Chapter 1 AYN RAND AND OBJECTIVISM - PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE * Randism vs Objectivism * Rand's incorrect definition of selfish * Rand's personal statist views * Rand's failure to distinguish between politics and economics * What is Objectivism? * The Relationship Between Philosophy and Science * How Scientists Can Build Bombs * The Scientific Attitude of Mind * Some History of Science * Miscellaneous Comments on the Nature of Science * Examples of the Scientific Attitude applied * Some Critiques of Science * Randism vs Objectivism When Nathaniel Branden was asked (in 1971) if he were an Objectivist, he replied: "If you mean, do I agree with the broad fundamentals of the philosophy of Objectivism, I would answer, 'Yes.' But if you mean, as Miss Rand might very well wish you to mean, do I agree with every position that Miss Rand has taken and do I regard the sum total of Miss Rand's intellectual pronouncements as being equal to what is meant by the philosophy of Objectivism, then I am not an Objectivist." I would like to introduce these two terms: A Randite is a disciple of Ayn Rand. Randism is the set of ideas that were Rand's personal beliefs. (This includes, of course, some - but not all - of the precepts of Objectivism.) There is a very important distinction to be made between Randism and Objectivism. Randism asserts the congruency of Rand's statements with the principles of Objectivism: "what Rand says and only what Rand says is Objectivism." (Or, as Peikoff puts it: "Objectivism is a closed system.") The fact that Rand has made incalculably valuable identifications of certain philosophical principles does by no means convey upon her exclusive or infallible domain in the further identification or application of those principles; nor, on the other hand, do Rand's incorrect identifications or improper applications in the least diminish the truth or usefulness of the principles of Objectivism. A big difference between the Objectivists and the Randites is that the Objectivists do not view Objectivism as a dogma i.e., a set of ideas to be accepted without question. We see it as an intellectual tool that is useful in helping us to understand the world, in much the same way that the Scientific Method is. From this point of view, the idea that someone can be "an enemy of Objectivism" (one of Leonard Peikoff's favorite denunciations) is as ridiculous as the idea that someone can be "an enemy of the Integral Calculus." There are many parallels to be drawn between Rand/Objectivism and Newton/The Calculus. In each case an immensly powerful, beautiful and useful intellectual tool was derived by a human being who possessed some of the foibles of humanity. In each case the tool was jealously clung to and possessively circumscribed by its creator. In each case the tool was rejected and reviled by some reactionary people. And in each case (as time will eventually demonstrate) the power and utility of the tool will outlast the small-minded people who criticize it. Alongside these parallels there is a significant difference: it would be rather farfetched to regard a set of mathematical principles as a religion, but it is quite possible (and is indeed the practice of some people) to regard a set of philosophical principles as a religion. There are those who adulate Rand almost as if she were a deity and who regard Objectivism as a sacred dogma. I believe the important aspects of her life are the philosophical achievements, not her personal attributes. Her personal foibles will eventually fade into the oblivion of historical forgetfulness - like Aristotle's male chauvinism, or Newton's alchemy, or Einstein's socks - and what will be left for future generations are the valuable philosophical identifications she made. I would say this to the Randites: Abandon the attitude that the principles of Objectivism and the pronouncements of Ayn Rand are congruent sets. Realize that Objectivism, like the Scientific Method, is an open-ended set of principles rather than a closed and rigidly defined dogma. Recognize the importance of the work being done by those scholars who are trying to develop the ethical and political implications of the Objectivist Ethics. Until you do this, you will only be ostracizing yourselves from the living and powerful body of philosophy that is growing on the foundation of Ayn Rand's magnificent achievements. * Rand's incorrect definition of selfish You will observe that in my essays I do not use the term "selfish," but use instead "self-interested." Here is why. From the introduction to THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS, by Ayn Rand: The title of this book may evoke the kind of question that I hear once in a while: "Why do you use the word 'selfishness' to denote virtuous qualities of character, when that word antagonizes so many people to whom it does not mean the things you mean?".... there are others, who would not ask that question, sensing the moral cowardice it implies.... There are, roughly speaking, three classes of people: 1. Those concerned with their own advantage without any regard for others. 2. Those having no concern for self at all. 3. Those who are concerned with their own self-benefit and who are also aware of and concerned with their social context. Rand makes a good case for altruism's having falsely divided humanity into just two classes - the first and the second - leaving no room for the third category, the "self-respecting, self-supporting man - a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others." But if you consult the Oxford English Dictionary, you will find that Rand's use of the term "selfish" to designate the third category is not conclusively justified etymologically. Historically, the terms most often used to designate these three categories are: 1. Selfish: concerned with one's own advantage without regard for others. This has almost always been described as wicked. 2. Selfless: having no concern for self. This has always been described as being ethically laudable. 