I am continually confounded by the fact that people continue to ask where existence came from.
Actually, they are confusing existence with the material universe. They wonder where it came from, they question whether the Big Bang or Creation is the fact, and they wonder how "something" came from "nothing."
I have answered this before. I answer it everyday on Yahoo Answers. Here is the latest version I just published there:
"Q: How did everything come to be? Whats your theory? God can't be explained because then where did god come from...not saying he doesnt exist. Also the evolution theory fails to prove our existance. The big bang also doesnt make much sense."
A: Existence is a self-sufficient primary. It is not a product of a supernatural dimension, or of anything else. There is nothing antecedent to existence, nothing apart from it—and no alternative to it. Existence exists—and only existence exists. Its existence and its nature are irreducible and unalterable." Leonard Peikoff “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,” Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/existence.html
This doctrine is drawn from the concept of "nothingness." "Nothingness" cannot be the default of position of existence before anything existed. So you see where the contradiction is? It is this: If "nothingness" existed before "somethingness," then "nothingness" WAS "somethingness", in which case "nothingness" never existed---as in fact it cannot exist.
The Big Bang is not the beginning of existence. It's only the beginning of this particular incarnation of the universe. All the matter existed inside the mass that blew up. It is futile to ask where that matter came from. It didn't come from anywhere because that would require that before it came from somewhere, "nothingness" was the state of existence--which logically cannot be the answer.
This is the third essay in a series of eight exploring why the United States suffered no follow-up terror attacks after 9/11. To read the series introduction, click here.
In "The Terrorists-Are-Dumb Theory" I noted the terrible price al-Qaida paid in Afghanistan for 9/11. To repeat: Nearly 80 percent of its Afghanistan-based membership was killed in the U.S. invasion, according to journalist Lawrence Wright. Two-thirds of al-Qaida's leadership was captured or killed. The terror group's membership may now be down to as few as 200 or 300. Let's assume, as many believe, that this alone has made it very difficult for al-Qaida to stage a follow-up attack on the United States. Couldn't the job still be done by angry jihadis already living in the United States? Where are al-Qaida's sleeper cells?
Sleeping, apparently. Since 9/11, relatively few people have been prosecuted for conspiring with al-Qaida. In 2002, Brooklyn-born Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago for allegedly plotting to set off a radioactive "dirty bomb," but five years later he would be tried (and convicted) on an entirely different charge concerning plans to commit terrorism abroad. In 2006, seven men from Liberty City in Miami were arrested for plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago with a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant posing as an al-Qaida terrorist. The FBI's own deputy director termed the conspiracy "more aspirational than operational," and the prosecution ended in a mistrial. In December 2008, the departing Bush administration put the total number of terrorists "and their supporters" arrested and convicted inside the United States since 9/11 at "more than two dozen," which would seem a weak effort but for the fact that no terror attacks occurred here during that time. In the absence of other evidence, we must conclude that inside the United States, homegrown, al-Qaida-inspired terrorist conspiracy-mongering seldom advances very far.
That record stands in stark contrast to that of the United Kingdom, which since 9/11 has incubated several very serious terrorism plots inspired or directed by al-Qaida. One of these reached fruition—the London Underground bombings of July 7, 2005, which killed 52 people and injured nearly 800 more. A follow-up attack two weeks later was thwarted only because the bombs failed to go off. Richard Reid, the foiled shoe bomber, boarded a Miami-bound plane in Paris but was a British citizen. The 2006 plot that begat airport bans on carrying liquids and gels also originated inside the United Kingdom and reportedly was in its final stages when halted by British authorities. In 2007, a suicide car bomber attacked the Glasgow airport but, fortunately, succeeded in killing only himself; around the same time British authorities found two unexploded car bombs in London's West End. Even when it isn't linked directly to terrorism, Muslim radicalism seems more prevalent—and certainly more visible—inside the United Kingdom, and in Western Europe generally, than it is inside the United States.
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm
"Consider that it takes about 1,000 wind turbines, occupying tens of thousands of acres, to produce as much electricity as just one medium-sized, coal-fired power plant. And that's if the wind is blowing: the intermittency of wind wreaks havoc on electricity grids, which need a stable flow of power, thus requiring expensive, redundant backup capacity or an unbuilt, unproven "smart grid."
