>> ^Xax:

I know it's supposed to be a funny parody, but it reminds me how incomprehensibly insane that country is. It would be fascinating and scary to be in one of their heads.


Only the falling from the sky bit is parody; they really do simply have pretty women in uniform directing traffic rather than traffic lights. Insane, yes, but also sort of awesome.

More videos:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-twitter/north-korean-traffic-girls-and.html

I know it's supposed to be a funny parody, but it reminds me how incomprehensibly insane that country is. It would be fascinating and scary to be in one of their heads.

OK, sorry, just one more because it's so incredibly stupid:

"The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years..."

First off, I think that's unlikely, but even if it's true all it implies is that the amount of information available is growing faster each year. It certainly doesn't imply that:

"[thus] half of what [a student] learns in their first year will be outdated by their third year"

The original fact says nothing about new information replacing old information or about the relationship between new information and the total body of outstanding information. It's also mind-blowingly out of sync with reality. The biology I learned in my first year (and which you might learn in your first year of studying any new biotech program) hasn't changed 50% since the 1960s, let alone in two years. While new information might be being piled on faster and faster, it's being piled onto a tremendous mountain of existing material - and in most ways the new information represents just a polishing of what's already there.

I suppose it doesn't matter.. if the video gives you some sense of wonder or something that's great - but I really hate this kind of rah-rah pseudo-fact crap (and this exact kind of crap is all over in high schools right now, that I see anyway). It fosters an "everything is incredible/incomprehensible" sort of worldview that I see in a lot of very, very stupid people.

>> ^A10anis:
residue; if your; "favourite part of curling is listening to the compulsive behaviour of people that don't like it whine about it endlessly." then i guess that shows how entertaining it is to you.


Sarcasm.

>> ^A10anis:
Also, I wasn't; "letting everyone know why they shouldn't like something." i was passing an opinion on my incomprehension as to its attraction as a sport.


yea, sure. that's why you compared it to "dwarf throwing," which actually sounds sort of awesome and probably difficult

>> ^A10anis:
Finally, regarding you sarcasm; "Thank you so much for letting everyone know why they shouldn't like something, your opinions are so very very important to us all". Mine, like yours, is simply a personal opinion and, surely, mine was objective whilst yours was vitriol. If you enjoy curling, great. Personally i enjoy watching sports which require skill and years of commitment.


I feel bad piling onto the other comments about that particularly moronic statement, but that's like saying some of the following:
Soccer is easy, it's just kicking a ball into a huge truck-sized net
football is easy, you catch a ball and run away from people
bull-riding is easy, you just sit on a bull for what, 15 seconds?
Diving is easy, you just jump into the water.. gravity does all the damn work!
Rock climbing is basically climbing a ladder made of rock

residue; if your; "favourite part of curling is listening to the compulsive behaviour of people that don't like it whine about it endlessly." then i guess that shows how entertaining it is to you. Also, I wasn't; "letting everyone know why they shouldn't like something." i was passing an opinion on my incomprehension as to its attraction as a sport. Finally, regarding you sarcasm; "Thank you so much for letting everyone know why they shouldn't like something, your opinions are so very very important to us all". Mine, like yours, is simply a personal opinion and, surely, mine was objective whilst yours was vitriol. If you enjoy curling, great. Personally i enjoy watching sports which require skill and years of commitment.

She's totally wrong, how dumb for an astronomer who wants to make a big claim. She says "we think there are as much stars in the universe as grains of sand on this beach"

Actually there are probably about a 100 stars of every grain of sand on EVERY beach of the earth. Now that's a big incomprehensible number.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=539329

The correct directions are still the correct directions, regardless of who gives them. The only difference is that it's coming to you in the voice of a child, who is repeating verbatim what he is being told by his parent, who is obviously close enough to make the immediate "school" comment you hear in the conversation.

Incredibly colossal, terrible, stupendous, dumbfounding, incomprehensible case of bad judgement? That doesn't strike you in any way as an over-reaction to a kid saying "Adios, Amigos" after all the correct information has been conveyed?

How do you feel about Mission Control saying, "God Speed, John Glenn" before his takeoff on something far more complicated and dangerous than an airplane? Is that OK since it's an adult saying it?

What a incredibly colossal, terrible, stupendous, dumbfounding, incomprehensible case of bad judgement.

The systemic disruption idea is interesting. One of my best friends did Biomedical science during his time at uni and we flatted together for part of it. He had a habit of going on about whatever he'd been covering in his lectures to me regardless of my interest level. Most of it was just incomprehensible page long equations, but I figured talking about it was part of his studying method so I put up with it. Still there are things he told me that stick in my mind. One of them was a brake down of what an antibiotic really is. We are Biological, 'biotic' (not to be confused with the Mass Effect appropriation of the term). An antibiotic kills things that are biological. the strongest medically utilized antibiotics kill us when they're given, they just kill bacteria faster. Similarly, fevers are a biological game of chicken, where by the 'blind watch maker' hopes to kill any invading organism with an excess of heat before we dehydrate.
This 'disrupting a complex system' technique for cancer treatment makes me wonder if a lot of the existing drugs in our arsenal might have an potential effect in the efforts against cancer.

>> ^shuac:
I've mentioned this before anytime a Dune vid gets sifted (and here I go again)...anyone familiar with Spicediver's fanedit? Check out fanedit.org to find it. If you like Lynch's Dune, then you'll really like Spicediver's version.
From the readme:
Neither of the officially released versions of David Lynch's visually amazing 'Dune' are satisfactory. The Theatrical Version was gutted to the point of incomprehension by executive producer Dino De Laurentiis in his quest to make it a two hour edit. The easier-to-follow Extended Version with restored footage was so incompetently put together by MCA TV that Lynch removed his name from the writing and directing credits.
Broadly, my intention with the Alternative Edition is to improve storytelling and flow by preserving the best elements from both official versions of the film while also integrating some newly available deleted scenes.


Never heard of the fanedit before. Torrent downloading now, thanks!

I've mentioned this before anytime a Dune vid gets sifted (and here I go again)...anyone familiar with Spicediver's fanedit? Check out fanedit.org to find it. If you like Lynch's Dune, then you'll really like Spicediver's version.

From the readme:

Neither of the officially released versions of David Lynch's visually amazing 'Dune' are satisfactory. The Theatrical Version was gutted to the point of incomprehension by executive producer Dino De Laurentiis in his quest to make it a two hour edit. The easier-to-follow Extended Version with restored footage was so incompetently put together by MCA TV that Lynch removed his name from the writing and directing credits.

Broadly, my intention with the Alternative Edition is to improve storytelling and flow by preserving the best elements from both official versions of the film while also integrating some newly available deleted scenes.

--vive in all such circumstances.

(32)


25,6-7: "The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics ... are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride.

"Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man's life..."

NA. Earlier, Rand told us that life is the only end in itself, and that one's own life is the purpose of each individual (25,2). She contradicts this by declaring something else to be the purpose of life.

Moreover, we have already seen that there is no reason within Rand's scheme why productive work is more morally virtuous than looting (comments 28-31).

(33)


25,7: "Rationality is man's basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues."

I agree with this; however, Rand can give no adequate basis for it. (See comments 20-24.)

(34)


25,7: "Irrationality is the rejection of man's means of survival and, therefore, a commitment to a course of blind destruction; that which is anti-mind, is anti-life."

I quote this to emphasize that Rand's view is that rationality is good only because it serves the end of 'life'; life is the only end in itself.

(35)


26,1: Rationality means a commitment to the principle "that one must never place any value or consideration whatsoever above one's perception of reality."

NA. How does this follow from her view of ethics? Rather, 'life' is supposed to be the highest value--one must place that above everything else. One's 'perception of reality' is only a means to furthering one's life, yet Rand seems to be saying that accurate perception is the ultimate end in itself.

(36)


26,1: "... It means one's acceptance of the responsibility of forming one's own judgments and of living by the work of one's own mind (which is the virtue of Independence)."

NA. How does this follow from the value of life? Why can't people survive while being dependent?

(37)


26,1: "It means that one must never sacrifice one's convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity)--that one must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty)..."

NA. I skip over the rest of her elaborations on what rationality means, about which I would say the same thing. Granted, dishonesty and lack of integrity may sometimes lead to one's death (though not very often), but how can Rand justify these "must never" claims? She makes no attempt to argue that these things one allegedly must never do will, all of them, automatically kill you. That is what she would have to argue, given that life is the only ultimate standard of value.

I skip over her similar remarks about productiveness and pride.

(38)


27,3: "The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others--and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."

Above (comments 7-8) we saw that Rand adopts a purely agent-relative conception of value: that is, a thing cannot be said to be good simply. Rather, a thing can only intelligibly be said to be good for (or: good relative to) someone. This is what the ethical egoist has to say.

Since "is an end in itself" means "is good for its own sake," it follows that nothing can be said to be an end in itself in any absolute sense; rather, one can only say a thing is an end-in-itself for someone or other.

Now, what does Rand mean in saying "life is an end in itself"? This appears to be using "end in itself" in an absolute sense, but perhaps she means only that each particular life is an end in itself for that particular living thing. What does she mean by saying every human being "is an end in himself"? Again, is she using this in an absolute sense, or a relative sense?

Case A: Assume she is using "end in himself" in an absolute sense here. In that case, she is contradicting her earlier claim that value is agent-relative (comment . Furthermore, it would seem to follow that every person has a reason for promoting the welfare of everyone, as an end in itself. That is, utilitarianism would seem to follow, which is not what she wants. She thinks one should promote one's own life as one's sole ultimate value. Which brings us to the second case.

Case B: Rand must mean this in an agent-relative sense: i.e., each individual human being is an end in himself for himself (but not for other people). So for me, my life is the only end in itself, whereas for you, your life is the only end in itself. This is consistent with what she has said up to now. But now what about the rest of the passage: "not the means to the ends or the welfare of others." Well, of course for me my life is an end in itself. But for other people, it is not; we just established that. So why wouldn't my life be for them just a means to their own ends? Why wouldn't my life from my neighbor's point of view be good only as a means to promoting my neighbor's life?

Similarly, what about the remark, "man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself"? Clearly, given that my life is, for me, the only end in itself, I would be irrational to sacrifice it for the sake of others. But why would I not be rational to sacrifice others to myself? True, their lives are ends in themselves for them; but what has that to do with me? For me, their lives are not ends in themselves, since only mine is. So why wouldn't it be good, for me, to sacrifice their lives for the sake of my own?

What seems to have happened here is that Rand slipped from the agent-relative theory of value into the absolutist conception.

(39)


27,4: "In psychological terms, the issue of man's survival does not confront his consciousness as an issue of 'life or death,' but as an issue of 'happiness or suffering.'"

I think she means that, even though the good is in fact what serves our life (our survival), we aren't always aware of it as such; instead, we are aware of it as what makes us happy. In fact, what makes us happy does so because it promotes our life, but we're immediately aware of it only as what makes us happy.

(40)


27,4-5: "Emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them ... [T]he standard of value operating his emotional mechanism is not [automatic]. Since man has no automatic knowledge, he can have no automatic values; since he has no innate ideas, he can have no innate value judgements."

NA. There are a number of problems here.

First, Rand's claim that emotions result from value judgements is evolutionarily implausible. The other animals all have certain emotions, which we share (though we have a wider range of emotions)--e.g., fear, anger, love for one's offspring. But Rand would probably agree that the other animals do not make value judgments. Therefore, what she is saying is that at some time in our history, as humans broke off from the primate line, the emotional mechanisms of the animals got selected out, and then replaced by other mechanisms that induce us to have the same emotions.

Alternately, perhaps Rand would say that the other animals do have value judgments, but of a different kind: theirs are automatic and instinctive, whereas ours are not. Then again, she would be saying that the mechanisms that give the animals instinctive value judgments got selected out, and then replaced with mechanisms that lead us to make many of the same value judgments. (Cf. comment 21.)

Second, people can often have emotions that conflict with their value judgments, for instance, a person who experiences a fear of flying even though he knows that flying is perfectly safe.

Third, in order to claim, rationally, that people (a) have no innate knowledge, (b) have no innate values, and (c) have no innate ideas, Rand would have to cite some actual scientific evidence. This is armchair cognitive psychology. (Cf. comments 24, 25.)

(41)


28,5: "Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. ... [I]f a man values destruction, like a sadist--or self-torture, like a masochist--or life beyond the grave, like a mystic--or mindless 'kicks,' like the driver of a hotrod car--his alleged happiness is the measure of his success in the service of his own destruction. It must be added that the emotional state of all those irrationalists cannot be properly designated as happiness or even as pleasure: it is merely a moment's relief from their chronic state of terror."

28,6: "Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims."

29,2: "Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction. ... Happiness is possible only to a rational man..."

The initial claim is that happiness simply results from attaining one's values. But this is followed by the claim, apparently, that a person with the wrong values cannot experience happiness (or 'true' happiness).

Why wouldn't the 'irrationalists' experience happiness when they attained their goals? Perhaps Rand is saying that it is impossible for the irrationalists to attain their goals. Why? Rand implies that the 'irrational' goals are ones that lead to one's own 'destruction.' Now, there are two alternatives:

Case A: Suppose Rand means this literally: that those values, if attained, result in your being literally dead, i.e., not existing. Then we could understand why people with those values could not experience happiness (since they would be dead first). However, she has given no indication of why this would be true. Apart from the 'mystic' case, the other kinds of people she mentions do seem to be alive and to often get the things she says they seek (e.g., drivers of hotrod cars do get kicks). Why, therefore, are they not 'really' happy?

Case B: Suppose Rand meant their 'destruction' metaphorically, e.g., their ceasing to live the life proper to man. In that case, she has given no explanation for why these people would not experience happiness when they attain this improper state, given that it is what they value.

The third quotation suggests that perhaps Rand believes these people's pseudo-happiness is always tainted by guilt. But she has just told us (comment 40) that all our value judgements are chosen, not innate. So if someone chose the improper values, how would they feel guilt upon attaining them? Guilt would seem to presuppose that they somehow knew those values to be wrong; but by hypothesis, they don't, since they have such knowledge neither innately nor by choice.

The significance of this is that it is another example of Rand's failure to explain, in terms of her theory, why sadism, masochism, or various other things she believes to be wrong, are wrong.

(42)


29,3: "The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. ... [W]hen one experiences the kind of pure happiness that is an end in itself ... one is ... affirming ... the metaphysical fact that life is an end in itself."

It is possible for a person to be alive but not happy, so how can it be that the maintenance of life is not a "separate issue" from the pursuit of happiness? Further, since Rand has said that life is the only end in itself, how can it also be that some kind of happiness is an end in itself?

This apparent contradiction could be resolved if and only if we assume that happiness is (that is, is exactly the same thing as) life. This is false, since a person can be alive but not happy--unless Rand wants to simply define "life" to mean "a happy life." But then her initial argument for why life is the ultimate value would not apply to this new sense of "life". (Cf. comment 27.)

Happiness, on Rand's theory of the emotions, is simply a signal that one is attaining one's values. It is the values themselves that are valuable; why would the mere signal be intrinsically valuable? Given the rest of her view, happiness could only be valuable as a means to furthering one's life.

(43)


29,5: "This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism ... 'Happiness' can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man's proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that 'the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure' is to declare that 'the proper value is whatever you happen to value'--which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication..."

First, it is unclear how happiness, rather than life, can be the purpose of ethics, according to what Rand has said earlier.

Second, it is unclear what the distinction is supposed to be between the 'purpose' and the 'standard' of ethics. If one's purpose is X, then why wouldn't one's standard be simply: that which achieves X? Here is everything Rand has to say about this:

25,3: "The difference between 'standard' and 'purpose' in this context is as follows: a 'standard' is an abstract principle that serves as a measurement or gauge to guide a man's choices in the achievement of a concrete, specific purpose. 'That which is required for the survival of man qua man' is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose--the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being--belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own."

I take it that survival qua man is the same thing as living a life proper to a rational being. The difference between the 'standard' and the 'purpose' in this example, then, seems to be that the 'standard' is something that applies to everyone--it is 'the life proper to a rational being'--while the 'purpose' is made specific to a single person--e.g., 'my living the life proper to a rational being.' Why this is a significant distinction escapes me. In any case, none of this explains why happiness could be a 'purpose' but not a 'standard.' Apparently, she is claiming that 'happiness' can be specific and concrete but not abstract?

Leaving that aside, the complaint against the hedonists seems to be one of circularity. They are not giving a genuine standard of value, since one's experience of pleasure depends on one's already having values; one then experiences pleasure as a result of attaining those values. This, however, is false. Children do not experience pleasure when eating ice cream because they believe that eating ice cream is good; quite the reverse. (Cf. comments 21, 24, 40.)

(44)


30,2: "The philosophers who attempted to devise an allegedly rational code of ethics gave mankind nothing but a choice of whims: the 'selfish' pursuit of one's own whims (such as the ethics of Nietzsche)--or 'selfless' service to the whims of others (such as the ethics of Bentham, Mill, Comte and of all social hedonists, whether they allowed man to include his own whims among the millions of others or advised him to turn himself into a totally selfless 'shmoo' that seeks to be eaten by others)."

This passage is misleading about the history of ethics.

First, it implies that there are some philosophers who held that people should turn themselves into totally selfless shmoos that seek to be eaten by others, but, while she names some 'social hedonists', she does not tell us who she thinks held the 'shmoo' theory. Perhaps she meant Comte (inventor of the term "altruism")--but Comte did not believe that 'altruistic' behavior was self-destructive. Nor did Bentham or Mill think that somehow, other people's pleasure had value but one's own did not.

Second, Rand seems to be using "whim" as a term of abuse. Utilitarians believe that one ought to bring about the most overall pleasure or happiness in the world that one can, but they certainly do not think this amounts to pursuing whims. Rand does, but it is unclear what she is saying is a whim here. The utilitarians advocate pursuing pleasure. So, is pleasure, itself, a whim? Perhaps Rand means that the desire for pleasure is a whim. More likely, she is applying her theory (see comment 43) that one will only experience pleasure when something happens, if one antecedently desired that thing--and it is the desires whose satisfaction causes pleasure that she is calling 'whims'.

Why would those desires be 'whims'? Perhaps Rand's point is simply that some of them are whims--i.e., that people can get pleasure from satisfying whimsical desires, and the hedonists do not discount those kinds of pleasures--those pleasures are just as intrinsically good as any other pleasures, according to the hedonists (except for Mill). This is a genuine objection to some forms of hedonism. Nevertheless, Rand's remarks are at best misleading--they suggest, to a reader unfamiliar with whom Rand is talking about, that these 'hedonists' all say: "A person should just pursue solely whims, of himself or of others, with no exercise of reason." Which, of course, is false.

The significance, again, is that Rand is able to illegitimately make her theory seem more plausible by attacking straw men.

(45)


30,5: "[W]hen one speaks of man's right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man's self-interest..."

The omission of quantifiers is used to great effect here. When they hear the idea that an individual should always do whatever serves his own interests, most people assume this means his right to sacrifice others. They are thereby 'confessing' their belief that it could be in someone's interest, some time, to injure, enslave, rob, or murder someone else. If one removes the italicized quantifier terms in the above, Rand sounds much more reasonable.

However, Rand has given no evidence for the conclusion that it is never in anyone's interest to harm anyone else (see comments 27-31).

(46)


31,3: "The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash..."

NA.

This would be a good time for a general remark about all the ethical claims Rand makes about what the life of man qua man requires, or what a rational person would value, and so on--that is, all her ethical claims after the claim that life is the ultimate value.

Not only does Rand gives virtually no argument for any of them, but she has given us no criterion of what is 'rational'--unless we are to take the criterion, 'what serves life is rational.' Let us consider four cases:

Case A: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means continued existence. In that case, Rand needs to give an argument that you will literally, physically die if you do any of the things she says are wrong, or refrain from the things she says are right. For instance, if you hurt another person, drive a hotrod car (28,5), or marry a slut (32,1), you will die.

Case B: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means "the sort of life proper to a rational person." This is circular.

Case C: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means "the life of man qua man," where this does not just mean "the sort of life proper to a rational person." In that case, Rand has given us no criterion for what does or does not serve the life of man qua man.

Case D: The rational is what serves your life, and "life" means something other than (A), (B), or (C). In this case, Rand has not told us what she means.

Case E: The rational is something other than "what will serve your life." In this case, given what she said earlier, what is 'rational' cannot be used as a criterion for ethical judgement, since she already told us that what serves life is the only legitimate such criterion.

I think this problem is extremely significant. The problem is that--whichever one of these cases holds--"rational" and "man qua man" are simply fudge words. That is, their function in the theory is that they enable Rand to claim almost anything she likes as being supported by her theory, and also to reject any attempt to infer conclusions that she doesn't want from the theory.

I give a couple of examples to show what I mean by a "fudge". First, imagine I declare boldly, "No real philosopher has ever denied the law of non-contradiction." You respond: "What about Nicholas of Cusa, who thought that God has all properties, including contradictory ones?" I say, "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. He's more of a theologian." You: "Okay, how about Hegel?" Me: "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. He's much too incomprehensible to be a real philosopher. Only analytic philosophers count." You: "Okay, how about Graham Priest? He's an analytic philosopher, and he denies the law of non-contradiction." Me: "Oh, he's not a real philosopher. Have you seen his book, In Contradiction? It's terrible." Now, you can imagine that in each of these cases, an interminable debate might spawn about whether my stated rationale justified denying the figure in question the status of 'real philosopher.' In the course of the debate, I make a bunch of declarations about who is and isn't a 'real' philosopher, but I never come out with a precise, unambiguous criterion of 'real-philosopher-ness'. In this case, I am using "real" as a fudge word. That is, it is a word that insulates my thesis from decisive testing, because any proposed counter-example can, if I choose, be immediately bogged down in interminable debates about who is real qua philosopher. So I am never forced to give it up. At the same time, at the end of this debate, I can declare victory, since no one found a counter-example to my thesis. I probably won't convince anyone else, unless they were already favorably disposed toward my thesis, but I can almost certainly convince myself that I gave good reasons for rejecting each of the proposed counter-examples.

Second example. This one is more realistic. On a television program investigating his psychic powers, Uri Geller instructed the audience to phone in if anything unusual happened during he program. At the end, several people phoned in reporting bizarre occurrences that took place during the show. Geller claimed that this supported psychic powers (I'm not sure if he meant because he had psychically predicted these events, or because the TV show had psychically caused them, or just because the events themselves were inherently psychical). Of course, we know this is nonsense. But since Geller did not precisely define "unusual", nor was it known how many people were watching the show, no one could calculate the prior probability of unusual events happening during the show, and thus no one could actually prove that what Geller claimed was nonsense. This meant that people who wanted to believe in psychic powers could do so, and could interpret Geller's remark about unusual events as predicting the events the callers described. Geller used "unusual" as a fudge word.

Third illustration, but this one is an example of non-use of fudges. In scientific testing of drugs, it is standard to use "double blind" tests. This means that half the subjects are given placebos, and neither the patients nor the physicians observing the results know who has the placebo and who has the drug. Now, why keep the physicians 'blind'? The answer is, because it is too easy to fudge--that is, to interpret results favorably if you want the drug to be successful. Scientists know this, and they impose this restriction on themselves, to prevent themselves from fudging. (You don't always know when you're fudging.)

So a 'fudge word' is a word that functions to make fudging easy. "Rational" and "man qua man" are Rand's fudge words. She never gives a precise and unambiguous criterion for their applicability. Thus, suppose someone tries to argue that, on Rand's theory, it would be morally acceptable to steal from people, provided you could get away with it. Then she has at least two fudges she can employ (probably more): (a) She could claim that this is not in your interests, because there is always a risk that you might get caught, and it's not worth it. This works because no one knows how to calculate this risk, so no one can actually refute this claim. This is the sort of thing I have seen many Objectivists do. However, Rand doesn't do this in "The Objectivist Ethics"; she goes for the second sort of fudge: (b) She can claim that although you would gain money from this, it would not be in your rational interests, or it would not be serving the life of 'man qua man', or that it would reduce you to a 'subhuman' status. Thus, she can immediately bog down the counter-example in an interminable debate about what is or isn't 'rational', 'subhuman', etc., because no precise and unambiguous criterion of the rational, or the human, has been identified. She gets to make it up as she goes along.

Now, let's look at her definition of "rationality":

25,8: "The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge, one's only judge of values and one's only guide to action."

Does this obviate my 'fudge word' charge? Not at all. Whenever she encounters a behavior she disapproves of, she can declare that the person is not accepting reason as his only guide to action. The above 'criterion' just refers the fudge word "rational" back to the fudge concept of what is "supported by reason". If Rand could give us a precise, unambiguous list of what reason recommends and why, then this charge would be answered.

Rand's following list of things that rationality 'means' is filled with further fudge words. Here are some of the concepts that can be fudged: the notion of using full focus in all choices (if x makes a choice I don't like, I can claim he wasn't in full focus), the idea of a commitment to 'reality', the idea that values must be 'validated' and 'logical', the idea of living 'by one's own mind', etc.

Now, I am not saying here that all of those concepts are bad concepts and should never be used--any more than I think the concept "real" or "unusual" should never be used. Often we have no choice but to use vague concepts. But we should recognize that they are not like scientific and mathematical concepts. They are concepts whose application requires interpretation.

(47)


32,6: "[N]o man may initiate the use of physical force against others. ... Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation, and only against those who initiate its use."

NA. Again, Rand would have to show how this follows from the premise of life as the standard of value--i.e., she would have to demonstrate that if you initiate the use of force, you will automatically die. 'Automatically', because she is saying you must never initiate force, so she must hold that you could never do it and not die.
Notes

1. All references are to "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, paperback edition (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 13-35.

2. I have cited passages where Rand mentions the connection between 'is' and 'ought' and where she discusses the standard of 'life' as an action-guiding principle. Unfortunately, she did not clearly distinguish 9 from 12, but it is clear she meant to assert 12.

3. All quotations are from "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness, paperback edition (New York: Signet, 1961), pp. 13-35.

4. The book is Ethical Theories, ed. A. I. Melden (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).

5. Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New York: NAL Books, 1990), p. 29.

6. "Intrinsically good" in ethics means the same as Rand's "an end-in-itself": i.e. a thing which is good for its own sake, and not merely for the sake of something else to be obtained by means of it.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'science, incomprehension, emotion, understanding, bias, learning, knowledge' to 'science, incomprehension, emotion, understanding, bias, learning, knowledge, QualiaSoup' - edited by EDD

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
Yeah, probably synthol. Roids actually help you build muscle, while synthol is a muscle inflammatory agent that you inject to give instant "results." While used primarily for filling in weak-looking or asymmetrical spots in body builders, some guys take it too far and try to sculpt their form using it. It ends up looking unnatural, out of proportion, and puffy/swollen, not ripped.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Fitness/story?id=3179969&page=1
http://www.granieri.us/GOOGLE36EC95D890D0CF41=/QuerySiteGlobal=updated/1061.htm


I was totally thinking it was massive infections, like that other guy who did roids like a heroin addict. Dirty needles, etc.

Utterly incomprehensible that this guy thinks he looks good.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

>> ^Lodurr:

Well put Lodurr- that was kind of what I was trying to say about religion being selected for - at the end of my post. I guess it's not quite the epiphany I thought it was- and must be a pretty well-worn social theory.

It does make sense to have something like religion hard-wired in the brain to help people work together. Maybe it really is just the herd instinct- hyper-extended and applied to sentient beings. Maybe if we find aliens who evolved as solitary creatures (like spiders) - religion will seem completely incomprehensible to them. But that makes me wonder if civilization could ever develop among beings who don't have "togetherness" as a value.