THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF AYN RAND
POWER OF AYN RAND'S EPISTEMOLOGY -
Some Reflections
Her theory of knowledge gave me a remarkable power. .
What is knowledge and how do we really know things...what is knowing as such? And she gave me some remarkable insights....
1) The first thing is that we CAN know. This is no small thing for me or anyone. We are living in a world where nothing is really clear or knowable. This she gave with her absolute metaphysics. Existence exists and ONLY existence exists.
THIS ITSELF IS LIBERATING...IS IT NOT?
Because there is no mystery and cannot be. So we can know fully, clearly , exactly with utter certainty, and with no speck of confusion.
2) This means that the test of knowledge is the simplicity, rich and deep, but clear and true.
3) The very concept of truth is now clear. We need to have truth and there is no escape.
4) And I seek no escape and do not want to!! So my motivation to know is complete. I am good through and through, honest to the core, and profoundly independent and with utter almost natural integrity!!
Look at the connection to ethics here.
Which too she ELABORATES AND BREAKS INTO FULLY CLEAR CONCEPTS AND CONSTITUENT PARTS.
5) SO i AM MOTIVATED TOTALLY TO KNOW. AND IN THE STRUGGLE TO KNOW I AM CLEAR THAT i NEED TO KNOW BY CONCEPT FORMATION AND INTEGRATION.
6) This means I cannot fool myself in the process too. No matter how difficult the concepts are, in the sense of how involved and interconnected they may be in their logic, I have to get it, grasp it, see it for myself.
7) Thus a natural discipline comes to me. I am driven and it is a life and death issue because THERE IS NO ESCAPE!!
Rand traps me and I like the trap, the highest in me, is awakened and truth is always welcome to man qua man as deep within, biologically, I know I need and would love to know.
I start really connecting things, Discovering the underlying, fundamental principles behind data/phenomena ....seeing that I can know and that pleasure is so intense ., feels so good, that that acts like a fuel and a virtuous circle and slowly that field of mine becomes CLEAR AND CONNECTED.
9) WHETHER IT IS MUSIC, PHYSICS, EVEN ARTS, LIKE PAINTING OR ANY FIELD LIKE ENGINEERING, MEDICINE ETC...MY FIELD COMES ALIVE IN MY MIND, AND I AM ABLE TO MATCH THE BEST BRAINS IN IT, AND HAVE THE METHOD TO EVEN CORRECT, ENHANCE, EXPAND, AND BE CREATIVE!!
10) I REALIZE A PROFOUND THING. THAT i HAVE BEEN GIFTED BY A THING ETERNAL.
That my use of my mind, is a plain , clear and engaging, difficult but possible thing. And I begin to marvel at how I am BECOMING intelligent. I realize that intelligence is a personally passionate and , driven process. And that there is truly no limit.
11) The feeling of being in touch with reality, the feeling of reducing a complex data to simple principles, the feeling of power and values that is inherently there in the process, the feeling of being literally a Gulliver and really expanding my mind...is indecribable and I reach for her novels for confirmation, enjoyment and fuel!! And security and double certainty, a a sensory feeling floods me then, of being true and real and yes, flaming joy is mine.
12) I am serene, passionate...clam and energetic...wondering about how I got this power and knowing the process of knowing too...
Thus things become profoundly, deeply, simple. And the UNITization of things, the chip like thing I hold is too good and true too.
Rand gave all this to me, to anyone and everyone, in principle, mathematically (EXACTLY) covering and unifying the whole world, man and his life on earth........