IRC log started Fri Jul 25 21:31 I guess we should begin. Welcome to #Objectivism. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that all channel logs are the copyright of the channel owners: Pankaj Saxena and Tom Wright. Logs may not be redistributed in any form without the prior consent of the channel owners. Tonight's discussion is on "How to tell evasion from honest mistakes", and will be moderated by Tym Parsons. As usual, the discussion will be conducted in keyword-protected mode. If you see someone off-channel whom you think would like to join the discussion and would not be disruptive, please message me or Wright. Go ahead, Tym. :) Pronouncing someone an "evader" is the most serious charge that one can level at a person, and not one to be made lightly or with insufficient evidence. There have already been at least a couple of discussions here on how to detect evasion and dishonesty in others, but since this issue is of such central importance lots of discussion is warranted. Tonight we will attempt to distinguish evasion from "honest stupidity". ...and other things OK, what does Peikoff mean by "honest stupidity"? Having a really bad epistemology. Hi Joyce Sube: right Hello. Tym: someone who simply never learned to think properly. Lack of knowlege which is freely available Actually, I think I'll paste the relevant quote here didnt he qualify it as - the very young - or the retarded? (this is in the context of a discussion about opposition to capitalism) BG: I think that's more in the "evasion" category. being unable to form a logical or coherent idea or chain of reasoning. oh "The opposition to capitalism often involves an element of evasion. But often it does not; the opponents are sincere; they are, one must say, honestly stupid--and it is a self-made, epistemologically induced stupidity. Intellectuals of this kind are deaf to facts....they come to political conclusions by....whim. "...Who can talk to mentalities like these? They cannot be convinced by a process of logic because they have no inkling of the nature of such a process. Thanks to the epistemology they practice (and probably preach), they are not open to reason." (OPAR, p. 406-408) honest stupidity is not knowing the truth, because one has never learned it honest stupidity is not knowing how to get to the truth, because onehas never learned how. Brad: I think it has to do with method too. Their method is so bad that they have a real problem reaching the truth. Isn't closing oneself to reason a vice, though? doesnt one have to UNLEARN how to get to the truth to get like that? They never learned how to learn. The more abstract the knowledge field, the more notoriously difficult is apprehension of truth, because so *many* true ideas, on many levels need be integrated, and the epistemology used is itself crucial. stephen: dont children know how to learn? Subetai: I agree completely, re method. closing oneself to reason is the *primary* vice, I think. to a certain point Bearster: can you elaborate? I find most of my disagreements with people are actually (implicitly) about method. bearster: children have curiosity, but they need to be taught the method by which one properly reaches a fact or a truth. (or lack thereof) tym: an inftant explores the world around him, and learns things such as: identity, causality, existence tym: then later gravity, self vs non-self, etc Brad : Evasion comes into the picture when the truth is so obvious that there's no way someone could be "honestly stupid" about it. tym: it's later that the growing child learns how to not learn any more I think it comes down to the irrelevancy of facts to this mentality. Everything they have mentally is a floating abstraction, and they never learned how to integrate facts. Bearster: certainly the axioms underlie all truths...but does that mean that we don't have to consciously learn method? Or they have been taught to trust a flawed system of epistemology Bearster: or when that child goes to college and is taught that real learning is impossible and undesirable, anyway. Tim: at what point can truth be said to be this obvious? I like to sharply differentiate between someone agreeing with some idea I know is true, vs. evaluating what *they* claim is true. tym: some basic method has to be there, or else nothing could be learned at all Their method is kind of plug and play. whatever they have accepted about some topic, they play back. segelbe: yes, the older they get, the worse the things they are told to accept I like that phrase, TomM. :-) heh TomM : And they flip flop too... they will agree with you untill they face another bad explanation of their premises and then they disagree Some people think it is evasion if someone doesn't agree with your most excellently presented argument for, say, why Ayn Rand's philosophical system and von Mises's economic treatises, are true in their entirety. :) megsi: to them, it's not a flip flop -- they are doing the same thing, whether they agree with what you say or not. Bearster: consider Peikoff's example of the honestly stupid intellectual...he's a person that is being "inductive"..."I know some of the guys ion the antitrust dept and they have the people's welfare at heart" Slug: we'll get back to that. brada: clearly, that someone merely disagrees with you is not, in itself, evidence for evasion OK tym: I am not sure I can agree with Peikoff that a person who's consciousness is DISintegrated is honest tym: I'd have to see the entire context of that quote tym: at the very least, the person made the choice to disintegrate An 'honestly stupid' person may just be blundering towards the truth in his own way. Bearster: My point, is that reaction to other ideas is not an especially useful guide to determining if someone is honest or not; whereas evaluating their own ideas is. Bearster: why of necessity? Bearster: i think he meant "honets" in the sense he is telling you what he has actually accepted. tom: ok, that I can accept. but it doesnt mean he's not evading all over the place to get to his position. tym: why what? How bout - people who have made a decision to think a certain way - based on the best evidence they currently have at their disposal? Are they stupid - if they have been decieved by other and the evidence presented? Bearster: so you disagree w Peikoff here then? The idea that "honest stupidity" isn't a species of evasion? I guess we need to define "honest stupidity" more specifically. tym: if someone holds primacy of consciousness, I do not think they can hold that position honestly. megsi: they always have reality as evidence. I would welcome a definition and examples of this term. Bearster: i think the point of that example is that such a person doesn't take facts into account in his mental processing as a habit. It's not the typical evasion, in that he doesn't avoid facts, he just doesn't consider them important. I personally think it is a mistake to start charcterizing people as *stupid* unless one has complete evidence of their stupidity - as in an IQ test measuring them at an imbecilic level (just my personal oppinion) actually, if I may offer a conclusion I've made: there are (at least) two types of evasion Some people elevate ideas to the status of facts. 