References
[Editor’s notes are in blue.]
* The title refers to Nathaniel Branden’s lecture “The Concept of God,” from his lecture series “The Basic Principles of Objectivism.” That lecture is fully transcribed in his book The Vision of Ayn Rand, chapter 4. Partial and perhaps complete audios seem to be available throughout the Internet. See also R.A. Childs, “The Epistemological Basis of Anarchism,” Note 19.
[01] C.L. Barnhart, ed., The American College Dictionary (Random House, 1970).
[02] A. Rand, FNI [For the New Intellectual], 33. [The reference is to the paperback edition.]
[03] N. Branden, PSE [The Psychology of Self-Esteem], 7 [Bantam paperback edition].
MMA perception and the neural process that mediates it are not identical, nor are a thought and the brain activity that may accompany it. Such an equation is flagrantly anti-empirical and logically absurd.
MMAs one philosopher observes: “[Reductive materialism] maintains that consciousness is a form of brain activity....” [The quotation is from James B. Pratt, Matter and Spirit (Macmillan, 1922), pp. 11–12.]
R. [Robert] Efron, reviewing Emotion and Personality, by M. [Magda B.] Arnold, 5/1/14e [January 1966].
MMA patient may be unable to identify an object by the use of his vision if his brain is damaged in region X. This does not necessarily mean that the “function” of region X is to identify objects visually. It could mean only that region X, in association with other regions of the brain, is required for this function.
[04] A. Rand, “Collectivized Ethics,” 2/1/1k-aa [References of this form refer to The Objectivist Newsletter, so that volume 2, number 1 would be January 1963. After volume 4, the name of the publication was The Objectivist. The page numbers for the latter are those of the original format, not those in the bound volume.] and VOS 81 [The Virtue of Selfishness. The reference is to the paperback edition.].
[05] A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” 5/11/5f [November 1966] and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 49-50. [The reference here is to the original paperback monograph reprinting the articles from the periodical. The corresponding page in the Expanded Edition is 52.]
MMThus the essence of a concept is determined contextually and may be altered with the growth of man’s knowledge.
A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, ” 5/10/4b [October 1965] and IOE 42 [Expanded Edition: 43)].
MMAll definitions are contextual, and a primitive definition does not contradict a more advanced one: the latter merely expands the former.
A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, ” 5/10/6g [October 1965] and IOE 45 [Expanded Edition: 47].
MM<Only when and if some discovery were to make the definition “rational animal” inaccurate (i.e., no longer serving to distinguish man from all other existents) would the question of expanding the definition arise. “Expanding does not mean negating, abrogating, or contradicting....
A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, ” 5/10/7a [October 1965] and IOE 45–46 [Expanded Edition: 47].
MMRemember that concept-formation is a method of cognition, man’s method, and that concepts represent classifications of observed existents according to their relationships to other observed existents. Since man is not omniscient, a definition cannot be changelessly absolute, because it cannot establish the relationship of a given group of existents to everything else in the universe, including the undiscovered and unknown.
COG [N. Branden, “The Concept of God.” The specific passage occurs in The Vision of Ayn Rand, page 94.]
MMIn order for an idea or concept to be integrated into man’s consciousness and cognitive knowledge, certain conditions are necessary.... the concept must never be closed to further scrutiny or examination....
[06] A. Rand, “Introduction to The Fountainhead,” 7/3/5g [March 1968] and FH ??? [The Fountainhead, 25th-Anniversary Edition, page x {paperback}].
MMIt is important here to remember that the only direct, introspective knowledge of man anyone possesses is of himself.
A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” 5/12/3c [December 1966] and IOE 53 [Expanded Edition: 56].
MMThe units of the concept “consciousness” are every state or process of awareness that one experiences, has ever experienced or ever will experience (as well as similar units, a similar faculty, which one infers in other living entities).
[07] A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” 5/12/4c [December 1966] and IOE 54 [Expanded Edition: 58].
MMSince axiomatic concepts are not formed by differentiating one group of existents from others....
[08] AS [Atlas Shrugged] 942c-j, q-x [hardback] (1015gg-mm, tt-1016g) [paperback].
[09] AS 828s-t (892h-i).
[10] A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” 5/7/3d-e [December 1966] and IOE 11 [Expanded Edition: 5].
MMA percept is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism. It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the evidence of his senses and apprehends reality. When we speak of “direct perception” or “direct awareness,” we mean the perceptual level. Percepts, not sensations, are the given, the self-evident. The knowledge of sensations as components of percepts is not direct, it is acquired by man much later: it is a scientific conceptual discovery.
[10a] Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (Norwich: Jarrold and Songs Limited), volume 1, p. 337.
[11] See note 6.
[12] A. Rand, “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” 5/12/2f [December 1966] and IOE 52 [Expanded Edition: 55].
See also PSE 6.
MMThe concept of consciousness as a state, the state of awareness, is a primary; it cannot be broken down any further or defined by reference to other concepts; there are no other concepts to which it can be reduced.... One can investigate the structural and functional conditions in an organism that are necessary for the existence of consciousness; one can inquire into the neurophysiological means of consciousness (such as sensory receptors, afferent nerves, etc.); one can differentiate levels of forms of consciousness. But the concept of consciousness as such is an irreducible primary.
[13] R. Efron, reviewing Emotion and Personality, by M. Arnold, 5/1/14e [January 1966].
MMA patient may be unable to identify an object by the use of his vision if his brain is damaged in region X. This does not necessarily mean that the “function“ of region X is to identify objects visually. It could mean only that region X, in association with other regions of the brain, is required for this function. 
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