Jim A.

To Boethius: In the first sentence of your initial post, you refer to the "disintegration of Objectivism". Maybe there is disintegration taking place in the Objectivist movement--that is, disintegration of relationships between Objectivists--but Objectivism itself is not disintegrating. That system of ideas is solid, integrated, whole, perfect--perfect for a rational, integrated mind to live by. That, really, is all that matters when it comes to philosophy as put into practice by individuals.

Have a great birthday, Paul!

I can't stand poetry that doesn't rhyme. And as for what Whitman means by "identity", Betsy is probably right, but I'm not sure if Whitman seriously meant anything by any of the words in this poem. Someone I know says her favorite poem is "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer", by Whitman (it's in LEAVES OF GRASS). When I then read it, I thought: Why? Does anyone know what that poem says? It sounded to me like Whitman was saying, "Keep the mysteries of the Universe mysterious" (in other words, don't seek to understand the Universe). My friend agreed. I would, however, love to read a rhyming poem about how wonderful it is that existence exists, that things have identity and are what they are, that the Universe is orderly. Does anyone know of any?

Happy Birthday, mweiss!! (Geez, does your avatar mean that no birthday gifts can be opened until Doomsday?)

The home page says that Lady Brin would have been 58 today. I will always remember the cheerful personality she exhibited in her posts, and I can remember a nice photo of her proudly standing next to a new sportscar.

Just another big-budget space movie with no ideas, flat characters, improbable characters, improbable events, stupid situations, etc.. (And what the hell was the objective or goal of those training exercises, anyway?) But one might ask: "Improbable? What do you want--naturalism in a space movie?" No, I want romantic realism. The best space movie around is still Gravity--I consider it the best space movie since Apollo 13 or The Empire Strikes Back.

My question: If language--that is, a word--is necessary for the grasping of a concept, is it possible that valid, high-level concepts for which we don't yet have words could be formed sometime in the future?

That would be interesting to know. I have enormous respect for Dr. Peikoff, and liked OPAR and The Ominous Parallels a lot. But while I find everything in those books to be valid, Dr. Peikoff's thinking/writing style is different in some way than Ayn Rand's. So, yes, I, too, would like to know what she would think. But as for the question I would most want to ask her myself--I'll have to think about that. (Incidentally, I didn't know where else on the Forum I should have left my initial post. Would another section or department have been better?)

If Ayn Rand were still alive, what question would you most like to ask her?

Happy Birthday, Brian!!

I liked Gravity for a number of reasons, but most of all because it is one of the few space films I've seen that take place in a universe with absolute laws (I guess you would call that an Aristotelian universe?). The "Force" isn't in it, and everything that happens is scientifically plausible. I didn't give it a sense-of-life rating of more than "7" because the film does seem to present the absolutes of the physical universe as being scary--absolutes like gravity, inertia, and temperature--but it also presents their absoluteness as good, because you know what they can do and you can rely on them. I see that as being part of a benevolent universe. I remember someone once telling me that there are no absolutes in life, and that if there were we would never have made it to the moon. Gravity would tell this person that there are absolutes in the physical universe as well as in philosophy and life; if there were not, we would never have made it to the moon--or back to earth. And watching this film in 3-D (which I highly recommend), during a scene in which one character starts drifting away into outer space, I found myself, like the film's characters, yearning for the absolute of gravity.

Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron.

Happy Birthday, Betsy! You've done so much for other Objectivists' and Ayn Rand fans' ability to express themselves and communicate with one another since you and Stephen got this forum moving. We're all extremely grateful.

If the producers of ATLAS SHRUGGED: PART 3 are doing these things, I'm not surprised. I've said it elsewhere either on this forum or on Facebook that a great director and a great screenwriter won't resort to taking polls or giving people questionnaires on how their film should be made. And they don't resort to this other kind of stuff, either.

It seems that the only piece of writing that one or two networks mentioned and showed Senator Cruz reading from was "Green Eggs and Ham", by Dr. Seuss. The purpose of that, of course, was to make it appear as if Cruz was just wasting everyone's time--the few that were present in the room--wasting his own time and didn't take his subject seriously. It may have also been used to "demonstrate" that Cruz is an idiot, when he clearly is not.