Interview with and Advocate of Objectivist Philosophy

Thanks for your email! Here are my thoughts:



I don’t think Objectivism has come to grips with a lot of the issued raised by modern cosmology. (I originally majored in physics and astronomy so I have some knowledge of the subject.) But I don’t see any reason to abandon the basics of Objectivism—existence exists, A is A—in light of modern physics. In such matters we are trying to understand objective reality and it might be that reality is more subtle and complex than we can imagine right now, though not, ultimately, random and thus incomprehensible.



I’ll start by saying that the issue of consciousness really isn’t tied up with the Big Bang and the question of time. All evidence points to life coming into being and evolving on Earth starting some billions of years ago but well after the Big Bang. Consciousness is an attribute of living creatures in our universe. Yes, consciousness needs something to be conscious of which means you can’t have consciousness or anything else for that matter without having a universe first. But the universe doesn’t pre-suppose consciousness; that’s a basic Objectivist understanding.



Whether there is a multi-verse as some have theorized simply says that if the laws of physics in our bubble of the multi-verse don’t apply elsewhere, then such bubble universes will be different from ours.



You ask, “How can you have time before time?” Hawking suggests that this might be like asking “What’s north of the Earth’s North Pole?” The question makes no sense. I don’t have an answer myself and am willing to say that I don’t know and Objectivists don’t know and cosmologists don’t know. We’re still working on the matter.



Questions about the probabilistic nature of energy and matter pose even deeper questions. There is a physicist, Lewis Little, who offers a theory from an Objectivist perspective (he has a book on Amazon) but I don’t pretend to fully understand his theory.



On your second question, I’m not a Jung expert but would answer as follows:



If synchronicity means that non-causally related things or events—the cool fall air, hiking in the mountains, a certain song, my girlfriend’s lovely face—all suggest one another and have a pleasant meaning to me because of past associations, fine but so what?



If an intuition suggests a causal connection that is not obvious or is counter-intuitive, then one must go on to test and confirm the association. Einstein has an intuition that time actually slows down and mass increases as velocity increases. Fine! So let’s test it and see if it’s true.



There are a lot of things that are associated or intuited or have meaning to us in our mind that the least bit of thought or investigation shows to be nonsense. Astrology is a clear example. It cannot explain or predict anything. There are reams of material demonstrating this point.



Further, the burden of proof is on the individual making the proposition, especially when it contradicts all the hard-won knowledge we have in many other sciences stretching back for centuries. If someone says they can predict the future with astrology or tarot cards, fine, let them prove it. The James Randi Educational Foundation will pay them a million dollars if they can. Put up or shut up! http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html



But I argue that most people today who believe in astrology, tarot cards, Xenu the emperor and the like do so not because they haven’t bothered to investigate what might or might not be a valid theory. Rather, they are self-deceived. They want to believe because it feels good, relieves uncertainty or whatever. I would say that Scientologists are self-deceived, intellectually lazy, stupid, dishonest, emotionally unbalanced, thieving criminal or some combination. There is zero evidence for their beliefs that would make really bad science fiction, and I’m a sci-fi fan. No doubt some of the exercises for which they pay so much money helps some of them focus their minds a little better or whatever, something you can get elsewhere cheaper and without the cult baggage. But I find Scientology to be a fascinating case of self-brainwashing.



I hope these thoughts help you out!



Ed Hudgins



From: Ilia Reingold [mailto:ilrein@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 8:45 PM
To: ehudgins@atlassociety.org
Subject: RE: Questions & Objectivism



Hey Edward, thanks for sharing your time to feed my interest =) Here we go:

How does Objectivism explain the Big Bang? Ayn suggests that in order to be
conscious, one must be conscious of something. In other words, this holds that
consciousness cannot only be conscious of itself, it must have an external
focus point, and without this external point, there is no consciousness.

But then I ask, what about time before time, that moment just before the Big
Bang where consciousness had no external point of reference? It seems that
through the lens of Objectivism there cannot rationally be a moment in time
before the Big Bang, and therefore the Big Bang theory is false.

Also in your article about Travolta you have written: "Beliefs in
astrology, palm reading, tarot cards, and numerology waste time and might cause
only limited harm to the individuals who buy into them."

