San Diego Objectivist Study Group

Business investors may want to keep an eye on Objectivist Jimmy Wales. He is planning to create a web search engine to rival Google. Check out this magazine interview in which he outlines the principle behind the project. The new search-engine project is located at search.wikia.com. You can test drive the search engine at www.wikia.com.

What is it that ties one’s grasp of reality to one’s actions?

Is this even a valid question? And even if it is, why does it matter to anyone?

This is a question about the link between one’s cognitive awareness of reality and one’s concrete activities in reality. The one is mental; the other is physical. What is it that integrates consciousness to physical reality, spirit to matter, theoretical to practical, and vice versa?

As with anything spiritual, it is a matter of choice. It is one’s choice to want to tie one’s actions to one’s grasp of reality. That is, one has to value having this linkage; or at least one has to discover value in having such a linkage.

For example, it is a value to drive on the road that one is seeing. To drive without seeing where the road is or even whether one is on a road is not a good thing. Conversely, to see a cliff ahead but not steering away or stopping the vehicle is not a good thing.

Likewise, as with anything material, it is a matter of acting on certain principles, and not on the range of the moment or on some unjustified procedure, in order to live a good life. That is, one has to act from the long-range perspective given the facts of the present situation; one has to discover the principles that can and do establish the linkage for good living.

For example, it can surely be a matter of principle to give away one’s worldly possessions to the poor and live among them. Consistent actions on this principle may be possible. But at some point, one has to determine whether the principle does lead to a good life for oneself. And given the new fact, on whichever case, one can continue or cease acting on this principle.

Since man is a being having both a physical body and a volitional consciousness, he needs to tie the two aspects of himself into one coherent life. He needs to choose to act on certain principles, and he needs to discover these principles. These needs are metaphysical. They are beyond his choice; it is in his nature that gives rise to these needs. He is born tabula rasa; thus, he needs to discover knowledge for living, including rational principles. He is born a volitional being; thus, he needs to choose to act on some basis, whether that be pragmatically or logically.

So then, what principle(s) ought one to choose rationally to act on, that will ensure that one’s actions are tied to one’s awareness of reality?

This is a legitimate question, and the question is important for anyone desiring to live a good life.

What is the answer? Is there an answer? Does Objectivism have an answer?

There’s nothing that ties one’s actions to one’s grasp of reality except for one’s voluntary choice to recognize and accept two principles: honesty and integrity. These are the virtues for connecting thoughts and actions together. Honesty is the commitment to grasp and present the facts as they really are and to refuse to evade or misrepresent them. Integrity is the commitment to act and not fail not to act on principles derived from the grasped facts, even in light of difficulties.

The short answer is that it is the only mode of action proper to man if he wants to live in the manner of a man.

Having just read Will Thomas’s essay on “Why Should One Act on Principle,” I am pleased that we ourselves have addressed virtually the same points concerning principles in our TVOS discussions.

We have read TVOS and discussed the following points about principles:

1. The rational is the moral, and the moral is the practical.
2. A principle is a proposition condensing one’s knowledge highly abstractly.
3. When propositions identify facts, they are contextually both true and absolute.
4. Thinking in principles brings to one’s consciousness a vast store of contextual knowledge in the form of a few conceptual units.
5. Acting requires thinking—deductively applying the proper principles to the concrete situations.
6. Moral principles comprise a morality, and a code of morality is a code of values accepted by choice.
7. Acting on principles is a type of action arising from recognizing the basic and relevant facts involved in a situation, whereas acting on rules is obedient action (from an authority) without reason.
8. Acting on true moral principles as a matter of policy defines moral integrity, and discovering which are true as a matter of responsibility defines intellectual independence.
9. The more rational the thinking and acting on principles, the more control one has of one’s life—with “life” conceived as spanning a continuous whole into the far future.
10. Virtues are the actions from rational principles that have been automatized through habits into moral character, while vices are those from irrational principles habituated into character flaws.

Have I missed anything, relative to Will’s essay? Does any of these points need further elaboration? What do you think?

