Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Understanding Units

In studying objectivism, I am having difficulty understanding the concept of units. I have reposted a similar message to a small number of objectivist soures to find the correct answers. If / when I receive a reply I shall update this post so that all may benefit.

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Assertions:

A unit is a (partial?) capture of the identity of an existent in man’s consciousness. Units must refer to a perceived concrete. Units can refer to existents other than physical concretes such as length. The relationship between a unit and attributes is composition: units are composed of attributes in various measurable quantities. The relationship between antecedent units and a concept is aggregation.

Questions:

  • Does a unit always refer to an instance of a concrete or can it be a generalization too? For example: a book vs. a particular book, Color vs. a particular shade of blue, weight vs. 100 pounds (or is 100 an attribute of a unit “collection of pounds”).
  • Does measurement omission apply to units and concepts?
  • Is a unit a concept as well?

3/5/2008 UPDATE:
I have received good feedback to the Objectivism Online Forum. Please read through if you have similar questions regarding units.

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