Materialism & idealism: Dialectic & dogmatism

[Old Git Tom]

Elsewhere on the drearier pages here, the same old sectarian wrangles are pursuing their usual fruitless course. IMHO, arguments against the fixed mindset of dogmatists bounce off like cannonballs meeting titanium armor-plating. This is not trying to denigrate or insult anybody, it is a sorrowing psychological observation.

Marxism’s internicene cat-fights mimic closely the battles of the Christian & religious sects. Combatants quote their Holy Book, chapter & verse, thundering from their pulpits, finding the Devil in the way their opponents twist & misinterpret Holy writ. But self-awareness & irony are beyond dogmatists.

In most cases, their message is the same. Return to the True Faith, as explicitly layed out in God’s/Marx’s sacred texts. Gimme that old time religion – my kind, not the other bastard’s.

Meantime, back at the ranch - - realities are changing whle the fanatics pore over their scriptures. A massive influx of capital turned China into a productive monster, sucking factories making physical things away from the West.


“In fact, the US economy has become increasingly detached from reality. Its manufacturing sector now accounts for a mere 11% of America's GDP.”
Pierre Rocard – Project Syndicate, 2005.
In the West, the most profitable, viable sector is psychic production – of systems, technologies & services. Many dogmatists either deny this or pooh-pooh its economic significance.

Consciously or otherwise, US capitalism had put in solid foundations for the coming phase. According to Carroll Quigley, already by the 1960s, 25% of US GDP was taken by education. This step was taken consciously by Finland - strategic long-term investment in education.


”In fact, today's troubles in autos and housing are indications of a long-term shift: The U.S. economy, in part because of globalization but also because of the nature of knowledge-based growth, has been moving toward producing outputs that have long-lasting effects but don't have a solid and visible forms. One such intangible produced by the education system is human capital, which is another phrase for the long-term value of education. Another important intangible is intellectual capital, which is the accumulation of scientific knowledge, business and financial knowhow, and artistic accomplishments.”
Business Week
Note ‘intangible’ (non-material). In Mx’s day, profits from opium were re-exported to China as goods, or whole factories. In parallel, cheap Chinese labor was exported round the world. Currently, as far as Lord Rothschild’s blanket of secrecy allows us to glimpse, the cheap Western jobs have been exported to China, but along with some of the very latest high-tech. How significant is the latter?

How much high tech? For degenerate dogmatic- materialist-irredentists, the question is akin to “How long is a piece of string”. They only recognise the significance of material, tangible things. Mx didn’t, becos he had obsorbed some value from Hegel’s idealism, & discarded the irrelevant flannel. That is why he could write of capitalism’s effects, “All that is solid melts into air” .

Like Detroit, & the Ruhr. Puffft! Gone! And capitalism as industrialism is displaced by capitalism as magical money-juggling in cyberspace. That’s actually old-hat magic, seen with Law’s System & the South Sea Bubble of the 18c. Vast fortunes were disappeared by the dialectic dancing thru history - but now more potent & malignant magic with the power of information technology & IT.

Neither materialism nor idealism are sufficient alone to understand what is happening. No problem for dogmatists, since if the clear answers are not in the ancient texts, they do not merit attention. Worse, then any further thoughts become heresy.

This should get attention from those who see Marxism as a living tradition, one that constantly updates in the light of changing situations. Part of that is realising that ideas as information can indeed take primacy over, & command, material results. That is why the ghost/Geist of communism, as ideas, could challenge Europe, as Mx wrote with a Hegelian slant.

The dancing dialectic now pushes idealism into prominence, & materialism into a supporting role. Take that with some confidence, since it is confirmed by the latest physics also. There is far more & less than meets the eye in matter.

So historical materialism is not dead, as long as it is linked to idealism. Without, it is a brain-dead zombie, suitable companion for the dogmatic living dead - the life & death of The Party.

[Skooma Addict]

Your post was very hard to follow. But let me make sure I am getting this right. You are an idealist and a Hegelian?

Also,


The dancing dialectic now pushes idealism into prominence, & materialism into a supporting role.

How does this make sense?

[S.Artesian]

First off, the death of US industrialism is being greatly overrated. The US, within its borders, accounts for 21% of worldwide industrial output, signifcantly, indeed drastically down from 1996s 31%, but still the US is "number 1" in terms of industrial output, and #3 [sometimes #2] in global exports [Germany, China being 1,2 or 2,1 depending on the year, time of day, etc.].

Secondly, if you add to this the production that the US controls globally-- well, you see where its going.

Thirdly, the most profitable sector for the period 2003-2007 was not software, IT, etc. but the FIRE sector, finance, insurance, real estate.

Fourthly, the most profitable industrial sector [includes manufacturing, mining, utilities] was-- of course, the integrated oil companies. In 2006, the oil majors took home 35% of the profit of the top 100 industrial companies.

Rates of profit in the IT sector are very, very difficult to calculate, but if you have a source that shows the rate of return on net property plant equipment, or return on assets, for IT exceeding that of the oil majors prior to 2008, I would appreciate the info.

Thanks-- as for the rest...

Well, Rosa's Rosa-- a jerk and an ignoramus-- that doesn't mean everyone who takes her specious reasoning and ignorance of Marx seriously is a rigid sectarian.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

'Comrade' Artesian:


Well, Rosa's Rosa-- a jerk and an ignoramus-- that doesn't mean everyone who takes her specious reasoning and ignorance of Marx seriously is a rigid sectarian.

Ah, yet more abuse in the place of argument.:(

[S.Artesian]

Yet more whining in the place of analysis. Go back to your own thread, unless you want to deal with some concrete elements of the reproduction of capital.

[Skooma Addict]

Who cares about what unreadable outdated philosophers like Hegel thought anyways?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

'Comrade' Artesian:


Yet more whining in the place of analysis.

May i sugest, then, that you stop at once? Your abuse is bad enough.


Go back to your own thread, unless you want to deal with some concrete elements of the reproduction of capital.

Nope.:cool:

[S.Artesian]

Old git--

Don't see how idealism helps us explain accumulation or the predicament with accumulation, unless you think the bourgeoisie can actually conjure up value detached from the production of use-value. They, the bourgeoisie, thought that up until 2007-8, when first the hedge funds run by Bear Stearns went under, followed by Gear Stearns itself.

They, the bourgeoisie, always think they can conjure up value out of nothing-- since pocketing the already pocketed wealth that was produced by others counts as "reproduction" and "entrepreneurship" in the bourgeois order.

Works for awhile... and then the notes come due........

[Hit The North]

Well, Rosa's Rosa-- a jerk and an ignoramus-- that doesn't mean everyone who takes her specious reasoning and ignorance of Marx seriously is a rigid sectarian.



'Comrade' Artesian:



Ah, yet more abuse in the place of argument.:(



Yet more whining in the place of analysis. Go back to your own thread, unless you want to deal with some concrete elements of the reproduction of capital.

Can you two comrades not bring your personal grief into this thread. I know it's only OI but, come on, let's show some decorum. :glare:

Old Git Tom:

So historical materialism is not dead, as long as it is linked to idealism. Without, it is a brain-dead zombie, suitable companion for the dogmatic living dead - the life & death of The Party.

Historical Materialism, at least the historical materialism of Marxism, does retain idealism in that it recognises that history if also the product of intentional human activity. "Men make history," but crucially, not under circumstances chosen by themselves.

The key to understanding Marxism is to recognise that Marx and Engels derived a method which overcame and thereby made redundant the antagonism between the old materialism and its idealist counterpart which had dominated over European thought since the Enlightenment.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fine by me. But, Not-So-Smartesian is the one who regularly abuses me.

[S.Artesian]

I think all this discussion of idealism and materialism might work itself out better if we take the actual concrete, and current, circumstances of capitalist reproduction-- which is what historical materialism is supposed to do regarding capitalism.

So when somebody says, IT is the once and future profit center, or that the US is a non-industrial or post-industrial, or parasitic economy, I think we need to explore those things in concrete detail.

[Skooma Addict]

In what sense are you guys using the words "materialism" and "idealism."

[Old Git Tom]

Olaf',


‘Your post was very hard to follow. But let me make sure I am getting this right. You are an idealist and a Hegelian?’

Idealist? Firm yes. It covers a wider range of phenomena. A Hegelian roughly as far as Mx was. If you find me obscure, try Hegel!


‘The dancing dialectic now pushes idealism into prominence, & materialism into a supporting role. How does this make sense?’

Materialist explanations are necessary, not sufficient, as exampled by more modern science. In Mx day, materialism was the cutting edge of science. This changed rapidly, paradoxically, by the very successful advances pioneered by materialist science. Dialectic in action, complete with contradiction?

As far as historians are concerned, the likes of Harold Innis, Marchall McCluhan & Lenski now demand a serious hearing. The role of (immaterial) info flows in shaping societies is best understand from an idealist viewpoint, IMHO. Info & ideas shape widgets & societies, not the other way round. Best examples, the clay tablet (writing) or Gutenberg’s printing technology.

I try not to be dogmatic; either argument seems valid; the religious demand for Bibles created printing, or vice-versa. What seems unarguable is that cheap printing transformed the world by accelerating flows of information.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘First off, the death of US industrialism is being greatly overrated. The US, within its borders, accounts for 21% of worldwide industrial output, signifcantly, indeed drastically down from 1996s 31%, but still the US is "number 1" in terms of industrial output, and #3 [sometimes #2] in global exports [Germany, China being 1,2 or 2,1 depending on the year, time of day, etc.].’

You could be right. ‘Official’ economic statistics are variable in quality, & how they are selected & displayed is interpretive in itself. I can only refer you to the Business Week quote, & your local Walmart where you can see how much Chinese produce is on sale.

Interpretation is a problem where ‘industrial output’ is concerned. Armaments & advanced-tech kit bring in big bucks, but employ relatively few. What is pretty clear is that factory-type production is waning as an employer in favor of non-productive service employments – burger flipping & people taking in one-another’s laundry.


‘Secondly, if you add to this the production that the US controls globally-- well, you see where its going.’

US global control is founded on its scientific & technological ascendancy, backed of course by financial clout. The latter could be waning, unless Rothschild etc., have got their feet under the table of China’s banking system. How would we know?


‘Thirdly, the most profitable sector for the period 2003-2007 was not software, IT, etc. but the FIRE sector, finance, insurance, real estate.’

Sure, as I said, systems, incl financial systems/services of various kinds. ‘Services’ was the buzzword about ten years back. More profitable since expanding in new directions, & the cybernation of factories & global competition had lowered profit margins for material products. For the latter, investment in plant & equipment was heavy. Services were attractive since they might be de-manned by computerisation.


‘Fourthly, the most profitable industrial sector [includes manufacturing, mining, utilities] was-- of course, the integrated oil companies. In 2006, the oil majors took home 35% of the profit of the top 100 industrial companies.’

Granted, altho a rather artificial anomaly created politically by the squeeze of the energy corps & State Dept. That will likely extend until cold fusion comes online – maybe after Hell freezes over?


‘Rates of profit in the IT sector are very, very difficult to calculate, but if you have a source that shows the rate of return on net property plant equipment, or return on assets, for IT exceeding that of the oil majors prior to 2008, I would appreciate the info.’

Sorry, can’t supply, & above my meagre economics understandings anyhow. The first IT boom & internet bubble are over & into recession. What the IT industries are up to now I have only a vague idea. Within software, gaming is/was a major generator of profits, since there’s always a demand for new.

[Old Git Tom]

Olaf,


‘Who cares about what unreadable outdated philosophers like Hegel thought anyways?’

Fair point, the man is HEAVY going. Maybe try Cullen’s little book on Hegel’s Social & Political Thought? Very readable & full of info, & if I recall right, argued that Hegel did make major contributions to Mx’s thinking. Eg., Hegel saw that ‘freedom’ cannot be prescribed, since all that results is a laundry list of exclusions. This in itself is a limitation on freedom of choice & action of others. Mx seems to have taken this aboard in refraining from outlining any details of what form future, better societies should take.

In the light of what happened in Russia, maybe not so good? But we can all be fine theorists with hindsight.

[Dean]

Idealism is only valuable insofar as you are seeking what to achieve.

Once you reach that point, and its not hard (for me it is the equal share of freedom for all human beings), you need to discover what systems facilitate or impede this goal.

Clearly, systems of capital and tyrannical control work against this ideal. The only way for broad, generalized acquisition of social and economic power from the prevalent centralized systems, is a bottom-up associative social system which has power to popularly define the economy.

Idealism is necessary only for a very limited scope of philosophy. Materialism needs this context, but idealism itself is a dead, unchanging concept - it is the materialist analysis and critique of the world which has consistently varying inputs, and as such, it can always develop in terms of its own character. What we would like, however, is always the same once you obtain stable fundamentals.

The capitalists, and a lot of our anarchist and even Marxist friends, suffer from this same disparity - the inability to cohesively define where their ideal is usurped, and therefor how it relates to the material world itself. Many subsequently claim that it is simply those singular organizations that do no fit into their ideal that define and perpetuate the systematic disempowerment of the human creature, rather than actively seeking out the motivations and material conditions which provide for such disempowerment.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘Don't see how idealism helps us explain accumulation or the predicament with accumulation, unless you think the bourgeoisie can actually conjure up value detached from the production of use-value. They, the bourgeoisie, thought that up until 2007-8, when first the hedge funds run by Bear Stearns went under, followed by Gear Stearns itself.

They, the bourgeoisie, always think they can conjure up value out of nothing-- since pocketing the already pocketed wealth that was produced by others counts as "reproduction" and "entrepreneurship" in the bourgeois order. Works for awhile... and then the notes come due........ ‘

Do you want the fifty cent or five dollar argument? Joking; Mx as materialist tried to tie monetary value to something concrete – labor. He failed, according to most views. He tried to tie ‘ownership’ to something material & concrete, & also failed IMHO. I believe Prudhon was more correct. Ownership is an legal abstraction.

Talking of ‘relationship to means of production’ is fine, as long as we realise that a relationship is immaterial, nebulous in itself. As socially enforced law, it can also be chains of steel. Yet ownership is often ambiguous, not concrete.

Eg., in WWII, Britain wanted to get its hands on the gold of the French government in exile. It was in the West Indies, guarded by French warships. No problem! Britain simply moved in more, bigger warships round the island, then claimed ‘ownership’ of the gold, even tho there was no invasion or seizure. International banks conceded that Britai had control, therefore ownership of the gold, & granted loans accordingly.

Mx only came to credible grip with the value of money issue insofar as he relinquished materialist dogma. The value of money is ultimately what human beings believe it to be. Money is fundamentally an idea, not a thing. Of course, in real practice, value levels are determined by a range of factors.

And as you say, when beliefs rise unrealistically, money falls. But that’s the easy bit. Explaining the how, why, & when is much more difficult, except in wiseacre retrospect.

[Old Git Tom]

Bob the Builder,


‘Historical Materialism, at least the historical materialism of Marxism, does retain idealism in that it recognises that history if also the product of intentional human activity. "Men make history," but crucially, not under circumstances chosen by themselves.

The key to understanding Marxism is to recognise that Marx and Engels derived a method which overcame and thereby made redundant the antagonism between the old materialism and its idealist counterpart which had dominated over European thought since the Enlightenment.’

Strictly speaking, philos would call Marxism an ideology, or political platform, not a philosophy. It was a dazzling creation, a breath of pure air that blew away so much foul Victorian cant, yet it did not replace any former philosophical systems, to my knowledge.

I agree Mx combined materialism & idealism, perhaps the source of much contention later. In all good faith, he leaned heavily on the materialist science of his time. It looked good – Darwinism etc. Unfortunately, it let him down. Materialism didn’t have staying power.

I’ve been reading the blogs of a Perry Marshall. He seems to have put a large nail in Darwinism’s coffin. He is a techie specialist in information transmission. He presents powerful argument & evidence that altho DNA is matter, it is essentially encoded information. As such, to operate, the info needs decoding. Encoding & decoding can only be done by intelligence. Materialism seems checkmated here.

To my disapointment, Marshall uses all this to prove the existence of God, & nothing much else beyond the accuracy of the Bible (!). Believers are by definition idealists, but idealists are not always believers.

It seems smarts, insight & dogmatism can seethe in the same mind!

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘I think all this discussion of idealism and materialism might work itself out better if we take the actual concrete, and current, circumstances of capitalist reproduction-- which is what historical materialism is supposed to do regarding capitalism.

So when somebody says, IT is the once and future profit center, or that the US is a non-industrial or post-industrial, or parasitic economy, I think we need to explore those things in concrete detail.’

I wouldn’t say IT is the once & future profit center, but that services, systems & technologies are. Psychic production is taking over from production of material commodities in the West, & also Japan & Korea.

If you noticed, the above posts cited the truly enormous education sector. Higher education has merged to a great degree with corporations & defence industries. The goal is to reduce the time between new discovery & commercial exploitation.

Naturally, most of the ‘new’ developments are consumer junk of minimal social utility, or horribly wasteful weaponry. In this connection, there is an expanding ‘security’ industry – scanners, security corps, cameras, etc. If sales flag, governments will obediently drum up a new war or security panic.

There remains a rump of ‘basic’ production, of food, water, energy. These are handled increasingly by a handful of global giants. Unit profit levels may be low (I don’t know) but volume is enormous, so profits are reliable. Nobody is going to stop eating or drinking. And, as global population rises to critical levels, it will be possible for these multinationals to jack up prices by panic-blackmail, as has been done with oil & gas.

So for eg., the water business may not look sexy profit-wise, yet its potential can be great as an asset based on calculated future profits. Enron tried this game with electricity generation, but grossly overplayed its hand.

Revolutionaries, uniquely, must be in the futurology business. Understanding past & present is just material fodder for this. Unless the revolutionary has an idea of where the world is going, s/he can have little-to-nothing else to offer. This theory is all s/he has.

[S.Artesian]

All those things being imported by Wal-Mart? The question is who controls the revenue streams. In the case of China, it is definitely not China. 86% of high-tech exports, those items "up the value chain" from the simple "snap and pack" assembly process, are controlled by foreign investment enterprises.

More than half of China's total exports are controlled by these foreign investment enterprises.. and half of China's population is still tethered to rural production with incomes of around $700 year, working plots that average less than 1 hectare in size.

The point of advanced technologies, advanced means of communication and circulation, is, as you correctly point out to reduce the time it takes to get the commodities to market. The capital spending boom of the 1993-2000 period was announced by the bourgeoisie with a sustained increase in the purchase of two particular items-- trucks and telephone systems.

But all the technology in the world is useless if it is not augment the productivity of labor, if it is not expanding the production of use-values, so.... so capitalism changes exactly to the degree that it remains capital.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,

‘All those things being imported by Wal-Mart? The question is who controls the revenue streams. In the case of China, it is definitely not China. 86% of high-tech exports, those items "up the value chain" from the simple "snap and pack" assembly process, are controlled by foreign investment enterprises.’ China makes the Walmart stock, mainly, using controlled cheap labor & also high-tech factory systems. Walmart buys cheap in the USA, then sells dear. But who exactly are the makers, buyers & sellers here?

Walmart is so big it is a virtual nation-economy in cyberspace. Who are its banker owners? If we followed thru the hall of mirrors formed by the front companies that hide real ownership, could it be that the same global bankers own the Chinese manufacturing side, & the US Walmart retailing side?


‘More than half of China's total exports are controlled by these foreign investment enterprises.. and half of China's population is still tethered to rural production with incomes of around $700 year, working plots that average less than 1 hectare in size.’ Yes, as Lenin & many others since have observed, small enterprises employ many, but produce far less than giant plants employing relatively few. It’s down to technology, a function of investment, & economies of scale. What’s your point exactly? Do you think China does not have great modern cities, filled with the latest high-tech factories?


