For DJs who follow Objectivism

[Phyzzle]

You can't use reason to figure out what your values are? Of course you can!

You can reason all you want, but this is not ENOUGH to identify your values.

Are you saying that values come ENTIRELY from reason?

But different people have different values.

So different people must Reason with different methods?

So Reason, Rationality, and Logic can vary from person to person? Surely you don't mean that.

There is something about people that makes their values different from others. Something that is not a difference in Reason.

How do you know what's fulfulling? People spend years trying to figure that out.

And HOW do they figure it out? Not with Reason. Otherwise, everyone would reach the exactly same conclusion about what's fulfilling. (Or every person alive has made their own little error in logic.)

We know that individual values exist, and we can use reason to pursue them. But values are not purely creations of reason, and it is very difficult to decide what one's values are via reason; perhaps impossible for a woman.

I guess values are like scientific theories. There is no scientific theory that absolutely can't be someday disproven. That doesn't mean you avoid using the theories.

Similarly, there is no method you can carry out to absolutely certain about what your most important values are. That doesn't mean you give up on them.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Sure, it is if so many people don't understand it. I don't mind explaining things which I esteem to be correct, no matter how simple, if someone doesn't understand them. Look at what propoganda alone has done to the common sense of society.

Are you telling me that you're attempting to save society? You're scaring me now.... :nervous:

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

You can reason all you want, but this is not ENOUGH to identify your values. ....

Now I'm curious. How exactly do you go about identifying your values?

 

[Phyzzle]

Now I'm curious. How exactly do you go about identifying your values?

Ever hear of Euclid's Elements? Classic text of Geometry. Considered one of the great works of human Logical Reasoning.

So when you open it up to the 1st page, what do you see? The starting Axioms. But where do the Axioms come from? Did Euclid get them from Reason? No, he needed starting points. Without pre-existing starting points, you can't start Reasoning.

So what are our starting points? Some of the starting points, like survival, are pretty much the same for everyone. But other starting points are very different. You can call our individual starting points emotions - wait! I'm not saying that values are emotions! Values come from Reasoning with our desires as starting points. You've gotta have both.

Axioms: individual desires
Theorems: values

Things like Psychotherapy, affirmations, NLP, are about verbalizing your desires, so you can use Reason to diffuse contradictions, and decide which values outweigh others for maximum happiness.

An abused woman might go to therapy to figure out why her last 11 boyfriends have beat the crap out of her. She can then decide, using reason, if her attraction to abusers outweighs her desire for safety, rather than just not thinking about the two desires at all.

 

[Nocturnal]

Are you saying that values come ENTIRELY from reason?

But different people have different values.

So different people must Reason with different methods?

So Reason, Rationality, and Logic can vary from person to person? Surely you don't mean that.

There is something about people that makes their values different from others. Something that is not a difference in Reason.

You are making the crucial mistake of confusing reason as a source of values and as a tool to identify them. If apples taste good to me, and peaches taste good to Joe, then we can both use reason, which does NOT vary from person to person, to identify those individual values. What realy makes it a value? Our emotional response to eating the item, not logic itself. The difference in our emotional makes one thing pleasurable to me and another pleasurable to him. THIS is what makes our values different. Logic is only a tool to identify them.

By the way, axioms are self-evident truths that are the basis of understanding the nature of reality by reason. The three in Objectivism can be shown with the statement, "I perceive (axiom of consciousness) something (law of identity) that exists (primacy of existence)."

 

[Nocturnal]

Are you telling me that you're attempting to save society? You're scaring me now.... :nervous:

Of course not But I'm sure that there are people reading this who might not understand Objectivism, and maybe it helps. At the very least, it always helps me to understand something better by explaining it.

 

[Phyzzle]

What realy makes it a value? Our emotional response to eating the item, not logic itself.

Exactly.

Our emotional response to ANYTHING could be positive. Depends on the person.

So ANYTHING can be identified by reason as a value.

I think we are in agreement.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

You are making the crucial mistake of confusing reason as a source of values and as a tool to identify them. If apples taste good to me, and peaches taste good to Joe, then we can both use reason, which does NOT vary from person to person, to identify those individual values. What realy makes it a value? Our emotional response to eating the item, not logic itself. The difference in our emotional makes one thing pleasurable to me and another pleasurable to him. THIS is what makes our values different. Logic is only a tool to identify them.

By the way, axioms are self-evident truths that are the basis of understanding the nature of reality by reason. The three in Objectivism can be shown with the statement, "I perceive (axiom of consciousness) something (law of identity) that exists (primacy of existence)."

That was beautiful man....

 

[Nocturnal]

Exactly.

Our emotional response to ANYTHING could be positive. Depends on the person.

So ANYTHING can be identified by reason as a value.

I think we are in agreement.

I never said anything could be identified as a value. I said that values that exist can be identified.

Reason tells us what is a value, as well as what is not a value. Denying reason is denying reality. I could say "drugs make me feel good, they're a value and I'm going to keep using them" whether I was right or not. In reality, the drugs I'm using might shorten my life expectancy to a few years, making their cost outweigh their benefit, and therefore making them not a value. People lie to themselves about, or at least outright ignore, things like this all the time.

 

[Nocturnal]

That was beautiful man....

Thanks

 

[Phyzzle]

I never said anything could be identified as a value. I said that values that exist can be identified.

Aristotle-style:

If values that exist can be identified,
And anything can exist as a value (to someone out there)
Then anything can be identified as a value.

I wanna emphasize that I AGREE with Objectivist morality. There's nothing silly or contradictory about it. But I called it "fuzzy" because it's not as specific as it sounds.

Values take years of work to simply discover and identify (as you say in post 78), and values can vary dramatically from person to person.

So the Objectivist instruction to pursue one's own values, is just not all that instructive. Pursuing one's own values can involve doing darn near anything, depending on your individual character.

 

[Nocturnal]

Aristotle-style:

If values that exist can be identified,
And anything can exist as a value (to someone out there)
Then anything can be identified as a value.

I wanna emphasize that I AGREE with Objectivist morality. There's nothing silly or contradictory about it. But I called it "fuzzy" because it's not as specific as it sounds.

Values take years of work to simply discover and identify (as you say in post 78), and values can vary dramatically from person to person.

So the Objectivist instruction to pursue one's own values, is just not all that instructive. Pursuing one's own values can involve doing darn near anything, depending on your individual character.

I think this is a perfect example of where using correct definitions becomes very important. When you say value, you seem to mean anything that has some sort of benefit, regardless of its costs. When I say value, I mean anything that has a net benefit; the benefits outweighs the costs.

The reason I am using the word in the way that I am is because I think that is the more common way to characterize a term like that. If I like how my neighbor doesn't lie to peole, I wouldn't say "That man is a good man," when he has just killed his family. As a whole, I would consider him to be evil and regardless of any "good" qualities I would not consider him such.

As a note, webster.com defines a value as, in the context of what we are talking about, "something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable."

Philosophy from dictionary.com: Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

As a philosophy, Objectivism is not meant to be instructive, it is meant to determine the principles of reality. Philosophy is not psychology.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I just skimmed this thread, didn't read most of what's posted. Read original post.

Francisco, I read and followed, and still try to, objectivism; I read most of Ayn Rand, headed a univ. objectivism club, even.. So that's where I'm coming from on objectivism..

But someone here asked if you're looking for a Dagny Taggart.. And truthfully, I have no idea why DAGNY is the paradigm of femininity. What is she AS A WOMAN? She's smart, yeah, so she's a good business partner, a good friend, but as a lover? C'mon. You work all day and come home to more work? She's too masculine! Butchy, even. Where's the sexual polarity when you're done killing a mamonth and come home to listen to trivial problems and smile and relax? Hmm?

If anyone's closer, it's Dominique from Fountainhead. She had SEXUALITY. And if you're going for a Dagny, you're gonna be fcking a calculator.

All this is said with a good understanding of objectivism, the books and the characters. I can respect them. But "as a woman" is a criterion Dagny doesn't satisfy.

Cherryl or what'sherface, btw, satisfied it a helluvalotta MORE than Dagny.

You do have a literal point there. Dominique (Fountainhead) was definitely a more "sexual" woman than Dagny (Atlas). But what I was being asked about "Dagny" was more about what the character stood for. A woman of reason (at least at the end), driven, confident, intelligent and logical; definitely worthwhile traits even if found in a woman.

Understand that Rand wrote of "Heroic" beings. Her characters were larger than life, always on a polar extreme. Galt, the extreme man of logic. Dagny, the extreme dedication. Francisco, the financial Juggernaut. Hank, the man of extreme production. The list goes on and on. In real life, extremes are good in moderation.

But who would I choose between Dominique and Dagny? I don't know, each has their own attractiveness (in an extreme way). I'll have to think about this for a while. Who knows, I may just need to make up a new heroine just for my amusement.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Aristotle-style:

If values that exist can be identified,
And anything can exist as a value (to someone out there)
Then anything can be identified as a value.

I wanna emphasize that I AGREE with Objectivist morality. There's nothing silly or contradictory about it. But I called it "fuzzy" because it's not as specific as it sounds.

Values take years of work to simply discover and identify (as you say in post 78), and values can vary dramatically from person to person.

So the Objectivist instruction to pursue one's own values, is just not all that instructive. Pursuing one's own values can involve doing darn near anything, depending on your individual character.

Y'know, I was thinking on my way home tonight (I do that every once in a while), and I though of a theory and this very reply helps substantiate it. Understand that this is just an observation.

While Nocturnal and myself have been offering real world examples and occasionally citing the works of Rand. On the other hand, all of your input has been based on text substantiated by someone else. This lends itself to an explanation why you feel Objectivism is "fuzzy" and we (at least I) feel that you won't "get it" completely (its essence).

Here's the explanation, the world in which you exist personally is based on empirical evidence AND "instructions" which you can follow extrinsically. An example is when I asked how you personally define your values and you cited "Aristotle-style." I wanted to know about Phyzzle, not Aristotle.

