-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In a recent interview, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) rejected Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism as atheist. Instead, Ryan prefers the epistemology of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas adhered to the correspondence theory of truth, which says that something is true “when it conforms to the external reality.” This sounds a lot like Rand’s Primacy of Existence wherein consciousness is subordinate to reality – wishing doesn’t make it so.
Rand’s and Aquinas’ worldviews quickly diverge after that brief congruence.
Aquinas claimed that certain truths were only available through supernatural revelation. Aquinas’ first problem is to resolve this supernatural transmission to a human mind with external reality. Calvin postulated the “Sensus Divinitatis,” but this revelation wasn’t available to Aquinas. How does one distinguish a supernatural revelation from a mere product of one’s imagination?
Rand’s Objectivism separates consciousness from the objects of consciousness. These objects exist independently of any cognition of them. Reality is not subject to the mind, any mind.
To postulate divine revelation is to postulate the divine, that is God. Aquinas wrote “The Five Ways” to prove the existence of God, of which, the second one, is the Argument from Efficient Cause:
- There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself.
- It is not possible to regress to infinity in efficient causes.
- To take away the cause is to take away the effect.
- If there be no first cause then there will be no others.
- Therefore, a First Cause exists (and this is God).
This argument is self-refuting. If everything has a cause other than itself, then God must also have a cause other than God, so God cannot be the first cause. If the first premise is true then the conclusion must be false.
The worldview offered by Aquinas is inherently subjective, incoherent, and imaginary.
Has Paul Ryan ever received knowledge via divine revelation? If so, what was this knowledge, more tax breaks for the wealthy?
H/T: Theodore Schick Jr., Dawson Bethrick, p.l.e., Gordon H. Clark, Sarah Posner, Steve Benen.
Ok, just back from Fiesta . Had a very cerveza good time. Read every post since my Lawrence Kraus post. Room is starting to tilt and spin.
1. Gene — thanks for the post at 1:28 and not calling me a doofus. Glad to be straightened out on the logic can’t prove logic thingy. Picked that up 30+ year ago after reading some intolerable tome written by a South African jurist on sabbatical (don’t know why I remember that) defending Natural Law. I accepted the validity of the statement because my own “It’s good enough to prove everything else” didn’t amount to anything other than an opinion. Then QM came along and I kept asking “How is that logical?”
2. Gene — “Just because at least one assumption has to be made in a system (and ergo a system cannot prove its own consistency) does not mean that parts of the systems cannot be proven.” OK, this might explain some of the the QM stuff.
3. Zimmerman — Thanks for the comment. I did appreciate Rand’s focus of the practicality of ideas. As for the following: “She posited only that, in whatever form, there is and has always been _something_. She held this as an axiom, with its denial leading to a fundamental contradiction.” This may have been her position, but she might be wrong. Ergo, the Kruas video.
Basically, there was nothing, not even a mouse or even a God. Then the Universe began. And it absolutely had to, no “choice” about it. And no first cause. How? QM. Probably made a bunch of other universes. Watch the vid, or get his book.
4. Malisha — wished you had been at the party.
%. Dredd — put a sock in it. Oh, just kidding
Got to go. Tired of correcting typos. Probably regret this post in the morning.
Dormir y bailar con las angeles, amigos!
too many for’s … to the pub for a a friendly game of pool or for the pub and a friendly game of pool … and some lemonade..
As all are aware muses come in many forms…..or is that they come from the farms…..and really are rubes…something to ponder with the collection here…..
Well, in that case the groupie might need help too. I think you and I should grab gbk and head for the pub for a friendly game of pool.
“If Mike has a groupie, I suspect he’s going to need all the help he can get.”
Especially once Max finds out, Blouise.
“like muses leave when relied on.” (gbk) … lord, ain’t that the truth!
If Mike has a groupie, I suspect he’s going to need all the help he can get. 😉
Blouise,
“Did gbk perfectly restate it or was it perfectly stated by Gene? (Find the kitteth!)”
Perfection breaks when observed, much like muses leave when relied on. I’m just hanging out waiting for Mike’s groupie to show up in case there’s a party and he needs help!
Dredd, if I were a sock puppet, whom would I be a sock puppet for? Because I don’t know whose comments would be “supported” by anything I said, and if they are, I don’t know HOW.
The “paradigm” thing is just an explanation of why I don’t understand. There are some things I don’t understand. ON some other thread I think I mentioned that any time I read a sentence with the word “paradigm” in it, my mind went out of gear and I sometimes couldn’t get the sense of the whole paragraph.
But here’s a story about sock puppets. I used to save single socks that lost their mates in the dryer, and I never knew what to do with them. So I began making sock puppets out of them. But nobody wanted the sock puppets. Then I mae a Halloween costume out of all the left-over single socks, and went to a costume party as “the sock monster” who stole single socks out of the dryer.
That’s all I have, Your Honor.
Gene H.
gbk,
No correction required. You understood and restated what I was saying perfectly.
==========================================
Did gbk perfectly restate it or was it perfectly stated by Gene? (Find the kitteth!)
Dredd:
If I understand what you are saying from the previous thread, you’re not saying that microbes actually engage in the mental process of thinking about quantum mechanics only that they, as well as humans, must obey the laws of nature.
Do I have that right or am I wrong as well?
You seemingly understand logic, sociology, law and history just about as well as you understand biology, Dredd. Which is to say barely at all. To be clear, I’m not saying the scientific discoveries you point to lack merit or validity. I’m saying you don’t understand them in a proper scientific context and that leads you to make ridiculous claims like microbes are scientists. You already peddled your pet theory ad nauseum here. Apes read philosophy, Otto, they just don’t understand it. The same can be said for you and biology (and apparently sociology, history and law as well). In short, you’re a smart guy (you know a lot of information) but you aren’t very intelligent (because you cannot integrate that information properly to synthesize understanding). So you’ll pardon me if your snide asides directed at me simply make me giggle, Mr. Hides Behind the Name of a Comicbook Anti-hero and Runs From Logic When Confronted With It. I really do take your criticisms of me – direct or indirect – as seriously as I take them from children who think Star Wars is real. Of course, if I was spouting scientifically ignorant crap as full of logical fallacies as you do as if it were gospel, I’d hide behind a pseudonym too.
I hope that was clear enough for you.
Gene H. 1, May 5, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Logic is logic.
=============================================
You are on a roll uphill genie. Real magic. When you get ready to come from behind the curtain, and stop bothering the straw man, the big fanged lion, the steel man, and of course Dorthy, let us know.
The
groupiegroup will still be here.Malisha 1, May 5, 2012 at 6:17 pm
… someone must have used the word “paradigm” because I couldn’t understand a thing. I tried thinking about what there was before the universe but then realized that the phrase “before the universe” was something LIKE an oxymoron …
==========================================
Another sock puppet?
A search of “paradigm” only pulls up your comment. Same with “before the universe”.
“I couldn’t understand a thing”
That I believe.
Dredd 1, May 5, 2012 at 6:46 pm
idealist707 1, May 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Dredd,
I missed your photon comment.
===========================================
Ok, I will repeat it:
That is a classic example of a dialetheia, as I explained up-thread.
It is the poetical equivalent of a mathematical equation, neither one being logical, but both advocating logic.
The little genie down inside the bottled up nature of human insecurity, or the champagne cork headed for the heavenly realm for a short time, both demand more light and less heat.
But don’t get it.
idealist707 1, May 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Dredd,
I missed your photon comment.
===========================================
Ok, I will repeat it: <blockquote:The only good thing about an empty cold one is that the next one will be full.That is a classic example of a dialetheia, as I explained up-thread.
It is the poetical equivalent of a mathematical equation, neither one being logical, but both advocating logic.
The little genie down inside the bottled up nature of human insecurity, or the champagne cork headed for the heavenly realm for a short time, both demand more light and less heat.
