23 Comments

1. If one wishes to know what authoritative means look no further to the insanity of our medical-pseudo-scientific industry when it comes to one of the most important investigations into life itself and the many faceted interactions with health vs. disease…Oh and if you think your blood is sterile, think again, if you don’t think that your DNA doesn’t code for some viral components please wake up…we are not closed systems we are maintained open systems. How you are maintained is another question altogether!

   http://www.whale.to/a/b/pearson.html

2. Jon Husband, a more authorative source on what Ayn Rand means to the world would be working philosophers such as Roderick T. Long (http://aaeblog.com/) who actually keep track of the issues involving Ayn Rand. Your cut-n-paste is what we in the philosophy business call “bullshit copy.” He’ll be able to help you out with the minor issues. That’s his job. I bet he’d help you do what ever you think you’re doing.

   Btw, she did in fact extend our knowledge with her work on Identity. A actually is A. Just ask any Tao monk.

3. From a blog comment elsewhere on whether Ayn Rand should be considered a bona fide philosopher or not …

   “Ayn Rand is a minor US author, a lot of people read her novels in their teenage years then grow up. She doesn’t even appear in the Oxford references books on American Literature. She created a philosophy called objectivism which is pretty nasty (Chomsky called her evil) and based on unbridled pursuit of personal self interest. At a West Point lecture she basically said that Native Americans didn’t look after their property so got what they deserved. Some of her followers believe the current financial crisis is because of too much state regulation and the failure to bomb Iran. Now some sources, one US encyclopaedia of philosophy and various objecivist institutes call her a Philosopher so we have citable, authoritative material.

   However all other dictionaries and encyclopaedias of philosophy ignore her completely Now if someone is not called a philosopher in multiple places where you expect a reference, and if even objectivist philosophers basically say they like her political position but consider her at best an amateur/inadequate then what do you do? Just as hardly any serious scientist takes intelligent design seriously (other than as an ideological movement and political problem), no serious philosopher with the odd exception (several of whom are funded by Rand research institutes) considers Rand to be one of their number. Just to show how bad it is, she and some of her follows argue that she is the greatest philosopher since Aristotle and Kant the source of all evil in the world.

   So how do you prove a negative? I admit to a European incredulity at some of the ideas that have to be taken seriously by intelligent friends and colleagues who live and work in the US. Cultism seems to be an endemic danger there just as class based distinctions are in the UK. Normally you can tolerate the village idiot because everyone knows the idiot, no one takes them seriously and they are (with apologies to Douglas Adams) mostly harmless. However when the villiage idiots can assemble on line, and give apparent weight to blatant absurdities; what do you do?”

4. Wonderful Brother Mark;

   Hello,

   Psychologically how does one learn to love…through the process of being loved! How then can someone who lacks self apply consistently that which they never had. Tabula Rasa psychologically is not a new concept and is still debated. But I can assure you aside from some instincts and neural centers for language, math, sight, etc. there is probably not any real sense of complex emotional or behavioral memory or information. It is learned and modeled. Hence the shared commonalities in families overall. So imagine being raised in a ultra wealthy, power seeking, unlawful, criminal, selfless, sociopathic, political family…You can see the mirror in the laws and general function of or corporate and govt. creations. Not all. If it were Hell would be Earth already…

   Root Cause Analysis..

   http://www.shmula.com/433/hacking-at-branches-or-striking-at-the-root

   Imagine its application to govt. let’s see “there would not be one…the entire system is a failure in the lens of Root Cause Analysis. Even a simple application of Six Sigma would effectively remove the senate and congress most of the executive and really take the judicial through a perpetual Spring Cleaning.

   Speaking about Roots…A favorite site of mine

   “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for every one striking at the root.” -Henry David Thoreau

   http://www.strike-the-root.com/

5. Selfishness is required for Empathy. Empathy is the Emanation of the Self. Only by knowing the Self can with know the Other. The Other is another Self. There is nothing but the Self for any of us. Think “mirror neurons” and such.

6. Yes Ed its original alright. In fact the first part was posted on Catherine’s “Ten reasons not to bailout Wall Street” article.
   And Yes Angela please forward to anyone you like. It would really make my day.
   People need to wake up.. What better way than music…?

   God Bless

7. Kevlar Floss,
   Can forward and your song to everyone in my address book?!
   I know a few good musicians, too~

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