I put this in a form I'm more familiar with. I'm no logician, but it's clear that, as it stands, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. — ZzzoneiroCosm
Yes, that is sensory data, that involves thought, — Garrett Travers
Not that jerking one's knee will save their life or anything. — Garrett Travers
What's it based in, then? — Garrett Travers
It appears that the reason Objectivism makes this incorrect overstatement, this implausible reduction, is that it is needed to drive other conclusions about ethics and politics. But even granting the reductions, the conclusions don't follow.
— TonesInDeepFreeze
This isn't an argument. — Garrett Travers
Calling an assertion a reduction deosn't make it one. — Garrett Travers
You are born with no animal instincts that could ensure your survival. — Garrett Travers
You've still not provided a single life-sustaining behavior, that falls outside of the confines of reason, that could ensure human survival. — Garrett Travers
What makes it clear that it doesn't follow? — Garrett Travers
Oh yeah? What makes it clear that it doesn't follow? — Garrett Travers
Again, for about the tenth time, you do not address my point, that if knee jerk is from a process of reason, then any human behavior in response to stimuli, is reason, even unconscious response such as twitching your nose if ticked by a feather. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Automatic response, animal instinct, emotion. And as to necessary attributes, not just reason is required, but all the biological processes and physical capabilities. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Another matter is whether all means of survival are from a process of reason. But even basic animal instincts (I'm accepting your rubric 'instinct') contribute to animal survival, and you granted that humans at stages of maturation, do respond by such instinct. You backed yourself into the reductio ad absurdum from the claim that all all means of survival are based in reason. — TonesInDeepFreeze
I showed how your particular reduction is incorrect, on pain of taking 'process of reason' to include even knee jerk or even nose twitching during sleep. — TonesInDeepFreeze
What is the proof of that claim? — TonesInDeepFreeze
Even if one is not born with the instincts, that doesn't make them a process of reason. If humans are not born with animal instincts, then I would guess that there are instincts of lower animals that are also not present in birth. Or are you claiming that lower animals endow all their instincts in completeion genetically? — TonesInDeepFreeze
still the learning is so basic that it's not what people ordinarily mean by 'reason'. — TonesInDeepFreeze
When I was an infant and refrained forever from touching fire because it once was painful, I didn't use reason for that, again, unless 'reason' is defined so broadly that it loses ordinary meaning. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Just as, if a lower animal learns certain responses, ones not given at birth, then we don't say that the animal used reason. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Are you thinking of it as a syllogism?
— ZzzoneiroCosm
Yep. — Garrett Travers
Again, for about the tenth time, you do not address my point, that if knee jerk is from a process of reason, then any human behavior in response to stimuli, is reason, even unconscious response such as twitching your nose if ticked by a feather.
— TonesInDeepFreeze
Yes, fundamentally. That doesn't mean one is employing reason at the level of executive function, but the cognitive process of integrating data to inform behavior is reason. — Garrett Travers
Automatic response, animal instinct, emotion. And as to necessary attributes, not just reason is required, but all the biological processes and physical capabilities.
— TonesInDeepFreeze
All of this is dependent on reason to be used to sustain life. — Garrett Travers
Maybe a dumb idea, but it might help to have a brief glossary of the core terms being used , like 'reason' so that we don't need to keep interrupting the flow defining the key words. — Tom Storm
My point stands that your view requires a notion of 'reason' so broad as to lose ordinary meaning. Also, using your notion of reason, I stated your "syllogism" to show that it is even more implausible than you started with. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Physical processes themselves are necessary too. It is arbitrary to say that only reason deserves to be mentioned as an attribute necessary for survival. — TonesInDeepFreeze
I think what Garrett is saying and suggesting is that the brain is amazing. But we don't even know how amazing it is. — theRiddler
Modus Ponens — Garrett Travers
Agreed, in essence, but let's be honest here: she clearly delineates from selfishness and rational selfishness. Meaning, if this is a discussion about Rand, that needs to be the exclusive usage for the term. Same way if we were talking about Marx, we would discuss Capitalism from precisely his view, even the definitions are no longer the same today. Right? — Garrett Travers
Actually it does, nevermind. — Garrett Travers
if [animal instinct] is instinctual very low resolution, unsophisticated reason. — Garrett Travers
Variable gradients exist in all complex systems. — Garrett Travers
It can only survive when it can develop its reasoning abilities to the point of achieving goals. — Garrett Travers
Animals are not exclusively relegated to having such as their means. — Garrett Travers
You didn't come to that conclusion based on the integration of sensory data that informed your future actions in a way that avoided harm..? — Garrett Travers
this may be what messes up the syllogism in its current form to begin with. — Garrett Travers
does that mean you don't want to contend with "my" view of reason? — Garrett Travers
No, terminology is not why your argument is not modus ponens. It's not modus ponens because it is not of the form of modus ponens. — TonesInDeepFreeze
They are necessary. But they are not sufficient for survival. That's the point. — Garrett Travers
Your notion of 'reason' is so dramatically iconoclastic that it is truly not recognizable as any sense of the word 'reason' I've ever seen. (I don't think I've even seen Objectivists use 'reason' in a sense that would allow that knee jerk or involuntary nose twitching in sleep is exercise of reason.) — TonesInDeepFreeze
your original argument is invalid. — TonesInDeepFreeze
And even more at the bottom line, no matter what an Objectivist notion of 'reason' is, this Objectivist argument toward the conclusion that ethical acts are all and only those that are selfish. But what is interesting at least is Objectivist essentialism that is used in the argument. — TonesInDeepFreeze
It was not your original argument. You started switching to it only long after your necessity position crumpled. And it still is a wrong argument. Attributes other than reason are not sufficient for survival, but also reason is not sufficient for survival. So it's arbitrary both to single out reason as necessary, since other attributes are also necessary. And it's arbitrary to disqualify non-reason as insufficient, since reason is also insufficient. — TonesInDeepFreeze
As I mentioned, the Objectivist argument is more involved than yours, as it deploys essentialism. Maybe you might go back to reread your Objectivist texts. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Yep — Garrett Travers
That doesn't vitiate the point that humans also have such attributes, and we don't call it 'reason'. — TonesInDeepFreeze
Again, for about the tenth time, the question is not whether humans could survive by non-rational means alone. The point is that reason is not the only necessary attribute. — TonesInDeepFreeze
That is not enough to cay it's "reason". If an animal takes sensory data to respond in certain ways in the future, then we don't call that "reason".
Post after post after post, you merely persist to claim that all human response is reason, even though that is a patently untenable position, even as I have spelled out exactly why it is untenable. — TonesInDeepFreeze
I am also recognizing essentialism, that has nothing to do with the argument. — Garrett Travers
my notion of reason is broadly understood in the neuroscientific community to include what I have discussed. — Garrett Travers
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