Time Enough for My Friends

In a recent couple of blog posts, Diana Hsieh at Philosophy in Action and I have articulated different takes on a "Central Purpose in Life".

But it got me to thinking about how my values interact on a daily basis.  Let me give you a quick run down of my day:

This morning I woke up at 7 AM.  I let the dog out, made coffee, ate breakfast, fed the kids, took a shower, and then jumped on the computer to start working.  A little after 8 AM, my wife ran to the gym, leaving me in charge of the kids (since it's summer and all).  I kissed her goodbye and went back to my computer until my kids started yelling for me.  With my full attention, I helped my kids with their life threatening dilemma (something about asking the neighbor kids to play which I empathized with before telling them to wait for their mom).  Then, I went back to my work.  When Brenda got back from the gym, I headed to the office.  Around 3 PM, I got a personal message from a good friend about a medical problem he was having.  I dropped everything I was working on and responded to his message.  Relieved to find out that he was okay, I finished my work, went to the gym myself, then headed home.  I ate dinner with the family, played a game of Crazy 8s with my kids, chugged some trains around, then sent the kids to bed.  My youngest, who skipped his nap today, needed extra help calming himself sufficiently to fall asleep.  By 9, I was free, so I jumped back on the computer to do some more work.  

So what was the point of this narrative?  Throughout my day, my central purpose guided my actions while working.  I took time for other important values in my life, my wife, my kids, my friends.  Although I spent the majority of my time working on my central purpose, there was time enough for my friends, my family, my hobbies, and my health.  


The way I see it, a central productive purpose does not preclude other values.  Rather, a central productive purpose makes the other values possible.  It is the work you do, the specific value you are creating and focusing your energies on, that makes all the other values possible to both afford and enjoy.  Certainly, my family is a huge value to me.  But I agree with Rand that it is not my top value. 

But that being said, Diana has a point about some major values that don't integrate.  My family and my career do not.  When I'm doing one, I'm not doing the other.  My wife and my kids cannot help me with my research or my teaching.  And my research and teaching do not help me enjoy my family.  If I decide to return to my hobby of woodworking, that again will have little or no relationship to my CPL.  But as I have discussed before, my hierarchy of values puts my career first, specifically my passion to help others to make better decisions using information technologies.

I also consider that sometimes life requires several jobs just to make ends meet.  Often times these jobs have no relationship to one another other than you can make money doing them.  You may even have a passion you desperately want to pursue, but cannot make enough money doing so.  There is no shame in not having a CPL or being unable to pursue one should you have it.  But if you can integrate your life around a more centralized theme, the potential for success greatly expands.

Central Purpose in Life - Another Look

In a recent podcast at Philosophy in Action, Diana Hsieh questions the role of a central purpose in life (CPL) as articulated by various Objectivists (listen to the Parenting as Central Purpose question).  From her podcast, I only have a partial idea what she find troubling about the concept.  But I hope that by revisiting the idea, I can shed some light on what it is and why its useful.  To the best of my knowledge, Burgess Laughlin was the first Objectivist to write an in-depth article about CPL, while a variety of others including myself have added to it.

In Diana's critique, she finds one quote by Ayn Rand that pertains to this subject:

"Productive work is the central purpose of a rational man’s life, the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all his other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of his productive work—pride is the result."

She then notes that this definition of central purpose should simply be productive work, that an integrating theme to productive work is not necessary, just that productive work in and of itself should be central.  She doesn't see an integrating theme or a singular passion as necessary for happiness.  While I agree with much of what she says, there is second quote on central purpose that drives my understanding of the idea, which seems to differ from her take.   The quote comes from her Playboy interview:

"A central purpose serves to integrate all the other concerns of a man’s life. It establishes the hierarchy, the relative importance, of his values, it saves him from pointless inner conflicts, it permits him to enjoy life on a wide scale and to carry that enjoyment into any area open to his mind; whereas a man without a purpose is lost in chaos. He does not know what his values are. He does not know how to judge. He cannot tell what is or is not important to him, and, therefore, he drifts helplessly at the mercy of any chance stimulus or any whim of the moment. He can enjoy nothing. He spends his life searching for some value which he will never find . . . ." [emphasis mine]

The latter quote does suggest an integrating function to productive work is ideal.  She says "A central purpose..." suggesting that their is a singular purpose that integrates everything else.  This focused purpose to the type of work you do helps create a hierarchy of values and enables you to enjoy life more fully. 

I have written about my search for an integrating purpose to my life and the enjoyment I have received from the resulting career.  It has helped me to resolve inner conflicts and define my hierarchy of values.  For me, defining a CPL is not a moral issue, but a useful tool for actualizing my full potential. I can and do have many interests.  I could potentially pursue a wide variety of projects and enjoy them all.  But when I focus on an integrating idea, when I search for a value-dense purpose, I find greater enjoyment in life in general.

Are you immoral without a CPL? No, but you're missing out. I see a well defined CPL as a tool for achieving a satisfying and enriching career.  It is a tool that helps identify our hierarchy of values.  You shouldn't beat yourself up if you don't have one, but spending some time reflecting on your passions and your purpose can help you to achieve more.

Is a CPL obvious? For some it is, for many it is not. I took me until I was 27 until I discovered my CPL implicitly and until 33 before I could explicitly write it down. It involved identifying and integrating all of the things that had happened in my life and all the jobs I had loved and hated, until I finally saw how they all related.  And it was hard work!  But I know of other people who knew from an early age what they wanted to do (like Ayn Rand).  For them it was obvious.

