Ayn Rand ?

[Skeptic Ginger]

This post is for Skeptic Ginger.

...I've frequently not read your posts because you often cover your own post, meaning you post again and again without anyone replying to your (or anyone elses) last post. It's not against the rules nor wrong, but it has made me less likely to read your posts. It's a preference on my part and it is my problem not yours.

I don't know what this means. I answer posts, many in a row sometimes, but usually each of my posts starts with the quote of the person I am replying to.

I felt bad and made an effort to read all your posts on page 5 of this thread about Ayn Rand.

Geese, don't feel bad. Who can possibly read everyone's posts or entire threads when they are very long. I certainly don't.

This is silly. Do you wish to undermine Plato for the same reason. Which philosophers are Sceptic Ginger informed of the biology of the brain appoved? You must have the names of some sharp philosophers or are all philosophers brain biology misinformed?

One doesn't 'judge' a philosopher of many centuries ago based on standards of today. Sometimes ancient people got it right. Look at Newton and Da Vinci.

When it comes to Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and the other great philosophers, they had many great insights. But does it translate exactly to today, idea by idea? I think not. The great mathematicians (wasn't Plato also in this category?) OTOH, had more concrete data to deal with. Not too many math theories I'm aware of turned out to be false. The great astronomers had to build on each others' foundations. Medical science didn't really start in earnest until the mid 1800s. So if you expect Plato's insights would have been the same if he had the advantage of today's neurobiology, I think that might be what is silly.

You evidently are speculating from such an informed place. It must not suck to be you.

I don't get your problem here. Why isn't it possible I know what I'm talking about? People see things from different viewpoints. I think quite often more than one person in a debate is correct, but what appears to be disagreement is often because the parties are not exactly talking about the same things.

"Stealing, cheating, & deceiving" is not the same "as the strong winning and the weak losing." It's not that I ever needed to discern the difference but I would prefer to lose to a stronger individual than one who steals, cheats and deceives. I don't cotton to that stealing, cheating and deceiving thing.

I totally agree that being wise and successful does not require one cheat steal and deceive. My point was that everyone who is successful has not accomplished that success based on their innate abilities unless you include being good at cheating people on your list of successful traits.

I don't see her view as narrower than anyone elses. In fact she knows about Russia, Hollywood and writing. She has seen a lot. You're wrong that she has a narrow view.

In the 1900s, there was not information available about modern neurobiology. Rand lived through the Russian revolution. Sure, that's a lot, but it also slants ones view, just as my Dad's view was slanted by the "Red Menace" and mine was slanted by the Vietnam War. We have the advantage today of incredible access to massive amounts of information in addition to our experiences. Some people recognize how their experiences shape their world view and can consider broader experiences when assessing the world they live in. Others believe their personal experiences are sufficient to draw broader conclusions than the experiences actually warrant.

I understand my Dad's view of Russian and Chinese communism and his belief we needed to stop the "domino effect". But he was wrong. It was and is the corruption in Russia and China that prevent their populations from emerging as free societies. While I think capitalism is a preferable model, and there are many reasons for that, I also think corrupt capitalism can be just as bad as corrupt communism. We need a mix of economies, not the pure laissez faire in Rand's imaginary world.

I'm calling BS on this. Where did you get this information?

From the biography of Ayn Rand by Anne Heller, "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", which I just finished reading. Rand had relatives in Russia that gave her money to come here. And she lived with cousins in New York when she got here who not only supported her financially, they gave her money to go to Hollywood which Rand used until she got a job there. According to Heller, Rand never paid these relatives back for their generosity nor credited them with helping her.

That doesn't mean Rand never helped anyone or gave anything to other people. She did. But not necessarily to those people who helped Rand get to America or become established here.

That biography did have a point of view. I plan to read another biography next but I've not decided which one would offer the best balance to the one I just read. As for Rand's own words, I've listened to the interview with Phil Donahue and I plan to hear the Wallace interview next.

IAre you going to write a book "Atlas is alive and well?"

If I write a book, this is not the topic I would choose to address first.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This post is for Senex as well as Marplots.

I don't understand #4 on the list:

4. The use of reason is volitional. The senses function automatically, but the process of concept-formation and thought is a matter of choice. The choice to think or not to think is man's basic free will.

It doesn't seem this way to me. For instance, when I read these posts. I form concepts that seem without any volition at all. It seems effortless and outside of my control. Same with reading words and other habitual tasks.

I think I must have it wrong somehow. I do not seem to have, "the choice to think."

Your post suggests you understand more about neurobiology than Rand did.

