humanities.philosophy.objectivism

You must be responding to someone else.
This is the only thing I said.
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Are you saying that without consciousness the Sun is not necessarily
bigger then the Earth?
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"Jim Klein" wrote in message
news:d9a72416-8f47-4255-b6f8-f5fdb35f1b8e@s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
>I lost my attributions. I think this is Ray responding to David...
>
>> > Bigger than is a relationship formed in a consciousness or intellect.
>> > Bigger than implies a measurement has been made. Made by who? Made by
>> > what?
>>
>> Well, bigger simply implies that a measurement can be made.
>
> Very good...that is the correct response to David. How you lose
> that point subsequently, is a mystery to me.
>
>> We can
>> usefully talk about whether "A" is bigger than "B" even if nobody has
>> actually made such a measurement.
>
> Forget usefully, forget making the measurements...
>
> A IS BIGGER THAN B
>
>> and we need to know exactly what "A" and "B"
>> are with at least sufficient precision to measure them.
>
> No, WE don't. All that has to be, is for A and B to exist, and to
> be of such nature as to be measurABLE in size. As you
> yourself pointed out above...not measurED, but measurABLE.
>
>
>> The universe itself is just a collection of particles banging into
>> each other. Humans organize it conceptually in order to fit it in
>> their heads. Terms like "Sun" are human organizational concepts that
>> facilitate understanding what trillions of particles are doing when
>> they bump into each other.
>
> That's exactly right, except probably not particles literally. And as
> I've discussed, there's a certain sense in which even the Sun
> doesn't exist independently as an object. After all, metaphysically
> there are no firm lines between even discrete objects and their
> interactions (e.g., forces) and the rest of the universe. So in
> an accurate sense, you could even say the mere identification
> of the Sun as distinct from everything else in the universe, is
> "epistemological." If we weren't there to "cut up" the universe
> into such things as objects which manifest to us, then the
> universe itself, "metaphysically" speaking, is just a plenum, as
> someone very dear to Betsy liked to say.
>
>
> Take the simple route. Would you like to assert that
> the Sun isn't larger than the Earth, if nobody is around
> to consider it?
>
> Maybe one day we'll go over how the Church has
> transformed Objectivism from a correspondence
> philosophy to a coherence one. That goes hand-in-
> hand with the Subjectivism Betsy is demonstrating,
> to her credit in the light of the public record.
>
> Till then, this'll have to do. Think before you
> proceed, Ray. Current research suggests that
> ARIanism is extremely contagious and that once
> it has a hold of you, it's very tough to let go. And
> worse...there is some evidence that some of the
> symptoms NEVER competely disappear, no matter
> how hard one tries. You can ask Ken Gardner or
> Chris Wolf, if he's still on Earth, for further details.
>