But don’t get it.
Malisha,
Glad I revived and came back. You sure can formulate the crap, positively I mean. So I’ll be glad to stand in the intersection and be run over again.
(I liked that one)
As for opinions, just dig in your hypocrisies, everybody else here does.
(Followed by catcalls and thrown stones, he exits again.)
Bye you’all.
idealist707 1, May 5, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Waving a ACLU observer sign, i enter the fray zone like the drunk who’s been thrown out of the bar.
Scientific comment. (pseudo). Symbiontism sounds groovy, even it we hold ourselves to that between human cells. And the microbes do live in intimate contact in the inter-cellular space. Grooving quite comfortably.
I presume (it again) that Dredd has his rubber boots on when he says there are lots of them not causing general infection of the pathological type in our contiguous interstitial spaces. Or otherwise such effects.
If they have been there for ages, which their presence in apes should be enough to establish that hypothesis for´now. Then to assume that they have had no interaction with “us” or vice versa would seem statistically stupid.
I’m not suggesting they are breeding with us, only effecting us. We know nothing about intracellular hormones, and little of those in larger distances. (Organ signalling and regulation).
Now Dredd does make a big “footprint”. But a little thought with my weak biological knowledge and at this hour, I will now submerge like the Loch Ness monster, and go to sleep.
The issue needs and deserves more thought. Not to deal out any Nobel prizes in advance, but who remembers the receptions accorded the Australian doctor who discovered the cause of ulcers; or the English doctor who labored in the cause of childless couples for 25 ridiculed years.
Let us raise our glasses. Thank god for them and Galileo. And the establishment can stuff the tower of Pisa up their rumps. Followed by the Vatican. And a few other institutions you can certainly list without my help.
==========================================
“We” and “current scientific revolution” are two very different things.
Let’s be sure about microbial scientific revolution, i.e., “we” sure as hell did not discover it. At best we can detect it in scientific papers.
Which is what Dredd Blog offers a look at from time to time.
What folks here can do is accept, or not, the scientific research which is published in the definitive scientific journals for all to peruse.
But that will not change reality, it will only mean that you can keep “drinking” at the same bars, with the same posters on the same walls, get the same tattoos, if you want to, but the Legal Bar with its potent doctrines, nor the Drink Bars, with their potent beverages, do not determine science (or even law for that matter.)
Science is experiencing revolution in genetics, brain science, and microbiology, while they are experiencing gold plated status quo.
“Law” is still stilted with a logic going back to “the bench”, which Churchill described in his “History of the English Speaking Peoples”, as some old white-haired guys sitting on “a bench under an oak tree” in the center of the village.
I read his work a long time ago, and read closely, noting that the celebration of advancement in “those days” was limited to “the Queens Bench” and “the King’s Bench” being a break through of immense proportion (even though women were chattels).
But, it is a bench now perverted with spineless adherents, who were and are celebrating as the social structure they “promised” descends into all of the darkness of that history.
By advancing those who advocate torture to high positions on that bench, while giving them the same shot they gave the King (“the king can do no wrong”) – immunity, they fantasize that civilization is advancing (gives new meaning to back to the future.)
What they have forgotten is that such “immunity” is a disease that has taken down every empire that proceeded them.
Then when the dickiest of them want to parade logic, it is deserving of the most scientific stand up comedy.
Ps. lose the alter ego thingy.
I seek no peace with pathogens.
Nighty nite bro.
Oh Hi, I checked into this thread and realized, early on, that someone must have used the word “paradigm” because I couldn’t understand a thing. I tried thinking about what there was before the universe but then realized that the phrase “before the universe” was something LIKE an oxymoron (couldn’t actually BE an oxymoron) because time is part OF the universe so there would be no “before” manifestatable or — all like that.
