>I mean that there is a material or physical world that
>is the basis of reality. This is one of Rand's axioms.
>The universe of substance exists independent of our
>observation of it. It is the same idea you invoke when
>you assert there are stars that no one can see. The
>"reality" of those stars in derived from their inherent
>physical substance, not any conscious belief states
>about them. That is what I mean by "derived", not
>neccesarily an expression of my own beliefs.
That's a good example. I do believe that there are stars
that are only a few hundred years old existing right at this
moment that no-one will detect for thousands of years because
they are thousands of lightyears away from the nearest possible
observer. I'm quite sure all working astrophysicists would
agree with me.
So if that makes me an objectivist (with a small "o"), aren't
you one too?
>>I did not. I hypothesized that objective reality is
>>consistent (non-contradictory) for all observers using
>>the same definitions.
>
>Do you mean that the observers are internally consistent
>or mutually consistent. Surely you must accept that
>observers habitually contradict one another about even
>the simplest of observations. Either mutual consistency
>is not a characteristic of "objective" reality or else
>the required condition "the same defintions" is inaccesible
>in practice.
I think the same definitions are accessible in practice and
I gave an example: "all humans have a common ancestor" is
true for everyone using the same definitions of each
constituent word. Can you show me how my counterexample
is wrong?
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/