I would like to thank Bill Perry for his useful summary on OCON. It's useful to get cross-pollination between the different O'ist conferences. Many years they're held at different times and you can get an idea of what's up in the other Objectivist camp.

Jim

Linz,

I think TAS is mostly good, but I think they are going to go the ARI route and try to repair their excesses quietly. I think their big problem is that Branden supporters are a big part of their constituency. It's weird how it comes out too. Things seemed fine, then during the months-old nuttiness, Branden supporters were the ones trying to shut down debate.

Robert Campbell now has this big, orchestrated conspiracy theory on the other thread. What is the deal? Why not simply disagree with what was done like I did? Hell, I had a 2 week knock down drag out with James V. here on SOLO in Jan. 2006 and he's been nothing but courteous to me.

Jim

Do they admit and repair the excesses of the past or do they insist that everything they did was necessary.

Alas, they don't admit anything (whilst quietly repairing the excesses to which they don't admit!).

One problem is I suppose it's unreasonable to expect Yaron Brook to apologise for the culture promoted by his predecessors. How PC would that be?!

Another is that the problem was palpable but not tangible, unless like me you got your own personal heresy-sniffing letter from Gary Hull. When I visited ARI—at their invitation, remember, so there was some glasnost right there—they assured me Hull would have been acting on his own. But his note purported to be aggrieved on behalf of ARI. And the fact is, no one would have written such a note in a culture that allowed air in. But in what terms exactly do you admit to a culture that didn't? (If they wanted my help I would offer "institutionalised snottiness" for starters.)

A culture that may still be there if the Hsiekovians' behaviour through the fatwa business is any indication. Also, Brook's position on internet sites such as this one worries me. He seems to think only the clergy have a right to interpret the Bible!

But still these are honest folk diligently doing Galt's work. KASSless on the other hand can not only no longer claim to be open, it is also morally (and probably mortally) polluted by Brandroidism.

Linz,

I like the changes that ARI has made, but they are now in the somewhat uncomfortable position that is the intellectual equivalent of post-Pinochet Chile or post-Chaing Taiwan. Do they admit and repair the excesses of the past or do they insist that everything they did was necessary.

Interestingly, as you've pointed out, TAS is in the same position vis a vis the Brandens and Objectivist movement history.

It would be healthy if both sides could say: we made a mistake, we wish to rectify it and set the record straight.

I think it will be a cold day in hell. The Objectivist movement will have the intellectual equivalents of the stadium roundup and the White Fear in its past for some time to come. For ARI it will be Kelley, Reisman, Tracinski and others. For TAS it will be Rand-smearing and Branden lauding.

You can fly into the Chiang Kai Shek airport today and there's these stern-looking guys with machine guns and a big banner overhead that says: Drug Trafficking Carries the Death Penalty in the ROC. You know that people will welcome you with bright smiles and a warm embrace and only a few innocent people will be put to death...

Jim

Yes, if someone were to see you at slightly different angles or slightly different lighting etc., they would store an invariant representation of you. I think this might be the biological basis for measurement omission. Actual conceptual measurement omission involves much more than simply invariant representation, however. Human beings use this capacity in conjunction with a large memory bank, pattern recognition facility and hierarchical neocortical architecture to form concepts and abstractions.

The human ability for complex concept formation is unique in the animal kingdom. People have long talked about dolphins and whales as having brains as sophisticated as humans, but it's really a different kind of facility. Their brains have a 3 layer neocortical architecture rather than 6, so although they may know every nook and cranny of the ocean, they're not going to do a lot of complex concept formation. Jeff Hawkins talks about this at length in his book.

It's a fascinating topic, but we should probably start another thread so as not to hijack Bill's commentary on OCON and his comparison of ARI and TAS.

Jim

Do I understand you to mean representation of invariances, as in how invariances in sensory stimulation are represented in neurological activity?

Anyone who's interested in cognitive science as it relates to Objectivism should read Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence. At some point I will write up my lecture before Arizona Objectivists which included some of the parallels I see between invariant representation in cognitive science and measurement omission and the operation of the 6-layer neocortical architecture as it relates to cognitive economy and concept formation. (Sorry, Bill, for the brief hijack. Back to regularly scheduled programming.)

