Ayn Rand speaks to Mike Wallace, 1959

[RandFan]

I think she suffers from the problem of having a really nice hammer. She developed a system of philosophy that handles some problems very well. Naturally, she was inclined to apply it to all problems indiscriminantly.

Bingo.

 

[BPSCG]

As F is dP/dt, so it would impart an infinite amount of momentum, the immovable object would have an infinite mass.

Correct. I call on those who argue that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistible force to demonstrate the existence of even one object of infinite mass.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Correct. I call on those who argue that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistible force to demonstrate the existence of even one object of infinite mass.

An object does not need to be infinitely massive to be immovable. A black hole the size the entire universe would be less dense than water, IIRC. I can't think of how such an object might be moved.

 

[EGarrett]

Living in civilized society means submitting to force. No way around it. Hopefully the force is not put into practice against you as long as you're operating within the rules (In other words, are the rules reliable and predictable?). And hopefully the rules are fair and just. This includes the contribution to the public weal by individuals and business entities by means of taxes, fees, etc. Never heard of a society that operated differently.

I've said before that for a society to function, someone must be willing and able to do bad things to bad people...so I agree. To a libertarian (which to some extent I guess Rand was), the force seems to only exist to protect property rights and the law.

According to the video, Rand doesn't seem to believe in taxes. Do you know how she intended to fund the military and police without taxes?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

Are you going to give a proper argument or you just uping your post count?

Where to begin? Objectivism is weak in many ways. Rand's scholarship is terrible. She fails to understand many of the positions that she tries to describe and ascribe and criticize.

In life she didn't embrace the idea of philosophy. She demanded that 'Objectivists' accept all of her ideas. She ignored valid criticism of her work.

Here's an essay I found that details a couple of the claims I've made above.

http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/chris.../philosophy/objectivism/merrill.comments.html

So what is it that differentiates the writing of Rand from those of classic academics and professional philosophers? It is simply that her work has every appearance of an extended and multi-faceted straw man argument that fails to meet even the minimum standards of scholarship. It has all the marks of what in science would be pseudo-science. If there is such a thing as pseudo-philosophy, this is it.

Look at my post count and look at yours. Do you really think I give a damn about it?

Are you a fan of Rand? Can you tell me what you find the least bit compelling about her philosophy?

 

[BPSCG]

An object does not need to be infinitely massive to be immovable.

Then what happens when an object with more mass bumps into it?

 

[RandFan]

Objectivism is weak in many ways.

Agreed. But then many philosophies are. None are airtight, if they weren't we wouldn't have competing philosophies. I'll grant you though that Rand's philosophy had a few more holes than many.

Rand's scholarship is terrible.

I'm not at all sure what you mean. Please define scholarship and then explain how hers was terrible. Rand was not rigorous in forming her philosophy. If this is what you mean then your criticism is valid.

She fails to understand many of the positions that she tries to describe and ascribe and criticize. In life she didn't embrace the idea of philosophy. She demanded that 'Objectivists' accept all of her ideas. She ignored valid criticism of her work.

Asserted premises. Could you give us something more?

Here's an essay I found that details a couple of the claims I've made above.

http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/chris.../philosophy/objectivism/merrill.comments.html

Interesting but hardly devastating. It's one guy's opinion stitched together from some observations and some valid premises. In any event, I truly despise arguing via link. Could you tell us why you think the article significant?

Look at my post count and look at yours. Do you really think I give a damn about it?

Which raises the question, why did you bother to respond at all?

Are you a fan of Rand?

I know your post was not meant for me but yes, I am.

Can you tell me what you find the least bit compelling about her philosophy?

At a time when the world was focusing on socialism and communism Rand championed and popularized another view of human nature. I don't see Rand as an academic philosopher. I put Rand alongside Dostoevsky and Orwell. Through literature she gave the world a visual image of a concept. It wasn't a grand unifying concept. It was but a piece of the puzzle. It was not unique to her, she didn't discover this concept, she put into the popular culture and societal conscience.

"It should be stressed in conclusion that whether one is a fan or a detractor of Ayn Rand, the issues raised by this book are manifold and provocative. This book should force a debate of renewed vigor about what we mean by egoism, whether and how the egoism/altruism dichotomy should be applied within eudaimonistic ethical theories, and what our ethical theories imply about our political outlook. Smith provides us with a version of egoism that will need to be argued against by those who find it distasteful or misguided, rather than simply dismissed." --A review of Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist" by Tara Smith

 

[Kerberos]

Correct. I call on those who argue that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistible force to demonstrate the existence of even one object of infinite mass.

And you don't see any problem with trying to prove a logical point using empirical natural laws?

 

[Kerberos]

An object does not need to be infinitely massive to be immovable. A black hole the size the entire universe would be less dense than water, IIRC. I can't think of how such an object might be moved.

I can, you just throw a paper ball at it. It wouldn't move far, but it would move.

 

[BPSCG]

And you don't see any problem with trying to prove a logical point using empirical natural laws?