‘The point of advanced technologies, advanced means of communication and circulation, is, as you correctly point out to reduce the time it takes to get the commodities to market. The capital spending boom of the 1993-2000 period was announced by the bourgeoisie with a sustained increase in the purchase of two particular items-- trucks and telephone systems.’ My point was that the merging of corporations, government & higher educaion was to reduce the gap between research breakthrus & profitable marketing – the firstest to the sales points tend to get the fattest profit worms.

Altho the USA has been no slouch is corporatising higher education research, the Chinese investment boom of the 80s would have led to chaos without government control - the co-ordinated & preparatory investment in physical infrastructure – something the neo-con economic witch-doctors slide over quickly.

Agree with you otherwise. Enhanced physical transportation infrastructures tend have much the same economic effects as high-tech comms networks. They accelerate & stimulate consumption, production & economic development: but not necessarily a better quality of life!

A biological analogy; the more advanced mammals need a vigorous blood circulation at controlled temperatures. This in turn demands more advanced autonomic brain functions. More advanced brains demand richer blood flows & food resources. To get better/more food, brains develop new strategies like group foraging & hunting. Economies develop in similar ways. IT simply stimulates the ideas sector, the rest follows.

But agreed, IT without its supporting material developments would be powerless & useless, like an electric shaver in the hands of a Neanderthal.


‘But all the technology in the world is useless if it is not augment the productivity of labor, if it is not expanding the production of use-values, so.... so capitalism changes exactly to the degree that it remains capital.’ If you are claiming that nothing has changed since Marx’s day, I’m banjaxed. Use-value is often in the eye of the beholding consumer. What is the use-value of those enormously popular computer games? Objectively, they are useful ways to waste time, so objectively a depressant on the productivity of labor.

Yes, agreed, Mx pointed out the doom-path of capitalism. Sure thing; trouble is, capitalism has been staggering down that pathway of doom for a century & a half since. The Beast still resists the ‘final collapse’ perennially predicted. Face it, there’s something wrong with the theory. Let’s try to put it right. Study is VITAL, but let's not keep bashing our battered old Marxian bibles.

I like to quote the French Marxist historian Fernand Braudel. He warned us that the whole of Chinese culture was shaped by rice cultivation. Rice is much harder & arduous to grow than corn. But the Chinese preferred rice. They love it. So China was formed on a basis of subjective taste & preferrence, not objective, material forces. Corn has a far higher use-value by virtue of the less labor it demands. It sprouts like weeds, anywhere. Go figure.

[S.Artesian]

Braudel? No, not the whole of Chinese culture was shaped by rice cultivation. The culture of south China was certainly shaped by that. The culture of north China was not, as wheat was the primary grain grown in the north. Please, if you want to know something about the development of Chinese agriculture drop Braudel, who doesn't understand a thing about Chinese historical development. Try Philip C.C. Huang.


Use-value has always been, not in the eye of the beholder, but in the eyes of the beholders, that's what the markets are for, that's why capitalism produces for, and pushes against the limits of, the market. Where has that changed? More importantly, when and how did that supposed change take place.

My point is simply this: We can analyze modern capitalism, in all its different iterations, its different interlocking iterations, and we can do it based on the method, categories, and dynamics that Marx captured in Capital.

My point is that all this attempted "modernism" and modernization of Marx is quite similar to the rigid reification of Marx performed in the service of orthodoxy.

We're not doing bible studies-- since we're not engage in an exploration of texts. We are supposed to be analyzing the immanent tendencies of capitalism, tendencies within its very need for expanded reproduction that obstruct that reproduction and precipitate the struggle for the abolition of capitalism.

That's concrete work.

[Hit The North]

The role of (immaterial) info flows in shaping societies is best understand from an idealist viewpoint, IMHO.
.
I disagree, its best seen from an anthropological view and the perspective of 'modes of life'. The very notion of what constitutes 'information' never mind what would be 'useful information' for a given community is relative to the material conditions and relations in which those communities exist.


Info & ideas shape widgets & societies, not the other way round. Best examples, the clay tablet (writing) or Gutenberg’s printing technology.
Then you're left with a self-causing realm of ideas which acts in one direction upon the world. But this is the one-sided nature of idealism which Marx and Engels took such delight in overthrowing.


Strictly speaking, philos would call Marxism an ideology, or political platform, not a philosophy. It was a dazzling creation, a breath of pure air that blew away so much foul Victorian cant, yet it did not replace any former philosophical systems, to my knowledge.I never suggested Marxism was a philosophy, or that it replaced any philosophical system. On the contrary, the antagonism between idealism and materialism could only be transcended by transcending philosophy itself. For Marx the question was no longer how one contemplated and categorised the world, but how one engaged with it.


I agree Mx combined materialism & idealism, perhaps the source of much contention later. In all good faith, he leaned heavily on the materialist science of his time. It looked good – Darwinism etc. Unfortunately, it let him down. Materialism didn’t have staying power.I believe you misread Marx here. In fact he was critical of what he considered to be the mechanical materialism of 19th Century science, including Darwin. But, yes, he saw natural science as certainly a more remarkable method of both explaining and engaging (on the basis of that explanation) with the world, compared to idealist philosophy. You claim materialist science didn't have staying power, but what does this mean? Everything around me is testimony to the remarkable impact materialist science has had on the modern world.


I’ve been reading the blogs of a Perry Marshall. He seems to have put a large nail in Darwinism’s coffin. He is a techie specialist in information transmission. He presents powerful argument & evidence that altho DNA is matter, it is essentially encoded information. As such, to operate, the info needs decoding. Encoding & decoding can only be done by intelligence. Materialism seems checkmated here.

To my disappointment, Marshall uses all this to prove the existence of God, & nothing much else beyond the accuracy of the Bible (!). Believers are by definition idealists, but idealists are not always believers. Well, given what you say, I'd suspect that Marshall's interpretation of the evidence is designed to lead in inevitably to proof of his superstitious belief in a deity. The problem for you, is that if you insist that dna has to be decoded by some conscious mechanism, or a mechanism which is conscious, then this can only lead you to God or some variation. If, however, you rule out intelligence in favour of some natural mechanism of 'decoding' (which now becomes a metaphor for the natural process and not really 'decoding' at all), then you are left with a materialist explanation.


It seems smarts, insight & dogmatism can seethe in the same mind! Sure, but at least Marshall is being consistent.

[LeftSideDown]

Historical materialism is no different than Christian chiliasm.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘Braudel? No, not the whole of Chinese culture was shaped by rice cultivation. The culture of south China was certainly shaped by that. The culture of north China was not, as wheat was the primary grain grown in the north. Please, if you want to know something about the development of Chinese agriculture drop Braudel, who doesn't understand a thing about Chinese historical development. Try Philip C.C. Huang.’ I quoted Braudel as a Marxist historian on the subjective appeal of rice, not Chinese history (his 2-volume history of the rise of capitalism). But I used to go to a North Chinese restaurant, & there was a lot of rice on the menu. Chinese proverb, “A meal without rice is not a meal”.


‘Use-value has always been, not in the eye of the beholder, but in the eyes of the beholders, that's what the markets are for, that's why capitalism produces for, and pushes against the limits of, the market. Where has that changed? More importantly, when and how did that supposed change take place.’ That is as much an argument for the subjective, consumer appeal of market capitalism as Marx’s attempt to link value to objective, materialist criteria. He was not clear on the relationship between use & exchange values (nor in his time, reasonably could not be). Modern philos calls the relationship a ‘conjugate variable’. The same label is given to the mysterious relation of position & speed of a particle in physics. Materialism as a heuristic, mental, tool is of no use here.


‘My point is simply this: We can analyze modern capitalism, in all its different iterations, its different interlocking iterations, and we can do it based on the method, categories, and dynamics that Marx captured in Capital.’ Only becos & insofar as Mx’s materialism is infused with the magical spark of idealism!


‘My point is that all this attempted "modernism" and modernization of Marx is quite similar to the rigid reification of Marx performed in the service of orthodoxy.’ If Mx is in incapable of modernisation, it is a dogma, true once & for all time – not a view Mx would have supported.


‘We're not doing bible studies-- since we're not engage in an exploration of texts. We are supposed to be analyzing the immanent tendencies of capitalism, tendencies within its very need for expanded reproduction that obstruct that reproduction and precipitate the struggle for the abolition of capitalism.’ Excellent, if that’s the case for you. In contrast, I see too many failed attempts to fit changed circumstance to a rigid, obsolescent, dying, 19c template.

[Old Git Tom]

Bob The Builder

OGT: ‘The role of (immaterial) info flows in shaping societies is best understand from an idealist viewpoint, IMHO.’
.
‘I disagree, its best seen from an anthropological view and the perspective of 'modes of life'. The very notion of what constitutes 'information' never mind what would be 'useful information' for a given community is relative to the material conditions and relations in which those communities exist.’

Rather, history tells us it’s far simpler (Innis). A new communications technology inspires a new form of society. Eg., clay tablets – city-states, sometimes with empires. Ideas make ideas. What is useful info is not entirely relevant. The richer the info flows of a culture, the greater the volume of redundant matter. You can’t cut useful from useless without damaging the info-delivery system. Censorship, eg., only damages.


OGT: ‘Info & ideas shape widgets & societies, not the other way round. Best examples, the clay tablet (writing) or Gutenberg’s printing technology.

‘Then you're left with a self-causing realm of ideas which acts in one direction upon the world. But this is the one-sided nature of idealism which Marx and Engels took such delight in overthrowing.’

But then, despite themselves, they had to employ idealism, or were left with incomplete materialist explanations. Hegel’s “Geist” was the ghost of idealism haunting Mx in the Manifesto.


‘I never suggested Marxism was a philosophy, or that it replaced any philosophical system. On the contrary, the antagonism between idealism and materialism could only be transcended by transcending philosophy itself. For Marx the question was no longer how one contemplated and categorised the world, but how one engaged with it.’

Fine: but philosophy is strict. Mx either was a materialist or he was not. If he wanted to mix in a little idealism to form an ideology, no problem. If that is what you are saying, we agree, but you cannot have it both ways.


‘I believe you misread Marx here. In fact he was critical of what he considered to be the mechanical materialism of 19th Century science, including Darwin. But, yes, he saw natural science as certainly a more remarkable method of both explaining and engaging (on the basis of that explanation) with the world, compared to idealist philosophy. You claim materialist science didn't have staying power, but what does this mean? Everything around me is testimony to the remarkable impact materialist science has had on the modern world.’

As I said, Mx was ambivalent on materialism, yet he borrowed from Darwin’s materialist theory of natural selection for his theory of social evolution leading to revolution. But, Darwin’s theory was always in trouble & is dying as we fence. I said earlier, the late 19c period when Mx wrote saw the apparent triumph of empirical science. After his death, that was very rapidly overthrown by the ‘new physics’ in the succeeding years. If you think everything around us is a hymn to materialist science, you are out of touch with modern physics, badly. Remember, idealism is not theology.


‘Well, given what you say, I'd suspect that Marshall's interpretation of the evidence is designed to lead in inevitably to proof of his superstitious belief in a deity. The problem for you, is that if you insist that dna has to be decoded by some conscious mechanism, or a mechanism which is conscious, then this can only lead you to God or some variation. If, however, you rule out intelligence in favour of some natural mechanism of 'decoding' (which now becomes a metaphor for the natural process and not really 'decoding' at all), then you are left with a materialist explanation.’

Consult Marshall, the source, rather than rely on your suspicions of me? Given the modern evidence of science, materialists MUST grant that intelligence is embedded in the universe, so cease to be materialists in any traditional sense. Taking the existence of intelligence for proof of God seems premature, & another issue.


OGT: ‘It seems smarts, insight & dogmatism can seethe in the same mind!’

‘Sure, but at least Marshall is being consistent.’

Hardly, no, not if he thinks his science proves the correctness of the Bible. There is an awful lot of pernicious old bollox there. Sadly, ancient primal texts have an irresistable appeal for dogmatists. Don’t catch the disease.

[Hit The North]

Bob The Builder

Rather, history tells us it’s far simpler (Innis). A new communications technology inspires a new form of society. Eg., clay tablets – city-states, sometimes with empires. Ideas make ideas.


Well, Marx makes a similar point, but at the same time he recognises that technical invention does not emerge from some idealist realm disconnected from the practical challenges facing human communities. So the invention of clay-tablets only becomes relevant (or even possible) within certain pre-existing social conditions or relations of production. As we know, all writing and number systems originate from the practical necessities embodied in the mundane tasks of administration in early city-states which arose on the basis of a surplus of production. In the context of a hunter gatherer society, the stone tablet would be a useless artefact and certainly wouldn't stimulate the growth of an empire. So it is not enough to say that ideas make ideas.


What is useful info is not entirely relevant. The richer the info flows of a culture, the greater the volume of redundant matter. You can’t cut useful from useless without damaging the info-delivery system. Censorship, eg., only damages. What do you mean by the "rich(ness)" of information? This assumes a kind of value, whether use or exchange. But as I point out above, it it is the utility which ideas or info have for specific societies which gives it its value. This is not to deny the importance of information to human societies, only to place it in its wider context.

Moreover, a key observation of historical materialism is that all hitherto societies are class societies which are riven and driven by opposing class interests. Thus, in the struggle between the exploited and their exploiters, the realm of ideas and the employment of information in the form of technical innovation, will have opposing consequences for those classes. So, for example, the technical innovations of the digital age, which held the possibility of freeing individuals from exhausting labour, only operate in the capitalist mode of production to further enslave people into the world of work or condemn millions to dispiriting idleness and poverty. The great joke told me in my schooling was that the microchip would create a new leisure society. In fact, all we've seen is a further commodification of leisure.


But then, despite themselves, they had to employ idealism, or were left with incomplete materialist explanations. Hegel’s “Geist” was the ghost of idealism haunting Mx in the Manifesto.I'm not sure what this means and wonder if you've actually read the Manifesto. If so, where is the ghost of idealism found in the Manifesto? As for the charge you make, there is no inconsistency in Marx's historical materialism with resorting to strictly non-materialist phenomena in order to explain things. For instance, social relations of production, a key and indispensable category within historical materialism are not in themselves material, are they?


Fine: but philosophy is strict. Mx either was a materialist or he was not. If he wanted to mix in a little idealism to form an ideology, no problem. If that is what you are saying, we agree, but you cannot have it both ways.Well, bunk to the strictures of academic philosophy! And, anyway, Marx can have it both ways (and at the same time, too!), it's only idealism and materialism than cannot because of their inherent limitations.


As I said, Mx was ambivalent on materialism, yet he borrowed from Darwin’s materialist theory of natural selection for his theory of social evolution leading to revolution. I disagree that Marx ever did this. He, himself, comments on the coincidence of their approach, Marx in the case of social history, Darwin in the case of natural history. But he never borrowed anything substantial from Darwin's work. If you maintain he did, then I would like to see your evidence.


But, Darwin’s theory was always in trouble & is dying as we fence.Again, I disagree. As a scientific theory, evolution remains the best current explanation we have. I'd like to know what explanation is better. As a scientific theory, it is also open to modification and improvement and it seems to me that this is still ongoing.


If you think everything around us is a hymn to materialist science, you are out of touch with modern physics, badly. Remember, idealism is not theology.
Looking around me now, I can see a pc monitor, hear the whirring of the pc fan, survey books on shelves, a hi-fi system, cds, dvds, hear the hum of motor cars in the street below my room. It seems to me that all these things are the result of material science put to practical use within a society which is based on commodity production. I don't know where you think your equivalent 'stuff' has come from?

Perhaps we're at cross-purposes. By materialist science I meant natural science, not materialist philosophy.



Given the modern evidence of science, materialists MUST grant that intelligence is embedded in the universe, so cease to be materialists in any traditional sense.
Why must they? What is the evidence that "intelligence is embedded in the universe"?


Taking the existence of intelligence for proof of God seems premature, & another issue.But that is surely the only conclusion? What else would you call an intelligence which is embedded in the universe at the level of DNA? You can substitute the title The Great Creator with The Great Decoder, but in the end, if you insist on the existence of a disembodied intelligence which makes the universe possible then you arrive at the same point. I'd suggest that this makes it not "another issue" but the central issue which you wish to avoid.


Sadly, ancient primal texts have an irresistible appeal for dogmatists. Don’t catch the diseaseYeah, thanks for that. I'll bear it in mind.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


DNA is essentially encoded information

This can't be correct, except in a metaphorical sense. This is because information is conveyed by language, and that would imply nature was mind (if DNA had information coded in it). This is because it would imply nature/DNA itself had a language before we evolved.

Of course, you, or the person to whom you refer, could be using the word 'information' in a technical sense. No problem with that, but in that case, it can't shed light on the sense of "information" you need to establish your idealist point.**

Moreover, 'information' can't be 'encoded' either, since a code depends on there already being a language to code out of, a code manual to enable the coding, a decoding manual to decode it, and a language (possibly the same) to decode into. Now, if this were so with DNA, it would suggest that language must have existed before DNA evolved, along with persons and manuals to do all that coding!

Once more, you might be using 'encode' metaphorically (but if so, what's its 'cash value'? -- to use Willaim James's happy phrase), or technically. If the latter, then the same objection applies.**

[Old Git Tom]

Bob The Builder,


‘Well, Marx makes a similar point, but at the same time he recognises that technical invention does not emerge from some idealist realm disconnected from the practical challenges facing human communities. So the invention of clay-tablets only becomes relevant (or even possible) within certain pre-existing social conditions or relations of production. As we know, all writing and number systems originate from the practical necessities embodied in the mundane tasks of administration in early city-states which arose on the basis of a surplus of production. In the context of a hunter gatherer society, the stone tablet would be a useless artefact and certainly wouldn't stimulate the growth of an empire. So it is not enough to say that ideas make ideas.’ The piece of stone as a tool was used for millenia by our ancestors, until Trog I put a wooden handle on it & made better tools. Where the idea came from is impossible to know, both practically & logically. If the new idea is somehow conveyed from, & contained in, preceding times, the idea is not truly new – what the word means.

City-states were impossible without the admin tools of writing & numbers – enabled by the clay tablet, apparently invented by first farmers. The city followed. I’ll admit few inventions emerge unless to answer a concrete need, & such needs vary with the stage of social development (as I said). But that is not an iron rule. Many times, useage is discovered after the invenion/novelty appears. As Trog I might have shrewdly remarked, “A door?! What’s the use of a door in a cave?”


‘What do you mean by the "rich(ness)" of information? This assumes a kind of value, whether use or exchange. But as I point out above, it it is the utility which ideas or info have for specific societies which gives it its value. This is not to deny the importance of information to human societies, only to place it in its wider context.’ Richness, quality, of info follows from quantity. From Gutenberg’s invention of cheap printing followed a tsunami of texts, from Bibles, to scientific treatises, popular/junk & high literature, illustrated DIY manuals, etc.


‘Moreover, a key observation of historical materialism is that all hitherto societies are class - - - - - - - .The great joke told me in my schooling was that the microchip would create a new leisure society. In fact, all we've seen is a further commodification of leisure.’

Mostly agreed, but hardly relevant to topic?