3. Self-interested: concerned with one's own well-being. This has only sometimes been described as a vice. These three usages are quite sensible terms of classification, enabling us to distinguish clearly among the three categories. Rand's insistence on using the term "selfish" to designate that third category is a mistake, both a cognitive mistake and a communications mistake. It is a cognitive mistake because when she usurps the term "selfish" she does not provide an alternative term for the first category. Thus she commits the same cognitive error for which she upbraids the altruist mentality: providing convenient terms for only two out of the three categories. It is a communications mistake because the three terms enumerated above are distinctly specified also in Webster's Ninth Collegiate dictionary, and thus are the terms most likely to be considered by educated Americans. It is certainly true that there are many people to whom "selfish" does not mean the things Rand means, and to question her usage of the term is not, as she so stridently claims, an act of "moral cowardice" but merely an attempt to preserve cognitive clarity and communications utility. Perhaps it is no coincidence that in THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS, Rand places at the very last her essay on "The Argument From Intimidation." * Rand's personal statist views In the realm of politics we must make a careful distinction between Rand's personal views and the implications of the Objectivist ethics. The Objectivist stand is quite clear: "The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may INITIATE the use of physical force against others. No man - or group or society or government - has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man." (From "The Objectivist Ethics," in THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS.) But Rand's personal stand is fundamentally different. We can best see this in her answers to two questions put to her during her appearance at the Ford Hall Forum in 1972. Question: Have you heard of the Libertarian Party and would you consider endorsing John Hospers and Tonie Nathan as presidential candidates? Rand: Look, I would rather vote for Bob Hope or the Marx brothers, if they still exist, or Jerry Lewis - I don't know who is the funniest today, rather than something like professor Hospers and the Libertarian Party. Look, I don't think Henry Wallace is a great thinker but even he - he's pretty much of a demagogue, though with some courage - even he had the good sense to stay home this time if he wanted to some extent - if he had one ounce of sincerity and wanted some freedom for his country. To choose this year to start after personal publicity - and if Hospers and whoever the rest are get ten votes away from Nixon, which I doubt, but if they do it is a moral crime. Question: Will you comment on the issue of should amnesty be granted to draft dodgers? Rand: I think it is an improper question to be discussed while there is a war going on. It is a very complex question but you cannot, when men are dying in a war, say that you promise amnesty to those who refused. On the other hand I do not blame those who refused to be drafted if they did so out of general conviction, not necessarily religious, but if they oppose the state's right to draft them. They would have a case, and they would go to jail. And they would be willing to take that penalty. Both Rand and her disciples have continually asserted this strong opposition to the political implementation of libertarianism. And her acceptance of the legitimacy of government authority was repeatedly expressed both in word and deed. * Rand's failure to distinguish between politics and economics The last criticism I wish to present against Ayn Rand involves a failure that was expressed not just in her personal behavior but which also shows up in her philosophical writings. It is that she never made a distinction between Politics and Economics. She almost always referred to capitalism as "laissez- faire capitalism" or "free-market capitalism," thus inexorably integrating this primary economic concept with a political institution. In my writings I will try to make a clear distinction between the two realms of human activity, and provide definitions that will make it easier to think about them. * What is Objectivism? In considering the most fundamental ideas about the nature of the universe, there are two basically distinct ideas: One, known as subjectivity, asserts fundamentally that existence is created by consciousness. The other idea, known as objectivity, asserts fundamentally that there is indeed a real world that has its own existence, independent of any perceiving consciousness. Perhaps the best statement of this idea was made by Albert Einstein: "Out yonder there is this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking." In the realm of scientific endeavor, objectivity (in the form of the Scientific Method) has predominated. But in other realms of human endeavor, such as Psychology, Ethics, and Politics, objectivity has had much less influence in human history, mainly because the lack of a solution to the Problem of the Universals precluded the sort of firm and direct linkage between concepts of consciousness and reality as exists between scientific concepts and reality (where truth prevails in a much more immediate and direct manner). But in the late 1960s the Problem of the Universals was solved by Ayn Rand. She showed that Definitions Are Not Arbitrary, and she demonstrated how to derive them directly from observations of reality. The same cognitive process that enables you to construct a correct definition also enables you to think in principles: to identify and classify things by reference to their fundamental distinguishing characteristics. This epistemological breakthrough enabled objectivity to be applied to ALL areas of human activity. The work of Rand and other philosophers who have taken up this effort has produced a set of principles now known as the Philosophy of Objectivism. These principles stand in distinct contrast to most of traditional philosophy and are, by and large, rather unpopular. (But that is to be expected of any set of ideas that is new and challenges the existing state of affairs. It has always been this way.) Objectivism is the only philosophy that is completely consistent with Physics. The ideas of Objectivism are founded upon a set of (Aristotelian) Axiomatic Concepts: Existence, Identity, and Consciousness, and are derived from those concepts by the intellectual procedure set forth in the Objectivist Epistemology. This is a scientific, rationalist method which subsumes the Scientific Method of determining truth. It extends the Scientific Method to include areas of inquiry not usually thought to be amenable to scientific analysis. In her essay "The Objectivist Ethics," Rand applies this intellectual procedure to identifying a rational basis for ethics and morality. Nathaniel Branden, in his book "The Psychology of Self-Esteem," applies the procedure to identifying the bases of human psychology. Harry Browne gives us a rational explanation of the nature of economics. Hospers and Rothbard carry the procedure into the field of politics. It is objectivity that is my area of interest, and Objectivism is the philosophical context within which I write. A philosophy is a set of principles which provides a consistent and comprehensive frame of reference from which to judge man and his environment. If a philosophy is to be a comprehensive frame of reference it must encompass the full scope of man's thoughts and activities. Especially must it include Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Morality, Psychology, Politics, Economics and Esthetics - since all of man's activities are founded on one or more of these fields of study. I will give a brief exposition of the Objectivist principles as they apply to each of these fields. In order to clarify my presentation I will in each case contrast the Objectivist position with its contrary or opposite. The general schema looks like this: Metaphysics objectivity vs subjectivity Epistemology reason vs faith Ethics egoism vs altruism Morality self-interest vs degeneracy Psychology free will vs determinism Politics libertarianism vs statism Economics free enterprise vs socialism Esthetics romanticism vs anti-romanticism Let us consider each of these terms and see what they mean. Metaphysics is the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality. As I pointed out above, there are basically only two viewpoints in this matter. One, objectivity, maintains that there is a real, factual world which exists independently of the consciousness of any perceiving entity. This is not to say that there is no interrelationship between consciousness and reality, or that an acting conscious entity cannot alter and transform the entities of reality by acting in accord with the physical laws that describe reality, but rather that the facts of reality have their own existence whether we are aware of them or not. Subjectivity, on the other hand, maintains that reality, in its fundamental essense, is not a firm absolute but is instead somehow dependent on, or a function of, consciousness. The basis of subjectivity is a denial of the Law of Identity. (There is another, quite different, sense in which the term subjective is used: it refers to choices or decisions which are generated by reference to internal states of consciousness rather than by assessment of external factors. For example: the choice between chocolate or vanilla ice cream is a subjective choice. But the choice between an ice cream cone for me or a bottle of milk for my hungry baby should be an objective choice.) Epistemology is the study of the source, nature and validity of human knowledge. Here the Objectivist says that since there is a real world "out there" (outside myself) it is the job of my consciousness to identify it. To do this I make use of my faculty of reason - the ability to perceive, identify and integrate the evidence of reality provided by my senses. The source of all my knowledge lies in the rigorous adherence to logic, the art of non- contradictory identification of the facts of reality. The subjectivist, however, is bound to no such procedure. Since for him there is no firm, absolute "out there," his knowledge has its source in some form or another of introspection (revelation) and its validity is accepted on faith - that is, accepted without evidence or proof, or in spite of evidence to the contrary. Concerning Ethics and Morality I make this distinction: Morality describes intra-personal actions whereas Ethics describes inter-personal actions. For example: dope addiction is immoral (it is self-destructive) but it is not unethical. Stealing to support one's habit is, however, unethical. Drunkenness is merely immoral; blocking the sidewalk with your stupefied body is unethical. Refusing to think is immoral, but failing, through this intellectual laziness, to fulfil your obligations as a husband/father or wife/mother is unethical. As you probably infer, I believe that most unethical actions have their basis in immorality. I will save you the trouble of consulting your dictionary by telling you that this distinction is etymologically unjustifiable. Cicero was the first to use the term "morals" and as he did so he noted that he meant this term to have precisely the same meaning as the Greek term "ethics." Since that time the two terms have been used synonymously, but I think it clear that there is a distinction to be made between two kinds of behavior, and the most appropriate terms to use in labeling this distinction are Ethics and Morality. In the field of Ethics the Objectivist position is egoism: that man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, and that each man should live his own life for his own sake. The contrary position, altruism, holds that man must make the welfare of others the primary goal of his social relationships and that self-sacrifice is the highest virtue. At this point I am sometimes beset with an argument that starts out: "Do you mean to say that you're the sort of wretched brute who tramples all over other people to gain your ends?" and continues by proposing a kind of false dichotomy which divides all human intercourse into two categories: sadism and masochism, and then tries to sell me masochism on the grounds that sadism is my only alternative. Most people posing this argument refuse to recognize the existence of a third type of man - the independent, self-supporting, profit- making trader, who neither sacrifices others to himself nor himself to others. Morally, this sort of independently existing man is a self-interested person. That is to say, he is a man who is CONCERNED WITH HIS OWN BENEFIT. This implies, of course, that he knows what his own interests actually are. Is it in my own physical self-interest to be a drunkard or a dope fiend? Hardly, for these activities are clearly self-destructive. Is it in my own psychological self-interest to be a liar or a thief? Again, no, because these actions, although not