humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:31:28 -0700, "Robert J. Kolker"
wrote:

>Malrassic Park wrote:
.
>> This is for you non-believing Randroids I have conversed with who
>> refuse to accept the idea I've put forth here that color doesn't exist
>> outside of perception.
.
>You mean color, the quality. Wavelength of light exists without us
>looking at it. We can even see without look (in a probablistic sense).
>Google or how to see without looking.

Apparently you didn't read past the paragraph you responded to.

Rand used the term "wavelength" in this context throughout ITOE.
It just so happens that in my quote she said "light vibrations." And
of course I mean the quality, since the context I named was the
primary-secondary quality "dichotomy."

The point is this:
Light-waves exist without us looking at us, but color, as a quality,
doesn't. Nobody but a Berkeleyite would say that Rand's example of
length is in the same category of discussion: i.e., that it doesn't
exist except as a quality formed in perception. And yet by equating
them in perception, Rand has committed herself to a form of
subjectivism, as when Prof. E correctly pointed out "Berkeley did
exactly that and came to the conclusion that everything is
subjective."

Rand committed the same fraud in that discussion as she did throughout
ITOE: she evaded the subject by talking past it to a somewhat related
subject. It is mute justice that Rand ended up logically in an
ideological viewpoint that she would have rather avoided.
--
I do not think that the retarded should be
allowed to come near children. ~Ayn Rand~