Editing Talk:1277: Ayn Random
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From above: "Objectivism is the target for much scorn and ridicule in the intellectual world, for its being an inconsistent philosophy that has the sole objective of justifying selfishness and elevating it towards moral righteousness. It's used as the basis for libertarian thought and other radical capitalist economical theories and political stances which promote shameless exploitation (and this attracts further hatred). Randall is no exception to this trend of detractors, and I'd say rightfully so. Ayn Rand's writings are particularly awful, both aesthetically and content-wise, yet in the US a relatively large group of philosophers still adhere to her maxims and the debate continues." OK, but a few comments: All philosophies are inconsistent when looked at closely enough, refer Godel and others. Others do not see the inconsistency in Objectivism quite so plainly as in the quoted comment. Ayn Rand and Objectivism are not "the" basis of libertarian thought, there are far more highly thought of libertarian thinkers, a list of whom should come readily to mind to any of those occupying "the intellectual world" (sic), whether or not they have sympathy with libertarian ideas. It is also unfair to characterise Objectivism as having as its "sole" objective that as stated. Further, as a general principle, one ought not to take someone poking fun at a concept as *proof* that they are quite as opposed to it as you are. Now, whereas I would not categorise myself quite as a fellow traveller, a much fairer view of Objectivism is found at WP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) [[Special:Contributions/81.135.136.159|81.135.136.159]] 11:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC) | From above: "Objectivism is the target for much scorn and ridicule in the intellectual world, for its being an inconsistent philosophy that has the sole objective of justifying selfishness and elevating it towards moral righteousness. It's used as the basis for libertarian thought and other radical capitalist economical theories and political stances which promote shameless exploitation (and this attracts further hatred). Randall is no exception to this trend of detractors, and I'd say rightfully so. Ayn Rand's writings are particularly awful, both aesthetically and content-wise, yet in the US a relatively large group of philosophers still adhere to her maxims and the debate continues." OK, but a few comments: All philosophies are inconsistent when looked at closely enough, refer Godel and others. Others do not see the inconsistency in Objectivism quite so plainly as in the quoted comment. Ayn Rand and Objectivism are not "the" basis of libertarian thought, there are far more highly thought of libertarian thinkers, a list of whom should come readily to mind to any of those occupying "the intellectual world" (sic), whether or not they have sympathy with libertarian ideas. It is also unfair to characterise Objectivism as having as its "sole" objective that as stated. Further, as a general principle, one ought not to take someone poking fun at a concept as *proof* that they are quite as opposed to it as you are. Now, whereas I would not categorise myself quite as a fellow traveller, a much fairer view of Objectivism is found at WP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) [[Special:Contributions/81.135.136.159|81.135.136.159]] 11:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC) | ||
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:Other philosophies are no more consistent, agreed. But other philosophies do not claim perfect "objective" consistency as their fundamental principle. Attacking Objectivism/Objectivists for lack of internal consistency--or for not recognizing that at some, very fundamental, level it is all stacked on top of some assumptions (just like every other philosophy, and even the scientific method)--is the equivalent of attacking Christianity/Christians for lacking compassion and forgiveness. [[Special:Contributions/129.176.151.14|129.176.151.14]] 14:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC) | :Other philosophies are no more consistent, agreed. But other philosophies do not claim perfect "objective" consistency as their fundamental principle. Attacking Objectivism/Objectivists for lack of internal consistency--or for not recognizing that at some, very fundamental, level it is all stacked on top of some assumptions (just like every other philosophy, and even the scientific method)--is the equivalent of attacking Christianity/Christians for lacking compassion and forgiveness. [[Special:Contributions/129.176.151.14|129.176.151.14]] 14:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC) | ||
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Computers don't store any "thing", they store a representation. Therefore, a computer can reference any "thing", because representation "sets" can be swapped out. At any given moment, if the user is aware, "1" could mean a purple flying dog. At any other given moment, "1" could mean a swimming cactus. Therefore, the number of "things" that computers can store representations for is unlimited, even if the "set" of representations it can store at any given time is limited. In our specific example, the computer can store a representation of an irrational number by collapsing the number into a recursive or incremental method of reproducing the number. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.114|108.162.216.114]] 20:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC) | Computers don't store any "thing", they store a representation. Therefore, a computer can reference any "thing", because representation "sets" can be swapped out. At any given moment, if the user is aware, "1" could mean a purple flying dog. At any other given moment, "1" could mean a swimming cactus. Therefore, the number of "things" that computers can store representations for is unlimited, even if the "set" of representations it can store at any given time is limited. In our specific example, the computer can store a representation of an irrational number by collapsing the number into a recursive or incremental method of reproducing the number. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.114|108.162.216.114]] 20:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC) | ||
:"Although a computer could encode irrationals or generate them randomly if it uses another representation" - however even that is not enough. Whatever format you chooses you can only specify only definable numbers because other are... well cannot be defined. Whatever language you choose as long as you require the description to be finite you can cover only countable many of numbers. To cover all reals - including not only π or e but all of them - you need to have capability of storing infinitely large amount of memory. Similarly incremental method will give you only computable set. Either way you miss significantly large amount of numbers (ℶ₁ vs ℶ₀). This is ignoring that we cannot draw a number from natural numbers with equal probability (we would expect P(3|X) = 1/3 and P(¬3|X) = 2/3 but both sets are equal so we would expect P(3|X) = P(¬3|X)...). That's why we get random numbers for the finite set and normalize according to need. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.227|172.68.142.227]] 07:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC) | :"Although a computer could encode irrationals or generate them randomly if it uses another representation" - however even that is not enough. Whatever format you chooses you can only specify only definable numbers because other are... well cannot be defined. Whatever language you choose as long as you require the description to be finite you can cover only countable many of numbers. To cover all reals - including not only π or e but all of them - you need to have capability of storing infinitely large amount of memory. Similarly incremental method will give you only computable set. Either way you miss significantly large amount of numbers (ℶ₁ vs ℶ₀). This is ignoring that we cannot draw a number from natural numbers with equal probability (we would expect P(3|X) = 1/3 and P(¬3|X) = 2/3 but both sets are equal so we would expect P(3|X) = P(¬3|X)...). That's why we get random numbers for the finite set and normalize according to need. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.142.227|172.68.142.227]] 07:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC) | ||
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