Then I got seduced by Idealist’s exudation theory even though I haven’t actually understood that either, but it felt more like the kind of knowledge that is knowable, if studied. Stuff that is not knowable even when studied makes me feel like I have to take a pill but I don’t have any of those. But knowable knowledge is very exciting, and it has its own rewards, so I went down that path. I remember being very cold one day and having to wait outside for something, and I deliberately visualized a reflective layer around me (about 10 mm outside the lines of me if I were a coloring book figure) that would shoot the body heat of 98.7 Fahrenheit back in at me, and I did warm up, so I can actually come to an understanding of that part of the story, and thank you Idealist for that.
Then I got lost because of the logic and belief stuff, and remembered my grandwhippet Argos (d. 3/17/2011) who used to understand so much but whenever he did NOT understand something, he would sit there looking noble and tilting his head a bit, so one ear and then the other would perk a little, as if to say, “If I hear it different maybe it will become comprehensible.” Tilt Tilt Tilt. Oh well, maybe I’m not doing it right.
The Encounter Group that Mike Spindell went to was interesting, and I could understand what was said, and I could visualize what happened there. Of course, “I feel hostility from you” was, I think, a standard way to attack somebody. Once said, it becomes true, and then the denial sounds like a lie and you have the quarry caught! I imagine a scene in a movie where one of those “we know who they are” types says, “I feel hostility from you” to someone who has been ignoring him (just not interested, not exuding) and the target responds, “Damn right, asshole; shut up before I punch your lights out.”
And then I read Mike Spindell’s comment a bit later on in the thread:
“I’d quit any group of mine that someone would join. I’m just trying to keep my head above water and deciding what’s best to do second by second.”
And I really get it. Sometimes I try to figure things out that are a bridge too far, and I get a feeling of floating, kind of fogged in, kind of locked out, kind of missing the boat. Right then, the important thing is usually to make sure I’m not standing in a busy street while the light changes. The reason I always hated court was that no matter what the case is (even a traffic court case!), you can be there, and everything can be perfectly clear, and suddenly, THE FOGGGGGGG and then nothing makes sense.
At one point in the past I read up on Ayn Rand because the “Patrick Crusade” guys (prison reform, I’m on their list serve) put something up about her philosophy. Here I had thought she was just some hack novelist who liked kinky stuff and wrote unmanageable tomes of urgent pressured speech. Then I learned she was a secular Jew who had some kind of an axe to grind, but I still couldn’t figure it out. Aquinas is beyond me by definition. I mean, the most fundamental Christianity both astonishes and befuddles me (He died for our sins?)
So, greetings to all, I just wanted to see if I could understand what was up there and, if so, form an opinion, but so far, I haven’t got much to show.
Oro Lee (@ 9:21) –
Rand _definitely_ held that “the universe” has always existed. This is the meaning of “existence exists”. She had no opinion of what _forms_ the universe may have taken in the distance past, of whether there has been an incessant cycle of big bangs followed by singularities, etc. She posited only that, in whatever form, there is and has always been _something_. She held this as an axiom, with its denial leading to a fundamental contradiction. I don’t have space to go into that here, but, suffice it to say, she did not fall into the same trap regarding “origins” as did Aquinas.
“It has to do with the exudor primarily, i.e., the primary exudor wanting to determine all things logical for the exudee.”
Utter gibberish that has nothing to do with the meaning of the word “eugenics”. Logic is logic. Perhaps that is why you fear it so. It punctures your beliefs. That you persist in illogical (and irrational) beliefs about microbes is your prerogative, Dredd. But again, don’t try to peddle it as science when it is manifestly science fiction. Microbes “do” quantum mechanics? Do you even remotely comprehend how ludicrous it is to attribute understanding a system like quantum mechanics to a form of life that is simply using an effect described by that human generated system when that form of life lacks the complexity to even understand language? It is the very essence of both the Pathetic fallacy and the fallacy of simple cause (among many many other fallacies your thoughts on this matter have demonstrated). I don’t think you do or you’re so far gone into your irrationality that you don’t care. It’s analogous to calling a plant a biochemist because they photosynthesize or that a rock is a physicist because it rolls down hill.