Ayn Rand's "check your premises"

[anticap]

Given that Ayn Rand never had an original thought, where did she get her famous "check your premises"? Because I find that little nugget to be absolutely indispensable. Almost any time anyone opens their mouth, their words rush at me as though carried on a torrential sea of excremental verbiage that I must wade through before I can make sense of what they think they mean. Every sentence becomes an inviting tributary that I might explore for its true meaning, hidden behind a thick jungle of unchecked premises. But since I don't have several lifetimes to spare, I usually just give up in frustration and let them go on living in their fantasy world.

Knowing the true source of this invaluable phrase, which contains all the advice anyone ought to ever need, won't help me with any of the above -- but it will help by empowering me not to have to credit that gorgon with anything positive.

I ask in OI on the off chance that there may be an honest reactionary among you who holds the knowledge I seek.

[Havet]

Given that Ayn Rand never had an original thought, where did she get her famous "check your premises"? Because I find that little nugget to be absolutely indispensable. Almost any time anyone opens their mouth, their words rush at me as though carried on a torrential sea of excremental verbiage that I must wade through before I can make sense of what they think they mean. Every sentence becomes an inviting tributary that I might explore for its true meaning, hidden behind a thick jungle of unchecked premises. But since I don't have several lifetimes to spare, I usually just give up in frustration and let them go on living in their fantasy world.

Knowing the true source of this invaluable phrase, which contains all the advice anyone ought to ever need, won't help me with any of the above -- but it will help by empowering me not to have to credit that gorgon with anything positive.

I ask in OI on the off chance that there may be an honest reactionary among you who holds the knowledge I seek.

"Check your premises" doesn't hold any value in itself. It was just a quick way for Rand to explain to someone that that person had reached a contradiction:


Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

The sentence itself is correct. Though I agree that just claiming to someone to check his/her premises without arguing is a dumb form of discussion, though I was not aware that objectivists did this.

[RED DAVE]

Contradictions do not exist.Wrong, of course. Contradictions most certainly exists in society, nature, etc.


Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.Rand conflates one side being "wrong" with contradiction, which is a form of contradiction although a trivial one.


The sentence itself is correct.The sentence is wrong.


Though I agree that just claiming to someone to check his/her premises without arguing is a dumb form of discussion, though I was not aware that objectivists did thisThe Scientologists do a similar thing. They say, "Are there any words you don't understand?"

RED DAVE

[Havet]

Wrong, of course. Contradictions most certainly exists in society, nature, etc.

Show me such contradictions.

Do you ever find, in natura, a leaf simultaneously dry and wet? On fire and frozen? Of course not. That would be a contradiction, and contradictions do not exist.

Just as an atom cannot be at two places simultaneously.

[RED DAVE]

Show me such contradictions.

Do you ever find, in natura, a leaf simultaneously dry and wet?No problem. A leaf which is drying, or getting wet, is simultaneously wet and dry.


On fire and frozen?A log that is burning on one end but not the other is simultaneously on fire and not on fire. An ocean filled with ice bergs is frozen and not frozen.


Of course not. That would be a contradiction, and contradictions do not exist.

Just as an atom cannot be at two places simultaneously.Actually, you have just stepped in a huge pile of shit as an elementary particle can be two things at once, such as a wave or a particle. You are assuming that that which can be named or described, wet, dry, frozen, on fire, express actual facts when, actually, they are convenient working terms expressing probability. When a leaf, for example, is mostly wet, we say it is wet. But even on the wettest leaf, most of it is not in contact with water.

Check your premises dude. A is not A. We may call it A for functional purposes or for naming, but identity is contradictory.

RED DAVE

[Havet]

No problem. A leaf which is drying, or getting wet, is simultaneously wet and dry.

That is bullshit. Please take the time to learn science:

Wet is defined as the condition of being liquid or being covered in liquid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet). In my example, I referred to wet as being covered in water. Water is constituted by millions of atoms of Oxygen and millions of atoms of Hydrogen, in the form of H2O (2 atoms of hydrogen for every 1 of oxygen), and in alkaline/acid forms such as H3O+ and OH-. In a small enough space of the leaf (if its easier to understand, the radius of a water molecule), you cannot have simultaneously a molecule of water and not have one. It's impossible. Either it's there, and you know it because you can conduct scientific tests to the effect, or its not there. It doesn't disappear of existence and then pops up in a different spot somewhere in the universe. There is no scientific theory that supports that. And if there is, please let me know.


A log that is burning on one end but not the other is simultaneously on fire and not on fire. An ocean filled with ice bergs is frozen and not frozen.

Sigh...

I am talking of conditions in the same space. Let me mark a square in the log. Let me isolate it by means of special chemicals. Now let me set it on fire. Are you claiming that, inside that square (on the surface!), that surface is simultaneously on fire and not on fire? That is ludicrous.


Actually, you have just stepped in a huge pile of shit as an elementary particle can be two things at once, such as a wave or a particle. You are assuming that that which can be named or described, wet, dry, frozen, on fire, express actual facts when, actually, they are convenient working terms expressing probability. When a leaf, for example, is mostly wet, we say it is wet. But even on the wettest leaf, most of it is not in contact with water.

