SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: koan who wrote (47957)3/4/2014 5:56:33 AM
From: Solon  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 69300
 
"Of course there is a reality, but we don't know what it is?"

At the level we live and the level we make choices about what is in our best interest and so forth--I think we know what it is. The fact that knowledge is imperfect has never been a valid argument against ideas of how to live and why? On that basis there is nothing to base anything on and we can take no rational positions for or against anything. So let us leave that out of the discussion. Imperfect knowledge of "reality" is irrelevant to everything except the discussion of the imperfect knowledge of reality. One still needs to decide how to lkive with imperfect knowledge in an imperfect world.

Rand's initial proposition is NOT that "knowledge" of reality is perfect. Rather, she claims that the world is REAL. You can either agree or disagree. But if you disagree, I will have no way of rationally moving the discussion forward with you--much as I do enjoy it.

So Rand is saying that everything is real. AND that we have a basis for both knowledge and for rational thought.

"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man who was—no matter what his errors—the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

Are you seeking to know what is wrong with the world? All the disasters that have wrecked your world, came from your leaders’ attempt to evade the fact that A is A. All the secret evil you dread to face within you and all the pain you have ever endured, came from your own attempt to evade the fact that A is A. The purpose of those who taught you to evade it, was to make you forget that Man is Man."