Talk:Ayn Rand/Archive3

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Anecdote

Forwarded to me from someone's Facebook page, I know not of its authenticity or origin, but it sounds verifiable:

"In her journal circa 1928 Rand quoted the statement, "What is good for me is right," a credo attributed to a prominent figure of the day, William Edward Hickman. Her response was enthusiastic. "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she exulted. (Quoted in Ryan, citing Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 21-22.)

At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled The Little Street, the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan. According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." (Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)

"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man.

So the question is, who exactly was he?

William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her pantheon of fictional heroes.

You see, Hickman was a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.

Other than that, he was probably a swell guy.

In December of 1927, Hickman, nineteen years old, showed up at a Los Angeles public school and managed to get custody of a twelve-year-old girl, Marian (sometimes Marion) Parker. He was able to convince Marian's teacher that the girl's father, a well-known banker, had been seriously injured in a car accident and that the girl had to go to the hospital immediately. The story was a lie. Hickman disappeared with Marian, and over the next few days Mr. and Mrs. Parker received a series of ransom notes. The notes were cruel and taunting and were sometimes signed "Death" or "Fate." The sum of $1,500 was demanded for the child's safe release. (Hickman needed this sum, he later claimed, because he wanted to go to Bible college!) The father raised the payment in gold certificates and delivered it to Hickman. As told by the article "Fate, Death and the Fox" in crimelibrary.com,

"At the rendezvous, Mr. Parker handed over the money to a young man who was waiting for him in a parked car. When Mr. Parker paid the ransom, he could see his daughter, Marion, sitting in the passenger seat next to the suspect. As soon as the money was exchanged, the suspect drove off with the victim still in the car. At the end of the street, Marion's corpse was dumped onto the pavement. She was dead. Her legs had been chopped off and her eyes had been wired open to appear as if she was still alive. Her internal organs had been cut out and pieces of her body were later found strewn all over the Los Angeles area."

--DogP (talk) 22:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Appears to be factual, going by Wikipedia (WP:William Edward Hickman, WP:Marion Parker). Can't be bothered checking all the sources. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

tl;dr Ayn Rand's a cunt, I wouldn't turn my back to a Randroid--User:Brxbrx/sig 22:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Please don't use gendered insults here. For one thing, Rand lacked both warmth and depth. Second, using cunt as an insult makes us look like hypocrites. You've been dopeslapped. Go and sin no more. EVDebs (talk) 23:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

that was funny. You're right, and I'm sorry. Ayn Rand is more of a selfish bitch than a luscious cunt. And by bitch I do not mean woman, but an ill-tempered canine female.--User:Brxbrx/sig 23:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Here we go again with the 'mind your potty mouth' thing. "Gendered insults", WTF? Would anyone object if someone said "Hickman's a dick/prick/cock"? - I guarantee you not. The pathetic little hissy fits people pull around the word cunt are fucking sad. Rand was, indubitably, a cunt. Brxbx, you're a dick for acquiescing. EVDebs, why does it make 'us' look like hypocrites? Jesus this dump has become PC-central. DogP (talk) 23:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's see... sociopath, scumbag, fuckwad, nitwit, dipshit, asshole, asshat, craniorectal invert, dumbshit, assweasel, lackwit, serial killer apologist, paint chip gourmet, dumbass, hunka hunka burnin stupid, whiner, solipsist, leech, fucknugget, sleaze, unaware winner of Russian roulette, dope, hypocrite, Kool-aid bartender, numbskull, pusbucket, misanthrope, pigfucker, liar, cloudcuckoolander... I could go on. PC? Fuck that shit. But words have meanings. As for calling Hickman a dick or whatever, the difference is that women have long been treated as second-class citizens in our civilization, so using a gendered insult on a woman carries a connotation that using one on a man doesn't. EVDebs (talk) 01:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

