Idea Log 15092010

READ AYN RAND: World's Biggest Writing

The idea was conceived and "written" by one person, Nick Newcomen, during the spring and summer of 2010. All expenses were paid entirely by him.

The first step involved identifying on a map the route he would need to drive in order to spell out "Read Ayn Rand." Then he drove the route. He used a GPS logger (Qstarz BT-Q1000X) to record his "writing." He turned on the device when he wanted to write and turned off the device between letters. He then input the recorded GPS data into Google Earth resulting in the image you see above.

For documentation, he video recorded himself at dozens of different landmarks along the route.

<The reporting of this incident in the Globe and Mail about two weeks ago was the initial reminder that I wanted to read THE FOUNTAINHEAD but as you know I did watch the movie eventually  and have posted an entry about that. As you can see AYN RAND and her philosophical take on OBJECTIVISM is my latest obsession and I am egoistic enough to claim that it defines my philosophical take on life only now I feel more normal with actual data to support it>

WHO IS AYN RAND?

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American 20th century novelist and philosopher. She is best known for her novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as well as for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
Objectivism is a philosopy created by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness, that man has direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive and deductive logic, that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest, that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez faire capitalism, and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that he can comprehend and to which he can respond emotionally.

Rand originally expressed her philosophical ideas in her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and other works. She further elaborated on them in her magazines The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, and The Ayn Rand Letter, and in non-fiction books such as Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and The Virtue of Selfishness.

The name "Objectivism" derives from the principle that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not created by the thoughts one has, but are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by man's mind.

Philosophy: Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth", grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged