Karl

Interesting because as I said previously it seems to me there is some definite correlations even if there are specific 'spin' added to some of the words in ancient text-few of which were actually auto biographical anyway. Mostly it's people telling us what to think and not how the think.

More ad-Homs but no attempt to provide any evidence. Come on OR you can do better than 'Randian sociopathic' 'randbot' for the kids. 'Ayn Rand advice' it's all a bit formulaic and perjorative. You have no idea who I am either, but we both write here on this forum and express our ideas. It makes little difference to me if you are a pauper or a King, a professor or a fool. I take what you write and reply to it. If I have a thing wrong, if I have misunderstood then please clarify your point- I cannot be expected to automatically understand your communication, it's not a mathematical expression. All I see is anger in your writing and that makes no sense to me if what you are doing here is to communicate a concept. Just as we discussed music, can't we also be equally civilised here-you note I didn't go pushing 'Randian music' up your sphincter. We had a good crack and I learned some stuff about a band I had never heard of and maybe we both got an idea of each other's musical tastes. Why you should, within a couple of hours, turn hostile is beyond me. :-(

Aye. One good volunteer is worth a million conscripts.

Race ya

There are no facts, anecdotal proof isn't scientific fact, or proof. People write these books because they believe in these things and other people buy them to support their faith. I dislike getting into these discussions because, inevitably, sitting behind this faith is emotional investment. I don't go around telling children that Santa doesn't exist-although I strongly suspect that it's actually the adults that want to preserve the myth of the invisible benevolent altruist because they wish the world was like that. Children would, at a certain age, probably wonder why their parents had been lying to them.

Part 10 the primary choice to focus or not. Thinking isn't automatic. Perception is automatic, the heart and lungs work automatically, but thinking requires effort and it also demands that the person deliberately chooses to utilise the faculty of the mind. To ignore this fact is to evade ones own nature which requires a man to reason in order that he survive. Consciousness is an active process that one can choose to utilise or walk around mindlessly like a zombie barely aware of the world. "The man who waits for reality to write the truth inside his soul will wait in vain". Thinking need not be constant-one is not required to have ones mind chock full of things all of the time-it's more a case of choosing to throw the switch, to turn on the ignition ready to drive at any point. The choice then is to focus awareness when it is required. To be fully aware when that focus is required. Reason is like a soldier on patrol, he is always using his senses to alert him to danger and opportunity. When he detects some change he brings his rifle to bare on the threat through the sights on his weapon. The soldier is not omniscient in his full awareness, it means he must understand the situation/object/threat by using all the available current evidence, his past knowledge and the skills he has available at the time. To focus ones mind means to raise ones degree of awareness. It requires a shaking off of mental lethargy and a decision to use ones intelligence. The state of being 'in full focus' means the decision to use ones intelligence fully. Thinking is hard, focusing awareness is hard. It is work and it takes effort. Effort being the expenditure of energy to achieve a purpose. Like all effort it must be practiced consistently and constantly. Focused awareness is not a reflex, it is more like a muscle, it gets flabby and weak if it isn't exercised, the more it is exercised the stronger and more effective it becomes. At any time laziness can reduce it is a mere passenger, an unfocused blur. One must understand why one is focusing, to be aware of his cognitive faculty and keep it cycling. The choice to activate the conceptual levels of awareness must precede any ideas; until a person is conscious in the human sense, his mind cannot reach new conclusions, or apply previous ones to the current situation. There is no intellectual factor which makes a man decide or become aware or which even partly explains such as decision; to grasp such a factor, he must already be aware. For the same reason there can be no motive or value judgement which precedes consciousness and which induces a man to become conscious. The decision to perceive reality must precede any value judgements; otherwise, values have no source in ones cognition of reality and this become delusions. Values don't lead to consciousness; consciousness leads to values. Here I believe enlightenment and expanded consciousness dovetail with objectivism. As we work the muscle of conscious focus-one might even describe it as mindfulness-th cognitive processes gain in speed and efficiency. We can literally focus our way to enlightenment. This can be the path. Instead of blurring and shutting down awareness, instead open up the throttle and gain rapid spiritual progress. The more the mind is used, the more it is controlled and the less temptation there is to lapse back into apathy. So far we have discussed two basic choices; either mentally drifting in a passive sense, or to switch on the conscious awareness of the mind. There is a third option and that is to mentally evade. "Evasion" in Ayn Rand's words " is the act of blanking out, the will full suspension of ones consciousness, the refusal to think-not blindness, but the respfusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgement - on the unstated premise that that a thing will/will not exist if you only refuse to identify it, that A will not be A as long as you don't pronounce the verdict 'it is'" Evasion isn't a passive process, it is the equivalent of deliberately turning down the volume on the radio so as not to hear the football results. The evader does expend effort; it is a purposeful action not to see a fact; if it cannot be banished he works not to let it become real to him. The drifter does not integrate his mental contents; the evader disintegrates them. One is in a fog by default, he chooses not to raise his awareness. The other expends energy to create a fog, he lowers his level of awareness. To an evader, a feeling of some kind is more important than truth. A man finds a certain fact or policy to be unpleasant, frightening or guilt provoking. He does not want the fact to be real or the policy necessary. If a policy or idea gives a man pleasure, or relief, then he wants to believe in it (to have faith). This places "I wish" above "it is". An example would be an individual who knows that his consumption of drugs is killing him, who wants to indulge but not to die, who solves the problem by indulging blindly, simply evading the consequences. Unlike the basic choice to be in or out of focus, the choice to evade a specific content is motivated, the motive being the particular feeling that the evader elevates above reality. The process of evasion is profoundly destructive. Epistemologically it invalidates a mental process. Morally it is the essence of evil. Objectivism places evasion as the vice which underlines all other vices. It is currently leaving to global collapse.