‘If so, where is the ghost of idealism found in the Manifesto? As for the charge you make, there is no inconsistency in Marx's historical materialism with resorting to strictly non-materialist phenomena in order to explain things. For instance, social relations of production, a key and indispensable category within historical materialism are not in themselves material, are they?’ Hegel’s ‘Geist’ appears as the ghost that was haunting Europe. From Hegel, Mx drew the slave-master relationship theory, & the impossibility of prescribing any future political freedom. Idealism enabled the brilliant idea that capital can disappear whole industries & cultures, as if by magic – proving very true today! That was the leavening influence of idealism. Sadly, Marxism has relapsed into the leaden dogma of materialism.

But Mx’s materialist demolition of so much current bourgeois hypocrisy was delirious, & is fully acknowledged.


‘Well, bunk to the strictures of academic philosophy! And, anyway, Marx can have it both ways (and at the same time, too!), it's only idealism and materialism than cannot because of their inherent limitations.’ Philos provides very practical tools for avoiding weak & faulty thinking - balls. It is a class weapon that can cut both ways. That’s why capitalism seals in off in the comfy but secure facilities of academia. It’s cells are near those of the academic Marxists. If at all, they communicate by banging on the pipes, in a language impenetrable by ordinary people.


‘But he (Marx) never borrowed anything substantial from Darwin's work. If you maintain he did, then I would like to see your evidence.’ Lack of basic background knowledge there, Bob. Plenty about it on the net.



‘As a scientific theory, evolution remains the best current explanation we have. I'd like to know what explanation is better. As a scientific theory, it is also open to modification and improvement and it seems to me that this is still ongoing.’ ‘Seems’ that way only if you ignore the ongoing debate, evidence, & alternative theories that are appearing. Darwinism is dead dogma. As ever, it will finally fade away when the dogmatists defending it die or retire.



‘Looking around me now, I can see a pc monitor, hear the whirring of the pc fan, survey books on shelves, a hi-fi system, cds, dvds, hear the hum of motor cars in the street below my room. It seems to me that all these things are the result of material science put to practical use within a society which is based on commodity production. I don't know where you think your equivalent 'stuff' has come from?’ ‘Seems’ is your key word. You need to update your knowledge of modern science. I’ve just watched a slew of physics-for-idiots vids, & your view is emphatically rejected, altho it is widespread & popuar. You will never be an effective revolutionary armed only with the knowledge of the past (Marx, eg., said as much). Most of the electronics involved in the world around us came from quantum physics, which made materialism a bewiskered old dotard.


‘Perhaps we're at cross-purposes. By materialist science I meant natural science, not materialist philosophy.’ I’m clear that wordplay cannot clear your confusions. Marx espoused materialism, a fortiori, becos that was the scientific outlook of his day. Unless we can update & re-arm Marxism with modern knowledge, it will remain as it is, an obsolescent relic of the past; an antique of impeccable Victorian workmanship, with radical chic, but no serious threat to capitalism.


OGT: ‘Given the modern evidence of science, materialists MUST grant that intelligence is embedded in the universe, so cease to be materialists in any traditional sense.’

‘Why must they? What is the evidence that "intelligence is embedded in the universe"?’
Another large topic entirely. To update, try Howard Bloom, or Perry Marshall’s excellent site. If the theology bugs you, there are other links, & docu vids aplenty. Try Milton & Rupert Sheldrake - old jousters with the Darwinians.


OGT: ‘Taking the existence of intelligence for proof of God seems premature, & another issue.’

‘But that is surely the only conclusion? What else would you call an intelligence which is embedded in the universe at the level of DNA? You can substitute the title The Great Creator with The Great Decoder, but in the end, if you insist on the existence of a disembodied intelligence which makes the universe possible then you arrive at the same point. I'd suggest that this makes it not "another issue" but the central issue which you wish to avoid.’
Not the only conclusion: one option is to rethink entirely what we understand ordinarily as matter. Or, ‘don’t know’, the open-minded approach for all those questions science does not have a viable answer to. Me, I just follow the evidence as best I can.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


OGT: ‘DNA is essentially encoded information’

‘This can't be correct, except in a metaphorical sense. This is because information is conveyed by language, and that would imply nature was mind (if DNA had information coded in it). This is because it would imply nature/DNA itself had a language before we evolved.’

No metaphor intended. Indeed, that’s the way the wind is blowing. The formation of the universe by random chances is a statistical near impossibility – an open secret. Intelligence inherent in deepest & most original ‘nature’ is unambiguously indicated. Came as a surprise to me, too. And not pleasant, as monstrous regiments of fanatical evangelicals rise before my eyes. As we both know, these are often nice people, but hopelessly right-wing a-holes politically.

Similarly, it is impossible that random/mistake mutations can affect DNA in any positive way. Marshall demonstrates this very simply. So bang goes Dawkins’ crutch.


‘Of course, you, or the person to whom you refer, could be using the word 'information' in a technical sense. No problem with that, but in that case, it can't shed light on the sense of "information" you need to establish your idealist point.**’

I’m a simple-minded chap. I make a simple dichotomy. There is the medium of transmission, & the informationl content transmitted. This, I stress, is a logical dualism. In practice it is often immenesely-difficult-to-impossible to separate message from medium (conjugate variable). Eg., as has been asked of “I think, therefore I am” – what would that idea look like without language.

Interesting possible further illustration; the great montheisms rose with texts. Expensive, hand-written manuscripts were few, so read to illiterate congregations, ‘d’en haut, a bas’. In the Judeo-Christian line, there seems an obvious connection between the solo text as authority, & a single, authoritarian, judgemental God & his empowered priestly agent– medium suited message.


‘Moreover, 'information' can't be 'encoded' either, since a code depends on there already being a language to code out of, a code manual to enable the coding, a decoding manual to decode it, and a language (possibly the same) to decode into. Now, if this were so with DNA, it would suggest that language must have existed before DNA evolved, along with persons and manuals to do all that coding!’

You’re right, as Marshall might part-agree, in that encoding & decoding require intelligence. Difficult problem, is it not? But apparently insoluble conundrums have inspired science to greater discoveries before. You argue with the evidence on the grounds that it defies ordinary logic.


‘Once more, you might be using 'encode' metaphorically (but if so, what's its 'cash value'? -- to use Willaim James's happy phrase), or technically. If the latter, then the same objection applies.**’

There is no better word I can think of than info. Languages are certainly codes. And within the language codes are encoded further info. I can’t decode Chinese. but I read that Chinese ideograms carry secondary & even tertiary meanings in virtue of being graphics, depending on brushwork skills of writer, & degree of sophistication/education of the decoder.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


No metaphor intended. Indeed, that’s the way the wind is blowing. The formation of the universe by random chances is a statistical near impossibility – an open secret. Intelligence inherent in deepest & most original ‘nature’ is unambiguously indicated. Came as a surprise to me, too. And not pleasant, as monstrous regiments of fanatical evangelicals rise before my eyes. As we both know, these are often nice people, but hopelessly right-wing a-holes politically.

So, you are a theist after all.


Similarly, it is impossible that random/mistake mutations can affect DNA in any positive way. Marshall demonstrates this very simply. So bang goes Dawkins’ crutch.

This resembles the old 'god-of-the-gaps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps)' argument.


I’m a simple-minded chap. I make a simple dichotomy. There is the medium of transmission, & the informationl content transmitted. This, I stress, is a logical dualism. In practice it is often immenesely-difficult-to-impossible to separate message from medium (conjugate variable). Eg., as has been asked of “I think, therefore I am” – what would that idea look like without language.

Interesting possible further illustration; the great montheisms rose with texts. Expensive, hand-written manuscripts were few, so read to illiterate congregations, ‘d’en haut, a bas’. In the Judeo-Christian line, there seems an obvious connection between the solo text as authority, & a single, authoritarian, judgemental God & his empowered priestly agent– medium suited message.

I'm sorry, but are you beginning to ramble? I couldn't see the relevance of this response.


You’re right, as Marshall might part-agree, in that encoding & decoding require intelligence. Difficult problem, is it not? But apparently insoluble conundrums have inspired science to greater discoveries before. You argue with the evidence on the grounds that it defies ordinary logic.

And yet, the postulation of such 'intelligence' creates its own insoluble difficulties.


There is no better word I can think of than info. Languages are certainly codes. And within the language codes are encoded further info. I can’t decode Chinese. but I read that Chinese ideograms carry secondary & even tertiary meanings in virtue of being graphics, depending on brushwork skills of writer, & degree of sophistication/education of the decoder.

Language can't be a code, since there would have to be a background language (*) out of which it had been coded, a coding manual, a de-codong manual, and a language to de-code into (**). And where are these, for goodness sake?

But, even if this were so, there'd be at least two languages (namely (*) and (**)) that weren't codes, which would further imply that there are languages that aren't codes, ruining your point.

Unless, of course, you are using 'code' in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


‘So, you are a theist after all.’

Yeah, got a plaster pope in my closet. I just accept the scientific evidence, & where it leads. It suggests unambiguously that the universe & its life-forms are impossible w/out directing, inherent intelligence. That actually allows the options of theism, deism, or ‘don’t know’. I go with the last. You reject the science since it is incompatible with your materialist philosophy. Sorry to harp, but that is dogmatism, & it’s ruining a nifty mind.


‘This resembles the old 'god-of-the-gaps' argument.’

Hardly; rather its suggests new science leaves a gap where your materialist idol fell away.


‘I'm sorry, but are you beginning to ramble? I couldn't see the relevance of this response.’

Recap: media & messages are commonly so intimately entwined, in conjugate variables, that duality can only be recognised logically, not empirically. Maybe only an agnostic idealist can see the significance of conceiving of a point as a location without area, AND w/out dancing angels?


‘Language can't be a code, since there would have to be a background language (*) out of which it had been coded, a coding manual, a de-codong manual, and a language to de-code into (**). And where are these, for goodness sake?’

Beyond the limits of your logic, already. What came first, the brain or mind, or mind or language, or the chicken or the egg? In case you don’t know, paleoanthropology etc., doesn’t know, or has rival theories of varying fragility.

Come off it Rosa. From 1920s Goedel, we know there is no logic that can explain itself. No logic verified Euclid’s postulates. Mathematics are all idealist constructs floating atemporally somewhere over the rainbow. Use value high, truth value low? So how about convenient lies?

‘A’ can encode a message in writing & ‘B’ can decode it, if both learned the language. The code books are in their heads. To go from this to demand the necessary pre-existence of a historical meta-language is unsound.

I’m bewildered. Why are you defending obsolete science? The dancing dialectic makes & breaks theories. The idea of space as ‘ether’ was already obsolete when it was taught to me, eons ago. It’s now back in fashion in a modified form. Scientific laws made of toughened steel last as long as it takes for a new scientific paradigm to melt them. Young iconoclast Einstein of 1905 was being challenged as a fogey by the mid-1920s. Wassa problem?

[Hit The North]

Bob The Builder,

The piece of stone as a tool was used for millenia by our ancestors, until Trog I put a wooden handle on it & made better tools. Where the idea came from is impossible to know, both practically & logically. If the new idea is somehow conveyed from, & contained in, preceding times, the idea is not truly new – what the word means.

City-states were impossible without the admin tools of writing & numbers – enabled by the clay tablet, apparently invented by first farmers. The city followed. I’ll admit few inventions emerge unless to answer a concrete need, & such needs vary with the stage of social development (as I said). But that is not an iron rule. Many times, useage is discovered after the invenion/novelty appears. As Trog I might have shrewdly remarked, “A door?! What’s the use of a door in a cave?”


Whatever the historical sequence of the emergence of stone tablets, it is still true that the invention followed the need; that the idea was generated by conscious reflection upon material necessity. From the point of view of historical materialism it is the constant struggle to produce subsistence which drives technological invention. From the point of view of idealism, the world of ideas is an independent realm which imposes itself upon the practical activity of man, rather than, as for Marx, emerging from that practical activity. Consequently Idealism is a reified form of consciousness, alienated from the sensuous life-world of practical humanity. I'd suggest this is why you cannot explain why Trog 1 found it necessary to improve his tools.


Mostly agreed, but hardly relevant to topic?I disagree. It is entirely relevant as it points out that we cannot even reach an understanding of the effects a new bundle of information and technology will have on a society without first understanding the social structure of the society and the forces therein. For that we need a social science. Idealism cannot help us.


Hegel’s ‘Geist’ appears as the ghost that was haunting Europe. From Hegel, Mx drew the slave-master relationship theory, & the impossibility of prescribing any future political freedom. Well Marx explicitly tells us that the geist he is interested in is the spectre of communism and this has nothing to do with Hegel. The claim that Marx employed the Hegelian Master-Slave relation is a claim peculiar to existentialist Marxism, first propagated by Jean-Paul Sartre, although he does not tell us how he knows this, or where it is found in Marx's text. But even if it is the case, in the hands of Marx is becomes a compelling illustration of the material relations between the two principle and unique classes in the capitalist mode of production.


Idealism enabled the brilliant idea that capital can disappear whole industries & cultures, as if by magic – proving very true today! That was the leavening influence of idealism.
No, empirical social research tells us this. Idealism can maybe stumble upon the idea but it cannot demonstrate it. And whilst this process may be "magical" in your idealist fairyland, it is a very real and material process in the actual world.


Lack of basic background knowledge there, Bob. Plenty about it on the net. You claim that there is evidence to support the charge that Marx borrowed from Darwin on the internet but unsurprisingly fail to say where. Actually, a quick Google of the subject produces mainly articles which do not claim this! It is obvious that no serious proponent of either Marxism or Natural Selection would support the claim. In fact, most of this conjecture is made solely by the Christian Fundamentalist Right in the USA and Europe, in an attempt to slur Darwin’s ideas by association with communism. But this is no surprise as you even consort with theists in support of your claims about science!

More importantly, though, the sequence of history does not support your assertion. Origin of Species was published in 1859, whereas many of Marx and Engels foundational statements on historical materialism were written or published before this in the German Ideology (1845), The eleven Theses on Feuerbach (1845), The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Eighteenth Brumaire (1848), Peasant War in Germany (1850). There is no sudden revision of these positions as a result of reading Darwin. And anyway, you have still yet to say which ideas and concepts were borowed from Darwin. If you think it's the concept of evolution the that reveals a basic gap in your knowledge, Tom, as the concept of evolution predates Darwin: http://classicgenetics.suite101.com/article.cfm/predarwinian_evolutionary_theory

I’m clear that wordplay cannot clear your confusions. Marx espoused materialism, a fortiori, becos that was the scientific outlook of his day. Unless we can update & re-arm Marxism with modern knowledge, it will remain as it is, an obsolescent relic of the past; an antique of impeccable Victorian workmanship, with radical chic, but no serious threat to capitalism.It's more than wordplay, Tom. And you are wrong once again. Marx in fact attacks the use of the old materialism in social philosophy. Whether he sees it as adequate to explain the natural world is less clear than his dismissal of it in explaining human history, preferring to see history as dialectical rather than mechanical. A refresher course in the Thesis on Feuerbach is obviously required for you. But Marx's suspicion of the adequacy of mechanical materialism actually makes him a forebear of later assaults on the old Newtonian systems.

......

Given the above, I would suggest that it is you who is poorly informed and, whereas you hardly ever post a link to your "evidence", I will be kinder and link you to a site that you must read in order to rid yourself of your confusions around Marxism: http://marxmyths.org/

[Old Git Tom]

Bob The Builder,


‘Given the above, I would suggest that it is you who is poorly informed and, whereas you hardly ever post a link to your "evidence", I will be kinder and link you to a site that you must read in order to rid yourself of your confusions around Marxism:’

This site won’t allow me to post links, I haven’t got enuf brownie points, whatever. I probably read ‘Capital’ before you were born. If you keep going bck to this primal, sacred text for all your answers, you’ll probably be giving such advice to the next generation of wage-slaves – if our rotting eco-system staggers on that long.


‘Whatever the historical sequence of the emergence of stone tablets, it is still true that the invention followed the need; that the idea was generated by conscious reflection upon material necessity.’


‘I'd suggest this is why you cannot explain why Trog 1 found it necessary to improve his tools.’

Spragged on your own argument: you concede, first came reflection, then innovation. A necessity does not materialise until some invention comes along to give it material form. That is otherwise a posteriori argument. There is no scientific proof of the necessity of the human brain, rather, consciousness invented ‘necessity’. There was no necessity for hafted tools, since we existed successfully for millenia without (as I said). The existence of X does not prove the necessity of X. What you are espousing is just the kind of crude materialist-determinism that you later claim Mx opposed.


‘Consequently Idealism is a reified form of consciousness, alienated from the sensuous life-world of practical humanity.'

On the contrary, it is Marxism & materialism that are alienated, since they are at least 50 years behind the times. You are seemingly oblivious of this. ‘Sensuous’ – of the senses; our senses are ideas-driven, first identified by Immanuel Kant in the 18c, & upheld by modern science. The antique notion that there is some hard, sure, material world out there, of which we have some more or less reliable impressions, is antiquated. The white screen I am looking at has no ‘real’ color, only the idea of whiteness in my head. Music is air vibrations which are ‘read’ as harmony by our minds, etc., etc., etc., etc.


‘Well Marx explicitly tells us that the geist he is interested in is the spectre of communism and this has nothing to do with Hegel. The claim that Marx employed the Hegelian Master-Slave relation is a claim peculiar to existentialist Marxism, first propagated by Jean-Paul Sartre, although he does not tell us how he knows this, or where it is found in Marx's text. But even if it is the case, in the hands of Marx is becomes a compelling illustration of the material relations between the two principle and unique classes in the capitalist mode of production.’

Read Cullen’s ‘Hegel’s Social & Politial Thought’: short & illuminating. Oh, & human relations are never ‘material’. The idea of a master-slave relationship can be enforced into two distinct ways of life, or a form can be entered into voluntarily. Eg., a Benedictine lay monk laboring willingly for the bejewelled Abbott in the big house.


OGT: ‘Idealism enabled the brilliant idea that capital can disappear whole industries & cultures, as if by magic – proving very true today! That was the leavening influence of idealism.’

‘No, empirical social research tells us this. Idealism can maybe stumble upon the idea but it cannot demonstrate it. And whilst this process may be "magical" in your idealist fairyland, it is a very real and material process in the actual world.’

Hopeless! How on earth could ‘empirical research’ study a future state of things? Hardly ‘very real’, the future, is it? But revealing of your mordant approach. You look backwards for proof that Marxism is real, with it, relevant, totally sufficient & correct. In painful contrast, in the ‘real’ world, it is rather the mummified object of worship by a dying, powerless sect. At leat Rosa Lichtenstein saw that. What she didn’t see was what was wrong with fundamental Marxism.


‘You claim that there is evidence to support the charge that Marx borrowed from Darwin on the internet but unsurprisingly fail to say where. Actually, a quick Google of the subject produces mainly articles which do not claim this! It is obvious that no serious proponent of either Marxism or Natural Selection would support the claim. In fact, most of this conjecture is made solely by the Christian Fundamentalist Right in the USA and Europe, in an attempt to slur Darwin’s ideas by association with communism. But this is no surprise as you even consort with theists in support of your claims about science!’

Having consorted with other dogmatists in the past (Christian, Darwinian, scientific, etc.), it is no surprise to me that you cannot find, discover or see what contradicts your dogma. And again, sorry, I’m not permitted to post links.