I have to question this outright condemnation. I realize it is in line with
Objectivist ideology, but to completely disregard intuition is to suggest that spontaneous,
creative insights are invalid. Which leads me to my next question: is
synchronicity (as coined by Carl Jung) complete and utter hogwash?

Trophy Wife and her Life

A funny, romanticized article from http://www.mothersontheverge.blogspot.com/ sparked my interest. It's an imaginary insight into the mind of Trophy Wife from Dubai.

"Sometimes TW wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn't married her husband. She wonders what would happen if she started eating refined carbohydrates again, let her roots grow out and callouses appear on her feet. Then she thinks about the marble floors of her executive villa, her walk-in wardrobe filled with designer labels, the mounds of jewellery in the safe, her son's private education and the azure swimming pool in the garden. And she thinks again."

It’s a very visual quote which allows us to transport ourselves inside a trophy wife. Like size zero culture, there is a strong element about the relation between superficial standards of feminine beauty and social status. The values of materialism always seem to overcome everything else. This trophy wife faces the same problem an exotic dancer has: her lifestyle choices are not long term. What will happen to her when her youth has faded away?

While I am sufficiently confident in myself to reasonably believe that I will never marry a trophy wife (if I marry at all), it is not my place, nor anyone else’s to judge her position. She took life’s lemons and made lemonade, poured right into a gold plated diamond cup. She used her sexuality to forge a future for herself and her children. Simply put, she’s got game. In fact, I almost feel sorry for the fool who married her…

Size Zero Culture Dating back to Ancient Rome

A fascinating letter to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reveals a unique insight in ancient Rome:

"Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) (c. 190–159 BC) was a Roman comic poet. His 6 surviving comedies are Greek in origin but describe the contemporary Roman society. Eunuchus was probably presented in 161 BC. In this comedy, a young man named Chaerea declares his love for a 16-year-old girl whom he depicts as looking different from other girls and he protests against the contemporary emphasis on thinness: “haud similis uirgost uirginum nostrarum quas matres student demissis umeris esse, uincto pectore, ut gracilae sient. si quaest habitior paullo, pugilem esse aiunt, deducunt cibum; tam etsi bonast natura, reddunt curatura iunceam. itaque ergo amantur.” (She is a girl who doesn’t look like the girls of our day whose mothers strive to make them have sloping shoulders, a squeezed chest so that they look slim. If one is a little plumper, they say she is a boxer and they reduce her diet. Though she is well endowed by nature, this treatment makes her as thin as a bulrush. And men love them for that!)"

I have certainly believed that modern culture was responsible for the influenza of dieting and slimness obsession. Now that we can see such a phenomena existed over 1 000 years ago, it makes one question the origins of such superficial standards. In contemporary times, its easy to see how this subideology is propagated, an overweight woman would never be able to land front page of a magazine, let alone establish a media personality.

It seems even without the pressures of mainstream media, significant cultural pressures still exerted enough influence to cause women to pursue an ideal body image. Sadly, insecurities surpass cultural limits.

Journalism is not a Profession

Then why am I spending over $10 000 a year on a university education majoring in journalism?

In the nature of integrity, it’s understandable that my professor would be straight forward with us, and no one is responsible for taking this course except me. But there must be a certain irony in learning on the first day of class that anyone who starts a blog, or has a video camera on their phone, is a journalist.

Interestingly enough, Sam Smith argues that professionalizing journalism would be the death of it. “Journalism has always been a craft - in rare moments- an art - but never a profession. It depends too much on the perception, skill, empathy and honesty of the practitioner rather than on the acquisition of technical knowledge and skills”. I rather like this perspective, because it disregards the conservative status quo and hands power right into the individual’s hand, or rather, his pen.

Nonetheless, it still makes me question my commitment to an education system that seems to contradict itself. Then again, I cannot recall a time when I was impressed by our education system, or at very least even satisfied by it. What is the value in pouring such a significant sum of money into a program that is destined to be obsolete, especially while in the early phases of potentially the world’s worst economic depression?

It’s time to step back and reevaluate my career choices. It’s time for some serious soul searching.