I remember reading about “A is A " when reading about Rand and objectivism. It means thing is what it is, and it possesses a specific nature independent of human consciousness. I have read similar arguments in what i have read so let me try giving counters of this The Chariot, the Table, and the Mereological Problem In the Milindapañha, Nāgasena asks King Milinda to identify his chariot. Is it the axle? The wheels? The chassis? The reins? The yoke? The king says no to each part individually. But if the chariot is not any of its parts, is it something separate from them? Nothing identifiable as the chariot can be found apart from its components and their arrangement. The chariot is a designation applied to parts arranged in a particular way for a particular purpose. This does not mean that the chariot is useless or that we cannot conventionally identify one. It means that its identity as a chariot depends on its parts, arrangement, and function. There is no need to posit an additional, independently existing chariot beyond these things. The same problem applies to tables, forests, armies, and individual organisms. We identify a forest by grouping trees together, and an army by grouping soldiers together. But there is no additional entity called “the forest” or “the army” that exists separately from the things grouped under those terms. An Objectivist might respond that modern science can identify the objective structures that unite things. A table consists of atoms arranged in a particular way, and an organism can be identified through its cells, DNA, and evolutionary history. But identifying the components and relations that make something count as a table or organism does not automatically establish that the whole possesses an independent nature over and above those components and relations. Peter Unger’s sorites argument makes the problem particularly clear. If you remove a single atom from a table, it remains a table. If you continue removing atoms, at what exact point does it stop being a table? The same question applies if you gradually remove cells from an organism. The problem is not simply that we have difficulty identifying the precise boundary. It is that the realist needs to explain why a composite object possesses an intrinsic identity that remains independent of the changing material and arrangement that constitute it. If the Objectivist says that the table remains a table as its atoms are removed, the question is how much can be removed before that identity disappears. If the answer depends on structure, function, arrangement, and context, then the identity of the object depends on precisely the relationships that the appeal to intrinsic nature was supposed to overcome. Calling the object “atoms arranged table-wise” does not mean that tables are useless fictions. It means that the existence of the atoms and their arrangement does not require an additional, independently existing table-essence. The Computer Desktop: Why Useful Concepts Need Not Mirror Reality A computer screen displays folders as blue or yellow rectangles. We can move these icons, open them, and use them to organize files. But if we open the physical computer, we will not find tiny blue paper folders inside it. The icons are a useful interface for interacting with data stored through physical processes that do not resemble the images on the screen. The fact that the interface works does not mean that it literally mirrors the underlying hardware. Our concepts can operate in a similar way. We identify tables, organisms, markets, and people because these categories help us navigate the world. But the fact that a category is useful does not establish that reality contains an independent essence corresponding to the category exactly as we conceive it. Rand assumes that conceptual identification gives us knowledge of things as they are in themselves. The desktop analogy challenges this assumption: a representation can be useful without resembling the structure it represents. The same point applies to the forest and the army. We group trees together as a forest and soldiers together as an army because their relationships are relevant to our purposes. We do not need to assume that the grouping itself exists as an independent entity. Objectivism therefore needs more than the observation that human beings successfully identify things. It needs to establish why our conceptual categories should be treated as direct descriptions of intrinsic reality rather than as useful ways of organizing experience. Fire, Fuel, and Space: The Problem of Intrinsic Identity Nāgārjuna’s analysis of fire and fuel in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā presents another challenge to intrinsic nature. If fire exists independently of fuel, it should be able to burn without the conditions that sustain it. But the fire we encounter depends on fuel and other conditions. If fire and fuel are identical, then the consumer and the consumed become the same thing. If they are entirely separate, their relationship becomes difficult to explain. Fire and fuel are identifiable through their relationship. Their interaction does not require two completely independent identities that exist without reference to one another. The point is not that fire does not burn . The point is that identifying something through its characteristics and relationships does not establish that it possesses an independent nature separate from them.

accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka… My favourite sutta in whole of pali canon

🛸👽👀

If your economy depends on tourism , you don't put red tape on arrivals. Big mistake Thailand

Socialism loves war. Capitalism hates war.

Poland embraced shock therapy by cutting government spending, strengthening private property rights, and ending government price controls, essentially doing the opposite of what socialists advocate. How did it turn out? Poland has become one of the most successful economies among countries that emerged from behind the Iron Curtain. cc: @reason

If Dutch can cut 25k babu jobs why can’t India. I am pretty sure 80% of babu jobs in India are worthless.