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Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

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Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#51

Post by dantheman »

jbooth wrote: post #43
_lc1i wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As written in her books, following her moral can often lead to the unfair perception of being a jerk. Many people briefly exposed or misunderstanding Rand choose to remember (and spread) the jerk self interest part without laying out her moral framework.

Meh, John Galt went out and convinced all the rich people who were allegedly being preyed on by unions and special interests to.. go on strike? And become a special interest? Wow, that's great. First off, if my boss left to go do that I'd say "Thanks for the promotion" and take the payraise. Second off -- and much more importantly -- you should live your life for something more than your own crappy temporary luxuries…

I think you misunderstand the story.

1. John Galt convinces the "rich", though quite a few weren't, that continuing their work would lead to their destruction so in order to survive they would need to go on strike. Perhaps the better analogy is the man who invents a new weapon and then is killed by someone else using it.

2. The problem was that as the bosses left others with corrupt ideologies were taking their place.

3. Nothing in the book has to do with the rich needing luxuries, in fact they all move out to Galt's gulch and do manual labor and leave the life of luxury behind. In fact her stories are all about being true to yourself and living your life the way that you want to.

I'm not a fan of everything she's written, but I think you really missed the point of the book.

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#52

Post by jbooth »

dantheman wrote: post #51
jbooth wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, John Galt went out and convinced all the rich people who were allegedly being preyed on by unions and special interests to.. go on strike? And become a special interest? Wow, that's great. First off, if my boss left to go do that I'd say "Thanks for the promotion" and take the payraise. Second off -- and much more importantly -- you should live your life for something more than your own crappy temporary luxuries…

I think you misunderstand the story. 1. John Galt convinces the "rich", though quite a few weren't, that continuing their work would lead to their destruction so in order to survive they would need to go on strike. Perhaps the better analogy is the man who invents a new weapon and then is killed by someone else using it. 2. The problem was that as the bosses left others with corrupt ideologies were taking their place…

Well, thanks, but that's just as childish. Oh, they'll be replaced by the impure -- what a silly premise, only these few supermen are worthy of doing high-end industrial jobs, and if they don't do it then it'll be done in an ideologically impure manner... who's pure?

Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the face of expedient solutions.

There's a million people waiting to replace them and, with a little time to get used to a job, there's no fateful reason why the previous person doing it is the only person who possibly could.

The thing about that story is that the adherents claim to be all wise and worldly, oh, you'll get it once you're making money -- I'm making money, I think it's BS and nobody actually succeeds with such a childish, self-gratifying attitude.

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#53

Post by Tycho »

shaddi wrote: post #32
Tycho wrote: post #16

a remarkable thing about Objectivism is the overlap between Rand's epistemology and the paradigm of Object-Oriented Programming. It's uncanny. (if you want to know more, you might be able to find her 70 page essay 'An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology', also there was an academic paper about the OOP link written recently)

That would be an interesting overlap. It begs the question, however, if our society should be modeled after an object-oriented program, or if people should be treated like objects within it. My problem with objectivism is that it fails to account for the complexity that exists in our world. It might work better if we were truly rational beings, or if people were only constrained by their own decisions or a set of fai…

Not sure I catch your drift... the similarity to OOP pertains to Rand's description of concept formation within the human mind. A concept is like a sub-class, and a unit is like an object; a concept inherits all the properties of its parent-concept but adds some differentiating properties of its own; an instance encapsulates ALL of these properties, not just the differentiating/essential ones (which is what other philosophies fail to acknowledge). The good thing about Objectivist epistemology is that it provides means to extrapolate all the way up/down the conceptual hierarchy, from the simplest data on which microbes can operate, to the most complex abstractions of politics and economics and science. One could argue that O'ism is the one philosophy which DOES account for the complexity of existence, in a comprehensive manner (instead of making unjustified leaps of logic/intuition). Bottom-line on Objectivism in the social context is identify men for what they are - rational creatures - and treat them accordingly (ie. by trade, not by force).

Interesting that you know 'so many' Objectivists... I've never actually met any myself (I live in the UK).

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#54

Post by Tycho »

greenlblue wrote: post #36
Tycho wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would your memory disprove objective reality? Does a painting of a garden disprove the garden existed? Did you mean, objective perception?

No, I meant reality. Unless you give me a means of separating my perceptions from the reality then there is no useful distinction to be drawn here.

One word: corroboration. You know reality from hallucination/dream because one survives objective verification, the other does not. Let me turn the question back on you: what use is there in NOT drawing this distinction? (ie. what use is denying that there is a knowable reality, and then our interpreted knowledge. territory/map)

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#55

Post by SwellJoe »

greenlblue wrote: post #37
SwellJoe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flawed human brain and its ability to remember is merely evidence of a flawed observer, and not evidence of a flawed reality. The processing your brain does to fill in details is irrelevant when there are multiple methods of observation and multiple observers, and all agree with reasonable precision. When multiple observers can measure an object and find that it has volume and mass, we can all agree that the thin…

Whoa, nobody said anything about denying that things exist but what I did deny was the fact that it was objective. Objective only makes sense if you know what subjective means and since all I know are subjective states of being it does not make sense for me to say there is something else that I can not make any sense of that is as real as anything I feel. All I can say is that there is a patchwork of things that my b…

You said something about denying that things exist. You said that "objective reality" is a myth, and you said it as though people who believe in objective reality are simpletons.

