HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 04:24:08 GMT

ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
>In article <C0ICo0.7Iz@SSD.intel.com> pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit) writes:

Uh, Milind, I don't know how to put this, but can't you refute an argument
without calling the people making it "silly demigod-worshippers"?  It is
a human failing (and right) to be wrong.  Accepting philosophy that you
can refute does not imply a religious devotee status of its accepters.

>>From John Galt's speech:  
>>	"... A is A.  A thing is itself.  You have never grasped the
>>meaning of his [this] statement.  I am here to complete it: Existence
>>is Identity.  Consciousness is Identification.
>>	"Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an
>>attribute, or an action, the law of identity remains the same.  A leaf
>>cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green
>>at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time.  A is
>>A..."

>>	consciousness is identification
>to which I can only respond, yow, where did *THAT* come from???
>One minute we're talking about logical attributes of objects in
>general, and all of a sudden "consciousness" - a fantastically
>complex and poorly understood psychological phenomenon - appears
>on the scene, and is somehow - you will pardon the expression -
>identified with an acceptance of the identify law (if I understand
>correctly what this is supposed to mean).

No, consciousness is described as perception of characteristics, which is
described as a perception of identity in so much as the characteristics of
an object define what it is.  That is, "why is x=A"?  Why is it not a B?
Because it exhibits certain definable characteristics by which we can know
it is an A and not a B.  Consciousness can also be thought of as
classification: logically determining what characteristics there are in
reality and classifying objects accordingly.

In simple terms:
Identity is assumed.
Consciousness is the usage of identity -- to determine what is a leaf, what
is not, what is hot, what is cold, etc.

>Now, this is a HUGE leap, people! This is NOT logical inference,
>not by a long shot.

Not really.  If you assume consciousness does not use identity you might
reconsider the next time you try solving a math problem or finding a
matching pair of socks.  I believe there must be a "based upon" between
"is" and "identity" there in order for it to be read correctly.  That is,
"a rose is red" might be true but this does not identify the two things:
it means "a rose" "has property" "red".  Similarly "Consciousness" 
"has property of" "making use of or presuming" "identity".

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Rand's Personality vs Objectivism
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<C0EDon.2FC@acsu.buffalo.edu> <1993Jan5.221730.12807@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:18:43 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.221730.12807@fcom.cc.utah.edu> leon@cs.weber.edu
 (Leon D. Atkinson) writes:

   >He logically proved that his
   >"Turing Machine" was capable of emulating any kind of digital computer. 

  Actually Turing did nothing of the kind.
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: srogers@teenwolf.mcc.com.mcc (Steve Rogers)
Subject: Re: Where's the Beef?
Reply-To: srogers@teenwolf.mcc.com.mcc
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:07:32 GMT

In article 106289@bu.edu, ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:
> >Oh, so you want in a 40 line news article, the total framework of
> >objectivism to save you the effort of having to look it up yourself?
> >The fact is that this is not a small request and I doubt anyone will
> >feel like humoring you in it.
>  
> I knew someone would crack this line. Obviously, someone would have to,
> or your collective inability to respond to my challenge would be a
> little too painfully apparent.
>  
> Look.  It is the nature of formal proofs that they tend to be
> fairly compact. If someone asks for a proof that the square root
> of two is irrational, it can indeed be provided in something like
> a 40 line news article.  . . . . .

> If someone asked, "hey, what is this 'Godel's proof' I hear
> so much about?", and received the reply "oh, go read his life's work,
> we're not going to 'humor' you by telling you", one would begin to
> suspect that either (A) the proof was bogus, (B) the replyer didn't
> understand it well enough to articulate it, or (C) there simply
> was no such proof.

Philosophy is not math.  It has more in common with a science like physics.
Phisosophy requires real world information, not experiments like physics,
but information about the nature of reality and human beings.  Your request
is much more like asking a physicist to 'prove' the electron in a 40 line
posting than a proof about the square root of 2.  You can get an idea of
why Objectivism holds certain ideas in 40 lines, but Objectivism is not a
set of proofs.  Your position seems to be "any idea that cannot be explaned
completely to me in a posting is obviously false".  I don't think that is
very reasonable.

---
| Steven Rogers  MCC/ESL  3500 West Balcones Drive
| Austin, Texas 78759-6509  (512) 338-3691 srogers@mcc.com
From: merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Date: 7 Jan 93 15:13:45 GMT
	<1993Jan6.172400.1060@shearson.com> <1igjsdINNber@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>
Organization: Boston University Physics Department
In-reply-to: ramsay@math.ubc.ca's message of 7 Jan 93 06:50:53 GMT


# In article <1igjsdINNber@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> ramsay@math.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay) writes:
   |Objectivism is NOT a formal system like mathematics -- you can't just
   |apply typographical transformations in order to do your logic.

