Scholarships!

Did I tell YOU that I have received TWO (!) scholarships from the adorable, generous, smashing, swell, the all-merciful ;) Charles. G. Koch Foundation to take Market Process Economics I and II from National University? Did I also tell YOU that I am also having an orgasm just thinking about the wonderful time I would have?

Oh yeah my lovely, lovely reader -- its all true! Enuff' said!

Desert Island Scenarios – A Great Tool In My Bag.

In my experience, I have generally found that people take a point much better when put in the context of a desert island – and I think with good reason. It is hard for anybody in my generation not to think of the hardships Tom Hanks went through in the movie Cast Away to light a fire upon the mention of a desert island. A desert island example asserts the primacy of existence view and keeps the listener anchored to reality. The listener understands that the cars and supermarkets he takes for granted in a division of labor of society will not pop out of the sky on a desert island. The islander has to take the necessary goal-directed action for him to survive. As Ayn Rand once said, "Reality confronts man with a great many "musts," but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: "You must, if " and the "if" stands for man's choice."

For instance, say ten people were deserted instead of just Tom Hanks, the rules established amongst men will that of a laissez faire system that does not hinder progress in any fashion. It would most likely be a government established by well intentioned men demarcating freedom whenever disputes arise trying to charter out a better course for survival.A good government. Is that an oxymoron? It's what Glenn Woiceshyn wrote in his excellent post, "What is a good government?" He takes the example of a desert island and logically gets to the fact that capitalism is the only moral and practical system on earth. Here's an excerpt:

"Imagine escaping alone from a tyrannical country and becoming shipwrecked on a desert island. All you have are some fruit and vegetable seeds in your pocket. You are young and intelligent, but without special skills.

To stay alive, you must obtain food and fresh water, and maintain a fire for warmth and cooking, which initially consumes all your time. You soon figure out how to produce your basic survival needs more efficiently -- by constructing fish traps, farming tools, an irrigation system -- thus allowing you to accumulate "savings," which buys you time and affords you insurance against unforseen setbacks, such as storms, injuries, illness.
With the time saved, you discover how to produce other goods, such as clothes, tools, a shelter, furniture, etc., for enhancing your life. You enjoy inventing new technology to increase your production, but find yourself quite limited, not to mention lonely, on your own.
Hurray! Others become shipwrecked. Each person, rather than produce all his own needs himself, focuses on producing one item efficiently, then trades his surplus production at the market for the produced goods of others.
You marvel at the production efficiency of the "division of labour," and the corresponding enhancement of everyone's life, especially when you now have tools, engines, machines, electricity, etc., to enhance production. Consequently, life is more safe, secure, comfortable and enjoyable.

You had specialized in petroleum production but some clever upstart competes with you and produces oil much more efficiently; so you switch to farming. You tell yourself that your desire to produce oil isn't a rational reason to despise or block someone's superior ability. Such reactions would not be in your rational self-interest, let alone anyone else's.

Many more become shipwrecked and specialize in various productive endeavors, thus yielding a greater quantity, variety and quality of goods and services on the market. "Immigration is good," you conclude.""

Arguments ranging from immigration to the gold standard could be made in this fashion. The reason, I think, why such examples work well is because it scales down the issues of the world to a personal level. It cancels out all the hype, popular myth and idiocy and asks the listener to think for himself. I mean the fact that movements like antitrust and environmentalism are incompatible with human life doesn't take very long to understand when there is nobody's blood to suck in the form of taxes or grants. One could then proceed to tell the listener that in fundamental terms, the relationship of a man with reality does not change – in a desert island or in a division of labor society.

I also suspect that crow epistemology is at work here. A desert island example greatly reduces the amount of perceptual data one requires in making a rational decision by scaling it down to the personal level. One has to deal with a relatively few number of concretes and is thus, easier to see through things clearly. Instead of bearing in mind a lot of details, if one wishes to communicate in essentials, I think desert island examples do an excellent job.

Being Objective -- Conciously.

To be very honest, I don't find lawschool in India to be all that interesting. I think students in law school are worse of conceptually than they were at the start of their college years. I just cannot seem to ignore the fact that most students in the fag end of the course cough up such bizarre claims like "majority wins" or that there is a "right to a job" and think that they are self- evidencies and require no further proof watsoever. Some even revel in denouncing India's deregulation policies and write prolific articles in "reputed" journals about how India should "go back to its roots"and create its own "identity". The dumbest of such allegations that pisses me off the most is the claim that "majority wins". I mean, it takes a whole new level of self-control for me to stop myself from saying, "If ten out of fifteen of us agree to murder you, you should have no problems watsoever." The question simply cannot be dismissed: how has lawschool advanced college kids conceptually? Or, has it?

