welcome to the gulch...been at this for over 50 yrs, since college...

mia767ca@aol.com

john k

No problem, Commander. If I get really confused I'll ask for clarification. Some acronyms like SCOTUS and POTUS are quite common in their context and read like normal words, but others need a bit of a nudge to keep us all on the same page.

TOE, SCOTUS, POTUS.....
Rand: Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental dis-integration. (I hyphenated disintegration for clarity)
Thank you and Irshultis for pointing out a laziness I exhibited. Above, in this exchange, I illustrated a fundamental formula for assumption. Well....we just lived it!

Uh oh. I got TOE wrong, too, though I was a bit closer. I thought it was a reference to Ayn Rand's "The Objectivist Epistemology".

TOE, The Objectivist''s Ethics
I am a life form, I have that in common with all other life. Our purpose collectively is continuity. We do this through processing energy and procreation. We experience, unilaterally, comfort or discomfort as a percept. More complex organisms experience comfort / discomfort as happiness or unhappiness. These are the fundamentals of metaphysical values. To survive in some state of comfort and happiness is the purpose of life. Humans are unique. Because we developed tools to insulate us from the immediacy of survival we can create "assumption" on individual and organizational level and attempt to live by this as fact. Assumption can be manipulated by conceptualization during development of the mind.....A=B..equals cognitive dissonance between perception and conception. In a really tight nutshell.

Without some form of basic understanding of what we are and how we interact that applies unilaterally we shall always find ourselves in unreconcilable conflicts of beliefs. The Objectivist's Ethics provides this basic connection.

I have no idea what your acronym TOE stands for. There are abort 50 possibilities - the only one that seems to give meaning for me is "Through Other Eyes" as used in UK.
It never occurred to me in my 80 years to ever need to know or assume "what I am" or
or other time wasters such as "who am I" or even need to know what assumptions go on in an other individual's mind. All that can be done is to judge their actions and then deal with them as needed.
When I was about 3, I asked my father where do we come from. He said that we come from monkeys which cause a golden prehensile tailed monkey image (the only kind of monkey that I was familiar with) to form in my mind. It was very intense. I was never indoctrinated in some pseudo concept such as a god.
I have had social anxiety since about one year old and do not have to know or assume about the contents of others minds nor have I looked to making friends, acquaintanceships are enough for me.

If I assume what I am, I am likely to band together with other assuming individuals, form institutions of assumption and not look objectively at how they interact or change...our present global state of governments and social organizations. This is the extrapolation of 11 years of studying TOE against The Dec of Ind, The US Const, the Universal Dec of Human Rights

"I think one of Rand's greatest contributions is that of showing how assumptive institutionalization of how we "care" for one another will always degrade into manipulation and power struggles. "
Just where did Rand ever discuss or show that in any of her writings, fiction or non-fiction? Something from the great science of Sociology?

I like Yams...

Ps...shhhhh...MEMES UP!

I yam what I yam.

Toot! Toot!

Therefore you are...

I know so . . . I think.

I thought so...

I guess my habit of editing AFTER posting (like me...laughing), isn't going to work for you.
It doesn't help having no expansion option so you can see your whole headline. You'll just have to go back and forth and review your heading carefully...might be a good way to develop a productive habit.

You do have that feature in the "Notes" area.

Thank you, I am looking forward to meeting some like minded people and working out some solutions to what is going on in our country.

Welcome Robert. Hope you enjoy your time here.

I think what you're saying about what I said is what I was saying.

I did that and i was told in order to edit I have to be a paying member. :-( So I guess I have to look like an idiot for a while. Or at least until I find out more about this group. I didn't want to pay for something until I knew I would like this site. Oh Well.

The edit stays for the post, but the edit for comments only last a little while...I think that is what you're saying.

Took me dino a little while to learn that your ability to edit the title and the optional note of a "start discussion" stays and stays.
As for this reply, the ability to edit lasts but a few minutes.
Welcome to The Gulch.

The solution is philosophical in nature. Philosophy is learned. Rand has offered the most fundamental, teachable to date. There is room for clarity through simplifying the teaching of fundamentals. For adults I recommend The Objectivist's Ethics before any non-fiction. This was a lecture delivered in Madison, WI in 1961...20 or so pages.

I think one of Rand's greatest contributions is that of showing how assumptive institutionalization of how we "care" for one another will always degrade into manipulation and power struggles. I'll offer a fundamental example. The average person (arbitrarily) has 30 others whom they "know". The probability of assumption is not 30 divided by 7.5 billion...that's a simplified base of perception. This is compounded by all the assumptions we may make, regarding ourselves and our personal interaction with the natural world, and the world of human creation. Compound again by the assumptions of our "group" of 30. What each of us "knows" regarding our lives is X to the negative power of Y. I use this as a perceptive exaample, though Asimov showed a methodology of making this a scientific exploration....and it's being used today.

I can imagine a teachable means of philosophy that negates a lot of developmental bias, and that children can begin to learn the fundamentals as young as 6 or 7. I am watching this manifest in my 6 y/o grand niece...I can see it happening globally.

Love all these new people! Fantastic!

Click on Edit...

Should it take a while to restore.....I'm pretty sure we will get quite a future narrative from the USSA....

Howdy Abaco, nice to meet you. I was looking through the site and it seems a lot of people have not been seen for a really long time. Is there a lot of conversation about what is going on now days and talking about possible solutions to reverse the damage to our Nation our Republic?