as obviously self-destructive as alcoholism or other drug addiction, are saboteurs of the mind's most basic function: integration. You cannot integrate a contradiction and both lies and thefts are contradictions. (My second examples - liar/thief - are not merely immoral but unethical as well, and you can see from considering them that unethical actions are associated with immoral conditions.) What I'm trying to point out is that many actions which are usually called "selfish" (lies, thefts, or the wretched brute trampling on his poor fellow creatures) are not IN FACT in one's self-interest at all, and that the truly self-interested man is one who has carefully examined and rationally analysed his nature as a proper human being and thereby determined just what is IN FACT in his self-interest. The liar, thief and brute are not self-interested, they are actually self- destructive - they are degenerate. Objectivist morality has two fundamental bases: acceptance of life itself as the standard of values; and identification of the actions that are causally required by our nature to achieve that end - to sustain life. The primary task of morality is to identify the needs that must be satisfied to live successfully, and the capacities that we have for satisfying those needs. We prove that something is a proper value by showing that we need it; and we prove that some course of action is a virtue by showing that it is required for the proper exercise of our capacities. In the realm of Psychology, Objectivism holds that man is a creature of free will. This is to say that he is capable of making choices which are causal primaries. Determinism, on the other hand, is the principle that all of man's choices and actions are determined by forces (heredity, environment, etc.) which are outside of his control. In political issues Objectivists are promoters of the libertarian ideal. Their political goals are based on the ethical principle that no man or group of men has the right to initiate the use of force against the person or property of other people. We hold that there are only three proper functions of a governing agency: the military, to protect men against aggression by foreign criminals, the police, to protect men against aggression by domestic criminals, and the courts, to resolve disputes and disagreements, which even among just and rational men can at times arise. We hold that a governing agency has no right to restrict a person's activities in the moral area (thus we oppose drug laws, laws forbidding sex acts between consenting adults, and all other "victimless crime" laws) and that it can rightfully act in the ethical area only when force (or its derivative, fraud) have been initiated (thus we oppose all subsidies to business - or farmers - all tariffs and import/export restrictions, licensing laws, and all other laws restricting the freedom of production, transportation and trade). In brief, we advocate a political system wherein each individual has the right to do anything whatsoever which does not initiate force or fraud against anyone else, and in which the role of a governing agency is strictly restrained to the protection of that right. This is contrasted to the statist system, which is widespread and becoming ever more prevalent today, in which the State exercises predominant control over the actions of individuals, continually increasing the scope and intensity of its regimentation and by "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariable the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism." Corresponding to its political system, a society has an associated economic system. Considering the nature of libertarianism, it is clear that its associated economic system must have a strong foundation in the individual's right to own, control, use and dispose of his private property. Libertarians advocate a capitalist economic organization in which the means of production - land, capital, etc. - are owned and controlled by individuals (or voluntarily associated groups of individuals), and in which there are no restrictions on the freedom of production, transportation and trade. The opposite form of economic organization, socialism (of which fascism and communism are variants), is a system in which the economic resources are controlled by the State and in which individuals have little, if any, economic freedom. The last philosophical category I will consider is that of art forms. Here, as before, I divide the field into two major domains. One, subsumed by the term romanticism, includes all those works which are based on the recognition that man is a volitional creature - that he has the power to make choices and that those choices are major determinators of his life. The greatest portrayal of romantic heroism can be found in the novels of Ayn Rand. The major task of a romantic work of art is, as Aristotle said, "to show things as they might be and ought to be." The other esthetic domain (which, for lack of a suitable general label, I will simply call "anti-romanticism") shows things as they "must be" (or are seen to be) and depicts man as a creature who has, essentially, no power over his destiny. Anti-romanticism began with classicism, evolved into naturalism, and is in turn evolving into absurdism. The best such work of great classical literature is the Greek drama "Oedipus Rex." A good example of naturalism is "Death of a Salesman" and a typical representative of absurdism is "Waiting for Godot." If I were asked to express the essence of Objectivism in one short statement I could do no better than to quote Ayn Rand, the foremost identifier and expounder of these principles: "Man is a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." * The Relationship Between Philosophy and Science Scientists are very devoted to the scientific method, and they find that the scientific method is to be applied most successfully in the world that can be observed. That is not the world of moral values or the world of philosophical thought, but in the laboratory where ideas can be tested. So they regard science as the only really genuine form of knowledge. This leaves them with an empty spot in their lives. They're not practiced in applying logic and reason to questions of value or philosophy. So they move this area of thought over to the realm of faith. Their very devotion to the world of fact leaves them hungry for some