‘More importantly, though, the sequence of history does not support your assertion. Origin of Species was published in 1859, whereas many of Marx and Engels foundational statements on historical materialism were written or published before this in the German Ideology (1845), The eleven Theses on Feuerbach (1845), The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Eighteenth Brumaire (1848), Peasant War in Germany (1850). There is no sudden revision of these positions as a result of reading Darwin. And anyway, you have still yet to say which ideas and concepts were borowed from Darwin. If you think it's the concept of evolution the that reveals a basic gap in your knowledge, Tom, as the concept of evolution predates Darwin:

Evolution theory began with the Greeks. In materialist form, it was ‘in the air’ of Europe before 1859, particularly in France (Lamarck, Cuvier, etc.). Mx specifically referred to Darwin in one of his writings, half-admiringly, half-critially. Forgive me, I haven’t the interest or time to go back thru Holy Scripture to discover it. Mx actually wrote to Darwin, sounding him out on the social extrapolations he made of Darwin’s natural selection. Darwin did not reply. In one of the last letters Mx wrote to Engels he mentioned the rise of atheism in the UK. This was greatly accelerated by Darwin’s ‘Origin’.


‘It's more than wordplay, Tom. And you are wrong once again. Marx in fact attacks the use of the old materialism in social philosophy. Whether he sees it as adequate to explain the natural world is less clear than his dismissal of it in explaining human history, preferring to see history as dialectical rather than mechanical. A refresher course in the Thesis on Feuerbach is obviously required for you. But Marx's suspicion of the adequacy of mechanical materialism actually makes him a forebear of later assaults on the old Newtonian systems.’

Yes, & as I keep repeating, Mx was ambivalent. He wanted a materialist outlook, but inevitably was forced back to idealism for his revolutionary tools. Materialist causality involves contact action & effect in strict time sequence. With the dialectic, there is both co-operation & reaction between cause & effect. This you muddlingly half-concede when you suggest some immaterial ‘need’ called forth Trog’s brainwave of hafted stone tools. Unsurprisingly, you are as split between idealism & materialism as Mx was.

In my despairing old age, it gets clearer by the year. Like people at large, apparently Marxists would rather die than change their ideas. This mind-rot amongst society’s young ‘radicals’ is a telling symptom of the larger death-wish that grips our human world. It too would rather die than change. Nature’s rule, adapt or go extinct, & adapation begins with ideas.

[S.Artesian]

Empty quantities without quality: people would rather die than change their ideas; looking backwards to prove that marxism is real; human relations are never "material" etcetcetc.

People change their ideas all the time and still die. Nothing wrong with studying history to see the actual economic forces at work driving historical, social conflict-- that's not nostalgia, that's historical materialism. Human relations are never material, sure they are, no they aren't-- because they're social, mediated by the concrete social organization of labor.

Nature's rule? Adapt or go extinct, and adaptation begins with new ideas? First, it's not the rule of nature we confront, it's the rule of men [and women] kudos to Marx; second, nature's adaptations don't begin with new ideas; they begin with a physical change that provides the organism better abilities to reproduce. Our, humans' natural adaptation was, with walking upright and opposing thumbs, social.

[Hit The North]

Old Git Tom:


Hopeless! How on earth could ‘empirical research’ study a future state of things? Hardly ‘very real’, the future, is it? But revealing of your mordant approach. You look backwards for proof that Marxism is real, with it, relevant, totally sufficient & correct. Oh, dear, you seem to be confused by your own illusions. It is not necessary to project into the future to see the process of capitalism unfolding and dissolving previous social orders. It was happening in Marx's time and it is happening around us now. Empirical research remains the best way of mapping this ongoing process and providing the information we need to theorise and understand. Now you may think that your aging egg-head has greater insights into this than a rigorous social science but, hey-ho, that's idealism for you.


Spragged on your own argument: you concede, first came reflection, then innovation.My dear old gent, I have never denied the importance of reflection or the ideas produced from this. It is you who limits reflection to the realm of ideas and discounts the material factor. You do it here too:


There is no scientific proof of the necessity of the human brain, rather, consciousness invented ‘necessity’.
But, on the contrary, it is empty bellies, not full minds, which produces the necessity for technological development. The fact that we existed for millennia without hafted tools only tells us that at some point, circumstances changed and the old tools became inadequate. But you cannot see this, because, for you idealists, changed circumstances can only be the result of changing ideas.


With the dialectic, there is both co-operation & reaction between cause & effect. This you muddlingly half-concede when you suggest some immaterial ‘need’ called forth Trog’s brainwave of hafted stone tools. Actually, I did not suggest that Trog's marvellous invention was driven by an immaterial need, but the very material need to produce subsistence. It is you who presents a scenario whereby history is the product of spontaneous bursts of genius - presumably inspired by this pantheistic God that you are keen on. Moreover, as a dialectical Marxist, I am fully aware that explanation must trace the interplay between mediating factors, amongst them the world of ideas. This is not "half-conceded" but fully conceded.


Evolution theory began with the Greeks. In materialist form, it was ‘in the air’ of Europe before 1859, particularly in France (Lamarck, Cuvier, etc.). Mx specifically referred to Darwin in one of his writings, half-admiringly, half-critially. Forgive me, I haven’t the interest or time to go back thru Holy Scripture to discover it.


Well, why do any research when you can just make things up? But I'm happy that you now concede that Marx borrowed nothing from Darwin.


I probably read ‘Capital’ before you were born.

And it's probably your advanced age which explains why you are happy to embrace theological arguments for science. You'll be going to church next. It's a common phenomenon among the elderly, to start edging their bets towards heaven. ;)

[Old Git Tom]

Bob the Builder,

‘Oh, dear, you seem to be confused by your own illusions. It is not necessary to project into the future to see the process of capitalism unfolding and dissolving previous social orders. It was happening in Marx's time and it is happening around us now. Empirical research remains the best way of mapping this ongoing process and providing the information we need to theorise and understand. Now you may think that your aging egg-head has greater insights into this than a rigorous social science but, hey-ho, that's idealism for you.’

Yes Bob, all you need is your Marxian Bible. All the answers are there. And of course, you need faith. Oh, social sciences are not ‘rigorous’. They are commonly called the ‘soft sciences’.


OGT: ‘There is no scientific proof of the necessity of the human brain, rather, consciousness invented “necessity” ‘.

‘But, on the contrary, it is empty bellies, not full minds, which produces the necessity for technological development. The fact that we existed for millennia without hafted tools only tells us that at some point, circumstances changed and the old tools became inadequate.’

That is an empty claim to support empty dogma - no support from the sciences involved with researching pre-history - unless you can cite your authority?


‘But you cannot see this, because, for you idealists, changed circumstances can only be the result of changing ideas.’

Again, perhaps give us your evidence that the human brain was a response to some material ‘need’, or changed environment – a vaporous conjuring of your imagination I suggest. I was reading scientist Colin Blakemore this week. He reckons the human brain was an accident. The brain & consciousness are real knotty ones for science, Darwinians & materialists. No respected scientist claims the brain was a response to a survival need. Indeed, science has no idea where consciousness fits in a material universe. Luckily, physics has discovered that the universe isn’t material. Duerr – “Matter is not made of matter”. Maybe we can move forward into the 21c?


‘Actually, I did not suggest that Trog's marvellous invention was driven by an immaterial need, but the very material need to produce subsistence. It is you who presents a scenario whereby history is the product of spontaneous bursts of genius - presumably inspired by this pantheistic God that you are keen on. Moreover, as a dialectical Marxist, I am fully aware that explanation must trace the interplay between mediating factors, amongst them the world of ideas. This is not "half-conceded" but fully conceded.’

Now your imagination imputes theology to me. But what else resort do you have? Again, ‘needs’ are not ‘material’. If you can produce one, how long is it? What does it weigh? Does it look like a ‘material’ human relation? Playing with adjectives is not argument.


‘Well, why do any research when you can just make things up? But I'm happy that you now concede that Marx borrowed nothing from Darwin.’

You have to plumb some new depths of dogma & ignorance to think that.


OGT: ‘I probably read ‘Capital’ before you were born.’

‘And it's probably your advanced age which explains why you are happy to embrace theological arguments for science. You'll be going to church next. It's a common phenomenon among the elderly, to start edging their bets towards heaven.’

Quite; as common as young ignoramusses discovering Capital & thinking they have discovered all the answers; as common as them dropping Marxism after their brief radical sabbatical & finding they are getting nowhere. I've seen a few crops come & go in my time.

You know as little of science as you do of religions. As long as you are in the grip of your 19c dogma, you will learn nothing & accomplish nothing. I have had similar arguments as this one with the religious. Religion is a conservative force, where it is not reactionary. Idealism is not religion, altho the two are conflated by the ignorant, willful or otherwise. What the religious & Marxists commonly share is dogmatism. Both shrug off the glaringly self-evident, that they cannot accomplish what they claim.

I am (outrageously) suggesting to you that if you are truly committed to revolution, you must analyse the past & present in order to predict the future. The revolutionary ultimately has no other function than to give this lead. For this, s/he needs the most up-to-date information & mental tools. The detritus of the 19c is worthy of study, as is all history, but no more. The dead cannot lead 21c activity. For that, informed, keen, modern, living minds are essential.

[S.Artesian]

OGT: Again, ‘needs’ are not ‘material’. If you can produce one, how long is it? What does it weigh? Does it look like a ‘material’ human relation? Playing with adjectives is not argument.
_______________

Spend a couple of days without eating or drinking water, without adequate clothing when it's below freezing, and get back to me about the "immateriality" of your need for food, water, and parka.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Yeah, got a plaster pope in my closet. I just accept the scientific evidence, & where it leads. It suggests unambiguously that the universe & its life-forms are impossible w/out directing, inherent intelligence. That actually allows the options of theism, deism, or ‘don’t know’. I go with the last. You reject the science since it is incompatible with your materialist philosophy. Sorry to harp, but that is dogmatism, & it’s ruining a nifty mind.

It's interesting that you are trying to sell us an incomprehensible belief set/dogma in a vain attempt to convince us materialism is a dogma.:lol:

I have debated this at length with Spiltteeth, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/history-christianity-t115173/index3.html

From Post 60, onwards. I had to break off from that debate to slap some materialist good sense into out very own dialectical mystics at RevLeft, but will return to it when I have succeeded.


Hardly; rather its suggests new science leaves a gap where your materialist idol fell away

Well, the point is that you theists keep injecting 'god' into these gaps. But, as history has shown, this 'god' has slowly disappeared like the Cheshire Cat's smile as science has steadily closed these 'gaps' with materialist, and comprehensible, 'fillers'.


Recap: media & messages are commonly so intimately entwined, in conjugate variables, that duality can only be recognised logically, not empirically. Maybe only an agnostic idealist can see the significance of conceiving of a point as a location without area, AND w/out dancing angels?

Once more, are you beginning to ramble? I say this since this still does not seem to be relevant to anything I have said. Nor does it appear to make much sense.


Beyond the limits of your logic, already. What came first, the brain or mind, or mind or language, or the chicken or the egg? In case you don’t know, paleoanthropology etc., doesn’t know, or has rival theories of varying fragility.

I reject this dualism as non-sensical; I defy you to show otherwise.

And what 'logic' is this you attribute to me? I haven't used any 'logic'.


Come off it Rosa. From 1920s Gödel, we know there is no logic that can explain itself. No logic verified Euclid’s postulates. Mathematics are all idealist constructs floating atemporally somewhere over the rainbow. Use value high, truth value low? So how about convenient lies?

Well, Gödel's alleged proof is based on Cantor's defective diagonal proof (which, among other things, is susceptible to a fatal objection based on Hilbert's Hotel). And you have misconstrued Gödel's theorem anyway; what it asserts is that there are mathematical truths that cannot be shown to be true (even by 'god') in mathematics. So, if Gödel is right, his theorem is just as inimical to theism as it is to Hilbert's programme.

But, even if it weren't, what has this got to do with anything I have argued? And what has Euclid got to do with what I have said?

Answer, nothing at all.

And have you taken an advanced course in enigmatic writing? If so, you must have received straight A's for the sort of material you try to inflict on the good people here, including the above.


‘A’ can encode a message in writing & ‘B’ can decode it, if both learned the language. The code books are in their heads. To go from this to demand the necessary pre-existence of a historical meta-language is unsound.

Ok, let's see the anatomical/physiological evidence that we all have code books in our heads.:lol:

But, and independently of that, what language do we decode in our heads? Do we all have an inner language (that itself cannot be a code, or you face an infinite regress) which we code or decode? And how did we learn to do that? Did we all have coding lessons before we were born, or soon after? Anyway, as I noted, this 'inner language' must be code-free (or you face an infinite regress), and if that is so, there is at least one language that isn't a code. If so, why can't our 'outer language' be code-free too?

It seems to me you have to descend into absurdity to defend your views.


I’m bewildered. Why are you defending obsolete science? The dancing dialectic makes & breaks theories. The idea of space as ‘ether’ was already obsolete when it was taught to me, eons ago. It’s now back in fashion in a modified form. Scientific laws made of toughened steel last as long as it takes for a new scientific paradigm to melt them. Young iconoclast Einstein of 1905 was being challenged as a fogey by the mid-1920s. Wassa problem?

What 'obsolete' science am I defending? And what the hell does this mean?

The dancing dialectic makes & breaks theories

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian

‘OGT: Again, ‘needs’ are not ‘material’. If you can produce one, how long is it? What does it weigh? Does it look like a ‘material’ human relation? Playing with adjectives is not argument.’

‘Spend a couple of days without eating or drinking water, without adequate clothing when it's below freezing, and get back to me about the "immateriality" of your need for food, water, and parka.’

That humans have needs for material basics of life does not prove that needs as a category are material. This is not a philosophical quibble, its important to real revolutionaries trying to engage with a real world (rather than a 19c one).

Consider, most social services in the West consider education, a radio, TV & telephone are needs that pensioners & the poor have a right to. Becos, humans have needs for immaterial things too – like freedom of expression, free contact with the wider world, etc. Without these, a citizen is cut off, a virtual prisoner within their society.

Quite typically, you sound like an unreformed Stalinist. “These Russians had jobs, three meals a day, cheap housing, & cheap transport. What more could they want?” They needed a great deal more, as history has shown us, but not 19c Marxists, apparently.

Your ‘meat & potatoes’ approach to needs is not wrong, just inadequate, like strangling materialism itself.

[S.Artesian]

S.Artesian

That humans have needs for material basics of life does not prove that needs as a category are material. This is not a philosophical quibble, its important to real revolutionaries trying to engage with a real world (rather than a 19c one).

Consider, most social services in the West consider education, a radio, TV & telephone are needs that pensioners & the poor have a right to. Becos, humans have needs for immaterial things too – like freedom of expression, free contact with the wider world, etc. Without these, a citizen is cut off, a virtual prisoner within their society.

Quite typically, you sound like an unreformed Stalinist. “These Russians had jobs, three meals a day, cheap housing, & cheap transport. What more could they want?” They needed a great deal more, as history has shown us, but not 19c Marxists, apparently.

Your ‘meat & potatoes’ approach to needs is not wrong, just inadequate, like strangling materialism itself.
______________

How the fuck you get from basic subsistence needs being in fact material, to me sounding like an unreformed Stalinist is an index only to your own ignorance.

1. I did not say humans had ONLY those needs of food, water, clothing. I said they were material needs; material to the reproduction of human life.

2. That humans have needs for social services, expression, communication etc. is basically exactly that-- human needs are socially mediated by the material organization of society; that is to say more precisely by the social relationship governing labor. The material needs of human beings are as a social, or as young Marx called it, species-being.

3. Your inability to grasp material needs not as other than a raw quantity, and an attribute of nature, as opposed to their existence as a social product puts the truth to your pretension of "going beyond Marx." Marx went beyond all that when he went beyond Feuerbach.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


‘It's interesting that you are trying to sell us an incomprehensible belief set/dogma in a vain attempt to convince us materialism is a dogma.’

Hans-Peter Duerr: “Matter is not made of matter”. That’s the verdict of modern physics, not my belief. If you in your materialist closet stop up your ears, & cover your eyes, you can continue to believe in materialist dogma, untroubled by the world that has bypassed you & all irredentist Marxists. Only a few prophylactic steps separate you from that other sect, the flat earthers.


‘Well, the point is that you theists keep injecting 'god' into these gaps. But, as history has shown, this 'god' has slowly disappeared like the Cheshire Cat's smile as science has steadily closed these 'gaps' with materialist, and comprehensible, 'fillers'.’

Why do you pin false labels on me? I am not a theist. I’m an idealist agnostic. Most physicists are not materialists, in virtue of the nature of what they assiduously study. Some are religious believers. What’s so difficult to u/stand? A scientist may say it is impossible to understand the state of things in the sub-atomic without taking the observer into acount. Do you really think this is part of a deep-dyed plot to get you into church?


OGT: ‘Recap: media & messages are commonly so intimately entwined, in conjugate variables, that duality can only be recognised logically, not empirically. Maybe only an agnostic idealist can see the significance of conceiving of a point as a location without area, AND w/out dancing angels?’

‘Once more, are you beginning to ramble? I say this since this still does not seem to be relevant to anything I have said. Nor does it appear to make much sense.’

That’s becos you cannot see beyond your narrow sectarian focus. “Perception is concept dependent”. That’s a well-established principle of exerimental psychology, but probably also opaque to you.


‘Beyond the limits of your logic, already. What came first, the brain or mind, or mind or language, or the chicken or the egg? In case you don’t know, paleoanthropology etc., doesn’t know, or has rival theories of varying fragility.’

‘I reject this dualism as non-sensical; I defy you to show otherwise. And what 'logic' is this you attribute to me? I haven't used any “logic”.’

True, you haven’t used much logic. Maybe I was being polite? As a materialist, you are committed to dualism – mind & matter – by the inexorable workings of linguistic logic. As such, you have no coherent account of consciousness, which is logically outside of matter. In the same way, trenchant materialists flounder in the logical dualisms of media & messages (practically inseparable), or the nature & status of mathematical logic, as against what it claims to explain or describe. Clear? Hope so.


‘So, if Gödel is right, his theorem is just as inimical to theism as it is to Hilbert's programme.’

Yes, & yet still quite a puzzle for materialist-dualists, is it not? What is the meaning of ‘meaning’ (Wittgenstein), or, eg., Russell’s antonym. Reaching for some ever-higher logic to explain the logic of language or mathematics leads to infinite regress. Some resort to God as an end, but not me, altho I leave that option open as a possibility. Living with indeterminacy is part of the normal human condition, IMHO. Those many who come down hard on one or other side of crude dichotomies are no help to me.



‘And have you taken an advanced course in enigmatic writing? If so, you must have received straight A's for the sort of material you try to inflict on the good people here, including the above.’

Using a wider vocabulary than allowed in your constricting creed appears to you as an affront. Options: you either unlock your native intelligence to handle it, or submit to your ingrained prejudices & ‘fail’ to see.


OGT: ‘A’ can encode a message in writing & ‘B’ can decode it, if both learned the language. The code books are in their heads. To go from this to demand the necessary pre-existence of a historical meta-language is unsound.'


‘Ok, let's see the anatomical/physiological evidence that we all have code books in our heads.’

The existence of the communications medium of language proves it. If you mean the meat & gravy brain stuff that supports the metaphorical code-books & processing of immaterial information, you’ll have to consult brain research – not my bag.


‘But, and independently of that, what language do we decode in our heads? Do we all have an inner language (that itself cannot be a code, or you face an infinite regress) which we code or decode? And how did we learn to do that? Did we all have coding lessons before we were born, or soon after? Anyway, as I noted, this 'inner language' must be code-free (or you face an infinite regress), and if that is so, there is at least one language that isn't a code. If so, why can't our 'outer language' be code-free too? It seems to me you have to descend into absurdity to defend your views.’

You obviously haven’t read Chomsky on language, or read the earlier debates about AI (artificial intelligence). You’ll need to find someone better qualified if you are looking for a one-to-one crash update, or Google it (not in the ‘Capital’ webpages).


