I can't see what difference it makes. It's like knowing how old you are--you just have to take someone's word for it. If you are off by a year or two, who cares? What's important is that you always know what you are doing and why.
RE: I can’t see what difference it makes.
Well I think I can.
If we simply exist because of nature, then our ultimate end is the same regardless of whether we decide to be like Ayn Rand or Osama Bin Ladin.
Since one’s destiny is ultimately unrelated to one’s behavior, you may as well just live as you please. As Dostoyevsky put it: “If there is no immortality then all things are permitted.”
On this basis, a writer like Ayn Rand is absolutely correct to praise the virtues of selfishness. Live totally for self; no one holds you accountable!
Indeed, it would be foolish to do anything else, for life is too short to jeopardize it by acting out of anything but pure self-interest. Sacrifice for another person would be stupid.
In which case, I don’t see why either desiring to subscribe to Ayn Rand’s philosophy or not would matter in the end if her idea of how we came into being is right.
For in Ayn rand’s universe, REAL good and evil, rationality or irrationality do not exist. There is only the bare valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong.