Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Capitalism, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Rand's non-fiction was all fiction.

 

Too many words too express one thought, Ayn Rand is wrong because Ted Bundy is real.

 

Ah, the misnomer returns.

 

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Too few words to add anything of much worth to a complex subject although what you say is true.

 

Well then, you must have found Galt’s Gulch.

 

And just how complex is reason, reality, identity and causality. Not very, as simple as crossing a busy street to buy an ice cream cone on sunny, summer, afternoon.

 

Looking at your mobile until you get hit by a bus.Reason may not be complex but it sure as hell isn’t a universal attribute for all members of our species. Then we have the necessary defence of reason against the over tossed word salad of modern so called philosophy. Simple reason has no effect upon that cohort. You have to lead them down a winding garden path of verbiage until they run into the brick wall of non-contradiction. Even then some of them refuse to admit their gibberish has no valid defence.

 

Re-reading this I couln’t help wondering if you’ve attempted to understand the quantum world , or rather what scientists are trying to tell us abouot it.
My limited comprension of the subject tells me the laws of causality and identity appear to break down in that realm. Way off topic but just thought I’d throw that one in.

 

My apologies for the messy spelling/typos in the previous post. At my age I should know not to attempt anything like clarity of expression late at night when I’m stoned silly and geriatric.

 

Didn't know it was missing.

 

LOL. The old adage about leading a horse to water.

All humans have reason, and use it to varying degrees. Ayn Rand never stated that all man are rational, only that each man possess the ability to be so if he so chooses, and choice is open to him. And that that is the ideal to strive for.

The one grievous and unforgivable act would be to use their obstinance, stubbornness, and irrationally as a justification for smacking them upside the head with a 2 X 4; being intellectually superior to others is not a license for coercion, no matter what Nietzsche or Brandon Shaw ( Hitchcock’s intellectual villain in his movie Rope) believe.

 

Then your olfactory senses are malfunctioning.

 

If scientists cannot identify a phenomenon, the fault lies with them, not the phenomenon, nor the laws of causality and identity. "Is" is, and acts accordingly.

Or as Miss Rand states it:

"Since axiomatic concepts refer to facts of reality and are not a matter of “faith” or of man’s arbitrary choice, 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.

For instance, when modern philosophers declare that axioms are a matter of arbitrary choice, and proceed to choose complex, derivative concepts as the alleged axioms of their alleged reasoning, one can observe that their statements imply and depend on “existence,” “consciousness,” “identity,” which they profess to negate, but which are smuggled into their arguments in the form of unacknowledged, “stolen” concepts.

It is worth noting, at this point, that what the enemies of reason seem to know, but its alleged defenders have not discovered, is the fact that axiomatic concepts are the guardians of man’s mind and the foundation of reason—the keystone, touchstone and hallmark of reason—and if reason is to be destroyed, it is axiomatic concepts that have to be destroyed."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axiomatic_concepts.html

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, notwithstanding--which is like that old adage, "the more we know, the less we know.", which is an intellectual con-artist's BS preached to make you doubt the efficacy of your own mind.

Nothing in reality, on the planet, within the galaxy, or existing in existence can ever violate those axiomatic concepts. If scientists think that there are, then they've made a grievous error in their logic, and better recheck their premises. Or, as stated, they are BS Con-artist looking for government research money and peer prestige.

 

Thank you for the lecture in Objectivist metaphysics(?). As to the laws of causality and identity experiment suggests they breakdown in the quantum realm . I find that hard to swallow myself going so far as to at times speculate the universe we find ourselves in was constructed by an advanced intelligence who/which doesn’t want us to understand the underlying reality of that construct. Paraniod I know but that’s what quantum physics induces in my tiny brain. Just as the imagined power source supplying Galt’s Gulch did.

 

It’s not a matter of Objectivism, nor is it an matter of Aristotelianism, and it most assuredly is not a matter of the inadequacies, discrepancies, and fallacies of befuddled quantum mechanics; “is” is just simply is, and behaves as such, just as H2O is water and quenches thirst, will never change to SiO2 is water and will never freeze. Nonsense is nonsense.

It would be good for those espousing the Heisenberg Uncertainly Principle to remember Einstein’s thought on Quantum Mechanics: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

 

Granted that "understanding reality makes it hard to live realistically," but that's different than breaking down every single ethical dilemma and decision by "reason." We have a shortcut for that, culture.

 

I have always held this truth: To justify one’s moral judgement by appeals to tradition, social mores, laws, or authority is the path to the gas chambers, and I’m not brave enough to follow it. So, I’ll stick with reason and my own independent judgment.

 

History has shown that those who think they are too smart for "tradition, social mores, laws, or authority" tend to become cult leaders, serial killers, or dictators.

Sorry but a single individual cannot "reason" themselves 5,000 years of human civilization on their own.

 

To clarify: You asked that I name an error on your part. I did, your claim that reason is an impediment to living. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding now, but my critique was meant to be quite the opposite of "understanding reality makes it hard to live realistically, "; essentially, I’m mocking such idiocy. Indeed, the only way to live realistically is by understanding reality.

Hopefully, this clarify's my intent.

 

I’d say history and the Nuremberg trials disagree.

 

That's still not correct. The link I gave provided multiple examples where culture, and "that's the way we've always done it" were superior to someone trying to apply reason to each of those situations. You've not really attempted to challenge that.

 

That's actually meaningless. We got to Nuremberg because Hitler thought he could re-write morality in his own image. If he had relied upon some sort of collective reason of culture, there wouldn't have been a situation that required a Nuremberg.

Basically I don't trust you to make up your own morality. Since we're living in a common civilization, we need to have common rules.

 

Putting aside for now Einstein’s delusion there is a God; to suggest there’s no ‘randomness’ in the universe obliges you us define ‘random’.
This sub-tread though is wandering so far off topic maybe we need to move it to a more appropriate section before we start getting into nasty areas such as anti-matter particles popping in and out of ‘existence’?

 

Given your posting methodology it’s impossible to know which other post, or from whom, you’re commenting upon.

 

Really? Reread. Too lazy? Them a recap, Blindly following the given is the path to the gas chambers