"Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense agains the chaos of mental disintegration." - Ayn Rand
"Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense agains the chaos of mental disintegration." - Ayn Rand
Stolen concepts invert, erase, or otherwise distort the hierarchy of definitions. Thus, the practice of concept stealing is the willful destruction of man's tool of survival. A grave sin.
We're not quite at the point of threatening to destroy Mecca and the Dome of the Rock yet, but I feel it would be prudent to remind Saudi Arabia that if they don't leash their radical Wahhabi friends, there are folks that would try to do just that.
define or be defined...
Allowing anyone else to dictate meaning from its actuality is acquiesce.
Word choice, particularly from those trying to make a specific case is a determining factor in perception. Sly and crafty manipulators often chose their words to build something out slim accepted meanings and then champion that word to make their platform for all its worth.
If they can't dazzle you with their brilliance, they baffle you with BS.
I do have to work on my ability to make typo's at the worst possible times. :)
"Sly and crafty manipulators often chose their words to build something out of slimly accepted meanings and then champion that word to make their platform for all its worth. "
Yes politicians fit that category.
If my definition is totally different from yours, I tend to think you are irrational and you likewise about me. A society may make a definition about something, and all members of that society agree that it is the correct definition and that socity will function well or at least function. If others outside that society disagree they could and frequently do see the society as a little or even a lot, off base in their thinking and perhaps even dangerous.
I agree that deinitions are the key to rationality, but care must be take in the establishment of said definitions because different people hear the same words different with different denotative and connotative meanings.
I have one other comment. I think some posters intentionally use vague wording to provoke others into asking questions, and not just accepting the thought in the comment as they may at first perceive it.
1. For Aristotle it was define, categorize, differentiate.
2. For early man, it was awareness, then naming. Now the "thing" or "concept" had existence for him. (Sometimes even magical existence.)
Well, 2 things.
Even though I'm sure you've all read this, a refresher wouldn't hurt:
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/p...
This I find particularly appropriate for this thread:
"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’. The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that "...it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning".
Now I see where your problems of abstruseness come from.
As for my altruistic usage, I just mean that if one dedicates some time toward worrying about the minds of others, one is devoting that time to others in a way unlike just helping to get a project done that requires helping one another. I would not be writing this if I did not find pleasure in it. Whether you get anything out of the discourse is your problem, not mine.
“I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.”
Frederik Solomon Perls
There, that's all the clues I'm planning to give you.
Number theory in general is about relationships between numbers as concepts. It began as an experimental science of thought and computation which pointed to some very deep hypotheses about relationships between the abstractions. Mathematicians have not in any way lost any insights but continue to have new insights about numbers. In fact their insights are making the study of calculus and its usage with respect to the concepts of space and time both clearer and deeper.
I have no idea about where you want to go with your veiled clues. I cannot see what is bothering you, so if you want to, make your problems explicit.
Why would you think something is bothering me? Or more exactly, what is it you think is bothering me?
So number theory is an abstraction of an abstraction, taking it to whole new level? Somewhere along the way, if I MUST REPEAT myself, you lost the sense of number.
As did Russell and Whitehead, in their attempt to "prove" numbers (Russell was pretty hung up on proof). I love the way his proof of natural numbers ran: "the class of numbers that comes after the class that came before".
And while we're discussing definitions, what do you think of Russell's attempt to solve the barber's dilemma by using a hierarchy of classes?
Or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which I believe is one of the finest theorems in logic. Wish I could understand THAT (working on it---don't have much spare time anymore).
Love your little touchy-feely poem there at the end. Just kidding---don't love it at all.
I wonder if you're putting me on. No one can be this perplexed. Unless your repression of feelings is getting in the way of your ability to think analytically.
One simple answer to Russell's barber paradox is that the barber set is empty and the whole exercise is not rational since no such barber could exist. Not every thought is rational in that it must refer to something that could possibly exist.
If placed in first order logical form, then it is shown to be contradictory because of the 'for every' quantifier.
From my point of view, you are the one who seems perplexed. Can you make it explicit as to why the concept of mathematics as a conceptual activity bothers you? Rand, with respect to algebra, seems to believe that actual numbers exist out there exist that can be plugged into the variables in an equation. The variables do stand for some number but those numbers are only concepts in a mind which must refer to possible existents in objective reality doing whatever they do. If not possible then not rational. In math with axiom systems all that is required is consistency with respect to the axiom systems and need not refer to reality unless evidence shows otherwise.
By the way, what did you mean by being a mathematician? One might say that anyone who can do arithmetic and create problems in arithmetic is a mathematician.
I do get the idea that you are trolling and have to do a personal attack due to having shown that you may have been less than honest about that being a mathematician statement.
It isn't your "mentality"---what ever that is---that is in question, it is your feelings and how that relates to cognitive function.
"lib·er·al (l¹b“…r-…l, l¹b“r…l) adj. Abbr. lib. 1.a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded. c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism. d. Liberal. Abbr. Lib. Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. 2.a. Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor. b. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes. 3. Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation. 4. Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education. 5.a. Archaic. Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman. b. Obsolete. Morally unrestrained; licentious. --lib·er·al n. 1. A person with liberal ideas or opinions. 2. Liberal. Abbr. Lib. A member of a Liberal political party. [Middle English, generous, from Old French, from Latin lºber³lis, from lºber, free. See leudh- below.] --lib“er·al·ly adv. --lib“er·al·ness n.
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SYNONYMS: liberal, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, generous, handsome, munificent, openhanded. The central meaning shared by these adjectives is “willing or marked by a willingness to give unstintingly”: a liberal backer of the arts; a bounteous feast; bountiful compliments; a freehanded host; a generous donation; a handsome offer; a munificent gift; a fond and openhanded grandfather. See also Synonyms at broad-minded."
Now Conservatives and others who do not like any kind of individual liberalism seem to have that subconscious definition handy to get some gut feeling that anything liberal is the cause of all mental evil.
There is no attempt to destroy or get rid of definitions, but only the attempt to instill floating or platonic abstractions for some religious, political, philosophic, or other social reason.
Same goes for Conservatives and Libertarians. Neither group seems to care about whether they are instilling some package deal of a presumed definition into the subconscious of those who might follow them. Even when there is a conscious definition, people will pretty it up in their minds until it fits what ever they want the concept to mean. Take Conservatism which has a fluid definition to whomever likes it politically. To some, it means conserving the good of a society or in extreme cases it means a push toward a theocracy like the pilgrims who made the Americas into a Christian land but who only ended having to go liberal from their communist ideal. Mostly, political terms are define by a strong gut feeling and not by a conscious dictionary definitions.
2. Whatever meaning Liberalism has had in the past, in whatever country, it does not have that same meaning now. There has been an influx of Leftist thought (and even the Bolsheviks didn't have a determinative definition for The Left. Eventually Leninism won the day.) in Liberal idiotology.
3. As far as I'm concerned, any idiotology that refers in any way to that malignant 19th century European philosophical thought is evil. (Use of the phrase "the wrong side of history" for example. Only one who believes, like Marx, that history is pre-determined could say that.)
For if a philosophy can be said to determine future events, there is no doubt that 19th century philosophical thought has been, and will be, malicious.
I understand, (but have trouble forgiving how they have influenced events in the 20th century) that these thinkers were attempting to determine what kind of relationship could and should exist between the individual and society, and between the individual and the state.
That awful French revolution influenced not only events of state, but also thinking in 19th century Europe.
The reason I bring this up, in response to your comment, is because the Left, in its many and varied forms, has reared its enormous ugly head into the forefront of political philosophy, and has influence, not only in the media, but in American universities and lower education as well.
Have you ever heard of Ignacio Silone? He was an Italian, and former Communist. He wrote--in the '30's--that the Final Battle might very well be between a Communist and an ex-Communist. He was speaking of "Final Battle" in metaphorical terms, of course.
So, when a Liberal refuses to "define" himself, it may either be because he just doesn't know what he thinks, or he is trying to figure out how to "pull the wool over your eyes". For instance, Obama is a Marxist. Nobody knew that when he ran. He bandied about the term "American values" but not only wouldn't define values, he wouldn't give an example of one. But he did say "Republicans don't have the right values for America." So there's your mushy language.
I do admire your attempt at being a good Objectivist by having concern and for forgiving the errors of others while at the same time being very judgemental of the errors of others. Since you have no control of the minds of others, it is not up to you to spend your time being altruistically upset with others, the errors are their errors to suffer from or correct.
Perhaps time and energy should be spent on whether 'man qua man' which is an undefined ideal should be worked on and perhaps replaced with what everyone has immediate experience and has the alternative of existence or nothingness with 'consciousness qua consciousness' which would permit some pleasure back into the lives of Objectivists. Then humans could seek happiness and find that left/right politics with an excluded middle could meld into a view of freedom which would imply the good of capitalism.
I never said I was against dictionary definitions, but I admit I think I did get a little off topic. But I tried to make the point that textbook definitions do not apply, but should, in order that discussions and debate can have meaning, in today's political atmosphere. So if that was the point of your comment, and help me out a little bit here, that textbook definitions apply in every area of human "knowledge", I heartily disagree with you.
I also wanted to alert one and all that we are living in dangerous times, and Silone's Final Battle is symptomatic of that.
I am not a philosopher; you seem to write like one, though, so I'll simply say that there are "definitely" word "forms" used by you. that slide right off me. The term "man-qua-man", for instance, or "being-qua-being" is utterly incomprehensible to me and is thus meaningless in my mind.
I see it as simply a usage of classical Greek philosophy that bears no resemblance to what man has presently evolved into.
I once read Heidegger's notes on a history of the concept of time, and realized he really needed to become a little less abstruse. Like yourself, perhaps.
NIce talking to you.