If you wish the politically-correct version, Ms. Rand was a person with the type of genitalia that in patriarchal discourses has been assigned to the female gender. ListenerX^TalkerX 01:59, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, you certainly can't argue against that one on accuracy points... EVDebs (talk) 02:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Which goes to show that the Pejorative Connotation carried by the Nasty Gendered Insult deals on Ms. Rand's character, and not on the fact that she was a woman. The reference to the female genitalia in the insult, thus, is analogous to the use of the pronoun "she" instead of "it." ListenerX^TalkerX 02:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Except calling her one and saying she has one are two different things. The first is an insult that implies, based on cultural baggage, that femininity is dirty or wrong; the second is a statement of fact. It's all context; that's why people see through political dog-whistles, for example. The whistlers think they have plausible deniability, but if you look at their background, you'll see they're saying something else entirely that only the in-group is supposed to understand. EVDebs (talk) 02:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I submit that the implication based on cultural baggage is instead that sex is dirty and/or wrong. I further submit that if it were about "femininity," the parallel insult of "d**k" would not have much currency. ListenerX^TalkerX 02:18, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, well, that's a whole nother can of worms to open on a closely related but much more complex topic -- gender role double standards and all that stuff. Suffice to say that if the problem wasn't more about women's sexuality than anything else, the Slutwalk I went to a few weeks ago wouldn't have made sense. EVDebs (talk) 02:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

In reply to which I can only quote G.K. Chesterton: "The theorist who starts with a false theory and then sees everything as making it come true is the most dangerous enemy of human reason." ListenerX^TalkerX 03:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

You just know Rand's critics are on their last legs when they bring this up. Just because she planned to use Hickman as the basis for a main character, doesn't mean that she admired the bastard. We wouldn't accuse Brett Easton Ellis of admiring Ted Bundy because he based Patrick Bateman on him! Yes, Rand described the aptly named Hickman as "a light and free spirit" but she also described him as a "degenerate", hardly the term we would use to describe someone we admired. By describing him as "light" and "free" or whatever, she just meant that he had the capacity to be good though obviously, that's not what he ended up being. She may even have agreed with some of the things he said but we've all heard evil people say disturbingly logical things. I agree with some of the things Josef Stalin said, though I hate the guy as much as anyone else: "The writer is the engineer of the soul", "the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic" for example. Rand even scrapped writing "The Little Street" perhaps because she feared that people would misunderstand her as they did Nietzsche and think that she was glorifying a serial killer. Read "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky. While we sympathise with Raskolnikov, none of us would condone his actions now would we? --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 22:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Fortunately leftists never admire murderers and sociopaths. In fact, I doubt you could even get a T-shirt with the image of someone like, say, Che Guevara on it. Advancedatheist (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, fortunately. --MtD^{Pinko Scum} 16:07, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Krugman not being quoted

First, Krugman quoted Rogers. Second, check out this quote: “There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.” – The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel.

76.91.91.78 (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The delusion of her followers is hilarious

Came across this picture on a Randroid site. Someone paid $14000 for it!

http://www.cordair.com/bokor/beginnings.php

Most of her followers are teenagers who are questioning what High Schools are teaching them. This means they could be questioning why evolution is being removed from school biology texts and room is being made for prayer and the teaching of creationism. Why is it these kids see that religion's moral teaching is inferior to science, but they can't see that society is a benevolent kind creator of their true path and destiny in life? We need to champion the old style of society, the one that promised stake burning for condescension. We are talking about Randroids after all. We should burn the sociopaths at the stake on a pile of Atlas Shrugged books and the DIM hypothesis which I hear is selling so well. Other than that we would have to argue with them, and no one wants that.

If we do have to argue, they should be encouraged to believe in a good philosophy, like Kant's. Kant knew what he was talking about with his separation of Science and Faith. All of the questions about morality and what should be considered right he left to the Religious Right. All of the sciencey things like engineering my new Iphone he left to the brainy left. That way I can twitter about the polgram I'm trying to organize! Guidewog (talk) 21:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Considering Atlas Shrugged is an instruction manual on how to behave like a butthurt little shit, full of incredibly privileged people whining about how needed and important they are and then running away from society to their secret mountain hideaways away from the mean popular kids peasants all to make a point about how badly the populace needs to stroke their dicks in worship... yeah! Bring on the kerosene! ±KnightOfTL;DR^{yeah, well you fight like a cow!} 00:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, cause they owe us! Don't they know the big Society God is gonna crush 'em? Slavery is freedom! Never read the book myself, but I know it's a bad one. The popular kids said so and that's the only argument from authority that I tolerate. Guidewog (talk) 01:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

You do realize that one is able to criticize a book after reading it, right? Your book sucks and is basically a primer on how be a whiny over-entitled loser. Get over it. Your stupid attempts at sarcasm do not mask your simultaneous bruised ego and raging boner for terrible literature. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{critical thinking is the key to success!} 01:13, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

To quote William Stafford, "Some books ought to burn, trying for character but just faking it." Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

You haven't had an affect on my taste in literature or my ego. All I've seen from you is anger and a will to destroy whatever it is you don't understand. It's a good thing that you apparently lack the skill to destroy so little, or the understanding to destroy so much. Guidewog (talk) 02:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Image caption

Let's just say it's a testament to humanity's resilience that she didn't do anything more prolific than "writing."

I don't get it. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 00:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

What if she had been a politician? -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits war by Guidewog

Please discuss changes before proceeding with the edit/revert war. As far as I can see, these edits are taking out a bunch of commentary & altering the POV, while not adding much of value other than banal plot details & spelling/grammar problems. Hence my reversions. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

This article in it's current form as of posting this, is a violation of the community standards. "Less talked about but arguably more important, the scientific point of view means that our articles take the side of the scientific consensus on an issue. RationalWiki should be and will be highly critical of any unscientific, irrational, or just plain stupid idea, movement, or ideology." There is no Scientific consensus on Objectivism represented in this article. Only the opinion of a few people who obviously are biased. They use second hand criticism, Not Original Research, which is creating an echo chamber effect and depriving the community of a reasonable standard of legitimate information. This article should be held to a higher standard of evidence in order to not give the community a false perspective. ^{— Unsigned, by: Guidewog / talk / contribs}

...should be held to a higher standard of evidence in order to not give the community a false perspective.

All members now in attendance must diminish the contents of their glasses by two fingers' breadth. So say we all. Sprocket J Cogswell 21:29, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Curious. What is that in reference to? BSG? I assume your highlighting the quote because you agree that quotes from the literature and references to Objectivist Philosophy should be used to justify the assertion that, "The world goes to hell in a handbasket, except for them, 'cos they're in their seekrit mountain hideout, which can't be seen from the air, so it's, like, seekrit. And they have trains, after all." Guidedog (talk) 00:34, 21 September 2012 (UTC)Guidedog (talk) 00:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a local tradition of taking a drink when someone says "but I thought this was supposed to be a RATIONAL wiki!" Your concern about "giving the community a false perspective" seemed like a close enough analogy to that. You will get used to this place's little ways if you stick around a while. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I am still holding out hope that it isn't a Rationalism Wiki. Someone has built quite a castle in the sky with this article. Guidedog (talk) 00:53, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Objectivist Selfishness TL;DR version

Everyone knows that Objectivists say that selfishness is the moral principle that everyone should live by. I am going to try to explain what they mean. Well, objectivism supports psychological monism. Objectivists don't believe that a separate entity, some call it the soul, exists in our consciousness. Mind-Body dualism is not a tenet of objectivist philosophy. Therefore, everyone has a self, it is a system, of which one part is the conscience. So when objectivists refer to selfishness as a virtue, what they mean is that it is irrational and immoral to act against ones self-interest. There is also an objective reality. If Jimmy goes and kills Sam, and fearing Jimmy we lock him in prison, then it wasn't in Jimmy's interest to kill Sam thus it is an immoral act for Jimmy to kill Sam. Similarly it's in a non-violent persons interest to lock up criminals, but also to create a system of Justice that ensures they are not incarcerated for following their own self-interest. Guidedog (talk) 01:42, 21 September 2012 (UTC) Edit:Guidedog (talk) 13:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

While I appreciate your attempts to express the philosophy involved, I would suggest that your phrasing is a little muddled. I find it difficult to understand, despite being intimately familiar with Rand and Objectivism.

The system at which you allude with your example and reasoning, by the way, is "enlightened self-interest," a philosophy to which I adhere. It deploys the mechanism of selfishness to explain human behavior and how we should guide our lives and societies. I highly recommend it, because it and its associated movements are more solidly reasoned than Rand's philosophy.--^talk 02:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused, from where does the enlightenment come? Guidedog (talk) 02:38, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Goats. Doctor Dark (talk) 02:43, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Those Satanic beasts!? Guidedog (talk) 12:55, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yourself and your ability to see beyond the immediate situation to your larger benefit. As in: it might be momentarily lucrative to steal something if you can get away with it, but if theft is normalized, then your own possessions will be stolen in short order. So it is to your greater benefit to help promote a lawful society, since it makes your life much better in several ways. Another term for enlightened self-interest is the ethic of reciprocity - "do unto others," as it is said.--^talk 03:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say the two are identical; "do unto others" is more of a natural consequence of enlightened self-interest, at least when approached honestly. EVDebs (talk) 03:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

So a sadist and a masochist are talking to each other. The Masochist says, "Hey, would you please beat me?" The Sadist says, "No."Guidedog (talk) 12:54, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I went ahead and edited my statement to reflect the difference between Rational Egoism and Enlightened Self-Interest. I used a little bit of Dr. Tara Smiths commentary. I haven't read her book on objectivist ethics yet.Guidedog (talk) 13:19, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Something that I didn't realize until now, probably because we live in a fishbowl of civilization here in the west, is that a utilitarian would say that it's enlightened self-interest to uphold the moral institutions of society, and the Rational Egoist would say that it is only moral is the institutions uphold my self interest. Guidedog (talk) 13:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Ayn Rand on Logic

“It’s logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality.” Logic is the art or skill of non-contradictory identification. Logic has a single law, the Law of Identity, and its various corollaries. If logic has nothing to do with reality, it means that the Law of Identity is inapplicable to reality. If so, then: a. things are not what they are; b. things can be and not be at the same time, in the same respect, i.e., reality is made up of contradictions. If so, by what means did anyone discover it? By illogical means. (This last is for sure.) The purpose of that notion is crudely obvious. Its actual meaning is not: “Logic has nothing to do with reality,” but: “I, the speaker, have nothing to do with logic (or with reality).” When people use that catch phrase, they mean either: “It’s logical, but I don’t choose to be logical” or: “It’s logical, but people are not logical, they don’t think—and I intend to pander to their irrationality.” --Taken from "For the new Intellectual"

Both Empiricism and Rationalism depend on logic, however one favors induction and the other deduction. Both Skeptics and Objectivists favor inductive reasoning, but objectivists are much more willing to integrate more abstract concepts. These abstractions are what is needed to create great advances intellectually. Skeptics are willing to integrate, but they favor small integration which leads to a segmented base of knowledge at best and contradictory fields of knowledge at worst. Guidedog (talk) 17:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

This used to be a solid, funny article

This used to be a solid, funny article, particularly the section on Atlas Shrugged, which I wrote. Now it is a fucking useless article, and the book synopsis has been raided by libertarians who are by definition the least funny people on the planet. Evidence - the synopsis used to be funny and short, now it's unfunny, full of libertarian propaganda and almost as long as that shit book. I have a cite for that. DogP (talk) 03:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

When I found the article it was twice as long and had nothing to do with the book. You talk about propaganda but anyone that looks at the previous revision will see that it was nothing but propaganda in the true sense of the word as a lie designed to incense people's perception of the world. Train jokes and class-ism isn't funny. Your article was divisive to the community. Your spreading ignorance just to prop up your bullshit world view. Your the absolute worst representative for critical thought, ever. My dog could write funnier jokes and still create an unbiased view of the plot. Hell if you bothered to read the book she would finish it before you. Guidewog (talk) 20:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

In my experience, your use of the term "divisive" seems exactly equivalent to the same use by sexist assholes trying to avoid confronting the atheist/skeptical community's problem with women -- in other words "stop telling me that I might be wrong because it makes me mad when you make me think about things I take for granted". You know that makes you look rather silly, no? EVDebs (talk) 20:19, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am not sure how to respond to this EVDebs. The 'Objectivist community' doesn't have a problem with women. Can you share more of your point of view? I am having trouble catching your point. Guidewog (talk) 20:45, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

And that's the second time you've mistaken an analogy for a claim of equivalence in something I've said. (Rand did seem to have a problem with women, but that's kind of not relevant, because I'm not talking about sexism per se here.) Are you a Dunning-Kruger case or just a zealot? EVDebs (talk) 21:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Those are not mutually exclusive categories. Doctor Dark (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The writing style, things like your/you're and "cognitive dissidence," is consistent with what one might call competence anosognosia. As I believe you imply, that parameter may be somewhat orthogonal to zealotry. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying I am a sexist asshole or just making an analogy about how I am acting like a sexist asshole? Both are false. Perhaps your trying to skip around the fact that this article defames and ridicules a group of people that otherwise could be productive members of the community, hence divisive. It is analogous to how members of the Skeptic or Libertarian or Atheist communities make statements that exclude women, and then say that the movement just doesn't interest them. Guidewog (talk) 23:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Back to the topic at hand. It is wrong to assume that Objectivist do not care about scientific consensus, they are empiricists by their epistomology. It is also wrong to champion your non-scientific political views to the exclusion of others, because if your a member of this community you, "welcome contributors, and encourage those who disagree with [you] to register and engage in constructive dialogue." Having a prepared wiki article that distorts their viewpoint violates this principle. In fact, "Obviously vile comments made for the purposes of trolling," are not tolerated on the talk page, and shouldn't be tolerated in the articles themselves. Is trolling the internet really the information that rational wiki wishes to stand by? Who will correct our misinformation if we alienate those we need to inform most? Guidewog (talk) 23:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

If there are violations of principle here, better call the cops.

Seriously, you will find scant support for Rand or "objectivism" here, and the mob won't be swayed by appeals to concern for "those we need to inform". The writings of Randian acolytes like Harriman probably won't help much either. For one thing, I see questionable assumptions about hierarchy of concepts. I believe Reality[TM] is fuzzier and more tangled than that, as is our cognitive apprehension of it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 00:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Reality isn't tangled and fuzzy as you put it. We are perfectly capable of using the scientific method and induction to create theories that are a very accurate account of empirical evidence. I don't know what you mean about Hierarchy. Does a system of interrelated parts have a hierarchy? As for the mobocracy I am lucky as they can all think for themselves and I don't need to call the cops as when I explain my arguments clearly cognitive dissidence will do it for me. Codifying a set of principles that are rational and govern the wiki, however they are enforced, is just a way of making sure past conflicts don't keep rearing their head. Guidedog (talk) 00:50, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Reality not tangled and fuzzy? Well, I guess you would think that... Rand was an absolutist when it came to her idea of morality, but the rest of the world doesn't work on absolutist principles. And then of course there's quantum mechanics, but, well... look, if you want determinism in your physics, you're going to have to actually get in there and do (or at least study) physics, not just pontificate on it from a philosophical standpoint. EVDebs (talk) 02:53, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Your right, I do need to study more higher physics. It's a part of my self-interest anyway, but seeing as how I don't have all day to study physics, chat with you, and work, I have to read books that break it down for me. I know physicists, and I discuss these things with them. They aren't objectivists but agree that 'spooky action' and other principles are nice sounding names but tend to mislead the public into thinking that Quantum Mechanics supports their wacky philosophical ideas like a priori knowledge, like Deepak Chopras quantum consciousness. There are others who look at the conclusions, which are integrated concepts themselves, and refuse to integrate them further with other fields or even other experiments on the knee jerk reaction that it's crank science, like skeptics. It's easy, even fun, to be a skeptic when lots of great people around you are creating new flawed theories, but ultimately it's harmful to the scientific process and won't help you create Newtonian like advances in Science. Also it's against your self-interest because all you learn how to do is destroy theories and not build new ones. Guidedog (talk) 13:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't rememember who said theoretical physics is a young man's game. Not saying that youth and maleness are the only requirements; decades ago, temping in the physics library of a respected university, I saw a disproportionate number of unstable individuals muttering to themselves. More accessible than quantum mechanics, an everyday example of fuzziness and tanglement might be the image schemata which everyone uses in every waking moment, and possibly sleeping as well. No need for acres of specialized hardware nor partial differential equations; they used to say all a linguist needed was some shoe boxes and lots of index cards. Nowadays that has changed a bit, but still... Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:53, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Image Schema are not inherently fuzzy or tangled, unless your schizophenic. When I say that I walked to the store you may be imagining a store with different details but you still know what the concept means. When I say, the particle is both spin up and spin down it's like saying I have a non-store and a store at the same time. This is a contradiction until you reintegrate what a store is, perhaps calling it a pushcart or some other rational word. It is only those that refuse to integrate or reintegrate the concepts that have their schema's misintegrated. As Ayn Rand would say thought is a volitional process. This example doesn't mean we can't think for our selves. Guidedog (talk) 15:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

