Re: The Ayn Rand World

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Alan Forrester  wrote:

> **
>
>
> On 9 Feb 2013, at 20:00, George Simpson [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Rand failed to understand that we are not self-constructed, but rather we
> > construct our minds on the lattice of concepts that history provides us and
> > others introduce us to.
>
> This is unclear.
>
> Other people introduce you to concepts? I should think that some
> particular individuals introduce you to concepts by talking to you or
> writing books or whatever.
>
>
> > The individual can make a contribution to that lattice of concepts -what one might call the "conceptual field", but it is imbalanced to insist that the individual is all-important.
>
> Is there anything other than an individual that makes a contribution to
> the "lattice of concepts"?
>
> Suppose you go into a meeting and a bunch of people are talking. Is there
> some system in the room that creates ideas that isn't a subsystem of the
> brain of some particular person?
>
> Do you agree or disagree with the arguments at these links?
>
> http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individualism.html
>
> http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/trader_principle.html
>
> Alan
>
>  
>

Hi Alan,

As a student, I was for a time a Rand evangelist, but her philosophy holds
a deep flaw.

When she says "All the functions of body and spirit are private. They
cannot be shared or transferred". she makes a serious and fatal mistake.

The functions of the spirit are both individual and corporate, and the
individual that cuts themselves off from the corporate resources does
themselves harm.  Rand herself, in her books, shares her spirit - this is
the whole motivation for writing.

Re the Trader, she misrepresents the situation. The power of an exchange is
more than just that which passes between the parties.  It is the creation
of "mutual information" (Vlatko Vedral's term) that persists after the
exchange that is most important. This web of mutual information, which I
call the "conceptual field" is central to the fabric of reality.

Specifically, for example, trust is created. Trust is surely an aspect of
the real world, but where does it exist? It is not an aspect of space-time,
but rather a relationship, mutual information.

Re "Suppose you go into a meeting and a bunch of people are talking. Is
there some system in the room that creates ideas that isn't a subsystem of
the brain of some particular person?":

Again, it is the exchange of ideas that creates new links in the field that
creates the value.  Certainly this is something going on between
individuals, but the individual on his own cannot create that abstract but
real edifice that glues us together - the conceptual field.

I have written about this in "Conscious Patterns Dancing in the Field - the
Physics of Mind" (Amazon), building on David's ideas and others'.

-- 
...george...


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