OGT: ‘I’m bewildered. Why are you defending obsolete science? The dancing dialectic makes & breaks theories. The idea of space as ‘ether’ was already obsolete when it was taught to me, eons ago. It’s now back in fashion in a modified form. Scientific laws made of toughened steel last as long as it takes for a new scientific paradigm to melt them. Young iconoclast Einstein of 1905 was being challenged as a fogey by the mid-1920s. Wassa problem?’

‘What 'obsolete' science am I defending? And what the hell does this mean? OGT: ‘The dancing dialectic makes & breaks theories.’

Cheezus! You are defending obsolete 19c materialist science. The dancing dialectic does not progress in a straight line. If it did, we could all be prophets. The dialectical process in the 19c consigned Buffon & Lamarck, & ‘the ether’, to the dustbin. Now it removes them & dusts them off for a respected second view.

Your astonishing take seems to be that there is some eternal, unchanging science, established at some point in the past. The dancing dialectic manifests as paradigm shifts that make & then break ‘iron’ scientific laws.

No, dogmatists cannot dismiss this as idealist whimsy. As oil runs out, our civilization will crash. Unless, that is, governments release the technology of cheap power that languishes in the vaults of the energy corps &/or banks. Governments will do this only if pressured by masses of ordinary people.

The science of cheap energy (cold fusion, etc., etc.) exists. Most scientists are poodles of the capitalist system. Most will tell you about the Laws of Thermodynamics, & that “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. This is scientistic nonsense, at root capitalistic ideology. The whole universe in a free energy system & lavish lunch.

It is vital for would-be revolutionaries to be aware of where science is pointing. Otherwise, they have little basis on which to offer the masses a better life.

So Rosa, with your hard-nosed materialism, you sound very like the above scientistic apologists for the ceaseless toil of life under capitalism. You have to offer a viable dream of a better future, otherwise the masses will continue to ignore you. The better future always begins as a dream, then someone does it.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,

how the fuck am I to understand what you mean unless you spell it out?

You appeared to defend Bob the Builder’s claim that human ‘needs’ were historically, material. I pointed out that they can be for things immaterial, maybe more so in a 21c political context. So just putting ‘material’ in front of the word ‘needs’ does not prove the materialsts’ point. It’s mere wordplay.

‘Needs’ is an abstract concept. It embraces the imperative for things both material & immaterial. Clear?

What Mx thought is interesting but potentially confusing, since he had feet in both materialism & idealism, so I really don’t have the interest to consult Holy Writ, having studied that decades ago, & put it aside for more relevant stuff.

The issue is very, very simple. Needs are as immaterial & mutable as human relations & value. Mx tried to anchor them to the material, & failed. One result was the bloody shambles of Russia (granted, other factors contributing). A second result has been the slow death of Marxism as a political force.

So either you see a need to rethink & revitalise Marxism, or you keep bashing the same old Capital bible, & saying the same old things. Your choice.

[S.Artesian]

S.Artesian,

how the fuck am I to understand what you mean unless you spell it out?

You appeared to defend Bob the Builder’s claim that human ‘needs’ were historically, material. I pointed out that they can be for things immaterial, maybe more so in a 21c political context. So just putting ‘material’ in front of the word ‘needs’ does not prove the materialsts’ point. It’s mere wordplay.

‘Needs’ is an abstract concept. It embraces the imperative for things both material & immaterial. Clear?

What Mx thought is interesting but potentially confusing, since he had feet in both materialism & idealism, so I really don’t have the interest to consult Holy Writ, having studied that decades ago, & put it aside for more relevant stuff.

The issue is very, very simple. Needs are as immaterial & mutable as human relations & value. Mx tried to anchor them to the material, & failed. One result was the bloody shambles of Russia (granted, other factors contributing). A second result has been the slow death of Marxism as a political force.

So either you see a need to rethink & revitalise Marxism, or you keep bashing the same old Capital bible, & saying the same old things. Your choice.

Choice has nothing to do with it. Necessity, needs, has and have everything to do with it.

Marx analyzed the social relation of production specific to capital. Of course needs are mutable-- they develop, and develop socially.

How kind of you to grant that something other than failure to grasp superior concepts of idealism and materialism had an impact on the Russian Revolution.

Tell me, what were those "other factors" and how much did they contribute. And how much did Marx's failure to "anchor" them in the material world contribute.

I'm not sorry to say I don't think Marx failed to apprehend and anchor needs in the material world, in the material, social, terms of their reproduction. Which is why Marxism is hardly dead as a systematic analysis of capitalism and the potential for its abolition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Hans-Peter Duerr: “Matter is not made of matter”. That’s the verdict of modern physics, not my belief. If you in your materialist closet stop up your ears, & cover your eyes, you can continue to believe in materialist dogma, untroubled by the world that has bypassed you & all irredentist Marxists. Only a few prophylactic steps separate you from that other sect, the flat earthers.

Is that supposed to be your answer to this comment on mine?


It's interesting that you are trying to sell us an incomprehensible belief set/dogma in a vain attempt to convince us materialism is a dogma.

And this Duerr character is an idiot. He would struggle to tell us what the word "matter" in “Matter is not made of matter” means, which, of course, makes it an empty statement. You can give it a go..., and good luck.

Even if materialism turns out to be misguided in some way, how does that justify you trying to sell us an incomprehensible dogma -- especially when you claim to be against all dogmas?


Only a few prophylactic steps separate you from that other sect, the flat earthers

Ok, let's see you try to prove that odd allegation. Or do you expect us just to take your word?


Why do you pin false labels on me? I am not a theist. I’m an idealist agnostic. Most physicists are not materialists, in virtue of the nature of what they assiduously study. Some are religious believers. What’s so difficult to u/stand? A scientist may say it is impossible to understand the state of things in the sub-atomic without taking the observer into account. Do you really think this is part of a deep-dyed plot to get you into church?

Well, you seemed to accept that epithet, earlier; when I asked you if you were one, you did not deny it, but replied:


Yeah, got a plaster pope in my closet. I just accept the scientific evidence, & where it leads. It suggests unambiguously that the universe & its life-forms are impossible w/out directing, inherent intelligence. That actually allows the options of theism, deism, or ‘don’t know’. I go with the last. You reject the science since it is incompatible with your materialist philosophy. Sorry to harp, but that is dogmatism, & it’s ruining a nifty mind.

So, you believe in an 'intelligence', but can say no more about it. Great alternative to theism that is.:lol:

Theists, too, can't tell us what 'god' is either.

And how does 'this' intelligence make things happen? Does it have a body? If not, how can it make anything move, for example? And why does everything obey it? Is matter intelligent too?


That’s becos you cannot see beyond your narrow sectarian focus. “Perception is concept dependent”. That’s a well-established principle of experimental psychology, but probably also opaque to you.

Where did I deny this (what you said about perception)? The point is: what has this got to do with anything I have said? Or do you propose to post yet more random, and irrelevant musings in response to me, and then blame my allegedly 'narrow' mind for questioning its relevance?

That is why I asked if you were beginning to ramble.

Furthermore, this comment will need to be justified, or withdrawn:


That’s becos you cannot see beyond your narrow sectarian focus.

How do you know what I can or cannot see? And how come this does not apply to you?


True, you haven’t used much logic. Maybe I was being polite? As a materialist, you are committed to dualism – mind & matter – by the inexorable workings of linguistic logic. As such, you have no coherent account of consciousness, which is logically outside of matter. In the same way, trenchant materialists flounder in the logical dualisms of media & messages (practically inseparable), or the nature & status of mathematical logic, as against what it claims to explain or describe. Clear? Hope so.

Well, that shows you how much you know, from your 'narrow and sectarian' viewpoint: I'm not a dualist, but argue that dualism is non-sensical.

And how do you know what account of 'consciousness' I have, or haven't got? In fact, had you done a search before you dumped these lame prejudices upon us, you'd have discovered that I have a totally unique view of 'consciousness'. Check these out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-do-we-t98047/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/consciousness-and-passage-t100438/index.html

And this essay:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm

You are beginning to ramble again:


Yes, & yet still quite a puzzle for materialist-dualists, is it not? What is the meaning of ‘meaning’ (Wittgenstein), or, eg., Russell’s antonym. Reaching for some ever-higher logic to explain the logic of language or mathematics leads to infinite regress. Some resort to God as an end, but not me, altho I leave that option open as a possibility. Living with indeterminacy is part of the normal human condition, IMHO. Those many who come down hard on one or other side of crude dichotomies are no help to me.

The meaning of 'meaning'? Try these out:

(1) Personal Significance: as in "His Teddy Bear means a lot to him."

(2) Evaluative import: as in "May Day means different things to different classes."

(3) Point or purpose: as in "Life has no meaning."

(4) Linguistic meaning: as in "'Vixen' means 'female fox'", "'Chien' means 'dog'", or "Recidivist" means someone who has resumed their criminal career.

(5) Aim or intention: as in "They mean to win this strike."

(6) Implication: as in "Winning this dispute means that management won't try another wage cut again in a hurry."

(7) Indicate, point to, or presage: as in "Those clouds mean rain", or "Those spots mean you have measles."

(8) Reference: as in "I meant him over there", or "'The current president of the USA' means somebody different at least once every eight years."

(9) Artistic or literary import: as in "The meaning of this novel is to examine political integrity."

(10) An indication of conversational focus: as in "I mean, why do we have to accept a measly 1% rise in the first place?"

(11) An expression of sincerity or determination: as in "I mean it, I really do want to go on the march!", or "The demonstrators really mean to stop this war."

(12) The content of a message, or the import of a sign: as in "It means the strike starts on Monday", or "It means you have to queue here."

(13) Interpretation: as in "You will need to read the author's novels if you want to give a new meaning to her latest play", or "That gesture means those pickets think you are a scab."

(14) Import or significance: as in "Part of the meaning of this play is to change our view of drama", or "The real meaning of the agreement is that the bosses have at last learnt their lesson."

(15) Speakers' meaning: as in "When you trod on her foot and she said 'Well done!' she in fact meant the exact opposite."

(16) Communicative meaning: as in "You get my meaning", or "My last letter should tell you what I meant", or "We have just broken their secret code; the last message meant this..."

(17) Explanation: as in "When the comrade said the strike isn't over what she meant was that we can still win!"

and so on...

[Taken from one of my essays.]


Russell’s antonym

Do you mean 'Russell's antinomy', that is, 'Russell's Paradox'? If so, what has that got to do with anything I have said or implied?


Reaching for some ever-higher logic to explain the logic of language or mathematics leads to infinite regress.

1) Why would I try to 'explain 'logic? If anyone does not get it, too bad. If they do, then it does not need explaining. Moreover, if anyone chooses to attack it, they will have to do so logically, undermining that attack. Otherwise, it will have to be done illogically, invalidating that attack. Either way, logic is immune from such attacks.

2) Anyway, which logic do you mean: Aristotelian, Classical, First Order, Higher Order, Propositional, Predicate, Modal, Temporal, Doxastic, Epistemic, Formal, Symbolic, Mathematical, Multiple Conclusion, Dialetheic, Paraconsistent, Relevance, Informal...?

3) However, if intelligence requires a 'higher' intelligence to account for it, then the latter does too. In which case, it is you who faces an infinite regress. On the other hand, if intelligence needs no explanation at some point, then there is no good reason why we shouldn't stop at the intelligence we know of in this world (especially if the alternative you offer leads to an infinite regress).


Using a wider vocabulary than allowed in your constricting creed appears to you as an affront. Options: you either unlock your native intelligence to handle it, or submit to your ingrained prejudices & ‘fail’ to see.

Is this your excuse for your odd use of words, one that encourages you to postulate a code that isn't a code, and a language that isn't a language?


Options: you either unlock your native intelligence to handle it, or submit to your ingrained prejudices & ‘fail’ to see

But, you haven't given us a comprehensible alternative for us to consider. Up to now there is nothing to 'see' in what you have posted. For example, how is it possible for us to 'see' a code in something that can't be a code -- or 'intelligence' in something that leads to an infinite regress?

Moreover, I challenge you to show that even you can 'see' what you claim to see without a similar, incomprehensible and odd use of language.


The existence of the communications medium of language proves it. If you mean the meat & gravy brain stuff that supports the metaphorical code-books & processing of immaterial information, you’ll have to consult brain research – not my bag.

Then on what basis do you assert there must be such a code in our heads, especially if it leads to an infinite regress? And if you aren't a brain expert, how come you are so quick to pontificate?

Moreover, I claim the opposite: communication shows there is no such code. What you are postulating is something over and above the phenomena to account for it. I stop at the level of communication. So, it's up to you to provide evidence that we need to delve deeper (and in such a way that does not set off yet another infinite regress).

In homophonic communication, not one of us has to decode what another has said (providing they do not delight in being enigmatic, like you). When we are taught to speak, not one of us is taught how to access a inner code, or code book. Unless, of course, you can show otherwise...


You obviously haven’t read Chomsky on language, or read the earlier debates about AI (artificial intelligence). You’ll need to find someone better qualified if you are looking for a one-to-one crash update, or Google it (not in the ‘Capital’ webpages).

How do you know what I have or haven't read? In fact, I have written extensively on Chomsky here, on other forums and in my essays. Chomsky's theory is conceptually and evidentially flawed.

You can find the evidence for that, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm

See also:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker2/index.php?action=viewarticle&article_id=400

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker2/index.php?action=viewarticle&article_id=387

http://homepages.uel.ac.uk/C.Knight/lang_as_rev_cons.htm

http://www.readysteadybook.com/Article.aspx?page=knightonchomsky

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker2/index.php?action=viewarticle&article_id=395

http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/category/noam_chomsky/

http://www.grsampson.net/BLID.html


Cheezus! You are defending obsolete 19c materialist science. The dancing dialectic does not progress in a straight line. If it did, we could all be prophets. The dialectical process in the 19c consigned Buffon & Lamarck, & ‘the ether’, to the dustbin. Now it removes them & dusts them off for a respected second view.

Well, you are a prize buffoon. If you look at my signature, the vast majority of my 13,500 posts here, and at my site, you will see I am one of, if not the leading anti-dialecticians on the revolutionary left, and that includes a criticism of the flawed science on which it is allegedly based.

So, and once more, what 'obsolete' science am I defending? Where do I defend Buffon and Lamarck? In fact, you are the one who is defending an ancient and mystical view of reality (and it seems a Hermetic view of reality, since you seem to like 'the dialectic'), that there is an 'intelligence' (about which you can tell us nothing) running the universe.

And where do I defend 19th century material science? Go on, let's see you put your evidence where your hyper-large mouth is.:rolleyes:

And where on earth did you dredge this up from:


Your astonishing take seems to be that there is some eternal, unchanging science, established at some point in the past. The dancing dialectic manifests as paradigm shifts that make & then break ‘iron’ scientific laws.

Where have I even remotely suggested that this is what I am defending?

Oh dear, yet more irrelevant ramblings:


No, dogmatists cannot dismiss this as idealist whimsy. As oil runs out, our civilization will crash. Unless, that is, governments release the technology of cheap power that languishes in the vaults of the energy corps &/or banks. Governments will do this only if pressured by masses of ordinary people.

The science of cheap energy (cold fusion, etc., etc.) exists. Most scientists are poodles of the capitalist system. Most will tell you about the Laws of Thermodynamics, & that “There is no such thing as a free lunch”. This is scientistic nonsense, at root capitalistic ideology. The whole universe in a free energy system & lavish lunch.

What next from you? 'The role of pottery in the demise of Icelandic culture'? Or perhaps: 'How you too can learn to love the dung beetle'?:lol:


So Rosa, with your hard-nosed materialism, you sound very like the above scientistic apologists for the ceaseless toil of life under capitalism. You have to offer a viable dream of a better future, otherwise the masses will continue to ignore you. The better future always begins as a dream, then someone does it.

I rather think I'd prefer the masses to continue ignoring me than that I adopt a single one of your loopy ideas.

[Meridian]

That humans have needs for material basics of life does not prove that needs as a category are material.
So, if "needs as a category" (which seems like a very esoteric concept) refers to something that is immaterial, they refer to what? Spirits?


humans have needs for immaterial things too – like freedom of expression, free contact with the wider world, etc. Without these, a citizen is cut off, a virtual prisoner within their society. Last time I checked, "freedom of expression" refers to being able to say certain things without fear of punishment. "Free contact with the wider world" here means being able to contact and travel to places without punishment... These are not examples of immaterial entities -- only if you think of them as definite 'objects', which they are not. In that case, you have misunderstood the use of these words, and it is just you who are linguistically confused. Just because they can be used as nouns doesn't mean they are 'objects'.

[trivas7]

The key to understanding Marxism is to recognise that Marx and Engels derived a method which overcame and thereby made redundant the antagonism between the old materialism and its idealist counterpart which had dominated over European thought since the Enlightenment.
I would challenge you to state that method and any evidence of its validity. In this Rosa is correct: any alternative to logic and reason as a method of producing knowledge fails miserably.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I would challenge you to state that method and any evidence of its validity. In this Rosa is correct: any alternative to logic and reason as a method of producing knowledge fails miserably.

In fact, given a choice between you and BTB, I side with BTB every time.

And I'd like you to tell us how logic can generate new knowledge.

Finally, the methods employed in historical materialism incorporate what you call 'reason'.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
Finally, the methods employed in historical materialism incorporate what you call 'reason'.
How nice. Have a good day. :)

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘Choice has nothing to do with it. Necessity, needs, has and have everything to do with it.’

Maybe I didn’t explain adequately. Wants, or superfluities, as against basic physical needs, are generally identified in relation to the type of society involved. Of course, every human being needs physical things for survival – food, water & shelter. But, what begin as wants tend to evolve into needs as societies evolve in productivity.

As my eg., tried to illustrate, civilised cultures today recognise that telephones & TVs are basic needs of everyone, including the poor. Not so long ago, they were luxuries. Hotels & prisons in the USA regard a Bible as a need for every guest. ‘Needs’ is not a hard & fast concept, not in history, philosophy or economics.

So attempting to limit needs to some material datum is a-historical & undialectical. It’s a practical issue, too. Go to the ‘workers’ & promise, “We will satisfy your needs. We give you three meals a day, accomodation, & a job”. The jobless, homelss & impoverished will be interested, but very many will reply, “We got more than that already, buster.”

Meridian,


‘So, if "needs as a category" (which seems like a very esoteric concept) refers to something that is immaterial, they refer to what? Spirits?’

What is a word, apart from the thing it denotes? Spirit? Could be, but certainly immaterial, as I tried to show Rosa Lichtenstein with the mathematics example (sound of water running off a duck’s back). Science is unable to decide whether math is actually a part of the universe (mathematical realists), or just ideas we dreamed up to explain & explore the universe.

No-one has yet spotted Pythagorean triangles in space, altho they might be hiding in one of those extra dimensions of string theory. Idealist nonsense? I suggest you write them a message, giving them a stern talking to, but I doubt ‘Nature’ would print it.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


OGT: ‘Hans-Peter Duerr: “Matter is not made of matter”. That’s the verdict of modern physics, not my belief. If you in your materialist closet stop up your ears, & cover your eyes, you can continue to believe in materialist dogma, untroubled by the world that has bypassed you & all irredentist Marxists. Only a few prophylactic steps separate you from that other sect, the flat earthers'.



'Is that supposed to be your answer to this comment on mine?’


Only if you can see, its relevance, which you seem incapable of.



‘It's interesting that you are trying to sell us an incomprehensible belief set/dogma in a vain attempt to convince us materialism is a dogma.’

