Karl

A lattice made of rope or some other kind of flexible material.

All True, but then Buddha wasn't advocating Buddhism as I understand it, instead it was a group after his death that created the organised religion. Objectivism was, from the ground up, a philosophy which requires no religious adherence. There is no church to join or set of practices to carry out.

I don't think she was a very good novelist, but then I also think Chistoper Hitchens was philosophically lost and never understood Rand (I've read much of what he said about objectivism and it's incorrect). Actually it's pretty easy to see this in the arguments between the two siblings. Peter realised the hole in Christopher's philosophy and added Christianity to his own. What we then find is that we have clear opposites of essentially the same philosophy. Mystics of muscle and spirit. Peter got God and Chistopher got Dawkins. I've sat on all sides and many fences. I've been a spiritual, a muscle mystic and a new ager. Rand's philosophy is the only one which asks you to question it and not to accept it otherwise. It does not preach as do others. Rand says it must be tested against the rock on which it is founded. I've never come across any other philosophy, practice or religion that gets close to suggesting that. To me that seperated it from all others. Rand says if it comes up wanting against its own measure, then you should dismiss it immediately and pay it no more attention. Rand openly invites its destruction and welcomes it. I respect both Hitchens as thinkers, but I think it's a great pity that Christopher didn't get to understand Rand. I suspect that this was because both brothers philosophies grew essentially out of Marx before giving up on it. Both went towards Conservatism in slightly different forms. To approach objectivism is then almost impossible. I do know that Christopher tried to obtain some of Rand's essays to support his own views on Atheism, but the estate would alloy it-good on them and entirely in keeping with the purity of the philosophy not to let it out to populism.

Which is one of the reasons we should define 'fields'. We have been messing around with gravity, magnetism, electricity and light without ever unifying them. I'm not a physicist, so it's outside my understanding, but surely it would make sense that there is consistency in the universe. That we don't have particles that turn into waves and waves that are particles. Its incongruent with reality. A is A. We talk of things travelling through space, but there is no such entity as space and so we have something travelling through a medium-newtons cradle.

Then they would not be coincidences but the effect of volitional actions. They would also be a very poor and unreliable guide to a path. Instead, what you are doing is reversing causality in order to make the coincidences support your own philosophy. It is irrational and illogical. This is the world of mystic signs and symbolism. Where black cats, ladders, salt, tea leaves or the throwing of bones brings luck or disaster. It is you who are in charge of your thoughts and actions, your path is only what you make it, it's entire course is unwritten and I would suggest survival and happiness are a far better guide than coincidence.

Only Ayn Rand, it is her philosophy.

Marx just moved the philosophy from that of the individual to the collective, but the rest of his philosophy is essentially Hegelian. Kant and Descartes fed into these philosophies. Some people pick Kant over Hegel, or Descartes over Kant. Dewey could easily be included in the pack. Yes, on what you refer to as new age mysticism. Obviously these are in complete opposition to the objectivist philosophy. I'd be bowled over if you were looking to explore in that direction :-)

It's extreme realism. In that entities are a kind of poor facimile of a perfect form. That they contain an intrinsic concept of that form that is transmitted to the person viewing it. Realism is very similar. That's Plato for you (and to a slightly lesser extent Aristotle ). That's why I said Michael wasn't an objectivist. Have to add that 'BS' isn't a good argument against it :-)

I missed platonic realism :-)

A friend of mine went down to London to see the launch of a new film at Leicester Square. After watching the film the lights came on and he discovered he had been sat right next to another friend. However: Both of them were film buffs, both had often travelled to see film launches, this was a particular kind of film that they both would want to see, Leicester Square was the only place the film was shown, they regularly went to see films together and always chose approximately the same seats. Something that seemed supernatural, was fairly predictable.

I don't accept that because of the rest of the things you have written. Yours is a new age spiritual mysticism mixing older pagan, with later philosophies as espoused by Kant/Hegel/Marx/Descartes. It would be interesting to see how you fit it all together, but not here.

Man is a rational animal. I don't want you to play an Aristotlian 'game', neither am I trying to game you in any way, I'm serious. This isn't one of those things that I can adequately define. I can see parts of a possible definition, but I'm a billion light years from getting that particularly jigsaw into any kind of order. A field must be some thing. It must be possible to define it. For instance, take a magnet, what are these 'lines' of force ? They don't suddenly appear because we throw iron filings on some paper. So what are they ? They pass through a medium. They must be a force and a force means a material element. I'm thinking out loud, but if you think about billiard balls colliding, we measure vectors and forces as the balls move off in directions, but, the force is delivered to the balls and the balls have a certain material nature that makes them act in a definite manner, it isn't just force lines on paper. All basic stuff I know, but then, so was the Apple and Newtons head.

You are describing and not defining. I'm not arguing about the descriptions but if I pick apart the concepts by which they are described they are devoid of anything close to a true definition. This isn't an easy task. A field must be something. It isn't a nothing. We can describe its properties and apply mathematical constants, but the definition is elusive. You are dismissing my query without assessing it sufficiently. Probably because you can't grasp why a definition might be of use.

Prostitute for me.

Right, but that's a description and not a definition. Can you define exactly what a field is ? That's rhetorical because no one ever has. It can be described and used but it defies definition and I believe that to be something we should do with some urgency.

Interesting theory. Also interesting that, despite our using field theory, we still have no definition for a field. I think this is a major omission in scienctific research that we have abandoned. The result of not defining 'fields' has been this preoccupation with light having dual properties and hence quantum theory.

Hey that's my line not yours.;-) I'm not having you turn into an objectivist without my permission. I was pointing out that you said planets 'contained' concepts - which is to suggest a kind of intrincissm. Existence is existence, a thing is a thing and entities are what they are, but human conception is-so far as we know-a uniquely human trait. So, yes, planets absolutely have an objective existence despite human perception and consciousness of them.

I can't read the numbers on my speedometer never mind the structures of an atom. You realise, for clarity, that a concept is only something that is perceived within human consciousness and not other entities ?

PI squared (pie pi)

I quit Facebook, Twitter and linkdn. Too much tempting information available to those who shouldn't have it. Forums are bad enough, but not as easy to trawl when different names are used.

Well I know precisely nothing about the origin of man, but it would seem logical to me that we are made up of all the other kinds of things on the planet. So we are part, virus, bacteria, insect, fungus, plant, tree, flower, worm, jellyfish, snake, fish, animal, bird, as indeed everything else is and which we live symbiotically to the extent that many are now integral to our systems It's all cellular growth multiplying in response to the environment. Something converts something to something else. We have organic acid and bacteria in our guts and even a rudimentary kind of brain controlling it seperately to the one inside our skulls. The most miraculous thing-beyond our consciousness-is our unique ability to reason, perhaps as result of the need to communicate hunting perceptions which then became conceptions. That change is such a radical development it really does make it totally impossible to predict the next evolutionary twists. We can now do literally anything within the bounds of physical laws. It's only a matter of time before we harness a virtually limitless energy source and a method to cross enormous distances between galaxies, colonise and terraform planets. Who knows what is next for us. Maybe we make our own worlds and rapid transport system between them like an advanced metro. That life crawls forward is the universe continually evolving itself. Incredible stuff.

Existence is an axiom and therefore irreducible.

That seems right.

You pretty well already have. Queen Obama followed by King Hillary.