I'm assuming you are talking about the Double-Slit experiment, in which I should point out that:


According to the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, first proposed by Carlo Rovelli[23], observations such as those in the double-slit experiment result specifically from the interaction between the observer and the object being observed, not any absolute property possessed by the object. In the case of an electron, if it is initially observed at a particular slit, then the observer/particle interaction includes information about the electron's position. This partially constrains the particle's eventual location at the screen. If it is observed not at a particular slit but rather at the screen, then there is no "which slit" information as part of the interaction, so the electron's observed position on the screen is determined strictly by its probability function. This makes the resulting pattern on the screen no different than if each individual electron had passed through both slits. It has also been suggested that space and distance themselves are relational, and that an electron can appear to be in "two places at once" — e.g., at both slits — because its spatial relations to particular points on the screen remain identical from both slit locations.


identity is contradictory.


Prove it.

[Publius]

If a formal contradiction existed in nature then, by the principle of explosion, anything you said about the world would be true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion

So if the world can be accurately modeled such that it contains a formal contradiction, anything and everything would follow from that contradiction.

God exists, God does not exist, 2 + 2 = 5, 2 + 2 =4, 2 + 2 = 9, etc.

But of course the world doesn't function this way. So the world isn't actually contradictory, or accurately modeled as such.

Of course our way of speaking about the world can, on its face, appear contradictory. But that's another matter

[Ravachol]

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

This does not say anything AT ALL. Contradictions do not exist in what? Inside arguments? They most certainly do. If by contradiction you mean P and !P being true at the same time, this is indeed trivially true. Rand doesn't say anything else but the obvious here, evading the problem of the establishment and verification of premises and their correctness.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm forgetting my fancy terminology. Basically, there are two different uses of the word "contradiction" being analyzed in the existence scenario.

X and ~X is a contradiction.
"It is possible that I exist and do not exist" (ignoring cats) is a false statement.

Does that sentence exist. The everyday answer is "yes, the sentence exists." Is that sentence an example of a contradiction. In some sense, it is.

Are there actual cases of things being both A and ~A. No. By definition, a contradiction occurs when to things are incompatible. If we find out that it's possible for someone to be dead and alive simultaneously, we will change our definition of what these concepts means. We will no longer view them as contradictory when applied to the same person.

I suppose we might adjust our definition of the word contradiction, but that would be quite ridiculous. Contradiction is a pretty cool concept with a lot of neat uses. I like making idiots feel stupid by showing them contradictions. Don't tell them contradictions don't exist or I'll need new arguments.

Then we have identity issues. Are "dead" and "alive" concepts that have specific traits regardless of how we define them. Yes, but we may not know all these traits. So outside our realm of knowledge, they may be necessarily contradictory.

In the everyday sense, the statement "contradictions exist" to say "there are things that are logically incompatible in a specific way." The exist of actual things

Oh, and paraconsistent logic tries to make sense of contradictions as actually existing in the world. I am not going to look into that matter because I am too emotionally vulnerable from exam season to risk destroying my precious views on contradictions.

[trivas7]

Given that Ayn Rand never had an original thought, where did she get her famous "check your premises"? Because I find that little nugget to be absolutely indispensable.
I find it ironic that you chose to inquire into a Randism that highlights much of the ideological confusion and is the source of much disagreement among the members of the Revleft community. IMO very few are able to explicate -- let alone justify -- the philosophical premises that underlie their political views.

If Ms. Rand was wrong re her premises -- and I think she was wrong -- at least she knew what they were and was able to clearly exposit them.

[Dean]

Its a bunch of meaningless idealism. One of the fundamental values of Randian economics - that is the perceived "selfishness" of people - is not only a severe assumption, but also doesn't follow her conclusions - namely that a minority should manage industry. If people are selfish, the last thing we want is a totalitarian economic system.

hayenmill et al. might want to read of Schrödinger's Cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat), by the way. Although I think the whole contradiction -> Quantum Physics its a rather confused, erroneous tangent.

[OldMoney]

Its very possible that rand wrote the quote herself, but we all know how bourgeois like to steal and pass others ideas off as thier own. The quote isnt really that good. In her crazy litarary world her characters all fit to tightly into thier roles and can only be one way or the other. They have no depth or ability to deviate from said roles, so the quote applies. However when dealing with real people and not literary characters these generalizations dont really apply. Not too many people are all one thing, or all another, we differ as much as the snowflakes that fall. Its a good idea to check your premisies and make sure that you are really fighting for what you belive in, but I really dont think that rand understood what she wrote.

[Havet]

hayenmill et al. might want to read of Schrödinger's Cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat), by the way. Although I think the whole contradiction -> Quantum Physics its a rather confused, erroneous tangent.

I appreciate you bringing that up Dean, since Red Dave et al might want to check out this little nugget:


...Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead.

IMO this is the problem that RED DAVE is ignoring. Just because we don't know where something is doesn't mean its identity is contradictory. It's the same thing with Pluto. Pluto didn't cease to exist just because scientists stopped calling it a planet.

[IcarusAngel]

The reason that people often understand one another is that, according to some psychologists, as much as 70% of information is lost during conversation. So you may misinterpret what people are saying, get lost, etc.

If it's logic you're after study more Russell, Tarski, Godel, Knuth, and so on, depending on what you like. Ayn Rand is kids' stuff.

[Grozny]

My assumptions are three:

1) One's value scale is totally (linearly) ordered:

i) Transitive; p ≤ q and q ≤ r imply p ≤ r

ii) Reflexive; p ≤ p

iii) Anti-Symmetric; p ≤ q and q ≤ p imply p = q

iv) Total; p ≤ q or q ≤ p

2) Marginal (diminishing) utility, u(s), is such that:

i) It is independent of first-unit demand.

ii) It is negative monotonic; that is, u'(s) < 0.

iii) The integral of u(s) from zero to infinity is finite.

3) First-unit demand conforms to proportionate effect:

i) Value changes each day by a proportion (called 1+εj, with j denoting the day), of the previous day's value.

ii) In the long run, the εj's may be considered random as they are not directly related to each other nor are they uniquely a function of value.

iii) The εj's are taken from an unspecified distribution with a finite mean and a non-zero, finite variance.


Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

I don't know about anybody else's economic theory, but there are no contradictions in Axiomatic Economics. I checked.

[MarxSchmarx]

Wrong, of course. Contradictions most certainly exists in society, nature, etc.
Show me such contradictions.

Do you ever find, in natura, a leaf simultaneously dry and wet? On fire and frozen? Of course not. That would be a contradiction, and contradictions do not exist.

Just as an atom cannot be at two places simultaneously.

Here's an example:

This statement is a lie.

[LeftSideDown]

Thats a paradox not a contradiction! (I read it on Wikipedia).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Would orbit be a state of contradiction: gravity and velocity causing a state of relative 0 gravity - falling and not falling at the same time? Wouldn't walking be the same: a state of falling and not falling creating forward movement? What about the fission of the sun - isn't that both implosion and explosion at the same time?

But I'm not sure, this isn't my strongest area. It's much easier to see contradictions in society. Is a park or garden simply either nature or man-made or both at the same time? Overproduction in capitalism: increased productive forces in capitalism produce more food (but due to the basis of the same system that allows for greater food production) starvation is the result of improvements in production. Is a revolution the destruction of social organization or the creation of social organization - isn't it both?


I am talking of conditions in the same space. Let me mark a square in the log. Let me isolate it by means of special chemicals. Now let me set it on fire. Are you claiming that, inside that square (on the surface!), that surface is simultaneously on fire and not on fire? That is ludicrous.Doesn't combustion need both the fuel and the fire - is a log on fire no longer a log or is it in a transition state to becoming carbon?

[MarxSchmarx]

Thats a paradox not a contradiction! (I read it on Wikipedia).

What's the difference?

[Havet]

Would orbit be a state of contradiction: gravity and velocity causing a state of relative 0 gravity - falling and not falling at the same time?

Why would you consider 0 gravity a contradiction?


Wouldn't walking be the same: a state of falling and not falling creating forward movement?

It's not the fact that you are "falling and not falling at the same time" which creates forward movement. What creates forward movement is the friction of your shoe in relation to the ground. If you were in a perfectly frictionless ice floor then you would not be able to create such friction and you would not eb able to move forward.

The reason you don't fall when you're standing is because there is an opposite reaction to your weight coming from the ground. But opposite reactions are not contradictions; they are simply forces with opposite directions (and usually the same "strength")


What about the fission of the sun - isn't that both implosion and explosion at the same time?

Not really. Nuclear Fission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission) is just a nuclear reaction wherein an atom splits itself into smaller parts.


But I'm not sure, this isn't my strongest area. It's much easier to see contradictions in society. Is a park or garden simply either nature or man-made or both at the same time? Overproduction in capitalism: increased productive forces in capitalism produce more food (but due to the basis of the same system that allows for greater food production) starvation is the result of improvements in production. Is a revolution the destruction of social organization or the creation of social organization - isn't it both?

But when you look at society you start to analyze individuals behaviour/thoughts and those can indeed be filled with contradictions. We were talking about the very nature of identity in the universe.


Doesn't combustion need both the fuel and the fire - is a log on fire no longer a log or is it in a transition state to becoming carbon?

Wood is made of predominantly cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. all three are predominantly composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in various combinations. So if we say wood is:

CxHyOz

then burning of wood is

CxHyOz + O2 ------> CO2 + H20

if you know x, y, and z, you can balance the equation

So this means that the log is progressively being transformed into CO2 and H2O. Obviously if you just look it from a macroscopic level, it appears that some parts of it are on fire while others are not (apparently a contradiction), but what really happens is a progressive reaction. It would be impossible to find the same molecules being transformed into CO2 and H2O and not being transformed, simultaneously.