to any specific bit of sense data
does not mean it is divorced from sense data. Her whole approach -
which is obvious in reading ITOE - is thoroughly empirical.
> >So the criticism of it, if one wants to criticize it, is not
"science
> >and scientific studies". It is, "No, here are a group of concepts
which
> >are not formed by measurement omission. So, therefore the logic of
it
> >fails."
<snip irrelevant blather to avoid answering the question>
As for an "implicit" concept, she explains what that is in ITOE.
Fred Weiss
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>
>> Rand used herself as the sole subject of an empirical scientific
>> investigation.
>
>So? On what basis would she assume that in regard to this or any other
>*epistemological* matter her mind is somehow different from the rest of
>mankind? That the validity of the senses is axiomatic is only true for
>her mind, but not any other? The laws of logic only apply to her mind,
>but none others? Essences exist in objects for other minds, but not
>hers?
Where does Rand say that the validity of the senses is axiomatic. I
see it as being assumed in ITOE, merely on the basis of logic; any
attempt to disprove this validity causes the rational thought-process
itself to self-destruct. But since Rand's argument there was not based
in the senses, I don't see how all arguments have to be based in the
senses, including any that seek to disprove the validity of the
senses.
>> >The key here is "by the logic of it".
>>
>> I.e., a priori, that is, by the pure logic of her empirical
>approach,...
>
>Except that is not "a priori",i.e. independent of or apart from
>experience. That it doesn't pertain to any specific bit of sense data
>does not mean it is divorced from sense data. Her whole approach -
>which is obvious in reading ITOE - is thoroughly empirical.
I don't see any good coming from using the term "divorced" in
this context. It is a psychologistic term, and I don't consider the
a priori to be divorced from reality. That's a nonsense assumption.
I wouldn't consider using the term in the first place, as you should
already know. Indeed, her argument doesn't pertain to any specific
bit of sense data, and by definition that's enough to constitute pure
rational (i.e., a priori) investigation.
>> >So the criticism of it, if one wants to criticize it, is not
>"science
>> >and scientific studies". It is, "No, here are a group of concepts
>which
>> >are not formed by measurement omission. So, therefore the logic of
>it
>> >fails."
>
><snip irrelevant blather to avoid answering the question>
>
>As for an "implicit" concept, she explains what that is in ITOE.
My "irrelevant blather" suggests that her treatment of the concept of
an "implicit" concept is inadequate. I introduced a couple questions
designed to elicit at least some rational response concerning the
nature of this odd form of hybrid concept, an epistemic bridge between
a percept and an explicit concept (i.e., a concept that's been put
into verbal form). I appreciate the fact that Rand's notion of
concepts has evolved from "instinct" to "implicit concept," whereas
the latter have their purpose in becoming explicit. That after all was
Rand's goal regarding her "instincts" (as she called them in the early
journal entries), to make them explicit. What is needed is a
meta-theory to ITOE that explains why these "instincts" or "implicit
concepts" should be made explicit at all.
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fred...@papertig.com
> Where does Rand say that the validity of the senses is axiomatic. I
> see it as being assumed in ITOE, merely on the basis of logic; any
> attempt to disprove this validity causes the rational thought-process
> itself to self-destruct.
Merely on the basis of logic? Whereas its rejection therefore rests on
what?
She has an entire chapter on axiomatic concepts wherein she states:
"... there is a way to ascertain whether a given concept is axiomatic
or not: one ascertains it by observing the fact that an axiomatic
concept cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge, that
it has to be accepted and used even in the process of any attempt to
deny it."
> But since Rand's argument there was not based
> in the senses, I don't see how all arguments have to be based in the
> senses, including any that seek to disprove the validity of the
> senses.
Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses" without
using the senses in your disproof.
> ...Indeed, her argument doesn't pertain to any specific
> bit of sense data, and by definition that's enough to constitute pure
> rational (i.e., a priori) investigation.
Not pertaining to any *specific* bit of sense data is not equivalent to
it therefore being divorced from sense data. Is "A is A" true because
someone declares it to be or merely because "that's the way our minds
work" - or because that's the way reality is? And which we can observe
in *any* bit of sense data, is implicit in any bit of sense data and in
*all* sense data, i.e. we can observe its truth merely by opening our
eyes.
> ...her treatment of the concept of
> an "implicit" concept is inadequate.
How? Be specific for a change. And what is the significance of that
purported inadequacy? (There is a great deal that is, by her own
admission, merely summarized or sketched in ITOE. So that in itself
isn't a valid criticism. What you need to show is that the heart of the
theory rises or falls on this or that "inadequacy".)
Fred Weiss
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>
>> Where does Rand say that the validity of the senses is axiomatic. I
>> see it as being assumed in ITOE, merely on the basis of logic; any
>> attempt to disprove this validity causes the rational thought-process
>> itself to self-destruct.
>
>Merely on the basis of logic? Whereas its rejection therefore rests on
>what?
>
>She has an entire chapter on axiomatic concepts wherein she states:
>
>"... there is a way to ascertain whether a given concept is axiomatic
>or not: one ascertains it by observing the fact that an axiomatic
>concept cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge, that
>it has to be accepted and used even in the process of any attempt to
>deny it."
>
>
>> But since Rand's argument there was not based
>> in the senses, I don't see how all arguments have to be based in the
>> senses, including any that seek to disprove the validity of the
>> senses.
>
>Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses" without
>using the senses in your disproof.
It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
thus avoid circular reasoning.
Alternatively, how would you prove the validity of the senses while
using the senses in your proof, without circularity?
>> ...Indeed, her argument doesn't pertain to any specific
>> bit of sense data, and by definition that's enough to constitute pure
>> rational (i.e., a priori) investigation.
>Not pertaining to any *specific* bit of sense data is not equivalent to
>it therefore being divorced from sense data. Is "A is A" true because
>someone declares it to be or merely because "that's the way our minds
>work" - or because that's the way reality is? And which we can observe
>in *any* bit of sense data, is implicit in any bit of sense data and in
>*all* sense data, i.e. we can observe its truth merely by opening our
>eyes.
>> ...her treatment of the concept of an "implicit" concept is inadequate.
>How? Be specific for a change.
I was, but you snipped that part. And why did you snip it? Because I
began that paragraph comparing ITOE to the Critique of Pure Reason,
so you fell apart at the seams trembling with anxiety and didn't dare
read the rest of it.
But let's go ahead and examine one small statement just before she
revealed her idea of the implicit concept: "A percept is a group of
sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a
living organism. It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the
evidence of his senses and apprehends reality. When we speak of
'direct perception' or 'direct awareness', we mean the perceptual
level. Percepts, not sensations, are the given, the self-evident."
All Rand says is that sensations are components of percepts, and that
percepts are integrated sensations. This takes a great deal for
granted about what percepts are. Her reader can surmise that percepts
are thus "in us," somewhere, in our heads I suppose. But this does not
necessarily connect them with anything real. Then she states that
percepts are self-evident. Granted, percepts are self-evident, even
Bishop Berkeley would grant her that point.
The question has never been whether or not the senses are distorted,
but only how much approximating they do. The issue has been when
philosophers (Leibniz) have then claimed that our *concepts* are also
mere approximations of God's own Truth. I'm quite sure that Rand would
never have granted Leibniz even the right to debate such a question.
And yet there is a point of dogmatism where the two theories merge:
where Leibniz took God's truths to be immutable, Rand took the truth
of man's senses as automatically granted, and immutable. And,
analogously with Leibniz, it is up to man's concepts to equate with
man's senses, that is, to reflect in conceptual perfectedness that
which is sensed. ITOE is about how to attain such perfect
conceptuability through a process of measurement-omission,
differentiation, and integration of implicit concepts.
Here then is Rand's complete synopsis of the concept of an "implicit
concept": "The building-block of man’s knowledge is the concept of
an 'existent' -- of something that exists, be it a thing, an attribute
or an action. Since it is a concept, man cannot grasp it explicitly
until he has reached the conceptual stage. But it is implicit in every
percept (to perceive a thing is to perceive that it exists) and man
grasps it implicitly on the perceptual level -- i.e., he grasps the
constituents of the concept 'existent', the data which are later to be
integrated by that concept. It is this implicit knowledge that permits
his consciousness to develop further."
Does Rand mean "man" historically and collectively, or is she
referring to child development? Or both? No matter. What does she mean
when she says "man grasps it [the concept of an 'existent'] implicitly
on the perceptual level"? It means that man takes his senses for
granted. I'm sure that's true on the non-philosphical level, everybody
does this. But then philosophers, even from the very beginning, came
along and started questioning things. They ruined everything, did they
not? They do not prove that the senses give us illusions or delusions,
but they do prove that our mere belief in the senses is inadequate.
And in this case, hardening this belief into a dogma, using terms that
sound like 1950s cognitive science in practice, placing the theory in
the context of a serious philosophy, so serious in fact that "the fate
of human societies, of knowledge, of science, of progress and of every
human life, depends on it" -- none of this can elude the fact that the
discussion in question is dogmatic. Their extreme importance (at
least, in their own minds) is often the very reason why people do
harden ideas into rigid dogma.
Philosophy begins with skepticism, a questioning of the very basis of
everyday existence, from the conceptual, to the mathematical, to the
moral, and then to the political. Questioning is the only route to
furthering the evolution of our knowledge. Dogma stifles evolution.
Rand's implicit concept stifles knowledge by posing as the groundwork
for the rest. Because if we are limited to this implicit concept, then
we cannot move beyond it but only move in circles around the same old
ideas. Rand's implicit concept of an "existent" is just her way of
saying: "No more questioning! I mean it!" So much for philosophy.
> And what is the significance of that
>purported inadequacy? (There is a great deal that is, by her own
>admission, merely summarized or sketched in ITOE. So that in itself
>isn't a valid criticism. What you need to show is that the heart of the
>theory rises or falls on this or that "inadequacy".)
I never said that the theory was either true or false, I said it was
dogmatic. The very act of reminding her readers to keep in mind the
the truth of the axiom "Existence exists," before she even started
writing a book on the subject, revealed her dogmatism.
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fred...@papertig.com
> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
> thus avoid circular reasoning.
That's like saying you are going to prove logic without using logic or
prove that reality exists without reference to reality.
You continue to harp on "circular reasoning" without ever grasping what
axiomatic means.
> Alternatively, how would you prove the validity of the senses while
> using the senses in your proof, without circularity?
See the above. You don't and can't prove the validity of the senses.
It's a given. That's what axiomatic means. Any attempt to "prove it"
would presuppose it, since you would have to use the evidence of the
senses in your proof.