‘And this Duerr character is an idiot. He would struggle to tell us what the word "matter" in “Matter is not made of matter” means, which, of course, makes it an empty statement. You can give it a go..., and good luck.’

Listen to yourself! The rant of affronted dogmatism. Duerr is one of a that tiny handful of elite minds that can do cutting-edge physics. So he’s an idiot, becos the physics he does, does not conform to your grotesque 19c mental anachronisms? Can you recall what Marx said about ignorant idiots who laughed at the idea that water is made of two volatile gasses?

There is a range of theories attempting to explain what matter ultimately is. They agree on one thing, there are no little hard balls of ‘stuff’ at the sub-atomic level. The ultimate status or ontology of particles (which are also waves) is being researched & debated constantly. The sub-atomic is a mysterious realm where the normal rules of logic do not seem to have much influence. Effect can precede cause, & particles can interact instantly even when separated by vast distances.

Since the speed of light photons is an absolute, we can speak of them departing & arriving instantaneously, without contradiction. Confused? So I am, & struggling. Physics too is struggling with the immensely difficult challenge of explaining a highly mysteries ‘reality’. In this, it has dropped crasser forms of materialism, & taken up again the approaches of idealism (altho many physicists would die rather than admit that).

Ordinary language is inadequte to explain, so physics uses highly esoteric forms of mathematics. Scientists themselves have queried whether the results are reliable, or just follow from the mathematical methods & forms used.

But if you have not yet caught a whiff of an idea that Marx’s science is obsolete, I give up. You have a first-rate mind, but I despair of the futile uses you put it to.

[Old Git Tom]

Bob the Builder,

earlier, you claimed adamantly that Darwin had no influence on Marx. Then you claimed Google failed to provide you with any information that he did, & accused me of inventing evidence. Having some spare time, here is a Wikipedia item that I found in about 30 seconds (says something about Hegel’s influence, too).


‘Marx read Darwin's The Origin of Species and recognized its value in supporting his theory of class struggle. He even sent Darwin a personally inscribed copy of Das Kapital in 1873.[7] Marx understood that Darwin's work both helped to explain the internal struggles of human society, and provided a material explanation for the processes of nature. [8] In 1861, Karl Marx wrote to his friend Ferdinand Lassalle, "Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. ... Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, ‘teleology’ in natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained."[9] Having read Darwin's work and mentioned Darwin by name in Das Kapital[10] [11], it is presumable that Marx may have been influenced to some degree by Darwin.’

Bob, I do not say this to denigrate you, but to make a serious point; dogmatists are unable to perceive or find anything that contradicts their dogmatism. You literally cannot help being unable to find the above, becos ‘perception is concept dependent’.

This episode is a practical demonstration that dogmatism destroys the critical faculties.

[S.Artesian]

[QUOTE=Old Git Tom;1708727]S.Artesian,



Maybe I didn’t explain adequately. Wants, or superfluities, as against basic physical needs, are generally identified in relation to the type of society involved. Of course, every human being needs physical things for survival – food, water & shelter. But, what begin as wants tend to evolve into needs as societies evolve in productivity.

As my eg., tried to illustrate, civilised cultures today recognise that telephones & TVs are basic needs of everyone, including the poor. Not so long ago, they were luxuries. Hotels & prisons in the USA regard a Bible as a need for every guest. ‘Needs’ is not a hard & fast concept, not in history, philosophy or economics.

So attempting to limit needs to some material datum is a-historical & undialectical. It’s a practical issue, too. Go to the ‘workers’ & promise, “We will satisfy your needs. We give you three meals a day, accomodation, & a job”. The jobless, homelss & impoverished will be interested, but very many will reply, “We got more than that already, buster.”
_____________________________________


I dealt with that some posts ago Tom:

2. That humans have needs for social services, expression, communication etc. is basically exactly that-- human needs are socially mediated by the material organization of society; that is to say more precisely by the social relationship governing labor. The material needs of human beings are as a social, or as young Marx called it, species-being.

--The fact that needs are social is what makes them material; the fact that labor is social is what makes it a material force; that it is social is exactly what makes it labor to begin with.

[S.Artesian]

Just a personal note-- Once upon a time, when Casey Stengel was managing the Mets Old Casey, one particularly exasperating day, is reported to have looked up and down his bench during the 7th inning stretch and asked:

"Does anybody here know how to play this game?'

[Hit The North]

OGT,

I say this not to denigrate you, but you really need to read more closely. Below is an edit of our exchange regarding this matter.


Originally posted by OGT:
As I said, Mx was ambivalent on materialism, yet he borrowed from Darwin’s materialist theory of natural selection for his theory of social evolution leading to revolution.
Originally posted by BTB:
I disagree that Marx ever did this. He, himself, comments on the coincidence of their approach, Marx in the case of social history, Darwin in the case of natural history. But he never borrowed anything substantial from Darwin's work. If you maintain he did, then I would like to see your evidence.But instead of evidence, you produce only this smug riposte:


OGT:
Lack of basic background knowledge there, Bob. Plenty about it on the net.
BTB:
You claim that there is evidence to support the charge that Marx borrowed from Darwin on the internet but unsurprisingly fail to say where. Actually, a quick Google of the subject produces mainly articles which do not claim this! It is obvious that no serious proponent of either Marxism or Natural Selection would support the claim. In fact, most of this conjecture is made solely by the Christian Fundamentalist Right in the USA and Europe, in an attempt to slur Darwin’s ideas by association with communism. But this is no surprise as you even consort with theists in support of your claims about science!

More importantly, though, the sequence of history does not support your assertion. Origin of Species was published in 1859, whereas many of Marx and Engels foundational statements on historical materialism were written or published before this in the German Ideology (1845), The eleven Theses on Feuerbach (1845), The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Eighteenth Brumaire (1848), Peasant War in Germany (1850). There is no sudden revision of these positions as a result of reading Darwin. And anyway, you have still yet to say which ideas and concepts were borowed from Darwin. If you think it's the concept of evolution the that reveals a basic gap in your knowledge, Tom, as the concept of evolution predates Darwin: http://classicgenetics.suite101.com/...tionary_theory (http://www.anonym.to/?http://classicgenetics.suite101.com/article.cfm/predarwinian_evolutionary_theory)Now, after I conclusively debunked your theory by providing evidence that Marx developed historical materialism before the Origin of Species was published and that Marx could not have therefore borrowed anything substantial from Darwin's theory, you respond weakly with this:


OGT
Having consorted with other dogmatists in the past (Christian, Darwinian, scientific, etc.), it is no surprise to me that you cannot find, discover or see what contradicts your dogma... And then admit that the concept of evolutionary change which you charge Marx with borrowing from Darwin, in fact pre-dates Darwin's application:


OGT
Evolution theory began with the Greeks. In materialist form, it was ‘in the air’ of Europe before 1859, particularly in France (Lamarck, Cuvier, etc.).You then add, echoing my first response to you that


Mx specifically referred to Darwin in one of his writings, half-admiringly, half-critially.Well, I have no quarrel with you when you quote back facts I have already delivered to your door!

Meanwhile, a few days later, you return to the debate armed with new and startling evidence in the shape of a Wikipedia article which tells us... what exactly? That Marx borrowed from Darwin' work in order to furnish his own theory? Not at all! Merely that Marx admired Darwin's work and appreciated the parallels between the theory of natural selection and his own materialist conception of history. No evidence that Marx borrowed anything substantial from Darwin or that reading Darwin caused Marx to reconsider his ideas. So my advice to you, is to try again.

And you will need to do better than to accuse me of dogmatism because this episode is merely a practical demonstration that your idealism has nothing to offer but insults and poor comprehension skills.

Have a nice day.

Postscript:

Having examined the wiki article which OGT uses to such devastating effect, the next few paragraphs which follow from the one quoted are this:


Exaggeration of Darwin's Influence

However, the depth of the influence, if any, would certainly seem to be greatly exaggerated by a number of religious fundamentalists who seek to paint Darwin's ideas as incredibly dangerous. There is no mention of Darwin or evolution in The Communist Manifesto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto) -- not surprising, since Darwin's On the Origin of Species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species) was published in 1859, 11 years later -- and the only reference to Darwin in Das Kapital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital) amounts to short footnotes on technological specialization in manufacturing and industry.
Despite this, in The Disasters Darwinism Brought to Humanity, Harun Yahya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_Yahya) (a Muslim creationist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationist)) writes: "Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, adapted Darwin's ideas, which deeply influenced him, to the dialectic process of history." Yahya also writes: "Marx revealed his sympathy for Darwin by dedicating his most important work, Das Kapital, to him." [12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Karl_Marx#cite_note-11)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Karl_Marx#cite_note-11)
This last bit is a common misconception that arose from a letter from Darwin to Edward Aveling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Aveling), (who later became the lover of Marx's daughter, Eleanor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Marx)). Aveling had written to Darwin about wanting to dedicate his book to him, but Darwin declined and Darwin's response became mixed with Karl Marx's papers when Eleanor Marx inherited her father's papers from Engels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Engels). The letter was published in 1931 in the Russian Communist magazine, Under the Banner of Marxism, which went on to suggest that the enclosures referred to in the letter might have been chapters from Das Kapital that dealt with evolution. It was not until 1975 that Aveling's letter to Darwin was discovered, debunking this myth. [7]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Karl_Marx#cite_note-carter-6)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influences_on_Karl_Marx#cite_note-9 My, my, Old Git Tom, for all your advanced years, you're not very good at this debating lark, are you?

[anticap]

Most physicists are not materialists, in virtue of the nature of what they assiduously study. ... A scientist may say it is impossible to understand the state of things in the sub-atomic without taking the observer into acount.

It seems to me that materialism ultimately reduces to the understanding that existence precedes thought. Is it your contention that quantum physics disproves this?


As a materialist, you are committed to dualism – mind & matter

Ridiculous. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse. Dualism is irrelevant to this.

[spiltteeth]

I'd just like to point out that one need not be a philosophical/metaphysical materialist to be a historical materialist.

Marx makes certain observations about the processes of capitalism and one can simply look around to see if he's correct or not.

I am a theist and so no ontological materialist, but am a historical materialist.

Although Marx did call himself a materialist, I think towards the end he considered himself neither an ontological idealist nor an ontological materialist.
He was concerned with real things, not the ultimate nature of reality.

Historical materialism makes no comment on reality in general.

I actually know a bit about intelligent design theory and frankly I have doubts weather it can even be applied to the biological sciences.

That said, it is no 'god of the gaps' theory, it makes predictions and can and is being studied scientifically. We'll have to see....

At present I remain an agnostic as to intelligent design in biology, but its proponents do show the serious and perhaps fatal shortcomings of Darwinian natural selection.

I agree with you, OLD GIT TOM, that materialism as an ontological position is, to say the least, a dying philosophy, but I wouldn't cite intelligent design or Quantum theory to sustain yr position.

It's true that Quantum physics postulates all sorts of illogical fantastical phenomena, but these are all mathematical equations which may have no reality to our world.
Just because imaginary time and actual infinites etc are mathematically descriptive doesn't mean they are reality descriptive.
Just because an abstract equation works' out doesn't necessitate it describes actual reality.

My point is you don't need to be a philosophical materialist/naturalist to be a historical materialist.

Also, I think Marxists who INSIST that one have to commit oneself to a ontological position to be a Marxist are alienating a huge number of potential allies.

I think this is where people get the idea of Marxists as some kind of cult, as many do push a specific metaphysical agenda.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Only if you can see, its relevance, which you seem incapable of.

Well, we can both do that: what you said in fact has no relevance, and only those who are blind, like you, will fail to see that.

But, to argue like that would be rather pointless, since all argument would cease. Maybe that's what you want...

So, and once more, care to tell me exactly what its relevance is? Otherwise, the presumption must be 1) that is has none, 2) you can't show its relevant, or 3) both.


Listen to yourself! The rant of affronted dogmatism.

Seems to me that the one 'ranting' here is that person who looks back at you when you stare in the mirror.


Duerr is one of a that tiny handful of elite minds that can do cutting-edge physics.

So? He might be the greatest mind the world has ever seen, but even he would still struggle to tell us what the word "matter" means in the brainless sentence of his you quoted. And you'd struggle, too. In fact, you do not even attempt to tell us, more intent on singing the praises of the man who came out with this brainless statement.


So he’s an idiot, becos the physics he does, does not conform to your grotesque 19c mental anachronisms?

No, he is an idiot, like you, since he came out with a sentence full of empty words -- unless, of course, you can help him out and tell us what the words "matter" means in that context. But we have already seen you can't do that, either.


Can you recall what Marx said about ignorant idiots who laughed at the idea that water is made of two volatile gasses?

What has that got to do with this? Marx's comment did not rely on his use of empty words, as Duerr's does. If there is no such thing as "matter", then what the hell does that word mean? What is Duerr referring to when he denies there is any?


There is a range of theories attempting to explain what matter ultimately is. They agree on one thing, there are no little hard balls of ‘stuff’ at the sub-atomic level. The ultimate status or ontology of particles (which are also waves) is being researched & debated constantly. The sub-atomic is a mysterious realm where the normal rules of logic do not seem to have much influence. Effect can precede cause, & particles can interact instantly even when separated by vast distances.

And yet, leading physicists tell us that none of this makes any sense, and that anyone who says they understand it doesn't understand sub-atomic physics. You want to recommend such half-baked theories to us? You must know that there are realist theories (such as that developed by David Bohm) that do not go down this route, just as you must know that the vast majority, if not all of previous theories have proven to be wrong, and that every fifty years or so, physicists change their minds.

In the face of that, you still want us to reject matter based on the brainless statement of a physicist who will not be able to tell us what his brainless statement actually means.

And then you want us to substitute for that an incomprehensible dogma not even you can explain.

You must think we are as stupid as Duerr sounds.:lol:


Since the speed of light photons is an absolute, we can speak of them departing & arriving instantaneously, without contradiction. Confused? So I am, & struggling. Physics too is struggling with the immensely difficult challenge of explaining a highly mysteries ‘reality’. In this, it has dropped crasser forms of materialism, & taken up again the approaches of idealism (altho many physicists would die rather than admit that).

In fact, this suggests that physicists are either using words in a new and technical sense that does not relate to the way we use them in everyday life, or they are just as confused as you seem to be. Check out what physicist David Peat had to say about this:


"It hasn't been a great couple of years for theoretical physics. Books such as Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics and Peter Woit's Not Even Wrong embody the frustration felt across the field that string theory, the brightest hope for formulating a theory that would explain the universe in one beautiful equation, has been getting nowhere. It's quite a comedown from the late 1980s and 1990s, when a grand unified theory seemed just around the corner and physicists believed they would soon, to use Stephen Hawking's words, 'know the mind of God'. New Scientist even ran an article called 'The end of physics'.

"So what went wrong? Why are physicists finding it so hard to make that final step? I believe part of the answer was hinted at by the great physicist Niels Bohr, when he wrote: 'It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out about nature. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.'

"At first sight that seems strange. What has language got to do with it? After all, we see physics as about solving equations relating to facts about the world -- predicting a comet's path, or working out how fast heat flows along an iron bar. The language we choose to convey question or answer is not supposed to fundamentally affect the nature of the result.

"Nonetheless, that assumption started to unravel one night in the spring of 1925, when the young Werner Heisenberg worked out the basic equations of what became known as quantum mechanics. One of the immediate consequences of these equations was that they did not permit us to know with total accuracy both the position and the velocity of an electron: there would always be a degree of irreducible uncertainty in these two values.

"Heisenberg needed an explanation for this. He reasoned thus: suppose a very delicate (hypothetical) microscope is used to observe the electron, one so refined that it uses only a single photon of energy to make its measurement. First it measures the electron's position, then it uses a second photon to measure the speed, or velocity. But in making this latter observation, the second photon has imparted a little kick to the electron and in the process has shifted its position. Try to measure the position again and we disturb the velocity. Uncertainty arises, Heisenberg argued, because every time we observe the universe we disturb its intrinsic properties.

"However, when Heisenberg showed his results to Bohr, his mentor, he had the ground cut from under his feet. Bohr argued that Heisenberg had made the unwarranted assumption that an electron is like a billiard ball in that it has a 'position' and possesses a 'speed'. These are classical notions, said Bohr, and do not make sense at the quantum level. The electron does not necessarily have an intrinsic position or speed, or even a particular path. Rather, when we try to make measurements, quantum nature replies in a way we interpret using these familiar concepts.

"This is where language comes in. While Heisenberg argued that 'the meaning of quantum theory is in the equations', Bohr pointed out that physicists still have to stand around the blackboard and discuss them in German, French or English. Whatever the language, it contains deep assumptions about space, time and causality -- assumptions that do not apply to the quantum world. Hence, wrote Bohr, 'we are suspended in language such that we don't know what is up and what is down'. Trying to talk about quantum reality generates only confusion and paradox.

"Unfortunately Bohr's arguments are often put aside today as some physicists discuss ever more elaborate mathematics, believing their theories to truly reflect subatomic reality. I remember a conversation with string theorist Michael Green a few years after he and John Schwartz published a paper in 1984 that was instrumental in making string theory mainstream. Green remarked that when Einstein was formulating the theory of relativity he had thought deeply about the philosophical problems involved, such as the nature of the categories of space and time. Many of the great physicists of Einstein's generation read deeply in philosophy.

"In contrast, Green felt, string theorists had come up with a mathematical formulation that did not have the same deep underpinning and philosophical inevitability. Although superstrings were for a time an exciting new approach, they did not break conceptual boundaries in the way that the findings of Bohr, Heisenberg and Einstein had done.

"The American quantum theorist David Bohm embraced Bohr's views on language, believing that at the root of Green's problem is the structure of the languages we speak. European languages, he noted, perfectly mirror the classical world of Newtonian physics. When we say 'the cat chases the mouse' we are dealing with well-defined objects (nouns), which are connected via verbs. Likewise, classical physics deals with objects that are well located in space and time, which interact via forces and fields. But if the world doesn't work the way our language does, advances are inevitably hindered.

"Bohm pointed out that quantum effects are much more process-based, so to describe them accurately requires a process-based language rich in verbs, and in which nouns play only a secondary role....

"Physics as we know it is about equations and quantitative measurement. But what these numbers and symbols really mean is a different, more subtle matter. In interpreting the equations we must remember the limitations language places on how we can think about the world...." [Peat, New Scientist 197, 2637, pp.41-43. Bold emphases added.]

Now, I'd not go as far as Peat does, but the point remains: if physicist are to make themselves understood (even to one another), then they are going to have to use language, and if they misuse it, they end up talking rubbish.

As I have argued elsewhere:


Despite this, it is plain that scientists have to rely on their activity in this world -- the 'world of appearances' -- to test, refine and advance their hypotheses. No matter how sophisticated, technical or "elegant" a theory is, at some point researchers have to interface with the ordinary world. In order to test their ideas scientists must check dials, read meters, mix substances, carry out measurements, handle and calibrate instruments, conduct surveys, look down microscopes, collect samples, consult computer screens, research relevant literature, speak to colleagues, complete reports, formulate equations, attend conferences, write articles and books, etc., etc. All or most of these must be carried out if a theory is to become anything more than speculative, tentative or hypothetical. But, clearly, all of these activities and performances take place in the ordinary phenomenal world.

Socially-conditioned practice in this material world enables the intelligent prosecution of scientific research; the vernacular not only facilitates the education and socialisation of scientists, it underpins everyday skills and standard laboratory routines (etc.). Moreover, not only do such mundane aspects of our material and social existence help secure successful inter-communication between scientists, they provide a steady source of the metaphors and models that breathe life into the vast majority of their theories. [On this see, Lynch (1996), Polanyi (1962), and Ravetz (1996).]

