humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:11:58 -0700, Charles Bell
wrote:

>On Mar 11, 12:08 am, Malrassic Park wrote:
.
>> /There are no 90 degree angles in reality, only angles relatively set
>> at 90 degrees, a near enough approximation of your idea of what a
>> 90 degree angle is.
.
>Can you show that in my table? No. Why should I believe your
>assertion? Based on what would be a purely rationalist (mathematical)
>argument?

The part you quoted was about a 90 degree angle in a square. Is your
table a square? No wonder you won't believe me, you thought I equated
your table with a square.

>> /No matter how many measurements Rand omits, she is no closer to
>> answering the problem of how your idea of squareness relates to what
>> we call 'squares' in reality. That is the problem of universals.\
.
>> So the gist of what you've been telling me is that squareness does
>> come from reality, via measurement-omission.
>
>
>I conceptualize squareness by measurement omission. I then reintegrate
>to verify by measurement -- compare the concept to percepts. After
>I build my table, you cannot put measurement back in in such a way
>that will show me that I have not made straight lines and 90-degree
>angles.

My example wasn't about making a table "square," as in an
architectural building concept. But let's take your example anyway.
When you "compare the concept to percepts," do you find that they
correspond with each other?

> > Even if that were the
>> case (which it is not because not even measurement-omission comes
>> from reality), squareness still remains an ideal (a shape consisting
>> in four perfectly straight lines identical in length and four
>> perfectly precise 90 degree angles) to which no "square" in reality
>> can possibly correspond, only approximate. The "idea" I referred to
>> before is an idea, that is, an idealization of what we expect to find
>> in the reality of individual squares.
>>
>> Now you might argue that perfection is not part of any rational
>> concept of squareness. It is indeed not part of the concept *square*;
>> but that's not the same concept as 'squareness.'
>
>You cannot show me, by measurement, that my table is not an ideal
>square.

I take it you're saying that the table top forms a square. So taking
it from the aspect that a square has four sides of exactly equal
(identical) lengths, you will never get them to be exactly the same
length, only approximately.

What's your problem with my argument, anyway? I have not implied
any skepticism. I have said all along that we have true knowledge of
squareness; nor have I said that it is divorced from reality, I
specifically stated that it is a 'square' in reality that gives the
idea of 'squareness' meaning.

The meaning is in what you perceive. Is there a purpose to your
concepts? Is there a reason why you have them or learned them in
the first place? Yes, it is because you intend that they correlate
with reality for utility purposes. Intension is an intellectual
product involving the will. Using your intellectual idea of what a
square is (its squareness), you lend meaning to the reality of a
'square' that you perceive via your will and your intellectual idea of
squareness.

>> My argument for this has been utilitarian: we don't look around for
>> squareness in reality, or the manness in men, or the roseness in
>> roses. I agree that that problem, as posed in this manner, is based in
>> false premises and has eventually turned philosophers to nominalism
>> (in which the whole problem, and the very notion of concepts, is "a
>> breath of air.")
.
>> I can see that Rand's delineation of the four schools of thought ended
>> in nominalism for a reason: it is a philosophical dead-end with
>> concepts now completely divorced from reality. But that is only
>> because of the wrong way in which they formulated the problem.
.
>> We don't, as I was saying, look around for squareness in reality. We
>> look for squares on the basis of an ideal of squareness. This ideal is
>> not existent as in realism, nor is it nominalism, it is as real as the
>> intellect itself.
.
>> What you cannot accept is the fact that "squareness" has its sources
>> both in the perception of squares (as it is taught to us in schools)
>> and man's intellectual ability to idealize reality as universals
.
>What I cannot accept are mathematicians who pretend to a theology-by-
>formulae

But that has nothing to do with me. As a poster formerly said,
"antecendent denied, consequent irrelevant."

> with a special insight as to what is metaphysical truth.
>There is no truth in knowledge without verifiability. Beliefs are
>tested against what we can perceive. For you to deny that my table is
>square, you need to verify that with measurements. To Rand concepts
>are truthful only if integration by putting measurement back in
>verifies the concept. John Nash put measurement back into the
>"ideals" of (imaginary) people he held in his head by measuring with
>time. His hallucinations of people were verified to be untrue because
>applying the unidirectional nature of time, his "ideals" should have
>been older. For you to verify that my table is not the "ideal" of
>squareness you would have to apply some measurement thereby verifying
>or denying the squareness. The fact that John Nash was a brilliant
>mathematician is a wonderful coincidence. He was *forced* to realize
>that "ideals", "Forms" or "universals" are *not* real -- comparing the
>concept (in this case, totally imaginary) with percepts (in this case,
>mere representations without sensual input) -- by applying some
>objective standard of measurement (time), and they failed that
>standard.

Sorry, I'm not going over to your house and measure your imaginary
square table. I can't measure your Nash-like hallucinations.

There was nothing in the Nash movie about ideals or forms or
universals, you're just pulling that out of your ass.

>> (e.g., squareness, manness, redness, a-ness). And so the very process
>> of learning what a square is in reality involves the intellectual
>> process of universalizing its properties (this is cognition), such
>> that we can then recognize (thus re-cognize) squares that we run
>> across again in experience or create for whatever purposes.
.
>Sure, when we put measurement back in to the level we need for our
>purposeful actions. That is what I have said above. You thus cannot
>present me with a set of theoretical mathematical formulae to verify
>my table is not square. That is not what it means to re-cognize by
>comparison with perception, i.e., by actually measuring the table by
>objective standards.

I don't require any theoretical mathematical formulae, only a precise
enough measuring tool. Are the lengths of the four sides equal to the
width of an atom? That is still only an approximation of equality,
which is a universal.

I had an idea about classes this morning, which nobody here has
thought up yet, to contradict my own idea. Why do I have to think up
all my own hard counter-arguments?
--
We usually go over the top w/ our new found freedoms.
Unfortunately, her 'followers' are as radical as Pat
Robertson's. Discernment goes out the window.
- A youtube poster