Incidentally, if you read the essay, "Philosophical Detection", which
was mentioned just the other day, we wouldn't need to have this
discussion.
Since you've chosen to write a treatise on the other subject, my
response to it will have to wait until I have more time. Unlike you I
can't - and won't - spend all my spare time on HPO.
Fred Weiss
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
>> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
>> thus avoid circular reasoning.
>That's like saying you are going to prove logic without using logic or
>prove that reality exists without reference to reality.
No it is not. "The senses are valid" and "reality exists" are in
completely different categories of propositions. To prove that the
senses are valid is to prove that they are good for the purpose they
were made for (by nature), which would constitute that they were
indeed made (by nature, evolution, etc.) for sensing reality.
Furthermore, it would be necessary to show that sensing reality is
the purpose of our sense exist at all, and that this is a natural
purpose and not one based in volitional choice.
"Natural purpose" is not an empirical concept, it is a teleological
one. Therefore, any such proof would have to be transcendental, pure
of any reference to empirical evidence.
>You continue to harp on "circular reasoning" without ever grasping what
>axiomatic means.
It is Objectivists who have ditched the usual use of axioms, as used
in the construction of systems based on intuition, in favor of some
common, general usage as "self-evident truth." To be "objective,"
in your system, is a more controversial matter. It means: capable of
being reduced to these self-evident truths, according to Peikoff
anyway. And these self-evident truths are based on a negative
argument for the validity of the senses. The whole issue finally
revolves around reducing those truths, the axioms, themselves. If
they cannot be reduced, then they are not objective. So they are
subjective by default.
Not to worry, Phreed, that's not necessarily a bad thing. "Natural
purpose" itself is a subjective concept. Transcendentally, Objectivism
is based in the subjective level of reasoning. This is made apparent
in such ideas as the "benevolent universe premise." That is a
subjective basis on the face of it, and dogmatic because it serves
only as an assumption without proper (subjective) teleological
grounds.
All of Objectivism is based on such things: ungrounded, dogmatized
subjectivity.
>> Alternatively, how would you prove the validity of the senses while
>> using the senses in your proof, without circularity?
>See the above. You don't and can't prove the validity of the senses.
>It's a given. That's what axiomatic means. Any attempt to "prove it"
>would presuppose it, since you would have to use the evidence of the
>senses in your proof.
>Incidentally, if you read the essay, "Philosophical Detection", which
>was mentioned just the other day, we wouldn't need to have this
>discussion.
>Since you've chosen to write a treatise on the other subject, my
>response to it will have to wait until I have more time. Unlike you I
>can't - and won't - spend all my spare time on HPO.
>Fred Weiss
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Ken Gardner
>So the criticism of it, if one wants to criticize it, is not "science
>and scientific studies". It is, "No, here are a group of concepts which
>are not formed by measurement omission. So, therefore the logic of it
>fails."
Exactly. Whatever other criticisms of Objectivism people have come up
with, no one has successfully attacked the most fundamental and
important part of all: her theory of concepts and, in particular, her
discovery that concepts, properly formed, are objective.
Ken
Malrassic Park
>fred...@papertig.com wrote:
What does "objective" mean in this context?
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Ken Gardner
>>Exactly. Whatever other criticisms of Objectivism people have come up
>>with, no one has successfully attacked the most fundamental and
>>important part of all: her theory of concepts and, in particular, her
>>discovery that concepts, properly formed, are objective.
>What does "objective" mean in this context?
Neither invented or revealed, but the product of an interaction
between reality and a human consciousness that forms and uses concepts
in accordance with certain rules of method. For the full answer, see
ITOE (especially the last chapter) and the first part of Chapter 4 of
OPAR.
Ken
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
So this is a special meaning of "objective" specific only to
Objectivism. As there is O-capitalism, there should also be
"O-objectivity."
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fred...@papertig.com
> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 01:17:39 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
wrote:
>
> >Malrassic Park wrote:
>
> >> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
> >> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence,
and
> >> thus avoid circular reasoning.
>
> >That's like saying you are going to prove logic without using logic
or
> >prove that reality exists without reference to reality.
>
> No it is not. "The senses are valid" and "reality exists" are in
> completely different categories of propositions. To prove that the
> senses are valid is to prove that they are good for the purpose they
> were made for (by nature), which would constitute that they were
> indeed made (by nature, evolution, etc.) for sensing reality.
And such "a proof" would require the senses, would it not? How does one
study nature or evolution without the senses?
MAL: "No, Phreed, you Objectivist lying whore and Internet bitch. One
becomes a Kantian, learns 'transcendental logic', and then one can
imagine anything one wishes and construct any kind of incoherent
argument you like completely divorced from reality (which we can't know
anyway because all we can know are "appearances"). For example, you can
declare people dead who are still alive. It's so cool. Now, if you'll
excuse me, I'd like to put my head back up my ass. where I am the
center of the universe."
> Furthermore, it would be necessary to show that sensing reality is
> the purpose of our sense exist at all, and that this is a natural
> purpose and not one based in volitional choice.
And do you show this by reference to reality, using the senses? Or do
you just pull it outa your ass like Kant.
MAL: "If you spent as much time up your ass as I spend up mine - such
as spending months studying obscure paragraphs in Kant - you wouldn't
knock it so much. It's only by spending so much time up my ass that I
can come up with the most delightfully favorable interpretations of
Kant. Otherwise, you know, they don't make any sense. But you know our
motto here in Malrassic Park."
> ...And these self-evident truths are based on a negative
> argument for the validity of the senses. The whole issue finally
> revolves around reducing those truths, the axioms, themselves. If
> they cannot be reduced, then they are not objective. So they are
> subjective by default.
Except of course, as I keep showing you, you cannot deny them without
using them, thus demonstrating their validity,i.e. their "self-evident"
nature, if you will.
Once again, to those genuinely interested in this subject - which
obviously does not include dogmatic Kantoids with their heads up their
ass - I recommend AR's essay, "Philosophical Detection" in PWNI.
Fred Weiss
fred...@papertig.com
> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:49:09 +0000 (UTC), Ken Gardner
> <kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>
> >Malrassic Park wrote:
>
> >>>Exactly. Whatever other criticisms of Objectivism people have
come up
> >>>with, no one has successfully attacked the most fundamental and
> >>>important part of all: her theory of concepts and, in particular,
her
> >>>discovery that concepts, properly formed, are objective.
>
> >>What does "objective" mean in this context?
>
> >Neither invented or revealed, but the product of an interaction
> >between reality and a human consciousness that forms and uses
concepts
> >in accordance with certain rules of method. For the full answer,
see
> >ITOE (especially the last chapter) and the first part of Chapter 4
of
> >OPAR.
>
> So this is a special meaning of "objective" specific only to
> Objectivism.
Yeah, it's a "special meaning" which essentially consists of "knowledge
of reality using logic". Really far-out.
Now if you really want a special meaning, how about yours? Mal's
definition of objective: "whatever I can pull outa my ass". Acorn's is
the "social" version: "whatever we all - or most of us? - pull outa of
our asses". The way Mal's works is: "I just pulled X outa my ass, e.g.
Steve Grossman is dead, sex scenes in The Fountainhead sold the book,
AR was a numeralogist, etc. etc. Therefore it is true." The way Acorn's
works is: "I just pulled X outa my ass. Let's see if you pull the same
thing out and then we can compare."
Fred Weiss
Atlas Bugged
>> So this is a special meaning of "objective" specific only to
>> Objectivism.
<fred...@papertig.com> wrote in message
news:1110369304.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Yeah, it's a "special meaning" which essentially consists of "knowledge
> of reality using logic". Really far-out.
>
> Now if you really want a special meaning, how about yours? Mal's
> definition of objective: "whatever I can pull outa my ass". Acorn's is
> the "social" version: "whatever we all - or most of us? - pull outa of
> our asses". The way Mal's works is: "I just pulled X outa my ass, e.g.
> Steve Grossman is dead, sex scenes in The Fountainhead sold the book,
> AR was a numeralogist, etc. etc. Therefore it is true." The way Acorn's
> works is: "I just pulled X outa my ass. Let's see if you pull the same
> thing out and then we can compare."
Oh shit, LOL. This post and the one immediately preceding - lucky I wasn't
drinking coffee. Hilarious. I'm pissed off you got to these Mal posts
before I did - the TRANSLATOR was poised to do some very similar schtick.
Is it any wonder no one can bring themselves to killfile Mr. Obnoxo?
Robert Kolker
>
> Neither invented or revealed, but the product of an interaction
> between reality and a human consciousness that forms and uses concepts
> in accordance with certain rules of method.
What is to say an interaction of parts of reality outside the skull with
parts of reality inside the skull. Consciousness is an operation of the
brain.
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
>
> Exactly. Whatever other criticisms of Objectivism people have come up
> with, no one has successfully attacked the most fundamental and
> important part of all: her theory of concepts and, in particular, her
> discovery that concepts, properly formed, are objective.
Peirce had that view also. In addition Adler, expanding on Aristotle put
forth that view before Rand ever published her philosophy.
Bob Kolker
Reggie Perrin
Malrassic Park wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
wrote:
>
> >Malrassic Park wrote:
> >
> >Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses" without
> >using the senses in your disproof.
>
> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
> thus avoid circular reasoning.
I suggest to you that your concern is misguided. My response differs
somewhat to the Objectivist one, in that I concede the possibility of
the invalidity of sense-data, but I see no reason to adopt that
contention. Believing in one's own senses is the natural, default
position in this debate, and the burden of proof rests, therefore, with
the idealist.
> [...]
> Philosophy begins with skepticism, a questioning of the very basis of
> everyday existence, from the conceptual, to the mathematical, to the
> moral, and then to the political.
Well, we tried that way and we didn't get very far. About the only
thing that was proved to anyone's satisfaction was "cogito ergo sum".
What you describe as dogma I perceive to be the necessary conceptual
structure that we must bring to our philosophical endeavours if we are
to have any success.
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Malrassic Park" <Male...@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
>She has an entire chapter on axiomatic concepts wherein she states:
>
>"... there is a way to ascertain whether a given concept is axiomatic
>or not: one ascertains it by observing the fact that an axiomatic
>concept cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge, that
>it has to be accepted and used even in the process of any attempt to
>deny it."
>
>> But since Rand's argument there was not based
>> in the senses, I don't see how all arguments have to be based in the
>> senses, including any that seek to disprove the validity of the
>> senses.
>
>Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses" without
>using the senses in your disproof.
Malenor answers:
It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
thus avoid circular reasoning.
And my two cents:
IMO Rand's definition of "axiom" is utilitarian and therefore self-serving.