#   As an aside, mathematics is not a formal system either, although in
#   some loose sense it is much closer to being so than almost any other
#   subject.

The most rigorous attempt to formalize mathematics was the program of
Hilbert. Godel's results cast serious doubt as to the probaility
for success of this program.

As an aside.

-sjm
--
Sean J. Merritt		         | "Every revolt is a cry of innocence    
Dept of Physics Boston University|  and an appeal to the essence of being."
merritt@macro.bu.edu             | Albert Camus, The Rebel
Xref: sparky alt.philosophy.objectivism:488 sci.math:17928
From: tyadav@athena.mit.edu (T.Y.)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.math
Subject: godel theorem and godel theorm ....(Re: Where's
Date: 10 Jan 93 17:15:19 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

===============================================
 torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>  Thus if we take a first order axiomatization of arithmetic, we know from
>the completeness theorem that every statement true in all models of the
>axioms is provable in the theory. We know from the incompleteness theorem
>that (under certain conditions) not every statement true under its usual
>arithmetical interpretation is provable.

 All this discussion of godel theorem (GT) intrigues me to ask the net.minds:

   What happens if GT is applied to GT itself?
   Is GT complete or incomplete?

 Just curious,

T.Y.
----
tyadav@athena.mit.edu
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Modern Logic -- question (was Obj. Philosophy)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<MERRITT.93Jan7100008@macro.bu.edu> <TORKEL.93Jan7180729@lludd.sics.se>
	<MERRITT.93Jan7142129@macro.bu.edu>
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:14:09 GMT

In article <MERRITT.93Jan7142129@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu
 (Sean Merritt) writes:

   >I have forgotten nothing.

  That's fine, but there is nothing in your quotations or other comments to
indicate how the characterization of logic as "having a single law, the Law of
Identity, and its various crollaries" *does* refer to logic as the subjct
is understood in logic, mathematics, or philosophy, or tells us anything
about that subject.

   >To you perhaps to Ayn Rand, no.

  Come now. If "to Ayn Rand" her axioms were associated with a well-defined
language and rules of inference, please specify the language and the rules of
inference.

   >This is not true. Ayn Rand appeals directly to logic and human cognition
   >in a formal sense to develop a basis for knowledge.

  Again, to refute my assertions you need merely specify the language and
the inference rules. This is not a matter of opinion.
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: srogers@teenwolf.mcc.com.mcc (Steve Rogers)
Subject: Re: Gold standard -- gold as an 'objective' value
Reply-To: srogers@teenwolf.mcc.com.mcc
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:32:10 GMT

> Why does Ayn Rand call gold an objective value?

I don't know the context of your quote; but it probably refers to gold as
an objective value as opposed to paper backed by government decree, which
is not an objective value.  The question of what makes a good medium of
exchange is a question of economics and not philosophy.  Objectivism just
tells you that government edict cannot create an objective value.  The
economists and bankers can then decide to issue bills backed by macaroni
if they want to.  Objectivism supports the elimination of force from the
economy, so that would mean that banks could create their own currency,
if they were so inclined.

Is this a big-O position?  who knows; its objectivism, as far as I know.

---
| Steven Rogers  MCC/ESL  3500 West Balcones Drive
| Austin, Texas 78759-6509  (512) 338-3691 srogers@mcc.com

Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: amck@rowdy.mcc.com (Alan McKendree)
Subject: Re: Failure of Objectivism(6)
Organization: MCC, Austin, Texas
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 23:35:49 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.054140.19581@netcom.com> mward@netcom.com (Michael Ward) writes:
>"Atlas Shrugged" portrays people who, by the sweat of their brows and
>their own ingenuity create new enterprises and new resources.  In the
>real world, the people who end up in control are, more often then not,
>totally incapable of doing any creative or constructive work
>themselves.  This is becoming more and more true as manipulators of
>organizations are taking over and engineers, scientists and
>manufacturers are becoming ever more rare in the halls of the
>executive wing.
> 
>Michael Ward
>mward@netcom.com
>

The tone of this message--its conciseness and logical progression from
correct premisses to incorrect conclusions, its specific focus on one
issue, even the serial numbering of the points in the subject
line--which it shares with all other messages from Michael on this
subject, have the feel of word problems on a logic test.

'Fess up, Michael--aren't you really an Objectivist trying to
stimulate some discussions on the new newsgroup?