Intrincisist vs the collectivist subjectivist who would have thunk it :-/ Socialism is evil, they got that dead right, but the problem is that the Unstable stone the religious fundamentalist stands on, he shares with the subjectivist fundamentalist. It's like communists and fascists. Same collectivism with a minor twist. Yet each views each other as extremists in a highly polarised dichotomy. Religious fundamentalists are no more wrong the collectivist subjectivists. You clambered out of the exact same philosophical egg, but at slightly different times. One believes in a God of the collective, the other in a collective consciousness. One a deity, the other statism. One theist, the other atheist. One wishes to control the mind, the other the body. Both refuse that consciousness has identity and believe in the mind body dichotomy. You should clamber out of this mysticism because it is the mote in the eye of your friend and the plank in your own.

That's a good example of a self destructing statement: The second paragraph directly places faith with reason. In other words there is an equivocation on the word 'faith'. In the first paragraph faith is blind, in the second it is a faith built on reason-in the authors words it is confidence. You cannot have two definitions in one argument or it is void. It's the equivalent of giving evidence in court that you saw a blue car, then saying that you really meant a pedal cycle, but as long as it was blue then the jury should ignore the importance of that difference. If you have a logical, reasoned argument with all definitions clearly in your mind and are refusing to evade, or avoid reality. If the concepts held clearly accord with reality and your perceptions of it, then this isn't faith at all. When there is no room for error, there is no room for doubt. A is A and you can depend on it to remain so.

That's for DH :-) I'm not an empiricist/materialist. For an objectivist 'past lives' are very easy to refute, regardless of any 'evidence'. It doesn't stand up to any logical reasoned scrutiny starting from the basic axioms. Existence has primacy over consciousness. Existence exists and consciousness must be conscious of some-thing. Therefore everything has a seperate identity, including consciousness. The only 'past life' is biological or material. Everything is made of something else and of course parents hand down chunks of biological identity to their children. However, children are born tabula rasa. Everything they learn is in this life, therefore even should you posit that some semblance of some previous human being existed as a hidden memory, it would be over written completely from the beginning of life. Past life is just another projection of the primacy of consciousness. It is mysticism worthy of very ancient pagan societies and should be seen as ridiculous as chariots pulling the sun across the sky. It's nice to imagine these things, make stories out of them, but they aren't reality.

Made me smile, that's pretty much my progression. I have Red, King Crimson USA, ITCOTCK, Lizard, three of a perfect pair, Larks Tongues on vinyl. Starless, Poseidon, discipline on CD. I began with Hawkwind and Wisbone Ash around the age of 11 then ELP, Yes, Floyd, Gentle Giant, Amon Dull, Gryphon, King Crimson, PFM, Genesis, Back Door, van De Graaf Generator up to 16. Weirdly I don't find RH bleak- indeed my friend bought a copy of OK computer and hated it so much he gave it to me. I hadn't heard anything by the band, or even heard of them. I gave it a spin one evening and was astounded I hadn't heard of them, brilliant. Joy Division is far to depressing. It's beautifully crafted but hard to listen to. A band you might have missed is 'Television' -Marquee Moon is excellent and Talk Talk as they matured 'spirit of Eden' could well float your boat.

I'm not, we are on different tacks. You are equivocation on the word 'history'. We can't get at that history intrinsically, there is no innate knowledge in our heads. Our minds are tabula rasa at birth I said nothing about biological genetics. Surely that should be obvious ? I'm sure our cell construction is a functioning part of our biochemistry, but I couldn't know that until I build a microscope to examine cell structure and I can't build a microscope until I've learned about lens construction....etc etc. I do think you are in a room smashing mood to day, I get that, I get those :-)

Reminds of the estimates I got for my roof. We replace all the slates with new. Why ? It's just better. What do you do with all, those perfectly good blue Welsh slates you liberate from my roof ? Errr well ...? You sell them don't you ? Well, yes, if we can How much do you get per slate ? I, well, yes, well it depends ... And if I go on line right now and price up a Victorian Welsh blue slate from a reclaimer yard then what would I pay ? I dunno, it might be all kinds of prices And what to you sell them at ? Because I have in mind the price of that reclaimed slate is probably more than the entire job with the new Spanish slate. I'll have a look at that and get back to you...

Don't be crazy :-) this is specifically about innate knowledge not genetics. We can't use our minds to reveal our genetic coding directly, but we can by applying science. Isn't that the issue here ? equivocation. A few believe we have innate knowledge that is occulted either introspectively-intrincisism or extrospectively -implying determinism and subjectivism. I believe we can and probably will discover our beginnings just as we discovered our DNA coding, but it won't be by any kind of religious revelation, or fate moving our hands, it will be by scientific efforts that it will be known. Though we can offer conjecture here, we are guessing, but others think we already have the answer and a bit of communing/seancing will release the secret.

It's not a case of belief, it's how it is. We don't have any knowledge of our past, or any other kind of knowledge. We have a cognitive and emotional faculty, physical response to pain and pleasure (the basis of our wider spread of conceptual emotion as we grow through infancy), we have automatic systems for our bodies and we have senses to automatic precepts. Beyond that we are blank slates and must learn everything by direct experience, thus rooted in reality. That means we have no innate knowledge of our past, but we have a faculty that might one day allow us to know it. I explore this more fully in objectivist 101 once I get to concept formation. I started it just so it would more fully answer questions such as this.

We are born as blank slates, there isn't an intrinsic history encoded prior to birth. There is no reason that we can't eventually discover our origin, but we will never discover the origin of the universe because it doesn't have one-that's why it's called the universe. As the universe had no origin, then we, as part of the universe, also have no origin. We can go back in history and discover that we were amoeba or some other proto life form then figure out how we eventually became the animals we are today, but nothing much beyond that as we would be a series of chemicals the atomic nuclei and whatever else that can be derived from scientific research.

I'm afraid not. I have many, many albums on vinyl and CD. I even went to the trouble of seeking out a Very special copy of ITCOTCK

That's how it goes with music. I have a couple of Marilion albums -I saw them live just before the launch of their very first album. I would still consider myself a Genesis fan, but I rarely listen to them, though I can sing a huge back catalogue (I have virtually everything except the very first album and some of the later stuff). Sounds as if you prefer the slightly more twee, whimsical kind of prog Music ? Not so dense but with that Syd Barrett kind of twang. I struggle with Joy Division even though I own their albums I find it very hard to endure for more than 20 minutes. What about Radiohead, split enz, crowded house ? If you fancy something a bit more raw, then the Vaselines are pretty good, very simple.

I've never bought any Sigur Ros even though I like quite a lot of their work. I've several albums by Mogwai, GSYBE and Guided by Voices. If you like the proggy side of things I would recommend Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Tool. All those bands have been through several incarnations which verge on folk softness to full metal jacket so I'm not going to recommend a particular album though I suspect later Opeth and Tool would be better for you than the harder earlier stuff. I manage both, but then I listen to Messugah.

Are you aquainted with Belle and Sebastian ?

The 'liberal racism' is what the OP was really about. It's about the liberals trying to promote small group agenda, much as any other kind of racism, but it masquerades as 'small is beautiful'. As you say, if someone feels it necessary to act in a racist way in their business the fuck 'em. I certainly don't agree that sort of thinking, even if I accept the right to hold that view. Good we got an agreement.

I'm going to channel Rand again - that was pretty funny by the way Ralis made me laugh anyway. Well, it's not so much channel as to cut and paste. Worth reading I think. "Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men. Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination. A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin. Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment—and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem). Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority—but as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority. The notion that one’s culture is superior to all others solely because it represents the traditions of one’s ancestors, is regarded as chauvinism if claimed by a majority—but as “ethnic” pride if claimed by a minority. Resistance to change and progress is regarded as reactionary if demonstrated by a majority—but retrogression to a Balkan village, to an Indian tepee or to the jungle is hailed if demonstrated by a minority." I mean here to apply 'racism' to any group be it LGBT or KKK.