1) the active sort; to smoke cigarettes one must evade every time one lights up it's obvious and self-evident It's not self-evident. That's a bad example. very Bad example. 2) the passive sort where someone's mind sorta "skitters away" from a topic BradA, Bearster: we've already trotted out LP's def & example...I'll provide another example if it's not clear Heh Boy Rand must have been an evader then ;) But let's not get into a discussion on smoking. Sorry...don't agree Bearster please, leave that one alone. There is an element of reality orientation there, in that man needs principles and abstractions. But if those abstractions were not *originally* based on induction, then you have full-blown rationalism. I think that an honestly stupid mistake is a mistake made by failing to "see" the facts of reality that could have led to the correct knolwedge Did anybody define stupidity yet? Hokay.... ...I'm going to provide another example of "self-made stupidity" Consider someone who believe something on tthe basis of faith Since their idea is based on faith, it can neither be said to be true nor false in the believer's mind...it is only arbitrary When someone says "God exists" on the basis of faith, it's akin to the jabbering of a parrot...it has no cognitive status Tym: Bad example. Faith is anti-reason, so that would be evasion. A better example would be someone who regards everything said on the TV news broadcasts as being true under the assumption that it wouldn't be said if it weren't true. no COGNITIVE status? or no METAPHYSICAL status? But doesn't the idea of believing in something on faith (say, God, for example) constitute evasion - since one must clearly contradict the total lack of evidence for such a being's existence (to believe in said being)? Bearster: cognitive tim, tom: yes Have I missed it, or was a definition/short explanation given of the concept of evasion, to lay groundwork? tym: it has a cognitive status. just no relation to reality, not even the negative one of being false. We are not officially to evasion, yet. The problem with God, is that it is a mixture of several flawed philosophic premises and conclusions. Evasion is being brought up quite a bit and because the only way they believe knowledge is attainable is from listening to others...their belief becomes an honest mistake Bearster: the whole point is that 'people of faith' never even make it out of the GATE I would say belief in God is only in some cases, and only partly, a matter of faith, per se. they never had a proper theory of epistemology Todd: That's what is behind my TV example. todd: that cant be honest. they had acquired a LOT of knowledge first-hand before deciding that. ...they've dissed reason from the git-go. What if somebody prays for a miracle and as a matter of coincidence - their cancerous tumour dissapears.. do we call such a person *stupid* for believing the evidnece before them and making conclusions based on it.. or rather do we explain the method of arriving at a conclusion about the events - - ie - epistemology and metaphysics - to explain why - the two events are not related? tym: ok Unlike, say, believing that the pope speaks for God, and you should follow his edicts on faith. That is demonstrably irrational. On the other hand, ppl who intellectualise the issue and accept the efficacy of reason CAN be evading Bearster, not necessarily right megsi: we call that person extremely lucky. :) or extremely unlucky, since he or she has now "learned" that faith is a legitimate means of solving problems. todd: a person has no, necessarily, learned firsthand from reality before learning faith?? megsi: no, the person had his faith before the cancer, thus he prayed Bearster, to believe on faith instead of reason can and is taught to most from the beginning of life...they have no other idea of what knowledge is based on Is everybody clear on the validity of the "honest stpudity" idea? yes ig Unfortunately, not. todd: it's taught AFTER the child learns existence, identity, causality, gravity, self, other, etc. NO tym: no tym: I'd like to see a clear, one-liner definition of the phrase before proceeding. If that can't be produced, then no - we're not clear on it. Bearster, they may implicitly know it but not necessarily explicitly I assume it is a species of mistakenism. heh jaya: it sounds to me like the second sort of evasion I proposed, when a person's mind just doesnt want to deal with some things... Jay: honest stupidity is where aperson has no inking of the nature of the process of reason, due to flawed epistemology inkling Jay: I would too.\ Bearster: You don't and can't automatically jump from the axioms to more specific knowledge. That is, you can't say that the flat earthers were evading, if they didn't know what facts to take into account to validate a round earth. That explains it better than I was doing, thanksTomM Getting off at the wrong train station after riding an imaginary train. I assume the purpose is to identify and isolate a certain broad category of mistaken conclusions or thinking, to contrast with other, more morally culpable varieties. tomm: right, but you can say that they had already had a method of learning from reality directly, before they rejected in favor of faith Tym: That definition would rule out 99% of mankind So a better phrase is "self-induced stupidity." The person has trained themselves not to think about certain things, because he regards them as irrelevant (facts against God's existence, e.g.). the flat earthers before Columbus were honestly stupid. The flat earthers/creationists today are not. jay: exactly. and thus it's not 100% honest Jay" "self made stupidity" is used too Bearster: i already agreed that i think faith is a bad example of honest stupidity. segelbe: True, one would have to be evasive today to accept flat earth. tomm: then we need a better example TomM, Bearster: well let's look at the example of faith more closely then Tom: I would completely disagree with that notion, re faith being stupidity. What about my TV example? Evasion is the conscious refusal to think about an issue one knows to be important. Agree or not? what about this example: an economics major today at a major university who honestly thinks that capitalism has "failed." honeslty stupid or evasive? tomm: a person who's old enough to watch tv has already learned from reality Actually, the flat earthers before Columbus weren't necessarily honestly stupid - before any evidence could be gathered to indicate roundness, that would technically be just ignorance. I would say, that some matters commonly pigeonholed as faith, are not necessarily strictly faith, as in my "belief in God" example. Phil: I agree ok, I'm going to play devil's ad here Bearster: I disagree. Take the issue of faith. For many people in today's philosophically corrupt world, faith and a surface acceptance of Christian ethics comes off as a far better alternative than the nihilism propounded by most moderm intellectuals. evasion Sarah GOD EXISTS jaya: they are both evasion *laughs* Honestly stupid people make an effort to learn reality. Evaders don't. jaya: you cant say that the thief is honest because he rejects the evil of the murderer gautam: right Hey Faithfull - Prove it If *honesty* is to have any meaning in a fundamental intellectual context, what could it possibly mean to say someone has honestly chosen to be completely anti-reality? That is a contradiction in terms. where...he did not answer my letters. megsi: proof is just a form of faith gautam: How do you determine whether an effort has been made? People: don't get trapped by a baiter. You Ann-Randers are just religious in yr own way Faithfull : give me evidence Slug: You can observe the person asking questions for one. Brad: it's not complete anti-reality, but rather they "think" getting knowledge requires some method other than relating things according to commensurate characteristics. /kickban faithful hahahaha tomm: and how did they come to accept that? Faithful: i beleive you are incorrect ;) See? None of you can even refute my position There are different levels of acceptance of faith and religion, guys. Think of some of the good people you know who are nonetheless religious to a degree. I'm working on it god damn it aw quit being so *Stupid* faithfull- you silly tart ;) Hella missionaries you are :/ jaya: I think that they are evil to the extent that they accept faith Bearster: One does not learn reason automatically. If we did, we would all be geniuses. Before you can say that any kind of faith must involve evasion, you need to enumerate the facts of reality one must be evading to believe in God. In other words, just how self-evident is it that a belief in God must be irrational. Faithful/Tym: what position? you haven't defined religion. Bearster: howso Hey Faithful, I consciously rejected religion at the age of 6 or 7. What was _your_ problem? Proof is not the same as faith or vice versa - faith explicitly denies the logical process on which proof rests. Faithful, please go to #Godluvsyoubutyouaresowrongepistemologically Phil: you can do better than ad hominems subetai: for one thing, there's no evidence. you'd have to evade that all other things require evidence what identity can you give to your position faithful? tomm: it's not automatic, it's volition. Not an ad hominem, just asking why you chose to evade mountains of sensory evidence. I think we ought to move on.... TimC: hmm, never looked at it that way. Bearster: No. Evidence comes in degrees. There's evidence of the senses, evidence by long chains of inference. faithful: O'ism can only be called religion if you blot out the distinction between arbitrary belief and objective reasoning. To be evil/vicious a person has to be aware of his own evasion. Faithfull... Its all well and good for you to believe in God... be my guest- knock yourself out - have fun.. as for me.. I can't believe in anything I can't see - touch - taste smell or hold... or something that defies the laws of reality by its defintion. Thanks but no thanks - cya sube: ok, and there is NONE for god, and some for every existent Beaster: Have you ever tried to operate a piece of machinery the wrong way? If so, were you being evasive? in that context, (O'ism as religion) anyone who believees something very much is religious. All: hmm, this approach never even occurred to me OK Tym - so in other words if you never looked at it that way, you were honestly stupid rather than evading? welcome back, Tym. :) TimC: right Bearster: That's where the flawed epistemology comes in. People can take "historical" evidence and "but so many people I respect believe in God" etc as supporting factors for a belief. tomm: to not read the instructions on a complex machine and attempt to operate it is evasion. how is this relevant, I wonder? sube: that's not honest. so many ppl they know also lie Beaster: We don't come born with a user's guide ;) Was my error due to knowledge or evasion? :) BradA: pay attention! ;) re BradA: EVADER ;) BradA was apparently distracted by the "Soap" marathon on Comedy Central Bearster: Not being honest (as in not fully committing oneself to the facts of reality) isn't always evasion. Evasion includes psychology and psychoepistemology. Can everyone see the possibility of being honestly mistaken just from being out of focus? sube: that's the second type of evasion I identified Bearster: If you can't conceive of any other honest alternatives, and the Christian morality seems to gel with your common-sense notions of morality, you might find belief in God very appealing. Many people do. This isn't evasion, because they literally can't see another way. sube: not an active "I dont wanna believe it", but a passive "I dont want to think too much about it" Evasion is _consciously going out of focus_. How can being out of focus deliberately be honest? By def. it _is_ evasion. Tym: or focusing on something other than the facts, or not being able to keep it all straight too far up the hierarchy. Bearster: those are the ONLY possibilities? Why? How bout 'This is so far out of what I have been led to believe - I don't know WHAt to think about it" OK Tym - so we get to this question, raised earlier - at which point is is so obvious that you can't be honestly stupid about it - and must be an evader? I have to work with someone who has what I call a "Ghosts and Goblins" psycho-epistemology. He does not troubleshoot logically, in a reality-oriented way, but starts assuming the most fantastical causes for problems. I would say he is not intellectually honest. tym: I said at least 2 types of evasion. there may be more Perhaps we ought to separate these two kinds of evasion then and give them different names. Phil: you can't be out of focus for any other reason than evasion?? Because they radically affect how you judge the person. He is essentially offering causal hypotheses, without the necessary reality checks. jay: if you hold faith instead of reason, you come to where you cant think any more. we all agree on that I said CONSCIOUSLY out of focus. Avoiding focus to avoid thought on an issue one knows to be important. Being asleep is clearly not the issue TimC: we'll see if we can get to that tonight 8-{) That is incorrect Stupidly honest people are always trying to learn. Evasion is deliberate. Evasion is a moral issue. Honesty already implies positive moral assessment. Evasion is immoral. Subetai: two kinds of evasion? this person is in reality, a menace. He gets these wild notions in his head, then starts trying anything and everything to effect change, regardless of how unlikely. Sube: I take issue with the "two types of evasion" theory. Evasion is avoidance of facts you know to be relevant. The method by which evasion occurs is a non-essential. I think one will find the "honestly mystaken" mentality gets to a point where they simply don't know how to deal with complex issues. Subetai - ever known any chicks that like acting dumb? Tym: Bearster's talking about two radically different things. He says they're both species of evasion. I disagree. Phil: so how do you determine a person of faith is consciously willfully out of focus? Jaya: The people being discussed do not know which facts are relevant and which are not. Jay: I agree with that. Look back. megsi: I've come across a few. So this I would categorize as fundamentally, an issue of *negligence* -- not exercising the necessary amount of reality-checking of hypotheses, before accepting it as possible and acting on it. TomM: That's right. What one is concerned with is *how* a person came to this stage. Sube: Sorry, I was typing and thinking about my statements whil you were making yours. sube: if evasion is the volitional choice to not focus one's mind, then both types are evasion Sube, Bearster: we're here to discuss the validity of Peikoff's "self made stupidity" notion Tym: By the fact that "challenges to their faith" are met with a blank out. This is presuming someone old enough to have encountered such challenges. Furthermore depending on their intelligence, they will see the issues earlier. Tom: For the honest stupidity category - yes, I agree. Those people are not evaders - not even "second types" of evaders. Phil: so it's possible then that 'Faithful' was honestly mistaken? Bearster: You are making a mistake. Are you doing so volitionally (evasion) or do you simply not know some people who are stupid? when a person is religious they they block out the truth of reality...by saying reality can be altered by faith. I find this conversation tremendously floating. perhaps a definition of evasion is in order? evasion: the refusal to focus one's mind Brad: I've provided examples. What's wrong w them? bearster: That is an incomplete def of evasion. Evasion is refusal to focus on facts you *know* to be relevant. There are many facts I don't focus on throughout a day, because I regard them as trivial or unimportant. Bearster: Everything's volitional because that's the kind of entities we are. However, there's a difference between evasion (deliberately not thinking about something because you don't like the conclusions) and making some mistake a long time ago that prevents you from being able to use proper methods to reach truth. No, I think the use of specific cases would be very helpful. Tym: I'd say yeah, based on his last statement "I never thought about it that way before." Tym: I still have not seen any _principles_ explicated on how one uses external evidence to get insight into an internal conscious process. I would say evasion is involved if one has pointed out a set of facts, has shown the relavant commensurabilities, and the persons *refuses* to accept it. sube: then you evaded a long time ago "Give me faith that I may believe. Believe so that you may have faith." segelbe: you mean we could trust him on that? ;) question: can a dumb person become smart? can an evader stop evading? Keith: Making a mistake that causes later problems, isn't evasion by that fact alone Phil: I just provided some in my example of the co-worker. You can see how a person is evading when forming hypotheses, because they don't make sense, and they start acting on them. It would be evasion to ignore the pain that comes from the mistake and not try to rectify it, however How many people - read Rand = and POOF accepted everything she had to say - did anybody find themselves feeling uncomfortable and not wanting to accept some of her conclusions? Were you evading when you failed to right off the bat see the truth? BradA: Ok Bearster: Yes, but we're not classifying what the person did a long time ago. It's not a question of classifying a person as an evader. We're talking about classifying a certain belief he now holds. The most important knowledge of any person, is the knowledge they use to guide their actions. Tym: a real evader would not admit to never having considered something before. It doesn't help his credibility any. OK, Phil made a really good point, but we have to validate the idea of honest stupidity first, or discard it. tym: and evasion also Example: I have come to conclude that most anarchists (at least the net.anarchists I've encountered) are evaders: they systematically refuse to consider various important facts about the case at hand, which invalidates their belief. Are many of these people "honestly stupid"? Bearster: we've had extensive discussions on that here before. Most ppl are familiar w it I doubt it. would honest stupidity be not knowing all the facts? Brad - are they evil evaders? phil: I'm not sure about that. many people live in pain because they don't know of any means of rectifying the root cause. Those people are being honestly stupid. tym: then it should be trivial to paste the definitions here. I posted mine, and it wasnt accepted. BradA: When someone vehemently ignores and denies months of good args against anarchism or similar follies, I certainly call it evasion at work Brad, Bearster: before we discuss who falls in this category we need to validate its existence megsi: In many cases, I've concluded "yes" -- you have much more responsibility when advocating some change, than merely accepting the status quo. rachie: Not necessarily. That depends on the context. Brad - does the fact that someone just happens to believe something that's entirely correct without considering all the relevant facts invalidate the correctness of that belief? thanks Tom phil: in that case, yes, evasion is involved. but only if the argument was thorough enough, and they refuse to consider it. We need to stay on track here. There's no point in continuing until we've validated to notion of "honest stupidity" as not being evasion to the general satisfaction. If anyone is unsatisfied, we need to hear their reason now did we every get a example of honest stupidity rachie: couple tym: define evasion please. my definition was not accepted I believe - if the defintion of honest stupidity was poor epistemology - then yes - I agree Tym: The honestly stupid are those who arrive at error because they don't use facts when making decisions, fair summary? tym: actually, I believe Rand defined it as I did Tym: Shouldn't the facts come first, then the category??? We should be starting by looking at lots of different specific cases, esp. *specific*, *concrete* cases to which everyone has reference. If you're going to contrast "honest stupidity" with "evasion", _both_ have to be defined Bearster: evasion is the choice of unfocusing one's mind, of denying what it perceives Simple hierarchy of knowledge Honestly stupid use facts (maybe not enough or the correct set) but don't evaluate them correctly. gautam - YES Evasion is the *willful* avoidance of the relevant facts; honest stupidity is not know *how* to take those relevant facts into account. ok :) thanks gautam I think you need to look at a whole big bag of various kinds of mistakeness, then pull the salient features out, categorize and study further. stupid -> stupid