There is a significant difference between "that which can not be logically
questioned" (conventional definition) and an assumption that allows physical
entities to initiate a flow of targeted reasoning (Rand). The validity of
the senses can be logically questioned and therefore it is not axiomatic in
the honest (conventional) sense of the word "axiom". The validity of the
senses is the basis of all realist thinking, but realism is not axiomatic.
The claim that idealist reasoning must tacitly assume the validity of the
senses is bogus. That claim is based on assuming the "real" existence of a
body with senses and with a brain, which is a utilitarian assumption from
the perspective of rigorous logic.
The question may be asked; "How can we invoke logic without ever having made
use of the senses?" That argument is fallacious because it assumes the
physicality of a body with senses, which the idealist denies. The idealist
proposes that the mind is capable of assuming an orderly relation between
its images and concepts. (And yes, Fred, it assumes that the imagination can
create images de novo. Your argument that there MUST be an external input
simply assumes the necessity of that.) Thus the idealist is comfortable with
the concept that logic transcends the evidence of the senses, while this is
a vexing trap for the realist, who can only avoid pragmatism by assuming the
conclusion.
Therefore although you and I disagree in some fundamental aspects, I agree
with your claim after I re-phrase it to say that the validity of the senses
can not be logically proved because the alleged proof requires assuming that
we have a real body with real senses. Of course the opposite claim would be
idealism which practical people (we) avoid at all costs. But it is important
to know that the avoidance is based on utility, not on logic.
I would agree with the suggestion that a logical dead-end should be avoided,
but not with the suggestion that the existence of such a dead-end should be
denied. Avoiding a logical dead-end is pragmatism. Denying its existence it
is dogma.
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 04:49:09 +0000 (UTC), Ken Gardner
>> <kesga...@charter.net> wrote:
>> >ITOE (especially the last chapter) and the first part of Chapter 4
>of
>> >OPAR.
>> So this is a special meaning of "objective" specific only to
>> Objectivism.
>Yeah, it's a "special meaning" which essentially consists of "knowledge
>of reality using logic". Really far-out.
I'm not telling Ken, I'm asking Ken, just not in the form of a
question. And I did review that part of OPAR and then some before
replying.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
John Alway
Robert Kolker wrote:
[...]
> What is to say an interaction of parts of reality outside the skull
with
> parts of reality inside the skull. Consciousness is an operation of
the
> brain.
This is why you start out with fundamental axioms. They give you
the solid foundation on which to build. The key is to make sure the
axioms are true and this means they need to be validated.
You know the spiel, so I'll spare you the details.
...John
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 01:17:39 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
>wrote:
>>
>> >Malrassic Park wrote:
>>
>> >> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
>> >> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence,
>and
>> >> thus avoid circular reasoning.
>>
>> >That's like saying you are going to prove logic without using logic
>or
>> >prove that reality exists without reference to reality.
>>
>> No it is not. "The senses are valid" and "reality exists" are in
>> completely different categories of propositions. To prove that the
>> senses are valid is to prove that they are good for the purpose they
>> were made for (by nature), which would constitute that they were
>> indeed made (by nature, evolution, etc.) for sensing reality.
>
>And such "a proof" would require the senses, would it not? How does one
>study nature or evolution without the senses?
'Natural purpose' is not an empirical concept. And 'evolution' would
fall under the heading of teleology, of nature tending toward a
teleological end in purposive perfectability of species. Every aspect
of human nature would have been brought forth for that end, including
the sensory apparatus, and no part of it would serve as an exception
to that teleological rule.
Rand held to a view such that everything must serve a purpose, and
that there is no part of the human body that does not serve a purpose.
<blip>
>> Furthermore, it would be necessary to show that sensing reality is
>> the purpose of our sense exist at all, and that this is a natural
>> purpose and not one based in volitional choice.
>And do you show this by reference to reality, using the senses? Or do
>you just pull it outa your ass like Kant.
Kant never "pulled anything outa his ass." And teleology is neither
based on the senses nor pulled outa one's ass, it is based on a pure
rational reflection of teleological concepts.
<blip>
>> ...And these self-evident truths are based on a negative
>> argument for the validity of the senses. The whole issue finally
>> revolves around reducing those truths, the axioms, themselves. If
>> they cannot be reduced, then they are not objective. So they are
>> subjective by default.
>Except of course, as I keep showing you, you cannot deny them without
>using them, thus demonstrating their validity,i.e. their "self-evident"
>nature, if you will.
>Once again, to those genuinely interested in this subject - which
>obviously does not include dogmatic Kantoids with their heads up their
>ass - I recommend AR's essay, "Philosophical Detection" in PWNI.
"They cannot be denied" -- given the system you have based upon them.
They cannot be denied any more than Euclidean geometry can deny its
own axioms. And I'm saying that those axioms are dogmatic, not that
they aren't true for your system, but in the sense that they limit us
to your system, and thus keep the thinking mind down to a limited
level of functionality.
Malrassic Park
wrote:
>Robert Kolker wrote:
>[...]
You entitle it "axiomatic," thus think you are declaring it "solid"
and grounded. But that is mere arbitrary dogma, lacking in firm
justification for your claims. Provide the criteria in support of your
criteria.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
>wrote:
>> >Malrassic Park wrote:
>> >Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses" without
>> >using the senses in your disproof.
>> It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
>> evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence, and
>> thus avoid circular reasoning.
>I suggest to you that your concern is misguided. My response differs
>somewhat to the Objectivist one, in that I concede the possibility of
>the invalidity of sense-data, but I see no reason to adopt that
>contention. Believing in one's own senses is the natural, default
>position in this debate, and the burden of proof rests, therefore, with
>the idealist.
I don't exactly know what you mean by "this debate," but you seem to
be just asserting the old Objectivist malarkey that in order to
discuss the senses at all then their validity must be automatically
assumed. And I'm not sure why you bring up idealists. Do you consider
me a Berkeleyan? But Kant wasn't even Berkeleyan, he argued against
such idealism. Perhaps you are only referring to the general idealist
debate over the senses. In that case, you are only contending that
idealists need to prove that arguing in circles is a bad thing.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Philosophy begins with skepticism, a questioning of the very basis of
>> everyday existence, from the conceptual, to the mathematical, to the
>> moral, and then to the political.
>Well, we tried that way and we didn't get very far. About the only
>thing that was proved to anyone's satisfaction was "cogito ergo sum".
>What you describe as dogma I perceive to be the necessary conceptual
>structure that we must bring to our philosophical endeavours if we are
>to have any success.
I don't know anybody who is satisfied with the cogito, it is dogmatic.
According to Kant, Descartes' argument consisted of a sophistical
paralogism, conflating the noumenal with the phenomenal self.
Therefore these issues didn't end with Descartes at all, and I have no
idea where you're coming from with that statement.
However, what you perceive as the "necessary conceptual structure that
we must bring to our philosophical endeavours," I perceive as the end
of philosophy.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
bdhut...@xtra.co.nz
Here then is Rand's complete synopsis of the concept of an "implicit
> concept": "The building-block of man's knowledge is the concept of
> an 'existent' -- of something that exists, be it a thing, an
attribute
> or an action. Since it is a concept, man cannot grasp it explicitly
> until he has reached the conceptual stage.
One assumes that what Rand is describing above is the developmental
process of the human mind during infancy, and that the end result is
the ability to form concepts via her method (percept, differentiation,
similarity, unit, definition, word.) So the "conceptual stage" is
the point at which we are able to use her method of concept formation.
However, Rand quite plainly tells us that "existent" is a concept,
even though one's consciousness has yet to reach the conceptual
stage. How could this be? How is it possible to be in possession of a
concept - a "mental entity" - without having used the requisite
method to form that concept?
In short, it isn't possible. Therefore, Rand is forced to resort to
the notion of "implicit" concepts to paper over this gap in her
argument.
She then goes on to say: "...he grasps the constituents of the
concept 'existent', the data which are later to be integrated by that
concept."
Pardon? What are the "constituents" of the concept, and in what way do
they differ from the "data"? Rand also seems to be implying that we
need to possess the concept in order to integrate the data that
comprise the concept. In other words, the concept is prior to the data,
even though on her theory the data precede the concept.
Eddie
Malrassic Park
<agentc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>fred...@papertig.com wrote:
.
>>>old episode of "Mission: Impossible" especially one where they had
.
>> those
.
>>>cool latex masks.
.
>> How do old episodes of "Mission Impossible" illustrate your point?
.
>> As regard your and Reg's point about the supposed "possibility of
>> error", not only does that not *especially* have anything to do with
>> perception. It has *nothing* to do with it.
.
>Um, I was agreeing with you (I sometimes find myself inserting little
>superflous, unnecessary and redundant words like "especially" because I
>really like the sound of my own voice). I don't think that perceptual
>skepticism is coherently statable. That said, I don't think people never
>make mistakes about facts. For example, I might think that you're Fred
>Weiss, only to learn that you're Bob Kolker in a latex mask. It's not
>that perception as such causes the mistake, it's just that mistakes
>happen. You *look* like Bob. But that's not my eyes' fault, obviously,
>since that is in fact how you look.
The idea that Kant's Aesthetic had anything to do with illusions or
delusions is Rand's own version of the latex mask.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Robert Kolker
> I admit that the nitty-gritty of epistemology is not a field that
> interests me greatly, but my position, for what it's worth, is that I'm
> just not that concerned about justifying my belief in the validity of
> my senses. Why? Because I see no reason to doubt them. My argument is
> not circular, although you probably regard it as insufficient. It boils
> down to the fact that all humans *naturally* regard their senses as a
> source of information about the world, so before repudiating this I
> would like to see some compelling evidence.
The only reason for doubting is for some dude in a long black overcoat
and dark glasses offering you a choice between the red pill and the blue
pill.
Bob Kolker
Reggie Perrin
Not really. I'm arguing, a la Cicero (and, ironically, Hume), that
scepticism carried too far is an unhealthy and unproductive exercise. I
think it was Eco who said that the only adequate response to the true
sceptic is violence!
Malrassic Park
Special Relativity proves that the world is not as it appears to our
senses. Even the spectrum of a light-wave that impacts our eyes is
only relative to our acceleration regarding it (red/blue-shift). The
weight that we feel is relative to the gravitational field surrounding
the object. And it is not a common-sense notion to say that the speed
of light is absolute relative to any given reference frame. If all
knowledge were grounded in the senses, as with Objectivism, science
would not have advanced at all, and the earth would still be the
center of the universe. I'm saying that the origin of this questioning
form of skepticism is to be found in Ancient Greek philosophy.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Robert Kolker
>
> A dose of skepticism every now and again is a healthy thing for
> philosophy. But taken too far it is literally unhealthy -
I prefer the terms care and caution to skepticism, simply because the
term skepticism has a acquired a bad odor in some quarters. Clearly
radical disbelief in -everything- is self contradictory. One would then
have to disbelieve the principle of disbelief. There is a degree of
reluctance to accept apparently obvious assumptions that is productive.
While seeing is believing sometimes it is not so -all the time-. There
are times when our senses tell us stuff that turns out not to be true.
My favorite example is the graveyard spiral while flying a plane in a
spin with no external visual references. If you believe what your inner
ear tells you, you will die, as sure as sunrise. That is why we have
instruments, to augment and correct our raw senses. Sometimes it is
better to ignore The Force and use the Computer.
Bob Kolker
Reggie Perrin
Malrassic Park wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:36:40 +0000 (UTC), Reggie Perrin
> <reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Philosophy begins with skepticism, a questioning of the very basis
of
> >> everyday existence, from the conceptual, to the mathematical, to
the
> >> moral, and then to the political.
>
> >Well, we tried that way and we didn't get very far. About the only
> >thing that was proved to anyone's satisfaction was "cogito ergo
sum".
> >What you describe as dogma I perceive to be the necessary conceptual
> >structure that we must bring to our philosophical endeavours if we
are
> >to have any success.
>
> I don't know anybody who is satisfied with the cogito, it is
dogmatic.
> According to Kant, Descartes' argument consisted of a sophistical
> paralogism, conflating the noumenal with the phenomenal self.
> Therefore these issues didn't end with Descartes at all, and I have
no
> idea where you're coming from with that statement.
Well, I'm satisfied with the cogito, so that makes one. I don't know
what you mean by it being "dogmatic", and I totally reject Kant's
noumenal/phenomenal distinction, so I have no truck with that line of
criticism.
> However, what you perceive as the "necessary conceptual structure
that
> we must bring to our philosophical endeavours," I perceive as the end
> of philosophy.
A dose of skepticism every now and again is a healthy thing for
philosophy. But taken too far it is literally unhealthy - Hume was
driven to the point of a breakdown while writing THN. My general stance
is that it is reasonable to assume a limited amount of stuff in order
to get a theory off the ground. Something like Wittgenstein's image of
the ladder that gets kicked away when one has reached the higher level.
Robert Kolker
> Special Relativity proves that the world is not as it appears to our
> senses. Even the spectrum of a light-wave that impacts our eyes is
> only relative to our acceleration regarding it (red/blue-shift).
Minor nit. That would be relative velocity, not acceleration.
Bob Kolker
fred...@papertig.com
> Reggie Perrin wrote:
> > Malrassic Park wrote:
> >
> >>On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >>>Malrassic Park wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses"
without
> >>>using the senses in your disproof.
> >>
> >>It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
> >>evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence,
and
> >>thus avoid circular reasoning.
> >
> >
> > I suggest to you that your concern is misguided. My response
differs
> > somewhat to the Objectivist one, in that I concede the possibility
of
> > the invalidity of sense-data, but I see no reason to adopt that
> > contention. Believing in one's own senses is the natural, default
> > position in this debate, and the burden of proof rests, therefore,
with
> > the idealist.
> >
>
it
> worked, would be more *like* Fred's view than yours. Not quite, but
> similar---it is a "certain forms of perceptual skepticism are not
> coherently statable" argument. The possibility of error always exists
as
> to some particular set of facts however, and this has nothing
> *especially* to do with the nature of perception. It also has nothing
to
> do with Cartesianism. For a good illustration of what I mean, watch
an
> old episode of "Mission: Impossible" especially one where they had
> cool latex masks.
How do old episodes of "Mission Impossible" illustrate your point?
As regard your and Reg's point about the supposed "possibility of
error", not only does that not *especially* have anything to do with
perception. It has *nothing* to do with it. An illusion for example is
not a *perceptual* error. It is not our eyes which are deceiving us.
They are giving us the correct data given physical laws and our senses
are governed by physical law (not volition). How we interpret the data
is another question and that of course is subject to error. In any
event it should be clear that "the example of illusion" doesn't
invalidate the senses since our very concept of "illusion" presupposes
that validity. How else would we discover that something is an
illusion?
In response to Reg, it is not merely "the default position". It is *the
only logical position.* And once again that is easy enough to prove
simply by noting that no attempt to deny (the validity of the senses)
is possible without assuming and using it. It really in principle is no
different from attempting to deny logic by using logic or attempting to
deny reality by reference to reality. If you don't use logic to attempt
to deny logic and if you don't reference reality in attempting to deny
it, then what have you got? Something that is illogical and unreal,
i.e. the ravings of Malenoid and Acorn (which derives from the ravings
of Kant).
Fred Weiss
Reggie Perrin
Agent Cooper wrote:
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
> > As regard your and Reg's point about the supposed "possibility of
> > error", not only does that not *especially* have anything to do
with
> > perception. It has *nothing* to do with it.
>
> superflous, unnecessary and redundant words like "especially" because
I
> really like the sound of my own voice). I don't think that perceptual
> skepticism is coherently statable. That said, I don't think people
never
> make mistakes about facts. For example, I might think that you're
Fred
> Weiss, only to learn that you're Bob Kolker in a latex mask. It's not
> that perception as such causes the mistake, it's just that mistakes
> happen. You *look* like Bob. But that's not my eyes' fault,
obviously,
> since that is in fact how you look.
I also agree that the possibility of error is not important in this
context. BTW, there's something distinctly unnerving about your toy
example.
Reggie Perrin
Those two examples are non-sequiturs. Red-shifted light appears red
*because it is red*. The weight we feel *is the weight* in that
particular field - in another field, the object might have a different
weight. So SR does not prove that the world is not as it appears to our
senses.
Reggie Perrin
Agent Cooper wrote:
> Reggie Perrin wrote:
> >
> >>On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 22:36:17 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >>>Malrassic Park wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Tell us how you would "disprove the validity of the senses"
without
> >>>using the senses in your disproof.
> >>
> >>It is not my concern to disprove the senses without using sensory
> >>evidence, but to prove the senses without using sensory evidence,
and
> >>thus avoid circular reasoning.
> >
> >
> > I suggest to you that your concern is misguided. My response
differs
> > somewhat to the Objectivist one, in that I concede the possibility
of
> > the invalidity of sense-data, but I see no reason to adopt that
> > contention. Believing in one's own senses is the natural, default
> > position in this debate, and the burden of proof rests, therefore,
with
> > the idealist.
> >
>
it
> worked, would be more *like* Fred's view than yours. Not quite, but
> similar---it is a "certain forms of perceptual skepticism are not
> coherently statable" argument.
Well, that seems plausible. I'm guessing that Quine's argument cannot
altogether rule out the possibility of idealism, though.
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Agent Cooper" <agentc...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> >>old episode of "Mission: Impossible" especially one where they had
> >
> > those
> >
> >>cool latex masks.
> >
> >
> > How do old episodes of "Mission Impossible" illustrate your point?
> >
> > As regard your and Reg's point about the supposed "possibility of
> > error", not only does that not *especially* have anything to do with
> > perception. It has *nothing* to do with it.
>
> Um, I was agreeing with you (I sometimes find myself inserting little
> superflous, unnecessary and redundant words like "especially" because I
> really like the sound of my own voice). I don't think that perceptual
> skepticism is coherently statable. That said, I don't think people never
> make mistakes about facts. For example, I might think that you're Fred
> Weiss, only to learn that you're Bob Kolker in a latex mask. It's not
> that perception as such causes the mistake, it's just that mistakes
> happen. You *look* like Bob. But that's not my eyes' fault, obviously,
> since that is in fact how you look.
Fred's point is that there is no sensory error. The error is conceptual.
Your senses faithfully relayed what was there. Expect a prompt reply from
Fred, which may already be traversing the ionosphere even as we speak.
Robert Kolker
>
>
> Fred's point is that there is no sensory error. The error is conceptual.
> Your senses faithfully relayed what was there. Expect a prompt reply from
> Fred, which may already be traversing the ionosphere even as we speak.
What the senses register is a function of their structure. Consider
eyesight. Humans can distinguish point sources as close as 2 minutes of
arc (1/30 degree). If the angle subtended is any smaller the two point
sources appear as a single point source. On the other hand an eagle or
vulture's eye has ten times the resolution as a human eye because the
retinas have a higher density of rods. So according to Phred, if our eye
says there is only one point source, then there is one point source
becauses our senses never lie. But if the person arranging the
observation places the two point sources together so they subtend an
angle of less that 2 min of arc, there are -in fact- two point sources
of light but our senses say only one. So what, if anything, is wrong?
Bob Kolker
Reggie Perrin
> >Except of course, as I keep showing you, you cannot deny them
without
> >using them, thus demonstrating their validity,i.e. their
"self-evident"
> >nature, if you will.
>
> >Once again, to those genuinely interested in this subject - which
> >obviously does not include dogmatic Kantoids with their heads up
their
> >ass - I recommend AR's essay, "Philosophical Detection" in PWNI.
>
> "They cannot be denied" -- given the system you have based upon them.
> They cannot be denied any more than Euclidean geometry can deny its
> own axioms. And I'm saying that those axioms are dogmatic, not that
> they aren't true for your system, but in the sense that they limit us
> to your system, and thus keep the thinking mind down to a limited
> level of functionality.
I agree with this point - minus the pejorative stuff about realism of
course - and I do think the whole terminology of axioms is misleading.
As you say, axioms are typically used to define a system, so they are
trivially and undeniably true within the system itself. Geometry is a
very good analogy for how I view the whole realism v idealism debate:
it's as though the antagonists are working within the confines of two
completely separate formal systems. On this view, it makes no sense to
say that someone who starts within the idealist framework is being
irrational, because their deductions from their axioms may well be
perfectly rational.
However, I come closer to Fred's position when I get to the issue of
how we come to accept a set of axioms. My belief is that all humans are
born "within" the realist system, and that the only rational route out
of there and into the idealist system is by philosophical argument.
Only this *can't* be a rational route, because starting from realism,
one can't deny the premises of realism! That's where I link up with the
stuff about denying what you are simultaneously affirming, etc., etc.
Now, if I understand you correctly, you perceive this to be a Catch-22
situation. I'm actually pretty sanguine about that (like Yossarian
himself IIRC) because *I don't want* to escape into idealism. I like
realism, it's kinda cute.
Anyway, all of this is really just something I pulled outta my ass, so
it may not be much use. I hope it at least clarifies my own position.
Reggie Perrin
Robert Kolker wrote:
> [...]
> What the senses register is a function of their structure. Consider
> eyesight. Humans can distinguish point sources as close as 2 minutes
of
> arc (1/30 degree). If the angle subtended is any smaller the two
point
> sources appear as a single point source. On the other hand an eagle
or
> vulture's eye has ten times the resolution as a human eye because the
> retinas have a higher density of rods. So according to Phred, if our
eye
> says there is only one point source, then there is one point source
> becauses our senses never lie. But if the person arranging the
> observation places the two point sources together so they subtend an
> angle of less that 2 min of arc, there are -in fact- two point
sources
> of light but our senses say only one. So what, if anything, is wrong?
That puts a fresh spin on the issue, but I have a feeling the correct
response would be the same as before: it's not that our senses are
lying to us, but that our inference from the sense-data is incorrect.
The interesting question, IMHO, then becomes one of where we draw the
line in demarcating our senses from our brain functions.
Robert Kolker
>
> That puts a fresh spin on the issue, but I have a feeling the correct
> response would be the same as before: it's not that our senses are
> lying to us, but that our inference from the sense-data is incorrect.
> The interesting question, IMHO, then becomes one of where we draw the
> line in demarcating our senses from our brain functions.
Neither our eyes nor our brains can separate point sources of light
subtending less than two minutes of arc. Our senses are incapable of
doing so, because of the density of rods in our retinas. It is the
physical makeup of the eye that makes it not possible to make this
distinction, but an eagle or a vulture can. Why? Becase Eagles and
Vultures are preditors and they have to be able to spot juicy targets at
great distances. A valture can see a dead rabit on the ground from an
altitude of 20,000 feet. For us to do it we need ITEK(tm) cameras. Our
eyes are unequal to the task.
I would remind you of the problem of telling up/down from other
directions. Our inner ear is the operative organ along with our eyes. In
a plane with no external reference to a horizon, once in a spin, the
inner ear will report falsely. Why? The centrifugal force on the fluid
of the inner ear gives a false readin of up/down. The little hairs in
the inner ear cannot distinguish between centrifugal force and gravity.
Since we evolved as land animals and not flying creatures nature did not
provide us with a built in inertial gyroscopic thingy that can keep its
direction regardless of other movement. That is why we have artificial
horizons in the cockput which are built around gyroscopes.
The third example is the Ames Room (please google). This is a very
interesting illusion. Even when you know how it works, you cannot unsee
the illusion. It cannot be done. It tricks hard wired cues for distance.
It is a perfect illusion. Knowledge of the principle of operation will
not undo it. In fact most techniques of camoflage exploit built in
perceptual mechanisms to create the illusion. That is why they always
work against unaided senses. Without exception.
Sometimes our senses reflect the state of reality, sometimes they don't.
Bob Kolker
Atlas Bugged
news:n2u031pj7oft2tpk9...@4ax.com...
> Special Relativity proves that the world is not as it appears to our
> senses. Even the spectrum of a light-wave that impacts our eyes is
> only relative to our acceleration regarding it (red/blue-shift). The
> weight that we feel is relative to the gravitational field surrounding
> the object. And it is not a common-sense notion to say that the speed
> of light is absolute relative to any given reference frame.
Then I guess we can kill the Jews, as long as everyone's doing it....
>If all
> knowledge were grounded in the senses, as with Objectivism, science
> would not have advanced at all, and the earth would still be the
> center of the universe.
That's a profoundly clueless misrepresentation of Objectivism - even for
you. I'm impressed.
Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:36:40 +0000 (UTC), Reggie Perrin
>> <reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >Well, we tried that way and we didn't get very far. About the only
>> >thing that was proved to anyone's satisfaction was "cogito ergo
>sum".
>> >What you describe as dogma I perceive to be the necessary conceptual
>> >structure that we must bring to our philosophical endeavours if we
>are
>> >to have any success.
>> I don't know anybody who is satisfied with the cogito, it is
>dogmatic.
>> According to Kant, Descartes' argument consisted of a sophistical
>> paralogism, conflating the noumenal with the phenomenal self.
>> Therefore these issues didn't end with Descartes at all, and I have
>no
>> idea where you're coming from with that statement.
>Well, I'm satisfied with the cogito, so that makes one. I don't know
>what you mean by it being "dogmatic", and I totally reject Kant's
>noumenal/phenomenal distinction, so I have no truck with that line of
>criticism.
Irrelevant to this context, because you did not state before that this
was only your opinion. "Well, we tried that way and we didn't get very
far. About the only thing that was proved to anyone's satisfaction was
"cogito ergo sum". I take it now that "anyone's satisfaction" only
included your own satisfaction.
>> However, what you perceive as the "necessary conceptual structure
>that
>> we must bring to our philosophical endeavours," I perceive as the end
>> of philosophy.
>A dose of skepticism every now and again is a healthy thing for
>philosophy. But taken too far it is literally unhealthy - Hume was
>driven to the point of a breakdown while writing THN. My general stance
>is that it is reasonable to assume a limited amount of stuff in order
>to get a theory off the ground. Something like Wittgenstein's image of
>the ladder that gets kicked away when one has reached the higher level.
I'm not talking about extreme skepticism anyway, but a more reasoned
and methodological kind.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Malrassic Park
>Malrassic Park wrote:
Yes, that's true.
--
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Malrassic Park
<now...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Reggie Perrin wrote:
.
.
The Matrix.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
Taking into account Kolker's "minor nit," the wavelength of a light
ray changes with our velocity relative to it, therefore it appears to
us as a different color depending on that relative velocity.
Weight is relative to a gravitational field, mass is not. But gravity
is not an object of perception. Therefore, to our senses, the same
object should always weigh the same because our senses can't
think about issues such as mass, having no direct perceptual
evidence of gravity to go by. For another gravity example, our senses
would naturally inform us that a bowling ball will fall faster than a
feather because one is heavier than the other. Once again, our
senses inform us incorrectly.
Philosophy teaches us to think outside this "box" created by our
senses and common-sense. While I realize some people think that
philosophy is nothing but historical references to past philosophers,
that is not what philosophers actually teach when doing philosophy.
They teach us how to question our basic assumptions. Criticism is the
basis of philosophical teaching, especially self-criticism, although
it may take the form of relative, not absolute, skepticism.
--
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Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> On Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:31:28 +0000 (UTC), fred...@papertig.com
>wrote:
All knowledge begins with experience ("all humans are born 'within'
the realist system"), but it is not necessarily limited to experience.
I hope that helps you understand my position too. Because if it was
limited to experience we would still, as I said, believe the earth is
the center of the universe.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Reggie Perrin
Malrassic Park wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:43:53 +0000 (UTC), Reggie Perrin
> <reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Those two examples are non-sequiturs. Red-shifted light appears red
> >*because it is red*. The weight we feel *is the weight* in that
> >particular field - in another field, the object might have a
different
> >weight. So SR does not prove that the world is not as it appears to
our
> >senses.
>
> Taking into account Kolker's "minor nit," the wavelength of a light
> ray changes with our velocity relative to it, therefore it appears to
> us as a different color depending on that relative velocity.
>
> Weight is relative to a gravitational field, mass is not. But gravity
> is not an object of perception. Therefore, to our senses, the same
> object should always weigh the same because our senses can't
> think about issues such as mass, having no direct perceptual
> evidence of gravity to go by.
I don't follow your argument. My impression is that you are allowing
far more complex things to count as sense data than I would be prepared
to admit. To return to the example of the red-shifted light, I would
certainly allow the photon incident on the retina to count. I think I
would also allow the electrical impulses along the optic nerve.
However, I wouldn't want to count "I see a red object now" as part of
the sensory data. This seems more like an inference from the data than
part of the data itself. Similar arguments could be extended to mass
and weight.
> For another gravity example, our senses
> would naturally inform us that a bowling ball will fall faster than a
> feather because one is heavier than the other. Once again, our
> senses inform us incorrectly.
Again, I say that it is the inference from sense data which is
incorrect, not the data itself. So I don't regard this as an example of
our senses informing us incorrectly.
Malrassic Park
<reggie...@gmail.com> wrote:
That is some extremely precise logic you are applying there. What if I
included judgments inferred from evidence of the senses? How would
that affect your conclusion?
--
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Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
Fred would answer that it is by means of the senses that you have learned
the above. You would never be able to say that the senses lied to you if you
did not have right information. And how did you get the right information?
Via the senses. It is very important to Fred that we should know reality as
it is, and we have only the senses to interphase with reality. The 5 senses
correct each other, and sometimes it may be necessary to accumulate
observations over a long period of time. I agree with Fred that via the
senses one gets useful information and in that sense they are valid.
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
> Reggie Perrin wrote:
> >
> > That puts a fresh spin on the issue, but I have a feeling the correct
> > response would be the same as before: it's not that our senses are
> > lying to us, but that our inference from the sense-data is incorrect.
> > The interesting question, IMHO, then becomes one of where we draw the
> > line in demarcating our senses from our brain functions.
>
> Neither our eyes nor our brains can separate point sources of light
> subtending less than two minutes of arc. Our senses are incapable of
> doing so, because of the density of rods in our retinas. It is the
> physical makeup of the eye that makes it not possible to make this
> distinction, but an eagle or a vulture can. Why? Becase Eagles and
> Vultures are preditors and they have to be able to spot juicy targets at
> great distances. A valture can see a dead rabit on the ground from an
> altitude of 20,000 feet. For us to do it we need ITEK(tm) cameras. Our
> eyes are unequal to the task.
Our eyes are equal to the task when they look at the photograph. What do we
use to read instruments? The senses.
fred...@papertig.com
> > ...A valture can see a dead rabit on the ground from an
> > altitude of 20,000 feet. For us to do it we need ITEK(tm) cameras.
Our
> > eyes are unequal to the task.
>
> Our eyes are equal to the task when they look at the photograph. What
do we
> use to read instruments? The senses.
Exactly, Acorn. If you demonstrated similar astuteness in your other
philosophical pronouncements, you might not have to repeat Philos. 101
as you have year and year out.
Fred Weiss
Mark N
> [...] I sometimes find myself inserting little
> superflous, unnecessary and redundant words [...]
You're a funny man, Coop! :-)
Mark
Mark N
> Agent Cooper wrote:
>>[...] For example, I might think that you're Fred
>>Weiss, only to learn that you're Bob Kolker in a latex mask. [...]
[...]
> I also agree that the possibility of error is not important in this
> context. BTW, there's something distinctly unnerving about your toy
> example.
"Free will is axiomatic! Volitional consciousness *can't* be governed
strictly by physical laws! Don't you understand? It's *axiomatic* I tell
you!"
Rrrrip! (Sound of a mask being removed.)
"I do not have a mind. I never had a mind. Only three pounds of gooey
wetware. There is nothing 'mental' about any of this! It is all done
with photons and meat!"
:-)
Mark
Atlas Bugged
news:1110526936.5...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Exactly, Acorn. If you demonstrated similar astuteness in your other
> philosophical pronouncements, you might not have to repeat Philos. 101
> as you have year and year out.
You have to give him credit because he demonstrated that he knows what
you're talking about. It is a mildly disturbing asymmetry because I don't
have the *slightest fucking idea* what he's talking about half the time.
Worse, yet, is I don't know which half is which.
Fortunately, however, no one does. So my plan is to reach a consensus with
the others. We'll vote. And that will be, in fact, what he meant.
Robert Kolker
> Fred would answer that it is by means of the senses that you have learned
> the above. You would never be able to say that the senses lied to you if you
> did not have right information.
Even so, in the -instance- and -condition- of observation that I
described the eyes do not report facts. The Ames Room illusion proves
that knowledge of the illusion does not make the illusion go away. We
have certain built in checkpoints (genertically wired in by evolution).
If this checkpoints are bypassed then our senses do not work reliably.
The example of the inner ear unable to distinguish between gravitational
up/down and centrifugal up/down is a case in point. Since our species
does not generally live in side of airplanes in a spin manuever, there
is no harm to our long run survival.
> And how did you get the right information?
> Via the senses. It is very important to Fred that we should know reality as
> it is, and we have only the senses to interphase with reality. The 5 senses
> correct each other, and sometimes it may be necessary to accumulate
> observations over a long period of time. I agree with Fred that via the
> senses one gets useful information and in that sense they are valid.
We get useful and correct information most of the time. Which is one of
the reasons we have survived. But we have also learned how to produce
conditions in which our senses do not give correct reports. That is the
basis of magician's tricks and camoflage.
The proposition that our senses are never wrong is false. The propositon
that our senses are sufficiently correct for us to survive (collectively
and individually) is true. Our eyes are not nearly as good as predator
and raptor birds, but we manage. We can't hear nearly as well as owls or
bats, but we manage. We can't see ultraviolet directly as do bees, but
we manage. We cannot see into the infrared as cats do (cats do "see" in
the dark) but we manage. We cannot detect "dark matter" directly but we
can infer its presence by other means. We manage. We compansate for the
mediocrity of our senses by inferential means.
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
>
> Our eyes are equal to the task when they look at the photograph. What do we
> use to read instruments? The senses.
We find out that our senses were tricked after the fact. That is the
bais of camoflage. It is very good in wartime.
Bob Kolker
>
Robert Kolker
>
> Exactly, Acorn. If you demonstrated similar astuteness in your other
> philosophical pronouncements, you might not have to repeat Philos. 101
> as you have year and year out.
>
In the first instance our senses were tricked. Many a person has lived
because military camoflage has caused the enemies sense to tell him
lies. Many have died because the enemy's camoflage has caused our senses
to lie. In the case of camoflage even "knowing the trick" does not
disolve the illusion. The Ames Room is a good illustration of that. If
one takes motion pictures of people crossing the Ames Room the illusion
is still conveyed by t.v. or motion pictures. The illusion won't go
away. It -can't- go away, because certain built in "tripwires" in our
visual cortex have been plucked. The fact that we discovered these by a
process of imperfect observation and astule -inference- does not change
the fact that -instances- of our perception are unreliable or can be
made unreliable.
Bob Kolker
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Exactly, Acorn. If you demonstrated similar astuteness in your
other
> > philosophical pronouncements, you might not have to repeat Philos.
101
> > as you have year and year out.
> >
>
> In the first instance our senses were tricked. Many a person has
lived
> because military camoflage has caused the enemies sense to tell him
> lies.
And what does military camoflage count on? That we will SEE one thing
that we will THINK is another. In other words it relies on the fact
that our senses have a specific identity and will act in certain
specific ways, e.g. that we don't have x-ray vision and can't see
through camoflage. (Camoflage of course also relies on the senses so
that we can know what will work as camoflage and what won't. It also
enables us to develop technologies to see through attempts at
camoflage).
In other words, moron, our senses are *not* tricked. We are. And
furthermore camoflage itself - just like all illusions - *presupposes*
the validity of the senses, not the opposite. How else would you know
it's camoflage or would you be able to figure out other illusions?
Also, the validity of the senses does not presuppose or require the
omniscience of omnipotence of the senses. It doesn't require that we
see everything that exists and in the same instant. It just requires
that anything that exists we can perceive - directly or indirectly,
i.e. that there is nothing in principle unknowable. So, eg. that we can
figure out camoflage and other illusions.
Does the fact that we make mistakes, invalidate the mind? Does the fact
that we can be illogical, invalidate logic? If it did, you in
particular would be in big, big trouble.
Look, I realize you are programmed to repeat the same crap on this
issue which you have for years regardless of what anyone ever says to
you on the subject - and all of this has over and over again. But it
also gets endlessly tiresome and suggests that you are actually a lot
stupider than you appear to be.
Fred Weiss
Robert Kolker
> And what does military camoflage count on?
It counts on certain inputs producing false impressions. That is the
entire point of camoflage. The senses cannot handle certain inputs
correctly.
> That we will SEE one thing
> that we will THINK is another.
There is no THINK. The impressions are direct and instantenous. No time
for logic. And even THINKing cannot dissolve the illusion. Knowing how
the Ames Room works does not stop us from seing what is not the case.
Knowing something is there does not give us the ability to separate it
from its background if it is properly shaded and disguised.
Bob Kolker
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> > And what does military camoflage count on?
>
> It counts on certain inputs producing false impressions. That is the
> entire point of camoflage. The senses cannot handle certain inputs
> correctly.
What would be the "correct" input?
Fred Weiss
Reggie Perrin
> > That we will SEE one thing
> > that we will THINK is another.
>
> There is no THINK. The impressions are direct and instantenous. No
time
> for logic. And even THINKing cannot dissolve the illusion. Knowing
how
> the Ames Room works does not stop us from seing what is not the case.
The speed of the process does not rule out some form of primitive
inference. Think how quickly you respond when someone calls your name,
for example. This too is a near instantaneous sequence, yet you must
acknowledge that some mental processing is at work here.
Robert Kolker
Correct: The world is A and we see A:
Incorrect: The world is A and we see other than A.
For example the tree leaf locust. You look at a branch a see a leaf. But
it is not a leaf. It is a locust that has evolved to look like a leaf.
Get it?
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
>
> The speed of the process does not rule out some form of primitive
> inference. Think how quickly you respond when someone calls your name,
> for example. This too is a near instantaneous sequence, yet you must
> acknowledge that some mental processing is at work here.
The misrecognition occurs before a conscious thought. Inference is
purely a conscious process. Misrecognition is not. In some cases the
misrecognition is so complete that we do not give it a thought. For
example the tree leaf ant and the tree leaf locust. Both have evolved to
look exactly like a leaf. As a result birds (who have very good eyes by
the way) do not recognize a good meal. Which is the point of it all.
Bob Kolker
fred...@papertig.com
In other words the "correct" input would be to both see a leaf and not
see a leaf at the same time?
Or maybe the "correct" input would be that we had another sense, other
than the visual, that could discern a difference between a leaf and an
insect that looks like a leaf. Say, some kind of heat-seeking mechanism
(although one would assume that evolution would develop camoflages for
that as well).
The camoflage wouldn't work, now would it, if a leaf (or something that
looked like a leaf) didn't look like a leaf?
Btw, how do you know that a locust can look like a leaf?
Get it?
Fred Weiss
Lionell Griffith
> Robert Kolker wrote:
>>it is not a leaf. It is a locust that has evolved to look like a leaf.
> Btw, how do you know that a locust can look like a leaf?
It should be simple. If it looks like a leaf and we look at it, its
going to look like a leaf without regard to it being a leaf or not. If
it didn't look like a leaf, it wouldn't look like a leaf, again without
regard to it being a leaf or not. That is if vision is a valid sense
for sensing what things look like rather than sensing what things are.
This is all that is necessary for the sense of vision to be valid.
KAL's mistake does not rest only upon evasion of the above very simple
truth. He has made the basic presumption that he really knows what
things are without looking. He has also decided what his vision sense
should actually do without considering what it actually does. Then he
is very disappointed when his vision sense does not support his
presumption and baseless decision
At the same time he screams that the only knowing possible is empirical
knowledge. Oh with the possible exception of math which he holds cannot
possibly be based upon observation and experience. Blanking out all
the while that he is demanding that one's vision be what it isn't and
can't be. He thereby makes all of his claims that he is so strongly
grounded in empirical knowledge fraudulent.
Our eyes tell us what things look like and nothing else. Our ears tell
us what things sound like and nothing else, Our skin tells us what
things feel like and nothing else, Our nose tells us what things smell
like. Our mouth tells us what things taste like. How our senses
experience what they sense is what they experience and nothing else.
Our mind uses reason to integrate all of that many dimensions of
appearance along with experience and experiment to tell us what things
actually are.
Such a complex context based understanding is beyond the capability of
KAL's apparently low powered low capacity CPU. I suggest its way past
time for KAL to stop pretending he is an all knowing machine like god
and become an actual human being living on earth with the rest of us.
However, we will not be disappointed - KAL will reset and repeat. It
will be as if nothing was ever said.
Robert Kolker
> In other words the "correct" input would be to both see a leaf and not
> see a leaf at the same time?
No. The correct perception would be a set of eyes that could distinguish
the insect from a leaf. Unfortunately we do not have those eyes. An eye
that could see in the infrared range could make that distinction, but we
do not have that eye. In short our eyes can be fooled under certain
circumstances.
In some cases our senses fail us in not seeing what -is- there. And in
other cases our fail us in seeing what -is not- there, such as apparent
unequal heights in the Ames Room illusion.
Or somtimes our senses tell us just plainly wrong things. Such was our
inner ear telling up up/down is at a thirty degree angle with the
horizon. Which means we cannot trust our inner ear to tell us up and
down, but we can trust our eyes to read a gyroscopic artificial horizon.
It is called IFR --- Instrument Flying Rules.
Our senses -can be fooled-. We know of several ways and we even make use
of the way our senses can be decieved. That is what camoflage is all about.
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
>
> KAL's mistake does not rest only upon evasion of the above very simple
> truth. He has made the basic presumption that he really knows what
> things are without looking.
Not at all. If we wait we will see that "leaf" fly off and reveal that
it is an insect. Or if we view the branch in a different spectrum we can
see clearly what it is.
I am not evading a thing. I am imparting certain facts about our senses.
Our eyes do not always reveal what is in front of us and sometimes tell
us what is not in front of us (Ames Room illusion).