-- 
Alan McKendree          Opinions posted by me are mine, only.
amck@rowdy.mcc.com         Who/Little Feat/racquetball/Rand
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: bil@okcforum.osrhe.uoknor.edu (Bill Conner)
Subject: Re: Limits of Self Defense
Organization: Okcforum Unix Users Group
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 06:02:16 GMT

   Discounting Divinity (which all intellectually hip philosophers
do), what is the basis for making any kind of moral claim? In a
Universe without God, morality is whatever we say it is, how can
anyone condemn another's actions as immoral without also imposing his
own morality? In truth, the only actions we can condemn are those that
work to our harm, or, more generally, anything we don't like.

   A genuinely Objective judge, would have to give equal weight to
both parites in any dispute since even the most egregious violence can
be justified (at least potentially). The fact that you may have come
to great harm can never be relevent if your tormentor is to receive a
fair hearing. The only defense for self defense is that he who
attacked you had already legitimized violence; it was to be the
substance of your relationship. That being true, you are pefectly
justified in responding in kind ...

Bill


Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit)
Subject: Re: Letting Someone Drown
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division (SSD), Intel
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:31:45 GMT

In article <106687@bu.edu> ccmlh@buitc.bu.edu (Mark Hayes) writes:

>Scenario: While contemplating his own glory aboard his private yacht,
>Howard Roark sees someone drowning, going help-help-help and all that
>(perhaps the drowner doesn't realize what kind of world he lives in).
>All Roark has to do to save the person is walk across the deck, grab
>a life preserver, and toss it in. But he doesn't bother - why should he?
>He's too busy contemplating his own glory, and no-one else has a
>claim on his actions. So the guy in the water drowns.
>
>Has he behaved in a reprehensible way, Objectivists? As far as I can
>gather, your answer must be "no".

If the contemplation of his own glory is truly more valuable to him
than the possible consequences of expending a little effort that means
saving some one's life, then, IMO, he has acted in accordance with
Objectivist principles.

However, I would seriously question his prioritization of his values.
Most people, I daresay even the staunchest Objectivists, do not have
such priorities.  Furthermore, I would point out to him that he might
get a tremendous return for a bit of effort if the drowning person is
wealthy.  Heck, he might even get another yacht.  Given how these two
considerations reflect on his general competence, I would be careful
never to hire him as an architect, and I would recommend that my
friends also not hire him.

In any case, he should not be thrown in jail for failing to save this
person's life.  There was a case in Oregon of a man who always stopped
to help people who looked like they were stranded on the highway.  He
did so once, and the "stranded" person shot him dead and robbed him.

-- 
Milind S. Pandit			| pandit@ssd.intel.com
Operating Systems Engineer		|
Intel Supercomputer Systems Division	| Standard Disclaimers Apply
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Premises of "objectivism?"
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 20:23:21 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.190550.3206@nynexst.com> baruch@nynexst.com 
(Robert Baruch) writes:

   >Ayn Rand meant the "A is A" formulation to mean that before you can talk
   >about something (and extract truths from it), you must know exactly what
   >it is you are talking about.  If you look at the formulation above, you
   >will find that if you apply Ayn Rand's "A is A" to the two "I am not
   >mistaken" phrases, you will find that they mean different things, and
   >so the formulation is invalid.

  Really? Perhaps you could expand on this, preferably applied to a standard
formulation of the paradox, involving the sentence

(1)   If the sentence (1) is true, then Santa Claus exists.

   >Unfortunately, I cannot answer this, since I am not familiar with the works
   >of these other philosophers.  However, if they agreed on the infeasability
   >of doubting our senses, I wonder what their views were on doubting the 
   >senses for *anything* (not constantly, just for some things).

  What they agree on is the infeasibility of *constantly* doubting our
senses, that is, of never accepting anything on the basis of sensory
input. But of course they are much concerned with sensory errors and
illusions. Berkely is famous for rejecting the existence of "matter"
outside mind, and this of course automatically makes him a bad guy
from the Randian point of view. But Berkeley is not at all opposed to
our accepting the evidence of our senses, but on the contrary claims
to stick strictly to the evidence, avoiding unwarranted metaphysical
speculation.  The point of my mentioning him and the other
philosophers is that the standard Objectivist considerations you put
forward don't really confront or take into account these other lines
of argument in the philosophy of perception.
From: sulkom@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark Sulkowski)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Free Markets are ecomomic anarchy
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:55:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <6JAN199314364571@mivax.mc.duke.edu>, seth@mivax.mc.duke.edu (Judge Not) writes...
>The laissez-faire-free-market* is economic anarchy.  While it may be difficult
>for the anarchists to achieve/justify/defend the total, utopian concept
>of anarchy for all, I don't see how objectivists can deny that in
>economic terms, they want complete anarchist freedom.