people tym: so one's mind concludes something, and then to reject it is evasion? tym: to refuse to allow it to conclude is NOT evasion? BradA: had the case of "Faithful". Where were you to cross examine? ;) gautam: yes Tom: yeah, not knowing is not evasion, refusing to know is Tym: Trying not to be baited by the Troll. :) Bearster: evasion is ba=lanking out something you already KNOW Bearster: evasion is the refusal to accept something you mind is trying to conclude. Problem, is you can't know evasion directly. So, you have to base your evaluation on things you can observe, which is why you need examples of visible patterns of behavior. tym: but not the refusal to let your mind conclude? Isn't it possible that people who are *evasive* could also be guilty of the same thing as Gautam suggested - poorly managing - or not knowing what to do with the facts at their disposal - and then having a vested interested in their false conclusions - and being reluctant to change? Bearster: that implies advance knowledge of the efficacy of the process...again, something you ALREADY know We basically want to deduce (induce?) from behavior to cause: mental policies. Then, we want to evaluate those mental policies morally. megsi: it depends on the nature of their reluctance. No one fully accepts a new idea until they have thought about it. tym: ok megsi: I'd say that a fully honest person is always ready to reevaluate in light of new facts and ideas. OK, I think we've made sufficient headway here to start applying this to other concretes If there are any further questions about the validity of the existence of 'honest stupidity' we'll have to entertain em later\ What we'll do know is take examples and determine if they're instances of evasion or honest stupidity Philosophy has no relevance to real life. It asks question for which there are no answers. The only thing really left as a guide is to go on yr feelings How do you know your feelings are correct? I took philosophy in college, I know! *hides* runs for her life doubter: that's not true. there are facts in objective reality. gautam: cuz they work Philosophy is about real life- there are answers - if you know what the right questions are - and feelings are not tools of cognition - please go away :) Doubter: How do you know they work? And how do you know they will continue to do so? DavidK: dunno what you mean. That's philosophy-talk megsi - 42! Doubter is Honestly mistaken. Based on what is being taught in univercity he is correct. Doubter: Such as what kind of questions? > For example: the vast, overwhelming majority of people believe in God. Yet I am extremely reluctant to categorize everyone as evil evaders. And certainly, I've met some theists far more rational, by a "common sense" inductive standard, than atheists, say of a socialist or nihilist stripe. < doubter is honestly mistaken Jay: always usually worked in the past. Dunno what else there is. > gautam: But interestingly, I've found that very many people who consider themselves Objectivists are actually totally unwilling to reevaluate their beliefs, in areas in which I can prove they hold nearly insanely irrational ideas, by a rational, inductive standard of knowledge. > So where does this leave us? Philosophy has no relevance to real life. It asks question for which > So where does this leave us? So is Doubter an evader or stupid? I'd say to take this position, Doubter had to evade. TimC: why I think it depends on his motivations for being here and saying that - before I could make an objective determination Surely at some point in his life reality didn't conform to his feelings. there is no such thing as evasion. there is truth or falsehood that's it BradA: People who consider themselves Objectivists (Kelley's Heroes?) and those who *are* are two different types of people. Honestly stupid. Jay: I agree Hello Aslan of Narnia. :) He's had bad method drummed into his head so ahrd, he doesn't even know *how* to determine truth or falsehoold anymore (poor bastard). God exists. I wrote Narnia and am a prominent Christian apologist. I should know You evader, you. I would say Doubter is being dishonest. He may reject philosophy honestly, but should at the most develop contempt for intellectuals. He should resolve, at worst, to be "pragmatic", or base his actions on his own experience. The other thing is - shouldnt one in reality take time and effort - to study and examine other people before characterizing them EITHER as stupid - or evaders? cs: you are merely mistaken on a matter of fact. strictly speaking, your claim that god exists is false. BradA: Yup. Mr.Lewis will you sign this book for me? DavidK: I think yr being obsfuscatory here. This Oism vs. everything else ;) Mmmm, I still contend Doubter is an evader - even when confronted with arguments of a rational nature, he put his palm to the facts and turned his head. gautam: an inductive, reality-oriented analysis of the issue of homosexuality leads to conclusion set A; a rationalistic approach leads to a completely disjoint set B. This is not something unique to the Kelleyites, by any stretch. So are the B group evading? I agree with Brad about Doubter. Chances are a university philosophy degree would turn a somewhat sane but confused person into a pragmatist. brad: neither group is evading. perhaps one group is factually incorrect. CS is an evader. I've written volumes of books explaining the issue of faith in intellectual terms Sube: Tym didn't say he was a philosophy *major*. That's altogether different. And his speech wasn't that of a philosophy major. BradA: Not always. cs: all incorrect. what about some one who has hit apon a truth but with out a rational base...ie shall not kill Depending on the philosophy professor, some freshman can get enormously confused even in intro to philosophy. DavidK: One group uses epistemological method X with regard to heterosexuality, and method Y for homosexuality. X<>Y, not even close, not even related, and without fact or motivation. brad: then one group is mistaken megsi: exactly. one must wait until the man ACTS to morally judge him! In fact, the members are so clueless epistemologically, they really haven't even thought about any of these issues. megsi: even in the case of a Marxist academic? brad: one can never be truly certain of anything There's a good issue: How does one distinguish between a "beginning rationalist" (someone who;s new to Objectivism and invalidly applies rationalistic principles to its undstandng and someone who truly *wants* to treat Objectivism as religion? CS is an evader in the worse sense. He plays with peoples minds and finds enjoyment in destroying rationality No... I am saying that a person who evaded something they found uncomfortable yesterday - may rethink his position and see the error of his ways tommorow - but if you brand him as *evil* for not giving up his ideas without a fight - then you havent done yourself or him or the ideas you want to support anygood at all There's an example of honest stupidity vs. evasion if I've ever seen