A few days ago, a problem for the moot court was released in college. It was concerned with the field of international law and the threat of Islam. The problem is almost taken out of reality -- an Islamic country actively funds terrorist activities against a civilized nation and the civilized nation retaliates in self-defense. After the attack on the Islamist country, international pressure mounts on a ceasefire and the issue is taken up at the International Court of Justice by both the parties.

A friend of mine told me that one of the main issues in the moot problem was that the Islamic country, which was the aggressor, had a constitution which necessitates their jurisdiction in their country. Although it had funded an attack on a foreign country, international law dictates that any country's constitution takes precedence over international law -- laws which are mutually agreed by both the parties are subordinated to domestic law. In essence, the argument was that even the Islamic country has a constitution, even the Islamic country is a sovereign entity, so one cannot simply launch an attack on their soil.

I started off by shooting a series of questions. Hadn't the Islamic country violated the right of the citizens of the other country by funding a terrorist attack? The respondent replied by saying that although it was true that they indeed did fund the attack, they still had a constitution and in case of any conflict between international law and domestic law, the domestic laws are given precedence. In other words, the constitution truimphs over international law.

I found myself asking: Is the Islamic country's "constitution" a constitution in the first place? A constitutions distinguishing characteristic from all other statutes, its essence, is that it is the only document that places a limit on government control whereas other statutes such as criminal law or the law of contracts places certain restriction on the citizens. If a "constitution" violates this fundamental principle and instead, enumerates that the government owns the lives of its citizens, how can one sanely call such a document a constitution. It is just some piece of paper, not a constitution. Moreover, to call such a document a constitution amounts to an invalid concept; where its essential distinguishing characteristic is replaced with a floating abstraction like "balancing freedoms with restrains"or "the heart of the democratic process" and so on and so forth.

It was one of those moments when I was surprised to see how differently I thought about issues than my peers who went to the same kind of schools and ended up in the same colleges in India. I was oddly surprised and elated that I was learning to apply the stuff I had learnt from Objectivism to my own journey through life. Nothing to say of the pride oozing through my head when my friend stood in full focus, listening intently, to my arguments.

Upon introspection, I realize that what I am trying to do most of the time is to try and apply reason and the tools of objectivism to the stuff around me. My goal, I realize, is to objective -- consciously. Anytime I come across any new knowledge, I try and apply the principles of epistemology in my process of cognition. It's not just limited to new knowledge. I usually have my hands full in identifying floating abstractions and stolen concepts I myself have accepted previously without any proper conceptual investigation. I find myself really enjoying the application of my mind to the particular issues around me. Its not easy but if and when you do realize why you are feeling a particular way and fix the underlying ideas, emotions almost fall in line immediately.

The ideas I have accepted are apparently "extreme" and devoid of any concern for the "public good". It's funny how I have become the guy who holds "extreme" views, when I was simply concerned with reason and its application to the issues around me. Objectivism is something I privately cherish in lawschool. When I hear stupid claims like "majority wins" or "civilian right to life of an agressor country", it is this newfound, private interest in Objectivism, in life that I treasure rigourously. As Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead, "Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched."

Some Of My Insights -- Objectivity

[Earlier in the series -- Some Of My Insights -- Concept-Formation]

I have been stalling this post for weeks together now and am so glad I am finally posting it. I have not covered intrincism and subjectivism because are still are a little tricky, intrincism more so than subjectivism.

So here go some of my thoughts on Objectivity after the seminar:

1. Studying the roots of the concept of "Objectivity" is important because it denotes a certain kind of relationship between the whole of concept-formation and reality. If concepts are objectively formed -- our knowledge then refers to observed fact; taking into account both existence and consciousness. On the other hand, if our concepts are arbitrarily formed, then so is the whole knowledge of mankind has accumulated. This is the implication of the validation of the term Objectivity.

In the Objectivist position, concepts don't exist "out there" as apart from the human mechanism of concept-formation or "in here" as apart from reality. Attributes such as redness, maness or tablehood do not exist in reality only or in our conceptual process only but such attributes reflect both and fall into a distinct third category which takes into account both existence and consciousness -- the object itself and the human method of classifying the object. To take Greg Perkin's wonderful example, a car collision is the result of an interaction between two cars -- but not a part of just one of cars involved in the collision. Another interesting parallel is also the stand of Objectivism on sense perception. Any entity perceived is not "out there" in reality as apart from man or "in here" in our equipment as apart from reality. The entity perceived exists in a separate third category -- "entity as perceived". However, with regard to concept-formation, there is also the element of volition involved when compared to sense perception. Since forming concepts correctly is volitional and not automatic -- man needs a method in acquiring new knowledge.


2. The concept of objectivity applies to definitions too. An essence or the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of a concept. "Essences" do not exist in existence as apart from consciousness; an essence presupposes an essence to whom? "Out there", things simply are. Thus, essentials are not arbitrary choices "in here" and "out there" but concepts refer to a volitional consciousness observing existential facts. This is why essences, too, like concepts are epistemological in nature and not metaphysical.