All of the above routines and skills are regulated by the same conventions that govern everyday speech and reasoning -– and these in turn are mediated by familiar mundane physical skills and practices, all of which are materially-, socially-, and historically-conditioned.

In that case, scientists cannot risk undermining the deliverances either of the phenomenal or the social world, just as they cannot afford to depreciate ordinary material language and practice for fear that by weakening the branches upon which they collectively sit their own ideas risk a catastrophic fall.

References and further argument can be found here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13%2001.htm

In other words, no scientific discovery can challenge ordinary language. When some attempt is made to do this, you end up with the brainless sentences Duerr came out with. Hence, the physicists you mention must be using "cause" in a different way to the rest of us. If so, what they say cannot challenge our (and their) ordinary notions of causality. No wonder they too are puzzled by Quantum Mechanics and Relativity theory.


Ordinary language is inadequate to explain, so physics uses highly esoteric forms of mathematics. Scientists themselves have queried whether the results are reliable, or just follow from the mathematical methods & forms used.

I agree, but in that case, no one, not even the physicists themselves, can tell us what their theories mean. No wonder they change their minds so regularly.


But if you have not yet caught a whiff of an idea that Marx’s science is obsolete, I give up..

Which part of Marx's 'science' is obsolete? You keep making these grandiose pronouncements, but repeatedly fail to fill in the gaps.


You have a first-rate mind, but I despair of the futile uses you put it to.

You can spare me the insincere praise; if you can't establish your point with argument and/or evidence, then that's your fault, not mine.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


How nice. Have a good day.

So, you can't tell us how logic can develop new knowledege, then...

What a big surprise.:rolleyes:

[anticap]

At present I remain an agnostic as to intelligent design in biology, but its proponents do show the serious and perhaps fatal shortcomings of Darwinian natural selection.

*sigh* I can't believe I'm taking this bait, but would you care to elaborate? I'll load up the rebuttals to Kent Hovind's YouTube videos, which ought to suffice as plug-in responses to whatever you come up with (which, I'm guessing, will involve gross misunderstandings as to what "Darwinian natural selection" actually entails).

[Hit The North]

I'd just like to point out that one need not be a philosophical/metaphysical materialist to be a historical materialist.



Who, in this thread, is arguing that you do?

Much of your post is moot, given that we have already established that Marx did not consider himself to be a philosophical materialist and was not uncritical of the severe limitation of philosophical materialism in producing adequate explanations of human history and society.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
So, you can't tell us how logic can develop new knowledege, then...

What a big surprise.:rolleyes:
My point is that any method that attempts to construct a bridge from the current society to the future that prescinds from logic and reason confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information is fallacious and invalid. I couldn't care less what yours is.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


My point is that any method that attempts to construct a bridge from the current society to the future that prescinds from logic and reason confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information is fallacious and invalid. I couldn't care less what yours is.

So, can we see a demonstration in this shiny new, super-duper 'logic' of yours just why this is 'invalid'?

Or, is the central tenet of Trivas-Logic the following: a fact is whatever our Guru, Trivas-the-Great, alleges?

[Old Git Tom]

Bob the Builder,


'My, my, Old Git Tom, for all your advanced years, you're not very good at this debating lark, are you?'

I know the difference between internecine wrist-wrangling & debating, & have the honesty & humility (I hope) to fess up when proved wrong. Otherwise it's all rather futile, I think?

You've dishonestly wrangled your way out of apologising for a false accusation & making a factual error. You can do this with me, no problem, but such intellectual degeneration will do you no favors in relation to the population at large. Is it any wonder they do not trust or respect you lot? Do you really care? Is the game really revolution, or winning brownie points off the next sect?

As the world around us threatens to implode from eco or financial catastrophe, or explode in global warfare, where are the radical thinkers, the leaders with the answers, or even the productive questions? Tragically, not on the left.

After 150-odd years, Marxism is still being wrangled over, by vanishingly-small, fragmented sects, largely without power or influence. Each is vehement that it has 'the truth'. Rosa Lichtenstein saw that, at least. If you can't or won't see something wrong, or cannot suspect there is a need to fundamentally rethink Marxism, the alternative it to continue this march into oblivion. OGT

[black magick hustla]

the whole point between dividing idealists from materialists was the fact that idealism was a big force in academia. nobody who reads anymore is an idealist. both terms are anachronisms i think. they are based on a philosophical dispute that is pretty much senseless and confused.

[Old Git Tom]

Anticap,


OGT: ‘As a materialist, you are committed to dualism – mind & matter.’

‘Ridiculous. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse. Dualism is irrelevant to this.’

Not ridiculous, since a materialist may hold what you state, but still be fundamentally & necessarily committed to the above dualism. It was the fundamental plank of the 19c form of materialism, as in scientific positivism, Marxism came from that milieu.

There is a scientist-observer, & the observed material universe, or experiment. The earlier 19c scientists had to believe that their conscious minds were separated absolutely from what was observed, or they could not guarantee the objectivity of observed results. Modern quantum physics has had to relinquish that comforting view, altho it works well enuf (mostly) at the level of our ordinary world.

Some materialists do indeed believe intelligence & consciousness emerged (somehow) from the material universe, but there are many problems with that belief. Yes, it’s a belief/theory, becos there is no scientific proof for it. And, the philosophical problem: it violates the primary dualism; if intelligence is inherent or emergent in matter (somehow), you have lost that primary definition & understanding of matter as inert, dumb, & devoid of motility. Stressed: that has nothing to do with any scientific evidence. It is necessary logically for a materialist.

There’s nothing wrong with materialism, if the limits of its ambit are accepted. As with Newton’s mechanics, which work immaculately, up to a certain point.

So my point; idealism is superior, since it covers a wider range of phenomena & cases. It is far less productive to debate about ontology than accept that idealism has superior heuristic advantages. As an outlook, it can & does enhance the mind’s ability to examine the sub-atomic & macroscopic universe without preconceptions.

That we cannot have absolute knowledge of anything we perceive was established by Kant 200 years ago. It’s been confirmed time & again by science, altho reading some of the posters here, you’d never guess that. The dogmatist lives in his/her own little universe.

So, particles are not matter, & their materiality, or lack of it, escape the normal vocabulary of description. Similarly, the old idea that the universe ‘emerged’ out of the random interplay of dumb, random matter has next-to-no support from physics (see Howard Bloom website – sorry not allowed to link). Difficult, but there we are.

Some of the posters here seem to think that modern physics is part of some plot to insinuate religion into their pristine, atheistic, materialist, 19c dogma. I think they suffer from narrow education, so narrow thinking & reading. Many people believe the universe is big balls in space, made up of little atomic balls, but that’s all balls.

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesan,


'--The fact that needs are social is what makes them material; the fact that labor is social is what makes it a material force; that it is social is exactly what makes it labor to begin with.'

Nearly everything to do with humans is social, since they are social beings. What's 'material' about it? Wordplay.

Social labor a material force? You do this jargon jolly well, it almost sounds convincing. I'm sure it means something to you, but fuck-all to me. Wordplay.

If you understand labor as workers swinging hammers & that, like in those spiffing Russian movies, then it’s plausible. Trouble is, labor has evolved, & mind-work has to be incorporated into your fossilised framework. It don’t fit.

Geeks, guys & gals in white coats, etc., do very clever 'work' with their heads. Sometimes, they have great & profitable ideas in bed. They don’t get physical, only outside ‘work’. This is psychic production. Like BTB, I expect you will now tell me that since it played little part in 19c production, A/ It doesn’t matter, or B/ There is far less of it about than OGT thinks, & C/ Marx thought of it first.

Nevertheless, SA, I insist that psychic production is the anomalous counter-example that proves you & Marx WRONG. Attempts to tie work to physical, material criteria are futile, as are similar essays with ‘needs’. That’s dogma talking, or gibbering with fear.

When your significant other tells you s/he needs some luvvin, do you interpret that as a need for some physical pork-pushing work? Of course you don’t. And please don’t tell me what Mx said. I’ve already said, his extensive writings are vitiated by his double-speak. Insofar as he was wearing his idealist, Hegelian hat, he could handle the concept of the immaterial. Wearing his materialist hat, he could not.

Mx did the best he could with the best ideas & mental tools of his time. I presume he hoped later generations would improve on his far-from-finished work. I don’t think he ever saw himself as an infallible prophet. Alas, if mind-speed separates the quick from the dead, most living ‘Marxists’ would function as well by burying themselves in Highgate cemetary.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,

in the wrist-wrangling game, I give you best. I cannot match your fanatical energy, nor stamina in sheer volume of your ceaseless outpourings. You technique is infallible as it is repulsive (ie., I am repulsed, quitting the field). You first claim (pretend) to not understand a point made. If further, more detailed explanations are put to you, you respond with multiplied objections to each sub-point. The form of the discussion is worn & torn down, like a suit that ends as a shapeless pile of rags.The opponent is worn down, as a stone by Niagara, or heroes by Chinese water torture, as with me.

Watching you abuse your marked mental abilities as a dialectical dervish is painful; bit like watching a guy with a new Ferrari. He never drives it anywhere, just sits outside his house, revving its balls off. To anyone who appreciates fine machinery, that is borderline criminal.

But I surrender. Rev on, but you're definitely not moving anyone or anything towards a revolution.

[Hit The North]

Bob the Builder,
I know the difference between internecine wrist-wrangling & debating, & have the honesty & humility (I hope) to fess up when proved wrong. Otherwise it's all rather futile, I think?



I agree. So why not fess up that you are wrong in your assertion that Marx borrowed anything substantial from Darwin's work?


You've dishonestly wrangled your way out of apologising for a false accusation & making a factual error.Any chance that you'll back up this accusation with any detail? Like which accusation and what factual error? Of course not! The only one making factual errors here is you. I feel sad for you that you can't fess up to it.


Like BTB, I expect you will now tell me that since it played little part in 19c production, A/ It doesn’t matter, or B/ There is far less of it about than OGT thinks, & C/ Marx thought of it first.Where have I said anything like this? No wonder you favour idealism - YOU ARE A FANTASIST!


Is it any wonder they do not trust or respect you lot?And you're the shinning counter example?


But I surrender. Rev on, but you're definitely not moving anyone or anything towards a revolution.

Wow. That's embarrassing.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


in the wrist-wrangling game, I give you best. I cannot match your fanatical energy, nor stamina in sheer volume of your ceaseless outpourings. You technique is infallible as it is repulsive (ie., I am repulsed, quitting the field). You first claim (pretend) to not understand a point made. If further, more detailed explanations are put to you, you respond with multiplied objections to each sub-point. The form of the discussion is worn & torn down, like a suit that ends as a shapeless pile of rags.The opponent is worn down, as a stone by Niagara, or heroes by Chinese water torture, as with me.

Where did I say I did not understand it? All I said was that it's relevance escaped me. And you have yet to say what relevance it had.


If further, more detailed explanations are put to you, you respond with multiplied objections to each sub-point.

That is because I have been trained in this form of careful and detailed argument. It exposes error quite efficiently. It's called Analyitc Philosophy.


The form of the discussion is worn & torn down, like a suit that ends as a shapeless pile of rags.The opponent is worn down, as a stone by Niagara, or heroes by Chinese water torture, as with me

If you can't cut it, then don't post allegations you can't defend.


Watching you abuse your marked mental abilities as a dialectical dervish is painful; bit like watching a guy with a new Ferrari. He never drives it anywhere, just sits outside his house, revving its balls off. To anyone who appreciates fine machinery, that is borderline criminal.

What abuse of my 'marked abilities'? Just because I can stand my ground against an Idealist windbag?


He never drives it anywhere, just sits outside his house, revving its balls off.

Even worse is someone who claims he has a Ferrari, but when asked to prove it all he can produce is a drawing of a model T Ford, and who then complains about those who challenged him.:lol:


But I surrender. Rev on, but you're definitely not moving anyone or anything towards a revolution.

And..., one more Idealist bites the dust.

Next numpty please...:)

[anticap]

Ridiculous. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse. Dualism is irrelevant to this.

Not ridiculous, since a materialist may hold what you state, but still be fundamentally & necessarily committed to the above dualism.

Yes, ridiculous. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse. Dualism is irrelevant to this.


It was the fundamental plank of the 19c form of materialism, as in scientific positivism, Marxism came from that milieu.

Irrelevant. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse.


There is a scientist-observer, & the observed material universe, or experiment. The earlier 19c scientists had to believe that their conscious minds were separated absolutely from what was observed, or they could not guarantee the objectivity of observed results. Modern quantum physics has had to relinquish that comforting view, altho it works well enuf (mostly) at the level of our ordinary world.

Irrelevant. A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse.


Some materialists do indeed believe intelligence & consciousness emerged (somehow) from the material universe, but there are many problems with that belief. Yes, it’s a belief/theory, becos there is no scientific proof for it.

Note to self: There is no scientific proof that existence precedes thought. Seek alternative worldview.


if intelligence is ... emergent in matter (somehow), you have lost that primary definition & understanding of matter as inert, dumb, & devoid of motility.

Let me rephrase that: "If existence precedes thought, then you can't claim that pre-thought existence was devoid of the stuff of thought, or of life."

And again, just to drive it home: "If existence precedes thought, then existence doesn't necessarily precede thought."

And here's where we young whippersnappers insert an "LOL" or a smiley-face: :lol:


Stressed: that has nothing to do with any scientific evidence.

You wish. Sadly for you, it has everything to do with scientific evidence, and that evidence is in your face.


It is necessary logically for a materialist.

Clearly not, but it does appear logically necessary for you to admit to arguing in circles....


That we cannot have absolute knowledge of anything we perceive was established by Kant 200 years ago.

Of course, the claim that existence precedes thought does not contain the claim that a particular species of ape has become an all-knowing, all-seeing god, despite what your straw friend may have told you.


It’s been confirmed time & again by science, altho reading some of the posters here, you’d never guess that. The dogmatist lives in his/her own little universe.

Show me one. You can't mean Rosa, since she's not an idiot. So tell me who here has claimed that Homo sapiens is a god-ape. Or are you just trying to stir up shit (TIP: we young'uns call that "trolling" and tend to ban for it)?


the old idea that the universe ‘emerged’ out of the random interplay of dumb, random matter has next-to-no support from physics

A lovely shade of red, but stinking of herring just the same.

A materialist contends that ideas stem from the material universe, as opposed to the reverse. As you've already conceded (by way of clipping my earlier question before quoting me), quantum physics does not disprove this contention.


Some of the posters here seem to think that modern physics is part of some plot to insinuate religion into their pristine, atheistic, materialist, 19c dogma.

No they don't. They just don't think it implies what you say it does.


I think they suffer from narrow education, so narrow thinking & reading. Many people believe the universe is big balls in space, made up of little atomic balls, but that’s all balls.

And I think you suffer from a brain disease called "blind faith." Many people with your disease believe that the universe was "designed" by an "intelligence" and would like nothing more than to infect the minds of innocent children with this virulent nonsense -- but that's all been shown in court to be the same old creationist bollocks.

[Old Git Tom]

Anticap,

you are not arguing with me on materialism & scientific positivism, you are arguing with orthodox, best views, including scientists themselves. I go with the evidence. I know of no philosopher who takes your view. Materialism involves dualism, out of which there is no obvious or easy path to explain consciousness without destroying dualism.

The above is not a subject of debate amongst the educated & informed. They concurred & have moved on. If you want an expert opinion, read a little Paul Davies, widely respected amongst physicists for his even-handed & skillful explanation for laypersons. In his earlier days, he was a scientific posivitist like you. Again, he has moved on over a 30-year career, unlike some.

On to a linked but separate issue. How intelligence emerged from matter has no accepted explanation from science or from philosophy. Howard Bloom et al have amassed much evidence that it was in the universe from the very beginning. What the God Squad says is not relevant, except for Perry Marshall. He has made a very watertight case that DNA is encoded information, but believes the truth of the Bible (!).

Even materialist brain guru Susan Blackmore has no viable theory/story of how or why the human brain appeared, even less human intelligence. Please understand, all this talk about 'material needs' has no more status than the ignorant ramblings of a cracker-barrel redneck. It's an ideological prejudice out of the informationally-challenged.

If you want to stay in the Victorian closet & deny the past 100 years of scientific advances, go for it. Otherwise you should study some of the evidence before emitting mere opinions. They are as strongly affirmed as they are without substance - the usual pattern as with all prejudices.

[Dean]

My point is that any method that attempts to construct a bridge from the current society to the future that prescinds from logic and reason confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information is fallacious and invalid. I couldn't care less what yours is.

Your statement has a grammar error (specifically, it is missing a critical joining word: "confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information is fallacious and invalid" constitutes two separate verbs, and I'm not sure if you were trying to modify the verb or the noun - in any case its not intelligible).

What I can get is that you are rejecting all analyses of what may occur in terms of social organization. In fact, you seem to be categorically dismissing them as if they were necessarily detached from "logic and reason"! I shouldn't have to explain to you how utterly preposterous this is.

Your logic amounts to this:

Me: I think that if Karzai maintains legitimacy, he will keep power through the next election.

You: I don't care what you think will happen. Claiming that this or that will proceed from something is always an exercise devoid of logic.

As you can see, its completely nonsensical. And, if you were saying that "trying to see what will happen without using logic and reason requires an assumption of facts, and is therefore wrong and you do it" then what you are saying is nothing more than vulgar academic slander.

To be fair, your statement was too confusing to ascertain a distinct meaning, but those are two possibilities and my responses to each.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Materialism involves dualism, out of which there is no obvious or easy path to explain consciousness without destroying dualism.

You keep saying things like this, but beyond bald assertion, where is your evidence/argument in favour?


The above is not a subject of debate amongst the educated & informed. They concurred & have moved on. If you want an expert opinion, read a little Paul Davies, widely respected amongst physicists for his even-handed & skillful explanation for laypersons. In his earlier days, he was a scientific posivitist like you. Again, he has moved on over a 30-year career, unlike some.

He may be a physicist, but that does not make him an expert in philosophy. What next from you? A reference to Sarah Palin?


He has made a very watertight case that DNA is encoded information, but believes the truth of the Bible (!).

But, you have already had it shown you that this is a radically confused idea, which, at best, leads you into an infinite regress.


Even materialist brain guru Susan Blackmore has no viable theory/story of how or why the human brain appeared, even less human intelligence. Please understand, all this talk about 'material needs' has no more status than the ignorant ramblings of a cracker-barrel redneck. It's an ideological prejudice out of the informationally-challenged.

So what? What expertise has Susan Blakemore got in philosophy?

What is more, you haven't a clue how these things developed, so you can drop that superior air of yours.


If you want to stay in the Victorian closet & deny the past 100 years of scientific advances, go for it. Otherwise you should study some of the evidence before emitting mere opinions. They are as strongly affirmed as they are without substance - the usual pattern as with all prejudices.

Again, you keep saying stuff like this, but you fail to say how your even more ancient view of reality is much of an advance.:lol:

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein.


OGT: ‘Materialism involves dualism, out of which there is no obvious or easy path to explain consciousness without destroying dualism.’

‘You keep saying things like this, but beyond bald assertion, where is your evidence/argument in favour?’

Rosa. This is not even controversial. It is old shit. It is Philos 101. It is bad form to play dumb in order to defend a dumb position. The problem of Descartes’ dualism? Remember? Having separated mind/soul & matter (idealism-dualism), he was bereft of a mechanism to explain how they interact. Or are you inviting me to re-describe it in excruciating detail for you, so you can wrist-wrangle point by a sub-point again in a descending spiral of futility?