	I'm not exactly sure what you mean here.  Anarchy in what sense?
"Complete anarchist freedom?"  There would clearly be property rights and
protected contracts.  There would be rules of behavior!  Wouldn't you have
to be able to violate any rule in order in order to have "complete
anarchistic freedom" (in the usual sense of the word)?

	I'm not an Objectivist (in fact, I'm best described as an
anarcho-capitalist), but I can clearly see that any economic system
requires rules of behavior in order to function.


Mark Sulkowski
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
From: smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith)
Subject: Rand's Personality vs Objectivism
Organization: SCTC
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:04:35 GMT

Someone brought up the issue of Rand's personality and her failure to
live up to her own ideals. Someone posted a response saying such
arguments weren't appropriate, and in any case, were wrong. It seems
to me that living examples of the effects of a philosophy on one's
life should be relevant to discussions of the philosophy. That's the
reason I recommend Branden's 'Judgement Day' to any reader of Rand's works.
From: Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Rational Debate, Axioms, and Arguments
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:00:40 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

dcosley@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Daniel R Cosley) writes:

>As far as producing a little lemma, Rand talks about the primary ethical
>responsibility of living beings.  Basically her argument is:

>1) Living things exist
>2) Continued existence requires a certain course of action
>----
>3) Living requires a certain course of action

Okay, although there are many courses of action that preserve
life, and there has as yet been no attempt to characterize them.

>4) In order to have any values at all, a living thing must first continue to
>   live

Not so good; it ignores temporal conditions.  I can perfectly
well have values at present, that entail a future course of action
that isn't life preserving.  If you mean that

4') In order to have values in the future, a living thing must preserve
    its life

then we can proceed.

>----
>5) The primary value of a living thing is its life

Why should this follow?  It requires the living thing to wish to
have values in the future; and that's a pretty heavy (and
unjustifiable) assumption.

>6) Ethics is the science of how people ought to act
>7) People ought to act in order to achieve their values

This assumes that people should be aware of what their values
are (not always true), and that values are goals with well-
recognized criteria for determining success (also not always
true).  We can note parenthetically that one person, devising
an ethical system, need not accept another person's value system
as the "ought" for that second person.  People disagree with
others' goals, and are even mistaken about their own.  So unless
you *define* values as "that which ought to be achieved", you'll
have to expand and justify this a lot.  [And counter the obvious
charges that Hitler was trying to achieve his goals.]

>----
>8) Man's primary ethical requirement is to further his life

There's another leap here, in going from the notion that one
wishes to perpetuate one's life (in order to have values in
the future) to the notion that this is a *primary* requirement.
Why shouldn't it be secondary to other possible values?

>Now, I don't claim to be a logical giant, and, in fact, just did this little
>ditty off-the-cuff, but at least this is a starting point for people to argue
>over.

It's the most logical objectivist argument we've seen on this
group so far.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Chris.Holt@newcastle.ac.uk      Computing Lab, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Some ideas are frost giants: pouring cold water on them helps them to grow.
From: bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Funding the govt.....(Re: Just a few...
Date: 7 Jan 93 17:08:43 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing Sciences

In article <1if5l5INNnlm@mirror.digex.com>, dzik@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz) writes:
|> 
|> Second, another good method of preventing crime is to educate potential
|> criminals.  
|> 

Now that's what I call a real leap of faith.  

Charles Manson had as much education as I've got.
And what about Patty Hearst??  We all know how educationally deprived 
she was.

And my father never got past the 8th grade.  I guess we better watch 
out for him next.

|> 
|> More to the point, you assume that you, as an individual, have absolute
|> ownership of something.  However, that is not the case.  Individuals
|> do not have absolute ownership of anything: the government has partial
|> property rights to everything via emminent domain. 

Wrong.  The government has no rights.  It claims eminent domain only 
because it has set itself with the force to do whatever it wishes.

Thugs in most major cities do the same thing in what is called "protection".
Are you going to say because the claim the power to do this, it is their
right also??

What's the difference between an IRS man with a gun and a mugger with a gun??

|>                                                     The government has
|> agreed to not exercise its rights as long as you fulfill certain
|> obligations to it, including paying taxes and not breaking the law.

And the thugs in NYC have agreed not to wreck your store or break your arm
if you pay them every saturday afternoon.

Again, what's the difference??

bill

-- 

   Bill Gunshannon   | "There are no evil thoughts, Mr. Reardon" Francisco
   bill@cs.uofs.edu  |  said softly, "except one; the refusal to think."
                     |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>   
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism