Karl

No, only for man. Animals integrate perceptually, but humans don't. Animals don't need concepts men do. Animals are short term, instantaneous and automatic. Man is born a clean slate and then must turn precepts into concepts then integrate the concepts. Man must plan long range, but animals have no sense of that, they just make perceptual integrations. Monkey see, monkey do. Men have to form a concept and then use reason to integrate that concept with multiple others, but, unlike animals we choose what we do and don't integrate. Animals don't choose what they integrate, they just learn and apply. It's that extra stage in men that changes things completely.

Senses aren't reasoning. Mans only means of survival is his mind. Go back a step and see a tree survives because it is goal oriented, it has no consciousness, it has no perception but it responds to stimuli. Yet, it still sheds leaves, grows, takes up water, moves its roots to find water and suck up nutrients. It converts Co2 to cellulose. You cannot then say that a cat is very similar to a tree, so then a tree must have rudimentary consciousness/perception. Then a rock survives so it must have some kind of stimuli to keep it looking like a rock. Concentrate on human reasoning, ignore wild goose chases and blind alleys. Get that straight first. Animals and other living creatures are interesting but only in the sense that the contrast human activity. One of the key signs of abstraction is art. Early man produced art in caves. When your cat gives you a painting let me know.

"The faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by mans senses" Let me have one more try- "mans senses" not animals, they are excluded because they do not have the faculty of reason. Next you will be trying to cultivate rocks. Context is everything.

It is not about me agreeing or disagreeing Stosh. It's what you can prove to yourself, you do not have to prove it to me, I already know. I don't know what 'rudimentary' reason is, I haven't experienced something that isn't reason, only what is. It's like you are saying rudimentary flying, when flying is flying I cannot conceive a rudimentary form that doesn't involve flying. A is A a thing is a thing. If an animal reasoned as a human does then they would no longer be instinctive, automatic creatures. You would have cats doubting their existence or committing suicide. As soon as reason is present, then so are all the other attributes. You cannot plug a device into the mains and then get rudimentary activity, the device either functions or it doesn't. Try and remember context. Logic/reason provides proof, but I can't give you proof of proof. An animal requires no proof, that is the difference between animals and humans, that's why it's is perceptual. That is the context. The logic is absolutely consistent, but logic is not a trait applicable to animals only to man. It is not an emotional response that I have to the idea of animals having reason, but an epistemological one. Its like a tower block in which you are insisting one corner should be made of jelly. If I stick jelly in the place you believe it can be, then the entire block falls to the ground. The conceptual hierachical is such that not one piece can be altered. It's like a domino effect, or a finely balanced equation. I can't just go around adding square roots pragmatically. Compassion is a fine thing, but really, it's not a great guide or has much practical value. A guy I used to work with programmed high level PLCs. Occasionally we would visit a client who had made a complete mess specifying the hardware that he was hoping we could overcome his errors. The guy I worked with woukd say ' I can't make the impossible, possible, I can make sympathetic noises if it will help, but beyond that you are on your own'. Don't get to thinking I'm a cold hearted robot either. I resent that accusation as it holds no truth what so ever.

What makes you think that ? What are your observation ? What can you prove ? Start from there. I can't give you any more than I have already done. Only you can determine the truth of it. As soon as you say "Rand said" then you are already committing a logical fallacy of the appeal to Authority. I can use Rand's work to illustrate some point because I understand the point from first principles, but that shouldn't sway you to belief, or rejection of her premise. It's a starting point. If you think that animals have the same reasoning faculty as humans then work through the logical proof, observations, data, concepts and perceptual information. You might do something that is a real advance on current thought.

Ha. No, it's from the old B&W TV show Oliver and Hardy. You should watch a few episodes, still very funny.

No. Animals automatically process perceptually. I said that previously. An animal does not need to apply reason to its own life. We, in a sense, are at a kind of disadvantage because we aren't born with the automatic capacity of animals, we are forced to think every step of the way. We have an infinite amount of choices to cope with every second of the day. We don't automatically know what to eat, we don't know how to get the food. We must learn and plan everything. Anyway, time to cast you free to prove your own assertions-requiring reason as the basis. So, if you think you can prove animals have the faculty of reason then you should do so. It would be Earth shaking news if you could. Scientists have been at it for many years. Philosophically it's impossible from an objectivist perspective which is why I don't spend a lot of time thinking about. However, if you want to become a real life Dr Doolittle go for it :-)

I shall await the MH version of Waco on the box.