One of those instantaneous things about thinking are the instant interpretations we make. Think about how you recognize anything the first time you encounter it. Say you are looking at a tree species you've never seen before. What must go into your nearly instantaneous conclusion you are looking at a tree? Your brain has to recognize all the qualities which define a tree and do it in a nanosecond. Amazingly, the brain has no trouble doing this.

So called 'intuition' involves this same nearly instantaneous assessment of the situation. But if your 'intuition' is accurate, it isn't magical, 'you just know', thinking. It is really really fast and comprehensive unconscious assessment thinking.

Just slowing this down with careful deliberation is no guarantee you'll get it right. Sometimes people have the innate skill to get it right with rapid decision making. You'd hope the doctor with a critical patient in the ED is such a rational thinker.

OTOH, you have people who are convinced they have carefully thought something out, and they are certain they are right. But if they are lacking some key information, they can be very thoughtfully wrong. I find it interesting to look at the false underlying premises people operate on and how strongly they believe they are right when they are obviously wrong.

Take the Creationists who are convinced evolution theory is unproved and wrong. Typically they are unaware of the vast amount of progress in genetic science we've made in the last few decades. They have no insight as to why they are wrong.

Is it possible there are things that if I knew them I'd draw different conclusions? Absolutely. You keep that in the back of your mind and you look for new data that corrects any underlying premises you operate on. It doesn't undermine my confidence in what I do know. It's all just part of rational thinking.

 

[marplots]

One of those instantaneous things about thinking are the instant interpretations we make. Think about how you recognize anything the first time you encounter it. Say you are looking at a tree species you've never seen before. What must go into your nearly instantaneous conclusion you are looking at a tree? Your brain has to recognize all the qualities which define a tree and do it in a nanosecond. Amazingly, the brain has no trouble doing this.

So called 'intuition' involves this same nearly instantaneous assessment of the situation. But if your 'intuition' is accurate, it isn't magical, 'you just know', thinking. It is really really fast and comprehensive unconscious assessment thinking.

Yes, and I think this is why #4 on the list didn't fit with my experience. I do not think that the process you describe is volitional. I also, as you say, do not think it is 'magical'. If that list was and accurate representation of what Ayn Rand proposed, then I disagree with her.

 

[kestertaylor]

Is it possible there are things that if I knew them I'd draw different conclusions? Absolutely. You keep that in the back of your mind and you look for new data that corrects any underlying premises you operate on. It doesn't undermine my confidence in what I do know. It's all just part of rational thinking.

Yes, yes, yes, a zillion times yes. I know it's off-topic, but this is precisely what people obsessed with solipsism--as well as religionists who criticize science for change--just won't get. The whole underlying premise of skepticism and the scientific method are that we DON'T possess absolute certainty; just PRACTICAL certainty.

 

[Skeptic]

People are being a bit unfair to Rand here in two ways.

1). They confuse the cult that grew around her with her philosophy.
2). They take what she obviously meant metaphorically in her philosophical claims literally. For example, when she says one should "hold firm beliefs", she clearly doesn't mean "refuse to change one's mind under any circumstances", but merely to take reasoning and its conclusions seriously -- to not consider conclusions one reaches as mere personal affectations, a fashion to be worn for a day and then discraded, as so many who rush from one "genius" to another in their philosophical views do.

The problem with Rand as a philosopher is different. It is, as Goethe once said about a weak drama, that she's a good and original philosopher -- but the good part isn't original and the original part isn't good.

The good part is her respect for reality (as she sees it), and her attempt to find ethical rules of behavior that are more than mere fads. But that one should, for example, not lie or steal out of respect to the moral laws, out of respect to the truth, is good -- or at least arguably good -- philosophy, if a bit quirky (her view of respect for truth as the fountaindhead -- sorry -- of all morality reminds one of the 18th-century philosohper who claimed that adultery is wrong because it "tells" an observer the couple are husband and wife, when they are not). But it goes back to Plato and Kant (to name two).

The original part is that she poses the question "why be moral and not selfish?" -- the old question -- and replies, not as Plato said, that being moral is so important a good for one's soul that all other selfish concerns pale into insignificance, but that perfectly selfish people will be perfectly moral.

But why? Because (roughly) lying for gain, for example, creates a false picture of the world, and that purely selfish people will have incredible concern to avoid it (this unbending, almost fanatical concern to act according to moral laws in all circumstances, by the way, is pure Kant -- although she despises Kant as one of those "unrealistic" metaphysicians.)