one. Bearster: leave the character switch to Tym. This is getting confusing. sube: heh I think one must see a distinct pattern over and over again - on many different issues over a period of time before we gallop off to the conclusion that a person is an evader Is CS Lweis an evader? Can we determine that w what littlewe've been given? CS is an evader due to the fact he had the opportunity and intelectual means to know better Are you trying to point out that there are some ideas that absolutely require evasion? That can't be reached on the basis of making honest mistakes? tym: yes. This conversation seems very disjointed. A man trots in and indicates in the span of several sentences that he's lying (that's possible) Are liars evading? I think so. Many things. Subetai: ideas in a certain CONTEXT. For example, CS Lewis intellectualises the whole issue. He should KNOW better Subetai: as opposed to yr garden variety churchgoer, who may not be evading Okay, then say that. We've seen a lot of examples. Let's tie them back to principles. OK, we need to wrap this up, but continue on informally Evasion is the willful refusal to acknowledge what you already know Self made stupidity, in contrast, is epistemological paralysis to such a degree that some things never actually occur to a person OK done Or they're incapable of taking them seriously. sure let me ask a question that I think is relevant here: what is the difference between these two sorts: in practice? okay, thanks for the discussion, Tym Thanks Tym. Tym: i think that is too lose regarding stupidity. Is someone stupid just because they never thought of something? We can continue, though. bye Tym thank you :) Thanks Tym. Enjoyed the char switch method. ...but he looks forward to an extended discussion Tom: No - self-induced stupidity is caused by indoctrination of false epistemology, not by not merely noticing something (which can happen even to the most rational among us). Jay: that's what I wanted to clarify. Tom: That's included in Tym's definition of self-made stupidity as "epistemological paralysis". It's not so much not noticing, but the inability to take an idea seriously because it seems absurd, given their prior beliefs. Anyone want the quotes on evasion from Galt's Speech? we are getting a thunderstorm here I'll accept the epistemological paralysis aspect of the point. time to shut down Subetai: or rejecting a realm of facts because you believe them to be irrelevant in one form or another. Does "Honestly Stupid" = Honestly Mistaken"? so, unfortunately I gotta leave right ... Phil's search engine to the rescue. :) bye bye BG: No. At a basic level people can spot logical fallacies. If you show someone a fallacy and they still insist I'd start looking for evasion. bye all bye oh! Evasion. Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think--not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. Geeze. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment--on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict "It is." Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. That's the essential statement of it Yeah. Note that it's a deliberate process, the goal of which is to avoid knowing something. Yes It's a BAD thing. phil: Sure. The difference between honestly stupid and evasion is that an evader wills the fog, a stupid person lives there most of the time and doesn't know how to get out of it. Phil: on one tape lecture someone made this analogy...imagine a meter, spring loaded to the center position, it takes postive energy to move the needle left or right...center would be drifting, right would focus, left would be evasion Right, Paul paul: The hoestly stupid don't know how to move the meter ;) Obj. Newsletters, June 1964: If, in a complex moral issue, a man struggles to determine what is right, and fails or makes an honest error, he cannot be regarded as "gray"; morally, he is "white." Errors of knowledge are not breaches of morality; no proper moral code can demand infallibility or omniscience. tom: right But if, in order to escape the responsibility of moral judgment, a man closes his eyes and mind, if he evades the facts of the issue and struggles not to know, he cannot be regarded as "gray"; morally, he is as "black" as they come. Let's say you observe 9 people in succession (include yourself), and note that they all have a pronounced facility with the right hand over the left hand. You come to the inductive abstraction of "handedness", implicitly right-handedness. Phil: that's reprinted in VOS, as I recall "The Culf of Moral Grayness". Now, every tenth individual or so you come upon, has this assymetry, but for their left hand. What does one conclude? Jay: Ok And what does the conclusion, and the method used to reach it, say about a person's intellectual honesty? Brad: What are you getting at? There was a time, and maybe still is in some quarters, when the most cruel means were brought to bear on lefties, to try to force them to be righties. But based on what? Tom: I am asking about intellectual honesty and evasion, as related to fundamental policies of epistemology. If they're interested in knowledge, they re-define handedness. If they're lazy, they trash the concept. If they're dishonest, they discard the knowledge of lefthandedness. I read the word sinister derives from the Latin for left. hi betsy Hi, Betsy. What is the reality-oriented way to evaluate the discovery of right-handedness, after having already become familiar with the phenomenon of handedness in general? Anybody able to verify that? Hi. Hi Betsy Hi gotta run Hi Betsy Sube: And if they're evil, they invent precepts and doctrines to eliminate it byevery means necessary. It's the same principle behind genocide, intellectual persecution, etc. gautam: I believe it is derived from that A funny thing happened on the way to IRC. I discovered my watch was 2 hours slow. Bet I missed an interesting discussion. Subetai has nailed it. guatam: yeah, an example is the bar sinister on coats of arms, a wide band going from upper left to lower right is the bar sinister And I think this particular example, is indicative of a wide-spread epistemological illiteracy and stubborness. It's still continuing unofficially, betsy, though our moderator deserted after the appointed time. He refused to re-enlist ;) "Deserted" is a bit harsh. :) :) He probably has band practise or something with the Bulgarians. Hey Betsy. Betsy: We have this running gag in Canada about things happening at X o'clock, X:30 in Newfoundland -- they are 1/2 hour different. Heh Heh How can you tell if someone is evading? What was the conclusion? So through in some daylight savings confusion, and you could be an honorary Newfie. Brad: meaning a less-than-firm attachment to reality, based on some underlying belief that it's really not that important? throw even Betsy: I concluded that evasion is evident if the facts and the relevant commensurabilities are presented, but denied by the other person. I wanted to see some specific usable principles on that question but I didn't