Other than that, there's a long jump from "objectivism can't be proven"
to "totalitarianism will succeed." There are a lot of people who believe
in democracy or even anarchy and who are not objectivists. In fact,
several democracies came into existence before Rand was born.
Vicki
rosenzweig@acm.org
----------
From: owner-virus
To: Church of Virus
Subject: RE: virus: Re: Anti-Virus Protection
Date: Tuesday, February 04, 1997 4:57PM
This post covers the topics of cognitive dissonance, cyberspace as a
rational
forum, honesty, memetics ideology, and poker techniques.
As I was reading one of Dave Pape's e-mails last night, the idea of that
I
was trying to cram something into my belief system that didn't fit became
hysterically funny. Since getting into objectivism, it seemed like I could
debate anyone and show why their beliefs were screwed up. I could "tie them
in a
knot", simply by pointing out facts and inconsistancies. I didn't need to
get
into "esoteric" things like axioms. In this case, however, Dave P could seem
to
show that I had memetic structures that I was not aware of and he would be
the
guy who was pointing out things about MY belief system-how it is based on
memes.Then again, I thought, the objectivist axioms have to be right since
they
can't be refuted.
If he has an apparently stronger case than I, that we are not even
responsible for the books we write, then I have a problem that there is this
ideology that could outcompete mine based on empirical facts, and then there
would be a growing anti-individual ideology, which, "of course", would lead
to
totalitarian governments, and other bad things. Basically, there's some punk
running around the UK that I can't "conquer".There was a similar paradox
with
Richard where I associate him (Brodie meme-construct) with creating good
things
even though he seemed to have a "neocheating" mentality. I tried to fit this
situation into my current world view by seeing them as manipulators in a big
scam.
This was a case that was completely different than anything I've ever
seen
where people were not believing what they were saying, they were simply
studying
how memes work and attacking my memes with theirs while enjoying watching a
guy
deal with a belief crisis. In this context, I would agree that these axioms
and
the notions of free will are not useful. (Even though there is an objective
scientific basis behind the whole thing.) Making distinction-memes in a
memetic
context is similar to forming a concept in an objectivist context-it is a
way
the mind chooses to see or "break up" the world.It is not creating reality
to
make distinction-memes, it is simply one way of using perceptual filters...
which can be limiting. I am on another mailing list for people who "think
like
me" and there was a post about how an incident in Serbia where people stood
up
to government was a sign of a certain world-wide influence. I thought he was
trying to see the situation from within the framework of his existing
viewpoint,
making limiting distinction-memes.
From this point of view, it is easy to not take your own speculations as
true. If I make a speculative hypothesis for why I think that cyberspace
promotes objective ideas, I would have to test my hypothesis, (ie. does
objectivism spread better on the internet than, say, astrology). It could be
that I have memes that support objectivism and Bill Gates that are not true.
Of
course, I'll see memes in cyberspace that there is a coming
"cyberrevolution"
and I could find plenty of facts to "prove" it.
Richard asked what I meant by honesty, ideology of CoV, and poker
techniques.
Honesty I take to mean putting facts in context, trying not to force what
I
see to fit into my preconceived notions. It could be that I am making a
distinction-meme. When Richard answers my post in which I was quoting him,
with
"Actually, that's not what I said; That's your interpretation. Be honest!",
he
is making a similar distinction-meme.
Common ideology doesn't really apply to CoV. At first I thought that
there
was a belief that language "creates" reality which I associate with certain
subjectivist philosophies but not in this case.
How to beat all poker opponents-fix the deck, whenever you deal to gain
a
slight unnoticeable advantage. One technique is to shuffle in a way that
manipulates an ace to the bottom of the deck and then bend bottom half of
the
deck while cutting it, so that the chances are about 80% that the person who
cuts will put the ace back on the bottom. (It would take a while to explain
without illustration) This would, over the course of time, give you an
unnoticeable casino-like advantage, so you would win thousands of dollars
while
keeping all the "fish" (losers) in the game since they would not lose too
quickly.
Has anyone else here heard of Neo-Tech? If so, do you think it is a
self-consistent self-serving cult?
One more thing-Tad's question about "A is A"-is existence synonymous with
identity? Yes, but in different contexts. Existence implies that something
EXISTS while identity implies that it exists as SOMETHING. It
*IS*(existence)
as
opposed to *IT* is (identity). (Actually, forget that. It's just my own
distinction-meme.) -David