However, it is not mandatory that all concretes should be conceptualized. There are concepts that can be handled descriptively. Since we only conceptualize stuff that is cognitively important, there are also some concepts which are optional in nature. To take Greg Perkin's example again, a concept subsuming "a light green, medium sized, cotton t-shirt" may be of relevance to a store keeper but not to a doctor because the doctor may not find it cognitively important to define such a concept.

3. Logic is the method of non-contradictory identification. It works in two ways; it reduces any claim back to first-level concepts and then sense-perception (the hierarchical nature of knowledge) and also integrates all knowledge a person acquires (the contextual nature of knowledge) -- non-contradictorily.

4. Any new knowledge is not acquired in a vaccum of nothingness. All new knowledge that is acquired is built on already or pre-existing knowledge given any subject. For instance, a kid had to get to cat and dog before he gets to the second level concept of an animal and had to get to animal before he gets to the third level concept of organism. All knowledge is hierarchical in nature. It was only after the discovery of logic, did science emerge; as any new discovery in science presupposes the primacy of existence and logic in the least.

Making such a claim explicit helps a great deal in claryfing concepts in terms of hierarchy. Reducing any claim explicitly helps in the process of reduction -- i.e. reducing any claim back to first level concepts and then to the perceptual. Such reduction keeps us tied to reality when we form ever-higher level concepts. On the other hand, if one neglects or evades such reduction of knowledge, there is the ever seductive doctrine of rationalism which one quickly succumbs to. The doctrine of rationalism agrees with the fact that knowledge is gained in a particular pattern but starts deducing away rationalistic castles in air starting from arbitrary premises which are unconnected to reality, thus, betraying objectivity.

Another interesting implication of the fact that knowledge is hierarchical is, as Ayn Rand called it, a stolen concept. This occurs when a person uses the validity of a lower-level concept to deny the validity of the higher level concept based on the lower-level concept. To take an example from the seminar, the claim that "all property is theft" steals the concept property; that any theft has to be the theft of property! Any argument which involves a stolen concept has to be self-refuting as it uses the validity of a lower level concept to betray a higher level concept.

5. All our knowledge is relational. We look at tables as apart from chairs and similar to other tables. The concept of tablehood does not exist in a giant vacuum in our consciousness. Our knowledge is gained by the constant contrasting and comparing of various entities around us. All the relationships that a particular concept has with all the other concepts is the context of the particular concept. Suppose a student at college is taught that man has a right to a wage in class. He later reads a book by an author who says that a right signifies a course of action and not to any particular object (like wages in this case). It is essential for the student to consider both the claims and resolve the contradiction. Various questions may arise in the process. A few could be what are rights in the first place? Whether a person can have the right to violate another persons right?, etc. All such questions and relationships one draws when talking about a particular concept forms the context of the concept and are essential to maintain objectivity. Context, takes into account, both the relationships of a said concept with the other concept and the distance from the perceptual level of the concept (hierarchial nature of knowledge).

[For more on context, see one of my older posts.]

All in all, if "existence is identity, and consciousness is identification", then identity serves as the bridge between existence and consciousness. To acquire any new knowledge of the identity of any concrete, our method, to be successful, must be the volitional grasp of reality by the method of logic.

Some Of My Insights -- Concept-Formation.

I have just finished concept formation from OPAR, and like the last time, wanted to post on my ongoing training via the podcasts of The Objectivism Seminar. Although I have to take the effort to sit down and push play (which is the hardest part), the next time i look at the screen and 40 minutes have already whizzed by!

So here come my recent insights --

Human's have the distinctive power of abstraction, differentiation and integration -- which enables us to do many things beyond the sensory perceptual level

We segregate entities into units on the basis of differentiation and integration. When an animal look at an apple -- it only has a fleeting sensation of the apple before its eyes or the higher animals may even retain a few sensation and form a precept. But that is the end of its cognition growth. Man, on the other hand, has the power of abstraction that is -- of selective focus. A man may look at an apple and can choose to selectively focus on the color or the shape of the apple instead of focusing on the entity as a whole. He can look at two apples and isolate the same distinguishing features; differentiating, for instance, between an apple and a banana and integrating two or more apples.

Language transforms concepts into concretes and gives them the status of entities and comes in especially handy we talk of higher level concepts.

We differentiate entities that are strikingly different from each other and this is a relatively easy thing to do. The question always has been -- what is the same? What is the basis for integrating a set of entities under the same concepts? Ayn Rand's seminal discovery in this regard is that entities that have similar characteristics or similar attributes are commensurable i.e. that entities having the same distinguishing feature can be measured quantitatively.