note any phil: Agreed. This discussion lacked the usual specifics and guiding principles. Subetai: Well, look at the leftie/righty example. Notice how simple numerical preponderance is taken as the standard of normalcy, not focus on the facts germane to the case. And prescription is disastrous: the kids can't write properly, etc. So really, you have an almost tribal/mystical approach to ideas here. My answer would have been: ask! If you ask people how they cam to their particular ideas, they usually tell you why or enough to figue out why. Well, I think it's important to try to discover the person's epistemology. The people involved are using abstractions, but without the slightest regard for their purpose, or the requirements of a rational, reality-oriented process of classification. Sometimes a simple "Why do you think that?" elicits an illuminating answer. Betsy: the issue was, however, how do you know one way or the other. Betsy: Right - the point being to see first-hand if the person confronts evidence directly, or takes every possible measure to define it out of existence. Let's say they give you an answer. What process do you use to decide if they are evasive or just not getting it? Tom: People usually tell you, if you corner them. Brad: right. But at the base of that must be some primacy of consciousness belief, or something that tells them their mind is incapable of really grasping the facts. Betsy: i sicerily doubt if an evader is going to come out and say: "Oh, I'm evading that." TomM: I would keep asking. I would present them with facts that contradict their wrong position and see what they do with those facts. What I observe is that you'll literally see the blank out occur Betsy: You ahve to present the facts in the correct manner. They'll _refuse_ to acknowledge a point, ignore it, and change the subject phil: that's true. but only if you present it correctly. Phil: I agree. Another sign of evasion is when you give them an ironclad demostration of the truth, they turn hostile. Tom: The way to present correctly is to keep the facts in their face. Betsy: Yes Jay: No, not just the facts. Facts by themselves have no epistemological status. It's what your mind is *doing* with the facts that is important. A rational man is always delighted to be corrected, or at the least, would only be frustrated or mad at themselves or at the waste or error they'd been led into. Someimes I ask someone, "If I can show you that X idea you hold is false, would you change your mind?" You would be surprised how many people say "No." I've met some of those. :) Tom: It's not your mind, but *theirs*. Are they attempting to integrate the facts? Are they taking the data and arguments you give them as real, or are they pushing them out of their mind? Betsy: that is a clear sign of evasion. I agree with Tom. It is vastly more than facts -- it is how people approach concept formation, and the formation of ideas. jay: you miss my point. if you are presenting the facts in a disorganized manner, then what are they to do with them? Betsy: Hmm. Interesting. Some people are ignorant and a lot are sloppy thinkers, but real evasion isn't all that common. uncommon In other words, they are confessing to a certain intrinsicist or subjectivist *policy*, **explicitly** chosen, and ***knowingly at odds with the facts***. So this is evil, then. Evaders may be clear thinkers...to a degree? Betsy: How 'bout those people on hpo that refuse to see points presented in message after message? :| Let's say you point to a dog, a cat, a buffalo, and a man and say: "See! Life is the standard!" Is that enough? Tom: True. You must address issues in essentials and in context. I still think that what people believe, and their justification of it, is of far more import then their response to the ideas of others. Phil: Most of them ARE evaders, but I was talking about normal, average people. I.e., you must be using reason yourself. Betsy: Yes... In Peikoff's classic line, 'human beings, not philosophy profs.' ;) TomM: Hell no! You have to give people info starting from THEIR context. That's why a proper presentation not only includes the relevant facts, but how they can be integrated according to commensurate characteristics. Otherwise, you want him to accept it on faith. I think lots of people are uncomfortable with the idea that they might be worng about their pet beliefs. There's some evasion involved in maintaining those beliefs. It takes a very firm committment to reality to be ready and willing to explore all of one's beliefs. Night all. Brad: You often learn how people handle ideas by how they handle YOUR correct ideas when you present them with perceivable facts. BTW, has everyone heard that Showtime is doing a movie of B. Branden's book, starring Helen Mirren as Rand? gag Really? If they turn away from that, then they are being evasive. if they want to think about it, but can't quite see it, yet, they are being mistaken. And someone else is doing a play to be mounted at the Old Vic in London, next year. Anne Bancroft is being solicited for the role. Brad: I heard that. There is also a play in the works. ARI is checking it out. Betsy: Agreed, as I have principally discovered with the vast majority of anarchists. Betsy: pointing out the facts, and the integration explicitly is ALL that is needed. They need to adjust their 'context' if they want to refuse it after that. TomM: A rational person NEEDS TIME to correct his mistaken ideas. Yeah, when you see them openly evading the issue of "What happens when 'competing gov'ts' meet each other?" and such, you know it isn't an honest response That is why I find extemporaneous discussion of abstract ideas, almost futile. I am very wary if someone agrees with me too easily. Betsy: I've already covered that. if he says he needs to think about it. People can't seem to both reflect/challenge themselves, and discuss at the same time. This is why I love the newsgroup medium so much. Betsy: in other words, you have to provide the facts, your processing, and the braoder context. After that, it's up to them. Tom: Right. Some of the best Objectivists I know were very "hard sells" -- especially me. If you make it that clear, and they refuse to think about it, then they are being evasive. Betsy: Judging from a quick perusal of Showtime's original content, I can't say I am overly encouraged. Given NB's reputation for fair and honest reporting, is that surprising? The fact that it's Barbara Branden's book isn't very encouraging. Brad: Where did you pick this up from? AOL? Laissez Faire Books? If you do that, then you have the epistemological right to say: Take it or leave it! Betsy: Good point. If people change their ideas too quickly, it can indicate they don't take ideas seriously, and don't chew before swallowing. :) This is why I especially despise the "I was a randroid when I was a teen, but now..." Brad: It's a movie based on BB's book. Showtime could have the best production values on earth, and that fact alone would still cast a cloud of doom over the project. You