"Or consider the "promise" of solar. Two projects in development will cover 12.5 square miles of central California withsolar cells in the hope of generating about 800 megawatts of power (as much as one large coal-fired plant). But that power output will only be achieved when the sun is shining brightly--around noon on sunny days; the actual output will be less than a third that amount. And the electricity will cost more than market price, even with thel ife-support of federal subsidies that keeps the solar industry going. The major factor driving the project is not the promise of abundant power but California's state quota requiring 20 percent "renewable" electricity by 2010.
"There is a reason why less than 2 percent of the world's energy currently comes from "renewable" sources such as wind and solar--the very sources that are supposedly going to power the new green economy: despite billions of dollars in government subsidies, funding decades of research, they have not proven themselves to be practical sources of energy. Indeed, without government mandates forcing their adoption in most Western countries, their high cost would make them even less prevalent.
"Will a green energy industry be an engine of economic growth? Many want us to think so, including our new President. Apparently a booming green economy with millions of new jobs is just around the corner. All we need is the right mix of government "incentives."
"These include a huge (de facto) tax on carbon emissions imposed through a cap-and-trade regulatory scheme, as well as huge government subsidies for "renewable," carbon-free sources. The hope is that these government sticks and carrots will turn today's pitiful "green energy" industry, which produces an insignificant fraction of American energy, into a source of abundant, affordable energy that can replace today's fossil-fuel-dominated industry. This view is a fantasy--one that could devastate America's economy. The reality is that "green energy" is at best a sophisticated make-work program. [condensed from the Ayn Rand Institute]
President Obama guarantees "to inflict untold damage on his own country and many others, on the basis of claims so demonstrably fallacious that they amount to a string of self-deluding lies...
"Mr Obama begins by saying that "the science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear". "Sea levels," he claims, "are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
"Delegates from 190 countries met in Poznan, Poland to pave the way for this year's UN conference in Copenhagen at which the world will agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change," heard Mr. Obama speak these words.
"Mr Obama has again been taken in over hurricanes. Despite a recent press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration claiming that 2008's North Atlantic hurricane season "set records", even its own release later admits that it only tied as "the fifth most active" since 1944. NOAA's own graphs show hurricane activity higher in the 1950s than recently. A recent Florida State University study of tropical cyclone activity across the world (see the Watts Up With That? website) shows a steady reduction over the past four years.
"Alarming though it may be that the next US President should have fallen for all this claptrap, much more worrying is what he proposes to do on the basis of such grotesque misinformation. For a start he plans to introduce a "federal cap and trade system", a massive "carbon tax", designed to reduce America's CO2 emissions "to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 per cent by 2050". Such a target, which would put America ahead of any other country in the world, could only be achieved by closing down a large part of the US economy.
"Mr Obama floats off still further from reality when he proposes spending $15 billion a year to encourage "clean energy" sources, such as thousands more wind turbines. He is clearly unaware that wind energy is so hopelessly ineffective that the 10,000 turbines America already has, representing "18 gigawatts of installed capacity", only generate 4.5GW of power, less than that supplied by a single giant coal-fired power station.
"He talks blithely of allowing only "clean" coal-fired power plants, using "carbon capture" - burying the CO2 in holes in the ground - which would double the price of electricity, but the technology for which hasn't even yet been developed. He then babbles on about "generating five million new green jobs". This will presumably consist of hiring millions of Americans to generate power by running around on treadmills, to replace all those "dirty" coal-fired power stations which currently supply the US with half its electricity." [condensed from Telegraph.co.uk]
McCain-Feingold Act tells you when when no one is allowed to speak or some groups aren't allowed to speak
Finally, someone on TV understands the nature of Objectivism, and has been bringing speakers to his program from the Ayn Rand Institute. Its director has been on the show. Last week Glen Beck had Onkar Ghate, a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.
Condensed transcript from the program, Feb. 20, 2009
Tonight, we have a very special edition of "The Glenn Beck" program.
We're going to play out some of the worst-case scenarios with some of the greatest minds around, asking ourselves one simple question: What if?
And tonight, we're going to think it out with the help of former CIA agents, some of the best money people around, military analysts, survival experts. We're going to try to show you how to prepare for the worst while everybody else is sitting back and hoping for the best. And I want you to know — everybody involved in this show is also hoping for the best.
