The Free Talk Live BBS

Free Talk Live => The Polling Pit => Topic started by: BenTucker on January 04, 2007, 06:06:31 AM

Title: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 04, 2007, 06:06:31 AM
who believes that Ayn Rand was correct?

"There is only one fundamental right (all others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action--which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life…Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life." -- Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pp. 321-2
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: Taors on January 04, 2007, 08:28:18 AM
You fail at polls.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: gandhi2 on January 05, 2007, 10:35:09 PM
Yeah...only 4 people...I haven't even voted, because I'm unsatisfied with the options.  Poll is heavily subjective; e.g.:
"True or False: Niggers sometimes eat fried chicken."
e.g.^2:
"What is your favorite food?
A. Bean Casserole
B. Shit pie"
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 05, 2007, 11:21:06 PM
Yeah...only 4 people...I haven't even voted, because I'm unsatisfied with the options.  Poll is heavily subjective; e.g.:
"True or False: Niggers sometimes eat fried chicken."
e.g.^2:
"What is your favorite food?
A. Bean Casserole
B. Shit pie"


I asked for your suggestion...
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: ladyattis on January 05, 2007, 11:34:26 PM
I chose choice begets self-ownership but only in the context that you cannot own yourself like you own a car or a glass of water. In that you are yourself so how can you own a sense of self? How about owning the atomic weight of a hydrogen atom, or the colour spectrum of blue shades and etc... :lol:

-- Bridget
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: Zhwazi on January 05, 2007, 11:35:43 PM
Any good ARFCOM user knows the answer before the question.

GET BOTH.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: gandhi2 on January 05, 2007, 11:40:30 PM
Quote
choice begets self-ownership
Holy shit, this from the Randian??!!
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: ladyattis on January 05, 2007, 11:42:01 PM
Quote
choice begets self-ownership
Holy shit, this from the Randian??!!

That's because Rand as she put Self-ownership isn't true self-ownership or the owning of one's sense of self. Basically, I reduce it per Aristotle's view of the Human Mind, which means you are yourself as a knife is a knife. A knife does not own its 'knifeness', rather it is knifeness. So, it logically follows that self-ownership comes as a result of our ability to make a choice, to exert a force by our reason and intention(s).

-- Bridget
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 06, 2007, 07:14:37 AM
Quote
choice begets self-ownership
Holy shit, this from the Randian??!!

That's because Rand as she put Self-ownership isn't true self-ownership or the owning of one's sense of self. Basically, I reduce it per Aristotle's view of the Human Mind, which means you are yourself as a knife is a knife. A knife does not own its 'knifeness', rather it is knifeness. So, it logically follows that self-ownership comes as a result of our ability to make a choice, to exert a force by our reason and intention(s).


how can you have choice without self?
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: gandhi2 on January 06, 2007, 03:42:17 PM
Quote
how can you have choice without self?
So are you agreeing that the "self" refers to sentience?

If self refers to body or mind, or the ideal world of humans(which is apparently mind, body, labor, land...in that order too), then you will still have choice, even if you only have mind.  Patients who are paralyzed still have choice...just not as much means to activate that choice.  Does that mean they are less human?  If somebody were the direct causer of the action that paralyzed them, that direct causer would be held accountable.  If nobody was the direct causer, even though there might be lots of indirect causers(maybe he wasn't rich enough to pay for a valuable operation), then those people could not be held accountable.  Period, plain and simple.  Thus any indirect dispossessors can't be held accountable for "crippling" the human condition in this fashion.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 06, 2007, 04:33:06 PM
Quote
how can you have choice without self?
So are you agreeing that the "self" refers to sentience?

If self refers to body or mind, or the ideal world of humans(which is apparently mind, body, labor, land...in that order too), then you will still have choice, even if you only have mind.  Patients who are paralyzed still have choice...just not as much means to activate that choice.  Does that mean they are less human?  If somebody were the direct causer of the action that paralyzed them, that direct causer would be held accountable.  If nobody was the direct causer, even though there might be lots of indirect causers(maybe he wasn't rich enough to pay for a valuable operation), then those people could not be held accountable.  Period, plain and simple.  Thus any indirect dispossessors can't be held accountable for "crippling" the human condition in this fashion.

can you please explain to me how action can come before the body which occupies 3D space?
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: velojym on January 06, 2007, 04:53:13 PM
Inadequate selections. No choice made.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 06, 2007, 05:14:29 PM
Inadequate selections. No choice made.


what selection would you like?
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: velojym on January 06, 2007, 06:34:20 PM
Inadequate selections. No choice made.


what selection would you like?

As a research advisor, I normally charge a $300 retainer, with an additional $300 on completion to the satisfaction of
all involved parties (usually just the pollster, as they normally want leading questions, rather than objective ones).
I am sorry if you are unable to broaden your poll selections without help, but perhaps you'll do better
in the future.
The alternative, of course, is that I do not participate in this poll, and you'll owe nothing.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: ladyattis on January 06, 2007, 10:42:23 PM
Quote
how can you have choice without self?
So are you agreeing that the "self" refers to sentience?

If self refers to body or mind, or the ideal world of humans(which is apparently mind, body, labor, land...in that order too), then you will still have choice, even if you only have mind.  Patients who are paralyzed still have choice...just not as much means to activate that choice.  Does that mean they are less human?  If somebody were the direct causer of the action that paralyzed them, that direct causer would be held accountable.  If nobody was the direct causer, even though there might be lots of indirect causers(maybe he wasn't rich enough to pay for a valuable operation), then those people could not be held accountable.  Period, plain and simple.  Thus any indirect dispossessors can't be held accountable for "crippling" the human condition in this fashion.

Bingo. The humanness of being human is not just whether you can act on a choice, but whether you can conceive it. That's why contradictions can happen, but only as the result of a wrong choice. And so on.

-- Bridget
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: lapafrax on January 07, 2007, 02:00:37 PM
who believes that Ayn Rand was correct?

"There is only one fundamental right (all others are its consequences or corollaries): a man's right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action--which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life…Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life." -- Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, pp. 321-2

With the means to own yourself, you have limited scope to make choices for yourself.

Self-ownership is the foundation of all liberty, not just libertarian values.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 07, 2007, 02:11:37 PM
Quote
Self-ownership is the foundation of all liberty, not just libertarian values.

agreed...
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: bonerjoe on January 07, 2007, 02:20:49 PM
I won't vote for either, because the lesser of two evils is still very, very eeeevil.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: BenTucker on January 07, 2007, 04:29:26 PM
Self-ownership is the foundation of all liberty, not just libertarian values.

If I'm not free to chose what is the point of owning myself?

free to chose what?
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: lapafrax on January 08, 2007, 10:52:30 AM
Without owning yourself, you cannot choose.  To choose means to possess volition.  If you own yourself then you have total control over your own volition.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: lapafrax on January 08, 2007, 11:11:14 AM
And you can only choose if you have control over the mental ability to choose.  Hence having control over your body and being.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: lapafrax on January 08, 2007, 11:22:13 AM
But being able to choose stems from having control of your mind.   Without control of your mind, you wouldn't be able to choose. 

Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: ladyattis on January 08, 2007, 11:28:15 AM
Without owning yourself, you cannot choose.  To choose means to possess volition.  If you own yourself then you have total control over your own volition.

Show me how your own yourself. Can I buy your self and be you for a day? If not, then will you retract the claim that you own yourself?

-- Bridget is an evil Objectivist that remembers her Aristotlean roots.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: gandhi2 on January 08, 2007, 11:35:55 AM
Quote
But being able to choose stems from having control of your mind.   Without control of your mind, you wouldn't be able to choose.
Ok, that settles that.

Crazies don't have control of their minds, ergo they don't have self-ownership, ergo they don't have choice.  As these individuals don't have self-ownership, any indirect causer of their intellectual dispossession in a world built for non-crazies should pay for their dispossession.  Now, if you could extend that beyond just being crazy, to being slightly intellectually disadvantaged.  A crazy should get a lot of intellectual economic rent, and a stupid person should receive some, but not as much.

The argument also works for children, who don't have fully developed rational control.

And that, ladies and germs, is what we call egalitarianism.

Quote
I also control my body by using my mentalk ability to chose. You can't have one without the other.
Agreed, although if I had to choose(heh, irony), I would say that choice triggers self.  You can't have choice without having self, but I'd say choice was the chicken.  We can already see in computer AI/machine learning programs "self-like" behavior, but since there is no choice, we don't see self.
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: lapafrax on January 08, 2007, 12:59:53 PM
Without owning yourself, you cannot choose.  To choose means to possess volition.  If you own yourself then you have total control over your own volition.

Show me how your own yourself. Can I buy your self and be you for a day? If not, then will you retract the claim that you own yourself?

-- Bridget is an evil Objectivist that remembers her Aristotlean roots.

I control my own body and being. 
Title: Re: choice vs. self-ownership...
Post by: ladyattis on January 08, 2007, 01:30:32 PM
Without owning yourself, you cannot choose.  To choose means to possess volition.  If you own yourself then you have total control over your own volition.

Show me how your own yourself. Can I buy your self and be you for a day? If not, then will you retract the claim that you own yourself?

-- Bridget is an evil Objectivist that remembers her Aristotlean roots.

I control my own body and being. 

So you can negate your being so I can occupy it? If not, then it follows logically you don't own it. You are it. Do you understand? Being and ownership are two different things. Ownership implies at one time something was unowned. Being implies it is, either timely or timeless. Thus it follows to say you have self-ownership is logically impossible, but saying you are, it logically possible.

-- Bridget