If there is no objective reality, one person can say, "There is a car in my garage." and someone else can say, "There is a dragon in your garage." and both will be equally correct (because there is no objective way to determine otherwise). But, because objective reality does seem to be an accurate model for our universe, other observers can look in the garage, and see that, yes, there is a car (or dragon, as the case may be) in the garage. You can take a picture of the car (or dragon) in the garage, you can measure it, you can hop in (on) and take it for a drive (flight), you can touch it, etc. While your perception and your recollection may have gaps, we have scientific tools to remove the ambiguity of faulty perception and memory. With enough measurements, recordings, and photographic evidence of something, we can know it pretty darned objectively.

My point is that it's simply unproductive to deny that there is an objective reality. The world behaves as though there is objective reality. My house has never turned into a turtle, and my dog seems to be a dog every day no matter how much she might want to be a cat. I may not remember all the details of each of these things, but that doesn't mean they aren't what they are. The "patchwork of things" that my brain puts together about the world can be made to match the patchwork of things that other brains put together by using tools to measure and record those things, even while understanding that no one will ever have a complete grasp of the entirety of reality (it's pretty big, and even one single pebble, is too much for a single human to grasp in its entirety, when you start thinking in terms of atoms and particles and such).

Basically, I think you've decided that "objective reality" means humans can be all-knowing and perfectly observant...but that's not what anyone else means when they use the term.

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#56

Post by dantheman »

jbooth wrote: post #52
dantheman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand the story. 1. John Galt convinces the "rich", though quite a few weren't, that continuing their work would lead to their destruction so in order to survive they would need to go on strike. Perhaps the better analogy is the man who invents a new weapon and then is killed by someone else using it. 2. The problem was that as the bosses left others with corrupt ideologies were taking their place…

Well, thanks, but that's just as childish. Oh, they'll be replaced by the impure -- what a silly premise, only these few supermen are worthy of doing high-end industrial jobs, and if they don't do it then it'll be done in an ideologically impure manner... who's pure? Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the f…

If your responding to bullet 2, then the it wasn't a question of "purity" it was the government dictating who was in what position.

Have you read the book?

"Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the face of expedient solutions." This behavior occurs throughout the novel.

What is the childish self-gratifying attitude? That those who work hard and persevere are successful? That it's wrong to steal from others? That at the end of the day you exist for yourself and what you find important (friends, family, etc) and that no one else has a claim on you?

It seems like you setup straw men and then knock them down.

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#57

Post by jbooth »

dantheman wrote: post #56
jbooth wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, thanks, but that's just as childish. Oh, they'll be replaced by the impure -- what a silly premise, only these few supermen are worthy of doing high-end industrial jobs, and if they don't do it then it'll be done in an ideologically impure manner... who's pure? Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the f…

If your responding to bullet 2, then the it wasn't a question of "purity" it was the government dictating who was in what position. Have you read the book? "Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the face of expedient solutions." This behavior occurs throughout the novel. What is the childish self-gratifying at…

The childish, self-gratifying attitude is the part where you think because you achieved some success in life, you owe nothing to the society that made it possible for you. People of that sort of moral stature don't tend to have the firmitude to succeed in other ways, in my experience -- it's more typical of college republicans than it is of actual business leaders.

Re: Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959

#58

Post by RevRal »

SwellJoe wrote: post #55
greenlblue wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, nobody said anything about denying that things exist but what I did deny was the fact that it was objective. Objective only makes sense if you know what subjective means and since all I know are subjective states of being it does not make sense for me to say there is something else that I can not make any sense of that is as real as anything I feel. All I can say is that there is a patchwork of things that my b…

You said something about denying that things exist. You said that "objective reality" is a myth, and you said it as though people who believe in objective reality are simpletons. If there is no objective reality, one person can say, "There is a car in my garage." and someone else can say, "There is a dragon in your garage." and both will be equally correct (because there is no objective way to determine otherwise). B…

Oh the frustration, eh? And it gets more annoying every time.

I still don't have a clear idea on how one can reject objective reality, or reject what is real.

There have been some simularities between all my confrontations over the years: the people don't make very much sense; they demand respect for their "opinion;" and, they attribute arrogance to believing in an objective reality.

Somewhere, they learned the wrong thing. And I think I've deduced part of the problem: they take the subjectivity of some definitions as a sort of proof that an objective reality doesn't exist, and at an intuitive level, they don't accept reductionism.

Definitions being a form of reductionism. That is to say, at a very fundamental level, they take issue with you saying "this orange weighs .3kg ." They won't confront you for saying that, but if they happen to like the movie Joe Dirt, and you say "Joe Dirt is a bad movie," watch out. You are now offending their reality and it is now very personal.

And just to further clarify, when I say "the subjectivity of some definitions," I mean the various degrees of allowed interpretation of ideas. There are different degrees of subjectivity to different ideas: people have an amount of leeway to define some things for themselves, such as love, as it is not very well understood anyway. However, some ideas are very close to a real, concrete, one-to-one, definition of reality.

Yet these people have it in their head that they can make up whatever they want with anything, even though they don't normally execute this power to make up whatever they want. But they do get caught up on their right to make up whatever they want, which boils down to rejecting objective reality. I think there's some kind of empowerment high and self-consolation that "opinions" hold merit by merely existing, even for concepts that aren't lenient with subjectivity.

This submission is pretty much dead but I hope you read this comment since I had this Aha! while reading your comment. This is a rough sketch of something I'm going to expand upon, but hopefully I explained it well enough for now.

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