21–30 of 241 posts
Two points: 1. I'm actually very surprised at how many Ayn Rand fans there are on this site. For a fringe philosophy that has fewer followers than Scientology there seems to be an unusually high concentration here. I am a big Ayn Rand fan, so this is a pleasant surprise for me. 2. Ayn Rand's book Intorduction to Objectivist Epistemology is the most interesting book on the theory of concept formation I've read. I have…
Sampling from what -- "meaning-space"?
For the longest time I kept asking my friends "how can you prove to me THAT tree is in fact a tree?" It was all part of realizing that current philosophy is just a play on words. I do believe that once you understand that, you can think beyond the frivolous debates.
pg: Are there any philosophical texts that you'd recommend?
though it's really starting to turn into a faq
What meanings? I think that math is made of structure, not meaning. The latter is a human phenomenon. For example, a proof using geometry and one using algebra might be mathematically identical, but have different meanings (created when they are perceived).
Disappointing that this essay (like so many others) talks about Plato without mentioning Diogenes. Plato is the stuffed shirt know-it-all, and Diogenes is the smart-alecky devil's advocate ready to poke holes in Plato's ideas, thereby cutting him down a few notches: http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/diogenes.ht... and http://members.optushome.com.au/davidquinn000/Diogenes%20Fol... Ultimately, Diogenes…
I don't see how you can say that. He left no work. All we have to judge him by is a few probably apocryphal stories.
Sorry to post twice, but this is a pet topic. Software is applied philosophy. Where else can you deal with everything that western philosophy offers, from classification to epistemology to the philosophy of language and science -- and at the end of the day produce something that has immediate value for someone? All of this working, real-world stuff we're doing, from heuristics to machine learning and meta-programming…
Few were sufficiently correct that people have forgotten who discovered what they discovered.
Disappointing that this essay (like so many others) talks about Plato without mentioning Diogenes. Plato is the stuffed shirt know-it-all, and Diogenes is the smart-alecky devil's advocate ready to poke holes in Plato's ideas, thereby cutting him down a few notches: http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/diogenes.ht... and http://members.optushome.com.au/davidquinn000/Diogenes%20Fol... Ultimately, Diogenes…