Jim

Linz,

Anyone expecting anything revolutionary to come out of either ARI or TOC is beating a dead horse and it's too bad too. I'm not an activist and so I've never worried much about numbers or budgets, but yes TOC/TAS is like the gang that can't shoot straight. What it really reminds me of is ARI under Michael Berliner without the lousy attitudes but with some inexplicable attachment to Barbara and Nathaniel Branden. Basically, a poorly run nonprofit that happens to be pro-reason and laissez-faire capitalist. I really like their magazine and I like their Seminars and so I continue to subscribe and I continue to go.

Maybe it's my cluster of interests, but I scan a program at ARI and I wonder, what in here have I not basically read in Rand. What difference does it make to me if their conference numbers are 300 or 455 or if their budgets are 2-3 million or 10 million?

Also, I still have to wonder, what happens to folks in ARI, like Robert Tracinski, when they do try to do something revolutionary?

Basically, I thought Bill Perry's piece was on the money, but his goals and mine are different with respect to Objectivism. He wants to spread Objectivism and I want to revolutionize it. The hot new growth areas which provide fertile areas of exploration are cognitive science and complex system modeling as it relates to induction.

We have a bunch of Objectivists who talk about thinking, but have never studied the brain. We also have a bunch of scientific illiterates who like to posture as being pro-technology. As my brother, who is the most precious human being in the world to me, goes off to a PhD program in System Dynamics at MIT in his own quest to revolutionize Objectivism I'm comfortable where I sit.

If TAS/TOC goes down in flames, they will have failed to right their ship. What does that have to do with their founding document, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't? I am an open system Objectivist, I lean toward Peikoff on judgment and I lean toward Kelley but certainly not all the way on sanction.

I plan to write something about cognitive styles in the future in an attempt to explain the problems in the movement. ARI's Achilles Heel is their inability to innovate. TAS's Achilles Heel is their inability to effectively teach the philosophy.

Jim

Robert Bidinotto gave two dynamite speeches. Lots of cool common room activity although I didn't bring my fiddle this time. Michael Shapiro composed a wonderful piece of music that served as a background for Linda Abrams' dramatic reading. I'll have more to say about it later.

Bidinotto is their best speaker, for sure. The common room activity always left Jefferson/ARI for dead; indeed in 1989 at TJI the common room was locked up because folk were discussing the Kelley excommunication! Michael told me about his composition and I am sorry to have missed it. But do say more, especially with these remarks by Bill Perry in mind:

While I was writing this post I was reminded of Eddie Willers at the end of Atlas Shrugged. While ARI is not a low tech wagon train, my friends who are still involved with TOC/TAS remind me of Eddie, sitting in the cab of the train that will not work, and cannot work, because it is hopelessly broken. He doesn't know how to fix it.

The half that I attended was a good conference. I was glad that some newcomers that I had wanted to attend an Objectivist conference for some time were able to go. My brother and I hooked up with an Intel buddy of ours that we knew from way back at an Iowa State Objectivist club.

Robert Bidinotto gave two dynamite speeches. Lots of cool common room activity although I didn't bring my fiddle this time. Michael Shapiro composed a wonderful piece of music that served as a background for Linda Abrams' dramatic reading.

I'll have more to say about it later.

Jim

How was Linzless KASSless?

Linz and Vegas. There might actually be some debauchery at an Objectivist conference. Heaven forfend!

Jim

Linz in Vegas? May the gods forgive us.

Au contraire, a good dose of Linz will be the makings of the place. Always said it was too straight-laced. And the gods agree.

Of course, whether OCON could survive the double-whammy of Vegas and Linz is moot ...

Perestroika and glasnost from Irvine at last.

Jim

may the gods forgive us

That's the one you need to write in your calendar. Though Boston is a fun town, too.

Scott DeSalvo

www.desalvolaw.com
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The conference will be in Boston from July 3-11. ARI also announced Las Vegas for 2010, and Fort Lauderdale for 2011. (Both will be mostly indoors--especially Vegas!)

Maybe I'll see you at the next one!

Now 4 times a year!