My comment was kinder and gentler? He'll chomp your bones like candy.

if you get a chance to listen to scott's post on the NB lecture, I think you would both like it.

actually most animal species are capable of killing to demonstrate dominance. I don't know where this kindler, gentler animal discussion is going...

But they stink... and if one crosses your path while they're hungry they don't give a squat about you, your life, your rights, or your individualism because you look like dinner, and that's reality.

I have never put three eyes on Mr potatohead. I did put a nose where an ear should go. No matter where I put his features it was still reality tho, because that's where I put them.

You said "yes" in your first reply (which I didn't realize til now, but that will not stop me from needling you about it now that you've voiced rejection)..
It was my way of saying that it was over my head to follow. It's like popcorn being thrown around in my head reading all that stuff that's supposed to clarify something...and maybe Socrates was a tyranny. Anyway, I like Eud's epistemology explanation better... I always glaze over when the reality debate comes up...why argue over what reality is. It bores me, probably because I can't grasp the idea even. Cuz I'm not that smart. Now, ... bring me a glass of wine and make me laugh.

Yes.the stolen concept.

I reject the first part of your statement and ask you to be more specific on the second part. Give examples from the article you find more complicated than they need to be.

Hello khalling,

Ah... Epistemology! A good read and much shorter than Rand's "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology." My copy (ITOE) is the expanded second edition. I found the question and answer format quite engaging.
Our senses are our source of knowledge. Axiom: "Existence exists." "... the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists." AR
The "stolen concept"
"When modern philosophers declare that axioms are a matter of arbitrary choice, and proceed to choose complex, derivative concepts as the alleged axioms of their alleged reasoning, one can observe that their statements imply and depend on “existence,” “consciousness,” “identity,” which they profess to negate, but which are smuggled into their arguments in the form of unacknowledged, “stolen” concepts." AR

One cannot be taken seriously if they proclaim that one cannot know reality/anything without using reality/something to argue the point, thus defeating their own argument...

Happy New Year,
O.A.

Like you, "I'm not all that smart" but I do not know anyone who thinks that they are smart enough - and certainly not "too smart" with extraneous intelligence they wish they could do without…

I think that everything is complicated, but that success comes from reducing the essentials - an analogy from alchemy, actually.

Your caveat that things not be made more complicated than they need to be addresses the fallacious claims of the anti-mind philosophers. Language allows us to state nonsense: "Mathematics is green." But so what? Who has not put three eyes on Mr. Potatohead? Over-complicating him does not help him much, which I think is in line with your warning.

Thanks, also. It is funny in an non-funny way, that animals seem to have enough knowledge but we are stuck in Plato's Cave. No one claims that bears are ignorant of proper cub rearing or incapable of finding berries or are hunting salmon to extinction. It is pretty wintery in most of the northern hemisphere right now - 45F and rainy in Austin - and here we are in heated homes conversing across the continent via our computers. Somehow, bears seem not to have discovered any of that…

We never have _complete_ knowledge of anything, but we obviously have _successful_ knowledge of astoundingly much. I think that the call for complete knowledge is a variant of the forensic fallacy of "the call for perfection." We had the telegraph, telephone, and radio, and Edison lit up cities, all before Thompson identified the electron.

Thanks for the recommendation. Will do :)

when you get a chance, check out more great articles at Savvy Street. Let me know what you think ;)

Thanks for posting this. It's very timely for me. :)

I'm not all that smart, but there is such a thing as making things more complicated then they need to be.

yes, but there needs to be a method of inquiry -tests-so you can categorize "what is." Definitions and categories. But also interesting is understanding that knowledge is contextual. You do not have to have complete knowledge in order to use inductive reasoning successfully.

What is....is.