sort of clear guidance as to their conduct for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, philosophers spend their entire lives dealing with a world of imaginings, conjectures, and fantasies, NOT with the physical facts of reality - at least not beyond the tap in the sink and the switch on the wall. They look with disdain upon the world of the physicist and the engineer as being one of "crass materialism" - beneath the dignity of their lofty intellectual position and not worthy of any serious consideration. The result is that their ideas are usually entirely separated from reality and produce a distortion when applied to the real physical world. Consider Immanuel Kant, for example. He went to school, then he was a tutor, then he was a professor at university for the rest of his life. As far as I know he never even did so much physics as to draw a bucket of water up out of a well. Thus whereas Thales (who was a bridge-builder) gave us Aristotle, John Locke, and the United States of America - Kant (who was a pure philosopher) gave us Fichte and Nazi Germany, Karl Marx and the Soviet Union. But I cannot place all the blame on the shoulders of the philosophers. After all, the philosopher does only half the job - he just conceives the ideas. It is the scientist who creates the means of implementing those ideas. Both men are equally responsible for the effects of their joint product. Just as the philosophers are guilty of not knowing science - and thereby of failing to test their ideas against reality, so the scientists are guilty of ignoring philosophy - and thereby failing to understand the principles underlying their actions. * How Scientists Can Build Bombs Interviewer: "You must feel good, working for peace like that." [on the Manhattan Project] Richard Feynman: "No, that never enters my head, whether it is for peace or otherwise. We don't know. You see, what happened to me - what happened to the rest of us - is we STARTED for a good reason, then you're working very hard to accomplish something and it's a pleasure, it's excitement. And you stop thinking [about principles], you know; you just STOP." Years ago in Los Alamos I had a hero, Enrico Fermi. He designed and supervised the first nuclear reaction in the history of the world - in that squash court at the University of Chicago. Then he built the first nuclear bomb that was used - the Hiroshima bomb. I worshiped that man. He was dapper. Jaunty. My God, he even had a sense of humor! And he started this whole nuclear misery. You expect him to look and act like Mephistopheles, but here was a marvelous little guy making jokes, while doing everything better than everyone else. I loved that guy back then. I wanted to be like him. But I couldn't. Because I didn't have whatever it takes for a man to enjoy himself while perfecting these weapons. When I first interviewed the scientists and first heard them tell of their work on weapons, I wondered if it were possible to be so divorced from the consequences of one's work. It seemed to me that no matter how subtle the problem a given weapon presented or how challenging its contemplation might be, the ashes and the bones in the end would be the same. Most scientists will, quite unthinkingly, sell their souls in exchange for a laboratory supplied by loot. The primary obstacle in developing any ethical philosophy is the lack of a starting point. The analyst sees a set of "ought" terms: good, well, right, proper, virtue, should, bad, wrong, etc. - each of which can evidently be defined in terms of the others, but none of which has an independent, non- relative existence. Rand's genius was to identify the connection between the "ought" of volitional judgement and the "is" of reality. It is no accident that many of the early Greek philosophers were practicing engineers, architects, bridge-builders, harbor designers. They were men whose minds were intimately tied directly to the facts of reality, and that's why so many of their philosophical notions are so profound. In an attempt to link science and philosophy, a reasonable question to ask is "Where can we find a starting point - a foundation stone of certitude as the ultimate basis of human knowledge? A place where we can stand in unquestionable certainty and from whence we can build a structure of sure knowledge?" For a mathematician this is no problem - he starts by looking at his fingers and counting them, each symbol in his mathematical system representing an identifiable quantity that is directly observed by his senses of sight and touch. For the physicist also this is no problem - he merely refers to the broadest and most universal concept known to science: the First Law of Thermodynamics (the notion that the sum total of mass/energy in the universe is constant; that you can't create the stuff and you can't destroy the stuff). You can see that the physicist's notion is fundamental to that of the mathematician: the mathematician quantifies the entities that are composed of mass/energy, but the physicist deals with the mass/energy directly. Is there something that is fundamental to the notion of the physicist? Yes, there is, and we can approach it through such questions as "What is the essential nature of the mass/energy?" "What is the fundamental nature of the Universe?" "What laws or principles underly all things - and all the behavior of all the things?" There is an answer to these questions. An answer which subsumes both the mathematician's notion and the physicist's notion. We might well call it the Philosopher's Notion. It was given to us by Aristotle, and it is the Law of Identity. The Law of Identity is one of the fundamental, axiomatic concepts identified by Aristotle. In his Metaphysics, Book 4, Part 3, he observes: "...for these truths hold good for everything that is.... And all men use them, because they are true of being qua being.... For a principle which everyone must have who understands anything that is, is not a hypothesis.... Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect." Stated as a tautology: A is A. A thing (ANY thing and EVERY thing) is what it is. This idea is the foundation stone of all human knowledge. It serves to tie human consciousness to the facts of reality. That it is indeed fundamental can be seen when you observe that it cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge, that it has to be accepted and used even in any attempt to deny it. For example, suppose you say "The Law of Identity is invalid." Observe that you have made a specific statement and that it has a specific meaning. (Even within your own mind, you do NOT intend it to have the opposite meaning!) Therefore your statement is what it is - it complies with the Law of Identity - in spite of its own contention to the contrary. This is a situation which you cannot escape, no matter how cleverly you might attempt to rephrase your contention. The Law of Identity always prevails, in everything that you think, that you say, and that you do. It is truly fundamental. It is, as Aristotle said, "the most certain of all" - it is the foundation of certainty. The Law of Identity is a foundation of objectivity. Any scientist who probes beneath the First Law of Thermodynamics will soon encounter the Law of Identity, and there he will find the doorway into the philosophy of Objectivism. That doorway is the link between science and philosophy. When you find, in the Objectivist Ethics, the TANSTAAFL principle (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch): the idea that "You can't get something for nothing, unless someone, somewhere, sometime, is getting nothing for something", you see the direct link between Ethics and the First Law of Thermodynamics. Objectivism is the only philosophy that is completely consistent with Physics. Indeed, Physics is a subset of Objectivism, for the fundamental principles of Physics (the Laws of Thermodynamics) are themselves founded upon the Axiomatic Concepts identified by the Objectivist Epistemology. Objectivism starts with fundamentals and builds knowledge on a solid foundation, from the ground up. Adherents of many modern philosophical perspectives hate this very approach, and eschew the need for "foundations" of knowledge altogether. They point out that thinkers have been trying to do this for centuries and cannot agree on anything. Therefore, they argue, what's the use? And so THEY start in midair, with some supposedly common point of reference allegedly agreed upon, but which is in fact controversial, derivative, and even arbitrary. The result is usually a ramshackle mess which presupposes an enormous amount that is never discussed, leads nowhere, and solves nothing. What Objectivism has is a consistent, comprehensive philosophical framework from which to ask questions about reality, and a consistent, comprehensive scientific framework in which to seek answers to those questions. Only this scenario can lead to a full understanding of reality. * The Scientific Attitude of Mind Science is not a body of knowledge but a way of thinking - a process - a method. The body of knowledge is what results from that process. And a Scientist is not necessarily someone who has a PhD in physics, but is anyone who practices that way of thinking. It is characterized primarily by being reality-oriented and flexible. A scientist assumes, as Einstein put it, that "Out yonder there is this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking." This is the fundamental premise of science. The other element of scientific thought - flexibility - is the ability and willingness to alter one's ideas so as to bring them into correspondence with that "independently existing world." Nature does not necessarily comply with the arbitrary boundaries established by human conjectures, and when she does not, we must accept the necessity of modifying the conjectures. * Some History of Science In the seventeenth century, there arose a mode of scientific procedure usually associated with the names of Galileo and Francis Bacon. It was based upon observation, reason, and experiment. Galileo's work established the priority of experiment over the Greek deductive science (which was itself a great advance over the use of myth and religion to explain natural phenomena). Galileo's conclusions could not be ignored as a mere intellectual oddity, for they had to be used in the practical business of pointing cannons at the correct angle to compensate for the fall of cannonballs in flight. By insisting on the experimental verification of scientific conjectures, Galileo and his successors established a general test of scientific truth which enabled scientists specializing in widely different disciplines to accept and use each other's results. The shared method created an organized scientific community, with a division of labor among scientists in numerous specialized fields, all contributing to the accumulation of a valid body of knowledge. By the close of the seventeenth century, the scale of Europe's scientific effort was already overwhelmingly greater than that of any contemporary or earlier culture, and so too was the European civilization's progress in understanding natural phenomena. It has sometimes been maintained that Galileo's greatest contribution was his way of thinking about the physical universe. Unfortunately the great majority of philosophers were (and remain) unable to understand his methods. They still possess the Greek habit of reasoning from what seem to be valid basic assumptions and rarely believe it necessary to check their conclusions against the real universe. We are so far accustomed to think of organizations solely in terms of hierarchical bureaucracies like armies, governments, or corporations that it is difficult to realize that an enterprise so individualistic and nonhierarchical as modern science can properly be said to be highly organized. But such a narrow impression of organization would have to be dismissed as misleading on the basis of the history of science. Without a hierarchy, Western scientists formed a scientific community within which they pursued shared goals of understanding natural phenomena with dedication, cooperation, competition, collective conflict resolution, division of labor, specialization, and information generation and exchange at a level of organizational efficiency rarely matched among large groups, hierarchical or nonhierarchical. Western science had another advantage over contemporary and antecedent sciences: it arose at a time when political and religious authorities lacked the power to suppress new ideas incompatible with conventional explanations of natural phenomena, though they often tried to. * Miscellaneous Comments on the Nature of Science Goethe: "Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and faults are always