In mid-January, the government "war-gamed" a scenario where American cities were subjected to a coordinated two-day attack. Why? Are they saying that an attack is imminent like that? No. They just understand that planning for the unthinkable will allow them to act rationally while everybody else is panicking.
The truth is — that you are the defender of liberty. It's not the government. It's not an army or anybody else. It's you. This is your country.
So, ask yourself: What kind of sentry do you want to be as you stand there at the gate?
We're making decisions right now, and I don't think we're really thinking them through. Let that not happen to us. Let's make the unthinkable thinkable for 60 minutes.
Onkar, tell me a little bit about what you see happening with freedom of speech in a scenario like this. Does the government need to keep people muted in a situation where things have really fallen apart?
GHATE Yes, I think so. In this kind of night player scenario that you're envisioning, what would happen is that the government wouldn't tolerate any kind of objections and dissent. And what would happen is, that there would be a clampdown on free speech, particularly, I think, political speech.
And we've seen precursors of that with, say, McCain-Feingold Act which is an assault on the First Amendment rights which tells people, you can't spend your money to advocate for views you want. It tells you when you can do it. It puts periods when no one is allowed to speak or some groups aren't allowed to speak and we would see a real extension of that so that the people in political power can hold on to their power, to get a real collapse in a dictatorship, it's a one-party rule.
But to get that, you really have to silence other people, and that — and you can only do that by infringing on their free speech rights and making a mockery of the First Amendment.
BECK: All right. I'm not sure if you — and I don't mean to insult you by any stretch of imagination, we just haven't had a chance to talk beforehand. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the history of Woodrow Wilson or Franklin, but — or even Truman. We've done this before, and it was always wrapped in Uncle Sam and the flag. We have clamped down on people. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, back in the early 1900s, we had 150,000 people that were political prisoners that were in jail for speaking out against World War I.
So, this isn't a crazy scenario.
GHATE: No, I don't think it is.
BECK: This has happened before. What would be the signs, the road signs along the road to 2014 that we should be aware of?
GHATE: I think extensions of McCain-Feingold, extensions of — if there are some political speeches that is OK and other speeches isn't, and it's the government that gets to decide which is which. So, if we start seeing as we've seen stimulus czars, regulatory czars, if we start seeing speech czars, we're down the road to a real dictatorship.
BECK: OK.
GHATE: And that would be really scary.
Onkar Ghate's comments Copyright (c) 2009 Ayn Rand(R) Institute. All rights reserved.
"The final version of the so-called stimulus bill, which will make economic news continue to sound like it was cribbed from Atlas Shrugged,
clocks in at 1,071 pages long (up from 424 pages long when first written). This is just 121 pages shorter than that prophetic work. Rich irony was just a back-room deal away!Congress [was] admittedly poised to pass it without having read either tome. [The President pushed for quick passage without the 48 hours he guaranteed. Then he held it for twice that long before signing it.]
"Were I a conservative, I'd propose a law that Congress would not be allowed to vote for any bill during a "cooling-off" period of a length of time it would take an average person to read the bill. But I am not, and such a measure would be a mere band-aid. The way to fix this grotesquely wrong situation is for a substantial number of Americans to demand that the government do its actual job, which is protecting individual rights, and nothing else. If enough people read Atlas Shrugged, and began voting (and persuading other voters) accordingly, we wouldn't have to worry about what a bunch of little dictators are happily passing, unread." Gus Van Horn
Develop a Rational Drug Policy
"A New Scientist editorial poses this thought experiment: IMAGINE you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest?
Correct answer:
You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA.
All recreational drugs cause neurological changes - that's kind of the point of taking them. Long term downsides to ecstasy use may emerge, but so far its main effect has been, as the New Scientist editorial notes, "to drive politicians out of their minds." And to be used as an excuse to toss thousands of users into jail. The editorial ends with a plea:
We need a rational debate about the true damage caused by illegal drugs - which pales into insignificance compared with the havoc wreaked by legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. Until then, we have no chance of developing a rational drug policy." Reason Hit and Run
The Water Wizards of Oz
"It is near impossible to imagine any private company not enjoying the "problem" of high demand for its products and services. Yet there are some products that are repeatedly reported as shortages. There is one thing these products have in common: government intervention, typically in the form of price controls.
This is especially the case with water in Melbourne, Australia, and has been for at least a decade. While supply of water is in many ways a complex issue, understanding economic shortages is not.
The government has blamed the shortage of water on drought and climate change. And while droughts may be created by a shortage of water, water shortages are created by an abundance of government rein. Despite almost yearly decreases in water storages in Melbourne (see figure 1), real prices have not increased significantly. And currently the "Essential Services Commission" will be setting prices for the next five-year period. This means, regardless of supply or any number of variables and uncertainty, (real) prices will remain roughly the same for five years. In other words, expect continued shortages."Ludwig von Mises Institute
Obama Warns Mayors
Now that Obama has passed his $787 billion spending bill, the spotlight turns to the individual city mayors who will be instrumental in doling the money out. To them, Obama warns, "Here's your chance, now don't screw it up!" (NYT.com)
“I want to be clear about this: We cannot tolerate business as usual -- not in Washington, not in our state capitols, not in America’s cities and towns,” Mr. Obama told a gathering of the United States Conference of Mayors.
He said he was putting them “on notice” that if they propose a wasteful project, “I will call them out on it.”
There are an almost overwhelming number of presumptions made by Obama in this short, underwhelmingly self-assured speech:
Government spending projects are not inherently wasteful-- government spending projects could be either welfare-enhancing or welfare-diminishing.
Obama and his staff have the economic prescience and ability to predict the subjective future valuations of millions of individuals necessary to give him the capability to distinguish between a welfare-enhancing (non-wasteful) and welfare-diminishing (wasteful) spending project, given the near infinite number of alternative uses of the money spent.
Obama and his staff will provide the required oversight faithfully and without flaw."Degrees of Freedom
Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more
The Christian religion demands "sacrifice", obedience to the "commandments" given through a supernatural entity to its adherents, and a "selflessness" which was given the name--by the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte--of "altruism."
It is not metaphysically natural for men to operate in a psychological structure-of-mind that commits them to these things. Yet, this is also the structure-of-mind we are being groomed to live by under the Obama administration.
As Michelle O explained, "The truth is, [ ] someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more." James LewisAmerican Thinker
Sacrifice has become the purview of the government.
First, "sacrifice" must necessarily mean giving up something of greater value for something of lesser value, else it could not be sacrificial. For example, to give a tithing to your church is not a sacrifice if you think the work of the church is worth your money. It is only when you think your money could be used better elsewhere, but you are psychologically coerced by the culture of the church to give your money to them, that this act would be a sacrifice.
If we are expected to sacrifice part of our pie to someone who wants a piece of the pie that is not his/hers, we are expected to acquiesce. We are mandated by the Federal government to be our brother's keeper. This gives us little or no personal fiscal resources with which to protect ourselves. Now we must count on the government to take from our neighbors in order to give to us, after taking from us to give to another neighbor.
Second, commandments are impossible to follow to the letter and in spirit, one-hundred percent of the time. Commandments were made to be broken--so that Christians would have a "cross" of their own to bear. Such "crosses" are called by many names, one of which is the "original sin" of being "only" a human who cannot be perfect, but needs salvation.
In order to follow the commandments one-hundred percent of the time would take sacrifices that mere humans are not prepared to make. To "love thy neighbor as thy self" even when every thing your neighbor believes in and stands for would destroy every thing you believe in and everything you stand for--most certainly is impossible for mere humans to accomplish. Tell me how an American can love Osama bin Laden as he loves himself.
Ask yourself what kind of God would command you to love bin Laden. What God would ask that you altruistically not kill a man who is raping your wife? The New King James Version changed "thou shalt not kill" to "“You shall not murder", yet since the time of King James or before it was "kill." Manslaughter which is killing, however, is not murder. But it is killing. Manslaughter is often accidental, so the only reason the NKJV does not say "You shall not commit manslaughter" is because sometimes it isn't done on purpose; but you still go to prison for it.
What God would "visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children"?
I had a conversation with a group of men a few years ago, and one man who had been a failure all his life at nearly everything he tried, said with an air of resignation that he had "sacrificed his whole life."
At that moment it was not clear just what he meant. Someone who knew him much better than I challenged him.
"You have not!" said the man. "You don't know what it means to sacrifice, or you would have been successful by now."