Can multiple major purposes exist?  Absolutely.  I know of people that have multiple interests and live happy lives.  Is it the best way to live?  I liken it to a business that has multiple lines of business.  The greater the similarities between those lines of business, the greater the synergies that will emerge, which can lead to greater success.  The business owners may indulge in multiple lines of business that have no relationship to one another and enjoy each thoroughly.  They can even create a positive cash-flow in each line of business.  But how easy would it be to run such a business?   If a hierarchy of values is not established, which line of business would get what resources?  Which would get the most attention, money, time, or effort?  With a hierarchy of values, something must be at the top.  That top value is your central purpose.  The more projects and activities that support that highest value, the less conflict and confusion you'll have.  That's not to say you can't enjoy hobbies, your family, your friends, or your own body.  But what is central?  What is most important?  There is a bunch I can say about how other values fit in with the CPL, but I'll save that for another post.

Could you be happy without defining a CPL? Yes.  But the better you can find an integrating purpose, the less inner conflicts you will experience and the better equipped you will be for directing your life.  Again, it's about degrees of enjoyment and does not preclude other values that you can enjoy as well.

Can a CPL change?  Yes, but if it changes often or deeply then it probably was not well defined.  I remember when I was much younger, interviewing for a job in web development.  The interviewer asked how my previous employment in tutoring and teaching related to web development.  She wanted to be sure that web development wasn't some passing whim.  That I had some integrating purpose to my life.  I immediately saw the connection, in both cases, I wanted to facilitate the transfer of knowledge.  In one case through face-to-face classroom instruction and in the other case through electronic medium.  The connection between the two jobs was not vast to me, because I was already starting to identify and integrate my passions.  The interviewer was very impressed with my answer and eventually offered me the job.

Can parenting be a CPL?  As a nanny, yes.  As a stay at home parent who homeschool, maybe, if it is something that consumes the parent's productive efforts.  And even then, the purpose shifts from parenting to education.  Otherwise, no.  A mom who takes a 5 year break from her career to raise her kids, while doing something extremely commendable, is not pursing a central purpose, but rather taking a break from it.  Raising children can become the highest value temporarily, until they are old enough to care for themselves.  But from what I've seen, moms (not the homeschooling variety) tend to be far happier if they can return to working on their CPL after that break.  Any women out there want to correct me on this observation???

Given my understanding of CPL and its value to our lives, I would recommend people attempt to define and live by one.  To me, this is your highest value and the most important concern.  If this value is not carefully defined, it is easy to slip into careers you either don't enjoy or feel indifferent about.  And that, to me is a travesty.

Objectivist Round up

Welcome to the January 19, 2012 edition of Objectivist Round-up.

Objectivism is a philosophy for living on this earth.  For me, that is especially poignant because my grandfather passed away yesterday.  He was a good man who valued his family and treated them accordingly.  A story I heard at my grandmother's funeral (his wife for over 60 years) shows the character of this man.  Please indulge me while I tell it.  On a family vacation many years ago, my grandma, grandpa, dad, and uncles were traveling through Florida and enjoying the warm weather.  My grandma, the always cheerful, caring woman, had one desire on that vacation - to see the sun rise over a particular bridge in Florida.  My grandpa, the matter of fact, focused, purposeful man that he was, wanted to get on the road and driving to the next location as soon as possible.  He packed the car and loaded everyone up at 5 AM, well before sunrise and took off - driving over the bridge where my grandma wanted to watch the sun come up.  As they were nearing the end of the bridge, my grandma was in tears, afraid she was going to miss this one sight she had dreamed of seeing.  My grandpa, seeing her crushed, pulled over to the side of the road and waited for over an hour for the sun to come up.  In spite of his desire to hit the road, he could not stand to see the person he loved most in such pain.  This love was evident throughout their marriage. 

When I think of this story, it reminds me of the importance of maintaining a rational selfishness - of recognizing your highest values and acting accordingly.  It reminds me of staying true to reality, and not pretend that the person sitting next to you is not crying, when in fact they are.  It reminds me love requires the best within us.  In short, it reminds me of why I am an Objectivist.  I will miss him.

I don't wish to usurp the round-up, so here are other great stories and articles by Objectivists.  Read, enjoy, and find that inspiration to be the best that you can be.

Jim Woods presents An Open Letter to Gary Johnson, Libertard for President posted at Words by Woods, saying, "Based upon C-SPAN's series "The Contenders", how can a flawed candidate without a chance of being elected run a campaign that could be historically significant?"

Darius Cooper presents Are Americans spendthrifts? posted at Practice Good Theory, saying, "I look at America's personal savings rate"

Paul Hsieh presents Why Is Creating Value Good, But Profits Bad? posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "My latest OpEd at RealClearMarkets discusses the morality of making a profit. In a free society, "creating value" and "making a profit" are just two sides of the same coin!"

Rachel Miner presents Trustee from the Toolroom Review posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "A delightful book which I read after seeing Yaron Brook's recommendation. I share some thoughts that may spur you to give it a try."

Ari Armstrong presents Gary Johnson Can't Save the Libertarian Party posted at Free Colorado, saying, "Gary Johnson can't advance the cause of liberty while running with the Libertarian Party."

Diana Hsieh presents Video: SOPA and Online Piracy posted at NoodleFood, saying, "The "SOPA" and "PIPA" bills currently under consideration would threaten every web site with shut-down, if that web site contains so much as a single link to copyrighted material anywhere. These bills, if passed, would break the fundamental architecture of the internet, and enable Chinese-style censorship of the internet. Watch my webcast discussion, then call and e-mail your representatives!"