The problem is that if I lie to you, there is no false picture in the world in my worldview; at most I create one in your worldview. And why should I, a selfish person, care about your interst? Rand's reply is the dogmatic, "There are no conflicts of interests among rational egoists". This avoids the contradiction, but at the price of being totally ridiculous.

So the original part in Rand's ethics -- purely selfish people will be moral -- is simply absurd. The rest is more reasonable, but unoriginal.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

People are being a bit unfair to Rand here in two ways.

1). They confuse the cult that grew around her with her philosophy.

And you know this because?

I haven't read anything from Rand cultist's points of view. So far, I've finished the biography and listened to Rand's interview on the Donahue show. And I heard a clip of her in some other interview where she was adamant about absolute laissez faire market being the best. Laissez faire is unrealistic in light of human nature. If it was such a great system, why is it not practiced in a single country in the world? Shouldn't we have migrated toward it by nature of its success?

And I totally disagree with Rand's own words about the fact that since we supposedly developed natural resources in third world countries while they "didn't use them", in Rand's mind makes it OK for the US to exploit the poor in those countries and take the resources we don't own. It is a disgustingly greedy point of view.

2). They take what she obviously meant metaphorically in her philosophical claims literally. For example, when she says one should "hold firm beliefs", she clearly doesn't mean "refuse to change one's mind under any circumstances", but merely to take reasoning and its conclusions seriously -- to not consider conclusions one reaches as mere personal affectations, a fashion to be worn for a day and then discraded, as so many who rush from one "genius" to another in their philosophical views do.

And yet as Rand grew older she just excluded anyone from her presence that held opposing views. You can see it in the Donahue interview when a woman questions Rand's underlying premise about altruism, Rand doesn't debate the woman, she tells her to shut up, it's Rand's show, not the woman's.

I'm sorry, but Rand clearly didn't want to examine or challenge her beliefs, she just wanted to bask in them. This was one of the worse things about her. She surrounded herself with unchallenging yes men.

 

[Skeptic]

Oh, for goodness' sake. I didn't say anybody who criticizes Rand is making the mistakes I pointed out, only that those are typical.

 

[Senex]

Wise Senex:This is silly. Do you wish to undermine Plato for the same reason. Which philosophers are Sceptic Ginger informed of the biology of the brain appoved? You must have the names of some sharp philosophers or are all philosophers brain biology misinformed?

When it comes to Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and the other great philosophers, they had many great insights. But does it translate exactly to today, idea by idea? I think not. The great mathematicians (wasn't Plato also in this category?) OTOH, had more concrete data to deal with. Not too many math theories I'm aware of turned out to be false. The great astronomers had to build on each others' foundations. Medical science didn't really start in earnest until the mid 1800s. So if you expect Plato's insights would have been the same if he had the advantage of today's neurobiology, I think that might be what is silly.

Admit this is bulloney or provide names of your neurobiology approved philosophers (unless these are fairy tale philosophers and then you should admit you make stuff up as you go along) so we can have a go at them as easily as you feel comfortable having a go at Rand.

Not too many math theories I'm aware of turned out to be false

What history of math texts do you read and more importantly what is your point?

My point is if Plato published today he would be influenced more by Rand than that pseudo-science "neurobiology" you are a disciple of. You are a woo if you believe neurological science has philosophical answers (and believe it can discredit classical philosophers).

You are a woo (an energetic typing woo) but a woo nonetheless.

 

[BillyRayValentine]

I understand my Dad's view of Russian and Chinese communism and his belief we needed to stop the "domino effect". But he was wrong. It was and is the corruption in Russia and China that prevent their populations from emerging as free societies.

Total non-sequitur. We shouldn't have done all we could to contain the spread of communism because the corruption of communist states was what prevented free societies from emerging? Makes not a lick of sense.

What I think you were trying to say is that active opposition to communism was unnecessary (counterproductive?) since the corruptness of the foremost communist states, Russia and China, guaranteed that their particular brand of communism would go the way of the dodo. That about right?

If by chance that's your thesis, all I can say is that it demonstrates an appalling indifference to 20th century history. Since its first application as a governing philosophy in the early 1900's, communist rule has been defined by its brutality and oppression, the scale of which the civilized world has never seen. It has (had) metastasized via brute force and violence - always.

The need to actively, aggressively confront those who seek to spread non-freedom under the threat of a gun should be self-evident. The notion that we should have stayed passive, sat tight and waited for communism to burn itself out is absurd. Very frightening to think about, actually. Imagine the world today if your mindset had prevailed at certain critical junctures in history. Makes me shudder.

 

[drkitten]

Admit this is bulloney or provide names of your neurobiology approved philosophers (unless these are fairy tale philosophers and then you should admit you make stuff up as you go along) so we can have a go at them as easily as you feel comfortable having a go at Rand.