The first man replied, "You are wrong. It is because I sacrificed that I failed. I sacrificed a good job with a good employer for the whim of starting up my own business when I had no aptitude for business. I sacrificed my marriage for a one-night stand. I sacrificed my health by getting drunk every night before going home, and it put me in the hospital with cirrhosis of the liver. I sacrificed my college education when I quit because the leftist teaching of the university pissed me off. One liberal philosophy teacher actually said I would grow out of the beliefs I had at the time. The problem is, I never outgrew those beliefs. I believe in them more strongly than I did then. But I sacrificed them, too, by not living up to them."
"Well," said the second man, "that isn't what I meant by 'sacrifice.' I mean you didn't try hard enough by giving up the things that would have made you a success."
"And I still say you're wrong," said the first man. "If I had given up what was necessary to be successful, that wouldn't have been sacrificing anything, it would only have been paying the proper price for the things I valued. Instead, I paid too little, and the sacrifice was getting nothing at all in return for what I did pay.
"The ultimate payment is my failure. All those years that I had a good job, all those years that I had wonderful wife are water under the bridge. I didn't do anything to put them in the bank. I robbed the bank. And now here I sit without any retirement, living from food stamps, taking temporary jobs because with my work history I can't get anything else considering the hard economic times we're in.
"Do you see what I'm saying?" he asked. We could all hear the regret in his voice, the self-judgment, and the recognition that he had finally learned the meaning of the word "sacrifice."
"If I had not done the wrong things, if I had not fallen short of doing what needed to be done at all the important moments in my life, I wouldn't feel as if I just want to cry over spilt milk right now. There wouldn't be any spilt milk. I'd have a refrigerator full of it, instead of a pocket full of food stamps.
"Do you understand me now? I didn't pay enough for the things I wanted. That was the sacrifice--losing the things I had because I didn't want to pay the piper what he was worth. The things I wanted were worth more than I was willing to pay. That is sacrificial. I sacrificed myself by being cheap."div align="justify">If the life you want is more important than love, it's no sacrifice. If living anywhere with the one you love is more important, THAT is no sacrifice.
Sacrifice means to give up what is more valuable for what is less; otherwise the word has no moral meaning.
On this basis I argue that Jesus' death was no "sacrifice" because the saving of souls was more important than one man's life. But there is another aspect: Jesus is believed by many to be God himself incarnate, meaning he knew he couldn't die anyway, so giving up his carnate life on the cross turns out to be a big cosmic joke played on humanity--it was no sacrifice, it was sleight of hand.
Yet, the Catholic church takes this stance:
"On account of the remarkable and unique coincidence of the priest, victim, and acceptor of the sacrifice, a first question arises as to whether Christ was victim and priest according to His Divine or according to His humannature. On the basis of the dogma of the hypostatic union the only answer is: although the God-Man or the Logos Himself was at once both priest and victim, He was both, not according to His Divine nature, but through the function of His humanity." [emphasis added] Catholic Encyclopedia
This means that it is even important for the Church to sacrifice the "dogma of the hypostatic union" of Jesus being God himself--for the lesser value of Jesus being a man.
It means nothing if God was sacrificed. God cannot die. Jesus was said to have been dead for three days before he was bodily taken to heaven. This dogma is necessary to convince us that upon death we no longer must bear the burden of being "just a man," but will, as did Jesus, be ressurected into a union of hypostasis with God. In other words, to achieve this blessed union we must live the sacrifice of being mere mortals first.
It is not a sacrifice to be mortal, to be man, to be animal.
"I stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my arms. This, my body and spirit, this is the end of the quest. I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction." Ayn Rand; Anthem [emphasis added]
If your marriage is more important to you than a fling with someone you discover and have a passion for, it is no sacrifice to forego the fling.
Into the boundary
Of each married man
Sweet deceit comes calling
And negativity lands
Cold cold heart
Hard done by you
Some things look better baby
Just passing through
And it's no sacrifice
Just a simple word
It's two hearts living
In two separate worlds
Elton John
The "sweet deceit" of giving up a piece of your pie so that others can have what is yours is the deceit of Christian brotherhood transformed into social policy. So, why does everyone ask if we are willing to sacrifice this or that, for this or that?