No, not really. It's more about recognition. I see the monkeys killing themselves and their solution is to install a gorilla as leader. First it's necessary to realise the nature of the human animal and that it is capable of reason and that it is only capable of that if it's mind/body are free to engage in it. It can reach the right reasoned conclusion without indulging in violence. If you begin from the premise that humans are incapable of reason, then the solution will always be force, as force is the destroyer of reason then it becomes its own self fulfilling prophecy. You cannot stop violence until you stop violence. Therefore you must allow people to reason-even if that initial reasoning is faulty. As long as law provides objective justice, then we can avoid the typical damage resulting from irrationality in order that a degree of self correction happens. Think of it like little parenting children. They have to be allowed to make mistakes and occasionally they must be disciplined-well disciplining adults doesn't work, so we have a justice system to give balance. We currently have a philosophy "that might makes right" but many on this forum believe that love makes right. They realise that violence begets violence. I believe something different. I believe that the ONLY thing man has going for him is his mind and his power to reason, that, no matter how fallible man is, he isn't incapable of being correct. I believe violence removes the power to reason by denying mans mind it's primacy- saying in effect, "you are incapable of reason and only act out of violence, therefore we will bash in your head until you act civilly". Though I dispute 'love' is any kind of answer (emotion is currently the chosen method of state propaganda) I certainly don't accept violence as a solution. I don't see many here applying any principles of love to the issue we are discussing here. I see no Dao either. I submit that the answer is to promote reason, from reason peace will blossom and love along with it.

That's beyond me I'm afraid. It sounds like gobbledygook which I strongly suspect it is. No hear, no see, no speak and wait for God (or his equivalent) is the mental equivalent of putting your head in sand and praying for breath.

There will always be people denying others rights. Sometimes they do so without realising it and out of a sense of misplaced justice. I think most of what is done in the name of fairness isn't done maliciously, the problem is the philosophy is defunct and useless. I'm reminded of the scene in idiocracy where the people are watering the soil with 'Brawndo' because 'it has what plants crave' and unfortunately it kills the plants. It's a funny scene and often used as a perjorative, but it's quite poignant-the people aren't putting the liquid on the plants because they believe they are doing harm, they are well intentioned. The girl who is horrified that toilet water might be used is voicing real concern in a very comedic way. We look on it as crazy, stupid people without necessarily holding a mirror up to our own beliefs which have, in the film, been exaggerated for comic effect. Some of what we do is just as crazy and we don't see it. People aren't perfect, but that goes equally for governments, even the best intentioned will stoop to Brawdoising it's people out of a sense of 'doing the right thing'. Racists are unpleasant people. Racism is brutish, tribal thuggery with its feet firmly rooted in collectivist principles. All the socialist ideologues are participating in the same collectivism, most unknowingly-they cringe at 'toilet water' but can't see they are doing harm. They believe they are stamping out racism and creating equality, but they are doing the exact opposite. They are using small groups as weapons which will lead to the kind of outrages committed in other totalitarian regimes and they are completely blind to it.

Thanks for taking the time to read thus far Orion, it doesn't feel quite such a wasted exercise :-) Actually that presumptuousness is probably down to me. I cut out a lot of the axiomatic proofs because of their repetitive nature. As this forum doesn't really go for logic in general I was trying to give the positive axiomatic argument. This is really my own snapshot having already accepted the logic of those proofs, I hacked them back in precisely the manner of 'big bang' -just as here people accept the 'indescribable' Dao as axiomatic-I reasoned that if someone got as far as actually reading my shortened version then they would likely go off and read the book. One thing I should add is that (if I can keep going :-)) objectivist philosophy will reveal itself as a complete moral and ethical work (a philosophy of living rather than one bordering on physics). It's a guide as how to live. I thought it would be very incomplete if I ignored the underlying proofs. Rand never wrote a complete treaties and, unfortunately, as Peikoff often says, his mind was a 30 watt bulb to Rand's super nova. Rand wanted to create something in the form of a novel to illustrate real life use of her philosophy rather than an intellectual tour de force. Personally I believe that she succeeded despite the novels being a little lumpy, she managed to do create an idiots guide in story form. If she had created a Miseian/Kantian treaties I suspect there are few today(as compared to the 19th century) would bother to read it, never mind contemplate it. Rand is a much maligned figure as it is, she attacked today's philosophy on which the entire political/economic system is based and probably worried the corrupt elites and central planners. For me, Objectivism is an highly subversive philosophy and she wrote it very much in context of her experiences with Russian censorship-in other words she wrote the novels in such a way as to survive cultural/political shifts. What's amazing is how she accurately predicted the current situation in the book Atlas Shrugged. That book remains one of the best selling books of all time which is an amazing thing-I don't expect that is true of many philosophical works-and sales have been on a sharp upward trend line since 2009. The Dao, in a similar way, is also a guide to living. I don't think they are much related philosophically, but they are along the same lines as guides to men's lives/social cooperation. I don't see why they can't survive a kind of fusion in which they might be differentiated and delimited at critical junctures. I'm sure Rand and Peikoff would have a fit at someone attempting such a thing, but though I'm not a pragmatist anymore, it seems to me that the world in 1970 was really far less weird than it is today. Even Rand could not have conceived of the twisted logic of QE and negative interest rates. Atlas Shrugged wasn't quite weird enough.