Good morning all! It’s a bright and beautiful Sunday morning here in the wonderful city of San Francisco - which means, the sun did come up (again) as (so I’m told) I inducted fallaciously... funny how that works...

Anyway, while all the theists of the forum are snoozing away in their church pews this morning, I’m busy at work here on my computer before my day gets going up to speed. I wanted to pick up where I left off last night on BKNewton’s wonderfully rich post regarding epistemology, knowledge, truth and a meadow covered with multi-colored flowers with a back drop of scenic mountains. So, here we go...

Remember that truth is the recognition of reality as I explained in my last post. This means, in order for a statement, proposition or claim to be ‘true’, it must be found to be in conformity with reality. Reality is the realm of existence. If something does NOT exist, then any positive statement of certainty about that something that does NOT exist is naturally suspect.

For instance, I give you Peter Pan, the hero of many childhood myths. I make the statement (a claim): "Peter Pan lives down the block from me" which naturally presupposes that I think Peter Pan exists. Does Peter Pan live down the street from me? Does Peter Pan even exist? What is my evidence? How do I support this claim? How do I validate my proposition? One of the first things to ask (which is naturally presumable in this case, but I’ll ask it any for purposes of instruction), is: What is Peter Pan? In other words, I recognize that I must define my terms - the terms which make up my claim, beginning with ‘Peter Pan’. Then I answer: Peter Pan is a fictitious childhood hero that ‘exists’ only in story books who runs around in green tights sprinkling magic dust on his chums so they can master the art of flying around like the loon he himself is (embarrassments love company). Already, my subject matter is highly suspect by definition. Now that I have made clear this definition of ‘Peter Pan’, shall I continue with my original claim that "Peter Pan lives down the block from me"??? What do you think?

Obviously, since the definition of ‘Peter Pan’ that I have offered defies nature (fictitious heroes do not exist, there is no such thing as magic dust which enables children to fly, etc.), I have already precluded my original claim from rational validation. Why? Because it is in direct conflict with reality. Which, I ask you, will win out: the conflict (a contradiction to reality), or reality?

(I’ll let you think about that.)

In my last post I mentioned how important it is to define one’s terms. "Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the fine line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration," (Ayn Rand, "Art and Cognition", The Romantic Manifesto, pg. 77). If we abandon the definitions of our terms to the wilderness of vague orbits and nebulous idle musings, the statements we make about our terms will consequently remain just as worthless.

We build our statements on our terms; our terms are the building blocks for our statements. Each of those terms stands for a concept by means of definitions. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated by a process of abstraction and united by a specific definition. By organizing his perceptual material into concepts, and his concepts into wider and still wider concepts, man is able to grasp and retain, identify and integrate an unlimited amount of knowledge, a knowledge extending beyond the immediate concretes of any given immediate moment.

Thus, as Rand explains here in brief, concepts are tools of cognition. Notice how Rand neatly shows the importance of perception to concepts. Rand elaborates at length on this vital connection between cognition and sense-perception in her chapters devoted to the subject of concept-formation in her book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Her detailed explanation covers every base, and is easy to read, unlike many other treatments of the same subject, which were obviously written for the Ivy Leaguers and similar academic hacks. Rand’s work is accessible: even BK and Howard would be able to understand it, I am certain.

In regard to Peter Pan, one might ask, and properly so, "What about myths and legends? How do Rand’s ideas about concepts and concept-formation apply to fictional inventions which are obviously not true (i.e., NOT based on perception of reality, but are indeed unreal)?"

This is where man’s imagination comes into the picture. "Man’s imagination is nothing more than the ability to rearrange the things he has observed in reality," (Rand, "The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made", Philosophy: Who Needs It, pg. 25).

"Imagination is not a faculty for escaping reality, but a faculty for rearranging the elements of reality to achieve human values; it requires and presupposes some knowledge of the elements one chooses to rearrange. An imagination divorced from reality has only one product: a nightmare... An imagination that replaces cognition is one of the surest ways to create neurosis," (Rand, The Objectivist, July 1970, pg. 7).

Thus Peter Pan, a fictional character, is a compilation of rearrangements of the elements of reality that its original author(s) imagined. Some of those elements of reality include: a boy, flight, dust, friends & chums, pirates, etc. The notion magic is not a legitimate concept in itself, for it has no basis in reality, but is a substitute for an explanation for all the violations of reality that the story asserts, in this case, to amuse children. Rather than trying to convince the child audience in some articulate manner how the ‘magic dust’ when sprinkled onto Peter Pan’s chums enables them to fly, the story-teller simply skips this - since there is no explanation that would convince - and merely states that it happens in the context of the tale without any attempt to explain it.

So, to answer BK’s question: "What gives something the property of being true" is simply correspondence to reality. Something must first exist in order for any statement about to be true (truth being the recognition of reality). If something does not exist (such as Peter Pan), then no statement about that non-existent something (in the case of Peter Pan a product of imagination) can be said to be true.

If I invent the ‘god’ Blarko as a means of evading an explanation of reality (just as the magic dust served in the context of the Peter Pan tale), then I remove from reality my propositions, and therefore am no longer capable of truth (since truth is the recognition of reality). Get it?

You mean like you did in your ‘definition’ of truth? Let’s look at it again:

BK’s definition of ‘truth’ (keep in mind, it seems that BK had to invent this definition himself, for it does not appear to have any direct biblical citations):

Sort of reminds me of that ‘magic dust’ the Peter Pan’s authors gave him to enable his chums to fly. So, BK says truth is what "corresponds to the mind of God". Interesting. If you are going to establish is as your definition of ‘truth’ (you might as well, the Bible doesn’t define it anywhere), AND if you are going to use it CONSISTENTLY in your EVERY INTEGRATION, then I wish you luck, because you’ll need it. Your definition does not take into account any cognitive process which man requires, NOR DOES IT EVEN MAKE ANY APPEAL TO REALITY. Hence, this definition is useless to me. I reject it completely.

Stay tuned for MORE TINDRBOX, right after these messages!!

T~

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