certainly have to give them time. I mean, they may have to make vast adjustments in their hierarchy before fully accepting it. but they ahve to indicate they are at least trying to do that. The gal who introduced me to Ayn Rand was a flaming Randroid -- for a whole month. The next month she was insisting I read Lawrence Durrell Jay: That book was a large elaboration on a previous work, *Who is Ayn Rand*, which Rand approved. It will depend on what they select. If they are intellectually honest, they will choose material they can properly verify. They'll probably have the Brandens on the advisory panel or something. If they are Oliver Stone, they won't even conceive of such a thing. Brad: then they wouldn't chose Barbara's book, would they? ;) Tom: Context. Brad: Nope. Brad: Look at how biographies are produced today: Every human ebing is depicted as a mix - neither moral nor evil, but indeterminately gray. keeping that in mind, doesn't it make sense that they'd pick BB's book as their subject? Brad: In _Passion_, Branden took a lot of the original tapes and then added some made-up events and "facts: to suit her thesis. Tom: Context of those not as familiar with the Brandens as most Objectivists. Well, the enemies of Objectivism must see some growing threat in it, given their current penchant to smear Rand in papers, magazines, etc. Betsy: Yes, _passion_ goes well beyond _WIAR_. Anyhow, I need to be going. I've been staying up too late trying to resolve internet problems. see you later. Betsy: I got it from LFB Then again, any publicity just might be good publicity - the ideais to get people to ead the books. once they do, theywill judge for themselves. =AR's books BB _liked_ Rand. _Passion)_ is like a biography of Roark as written by Peter Keating. Betsy: LOL! Hmm, interesting, Betsy. Disgusting but interesting joe: This would lead people to read Branden's book, if anything. At least Paxton had his say and there's nothing that detractors can say about it now brad: hopefully they wold read AR's books HI Bill I found Passion interesting, for what it revealed of a mind's epistemology. It was totally obvious to me and all my friends, what a gigantic fraud was all the Freudian nonsense she added. The Showtime movie was done in England -- the home of sleazy tabloid Fleet Street journalism. I'm sure the dramatic high point will not be anything abstract and philosophical. you mean they really ARE going to do a P.O.A.R.? Brad: That passes for "deep psychological insight" these days. Has anyone else looked at the Summer Reading table at your local Barnes and Noble? All the B&Ns out here have ample quantities of AS and Fountainhead displayed on those tables in prominent public view. KPart: since it is to air in Winter 97/98, I'd say it was a done deal. Jay: Yup! I have word that Rand is a best-seller in Kenya! :) jay: it would be interesting tosee a plot of sales figures for AR's books over the years, up to now. why in the hell can they do that while AS remains the biggest tease [for Oists] since god knows how loing? Betsy: But 100% inexcusable for anyone as familiar with Objectivist ideas as Branden. You don't even need to understand them -- even if you can pretend to the extent of writing essays, as B Branden did. If that Showtime movie is based on BB's book, Leonard will be getting a cut of Branden's royalty. Betsy: you're making that up! about kenya I saw a very large stack of the AR tapes on prominent view at B&N. (in) so I just chalked it up to some twisted form of intellectual perversion. There's a fellow in Kenya on the #gs mailing list Right. I;ll have to check the stacks in Sioux Falls when I get there Joe: Nope. See the next CyberNet. Reported by Hafeez Bana. Betsy: re royalty, do explain ok I reluctantly predict AS will never get made, in our lifetime. Eh, dunno about that Brad or at least not for many, many years. Brad: Peikoff sued Branden for the biographical tapes. They settled out of court for Peikoff getting half of the royalties to anything coming from the book and getting the tapes back. America become free in my lifetime? Doubtful. AS Movie? Not so doubtful IMO Well, what are these TV docudrama producers who've had the property since, I believe, 92, doing with it? phil: who would have thought the USSR would fall so quickly. I heard Dr. Peikoff indicate just last year (I think?) that he'd read and approved a 2 hr screenplay How many years does it take to actually produce a movie? You get a script, you do production planning, you get financing, you shoot. It is a finite, deterministic process. Brad: NBC doesn't have rights to Atlas anymore. Atlas Productions now has a good script and they are working on financing. Casting is nooooo problem. brad: more of in indeterminate hegelian flux ;-) Who is NBC? Brad: #1 US network. joe: But look at where Russia is now. Collapsing isn't the same as holding to consistently rational principles on a wide scale ... throwing out income tax and the welfare state etc. still seems far off given current philo. climate Brad: They had rights to Atlas in the 1970's. Oh, that NBC. I'd never heard they had it. phil: yes, right. who is/are atlas productions? The first deal was in 72 with Albert S. Ruddy, wasn't it? Betsy: Who's standing in line for parts? :) Brad: That's right. I have a tape somewhere of the press conference with Ruddy. I am just extremely nervous about people whose previous credit was a TV docudrama, producing AS. Jay: I hear rumors that Harrison Ford wants to do Rearden A LOT. Hang on.. He'd be perfect. Cool Is the 2 hr. screenplay you spoke of for the bigscreen? Betsy: I can see that. He always chooses heroic characters of great integrity. It would be longer than 2 He has that right 'reserved' look to him I imagine, probably 3-3-1/2 Harrison Ford, man, I'm getting excited! I seem to recall _2_ Is that right, Betsy? I assume this is for theatrical release? I hear it will be a theatrical film. I still think a theatrical movie is the way wrong way to do this. Should have been a very long miniseries. Cool. Depends. Look at Winds of War/War and Remembrance. They were ~30 hours each, and those stories were less involved that AS. Brad: FIRST we do a movie, THEN we do the miniseries. I think Brad is right, but... I was thinking recently how Galt's speech ought be done. Maybe a few minutes for the start of it, fade-out, then fade back in at the end how many great TV miniseries have there been? Granted, there have been a few, but pretty far-between. Brad: Given how long it's taken for a movie to be created, how easy do you think it would be to craft - and buy time for - a week-long miniseries? North and South was great... cheese Slug: WoW/W&R; North and South, pt 1& 2 were great; Amerika was very cool Slug: Roots ... Shogun, maybe .. Centennial up until the last episode. Shogun was good The point is, I'd be VERY cautious to ensure an adequate budget, etc.. flawed, but compelling nonetheless -- it moved me to tears and rapture at times If you overlook the fact that he didn't get to go home :\ TV series tend towards the cheap.