As Ayn Rand would say thought is a volitional process. Not completely correct, unless she cared to limit the definition of thought as "the volitional part of mental activity." Image schemata are definitely tied to fuzziness in its formal sense. Their categorization may not be as tangled as a can of night crawlers, but neither is it strictly hierarchical. A Randian desire for crystalline logical purity goes against the complex messiness of nature as we experience it.

Also, FFS learn to write the proper contraction for "you are," unless you want to seem semi-literate. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

"Man’s consciousness shares with animals the first two stages of its development: sensations and perceptions; but it is the third state, conceptions, that makes him man." --Ayn Rand. I still don't understand what you mean by fuzziness. As far as I can tell it's an anti-concept. Is there a specific definition you can state? I'm a mathematician so I know about fuzzy numbers, but not fuzziness. I realize from your last posts that you mean some physical definition from Quantum Mechanics. What does fuzziness say about reality? Is it that our perception is fuzzy? Our logic? Do I have cotton balls in my eyes? When Physicists at CERN run an experiment, do they have to check the instruments for lint? Guidedog (talk) 16:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Physical definition from quantum mechanics? Where did you get that? Quantum mechanics is not even something I care to wave my hands at. Search for "fuzzy set" or "fuzzy logic" and then read up on linguistic prototype theory. George Lakoff's Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind is a pretty good start. If that is too bulky for you, try his Metaphors We Live By. If it isn't bulky enough, go with Philosophy in the Flesh, by Lakoff and Johnson. From there you may proceed in whatever directions seem appropriate. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:06, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey if you can not provide a definition I can only assume you don't have one. It's one thing to admit ignorance, or have to go find information to bring to the table, it's another to wave your hands (or books) and pretend to be well-educated. What good is education if you can't state definitions of concepts? Where would Newton be if he couldn't define a convergence as "a sequence is said to converge to the real number s provided that..." We wouldn't have calculus! Guidedog (talk) 17:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I am not here to do your homework for you. Do your own research. I pointed you at one WP article...

