humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mar 13, 7:14 am, Jim Klein wrote:

> If the latter, then you are explicitly saying that the nature of the
> object rests upon the "construction" or method by which we
> know it. Either that, or you are denying that the object has any
> nature at all, absent our identification.

Let me try to put it more clearly, because you still seem to think
that there are only two possibilities and they're both absurd.

The truth is somewhere in-between those two possibilities. Some of the
properties of what we conceptualize come from the way we conceptualize
it and some don't. Some of the relationships are dependent on the
consciousness and its means of perception and some are not. It's often
quite difficult to tell which are which.

One of the things that comes largely from cognitive necessity are the
boundaries the concept delineates. In principle, we could form a
concept of "either a car or a desk lamp", but we don't, because such a
concept is cognitively useless.

> They're both nearly insane and your position seems a little
> closer to the second alternative. It's hard to measure degrees
> of absurdity on this, but I think I'd choose that one as even
> more absurd.

Isn't it equally absurd to insist that the world must really consist
of particles with discrete positions at all times just because that's
the cognitive model we've found useful for understanding? And when you
reject that model because it turns out to be wrong, will you insist
that whatever model we choose next must be how it "really is"?

Discrete particles with discrete positions will likely turn out to be
purely a way we model the world with predictive validity but that in
no way describes how the world "really is", it's just how we found it
convenient to understand it.

You demand we repeat this cognitive error.

How do we know the world "really is" discrete particles, or
indivisible atoms, or whatever model we choose to use to understand
it?

The sad part is that you throw out the baby with the bathwater,
because the world really is *LIKE* our models in very well-understood
ways. If you throw a baseball, to the limits of human perception it
will appear to behave like a particle with a well-defined position at
all times. You do the one thing you cannot do, and insist that means
it must really *be* (or be made up of) a particle with precise
positions at precise times.

Why do you do this? Isn't it obvious it's wrong?

> > > >The size of a defined region of space is dependent
> > > > on how that region is defined.
> > > Fine, David, but once it's defined, its size does NOT depend
> > > on the consciousness that defined it. Just say, "That's right,"
> > > and be done with it.

> > If a process requires X, its results clearly depend on X.

> von's statement addresses this perfectly as well: "But do you
> claim to know the construction, or its object?" I even agree
> with you, some would say to an insane degree, that the
> delineation, or construction, of an individual object is all
> about the process. Without that process (consciousness),
> nothing delineates something from everything else.
>
> But it's quite a leap from that to the claim that whatever
> was delineated, has no nature. Expanded, this would be
> the claim that nothing has any nature, perhaps even the
> universe itself, except for our recognition of that nature.

You again continue to mis-state my claim. I said it had no nature *if*
you remove the delineation. This is like asking "what does a tree look
like if there is nobody to see it". A tree doesn't look like anything
if there is nobody to see it.

You are trying to find what properties a object has according to an
epistemological model in the absence of epistemology.

> I think there might even be ways to defend such an
> outrageous claim somewhat sensibly, and maybe you'd
> be the guy to do it. But irrespective of that, it's still the
> case that Rand's Objectivism completely rejects such
> claims, and so Betsy--and anyone else who's bought
> into such bullshit--should not go around pretending that
> they have an understanding of Rand's Objectivism.

I find this argument utterly incoherent. Even if we assume that Betsy
and I are both arguing views that are completely inconsistent with
Rand's Objectivism, how does this show we don't have an understanding
of Objectivism?

In any event, I think Rand go this right and Peikoff got this wrong.
In fact, last I checked he was still insisting that the world must
consist of particles with definite positions at definite times.

DS