Jason Stotts presents The Logical Necessity of the Oxford Comma posted at Erosophia, saying, "The Oxford Comma is not only stylistically necessary, it is logically necessary and its absence can lead to absurdities."

I present SMART Goals and Philosophy posted here, saying, "Objectivism is a philosophy for living, so it should come as little surprise that some industry best practices in goal setting align with Objectivism's ethics and epistemology.  See how." 

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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SMART goals and philosophy

In Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, Dr. Harry Binswanger identifies the ultimate CEO in your life is your philosophy.  What does that mean in practice?  Take goal-setting.  Based on what I understand about philosophy, I would suspect that an ideal approach to goal-setting would be based on your values - clearly identified, objectively defined, and do not contradict reality.  How does Objectivism relate industry best standards for goal-setting - to create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound)?  Below, I discuss specific quotes from Rand that relate to these best practices...

Read the updated version on Reason for Success.

Creating an environment for classroom success, Part 2

As I stated in my last post, the goal of my web application development class is: To develop sufficient knowledge of web programming and e-commerce concepts to successfully start a career as a web developer.
How can help facilitate success in their careers?  There is the obvious knowledge component, which is a major part of my class.  However, habits and virtues can make or break the long term success of my students.  In this, Rand's ethics provides the perfect basis for developing the habits and virtues necessary.

To be successful, students need to be rational, productive, and proud.  Students must actively try to understand and integrate concepts in a meaningful manner so that they can utilize those ideas later in their career.  Rationality demands a respect for facts and a strict adherence to logic.  Abstract integrative reasoning is necessary to apply knowledge to new situations.  Students must also develop the habit of productiveness, consistently developing their knowledge in order to create web solutions to business problems.   Productiveness is not just about hard work, although hard work can often help.  Productiveness demands a focused effort to produce something of value.  Lastly, students should produce work they are proud of.  The results of their efforts should be something they want to show off - something they are excited they brought into existence - something that shows the best within them. 

Below are some of the things I'm considering in my class to facilitate the adoption of these virtues.  I'm always open to new ideas if you have them.

How can I encourage rationality?
1. Eliminate evaluations that depend on rote learning
2. Encourage abstract integrative reasoning with writing assignments
3. Require application of knowledge to real world situations

How can I encourage productivity?
1. Reward output, not time spent
2. Push them to create increasingly higher valued web solutions
3. Motivate them by keeping reality based and addressing real world problems

How can I encourage pride?
1. Give them a chance to fix their mistakes
2. Reward going above and beyond requirements
3. Do not provide a means for hiding in anonymity

While I could also identify Rand's other virtues of Independence, Justice, Integrity, and Honesty, those are often taken for granted in most classroom environments (I know... not all.  But most).  Those virtues are vitally important to success as well, but not interesting enough for me to write about today.

The tale of two passions

What should you do when you can't decide between two equally passionate directions for your career?  For many of us, there are many things we could do that would make us happy.  Sometimes, you can whittle down that list to one or two great passions.  Sometimes a great opportunity comes along that diverges from your current career.  What happens when you cannot decide between your two highest passions.  Should you do both?  Unfortunately, splitting your efforts between two careers usually ends up with failure in both.  The more directed and focused you can be in your career, the greater success you will reach along with a deeper happiness from a job well done.  So, how can one decide?  Here is I dealt with this issue.

First the background.  For a while now, I have struggled with deciding between two different career tracks.  I attempted to integrate those passions in my career as an academic, but I am still drawn to specializing in one or the other.  Both passions fall in line with my central purpose in life.  Both passions have long-term viability in my career as an academic.  Both have potential for a consulting/expert business beyond academy.  The first of these passions is to think, write, and educate about making decisions using applied philosophy, particularly extending Objectivism's moral and epistemological foundations.  The second passion is to think, write, and educate about making decisions for developing a web presence, particularly with emerging web technologies.  I have tried, unsuccessfully, for the past couple months to decide which career tracks offers the most potential happiness and financial gain. 

Here is how I propose to deal with this dilemma.

For a short time, I will do both - equally.  I will set up two dueling frameworks.  Two blogs, two twitter accounts, and two facebook pages interconnected so that I can hit maximum exposure of my ideas with minimal effort.  I will then set up dual marketing schemes, targeted at the appropriate audiences.  Then I will proceed to blog once a week in each framework and post status updates/ micro-blog 5 times a week for one month.  At the end of the first month, I will evaluate three things for both passions 1. market response 2. difficulty in finding and writing content and 3. how much did I enjoy the process.  The last of which being the most important.  If there is no clear winner after the first month, I will continue for a second month and re-evaluate again - perhaps even a third and fourth month, if needed.  I need to convenience myself which career track focus will create the greatest enduring value for me.  The other passion will be regulated to a hobby.

While I am in a unique position to try both career tracks simultaneously, not everyone has that luxury.  In cases where decisions have to made quickly (as in the case of once in a lifetime opportunities that expire in a few days), developing a weighted average matrix might help.  Essentially, that is what I'm doing, but collecting real data rather than just estimates.  In a weighted average matrix, you first identify the most important criteria to be used in your decision.  If you were buying a house, you might identify criteria such as size, location, layout, etc.  Then, for each criteria, you provide a weight as to how important that criteria is compared to the other criteria.  Size might be 50% of your decision, location might be 25%, layout might be 10% and so on.  After you have thought through how important each criteria is, you look at each option and measure how well it meets each criteria.  When exact measures cannot be found, best guess estimates have to suffice.  You put these measurements into a matrix and calculate the weighted average.  The option with the highest score is the winner.

