Gödel’s theorems, simplified
bis bald,
Nick
Objectivists go a little further than saying we should use logic sometimes. They say it is their "only" means of identifying reality. If someone wants to subvert your mind, the first thing they do is make you question the reliability of logic and your ability to use it. Questioning logic or pointing out flaws in it is almost blasphemy. Well, I think the value of logic is its ability to point out its own inadequacies. Blind faith doesn't have this safeguard.
Here is part of my summary of what Hazel Barnes said about Existentialism and Objectivism:
Rand is a systematic philosopher in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle. She believes in an essence prior to existence, that existence is identity. The existentialist, however, opposes system-building and believes existence preceeds essence. Rand does say that man becomes, but his task is to become rational. His essence is Reason. Sartre, on-the-other-hand, would say man is a being who is what he is not and is not what he is. His essence is freedom itself to become what he will. He makes the definition, itself, of what he will have been.
Is this existentialists' denial of pre-existing, external paths what Rand characterizes as "a vacuum of their own making..." "..their abdication from the realm of the intellect."? The Sartrian existentialist would say Rand is leaning on crutches, relying on safety nets, not having the courage to face life without guidelines. They would say she is substituting Reason for God.
In "Atlas Shrugged," Rand's fictional character explains objective Reason:
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precidence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking--that the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action--that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise.
According to Rand, this conforms to reality, the ultimate standard, and she defines reality thus:
Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.
The very next paragraph explains that this reason belongs to each individual person.
The most depraved sentence you can now utter is to ask: Whose reason? The answer is: Yours. No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. ...It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth--and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal.
Well, not only are some people better able to reason than others, but some people have more information with which to reason than others. It's fine to make reality the court of final appeal, but it can be exactly that reality which is in question.
Further, when the questions are about values, the disagreements seem much less capable of being resolved by reason and that which we perceive as reality. However, Rand defines 'value' as that which man acts to gain and/or keep and 'virtue' as the action by which one gains and keeps it. She is willing to say, as she does in the opening essay in "The Virtue of Selfishness," that "man chooses his values," but she goes on to classify these choosen values as rational or irrational.
So, if I decide today that some goal is in my self-interest and pursue that goal with all my reasoning ability, what if I change my mind? Was my former goal the objective and rational one, or is it my present goal? Whose reason is most objective and rational, and when are they thus? But then, I'm not suppose to be depraved and ask such questions. Rand brow beats me with arguments from intimidation.
Theists have God. Aristotle had an Umoved Mover. Nietsche had his Superman. Rand has John Galt. Is John Galt enough to anchor her philosophy? Sartre admits there are no absolutes. There is no anchor, but, perhaps, that is his anchor.
Some people think Rand engages in naive, wishful thinking. She says that if businessmen lived in a perfectly laissez-faire society and followed pure self-interest, there would never arise conflict among them. Does it not seem like she yearned for the days when black was black and white was white, where there were no shades of gray? In Rand's world, since there can be no compromise between good and evil, everything is 'either/or' and one side is right and the other is wrong. Is life really so simple?
I can understand not compromising with, say, a mugger or an obvious psychotic who wants to chop off my arm. It would be absurd to offer him a few fingers instead. There are lines where 'either/or' is justified.
And, existentialists would not disagree with this in the area of Being. Even if, after several examinations of an object, there is something left over, a transphenomenality of Being, a table is still a table, even if it could be something else also. Stating that one never knows absolutely is not to deny all knowledge. We can have certainty about many specific things even if absolute certainty is lacking. However, are values and morals subject to the same rational appraisal as tables? It would be nice if they were. The existentialist confronts freedom in anguish. He must reflect on it, not just choose to think or not to think. Some things, like what Hitler did, are, (according to my philosophy) obviously wrong. A mugger or an obvious psychotic who wants to chop off my arm is, (again, according to NickOtani'sNeo-Objectivism) wrong, but there are shades of gray and places where standards are still needed, where we may have to create them and take responsibility for them. God has not been deposed so that nature or reason can take His place. According to atheistic existentialism, we have to take His place.
No, my contention is that pure Objectivism substitutes logic for God. If you want to use logic sometimes and sometimes not, your position is not that of Rand or Peikoff. It is not the position I am criticizing.
I agree that we can't always use logic. Logic doesn't reach all situations. We don't always have enough information to weigh consequences and apply logic, and we may be faced with equal consequences which cannot be differentiated by logic. Sometimes, we simply have to choose, and a truely free choice is baseless. (Paradoxically, however, we are not free to avoid such choices. Even choosing not to choose is a choice. Sartre said we are forced into freedom.)
I did not, in my last post, address your problem with paradoxes, like the Liar's paradox. You said they need context. No, they can refer to themselves, like the statement, "There are no absolutes," is self-referential. If you hold that "There are no absolutes," is a self-referential statement, then you would be inconsistent by saying "I am lying," is not. (Incidentally, Sartre doesn't mean by this that there is no knowledge at all.)
