Comments on: Thinking Like a State

By: Roderick

Roderick — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:29:35 +0000

Coincidentally, I mention Thompson and Millikan in the Cato Unbound piece that’s going up tomorrow.

By: Neverfox

Neverfox — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:39:54 +0000

I second McDowell and Thompson. Two other names that come to mind for me are John F. Post and Ruth Millikan.

By: MBH

MBH — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:31:43 +0000

Brandon: not all assimilation stories end the same....

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:19:21 +0000

No central planning agency goes without its head-of-state:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_%28Star_Trek%29#Borg_Queen

By: Aster

Aster — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:18:24 +0000

First, more Tori. Ordered Roderick’s book.
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1) Would you say that Rand was correct in saying that emotions can be made to follow premises, but that she understood it as an involuntary process rather than a skill- a skill she personally may have unconsciously habitualised?

2) Are you claiming that aesthetic awareness is a form of perception and for a rational being a kind of opinion, or a more or less refined awareness of reality (‘the intrinsic’), thereby placing it on epistemological par with empirical awareness, something like Kant’s notion of ‘inner sense’?

3) Are you arguing that human perceptions and neurological states inherently interrelate with one another, and that the line between one consciousness and another is blurred and interactive all the way down to the neurological level?

4) Thought you might like this:

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/obj-studies/cyber/BRHeid.asp
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Is there another forum which might be more suited to an extended philosophy discussion unlikely to be of interest to most here? With no disrespect to our host, (whose mind I also have the highest regard for) the medium of blog comments is limiting, and libertarian society often tends towards a regrettably oppositional intellectual atmosphere.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:20:19 +0000

A narrow vision. You will become one with the Borg. You will all become one with the Borg.

By: Aster

Aster — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:37:24 +0000

Then perhaps the Borg (a contraction of ‘boring’?) should cease reproducing, if this reproduction requires a suppression of less-cybered individuals’ passion, creativity, and intelligence. If I was the borg, I could find far more interesting uses for my time than reducing free minds to cells in an assembly line social organism.

By: Neil

Neil — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:17:01 +0000

The Borg don’t reproduce. They only assimilate.

By: Aster

Aster — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:32:53 +0000

Well, I’ve no prejudices against the Borg, so long as they cease forcibly assimilating people and agree to have their rights recognised as a single (very intelligent, capable, and large) rational organism. Cyborgs are people too.

note: we consider the term ‘toaster’ to be uncivilised.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:54:17 +0000

MBH: I’ll have you assimilated by the Borg.