First post in this category:

A Canadian team of scientists have discovered a gene, HACE 1, that stops cancerous cells from multiplying into tumors. The link to the short news report is here. The study itself appears in the August “advance online publication” of Nature Medicine, and it bears the following title and authors:

The E3 ligase HACE1 is a critical chromosome 6q21 tumor suppressor involved in multiple cancers

Liyong Zhang, Michael S Anglesio, Maureen O’Sullivan, Fan Zhang, Ge Yang, Renu Sarao, Mai P Nghiem, Shane Cronin, Hiromitsu Hara, Nataliya Melnyk, Liheng Li, Teiji Wada, Peter P Liu, Jason Farrar, Robert J Arceci, Poul H Sorensen & Josef M Penninger

are up on the activity site.

The online infrastructure has to be logical and usable in the long run. Toward that end, I’ve added categoties as suggested by Thom.

Rather simple, but fun activity. How many clues do you remember without looking in the book? All clues are from The Fountainhead.

When I saw that the blog was set up, I asked myself some questions:

1. Why do I want to participate in a public web log?

Primarily, I want a web log to write so that I can improve my thinking and writing skills. Secondarily, I want to direct my writings toward a subject of interest to me, which is the philosophy of Objectivism; and I want to write about it from the thematic perspective of cultural analysis, taking up where The Ayn Rand Letter had left off in 1975—if not in quality then at least in sheer quantity. And along the process, if the writings make an impact on the readers and on the culture at large, then so much is the better, but that is a tertiary consideration.

2. How do I envision the blog to be organized?

With this tiered goal in mind and with the goal of division of labor with other potential collaborators, I think the log should have the following super structure:

“San Diego Rational Living (fora)” — the public link for anyone to see

• Objectivist Culture (motto: “The World according to Objectivism”)
• Objective News (”News aggregator for the pursuit of the good life”)
• Press Releases (”Changing the World”)
• Online Infrastructure
• Executive Board (private)

Under “Objectivist Culture”:

• Logical writings:
  This section includes blog entries on the philosophy of logic, academic logic, language, grammar, rhetoric, fallacies, argument analyses and interpretations (including debates)
• Epistemological (and ontological) writings:
  This section covers epistemology, cognition, knowledge, issues about percepts, concepts, axioms, induction, justification. For completeness, it includes topics on the philosophy of mind, the faculties of consciousness, volition.
• Ethical writings:
  Blog entries include ethical and metaethical issues, interpretations of Objectivist literature, personal applications of ethics, business ethics.
• Political (and economic) writings:
  Topics include political philosophy, philosophy of law, the nature government, objective law, rights, capitalism, the economy, political power versus economic power, the separation of state from commerce and from religion.
• Psychological writings:
  Topics include motivational psychology, methodological psychology (include psycho-epistemology), self-esteem and self-improvement issues, the art of introspection, intellectual virtues and vices, the awareness and identification of emotions and desires.
• Poetical writings:
  Topics include the esthetics of romantic realism, the nature of artworks, pedagogical approaches to the liberal and fine arts, sense of life in the culture, critical reviews of popular works of entertainment (including games, sports, recreation), attempts at actual works of art (if any).

Under the super structure itself:

• Objective News:
  Topics include first- and second-hand reports (with hyperlinks) about businesses, the marketplace, sciences, medicines, technologies, travels, people, events, etc. that are of interest or relevance in the pursuit of the good life.
• Press Releases:
  Topics includes the group’s own newsmaking events, coordinated publicity, what we are doing to enhance the culture at large for virtuous living.
• Online Infrastructure:
  This section is fine as is, and it is for metadiscussion of the blog, like this entry, and for testing purposes.
• Executive Board (private):
  This section is for keeping a running record of organizational planning. It should be private for a select few. If it can be hidden from the public, so much is the better.

3. Why don’t I want to have separate divisions for ontology, economics, and the laws at the outset?

I don’t know enough of ontology at this time to have a separate category of writings at the outset. Of course, if and when I know more and the needs arise for a separate category, then it will be added. Similarly, I don’t know enough of systematic economics at this time. Certainly, once I read George Reisman’s opus Capitalism or go through his series of audio lectures, then I will definitely have something substantive to write on the economy. Alternatively, if we can find and recruit Objectivist economists and scholars in law, we may have the proper competencies to make comments on the world markets, the economies, and the laws.

Congratulations, Frank, for setting up the online infrastructure!

Yet to be configured, but installation was successful.

Will be glad to consider any suggestions for development and improvement of the online infrastructure for the San Diego Objectivist Study Group