The function of concept formation is to condense vast amounts of data into a folder which we can conveniently use when the need arises in our daily course of life. To condense such data, we retain the distinguishing characteristic between two or more entities but omit to measure the intensity or the degree of the distinguishing characteristic between the entities. We understand that the degree should exist in some quantity but may exist in any quantity. We abstract (selective focus) characteristics from their measurement.

Concepts of consciousness also follow the rule of measurement omission. Here, there are two attributes to measure -- content and action(intensity). For instance, love is love -- regardless of whether one is talking about Friend A or Friend B or thought is thought regardless of what is it that one is thinking about. In other words, the content of the concept remains omitted. Another aspect that is omitted is the attribute of intensity. For instance, the concept love does not take into account whome do you love more -- your parents or your friends. The attribute of intensity -- of more or less -- of how much is not taken into account In other words, the what and the how remain omitted.

Another aspect of concept formation is definitions. Definitions, taking Peikoff's example, can best be viewed as the label to the folder -- the folder representing the concept and the label representing the definition of the concept. If we acquire any new knowledge about a particular concept, the new data will be stored in the folder which subsumes the respective concept. This is what Ayn Rand called the open ended nature of concepts -- that they subsume all the data which was known, is known and will be known about the said concept. However, a disadvantage that could arise from the open ended nature of concepts is that one will have to carry loads of information with him at any given time -- thus making it impossible to retain and summon such information whenever necessary.

This is where definitions come into play. Definitions, as mentioned earlier, serve as labels to the folder thus helping us economize a large amount of data subsumed under the concept. However, for a valid definition, it should emphasize on the fundamental characteristic of the particular involved -- and fundamental does not necessarily mean the obvious characteristic. Fundamental here refers to the distinguishing characteristic which is responsible for most of the other resulting differences. For instance, Greg in the course of the recording gave an excellent example where people earlier thought that whales were fish since they lived in the water. It was only later that biologists found that whales infact were mammals and were more similar to dogs than fish. In the present case, although it is tempting to equate whales with fish -- they differ with each other fundamentally and this difference between fish and whales puts the great divide. Fundamental in this case means that mammals do not breathe with gills, give birth to younger ones and so on. This is the fundamental similarity between whales and dogs and the fundamental difference between whales and fishes. It would thus aid us better to arrange concepts in such a fashion that distinguish fundamental differences than obvious ones to give identity to our concepts.

This does not mean that Objectivism agrees with skepticism in any fashion. Even if one groups two entities under the same concept due to obvious similarties and not the fundamental ones -- he would still be correct to the best of his knowledge if he has conformed to reality. If any new facts were found and if one had to reclassify, for example, whales as mammals instead of fish, it would not lead to any chaos in concept formation. If the old definition based on the obvious similarity conforms to facts -- then the new definition cannot contradict it. To continue with our example, the fact that whales are mammals does not alter the fact that they still live in water! At any given stage, if one correctly forms a definitions conforming to facts -- any new knowledge will not be a threat to already estabilished valid knowledge.

All in all, concepts help us in unit reduction i.e. they condense enormity of the universe using the "human" method which is the conceptual faculty.

[Next in the series: Some Of My Insights -- Objectivity]

Some Of My Insights -- Sense Perception and Volition.

I have been catching up with Greg Perkin's Objectivism Seminar and the training has been really great. It's the first time I am delving into philosophy and I could not thank the guys in the seminar enough. My totally extra special thanks to Greg and Kyle for such great insights which really helped in some integrations that stuck like hell.

I am done with sense perception and volition and have just entered epistemology. I quickly wanted to jot some of my insights..you know, track my journey a bit. (Volition was and still is a pain to get straight..so expect some shakiness).

So here they come --

1. Our senses have an identity and because it does have an identity -- it is limited. Simply because we have a means of perception does not mean we cannot know reality.

2. The distinction between form and object. (On a side note, everything we ever perceive is only our form of perception, to get to the object that is literally "out there" -- we have to conceptualize, draw abstractions and the like.

3. It does not matter in what form we perceive any object (electron level or Universe level) as long as we can conceptualize. Its the reason normal people and color blind people don't hold different theories of physics. Sense perception represent only our starting points of investigation.

4. Naive realism is wrong as no sense perception can exist in objects as apart from human mechanism.

And under volition --

5. The opposite of determinism is not indeterminism but chosen.

6. There are causes for our actions but they are chosen by the individual himself.

7. Any person is free to be in focus and expend the necessary effort or can drop his mental reins and relax instead of focusing. One cannot ask for a cause as to why a person chose to be in focus or not be in focus.

[Next in the series: Some Of My Insights -- Concept-Formation]

P.S. I am extremely happy as the blog is finally serving its purpose. I started off just to put things down instead of blurting things out -- and looks like my long, just kicking off intellectual journey won't go unrecorded. Hooray!