The so-called, and misnamed, “Fairness Doctrine,” is rearing its ugly head again. The Fairness Doctrine is a throwback to the day when there were three broadcast channels on television. Its intent was to ensure that FCC-regulated TV and radio outlets provided both sides of the story in their news and commentary. Those of us who remember how the three television networks controlled the flow of news and information recall how “well” the “Fairness Doctrine” worked. It was jettisoned during the Reagan Administration. Certain members of Congress are clearly interested in reviving the Fairness Doctrine. Given the glut of information one can get today on any issue from virtually any political perspective, it’s hard to see why it’s necessary. Unless they want to shut down “speech” they don’t like. In the American Spectator piece below, we draw your attention to one particularly chilling paragraph: One idea Waxman's committee staff is looking at is a congressionally mandated policy that would require all TV and radio stations to have in place "advisory boards" that would act as watchdogs to ensure "community needs and opinions" are given fair treatment. Reports from those advisory boards would be used for license renewals and summaries would be reviewed at least annually by FCC staff.It doesn’t take much imagination to see how such “advisory boards” would be on the front lines in enforcing political correctness – especially when it comes to the issue of Islam. Done, of course, in the name of providing “fair treatment” – or else lose your broadcast license. If the Fairness Doctrine were revived, and with it anything that smacks of “advisory boards,” we’d be handing over the power to censor our TV and radio broadcasts to the Islamists who are intent on gagging all speech that dares to criticize Islam. They already have a UN resolution calling on countries to prohibit “hate speech.” The British government cowers before their threats and deports Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Austrian officials convict an Austrian legislator for “defaming” Islam. Mark Steyn is dragged before the Canadian Human Rights Commission to answer Muslim charges about what he wrote in his book America Alone. And they already have much of the “establishment media” parroting their talking points and readily labeling as an “Islamophobe” anyone who criticizes Islam. The Fairness Doctrine will be a nail in the coffin of free speech about Islam. It’s time to draw a line in the sand.
If love is just chemical then if i reproduce the same chemical in someones brain can I literally make them fall in love with anybody?
A: That is the "deterministic" (or worse, the "fatalistic") explanation of emotions. Emotions, consciousness, soul, free will, conscience, etc are not "just" chemicals or snynapses or whatever science declares it to be.
Science is not wrong, except in its metaphysical classification of these events as being "just" chemical, or "merely" bio-physiology at work.
Metaphysics is the art of constructing explanations for everything that exists. For example, the description of a "table" is metaphysical, while the table itself is physical. Every word except personal pro-nouns, in every language, represents a metaphysical concept. Deterministic science dismisses the metaphysical description of conscious and bio-physiological events as anything more than the stark scientific (physics) description.
However, "love" and all the rest of that is obviously much more than the sum of its total bio-physiological activity. It has metaphysical meaning for all of us that encompasses not only the recognition that love is a reaction to something, but that since we don't all love the same things, there must be a relation between the bio-physiology and the metaphysics we each, individually, hold.
Your metaphysics may be somewhat or extremely different than mine, and different from someone else. Sometimes we do not even recognize the metaphysics of another person; in other words, he and we seem to be talking about two different things when in fact we are talking about two different things--his metaphysical evaluation describes "love" as bio-physiology, while yours and mine describes it as "a pleasurable emotion that gives us confirmation that something is important enough to value beyond "like."
Since love is an individual response by one person to the value system he/she subscribes to, it would be impossible to make someone love what you want them to love through the introduction of a "love chemical"--at least not without inciting within them a neurosis having to do with the conflict between what you have forced them to love, and what they actually value enough to love
What is this moment call "now?"?
Epistemologically, it is the only moment in existence. The old play on words is correct: "Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow will never come."
Time is a construct of the mind that allows it to string together all the moments of "now" into something cohesive and having the charcteristic of endlessness, yet because of the construct we can remember prior moments of now.
"Time is a measurement of motion; as such, it is a type of relationship. Time applies only within the universe, when you define a standard—such as the motion of the earth around the sun. If you take that as a unit, you can say: 'This person has a certain relationship to that motion; he has existed for three revolutions; he is three years old.' But when you get to the universe as a whole, obviously no standard is applicable. You cannot get outside the universe. The universe is eternal in the literal sense: non-temporal, out of time." Leonard Peikoff, “The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series (1976), question period, Lecture 2
"The idea of an infinitely small amount of length or temporal duration has validity only as a mathematical device useful for making certain calculations, not as a description of components of reality. Reality does not contain either points or instants (in the mathematical sense)." Harry Binswanger “Q & A Department: Identity and Motion,” The Objectivist Forum, Dec. 1981, 13.