This in itself leads me to believe that your persona, your existence is not of your own but that of a combination of ideas, theories, philosophies and the like of other people. Don't get me wrong, we all "get something" from others but we typically make those ideas our own by instilling our personal objectivity to those things. I'm not seeing that of you.

SO in a nutshell, what I'm seeing is that Objectivism in its nature of NOT being specific other than its own doctrine cited earlier does not fit into your norm of operation (very specific and fully defined). Your locus of control is not congruent with the concept of Objectivism (square peg, round hole).

Someone in another thread made the correlation of Objectivism as being a cheap rip off of Buddhism. There is a slight similarity of the two in that both believe that man onto himself is (or can be) a heroic being; that about the only true similarity. Buddhism states that anyone can be Buddha, that all it takes is "enlightenment" and such enlightenment is based on the individual's concept of enlightenment, not one based on the perception of someone else....

Alright, I'm rambling her; does this make sense or do I need to go back on my medication?

 

[Phyzzle]

When you say value, you seem to mean anything that has some sort of benefit, regardless of its costs.

It may seem that way, but I don't, really.

I agree with you that the label of "value" should only be used after rational analysis. Values originate from desires, but they are two different things. (Animals have desires and benifits, but no values.)

As a philosophy, Objectivism is not meant to be instructive, it is meant to determine the principles of reality.

That would explain why the Ethical principles come accross as so vague and fuzzy.

Philosophy is not psychology.

Perhaps it should be! At least partly.

There are entire Journals, associations, and professional Philosophers who devote literally their whole carreers to the Philosophy of human thoughts.
http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/

There's a lot of work to be done there by any philosopher. I read a few wrongheaded statements on minds by Objectivist philosophers, but I guess you can't expect them to spend days poring over every last sentence they write. Mainly, there's just so much left to be done, to use the Objectivist system to answer all these contreversial questions about mind.

 

[Phyzzle]

(I did it Aristotle-style, since that was Ayn Rand's favorite thinker.)

Someone in another thread made the correlation of Objectivism as being a cheap rip off of Buddhism. ..
Alright, I'm rambling her; does this make sense or do I need to go back on my medication?

Bhuddists do not believe that the "self" even exists!

This in itself leads me to believe that your persona, your existence is not of your own but that of a combination of ideas, theories, philosophies and the like of other people....
Your locus of control is not congruent with the concept of Objectivism

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. Wherever my thought come from, how could I make them myself? How do I decide what thoughts to have before thinking? I can't choose what thought to have, as the choice itself would require thought.

I don't cause my thoughts, and my thoughts don't cause me.

Rather, I am my thoughts, and my thoughts are me.

It matters not if I'm a combinaiton of other people's ideas. It's that I am a combination of ideas, period. I am a process of ideas interacting to come up with other ideas. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Bhuddists do not believe that the "self" even exists! ....

Now I'm questioning whether someone is giving you misinformation or if you are just making this stuff up.

For clarification, the Dhammapa states in part:

• If one holds oneself dear, one should diligently watch oneself.
• One should first establish oneself in what is proper; then only should one instruct others.
• The evil a witless man does by himself, born of himself and produced by himself.
• By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure. Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another.
• Let one not neglect one's own welfare for the sake of another, however great.

If you can't recognize the emphasis of the importance of the "self" in Buddhism from this, I would definitely question the filter you chose to use to view the world.

 

[Phyzzle]

A central teaching of Bhuddism is anatman (non-self). Look up that word.

It's all in which translation you read, and which sect you listen to.

To be more accurate, Bhuddists don't believe in a permanent thing called the self, or a sharp distinction between self and not-self (it's more like a gradual shading.)

 

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Why shouldn't her logic and dedication be authentic and carry over into her personal life? Why wouldn't that be attractive?

There's countless posts in this forum asking "Why did my GF do this stupid sh1t?" or "Why does my GF want to be friends with her ex?". Wouldn't it be easier if women were more logical and a little less emotional? How about dedication? Tell me a guy who wouldn't want his GF to be dedicated to him?

Women who enjoy music, song, dance and the rest of your list come a dime a dozen as much as guys who are willing to buy women endless drinks at a bar and spend huge amounts of money on a first date. These things are all superficial and take little to no effort.

Personally speaking, I'm attracted to a weak woman who doesn't lead a purposeful and productive life via her own means and abilities. Of course she needs to be attractive too but I want all that and a bag of chips. It's no less than what I have to offer.

 

[Nocturnal]

'cisco, but just think, what's a woman's attractiveness? In logic and dedication?

No. Her attractiveness as a woman is in things that are pleasurable that can make you relax and forget their logic. Music, song, dance, color, smell, taste, food, sex, massage, smiles, unconditional loyalty, belief in you.. Those things are feminine..

I really doubt that you or any healthy man would prefer Dagny's reason and dedication (to production, btw, to business) to all those things I just listed. Imagine both right now - close your eyes - and open them in twenty seconds and tell yourself which you want more.

What's a woman's attractiveness? First and foremost, her principles, her character, her morality, her rationality. Without any of it she's a piece of flesh, and a much lower value. The music, song, dance, etc... those are all nice, sure. But if you choose your women based on how well they perform for you, you won't be a happy man.