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From: tma@osc.COM (Tim Atkins)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: re anti-rationalism
Message-ID: <1871@osc.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 90 09:01:52 GMT
References: <47673d25.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <1744@osc.COM> <12326@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1775@osc.COM> <12577@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <1787@osc.COM> <12818@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: tma@osc.UUCP (Tim Atkins)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Object Sciences Corp., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 193

In article <12818@phoenix.Princeton.EDU. roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
.In article <1787@osc.COM. tma@osc.UUCP (Tim Atkins) writes:
..In article <12577@phoenix.Princeton.EDU. roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
...You've just cut yourself a long piece of cloth!  Can you demonstrate
...that NO rational thought is possible without your axioms?  Proving a
...universal negative is a toughie.
.
..I am not a formal philosopher so I probably will make and have made some errors
..here BUT I'll take one more go at this.  The "no rational thought" might be 
..better expressed as "no effective thought" in the sense that workable, 
..consistent concepts that are actually applicable to reality presuppose these
..three things, as I understand Objectivism.  The disclaimer should be kept in
..mind where not repeated, as I may occassionally present something erroneously.
..It is in the nature of these axioms that while a direct proof is impossible any
..attempted disproof (of the axioms themselves) falls into a maze of 
..contradiction.
.
.AGAIN with the universal negatives!  ANY attempted disproof?  You have a
.proof for that assertion, perhaps?

The obviousness of existence requires no proof.  I have never seen any argument
attempting its negation that did not become loaded with contradiction.  As I
am convinced of the fundamental validity of the Existence axiom I do not think
any such argument will ever fail to be full of contradiction.  Seems to me the
ball is in your court to either come up with such an argument or simply restate
that it is not proved that one does not exist.  In my philosophic system one
can not exist as it would contradict a fundamental axiom.  It is up to you
to show that this axiom is ill-founded OR itself contradictory.

.
.  Now, why are these axioms so different from all other axioms?  What
.makes their "nature" different from all others'?
.
.(Hint: it's because they're not axioms...)

This has not been shown.  They qualify by your stated definitions.  I 
claim they are a bit more than what is required.

.
.Now, back to what axioms are: they are NOT things subject to disproof or
.proof!  They are, so far as the philosophical system iteslf is
.concerned, chosen arbitrarily.  As far as the larger purpose of the
.philosophy (or geometry, or whatever) goes, they are chosen for a
.reason.  But provability WITHIN the philosophy is not one of those
.reasons.
.
.And to say that the philosophy itself falls apart without them is not
.saying much.
.
....In Objectivist philosophy the three central axioms are:
.	
....	Existence 
....		Reality is objective - independent of consciousness;
.
...Why can I not perform rational thought without this?  More to the point,
...what does it have to do at all with rational thought?  Rational thought,
...after all, is no more and no less than one aspect of consciousness
...itself!  What does the existence of something entirely independent of
...consciousness have to do with it?
.
..If Existences does not precede Consciousness then what are you thinking about?
..If Consciousness is primary and creates reality then where is there any provably
..existent YOU to do any thinking?  I think the importance of this axiom is rather
..obvious.  Without it all is just a "dream within a dream".
.
.So?   The point is that we can't tell either way.  Moreover, even WITH
.the "axiom" in place, what do we gain?   Consciousness does not operate
.on reality itself; it operates on perceptions, etc.  

Precisely.  But the axioms state that perception is awareness of external
reality.  I highly recommend  David Kelley's book, "The Validity of the Senses"
, in this regard.


.
.When we say, "the theory of relativity changed reality," that may well
.be false, given an objective reality, etc.  But it doesn't matter!  As
.far as anything we care about goes, the WAY OF THINKING about reality
.changed -- and that's all that matters to us!  As far as human endeavor
.(the object of most philosophy) is concerned, there's just no material
.difference.
.
....	Identity
....		That which exists exist with specific characteristics.
....		To exist is to have identifiable differences from  and
....		similarities to other existents.  That which can not be
....		assigned characteristics (such as God) can not be said
....		to exist.
.
...Why can't God, or a unicorn, or the present King of Finland, be asigned
...characteristics?  Moreover, what's this "assigning" business?  That's
...part of consciousness/rational thought, etc., not of the independently
...existent existence.
.
..Your point is well taken on the use of "assigned".  I should have said that
..all that exists has specific characteristics.  The Christian God on the other
..hand, is defined in terms of what it is not and in terms of ultimate 
..superlatives.  Thus, God effectively has no identity.  In a statement of
..axioms I was probably off-base to digress into mythology.
.
.You still are.  God most certainly IS defined in terms of certain
.characteristics.  Triuneness, for instance.  Eternity, for another.
.Omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc.  Identity?  Why something
.either is or is not God, same as any other thing.

How can a "thing", an existent, be meaningfully defined in terms of negatives
and unbounded superlatives?  What the hell is Triuneness?  How is it proved
as a property?  What is "Eternal" but of indeterminate duration?  What is 
omnipotence other than without any meaningful measurement in the realm of
power?  Same for omniscience and omnipresence.  So "God" is this three part
thing with no meaningful bounding conditions in duration, power, knowledge
or location.  Sounds like a lot of nothing to me!  More than anything else
your defense of such zaniness shows me you are NOT a serious thinker.


A comparison with prime numbers is silly.  Prime numbers are defined as those
positive integers than cannot be evenly divided by any positive integer
other than themselves and 1. This is perfectly well bounded.  It shows an
essential property is the absence of non-trivial factorization.   A closer
analogy would be a number that is divisible by all numbers!  Taken as a 
matter of faith, of course. :-)


..As to its necessity, perception of an entity requires that the entity possess
..specific characteristics.  Perception as a distinct entity requires 
..differentiation from other entities.  Conceptualization requires rigourous
..differentiation from and comparison to other entities as a basis for the
..act of abstracting the differentiating elements.  Arbitrary "assignment" of
..attributes goes nowhere, of course.
.
."Perception as a distinct entity requires differentiation from other
.entities." WHOA!!!  Who says my faculty of perception does that
.flawlessly?  You've just confused the objective reality that exists
.independent of my consciousness with my consciousness itself!  

No sir!  Your conceptual faculty (your consciousness) must process your 
perceptions in order to properly form the differentiation.  And you may
certainly make mistakes.

.
.Similarly, conceptualization involves differentiating PERCEPTIONS.
.These are not the entities themselves!!!  I compare perceptions, not
.entities, when I conceptualize.  I use these perceptions to represent
.entities I assume are there, but they are not the same thing.  

So what?  Your perceptions are all the knowledge of what is there you can
claim except that ferretted out by reason and conceptualization on prior
perceptions.

.
....	Consciousness
....		Consciousness is the tool for developing awareness of and
....		manipulating that which exists.  This includes the mental
....		states themselves.
.
...How is this an axiom?  And what is it good for in your system?
.
..Consciousness as secondary to existence and as a tool of perception and 
..conceptualization rather than as the creator of reality is a very important
..point.  The opposite axiom lets immediately to contradictions and insoluble
..morasses such as outlined under axiom 1 above.
.
.Not an answer to my question.  How is it an axiom?  Looks more like a
.partial definition.  Moreover, what are "the mental states" here, and
.what do they represent in the system?

Consciousness is awareness of Reality.  Consciousness does not create
Reality. 

How is this not an axiom?  By your apparent definition of the term anything
I wish to state at the outset is an axiom!

The contents of consciousness are the "mental states".  Do I have to prove
their existence or do you grant it?
.
...And will you deny that their axioms are axioms (as opposed to the
..."axioms" you've outlined above, which I can't place either as axioms or 
...theorems derived from other axioms)?
.
..Many of their axioms are not axiomatic in the sense I've explained here.
.

.Well, your "axioms" don't seem to be axioms in anybody else's sense --
.not Aristotle's, not Euclid's, not that of modern formal logicians,
.mathematicians, and philosophers.
.
.Roger

As I understand it, axioms are fundamental assertions that a system of 
thought is based on.  The axioms here certainly qualify.  Axioms are 
considered freebies that do not require and can not within the system
constructed have, proofs. The three axioms of Objectivism go one
step further in that they name fundamental, irrefutable facts of reality.