Start with Dennett and the Churchlands.

My point is if Plato published today he would be influenced more by Rand than that pseudo-science "neurobiology" you are a disciple of.

<Shrug>. Then either your point is wrong, or Plato would be a hack unworthy of modern analysis.

You are a woo if you believe neurological science has philosophical answers (and believe it can discredit classical philosophers).

Certainly it can discredit classical philosophers; it shows that a lot of the beliefs they took as factual are in fact incorrect, which renders most of their conclusions at best unsupported and at worst actively disproven. An example of that is Plato's separation of human reason between "desire, emotion, and knowledge"; Nobel prizes have been won for showing that these aspects of cognition cannot, in fact, be separated.

 

[Senex]

<Shrug>. Then either your point is wrong, or Plato would be a hack unworthy of modern analysis.

First, I had a method for slowing down someone that now you hurt.

Second, Ok, that's my point. Clearly, no qualifiers, your mind is biological. Your mind is entirely, completely, no bones about it, entirely your brain.

But that knowledge doesn't discredit Rand.

I Think Rand is one of the few philosophers who lived in my life who is relevant.

I won't defend Plato's Mind/Body argument anymore than I will argue whatever woo today's argument will provide. My point is at this point no one has a philosophy on sound enough advice to live on. Do your best and let the rascals bitch and moan about you after you die.

 

[drkitten]

Ok, that's my point. Clearly, no qualifiers, your mind is biological. Your mind is entirely, completely, no bones about it, entirely your brain.

I didn't say that. But if your belief is either that the mind is 100% biological, or neuroscience has nothing whatsoever to say about the mind, then you're also a hack unworthy of serious analysis.

But that knowledge doesn't discredit Rand.

If merely being wrong beyond possibility of repair -- AND being a terrible writer, to boot -- doesn't discredit a philosopher, what does?

 

[Senex]

I didn't say that. But if your belief is either that the mind is 100% biological, or neuroscience has nothing whatsoever to say about the mind, then you're also a hack unworthy of serious analysis.

hehehehe...you don't know the half of it.

If merely being wrong beyond possibility of repair -- AND being a terrible writer, to boot -- doesn't discredit a philosopher, what does?

She may not be wrong (she may be wrong -- some things are hard to tell). She is a not a good writer but many people have gotten through her writings.

 

[drkitten]

he
She may not be wrong (she may be wrong -- some things are hard to tell).

No, she's wrong. Some things are indeed hard to tell, but this is not one of them. A cursory read of her writings indicates she makes many simple claims that are observationally false.

Greenspan's recantation is just one example among many.

 

[Senex]

No, she's wrong. Some things are indeed hard to tell, but this is not one of them. A cursory read of her writings indicates she makes many simple claims that are observationally false.

Greenspan's recantation is just one example among many.

Since when did you decide to fight Skeptic Ginger's battles?


If she authorizes you to fight her battle I'll bulldoze your argument as I would hers.

 

[BillyRayValentine]

An example of that is Plato's separation of human reason between "desire, emotion, and knowledge"; Nobel prizes have been won for showing that these aspects of cognition cannot, in fact, be separated.

Please provide more detail. Which Nobel prizes were awarded for showing "desire, emotion and knowledge" cannot be separated? Who were the recipients and what was their work?

Thank in advance.

 

[Senex]

Crickets? hehehe...as expected.

 

[BillyRayValentine]

Crickets? hehehe...as expected.

Yes, I raised a eyebrow when I read "Certainly it (neurological science) can discredit classical philosophers." An absurd statement to the core, all by itself. But when you consider what I suspect was the whopper about Nobel Prizes specifically supporting this position, I sensed we had a very ironic case of dishonesty on our hands.

Of course I could be wrong. Which is your cue, drkitten, to return and back up your claims.

 

[Senex]

Yes, I raised a eyebrow when I read "Certainly it (neurological science) can discredit classical philosophers." An absurd statement to the core, all by itself. But when you consider what I suspect was the whopper about Nobel Prizes specifically supporting this position, I sensed we had a very ironic case of dishonesty on our hands.

Of course I could be wrong. Which is your cue, drkitten, to return and back up your claims.

The beauty of the JREF is you can banter an argument around. Unless your opponent dodges you.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Oh, for goodness' sake. I didn't say anybody who criticizes Rand is making the mistakes I pointed out, only that those are typical.

"People are being a bit unfair to Rand here "


Oh for goodness sake. And I thought you were referring to in this thread by the word, "here".