General Semantics has a way of getting arond some of these paradoxes by saying they are true on one level of abstraction but false on another level. This doesn't work well with the paradoxes used by Goedel and Russell in formal logic. Goedel's theorems stand up. To refute them, you have to prove they are wrong. Can you do that?
Pretty interesting, and I can understand your excitement and wanting to share this with us. It's not the kind of thing you should have posted in a thread on logic, but that's okay. We won't be picky.
Things happen here in Spokane also. There other day, there was a big tanker fire north of town, big black billowing smoke and flames and explosions until an airforce truck shot foam on it and got it under control. Now, they say it was purposely set.
I know it is more personal when things happen in your own apartment building. And, it sounds sad. Elderly people depend on their care-givers.
About the marijuana, though, perhaps that was something which brought purpose and a little happiness in this person's life. I think drugs like this should be legal for old people. I'm glad my dad was on anti-depresents when he died, and I wish he could have had heroin. I don't believe in using crutches when we don't need them, but anything which makes life easier for old people, prior to their death, should be okay.
It might be different with meth or something that could blow-up in the processing and endanger other people in the apartment building, but marijuana is so harmless.
While I wouldn't go so far as to say that marijuarna is "harmless", I would agree that THC is one of the more benign drugs you can introduce into your body. Many prescription drugs have the potential to be misused to far more drastic end results than marijuana, and it's a hypothosis of mine that if it wern't for alcohol's place in many cultures, that drug, too would have been outlawed long ago. The mind and mood-altering effects of alcohol are far more dangerous and severe than marijuana. The same argument applies to tobacco- in fact, the tobacco industry fortifies it's product with all sorts of addictive and cancerous substances and is perfectly legal for no other reason than 1) cultural tradition, an 2) lobbying (particularly in the U.S.).
And before anyone asks or wonders- no, I've never smoked either marijuana or tobacco. I don't condemn people who do- a person getting stoned in the safe comfort and privacy of his home is no concern of mine. Besides- I'm not immune from unhealthy pleasures. I love Rock Stars and Red Bulls. While not exactly meth, energy drinks are in no way healthy for me, and the damage to my health more than outweighs the temporary burst of energy I get from consuming one. They're bad for me. So are hamburgers. So are the Bacardi Mojitos I love.
The drug bust inadvertently highlights a few Objectivist principles worthy of discussion and debate: what would the Objectivist view on drugs be? Would Ayn Rand have, in the name of personal freedom, supported an old pothead's right to do as he pleases as long no harm is done to others? Would Objectivism say that some drugs are ok and others not? And by what criteria? Can two Objectivists disagree on this issue, yet both remain legitimite Objectivists? (I suspect Ayn Rand would have stated that there would be no agreement between Objectivists, as reason would lead each individual to the same conclusions in most, if not all, aspects of life)
Drug use may be an unreasonable act (and therefore something an Objectivist would take issue with), but if said unreasonable act "harms" no one but the user, is it the user's perogative to exercise his free will and harm himself?
Right, I have smoked cigarettees and marijuana. At my age, I've done it all. Remember, I was a teenager during the 60s and 70s. Anybody my age who says he or she did not smoke marijuana is either a liar or someone who really didn't fit in. I haven't indulged now for more than thirty years, but I am not opposed to using anything responsibly. We should be able to use drugs as long as we don't let them use us. I don't approve of living in a dream world, trying to escape reality instead of dealing with it. However, old people who are ready to die, deserve anything which can allow them to be happy.
I remember my German mother-in-law, who was a law abiding and proper woman all her life, bought a house plant which just happened to have a hemp plant which sprouted up in the same soil. She told us about it, and we seperated it and nurtured it until it grew into a nice, bushy marijuana plant. We kept it in her house and clipped it periodically to smoke the leaves. It's not like she broke the law, since she bought the plant legally, and she kept it in a corner of her house, by the window, but she did know it was an illegal plant. This just made it more interesting to her. It became her favorite plant. She didn't smoke the leaves, but she kept it and watered it and looked at it a lot and thought about it. It brought some excitement into her otherwise dull life of an old person living alone. She was a good old girl.
Marijuana is not the evil weed some people have made it out to be. Yes, it can be abused, like alkohal and many other things, but it can also be used responsibly by adults with good judgment.
Hi Nick,
I think you have got your approach on Philosophy a bit muddled up, since you are confusing metaphysics with epistomology.
Logic, as an extension of reason and rationality, is only a way for man to process knowledge. The only alternatives to this are either emotional whims (the "witch doctor" approach) or mystical revelations (the faith approach). If you want to attack reason as a way of processing knowledge, then you either seem to favour emotional whims or mystic revelations - make your pick.