The brain has a "clock speed", which works virtually the same way as a computer. It has been estimated that our minds can absorb approximately 10 "moments" each second, and it is these moments we string together for the illusion that time is continuous (whereas it is actually motion that is continuous.) Time, as stated above, is a relationship to motion. But we do not comprehend each of those 10 moments each second; sometimes we don't even comprehend "seconds" because when something extraordinary or at least eventful and consciousness-filling happens, we say "time flies." An hour can go by in what feels like minutes.So the moment we call now is only the moment you are in and only when you realize you are in it. It can be as short as your mind can comprehend, or as long as your mind is consumed in an interest.
What constitutes beauty in your eyes?
When we say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are talking about metaphysical values. Generally, our species appreciates that beautiful sunset, a great play or movie, a job well done, heros, birth, and the "eternal" over the "transient" because of metaphysical value judgments we make.
Metaphysics, "in the formation of a sense of life, [which has since come to be called a "world view"] is the term important. It is a concept that belongs to the realm of values, since it implies an answer to the question: Important—to whom? Yet its meaning is different from that of moral values. Important does not necessarily mean 'good.' It means 'a quality, character or standing such as to entitle to attention or consideration' (The American College Dictionary).
“Important—in its essential meaning, as distinguished from its more limited and superficial uses—is a metaphysical term. It pertains to that aspect of metaphysics which serves as a bridge between metaphysics and ethics: to a fundamental view of man’s nature."
Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life—or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil?" Ayn Rand, various sources http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/metaph...
Wilders thinks cutting off the heads of unbelievers is a bad thing; Islamofascists think it a good thing.
Monday I wrote how the New World Order, if it exists, isn't what we once thought it might be; that instead it consisted of governments' capitulation to Muslim sharia law.
Now, we hear about elected Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who flew to London after being invited to show his documentary "Fitna" in Britain’s House of Lords, was "escorted by two plain-clothed guards across the tarmac to the border agency office [who] were holding Wilders so tightly, one of Wilders’ personal bodyguards asked them to relax their grips."
Why? The UK is now deeply entrenched in takaful, (shariah compliant finance,) which means Islamists not only have demonstrations, riots and terrorism with which to threaten the Brits. They also have the power of money.
They were protesting and there were those in the British government who were afraid that Wilders’ visit would set off Muslim rioting or, worse yet, terrorist attacks.
As ACT for America has pointed out many times, "Britain has shown us the path we cannot take if we want to roll back the rising tide of the supremacist ideology known as Islamofascism. Every capitulation emboldens and empowers the Islamists, who predictably ratchet up their demands.
"Concerned Brits, far too many of whom have been silent during the past 30 years as Islamist demands and British appeasement have escalated, are no doubt wondering today what has happened to their country – and if there’s still time to win it back.
"Ironically, it was the great British statesman Edmund Burke who stated 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.'"
A Muslim, Lord Nazir Ahmed, and other Muslim leaders had vigorously protested Wilders’ visit, causing an initial invitation to be rescinded. It was reported that Ahmed had even threatened to mobilize 10,000 fellow Muslims to block Wilders from entering Westminster, a report Ahmed now denies.
Wilders short film called Fitna (Struggle), argues "in a powerful rhetorical way a causative connection between certain verses in the Koran and brutal acts of modern terrorism. At least some Moslems (sic) have taken it to be correct, differing from Wilders only in their moral evaluation of the injunctions that they have both found in them. He thinks cutting off the heads of unbelievers is a bad thing, they think it a good thing. [emphasis added] [condensed from FrontPageMagazine.com]
"Baron Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan and raised in Britain, forgetting he is part of a liberal democratic system that cherishes freedom of expression and association, reacted with familiar jihadi-style tactics to Wilders’ announced appearance. Along with his threat to mobilize 10,000 demonstrators to block Wilders’ path [at the airport], it was reported Ahmed also intended to sue the member [Lord Pearson] who had invited the Dutch politician.
"And while the British elites and media may have wanted to keep the British people in the dark regarding the scale of this debacle, Ahmed had no qualms about publicising it. Labelling it what it truly is, Ahmed told Pakistani media outlets that the British parliament’s retreat was 'a victory for the Muslim community.'"[condensed]
No society or culture – including ours – is exempt from the truth of Burke’s words. If the travesty of what has happened in Britain can occur there, it can occur anywhere – including here – unless informed men and women of conscience and concern choose to act.
