[extropy-chat] Rand

John K Clark jonkc at att.net
Wed Nov 17 18:50:04 UTC 2004


I'll tell you one thing, I'm not impressed with the followers of Ayn Rand,
those armchair philosophers and self described intellectuals that call
themselves Objectivists.  A few months ago I was invited to join an online
forum called Objectivism Online but I was soon banned for life. I was
astonished at their ignorance of the revolution in physics and mathematical
logic made during the previous century; they were oblivious of the profound
implications for philosophy these discoverers had, they didn't know and they
didn't care, they just quoted Ayn Rand back at me as if what she said was
more important than Bell's experiment or Godel. I said a lot of stuff they
didn't like very much but then I said something that made the howls of
protest reach a crescendo and they looked for the tar and feathers. The
dreadful blasphemy I dared to utter is this:

"We've suspected for 80 years and known with certainty for nearly 40 that
some events have no cause and are random.
I mean, I liked Atlas Shrugged as much as anyone but if Ayn Rand tells me
one thing and experiment tells me another it's no contest; I'm a rational
man so I have to go with experiment."

I don't believe I will go back there.

   John K Clark     jonkc at att.net





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