Confirmation bias

Recently, I read an article about confirmation bias that made me realize that this is major impediment to being productive.  So, what is confirmation bias?  According to Science Daily, confirmation bias is "a type of cognitive bias and represents an error of inductive inference toward confirmation of the hypothesis under study."  Wikipedia lists some of the traits of confirmation bias to be:

• Interpretation - When giving evidence both for and against your belief, the bias tends to focus only on the evidence for your belief and ignore evidence against your belief
• Search for information - You seek evidence from someone you know agrees with you and do not seek evidence from those that disagree with you.
• Memory - you tend to remember evidence that supports your argument and forget evidence that contradicts your position

Let's unpack this concept.  Confirmation bias seems to be misappropriation of evidence, leading to incorrect inductions.  Most often, confirmation bias is an automatic response.  These automatic responses are based on heuristics.  People use heuristics (rules of thumb) to quickly make evaluations. Without heuristics, we would never have time to make all the decision necessary in our lives. We would spend all of our time re-hashing the same evidence, the same logical steps, and the same conclusions.  Where heuristics go wrong is when they are applied to emotionally charged ideas.  The pain at looking at contrary evidence leads many individuals to ignore that evidence in favor of positive evidence that confirms our original ideas.  Individuals do not like dissonance in their thoughts.  They want certainty.  Unfortunately, that certainty comes at the expense of objectivity, leading to ill founded beliefs.

There are two times confirmation bias can be observed, when you first develop an idea and when you are presented with new evidence that contradicts one of your existing ideas.  If confirmation bias can be avoided in the former, the easier it will be managed in the latter.  However, many people, myself included, have adopted ideas without fully evaluating all the evidence for and against when initially presented to them. Young kids are particularly susceptible. This may require re-evaluation of ideas that were once closely held.  I have done this before when I reevaluated my belief in God and my interaction with The Objectivist Center, both of which led me to reject my earlier decisions based on new evidence.

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid confirmation bias - scientific inductive reasoning.  Two principle techniques to scientific reasoning are establishing reliability and validity.  Validity can be further sub-divided into both internal and external validity.  So how can these be employed to avoid confirmation bias?

1. For evidence to be reliable, new evidence should confirm older evidence.  If it contradicts it, chances are something fishy is going on or evidence is not being placed within its appropriate context.  Seek evidence from multiple, disparate sources, particularly in emotionally driven complex issues.  In highly controversial issues, its especially important to gather evidence from sources, both pro and con, and place that evidence within their proper context.
2. Internal validity looks at the internal logic of an argument.  Ask yourself if the evidence presented shows only part of the picture. Ask yourself if you have fully considered ALL of the evidence.  Ask yourself if the conclusions are as solid as claimed. It may help to break up the argument into all of its component parts and verify that evidence supports each part.  In short, play "devil's advocate" to establish internal validity.
3. External validity verifies an idea is consistent with the wider context of one's knowledge base. Ask yourself if this conclusion is true, what does it mean for other ideas.  Ask yourself honestly what the evidence means for my life.  The conclusion from the evidence should integrate with knowledge you already have without contradictions.  If it doesn't, either something is wrong with your new conclusion or something is wrong with your existing ideas.

By employing these methods consistently, you can avoid confirmation bias.  Take a step back from the emotional charged idea and be objective.  If you do this, you have a good chance at avoiding confirmation bias and achieving objectivity in your thoughts.

IT business value density

While struggling today with an article I'm writing on IS evaluation and Objectivist Ethics, I integrated two ideas that have been on my mind lately, IT business value and value dense living.  If value density is the principle that individuals should seek to maximize values gained from their actions and resources by rationally evaluating synergies across goals and objectives, then IT business value density would be the principle that organizations should seek to maximize values gained from their IT resources and IT activities by rationally evaluating synergies across business goals and objectives.  I believe this concept would help to explain a number of issues in IS evaluation literature, including the productivity paradox, IT infrastructure investments, IT infrastructure flexibility, IT adoption and diffusion problems, and political issues in the evaluation process. There are probably more issues to discuss, but this is just a start to my brainstorming.  However, I can see enough value in this concept to warrant a massive review article for MISQ.  It would require a ton of work and would likely require a co-author or two.  But the reward would be immense.  And all of these issues can be tied to Rand's theory of ethics - at least I see the road map in my mind, I just need to translate it onto paper.

While this could be an exciting paper, I'm struck by the notion that I would virtually have to scrap my existing IS evaluation paper to write about this new concept.  But then again, I'm struggling with my existing paper because I lack a clear take-away.  As one researcher put it, there has to be a "so what?" moment.  I don't have that yet.  And I'm hesitant to put forward half baked article because other researchers will immediately pick up on that and slam the article (as they should) along with possibly Objectivism and me (as I do not want).  So unless I can find my hook soon (other than IT business value density), I may have to put the current article on hold and divert my energies elsewhere.

The Art of Nonfiction

After reading about 3/4 of the way through the book, I can safely say that The Art of Nonfiction is the best writing advice I have ever heard.  It has filled all the missing links in my knowledge of how to write, enabling me to be a successful writer.  I still need tons of practice to perfect those skills, but now I understand the "why" for many of the best practices I have learned over the years, such as how to outline, how to write a first draft, and how to edit. She articulates the role of both your conscious and subconscious minds in writing and how to tap each at appropriate times for maximum effectiveness.  She discusses common writing problems (I have my share) and how to overcome them. 

While I don't apply her suggestions much to this blog (because I write more extemporaneously here), I have noticed an impact in my research articles I'm writing.  And if/when I start writing books, theses skills will provide the foundation for completing the books effectively.   The Art of Nonfiction is a book I will have to revisit often over the coming years to remind myself how to be a good writer and to avoid pit falls that many writers succumb too.  I highly recommend it to anyone that writes any nonfiction. 

On IT Business Value

Today, I was reading an academic article that defined information technology (IT) business value as the organizational performance impacts of information technology at both the intermediate process level and the organization-wide level, and comprising both efficiency impacts and competitive impacts (IT and Organizational Performance, MISQ, 2004, Melville, Kraemer, and Gurbaxani).  This definition did not satisfy me as an adequate representation of this concept.  In this post, I will attempt to think through my definition of IT business value and its relation to Objectivist ethics, so that I might apply it to an article I am writing.  As a thinking post, please consider feedback most welcome.  My ideas are not finalized on this topic.

Organizational performance strikes me as part of a larger concept for business value.  There is also missing a direction of the impact.  Impacts can obviously be good and bad.  Can we legitimately call it a value if the impact is bad?  I don't think we can.

To address organization impact, lets look at a root concept - business.  The purpose of business is to facilitate the creation of value for trading partners by systematically organizing resources for the production of goods and services.  Businesses are not transient one-time events, nor are they disorganized mobs of traders.  Businesses have a definitive boundary within which individuals interact in an organized fashion.  Business value can take on multiple meanings, depending on with whom you refer.  Business value can refer to the value-added process for a product that the business sells.  Business value can refer to shareholder wealth created from the business growth and profits.  Business value can also refer to the overall fitness or long-term sustainability of the business as a whole.  It is to this last notion of business value that I believe is most comprehensive context.  Using value in this way implies a relationship to ethical values.

As Ayn Rand described values:

It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. It is only the concept of ‘Life’ that makes the concept of ‘Value’ possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.

In business, a similar constant alternative exists, the life or death of the business.  Business processes consists of generated and sustaining actions.  If the business dies, the people and resources remain, but its existence as such is gone.  It is only the concept of business life that makes the concept of business value possible.  Lest we take this analogy too far, businesses are sufficiently different in that they can be created by men, can be willfully destroyed by men, and can be recreated by men if they so desire.  So it is not self-generated action.  It is composed of many individuals acting together in mutually agreed upon ways, trading products and services with each other.

But, when entrepreneurs create a business, they generally do so with the purpose of continuing the business indefinitely.   Ethical values only refers to those values created for the individual, but in the entrepreneur's case, the business becomes an extension of the entrepreneur's value system.  The business value refers directly to value to the entrepreneur.  As the entrepreneur disassociates his personal values from the business values, the business can only continue its existence if its values perpetuate long term sustainability.   For example, a business must maintain a positive cash flow.  A business must organize the operations, logistics, and the supply chain to ensure raw goods arrive, are transformed into finished products, and sold.  A business find customers and demonstrate the value offered by what they're selling.  A business must systematically replace employees or grow into new business areas.  The topic of business strategy attempts to answer this question of business value in terms of long term sustainability.

Is the idea of long term sustainability sufficient for business value?  Is there more or less?  Is it all about profits?  What about the community?  Without going to far down this road, I will say that it is not all about profits, but profits are a healthy indicator that things are going right (just ask the auto companies).  And the community may be considered a healthy base for trading, so helping the community can often help the business.  However, the community does not hold any rights over the business and the business does not owe the community anything other than justice when trading with individuals therein.

So where does IT fit in?  IT business value, in my conception, is information technology that enables long term sustainability by fostering value creation in business processes, resources, and relationships. This value creation can take many forms - increased efficiency, more effective processes, improved flexibility, increased communication, decreased errors, improved relationships with stakeholders, better management of assets, heightened security, etc.  Value creation such as heightened security may increase long term sustainability by preventing competitors from stealing trade secretes, it may not increase organization performance, as the authors I first cited claimed.  In fact, the impact of heightened security might slow innovation and organizational decision making, but be a necessity for competitiveness.

So this is the extent of my thinking on this concept.  I believe the real innovative piece of thinking I'll be adding is the relationship between individual values and business values.  Hopefully, I can get some input from other Objectivists on my ideas in that realm.

Objectivist Round-up

Welcome to the May 26, 2011 edition of The Objectivist Round Up.  In this edition we have thirteen wonderful posts by lovers of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism.  The fire and passion of these posters remind of this quote from Rand:

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours." ~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Without further ado, here are the posts:
Scott Connery presents My Personal Trip to Atheism posted at Rational Public Radio, saying, "This is my story about the long and often painful process that I went through when I decided to become an Atheist. I'm trying to share the "it gets better" message about abandoning faith."

C.W. presents Japan, Disasters Natural and Economic posted at Krazy Economy, saying, "We are seeing a nation that could have been great fall apart. Its failure of knowledge and its dependence on government are leading it to a man made disaster."

Jeff Meek presents The Distraction of Gun Control posted at Rational Public Radio, saying, "I take issue with Scott's "The Objectivist Position on Gun Control". His evaluation totally misses the point and drops the context. Read the two articles, (the original is linked at the bottom), and weigh in on who you think is right."

Rachel Miner presents Norman Rockwell posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "I share some favorite paintings from the traveling Norman Rockwell exhibit."

Diana Hsieh presents For Sale: Podcast on Finding Good Prospects for Romance and Friendship posted at NoodleFood, saying, "My awesome 90-minute podcast on finding good prospects for romance and friendship is still available for sale, now for $25. Don't miss out on this opportunity to extract the most social value from the upcoming Objectivist conferences!"

Scott Connery presents Oregon Supreme Court Rules Medical Marijuana Users Can Still Carry Guns posted at Rational Public Radio, saying, "Even though this decision is largely symbolic (it's still illegal to use marijuana even for medicinal purposes, and marijuana users are still prohibited from buying guns) I think this ruling is a great step in the right direction."

Gene Palmisano presents Misnomer of the Day posted at The Metaphysical Lunch, saying, "Setting the record straight one misnomer at a time."

Edward Cline presents On Planet Obama posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "One sometimes wonders what planet President Barack Obama lives on. It must be that mythical doppelganger of Earth that revolves unseen by us on the exact opposite side of the Sun. There, he can address a gathering in the State Department about an incredible vision of an Israel that is peacefully embraced on all sides by a benign Palestinian state whose government and citizens bear no grudge against Israel – an incredible vision of “coexistence” which nonetheless everyone believes is possible. There, in that mythical Palestine, Muslims win most of the Nobel Prizes in science and medicine, and Muslims read accounts of how Muslims discovered America and landed men on the moon."

Benjamin Skipper presents Sympathize with Me: Only You Feel Your Emotions posted at Musing Aloud, saying, "As real as intense emotions feel it's easy to assume other people can sense them too, but such an assumption can lead to destructive behavior. Only you can feel your emotions, and while it's reasonable to desire other people help you with your problems ultimately you have to take the first and most important steps towards resolution."

Julia Campbell presents herbed top sirloin with sautéed radishes posted at the crankin' kitchen!, saying, "For that perfect spring meal, try this grilled herbed top sirloin steak and sautéed radishes and leeks."

Stephen Bourque presents A Dirty Word posted at One Reality, saying, "In case there were any lingering thoughts that the 'Gingrich Revolution' of 1994 signaled anything revolutionary about the man himself, Mr. Gingrich wishes to reassure us that he is fundamentally a compromising milquetoast--which is to say, he is a suitable Republican candidate."

Scott Connery presents Does Solar Power Math Add up to an Alternative Energy Solution? posted at Rational Public Radio, saying, "Obama is pledging 737 million dollars to aid the construction of a new solar plant. Has anyone looked at the math behind this? Can this plant produce enough energy per acre or per dollar to be a real solution? Does anyone in D.C. even care about the facts of reality?"

Earl Parson presents Feeling Like My Old Self Again posted at Creatures of Prometheus, saying, "Personal musings on returning to normalcy after a prolonged period of struggle and depression. I think this is one of my finest bits of writing in quite a while."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Choosing between Career Paths

I love my job as an academic.  However, this morning I realized that I have been conflicted on how to spend my time during breaks (i.e. winter break, spring break, and summers).  There are two possible ways to focus my attention, each leading to two rewarding career paths, as either the philosopher-writer or the consultant-business owner.  I'm afraid that if I try to do both, I'll fail at both because these are part time emphasizes.  To do them well, I need to focus all my time and effort on one to maximize the return on my investment.

With the philosopher-writer career, my specialization in Objectivism could be maximized so that I could write research articles applying the philosophic principles to information systems.  There are very, very few professors in information systems with this specialization, so I would have wide opportunities for contributions.  I have re-considered applying to the Objectivist Academic Center as a means of improving my core understanding of Objectivism and improve my skills as a writer.  As I progress in my career, I would like to write several books, both textbooks and popular press books, with my particular interest in information systems history and the conceptual approach to education.  

In the other career track, I would focus on developing a deep understanding of application of concepts, specifically in Internet technologies, cloud computing, and Internet marketing.  My research would focus more on human computer interaction with Internet technologies.  I would spend more time learning about various development frameworks, project management concepts, and analysis and design practices.  Consulting engagements could flow from these skills.  As my career progresses, I would start some small businesses to capitalize on industry needs and supplement my financial plan.

Up until now, I have been explicitly leaning towards the former path, but realized that the latter path kept creeping into my to-do list.  So here I explicitly acknowledge my dual interests.  Both career paths have equal interest at this point.  Both have good research opportunities and continuing cash flows.  Both would challenge me in new and exciting ways.  Both fit within my central purpose in life.  But my focus must ultimately rest with one or the other.  Which to choose?  I don't know, but I may be talking with a number of people in the future to help me make my decision.

Atlas Shrugged the movie

I plan on being there, in the theaters on April 15th, when this movie releases.   It will be low budget; so no fancy graphics, no epic scenery, little too no action.  My guess, it will be mostly drama driven by dialog.   In an interview with the director, it seemed as if he had a basic understanding of the philosophy.  Certainly not perfect, but what Hollywood directory would?

Will it be good? My expectations: I hold out hope that it will be reasonably good, but I see three dangers.  First, the production of this film was independent and rather rushed, so there is a danger that the film will be a snoozer due to poor editing, weak actors, and/or a mediocre director.  Second, there is a danger that the ideas will be butchered.  Well, more an expectation that some of the ideas will be butchered.  Just not sure how grotesquely so.  Third, the film may also focus too much on the love triangle between Dagny, Hank, and Francisco, rather than the heroism of those characters.  IF the film can overcome these dangers, I think I will be pleased, given whatever other faults the film contains.

The trailer should be out later today.  Take a peak and let me know what you think.

Developing habits, part 2

Earlier this month, I stated I was reviewing habits that I would like to develop.  Over the past few days, I have been reviewing what habits/virtues that I deem appropriate for cultivating.   I used several sources for evaluating various virtues, including Ayn Rand's virtues in Virtue of Selfishness (VOS), Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steve Pavlina Personal Development for Smart People, Branden's 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem (as much as I hate the guy, he did write some useful things on developing habits), and The Virtues Project (which mostly helped me review a list of virtues that I may have forgotten).

In compiling and organizing this list, I tried to develop a hierarchy of virtues, with four major virtues, Rationality, Productivity, Integrity, and Justice, and lower level virtues that best capture the totality of the top virtue.  While this does not perfectly match Ayn Rand's conception, my goal was to put this in my own terms.  However, her influence is readily apparent.  For each, I considered habits in developing of ideas, habits with staying true to ideas, and habits applying ideas consistently.  I tried to stop at thirteen virtues, so that I could use these virtues similar to Ben Franklin did (as I described  in my last post on developing habits).  Because of that, I'm sure this list is not comprehensive, but serves as a practical starting point.

So without further ado, here is my list along with a brief explanation of each.

Rationality - applying reason to all my thinking

• Living Consciously:  Applying my focus and mental awareness to all situations. 
• Independence:  Verifying all ideas in my mind with first hand research and thinking.  When multiple perspectives exist on a subject, I must independently evaluate each perspective to discover the truth of falsity of those perspectives using logic and the facts.
• Honesty: adherence to the facts of reality. In this sense, honesty applies to both with myself and with others.  It includes having the courage to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc. without undo fear, particularly in being true to truth.
• Self-confidence: being true to my own consciousness.  

Productiveness - consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability.

• Purposefulness: The systematic identification of goals and objectives to achieve.
• Ambitiousness: The systematic pursuit of achievement and of constant improvement in respect to one’s goal.
• Efficaciousness: The systematic pursuit of the knowledge and skills necessary to produce desired effects
• Self-Discipline: the ability to get myself to take action regardless of my emotional state.

Integrity - loyalty to rational principles.  Never comprise on my morals.

• Principled: the pursuit of living by principles.  In my case, I refer to this as the systematic identification of principles for optimal living.
• Responsible: Strive to be accountable and respond rationally to principles consistently.
• Moral ambitiousness: Always strive to be as moral as possible.  This includes discovering what my values and virtues are and pursuing them with all of my effort.  Ayn Rand described this as "pride", but it makes more sense in my own mind when I refer to it as moral ambitiousness.
• Joyfulness: pursue joy in the little things so as to make the pursuit of the big things bearable.

Justice: Improve my judgment capabilities of others and apply that judgment consistently. I will "regard strangers as innocent until proved guilty, and grant them that initial good will in the name of their human potential. After that, [I will] judge them according to the moral character they have actualized." ~ Rand, VOS, "The Ethics of Emergencies".  My focus is on identifying and rewarding the good in people.

Are irrational values of value?

Last night at our monthly GLO meeting, we discussed the first 1/4 of Ayn Rand's The Objectivist Ethics.  One of our members raised the following question:  "Are irrational values of value?"  After almost 30 minutes of conversation, we hardly resolved the issue. The major confusion stems from the dual sense that values is used within Objectivism.  According to Rand, a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep.  Based on this sense of value, even a junky pursuing his latest fix is pursing a value - since they are acting to gain something.  However, in the second sense, values must support the objective standard of life.  The concept of life is what makes the concept of value possible. 

Clearly, however, a junky acting to gain a fix is pursing an irrational action because it is ultimately self-destructive.  If the value chosen ends the life in question, it must be irrational.  Yet, humans do sometimes chose self-destructive actions.  Can we call these irrational actions "of value" in the objective sense?

As Rand reminds us, whenever we talk of value, you must ask of value to whom and for what?  In other words, you have to understand the context.  So the question "Are irrational values of value?" must demand an answer to "To whom?" and "For what?"  The full question should be "Are irrational values of value to man for living?"  The answer is obviously "NO!!!"   Is a junky seeking a fix a value to him for living?  No.  However, using a different context such as "Is a junk seeking a fix of value to him for a temporary joy?"  You might answer yes, with a major disclaimer - to what end?  Certain, the fix will meet an immediate desire, but does nothing to help the long-term survival of the individual. 

My take away - the question "Are irrational values of value?" can only be answered by "depends on the context", but according to an objective standard - No.

Understanding the two senses of value is by no means an easy task.  But after last night, I believe I have a better grasp of the concepts involved.  Many thanks to Robert Nasir, Alex Hrin, and the other GLO members who helped me think through this question.

Value-dense life

Updated and expanded at Reason for Success.

The Concepts of Data and Information

This week, while preparing for a class in information systems, I discovered an integration of the concepts "data" and "information" in terms of Ayn Rand's Epistemological framework as defined in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.  As a check on my thinking, I am posting my thoughts here for feedback.

I begin with Rand's definition of a concept:

A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted. - ITOE

Using my own words, concepts represent an abstraction.  By omitting measurements except for essential characteristics, a concept economizes our thinking process by allowing us to think about a vast number of things at the same time, without having to mental refer to perceptual concretes. But when it comes to thinking about the world, it is necessary for the mind to selectively re-introduce measurements to concepts in order to build context around one's thoughts.  For example, if I were to say to myself "I want to buy a new chair for my living room," I have re-introduced the measurement of location (and perhaps function) to my thinking.  Any additional thoughts about this purchase would necessarily introduce more measurements.  Is the chair a recliner?  Do you want it to rock?  What color?  Do you want it overstuffed?  Leather or fabric?  Quality of construction?  Metal or wood legs? Etc.  With these measurements re-introduced, we are prepared to evaluate real chairs for the possibility of purchase.


But what are measurements, other than facts about reality.  In terms of data, data is nothing more than specific facts about some thing.  They are measurements.  They are measurements of real world entity.  As Rand defines it:

Measurement is the identification of ... a quantitative relationship established by means of a standard that serves as a unit. - ITOE p. 7

Data are the result.  Data are the quantitative relationships recorded about a specific entity.

My next question delved into was how information relates to these concepts.  Unfortunately, I could find no definition of information in a dictionary that adequately captured the essential characteristics of this concept.  The definition I offer serves as a working definition.  With that disclaimer, I define information as a set of measurements that denote a perceptual concrete of a concept or set of concepts within a specific context.  If I say "Please provide me with all relevant information," I am requesting data about a specific context.  Not just any data though.  Information is data with meaning.  How do we establish meaning?  Meaning comes from concepts.  So in essence, information represents data re-introduced to relevant concepts within a specific context.  A short hand notation I used to help think about this was information = data + concepts.  The assumption is that the concepts define the context.  Since language serves as a set of symbols to denote concepts, a variation of the above notation could be written information = data + language.  Again, the assumption is that the language defines the context.

In computer terminology, programming languages are used to manipulate data in logically constructed ways in order to add meaning to numbers.  I believe the term programming language is very apt, in that the language is used to define the context in terms of a computer program.  This led to my last integration where information = data + computer program. With this integration, I believe it is possible to better understand the role of information systems and computer programs in helping us think and act.  While computers cannot replace our thoughts, they can add meaning to the vast abundance of data.  But the meaning is limited to the context established by program itself. 

So those are my thoughts.  I believe my overall approach to these concepts is sound, but I'm interesting in hearing your thoughts.

Yaron Brook speaking at UMich

This Oct. 6th, I plan on attending a Yaron Brook speech at University of Michigan on the topic "Capitalism without Guilt". I watched an earlier version of this presentation given last year and really enjoyed it. Of course, every video I watch of Yaron simply blows me away. His his knowledge of philosophy, business, and history are incredible. But his Q&As are fantastic. His ability to dig to the philosophic root of a question and yet do it in a respectful fashion to the questioner, has not been matched by any other speaker (except Ayn Rand) to my knowledge. It will be great to see him in person.

Many of the GLO members will be there. Link to the Facebook event. Hope to see you too.

Dewey's wrong approach to education

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. “ ~John Dewey

While in general, I am not a big fan of analyzing quotations out of context, I am familiar with Dewey's educational philosophy. So when I saw the above quote, I immediately winced. This is what is destroying our educational system.

First, "Education is not preparation for life..." is absolutely false. Education is preparation for life. That is why we have degrees that signal the end of a student's studies and a transition to the work world. Students select majors in order to learn a subject that they can later apply in their work. That is why as a professor, I approach each class as if the students will leave my classroom and use what they learned in their life. The classroom may temporarily consume a student's life, but the entire purpose of education is to prepare the students for a productive and virtuous adulthood.

Dewey would have us believe that "education is life itself". Leaving aside that this statement is confusing at best (which I believe he does on purpose), equating education with life accomplishes two of Dewey's goals, to reify knowledge acquisition and at the same time, to de-objectivize (my own made up term) concepts. If education is life itself, then knowledge acquisition through education is an end in itself. If education and life are synonymous, then our life is nothing but education and learning. When do we ever apply the knowledge? When do we act? Dewey would likely argue that the act of acting helps us to gain new knowledge. But that is not necessarily so. A person may act in the same self-destructive ways for many years. The mere act itself does not necessitate learning.

The second goal of Dewey, to de-objectivize concepts, is also accomplished with this statement. Dewey's statement rests on the assumption that life is a complex mixture of emotions, social relationships, ideas, and work. By equating life and education, Dewey proposes that education should be a complex mixture of emotions, social relationships, ideas, and work. By including the social aspects in the definition of education, Dewey attempts to de-emphasize the objective nature of concepts. He attempts to make concepts subjective in nature (de-objectivize). The blatant subjectivism makes education of objective concepts impossible.

"Subjectivism is the belief that reality is not a firm absolute, but a fluid, plastic, indeterminate realm which can be altered, in whole or in part, by the consciousness of the perceiver." ~ Ayn Rand.

If education succumbs to subjectivism, then a person will be presented with no firm or absolute concepts in which to live. They will be left with emotion filed, pseudo-understanding of ideas. Reality will always be a mystery to them and often conflict with what they "believe". This can only lead to suffering with the frequent contradictions of what they believe and the facts of reality.

Dewey's argument gains some logical plausibility because he equates "learning" with "education". But this should not be the case. Certainly, you can continue to learn after school. But "education" is a systematic program of study. A proper education helps a person to learn the conceptual skills he needs to live his life. A person may also learn some of the concepts need to live his life, without a formal education.

The correct approach to education can be glimpsed from this quote by Ayn Rand:

"The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life—by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past—and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort." ~ 'The Comprachicos' in The Return of the Primitive

I would further recommend Leonard Peikoff's "Philosophy of Education" lecture for a sketch of a proper education based on Ayn Rand's ideas.

New email list - OGrownups

Diana Hsieh of Noodlefood has created a new email list for Objectivist adults who either have kids, want to have kids, or just like talking about kids. Its called OGrownups.

OGrownups is:

OGrownups is an informal mailing list for Objectivists interested in raising and educating children well. Its basic purpose is to facilitate discussion amongst Objectivists about child development, discipline techniques, education methods, parenting resources, and more.

Any Objectivist interested in polite and practical discussion about raising and educating children rationally may join OGrownups -- parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, caregivers, and friends. Anyone considering parenthood is also welcome.

If you're interested, sign up. RationalJenn is moderating.