I find it interesting that the "basic level category" of prototype theory is very different from the axioms of classical logic, the uncuttable atoms of it. From the basic level one may proceed both in the direction of the more general as well as towards the particulars. In other words, the basic level is in the middle of things, the level we use the most. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:29, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

"Hell if you bothered to read the book" - I have indeed read the book. It is without a shadow of a doubt the worst book I have ever read. If you're into the politics of it, knock yourself out, but as a work of literature it's thoroughly appalling. And your interminably boring, windy responses display their influence quite clearly. DogP (talk) 19:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Why you shouldn't create an objective article

1. You shouldn't create an objective article, because it will lead you to underestimate Objectivists. Which, since we are selfish, we will exploit. 2. You shouldn't create an objective article, because I want you to believe your pursuing science, when all your really doing is tangling your understanding up in solipsistic nuances. 3. You should never touch this article, because it drives objectivists, the most able of people, to your competing wikis. 4. You shouldn't create an objective article, because it would be selfish of you to pursue the most accurate knowledge. Feel free to have no pangs of guilty conscience, because your right. 5. Based on my assumption that this article reinforces your own belief system, it would be hard and painful to read Ayn Rand. Guidedog (talk) 05:50, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it kindof hard & painful to read Ayn Rand anyway? Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:28, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm listening. But I don't understand the point of your question. Guidedog (talk) 14:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

"this article reinforces your own belief system" - yes, it does. Our advantage with this approach is that we are correct. DogP (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

There are very important details missing, such as: all of the heroes in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged wouldn't have been able to prevent their own self-destruction unless they took the actions they did. Even those who were willing to sacrifice their dreams for society were viewed with disgust and derision. Only one character was strong enough to defeat the coming dictatorship. The only way he could do that was by convincing the individuals that made up the intellectual engine to stop creating. This meant that the dictator would inherit a North Korean like state, devoid of what made it worthy of taking over in the first place.

My point is, that leaving these details out makes it easy to maintain your worldview, but it's dishonest. Your worldview would be stronger if you explained in more exact terms why egalitarianism is good; why the main characters had to sacrifice themselves for a society that hated them; or why such fiction would never have any bearing on reality. This article is nothing to be proud of because it's not rational to believe what it says. It's the kind of propaganda that everyone knows is false, and thus just creates distrust of any credibility RationalWiki may have had. Guidedog (talk) 23:17, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Ayn Rand's "heroes" are fictional characters. They may provide insight into the psyche of the author, but who wants to go there? You will find few of her fanboys here. Turgid, overwrought prose, full of pomposity and speechifying. Try Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus, or some Hemingway, for humanity rendered in clearer, more economical strokes.

...creates distrust of any credibility RationalWiki may have had

So far that seems to have been a risk the mob has been willing to take. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 23:55, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Egalitarian Claims in the Article

What is a fair share?, what is Just?, What is moral? The article deals with many of these questions in a biased way in this article. The reader of this article would benefit from knowing Ayn Rands views on Justice and Egalitarianism.

Envy is against ones self interest because even on innate characteristics, if one is above average (In Ability) all of the people below them are constantly attacking their natural position which they value and hold. If the person is below average, they are attacking a value which they wish to seek, which contradicts their self-interest. Ayn Rand opposed egalitarianism because of it's appeal to envy. Egalitarianism according to Rand is most destructive when it's applied as a metaphysical principle because she saw it as a violation of reality, all humans are not created equal. It would probably be fine for a government to treat all people 'equally' before the law. It would also be fine if someone gave every individual that they met the same chance to make a good first impression, or to redeem themselves for perceived wrongs. She would call this practicing the virtue of justice, but at no time would she expect an individual to put their self-interest at stake. For example, she would agree that individuals should be judged by their speech and actions so long as such observation didn't put them in harms way.

She also demonstrated in argument that absolute egalitarianism required metaphysical violations of Logic. "Of special significance to the present discussion is the egalitarians’ defiance of the Law of Causality: their demand for equal results from unequal causes—or equal rewards for unequal performance." --Ayn Rand

Post by Guidedog (talk) 14:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been following these threads but only rarely commenting. I have to ask, are you aware that most of what you write makes no goddamn sense whatsoever? I think you may have valid points under all the stilted verbosity but you've got to express yourself more coherently. One of the most effective tools in writing is the simple declarative sentence. Doctor Dark (talk) 01:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)