Don't think sharia isn't coming to the U.S. Muzzammil Hassan, founder of Bridges TV, is charged with murder in the beheading of his wife, Aasiya Hassan in Orchard Park, New York. http://www.buffalonews.com/437/story/578644.html
But the effrontery of someone beheading his wife, then being charged only with second-degree murder, is the least bizarre part of this case: Hassan founded Bridges TV in 2004 to combat the negative perceptions of Muslims that he thought were dominating the mainstream media, after his 7-months pregnant wife Aasiya said she didn’t want her kids growing up in the sort of environment that was anti-Muslim, an environment that apparently couldn't tell the differences between Islamic culture and Islamofascism. It was Aasiya's idea to create the TV network.
However, "Bridges TV from the beginning had ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case, and Islamicity.com, which retails rabid anti-Semitic literature. In 2006 Arab News reported that Hassan was trying to raise money for the network from Saudi investors. Aasiya Hassan apparently had raised Muzzammil’s ire by filing for divorce." [condensed]
It takes approximately three gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol
Atheism and idealism are sometimes questioned as to their compatibility. Why that is I'm not certain, except that idealism in these times is going by the wayside in the minds of many Americans, who don't see any idealism in what's going on in D.C.
Idealism that is not based on the facts of reality and on what is possible, cannot be, and is in fact contradictory of, "idealism." There is nothing about atheism that is contradictory of idealism. In fact, "hard atheism" which denies the physics necessary for the existence of a god is quite ideal, based in solid science, and is epistemologically sound.
What is neither sound nor ideal is eethanol. It takes approximately three gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol, roughly the same amount as it takes to make one gallon of gasoline. So not only is the use of corn for ethanol contributing to excessive corn-food costs, it makes the cost of almost everything go up. Farmers quit producing wheat because the corn is subsidised, so the price of wheat products go up. But the price of corn goes up, also, because it is used in so many non-food items, including automobiles.
Now we find out that in Idaho the aquifer has been diminished by one hundred feet, and it will take decades for nature to replenish it--if we stop mining it now.
There are ways of producing bio fuels that are better than what the government has been paying for in its attempt to make the markets change to meet government demands.
"The large aquifers of our country are being depleted by agriculture. Water shortages have been predicted to be more damaging to our civilization than fuel shortages. It would be a mistake to deplete our reservoir of fresh water to supply fuels. Biofuelstock plants should ideally be adapted to the rainfall patterns of environment were they are grown other than irrigation to get the plants established. In dryland farming use of perennial crops and non-till methods are especially important for retaining moisture in the soil." What should Biofuel agriculture look like?
We all know the government cannot cause the markets to swing in any direction except in the direction of the buyers--or metaphorically into the tank, where the entire economy is right now.
But at least we could stop raising the price of food, stop using our water resources, and let the markets act freely as markets do best--oops, I forgot about the $800b we just signed on for.
But did you know we have to borrow all of that money? We generally borrow from Japan, but Stuart Varneyof Fox News stated today that Japan is in a traditional depression now, according to the latest Japanese economic indicators. They don't have a dime to spare. So where will it come from?
Who knows? "I don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic troubles," Obama said before signing the legislation. The biggest share of the stimulus package, says the President's new website, is $288B for tax relief. That means $288B the government won't be getting from us to spend on us.
But exactly half of that, $144B, will be given to states and localities for relief. How will the government give it to the states if we don't give it to the government? Some localities in California are already threatening not to pay their own tax bills to the state because the state isn't refunding tax money it doesn't have, so that means the local tax payers can't pay local taxes which are owed to the state for the purpose of giving it back to the taxpayers.
Next, $111B goes to "Infrastructure and Science." There is no word yet on how much will go for science that tells the President how to "go green" at the expense of our grocery costs, water aquifer levels, and the relative expense and relative inefficiency of wind farms.
Centrica [ ] said it was "revisiting the economics of wind farms given rising raw material and credit costs...[and] has yet to approve investment for three more farms that it plans to build in the North Sea. "The costs of building offshore wind are at a very high level," a Centrica spokesman told Reuters.
But this is what Obama wants, and apparently what Obama wants, Obama gets. After all, he got the stimulus package before Congress could read it for 48 hours, as Obama promised, so that the President himself could read it for 96 hours before signing it.