"We most certainly are Stan" :-)

I didn't need to be told it, if I simply digested this stuff without being sure of what I was saying, then I might as well fall on my sword right now. This doesn't of course mean I'm correct, but it does mean that I have employed reason and logic to the best of my abilities to reach that conclusion. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, I did my best and can find no holes, cracks or flaws in my understanding. I shall use Rand's definition as I'm blowed if I'm going to work out something better. "The faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by mans senses" To expand: the organisation of perceptual units in conceptual terms by the principles of logic. "Why should I accept reason?" Means: "why should I accept reality" the answer is because existence exists and ONLY existence exists. Either accept reason or consign consciousness to a void. To repeat as peikoff wrote: "one cannot seek proof that reason is reliable , because reason is the faculty for proof; one must accept and use reason in any attempt to prove anything. But using reason one can identify its relationship to the facts of reality and thereby validate the faculty. You might suspect this is circular reasoning and you would be right. Trying to prove an axiom by reference to itself it to say the same thing as existence exists, consciousness is consciousness and reason is reason. Either you accept those axioms or you don't. If you don't then that's fine you can explore the alternative which is that consciousness has primacy. In which case existence is the result of the conscious knowledge of it and only consciousness is (how consciousness can be thought of as non existent is beyond my Ken to grasp, so I have no alternative but to refute it). If consciousness is prime, then reason is invalid and nothing can be proven. That is indeed the model of the sceptics and many on here support that philosophy in various forms. Im sure you will reach the right conclusion.

The rich were once poor, the poor can one day be rich. You talk about perspective and yet you miss the most obvious place in which it resides. Man can choose, he is not fettered by the absolute. He is not stuck as a chair, coral or, cat. He is blessed with a reasoning mind and a body to act. He must reason in order to act, that is his only source of survival. In a Laissez Faire capitalist society in which the protection of mans rights were upheld, then every man has the opportunity to apply himself-it does not mean he will be succesful, but some will and they will create. Because they create there will be more for everyone and even the least lucky, the least talented will be improved by that creative growth. If you hobble your strongest horses to the capacity of your weakest, then the carriage of progressive wealth creation will crawl slowly, or perhaps stop all together. Let your strong horses free and they will pull the weaker along with them, progress will be swifter. Do not concern yourself with the poor unless your intention is to minister amongst them in some way. There will always be relative poor, but they are not trapped in poverty if there is opportunity. Many of the poorest in the UK and USA during the industrial revolution have become hugely wealthy and have far more than the land holders had under the feudal system.

It's not reducible. You are using reason to ask the question what is reason. If it exists then it exists. A is A. This is based on the primacy of existence. The opposite is the primacy of consciousness which denies reason and focuses on internal feelings such as revelations, intuitions and innate ideas. I can give definitions of reason, but I can't give you a reason for reason :-) for obviously you would be asking for proof of proof which would be a logical impossibility.

Concept formation, the ability to reason. We are 3D to a 2D animal world. That's why a lot of the words like 'goal' are not really applicable. They are, in a sense, 3D words attempting to describe a 2D animal universe. People have a tendency to see the other forms of life as existing in the same mental context, because of the words used to describe it. This extends to inanimate objects as well as the mistaken belief that the Earth is a living entity just because there are living creatures living upon it. Nature has produced us, we aren't some weird alien species but natures greatest triumph. The pinnacle of evolution and life. We are fallible because this is our nature, it is the cost of a conceptual living being. We are the rarest and most precious of things, yet our fallibility sows the seeds of self doubt, we can't come to terms with our mortality and yet it is precisely because we know that we are mortal that we can achieve such great things. All living things die, but, unlike man, they do not start out with the choice of holding life as a value. It's because we have to choose that we struggle with the loss of choice that death brings. We are woken, but we wish we were oblivious, unaffected, just perceptors, or inanimates devoid of consciousness.

You aren't really talking about the free market by the sounds of things. Currently the stock market is just a big, state owned Casino. It's a nationalised financialisation system. The fiat paper value is controlled by the Wall Street cartel which, in turn, owns the Government. It's a massive fraud played out by criminals who game the system free of any risk. The losers are the productive people and the savers. This isn't how lassez Faire capitalism works, it's just plain old crime in which the criminals control the justice system, the government, FBI and CIA. This is the result of compromise and giving away right for privileges. Evil gets more evil until someone decides to change course. I find it quite incredible that the mass of people are still taken in by the bullshit of the democratic system and mixed economy. The US people, you would think, would figure out that they were promised a republic and got a democracy, that they have shafted themselves in order that the crooks shaft them good and hard. In the UK we have an excuse, we were born with a big red white and blue dick jammed up our back sides. We have always had a corrupt system and it was our elite that spawned the foul democracy evil.

Goal oriented. Keep it contextual, it's not a human conceptual kind of goal. For instance a planet orbits the Sun, but it has no intent or goal. It's simply reacting to forces. A living creature, by its nature of living has to sustain itself or perish. A plant, unlike a human, cannot choose. An animal cannot choose. A plant does not percieve because it lacks a consciousness, it isn't aware, it just reacts to impulses without pleasure or pain. Water bonds to molecules and cell roots divide in that direction, sunlight bonds with other molecules and the leaves turn towards the sunlight. No, you cannot have unpercieved pleasure. I don't really know a coral, I'm not a biologist so I can't really fit it into a particular category. All this is background for the main event which is of course human perception, consciousness and conception. The latter being what makes us unique in the animal kingdom- so far.

I could have a brilliant idea on a desert island-say to make a net, but I would need to design, procure and build the net. There is an opportunity cost for building the net which I must overcome. It means I must give up something else I need in order to build capital in order to produce the net. I must take a risk. If I run out of food because I couldn't hunt, dehydrate through lack of water gathering, or freeze through lack of firewood then my net gamble will likely kill me. I may well be aware of all manner of nets, be very familiar with them, but on my own, on a desert Island, it gives me only a slight advantage of not having to have thought up the idea. I also know about boats, planes, electricity and water treatment plants, but that doesn't help me in any way if I starve. Any financial backer is a capitalist. He has, like my, robinsoncrusoe example, stored up his production. He has deferred consumption and instant gratification in order to manage that feat. He must also be a producer (in a free market) and therefore also provides goods/services that others value. As a backer he takes even more risk than the inventor- unless the inventor is the backer. The inventor has also accumulated a form of capital, but it is mental, not physical capital, he cannot eat his ideas. He has foregone getting a job and earning and therefore has had to be supported in some way until he could give birth to the design. So, don't go hard on the backer- he is also an Atlas. Those who take no risks such as a labourer/ worker aren't Atlases. They are important, but not vital and there stake is none existent. If one compares the levels of risk and mental effort required of an entrepreneur to that of a worker, then the entrepreneur never earns the full value of his effort. The worker by contrast earns far more and his effort is limited to whatever small task is required of him. Finally there are those who don't make a living by independent production, they are the men who use other men. Those that claim to 'public service' are parasites on the backs of the productive.

Purpose, in context. Animals act purposefully, but only perceptually. Animals take pleasure from having sex, but it is perceptual pleasure. A coral will also have purpose if it has any form of sensation and sensory system, then it also acts on the pleasure pain principle and again it will be perceptual. if it is more rudimentary then it will act only in accordance with sensory signals and will feel nothing at all. It's goal will also be survival as with all living things regardless of them being conscious or cognisant. A tree needs air, water, nutrition and It is entirely automatic and unconscious. It feels no sensation, pleasure or pain, there is no perception, but it still does react to stimuli. It is not an innanimate object like a rock which needs do nothing at all to survive, every living thing regardless of capacity is goal oriented- and that goal is survival even if it percieves nothing at all.