those of man. The man incapable of appreciating her she despises and only to the apt, the pure, and the true, does she resign herself and reveal her secrets." T.H. Huxley: "Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of evey one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overlflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated - without haste, but without remorse." If you learn what this world is, how it works, you automatically start getting miracles - what will be called miracles. But of course nothing is miraculous. Learn what the magician knows and it's not magic anymore. But it does no good to try to explain something as being a product of science, rather than magic, in speaking to people who have no idea what is meant by "science." This is not necessarily the fault of the ignorant person. Although there is a vast untapped popular interest in the deepest scientific questions, for many people the shoddily thought out doctrines of borderline science are the closest approximation to comprehensible science readily available. The popularity of junk science should be a rebuke to the schools, the press and commercial television for their sparse, unimaginative and ineffective efforts at science education. This unfortunate situation is compounded by the popular media's obsession with controversy and sensationalism. In their rush to expose "dangers" to the public health, the distortions and outright falsehoods they present as "science" serve only to corrupt what little factual knowledge the public does possess. To top it off, we are beset by the quantum mystics, whose dim comprehension of physics, and abysmal ignorance of philosophy, do not in any way inhibit their subjectivist metaphysical pronouncements. In fact however, the ideas of quantum mechanics do not contain any reasons whatsoever for giving up the concept of a reality that is independent of the mind. * Examples of the Scientific Attitude applied Nearly four centuries of experience since Galileo's time has shown that it is frequently useful to depart from the real and to construct a model of the system being studied. Some of the complications are stripped away, so a simple and generalized mathematical structure can be built up out of what is left. Once that is done, the complicating factors can be restored one by one, and the model suitably modified. To try to achieve the comlexities of reality at one bound, without working through a simplified model first, is so difficult that it is rarely attempted, and usually does not succeed when it is. Newton started with a mathematical construct that represents nature simplified: a point mass moving around a center of force. Because he did not assume that the construct was an exact reperesentation of the physical universe he was free to explore the properties and effects of a mathematical attractive force even though he found the concept of a grasping force "acting at a distance" to be abhorrent and not admissable in the realm of good physics. Next he compared the consequences of his mathematical construct with the observed principles and laws of the external world, such as Kepler's law of areas and law of elliptical orbits. Where the mathematical construct fell short Newton modified it. He made the center of force not a mathematical entity but a point mass. From the modified mathematical construct Newton concluded that a set of point masses circling the central point mass attract one another and perturb one another's orbits. Again he compared the construct with the physical world. Of all the planets, Jupiter and Saturn are the most massive, and so he sought orbital perturbations in their motions. With the help of John Flamsteed, Newton found that the orbital motion of Saturn is perturbed when the two planets are closest together. The process of repeatedly comparing the mathematical construct with reality and then suitably modifying it led eventually to the treatment of the planets as physical bodies with definite shapes and sizes. After Newton had modified the construct many times he applied it to the entirety of nature. He asserted that the force of attraction, which he had derived mathematically, is universal gravity. Since the mathematical force of attraction works well in explaining and predicting the observed phenomena of the world, Newton decided that the force must "truly exist" even though the philosophy to which he adhered did not and could not allow such a force to be part of a system of nature. And so he called for an inquiry into how the effects of universal gravity might arise. In 1830, the Swedish chemist Jakob Berzelius, who didn't believe that molecules with equal structures but different properties were possible, examined both tartaric acid and racemic acid in detail. With considerable chagrin, he decided that even though he didn't believe it, it was nevertheless so. Charles Darwin: "In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry (into the mutability of species), I happened to read 'Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work." * Some Critiques of Science "There is no poetry in science." "Not all the soaring genius of Shakespeare sufficed to lift him to such empyrean heights as to reveal to him the vision of the universe that bursts in upon the dullest scientist who now lives. In every branch of science fascinations lurk, ready to burst out upon even the most plodding soul. Peeping from behind the symbols of the mathematician are formulas, such as the Mandelbrot Set, so beautiful in their subtle symmetry that no artist could improve on them. Where can one come across forms of things not only so thoroughly unknown but so majestically unknowable as in the quantum world within the atom? All the dictates of "common sense" - based upon the ordinary world about us - break down in the face of the ultimately tiny. Imagine the poetry of a science that calmly abandons common sense in order to preserve sense; a science that admits into its fold an ineluctable uncertainty in order to be more nearly certain. What mysteries, what clanking chains, what dim ghosts of Gothic romance can compare with the mysterious muon-neutrino? There is poetry everywhere and in everything, and it is most clearly present in the world that scientists dwell in." .... Isaac Asimov "I question the accuracy and validity of the Scientific Method - Science is young and clumsy - still too gross