Fortunately we are endowed with multiple senses so we are not helpless
when conditions that confuse our vision (say) exist. We can resort to
hearing and touching in somecases. Or we can use instruments which are
not confused, like gyroscopic artificial horizons.
If you know jackshit about flying, you would realize that it is fatally
dangerous to trust in unaided vision and balance. It is a way of dying
young. The first thing you do is admit the senses are not perfect. The
second thing you do is to learn under what circumstances the sense can
be confused. The third thing you do is construct instruments that
overcome the deficiency. Got it?
I get so goddamned tired of talking to -mud feet- who do not know how to
fly. People who do not know how to fly lead limited lives trapped on the
ground by the surly bonds. The key to safe flying is to know one's
limitations and take the proper steps to avoid the consequences or to
remedy the deficiency.
You are a -mud foot- who has never touched the sky. And that is pitiful.
Bob Kolker
Malrassic Park
<now...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>You are a -mud foot- who has never touched the sky. And that is pitiful.
>Bob Kolker
Yes, but there are also times when pilots have been known to kiss the
ground after a rough landing.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Robert Kolker
>
> Yes, but there are also times when pilots have been known to kiss the
> ground after a rough landing.
Any landing you can walking away from is a GOOD landing.
There are old pilots and there bold pilots, but there are no old bold
pilots.
Bob Kolker
Malrassic Park
<now...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>Malrassic Park wrote:
>> Yes, but there are also times when pilots have been known to kiss the
>> ground after a rough landing.
>Any landing you can walking away from is a GOOD landing.
Sounds like the type of cynical attitude adopted by people when they
go to war or risk their lives in some other way. When it comes right
down to it, nothing beats good old solid terra firma.
>There are old pilots and there bold pilots, but there are no old bold
>pilots.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
tendentionell
RVn...@comcast.com>...
> Ken Gardner wrote:
>
> >
> > Exactly. Whatever other criticisms of Objectivism people have come up
> > with, no one has successfully attacked the most fundamental and
> > important part of all: her theory of concepts and, in particular, her
> > discovery that concepts, properly formed, are objective.
>
> Peirce had that view also. In addition Adler, expanding on Aristotle put
> forth that view before Rand ever published her philosophy.
>
> Bob Kolker
hi, this is my first here , i´m reading your theories which are very
philosophicly, but nowhere else is the right place but here! Excuse my
english and that i do not know some of the great philosophics.to the
,,theory of concepts,, i think it is true that after properly formed,
wich means to me ,, trial and error ,,is definitly individualy
objectiv. The most fundamental theory of concepst are the
chromosomes,and they are being at this point revealed and with this
you could even more succesfully attack our fundamental concept !!!!!!
Lionell Griffith
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
>> In other words the "correct" input would be to both see a leaf and not
>> see a leaf at the same time?
>
>
> of the way our senses can be decieved. That is what camoflage is all about.
>
As predicted:
Mark N
> Atlas Bugged wrote:
> I follow it.
Yeah, so you claim. Reggie seems to think that he understands Acar too.
But I'm skeptical. I believe that Acar's views are utterly impenetrable
-- a mystery inside a puzzle, wrapped up in an enigma.
> "He's on the road to Rorty." [sing this to the Talking
> Heads tune, "Road to Nowhere."]
Might not you guys be deceiving yourselves? Reading into Acar's words
ideas that are familiar to you? Has Acar read Rorty? Do many people come
to Rorty's view (whatever that is) independently?
If you really think you do understand Acar's general philosophical
outlook (especially the "objective" vs. "subjective" thing, and his
ideas about "knowledge" and "truth" in general), maybe you would
consider posting your interpretation of it, and letting Acar comment on
whether you have it right or not.
If you did manage to give a coherent account of Acar's views, and it got
his seal of approval, you would be saving a lot of people around here a
lot of head-scratching and bewilderment. On the other hand, I'm not sure
what would be in it for you, as a rational egoist. :-)
Mark
Acar
It will be what you are certain that I meant.
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Agent Cooper" <agentc...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
> I follow it. "He's on the road to Rorty." [sing this to the Talking
> Heads tune, "Road to Nowhere."]
>
> BTW, last I checked, Richard Rorty got religion. So maybe it *is* all
> connected.
Why must everyone be on the road to someone else -- someone to follow?
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 9:14 AM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
That instances of our perception are deceptive is very obvious. It happens
all the time. At times Fred seems to be arguing against that but you know
Fred. He hangs to dogma like a pit-bull even when he got it wrong. Where I
agree with Objectivists about the senses is in two points: (1) they are
physical sensors that predictably and quantitatevly react to the stimuli
received. That way they are reliable. (2) They are reliable also in the
sense that regardless of instances of error, it is through the senses that
we gather useful information about the world. Inference of course is
essential in correcting errors of perception, but the correct standard for
inference can only be obtained via the senses. Objectivists MUST defend the
reliability of the senses as the interphase with reality because they are
direct realists. If the senses could not be relied upon to reveal reality as
it is. Objectivism would crash on Kant's altar.
Robert Kolker
> direct realists. If the senses could not be relied upon to reveal reality as
> it is. Objectivism would crash on Kant's altar.
Our survival as a species is testamony that our senses are sufficient
for us to navigate the physical kosmos correctly enough. We do not have
perfection. We have sufficiency.
The best is the enemy of the good enough.
What really compensates for the mediocrity of our senses is our ability
to integrate tghe good enough perceptions we have into an effective
model of reality, even the parts we cannot see or perceive directly. We
do this better than any other critter on the planet. That is why we can
"see" better than eagles. We are smart enough to build ITEK(tm) high
resolution cameras. They can resp;ve a license plate number from an
altitude of 20 miles or more.
Man is the only mammal that theorizes.
Bob Kolker
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Kolker" <now...@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
> Acar wrote:
>
> > Fred would answer that it is by means of the senses that you have
learned
> > the above. You would never be able to say that the senses lied to you if
you
> > did not have right information.
>
> Even so, in the -instance- and -condition- of observation that I
> described the eyes do not report facts. The Ames Room illusion proves
> that knowledge of the illusion does not make the illusion go away. We
> have certain built in checkpoints (genertically wired in by evolution).
> If this checkpoints are bypassed then our senses do not work reliably.
> The example of the inner ear unable to distinguish between gravitational
> up/down and centrifugal up/down is a case in point. Since our species
> does not generally live in side of airplanes in a spin manuever, there
> is no harm to our long run survival.
>
>
>
> > And how did you get the right information?
> > Via the senses. It is very important to Fred that we should know reality
as
> > it is, and we have only the senses to interphase with reality. The 5
senses
> > correct each other, and sometimes it may be necessary to accumulate
> > observations over a long period of time. I agree with Fred that via the
> > senses one gets useful information and in that sense they are valid.
>
> We get useful and correct information most of the time. Which is one of
> the reasons we have survived. But we have also learned how to produce
> conditions in which our senses do not give correct reports. That is the
> basis of magician's tricks and camoflage.
>
> The proposition that our senses are never wrong is false. The propositon
> that our senses are sufficiently correct for us to survive (collectively
> and individually) is true. Our eyes are not nearly as good as predator
> and raptor birds, but we manage. We can't hear nearly as well as owls or
> bats, but we manage. We can't see ultraviolet directly as do bees, but
> we manage. We cannot see into the infrared as cats do (cats do "see" in
> the dark) but we manage. We cannot detect "dark matter" directly but we
> can infer its presence by other means. We manage. We compansate for the
> mediocrity of our senses by inferential means.
Remember that inferences are made from sensory data. However if your claim
is that the senses are insufficient to tell us anything that there is to
know, I agree completely. Contrary to unrealistic Objectivist claims, it
should be an easy inference that many things may exist that may not be
detectable via the senses. After all, why do we need instruments? Can we
develop instruments to detect, measure, analyze and understand anything that
actually exists? I don't think so. I have defended the reliability of the
senses only in that they can correct each other and with the help of
instruments allow us to reliably make useful predictions. Our senses are
reliable -- for practical purposes. Can they do everything that Objectivists
claim that they can do? NO.
Malrassic Park
>If the senses could not be relied upon to reveal reality as
>it is. Objectivism would crash on Kant's altar.
Only in the sense that the ARIan branch doesn't know the first thing
about Kant, or his view on the senses.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Atlas Bugged
news:006c01c526b8$c6a27260$64fe...@cinci.rr.com...
> It will be what you are certain that I meant.
Right. You are so *fucking* out-of-your mind it's not funny, but like
Prescott (who's also wildly wrong,) you are a gentleman and a
fabulously-mistaken scholar. So I feel compelled to be civil to you, even
though the outcome of your politics would mean a violent end for me. And:
No milkshakes - for anyone.
What I don't get is your motives. Mal is just a bile-pile, and Prescott
hilariously thinks he's one of us. So what's your motivation for living in
Galt's Gulch while repudiating all that's good about it?
Malrassic Park
<atlas...@gmail.com> wrote:
>What I don't get is your motives. Mal is just a bile-pile
If I'm a bile-pile, then you must be a bile-mountain.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Acar
----- Original Message -----
From: "Agent Cooper" <agentc...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: humanities.philosophy.objectivism
Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 11:44 PM
Subject: Re: Rand on Concepts
> Acar wrote:
>
> >>I follow it. "He's on the road to Rorty." [sing this to the Talking
> >>Heads tune, "Road to Nowhere."]
> >>
> >>BTW, last I checked, Richard Rorty got religion. So maybe it *is* all
> >>connected.
> >
> > Why must everyone be on the road to someone else -- someone to follow?
>
> Actually, since Rorty is probably the most famous and influential living
> philosopher, this was in a way high praise, since you seem to be putting
> things together on your own. I just think that that is the wrong
> path--it's not my path. I think you probably feel put-upon because there
> is such a wide consensus about the right path hereabouts. If this was
> humanities.philosophy.pragmatism you'd be a local deity. Consider that
> the only philosophy PhD's here claim to understand you. Of course, one
> might worry about precisely that.
I have disclaimed that I'm not a philosopher. What I write is usually about
criticizing logical validity and some of it sounds like philosophy. What I
don't understand is why several people say that they don't get it, since I
take pains to express myself with precision, (as time permits.)
> I think that Objectivists aside, you, Reggie, Bob, Mal and Mark are
> among the sharpest people here. If I'm forgetting someone, please
> whoever you are don't take offense.
You are a glutton for punishment. You have just injured some egos.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Justin Case.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Malrassic Park
<agentc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think that Objectivists aside, you, Reggie, Bob, Mal and Mark are
>among the sharpest people here. If I'm forgetting someone, please
>whoever you are don't take offense.
If I'm among the sharpies, then it's only because of people such as
yourself who keep me thinking.
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
Malrassic Park
<agentc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Mal, by contrast, does not strike me that way. I think part of his shtik
>is that he sees Kant's ethics as far *more* individualistic than Rand's.
>It is precisely the residual communalness of Objectivism he deplores.
>
>Fascinating.
Individualism is a political ideal. Egoism is the moral theory Rand
promulgated. Randroids may be individualists, but never egoists, they
have traded in their souls for a piece of Rand's. Cults and even
entire religions have sprung up around personalities, be it the great
guru or wise philosopher. The psychological relationship is always the
same, the content of the belief system doesn't matter, as Objectivism
has proven. Because even a strictly rational egoistical system can
create hordes of unthinking followers, due to the strength of the
personality behind the system and the weakness of those helplessly
captivated by it like moths dancing to the glow of a lightbulb.
There are many aspects of the Kantian tradition which may be
considered egoistic, but the best word for it is "personal."
Enlightenment is a personal matter, and salvation is also unique to
the person involved. All of Kant's practical/political examples
involve individuals, and the state is nowhere to be found in them
except perhaps after those examples where Kant criticized the state's
laws as "barbarous and incomplete," inept at providing answers
satisfactory to the people's sense of justice and of right and wrong.
But Kant's political goals were also limited to his time and place, in
the sense that he only saw the hope of political freedom in the
possibility of getting the right king who would deign to allow such
things. And in the economic realm Kant produced zero, only to give
his reader a sense at times of his strong belief in contract law and
extreme financial conservatism. So while I certainly don't see Kant
as a welfare statist or taxpayer-thieving socialist, he had such great
respect for the absolute value of things when they are determined
by law -- financially, morally, politically -- that he did not need to
be an individualist or an egoist. He did not need to justify his
beliefs that way, as Rand did. Egoism, Kant believed, was natural
to humans anyway. Rand's only purpose in it was obviously to increase
ideological pressure against political forces seeking to undermine the
individual, as these were forces which she perceived were threatening
to tear apart her adopted country which she loved. So there is a
strong activist side to Rand's egoism/individualism that is lacking in
Kantianism. Besides, to be that kind of activist in Kant's day was
almost unheard of, it would have led straight to his martyrdom, and
that really wasn't Kant's "bag."
--
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/Write-Like-A-Wanker.html
fred...@papertig.com
> KAL...has made the basic presumption that he really knows what
> things are without looking.
It's more blatantly contradictory than that - although you are right
that his implicit assumption is that we "should" be able to
see...without seeing ("we are blind because we have eyes").
His blatant contradiction is as simple as this: "we can see that we
can't see".
"See", he declares, "the leaf flies off". "See," he concludes, "we can
see that we can't see."
See?
This is merely a demonstration of the axiomatic validity of the senses.
Note that he cannot prove their invalidity without using them.
This is similar to the argument from uncertainty. How do we know that
we can't be certain of anything? Because we're certain we make
mistakes. How do you know we make mistakes? Ummm....
Now let's deal with Acorn's variation of it. There are things he says
which we cannot see. Fine, Acorn, let's see one. Ummmm...
Malenoid being about as dense as Acorn actually did provide an example.
How do we know the senses are invalid? Special Relativity. And how do
we know that Special Relativity is true? Why just look. Things look
different from different perspectives. How do you know that? Why just
look. Uh, huh.
Acorn, you know, elevates his ignorance into a principle of
epistemology. He doesn't need to have any actual knowledge of something
to make claims about it. Objectivism being a prime example of that.
Reading anything by AR would taint his admitted ignorance of it and
thus make it less possible for him to make ridiculous claims about it
based on that ignorance. How does he know for example that AR didn't
prove "measurement omission"? Because he didn't read ITOE. His proof
that she didn't prove it is that he is ignorant of her proof. By the
same reasoning he can know that there are unknowables without knowing
one. His ignorance of an unknowable is enough.
Anyway, everyone knows that all we can know are "appearances" and not
"things-in-themselves"? How do we know that? Well, we thought it was a
leaf but the "thing-in-itself" was a locust. Oh wait, I thought we
couldn't know "things-in-themselves".
Acorn may be "on the road to Rorty" but he's already on the well-trod
path of Kant in getting there.
Fred Weiss
fred...@papertig.com
> fred...@papertig.com wrote:
>
> > In other words the "correct" input would be to both see a leaf and
not
> > see a leaf at the same time?
>
> No. The correct perception would be a set of eyes that could
distinguish
> the insect from a leaf. Unfortunately we do not have those eyes.
But obviously we do have those eyes, otherwise how do you know that the
insect just looks like a leaf.
You're not hallucinating, are you? You're not looking at the insect
(that looks like a leaf) and seeing, I dunno, a pink elephant. Are you?
You are seeing precisely what you should expect to see given the nature
of your eyes and the object in question. If you had poor eyesight, you
might not even see it all. Would that make the perception *incorrect*?
If you can't tell how many legs the insect has without examining it up
close, is your perception incorrect?
What you mean by "correct" is something like "all-seeing"? Unless we
can see everything and at once, our perception is incorrect? That's
obviously absurd.
Fred Weiss
Reggie Perrin
Mark N wrote:
> [...]
> Might not you guys be deceiving yourselves? Reading into Acar's words
> ideas that are familiar to you? Has Acar read Rorty? Do many people
come
> to Rorty's view (whatever that is) independently?
I think Acar said recently that he hadn't read pragmatist philosophy,
or at least not to any great extent. If this is the case, I agree with
Coop that this makes his acquisition of that set of views quite an
achievement. I also agree that we should be cautious about
pigeon-holing people, but that is what philosophers are trained to do
to some extent ("Ah, so he's really one of *those*. I already know how
to deal with *those*"). It's like Kuhn's description of scientific
training.
> If you really think you do understand Acar's general philosophical
> outlook (especially the "objective" vs. "subjective" thing, and his
> ideas about "knowledge" and "truth" in general), maybe you would
> consider posting your interpretation of it, and letting Acar comment
on
> whether you have it right or not.
I'll have a stab on the objectivity/subjectivity aspect.
Acar's view is, I think, closer than you might realise to our take on
objectivity. We all agree, I hope, that objectivity means, at the
minimum, independence of any particular observer; X, Y and Z will all
agree that B is a fact (assuming the obvious caveat about the
rationality of X, Y and Z). What's the underlying explanation for this?
The realist says "Well, duh! They all agree on B because B is a fact
about the world. It doesn't just exist independently of any particular
observer, it exists independently of *all* observers." The pragmatist
is more circumspect and, as his wont, chooses to focus on the
*practice* of determining objectivity. What do we actually do when we
want to prove B is a fact? We invite other people to have a look. In
practice, Acar might say, when we talk of objectivity what we really
mean is inter-subjectivity. Calling B a statement about reality is just
an assertion - all we can actually claim is that x amount of people
agree on B, and that's what we really mean when we talk about B being
an objective fact.
Now, what is the motivation for this excessive (from our perspective)
caution about realism? The master argument for anti-realism was
cogently framed by Laudan (a pragmatist himself) in a famous paper
called _The Pessimistic Meta-Induction_. He gives a list of theoretical
entities - the celestial spheres, caloric, phlogiston - that were once
believed to be scientific fact and are now regarded as totally false.
Given this poor track record, says Laudan, how can any of us claim that
science "tracks truth"? All we really have is a bunch of people
agreeing on something, and a later bunch of people agreeing that the
first bunch were wrong.
Inroads have been made on tackling this argument, but that's a whole
different post. The point is that the PMI remains something the realist
must have an answer for, which is why Acar has raised a similar point
in the past about Newtonian and post-Newtonian science.
That's my summary, and I hope that I have not been too injust to Acar.
My own take on pragmatism is that it seems highly plausible when you
are looking at a certain level of complexity. Yeah, scientists *do*
rely on peer review to guarantee 'objectivity'. Yeah, there are things
we thought were certainly true in the past, and we now think are
certainly false. But when we screw the glass down to the micro-level,
pragmatism starts to look absurd. You mean the guy on the desert island
can't acquire any new knowledge? Crusoe can't know if he has a bump on
his head until Friday takes a look? I'd be interested to see if there
is a reasonable pragmatist response to those kind of questions, but
unless and until I see one, I'll continue to think of pragmatism as
sophistry.
Robert Kolker
>
>
> If I'm among the sharpies, then it's only because of people such as
> yourself who keep me thinking.
I will second that emotion.
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
>> But Kant's political goals were also limited to his time and place, in
> the sense that he only saw the hope of political freedom in the
> possibility of getting the right king who would deign to allow such
> things.
I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that Kant was very
sympathetic to the American Revolution. Apparently word of the American
Revolultion had reached all the way to Koenigsberg, where Kant lived,
and from which he never moved very far. His town was located not to far
from a seaport, so word of happenings overseas are very likely to have
made it inland.
Bob Kolker
Robert Kolker
> Lionell Griffith wrote:
>
>
>>KAL...has made the basic presumption that he really knows what
>>things are without looking.
>
>
> It's more blatantly contradictory than that - although you are right
> that his implicit assumption is that we "should" be able to
> see...without seeing ("we are blind because we have eyes").
No such thing. I have pointed out again and again that our sensory
apparatus in aggregate is more than sufficient for our survival needs.
Further more I have pointed out that our senses work just fine under
most conditions, but fail us under unusual and particular conditions.
Hence the success of camoflage. Fortunately, for us, nature is not
camfoflaged for us for the most part. However if we should go out to
find a tiger in the grass we may have a difficult time of it, since the
tiger acquired his stripes by evolution precisely so it would be hard
for his prey to spot him whilst he is hiding in the grass, until he is
ready to pounce.
Our eyes and vison are built in such a way that we detect -movement-
better than we do foreground background contrast in the visible
spectrum. But clever mammals that we are, we can build polarizing
filters to offset some of that and we can build infrared and ultraviolet
scanners to help us separate foreground from back ground. We are so
smart they we can build charge-coupled cascade devices to see in very
faint light by amplification of the little light there is. Hence those
weird greenish scenes you have seen in t.v. broadcasts concerning the
Gulf War. That is all night vision based on charged couple cascade
amplifiers. Cats see in the dark because of their genes. We see in the
dark because of our braininess.
No, I do not expect us to be able to perceive everything. I expect that
we perceive enough so we can live to the age of reproduction, which is
all that evolution selects for. Our senses are not perfect. And they do
not have to be perfect. Our senses are sufficient for our needs. Good
enough works and perfect is impossible. And we can get somewhat beyond
them because we are SMART. We are the only theorem proving mammals on
the planet.
Bob Kolker