Someone might think of the idea, they may even produce a model, but one man will drive it through to commercial viability. Others may claim credit, but they are not standing there with a production model and a line of eager buyers. It often takes far more than an inventive mind, it requires entrepreneurial flare to make it happen in the face of many obstacles and barriers. It needs finance and marketing plus the grit and determination to take the risk. These, as Rand says, are the Atlases. Without them we would still be living in caves fighting off wild animals.

Damn you discovered the flaw in my argument :-) Bloody woman always mess it all up.

All living things as opposed to inanimate objects are goal directed. It is only conscious entities that have a purposeful existence; some lower species respond to stimuli and their guide to life is the pleasure pain principle, the higher species including man also experience pleasure and pain, the higher animals only in the context of perception. So cats grasp and deal with a world of entities and form automatic perceptual associations. There range of actions is far wider, they must learn skills which would be unnecessary and impossible for a lower sensory species. Man is a conceptual animal. Unlike a cat, he cannot rely on perception, his sensations are not infallible or automatic. Compared with a cat, the number of skills a man must acquire to survive a vast. It makes a man far more adaptable. He isn't limited by his environment and can work to change it. A conceptual being cannot initiate action unless he knows the purpose and nature of his action.

We act out of abstractions always you just don't always see the wiring and so it seems like instinct. All cats are interested in is shelter, warmth and a belly full of food. Don't kid yourself. The moment you withdraw that food bowl they will develop a wander lust and find another sucker :-) I know cats very well as we used to have a pair of the little gits. I loved them really.

Individually we are everything. Working together we can accomplish more than we would by ourselves, but you denigrate the individual when you cannot see the unique contribution each is capable of. One man must, not many. One man must think and build a wheel, other men can copy him, but only one man will do it the first time within a group. The mass of people do not collectively come up with a printing press or a pencil. One man conceives it.

I didn't say they were unable to think or that they didn't have sensations. I said they didn't have emotions and were incapable of conceptual thought which requires to faculty of reason. Emotion is a abstract concept which you can choose to act on, an animal doesn't have that abstraction it translates the sensation into action. Some animals are capable of high levels of intelligence, but they cannot conceptualise. They are forever stuck with precepts on which they must immediately act. This is why I said that mans first value is his life, which he must choose as a value. An animal doesn't do that. It cannot and has not the capacity to choose in abstraction. It simply does whatever it must according to instinct and environment. Humans aren't born with the automatic knowledge of how to survive, we must plan ahead all the time. We can choose many multiples of options and juggle them about, but an animal does not plan long term, when it's hungry it hunts, when it's tired and cannot hunt then it sleeps. If it is attacked it must run or defend itself. It's instantaneous instinctive and automatic action. When you have a feeling then you have thoughts that underpin that sensation. You can abstract 'this is love' you begin with the first word 'I' which is an abstract concept-an animal cannot comprehend 'I' in that sense. It simply is and then it does. Humans create art and music because of these abstractions. The best an animal like a chimp can do is to doodle with paint in the same manner as it would play with a tyre. Humans have rights. Rights are abstractions. The animals have no kind of thing, they live by the law of the jungle. It is eat or be eaten. Animals require no rights because they cannot have the abstraction of values, ethics or morals. Go swimming with crocodiles and they bite your leg off. They can't be prosecuted, they don't respect your life, property, space, they just munch on you as they would a fish. They don't feel the emotion 'well maybe I shouldn't have eaten Stosh I feel a bit guilty about that'. Nature wants to eat us, feed on us and the only thing stopping it doing so is the big grey lump in our heads. The only reason some animals won't attack you is domestication, size, or food preference. None of this says an animal cannot hunt you, lie in wait, wear you down by attrition or roll about merrily enjoying the sensation of your rotted carcass. An animal will scratch an itch, it will play, sleep, whine, lick or scratch you, but it is not considering its long term future or reasoning out if it should play or paint the shed. It's just doing what comes natural. A full belly makes it sleepy an empty belly makes it whine.

and he seeks, in some small way to grab power because of his higher intellectual level. We get used to the idea that we have a president and a government insinuated into most parts of our lives, yet, if we were alone on a desert island and a new guy washed up on the shore telling us he had come to save our arses, that all that was required was obedience to his higher IQ, we would tell him to get lost and get on with surviving.

Fixed that for you. :-)