to truly measure some things." Let us examine the accuracy, validity, and gross clumsiness of science by taking a look at just a few of its actual accomplishments. To begin with, here is a measure of the accuracy between a theoretical prediction and its corresponding experimental measurements: Experiments measure the electron's magnetic moment at 1.00115965221. The theory of Quantum Electrodynamics puts it at 1.00115965246. To give you a feeling for the accuracy of these numbers, look at them this way: If you were to measure the distance from Los Angeles to New York to this accuracy, it would be exact to the thickness of a human hair. I believe we can conclude that the theory is reasonably close to reality. As for the validity of scientific hypotheses - surely the most outrageously unbelievable hypothesis of modern physics is the Quantum Mechanics, and yet a clever application of the uncertainty principle (which places a limit on the precision with which position can be known) yields very fine-tuned control over a type of electron flow known as quantum tunneling. The resulting device (the Scanning Tunneling Microscope, manufactured by Digital Instruments, Inc.) uses the quantum tunneling effect both to view, and to perform mechanical operations on, very tiny objects. Right down to the level of individual atoms. In its practical application (where the validity of the Quantum Mechanics can be measured by its commercial utility), an STM is used to monitor the production quality of an optical-disk stamping machine. And as for gross clumsiness, these three examples should suffice to dispel that erroneous view: The optical telescope on Palomar Mountain can detect a 10-watt light bulb on the moon. This telescope could also measure the width of a needle - at a distance of 5 miles. The best infrared telescopes could record the heat from a rabbit on the moon - were it alive and hopping. At the IBM Zurich lab, researchers used a Scanning Tunneling Microscope to cleave a single benzene ring off of a dimethyl phthalate molecule. Workers at the National Bureau of Standards used a Paul electromagnetic trap to detect a single quantum jump of the outermost electron on a mercury ion from its ground state to an intermediate state. That's one single quantum jump of one single electron! Not quite the sort of thing you could reach in and fondle with your finger. Look again at the criticism - and consider the principle underlying it: She really should not "question the accuracy and validity of the Scientific Method" while she is writing with a ball-point pen on a sheet of paper, probably supported by the plastic surface of a desktop, and illuminated by an electric light bulb. You see what's happening - the author is using the very thing she denies, in the act of denying it. This is an excellent example of the Stolen Concept Fallacy: she is using the thing while she is rejecting the thing. If you have difficulty grasping the Uncertainty Principle, consider this: It is easily possible to construct a square, having specified exactly the length of a side. When you have done so, you will find that you cannot measure the diagonal with exactness (because it is a function of the square root of 2). It is equally easy to construct a square having specified exactly the length of the diagonal. But in this case you will be just as unable to measure the exact length of the side. Thus we are in the position of being able to specify one or the other of two quantities - but not both simultaneously. This exercise in simple geometry is a good example of the Uncertainty Principle in action: the universe is built in such a fashion that we humans are not omniscient - we can't know everything. If you have difficulty with the notion of "mere chance being the instrument of creation" try this experiment: Take about a dozen teaspoons and drop them (randomly but with handles up) into a soda glass. Tilt the glass to about a 45 degree angle and shake it. You will see the spoons begin to nest together. This nesting is the inevitable consequence of energy dissipation - of the interplay of the laws of physics - as the spoons settle into a "least energy content" configuration. When you consider that the fundamental morsels of matter (atoms and molecules) are sets of identical objects (every water molecule, for example, is exactly identical to every other) just like the spoons - then it is not too hard to realize that they would fit together in certain ways. Just like the spoons. This fitting together - on a larger and larger scale - can account for many aspects of the world of living things we see around us. Always remember this: the words "chance" and "random" do not really describe the world of Reality. What they DO describe is the state of human knowledge. To be precise, they are terms that describe a state of human ignorance. When I say that an event happens by "mere chance" all I am really saying is that I do not precisely know what are the causal factors of that event. Personally, I would much rather admit to my own ignorance of the world than to invent, as an absolution for that ignorance, a Divinity to account for things I cannot yet explain. A commonly encountered criticism is "How can you believe in something - like an electron - which you can't possibly see?" No one has ever seen the inside of a brick. Every time you break the brick, you see only the surface. That the brick has an inside is a simple assumption which helps us understand things better. The theory of electrons is analogous. The ultimate justification is that logical conclusions drawn from some assumptions have led to useful and effective solutions to real-life problems. >From science have flowed all those great inventions by means of which mankind in general is able to subsist with more ease and in greater numbers upon the face of the earth. Hence arise the great advantages of men above brutes, and of civilization above barbarity. The acre of ripe wheat that once took 12 men with a dozen horses, mules or oxen all day to cut and thresh, is now gathered up in six minutes as the combine rolls, one person at the controls. How can we achieve fantastic things in regard to the material world and yet suppose for one minute that what we are doing is arbitrary and has no absolute, unquestionable relationship to the facts of reality? If what we do works, how is that possible if it doesn't correspond to reality?