How about this logical point? An immovable object would have to be at rest (otherwise it's moving) and it would have to have infinite mass. The force attempting to move it would have to be greater than infinite mass to create that infinite-mass-overcoming-force; if there's no mass, there's no force.

So the proposition that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistable force rests on the assumption that there can be two objects of infinite mass. That's a logically absurdity, since if A is of infinite mass, then there cannot exist B, another object, because that would require A's mass to be limited in that there exists something apart from A. It's also logically absurd because the object behind the force would have to be of greater infinite mass than the infinitely massive immovable object.

Here's another logical absurdity. Since the irresistible force comes from an object of infinite mass, where did the energy come from that set that mass into motion? In other words, where did the A come from in F=MA? You can not give an answer that doesn't require another object of infinite mass setting it into motion.

F=MA. Once you make M infinite, you need F to be infinite on the other side and all kinds of logical absurdities arise when you start playing with infinities.

In any case, this is wandering a little far afield of the main point, since most of us don't deal with infinite masses every day. But we do deal with apparent paradoxes every day, and recognizing that they are only apparent paradoxes is a useful tool in getting at the truth. If a line of argument requires the conclusion that I am a woman and it also requires the conclusion that I am a man, that is a paradox, and there is a faulty premise in the argument somewhere. Homeopathy is full of apparent paradoxes, which enables us to conclude that it's nonsense without our having to have degrees in medicine or pharmacology.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Correct. I call on those who argue that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistible force to demonstrate the existence of even one object of infinite mass.

Ah well now you are looking for two things that can't exist in the real world. But as I already pointed out you can have both mathmaticaly.

You define force as say F=lim_x->infinity2x
and mass as m=lim_x->infinityx

and you get it accelerating at 2

if you make one of them x^2 then that property dominates and it will accelerate at an infinite rate or not accelerate at all.

So mathmaticaly it works.

 

[ponderingturtle]

An object does not need to be infinitely massive to be immovable. A black hole the size the entire universe would be less dense than water, IIRC. I can't think of how such an object might be moved.

How do you define the density of a singularity? And as for moving it, all you need is a mass to pull it with gravity. It will not move much unless you have a separate ultra massive black hole but this is all just math anyway so you can easily posit such a thing.

 

[Kerberos]

How about this logical point? An immovable object would have to be at rest (otherwise it's moving) and it would have to have infinite mass. The force attempting to move it would have to be greater than infinite mass to create that infinite-mass-overcoming-force; if there's no mass, there's no force.

So the proposition that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistable force rests on the assumption that there can be two objects of infinite mass. That's a logically absurdity, since if A is of infinite mass, then there cannot exist B, another object, because that would require A's mass to be limited in that there exists something apart from A. It's also logically absurd because the object behind the force would have to be of greater infinite mass than the infinitely massive immovable object.

Actually an immovable force/unstoppable object do not have to have infinite mass (at least not in the sense that it has an infinite gravitional pull, using physical concepts like that about logical constructs is fairly meaningless), nor would you conclusions follow logically even if it did. You're still assuming that conventional physics are correct, which is not valid in a discussion of pure logic.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've said before that for a society to function, someone must be willing and able to do bad things to bad people...so I agree. To a libertarian (which to some extent I guess Rand was), the force seems to only exist to protect property rights and the law.

According to the video, Rand doesn't seem to believe in taxes. Do you know how she intended to fund the military and police without taxes?

Likely unforced donations, the same thing you would depend on if you say needed urgent medical care and could not afford it or food if you could not afford that.

Such a thing could work, but you would need a very unselfish society which her ideas do not seem to encourage. Look at the potlatch as an example of profound giving.

 

[ponderingturtle]

How about this logical point? An immovable object would have to be at rest (otherwise it's moving) and it would have to have infinite mass. The force attempting to move it would have to be greater than infinite mass to create that infinite-mass-overcoming-force; if there's no mass, there's no force.

So the proposition that there can be both an immovable object and an irresistible force rests on the assumption that there can be two objects of infinite mass. That's a logically absurdity, since if A is of infinite mass, then there cannot exist B, another object, because that would require A's mass to be limited in that there exists something apart from A. It's also logically absurd because the object behind the force would have to be of greater infinite mass than the infinitely massive immovable object.

Wrong. Did you read my post you quoted above, aside from presumably the part quoted? You are making the failure of thinking that there is only one flavor of infinity, this is wrong look into unit area delta functions more, and you will see how a concept of infinity over infinity can be a number or 0 or infinity if you play with the exact nature of infinity.

Or are you claiming that such math is illogical?

 

[ponderingturtle]

The main flaw seems to be you are depending on people to act in a very unselfish manner by donating time or money to help others while recognising that altruistic motivations are not in general a strong motivator.

 

[BPSCG]

Wrong. Did you read my post you quoted above, aside from presumably the part quoted? You are making the failure of thinking that there is only one flavor of infinity, this is wrong look into unit area delta functions more, and you will see how a concept of infinity over infinity can be a number or 0 or infinity if you play with the exact nature of infinity.

Well, if you're saying "infinite" can have multiple meanings at the same time depending on what you're trying to prove, I'm afraid I'm going to have to bail out of the argument at that point. Your math is evidently stronger than mine

or you simply copied-and-pasted some stuff out of wikipedia...

(I get lost in the weeds after elementary algebra), so if you think you can prove that infinity divided by infinity can be a number or zero or infinity, I'll take your word for it. But when you do that, I think the discussion becomes meaningless.

In any case, as I said, I don't often deal with the apparent paradox of multiple infinite masses every day, but I do see other apparent paradoxes from time to time, and it's helpful to remember that when I see an apparent paradox, there's a flaw in the argument somewhere.

 

[Cain]

Agreed. But then many philosophies are. None are airtight, if they weren't we wouldn't have competing philosophies. I'll grant you though that Rand's philosophy had a few more holes than many.

A few gaping holes? Why is it that almost the only people who take Rand seriously as a philosopher tend to find her politics and ethics attractive? Why is it that people first exposed to her metaphysics and epistemology do not have a tendency to experience any "aha!" moment.

I'm not at all sure what you mean. Please define scholarship and then explain how hers was terrible. Rand was not rigorous in forming her philosophy. If this is what you mean then your criticism is valid.

How about basing a review of Rawls' _Theory of Justice_, arguably the most important political philosophy in the last 100 years, on a review she read in the NYT? What if I said she had a HABIT of forming opinions on important philosophers based on secondary rather than primary readings. Or a tantrum she threw at John Hospers because he dared to criticize her work in her presence at an academic symposium he set up to promote her work. This is the sort of thing that happens at symposiums and Rand was too weak-minded to handle it. Or how about her lying to followers about the whole Branden affair? Or maybe the fact her philosophy is largely supported by a pop-psychology she essentially made up. Notable claims include the notion that homosexuality, in addition to being "disgusting" is based on "psychological corruptions," and a woman cannot be president because her proper role is "hero worship."

A lot of this stuff, if I remember correctly, is covered in Jeff Walker's _The Ayn Rand Cult_. If it matters the book received enthusiastic blurbs from Martin Gardner and Michael Shermer.

BPSCG: Earlier I replied to a post where YOU accused ME of misunderstanding Rand, and encouraged me to read _Atlas Shrugged_. I think I convincingly demonstrated otherwise, which must make you feel foolish for plodding through her ridiculous verbiage with nothing to show for it.

 

[RandFan]

A few gaping holes? Why is it that almost the only people who take Rand seriously as a philosopher...

I'm not sure how seriously I take her as a philosopher. I've said time and again that she was not rigorous in her philosophy.

...tend to find her politics and ethics attractive? Why is it that people first exposed to her metaphysics and epistemology do not have a tendency to experience any "aha!" moment.

"aha" what? I found something wrong therefore everything she says is wrong?

How about basing a review of Rawls' _Theory of Justice_, arguably the most important political philosophy in the last 100 years, on a review she read in the NYT? What if I said she had a HABIT of forming opinions on important philosophers based on secondary rather than primary readings. Or a tantrum she threw at John Hospers because he dared to criticize her work in her presence at an academic symposium he set up to promote her work. This is the sort of thing that happens at symposiums and Rand was too weak-minded to handle it. Or how about her lying to followers about the whole Branden affair? Or maybe the fact her philosophy is largely supported by a pop-psychology she essentially made up. Notable claims include the notion that homosexuality, in addition to being "disgusting" is based on "psychological corruptions," and a woman cannot be president because her proper role is "hero worship."

What about it? You honestly think that all other philosophers are without flaw? Much of this BTW is simply ad hominem. In any event, I've conceded that as a philosopher she was not rigorous.

A lot of this stuff, if I remember correctly, is covered in Jeff Walker's _The Ayn Rand Cult_. If it matters the book received enthusiastic blurbs from Martin Gardner and Michael Shermer.

Which is precisely why I'm not an objectivist. I agree with Gardner and Shermer. BTW, I feel about Rand pretty much the same as Shermer having read and heard his take on her.

 

[Cain]

What about it? You honestly think that all other philosophers are without flaw? Much of this BTW is simply ad hominem. In any event, I've conceded that as a philosopher she was not rigorous.

How is "much of this" ad hominem when you asked about her so-called scholarship. Having to deal with this nonsense bothers me. I take the time to support a point of contention and it's stupidly dismissed as ad hominem (Oh, wait, is that ad hominem now). God.

It's so infuriating dealing with people who know nothing and then bearing to hear them cite logical fallacies in latin. On a scale of annoying it ranks above would-be grammar cop who misspells grammar with an 'e' but below Rand fan who doesn't understand Rand (which is in turn, below third-rate magician who thinks he's more clever than he is).

Please return to regularly scheduled discussion: Can God make a rock so big that even He couldn't lift it???