Probably the latter, since your self-appointed task is to preserve the original & sacred purity of Marx’s texts. As such, you are a conservative priest-conservator, epistemologically. You want stasis. You do not want progress of knowledge, or by extension, of society. To you, that must be heresy. Since the form of Marx’s philosophy is dialectical, & its aim is revolution, is it any wonder you are furious & splenetic self-contradiction personified?


‘He may be a physicist, but that does not make him an expert in philosophy. What next from you? A reference to Sarah Palin?’

More dumb-playing; as I described, he has also gained wide respect for his presentation of a difficult subject for non-scientists. Did that really bounce off the titanium armour-plating around your perceptul apparatus? His is a scientist & accomplished writer about science. Simple. And don’t knock sister Palin. You & she display a deal in common, if you persist in dumb-play.


OGT: ‘He has made a very watertight case that DNA is encoded information, but believes the truth of the Bible (!).’

‘But, you have already had it shown you that this is a radically confused idea, which, at best, leads you into an infinite regress.’

No it doesn’t. Regress only appears if you demand a meta-logic to explain another logic. That’s your problem, not mine. I stop quite happily at the point where Marshall shows that DNA cannot possibly work without intelligence. That frightens you materialists, not me. I’m quite happy to sit back & watch Richard Dawkins et al, squirm. And no scientific discovery uncovers final proof.


‘So what? What expertise has Susan Blakemore got in philosophy?’

With the patience one normally employs with infants, idiots, the crazed, & faux-naifs; the topic was the lack of evidence for the emergence of intelligence from matter. For a materialist, proof of X is largely an issue of empirical evidence, thus science’s realm. Is that too simple & obvious for you? Maybe you wanna wrist-wrangle about materialist metaphysics? I quoted a scientific authority of your materialist persuasion. If you want a philosophical theory of how mind & matter tango, you will have to adopt idealism. It’s suited to that sort of thing. As you won’t have it, I did not bother giving it a menshe.

I thought Blackmore was more your materialist hammer, so an appropriate cite. Like most responsible scientists in that area, she does not even claim to know whether the brain or the intelligence came first. Did a disembodied intelligence cry ‘need’, & bring forth that great lump of meat & bone on our shoulders? Who knows?


‘What is more, you haven't a clue how these things developed, so you can drop that superior air of yours.’

This is an area for modestly admitting indeterminacy, which I have no problem with. You fanatically insist on the competence of materialism to explain all. I acknowledge your latent intellectual superiority, but judge your actual performance to be crap. That is becos you are a victim of dogmatism. It is a disease of the thought process. Even poor old Marshall succumbed.


‘Again, you keep saying stuff like this, but you fail to say how your even more ancient view of reality is much of an advance.’

I keep posting argument & evidence, & they keeps bouncing off your titanium bonnet. Very smart people can catch dogmatism. The manifest symptoms are almost indistinguishable from those of stupidity, but the conditions are not the same.

And you are factually wrong, too. Idealism is only marginally more ancient than materialism – all round in ancient Greece & preceding Vedic cultures. I keep saying, fads & fashions change in the dialectical dance. There is a widely-established opinion that all Western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato. If you wish to prove the superiority of the materialism that science largely dumped in the late 19c, you might answer my earlier challenges, thus unambiguously proving its powers -

What is the ontological nature of a point that has a location but no area, or a line that has no width? Simple stuff. You don’t need to crack your knuckles & retreat to Hilbert’s Hotel for wrist-strength training (& what does infinity look like to a positivistic materialist?).

What is mathematics but pure idealism?

Hint, I’d advise you not to take the ‘material needs’ route. Why did math appear? Becos human beings had a need for it. Why did the chicken cross the road? Becos he had an objective need to (stand-up philosophy).

[S.Artesian]

Hey, maybe I haven't been keeping up on current events, but what we call "intelligence" has its roots, origins, in nothing other than the ability to apprehend, adjust to, adapt to, and adapt the environment in which living things live.

Like.. single cell creatures respond to stimuli; like simple and more complex creatures actually repeat similar responses to similar stimuli-- they "learn," remember, etc.

WTF is OGT's argument-- that there is an intelligence prior to existence? Doesn't make sense when you put it that way, does it?

I'm not one for "common-sense," simple-mindedness, and/or philosophy as a basis for inquiry and answer, but this question has been not just answered but abolished by history precisely by the fact that history exists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT


Rosa. This is not even controversial. It is old shit. It is Philos 101. It is bad form to play dumb in order to defend a dumb position. The problem of Descartes’ dualism? Remember? Having separated mind/soul & matter (idealism-dualism), he was bereft of a mechanism to explain how they interact. Or are you inviting me to re-describe it in excruciating detail for you, so you can wrist-wrangle point by a sub-point again in a descending spiral of futility?

Not so. In fact I can't think of a single materialist who is a dualist. You do not quote a single one. Apparently you expect us to accept your diktat.

Descartes wasn't a materialist. What you have done is refer us to a dualist who also believed in aspects of materialism. What you need to show is that all, or most materialists were/are dualists, or show how materialism implies dualism. Short of repeating that wild allegation, you have yet to do this.

Moreover, it's not Philosophy 101, and I defy you to quote a single philosophy text, in book form, or on-line, that argues that materialism is and always has been a form of dualism.


Probably the latter, since your self-appointed task is to preserve the original & sacred purity of Marx’s texts. As such, you are a conservative priest-conservator, epistemologically. You want stasis. You do not want progress of knowledge, or by extension, of society. To you, that must be heresy. Since the form of Marx’s philosophy is dialectical, & its aim is revolution, is it any wonder you are furious & splenetic self-contradiction personified?

Again, this shows how much you know, and how wild your allegations are. Where have I argued (or even implied) that everything Marx published is gospel truth? In fact, had you read my essays, you will see I take him to task over some of the things he argued.


Since the form of Marx’s philosophy is dialectical, & its aim is revolution, is it any wonder you are furious & splenetic self-contradiction personified?

Again wrong, and based on nothing you have found in my work, or that has been posted here. In fact, I take comrades here to task for trying to turn Marx's work into dogma, and follow Lenin, who argued that all alleged knowledge is subject to criticism.

What you need to do is stop making stuff up, and curb the tendency you have for substituting flowery rhetoric in the place of proof.


More dumb-playing; as I described, he has also gained wide respect for his presentation of a difficult subject for non-scientists. Did that really bounce off the titanium armour-plating around your perceptual apparatus? His is a scientist & accomplished writer about science. Simple. And don’t knock sister Palin. You & she display a deal in common, if you persist in dumb-play.

In fact you are the dumbo here, for you seem to think that if someone has published a few books, they automatically become a towering expert in a field outside his/her professional sphere of competence. Yes, let's forget about Palin. It's more likely now that you'll quote Enid Blyton!


No it doesn’t. Regress only appears if you demand a meta-logic to explain another logic. That’s your problem, not mine. I stop quite happily at the point where Marshall shows that DNA cannot possibly work without intelligence. That frightens you materialists, not me. I’m quite happy to sit back & watch Richard Dawkins et al, squirm. And no scientific discovery uncovers final proof.

In fact, it does imply an infinite regress. If DNA requires 'intelligence', and a code, then that code requires an object language to code out of (otherwise it's not a code, or you are using "code" in a new and-as-yet-unexplained sense). But, you have already told us that language is a code. So this object language is also a code. In which case, it requires a further object language to code out of, and so on...


I’m quite happy to sit back & watch Richard Dawkins et al, squirm.

I rather think it's you who is 'squirming', hence all those unfounded allegations, and the flowery rhetoric.


And no scientific discovery uncovers final proof.

So, you deny, say, the proof that flu is caused by a virus? Or that (99% pure) Copper conducts electricity? Or that (99% pure) water is made up of two gases (Hydrogen and Oxygen), in a certain combination? Or that scientists have shown that there is something called DNA which is connected with the genetics of reproduction? I can't think of any discovery that will countermand these hard facts, can you? Indeed, you rely on the latter to make several of your rather airy-fairy points.

And what do you mean by 'final proof'? I think you have confused it with final truth. They are not at all the same thing. There is plenty of the former, much less of the latter.

Ok, you can resume squirming now...


With the patience one normally employs with infants, idiots, the crazed, & faux-naifs; the topic was the lack of evidence for the emergence of intelligence from matter. For a materialist, proof of X is largely an issue of empirical evidence, thus science’s realm. Is that too simple & obvious for you? Maybe you wanna wrist-wrangle about materialist metaphysics? I quoted a scientific authority of your materialist persuasion. If you want a philosophical theory of how mind & matter tango, you will have to adopt idealism. It’s suited to that sort of thing. As you won’t have it, I did not bother giving it a menshe.

9/10 for yet more flowery rhetoric, but 0/10 for responding effectively. In fact, you are arguing with someone who is not a dualist, so there is nothing to explain. If there is no such thing as 'the mind', then it can emerge from nowhere. Problem not so much solved as dissolved.

Once more, you'd know this if you had followed those links I posted earlier, where I show that the philosophical belief in 'the mind' has arisen, not out of science, but out of the Platonic/Christian/Cartesian tradition. And Blackmore is caught up in that tradition, too, as are most theorists. Marxist Historical Materialism does not go down that route. Plainly you do, since you seem to be stuck in an ancient, mystical tradition.

Here are the comments of one historian of this idea:


"Western conceptions of mind began in religion before moving first to philosophy, and then to science. However, for two reasons psychologists have underestimated the influence of religious ideas of the soul -- the ψυχή (psychē -- soul, RL) of our science -- on conceptions of mind and self. First, psychology is an aggressively secular enterprise and psychologists like to think that they put religion behind them when they assume their role as scientists. A more subtle reason concerns the dominance of historical scholarship by Christian belief. When we as psychologists read about past thinkers such as Plato and Descartes, not only do we look at them as protopsychologists, we see them through the eyes of historians and classicists who until recently worked within a quietly but unequivocally held Christian framework. That framework rarely intrudes explicitly, but it filters out the rough splinters, odd conceptions, and obscure but vital disputes concerning mind and soul held from Greek times through to at least Descartes. Thus we psychologists inherit a conception of the mind subtly shaped by forces of which we know little, drain it of its specifically supernatural content (e.g., survival of bodily death), and fancy that what remains is somehow natural and therefore a proper object of science....

"Although there are differences in detail, religions around the world have a remarkably concordant picture of the mind, positing the existence of two immaterial souls for two distinct reasons.... The first, universal reason is to explain the difference between living and nonliving things. The second, less universal reason is to explain human personality....

"Greek religion and the concept of ψυχή underwent a profound change in the later fifth century BCE.... Traditional Greek religious thought had insisted on a great gulf between the human and divine worlds, downplaying the idea of personal immortality. However, in the wake of the Peloponnesian War, continuity between the human and divine worlds was the theme of various new cults, often imported from the non-Greek east. In their practices these new religions induced in worshippers ecstatic states through which they might for a time join the gods, perhaps even briefly becoming the god of their veneration. The ψυχή became a personal, immortal soul, taking after death its rightful place in the divine world of the gods. Plato was influenced by these new teachings, but steered them in a less ecstatic, more philosophical and cognitive direction.... For Plato, the proper object of the soul's attention was indeed something divine, but he taught that instead of seeking salvation through ecstatic communion with the gods, the soul should seek salvation through philosophical pursuit of eternal, transcendental Truth. In Plato's hands, the mind became identified with reason, the ability to formulate and know the universal Truths underwritten by the heavenly Forms." [Leahy (2005), pp.37-39.]

You can find the exact references and more details and/or argument along these lines here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm


I thought Blackmore was more your materialist hammer, so an appropriate cite. Like most responsible scientists in that area, she does not even claim to know whether the brain or the intelligence came first. Did a disembodied intelligence cry ‘need’, & bring forth that great lump of meat & bone on our shoulders? Who knows?

As the above shows, you are dead wrong, yet again.


This is an area for modestly admitting indeterminacy, which I have no problem with. You fanatically insist on the competence of materialism to explain all. I acknowledge your latent intellectual superiority, but judge your actual performance to be crap. That is becos you are a victim of dogmatism. It is a disease of the thought process. Even poor old Marshall succumbed.

Where have I said materialism can 'explain all'? Once more, you prefer invention to proof.


I acknowledge your latent intellectual superiority, but judge your actual performance to be crap. That is becos you are a victim of dogmatism. It is a disease of the thought process.

In fact, as things turn out, it's you who is the dogmatist, preferring an ancient mystical set of ideas, which you are happy to impose on the world, a priori.

Moreover, you have yet to quote one single dogma that I accept.


I keep posting argument & evidence, & they keeps bouncing off your titanium bonnet. Very smart people can catch dogmatism. The manifest symptoms are almost indistinguishable from those of stupidity, but the conditions are not the same.

In fact, and once more, you confuse the assertion of your own dogmatic opinions for argument, especially when it comes to estimating what my beliefs are. There you are quite happy to invent as the mood takes you.


Very smart people can catch dogmatism.

But, and far more often, it afflicts mystics like you.


The manifest symptoms are almost indistinguishable from those of stupidity,

Yet another dogma, I see.:lol:


And you are factually wrong, too. Idealism is only marginally more ancient than materialism – all round in ancient Greece & preceding Vedic cultures. I keep saying, fads & fashions change in the dialectical dance. There is a widely-established opinion that all Western philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato. If you wish to prove the superiority of the materialism that science largely dumped in the late 19c, you might answer my earlier challenges, thus unambiguously proving its powers -

Depends on what you mean by "Idealism". If you, like me, mean the belief that the world is constituted by the 'gods', by the words out of their mouths, and thus is founded by some mind or other, then as the record shows, this set of dogmas goes back to the dawn of time. And, sure, philosophical materialism goes back quite some way too, but since that belief set is also founded on the idea that the world is a reflection of language, then it too is a form of idealism. Historical Materialism, by way of contrast, is thoroughly modern, and it is not based on the idea that the world is a reflection of language or mind.


If you wish to prove the superiority of the materialism that science largely dumped in the late 19c, you might answer my earlier challenges, thus unambiguously proving its powers.

And what would the point of that be? Historical Materialism is not based on 19th century science, as you have been told several times.


What is the ontological nature of a point that has a location but no area, or a line that has no width? Simple stuff. You don’t need to crack your knuckles & retreat to Hilbert’s Hotel for wrist-strength training (& what does infinity look like to a positivistic materialist?).

Once more, you are addressing the wrong person, since I have made the above points at length in several of my essays (against the dialectical materialists). But, and once more, what has this got to do with Historical Materialism? If you want to debate the alleged 'ontological status' of the objects and theorems of mathematics, then open up a thread in science.

And you still seem to prefer invention to proof, since I am neither a positivist, nor a "positivistic materialist".

By any chance, are you a writer of fiction? Or WMD dossiers, perhaps?


What is mathematics but pure idealism?

It is if you are a (confused) Platonist, but not if you are a Wittgensteinian:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-mathematics/


Hint, I’d advise you not to take the ‘material needs’ route. Why did math appear? Becos human beings had a need for it. Why did the chicken cross the road? Becos he had an objective need to (stand-up philosophy).

Mathematics appeared because human beings are capable of following linguistic rules, based on social practice, and are also capable of solving problems.

Notice, no reference to 'needs' here.

[Meridian]

What is a word, apart from the thing it denotes? Spirit? Could be, but certainly immaterial, as I tried to show Rosa Lichtenstein with the mathematics example (sound of water running off a duck’s back). Science is unable to decide whether math is actually a part of the universe (mathematical realists), or just ideas we dreamed up to explain & explore the universe.
I don't take my metaphysics from scientists, nor from anyone else. If 'scientists' confuse mathematics with "being a part of the universe" (which does not mean anything), as opposed to factors of language then they are confused indeed. They have let themselves be fooled by platonic ideas of mathematics, rendering mathematical nouns as 'objects'.

[trivas7]

Your statement has a grammar error (specifically, it is missing a critical joining word: "confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information is fallacious and invalid" constitutes two separate verbs, and I'm not sure if you were trying to modify the verb or the noun - in any case its not intelligible).

What I can get is that you are rejecting all analyses of what may occur in terms of social organization. In fact, you seem to be categorically dismissing them as if they were necessarily detached from "logic and reason"! I shouldn't have to explain to you how utterly preposterous this is.

Your logic amounts to this:

Me: I think that if Karzai maintains legitimacy, he will keep power through the next election.

You: I don't care what you think will happen. Claiming that this or that will proceed from something is always an exercise devoid of logic.

As you can see, its completely nonsensical. And, if you were saying that "trying to see what will happen without using logic and reason requires an assumption of facts, and is therefore wrong and you do it" then what you are saying is nothing more than vulgar academic slander.

To be fair, your statement was too confusing to ascertain a distinct meaning, but those are two possibilities and my responses to each.
I stand corrected. "My point is that any method that attempts to construct a bridge from the current society to the future that prescinds from logic and reason confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information that is fallacious and invalid." Does the Marxian method confer knowledge or information not available to the non-Marxist? I say no; no such "method" exists. I take it that that seems "vulgar" to you.

[Dean]

I stand corrected. "My point is that any method that attempts to construct a bridge from the current society to the future that prescinds from logic and reason confers a pretense of knowledge or privileged information that is fallacious and invalid." Does the Marxian method confer knowledge or information not available to the non-Marxist? I say no; no such "method" exists.

So, you're basically indicating that there is a lack of given evidence for the claims?

Put more simply, it hasn't been proven to you?

I don't see where Marxism relies on "un-given information." It relies on very explicit theories of social and economic development. Socialist theories have been cast on with doubt and aspersions by capitalist ideologues, in fact I don't think a more vitriolic or consistent rejectionism has been applied to any other prevalent social or economic theory.

But all the criticisms come down to the following (and you've expressed the same): the speaker reverts to cynical nihilism as soon as socialist theories are presented. While all propertarian systems are allowed every benefit of the doubt because, after all, they promise continued hegemony for contemporary property owners. Who could think of a better, more liberating system? :rolleyes:

[trivas7]

So, you're basically indicating that there is a lack of given evidence for the claims?

Put more simply, it hasn't been proven to you?

I don't see where Marxism relies on "un-given information." It relies on very explicit theories of social and economic development. Socialist theories have been cast on with doubt and aspersions by capitalist ideologues, in fact I don't think a more vitriolic or consistent rejectionism has been applied to any other prevalent social or economic theory.

What claims? Do they conform to logic and reason?

The 20th century generally revealed the truth about totalitarianism and the moral bankruptcy of recreating and molding human beings and society from the top down. This is a fact open to any reasonable mind.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Do they conform to logic and reason?

In fact you have yet to show that yours do.

Nor have you told us what form of 'logic' you mean: Aristotelian, Stoic, Boolean, Classical, Modal, Temporal, Intuitionistic, Doxastic, Epistemic, Dialetheic, Parconsistent, Multiple Conclusion, Deontic, Imperative, Interrogative, Mathematical, Formal, Symbolic, First Order, Higher Order, Many-Valued, Relevance, Informal...?


The 20th century generally revealed the truth about totalitarianism and the moral bankruptcy of recreating and molding human beings and society from the top down.

What has this got to do with Marxism? Check this out:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/index.htm

[Dean]

What claims? Do they conform to logic and reason?
I dunno? You're the one whose phrase we've been discussing. I'll give you the upper hand and let you tell me to what you were referring in your original statement.


The 20th century generally revealed the truth about totalitarianism and the moral bankruptcy of recreating and molding human beings and society from the top down. This is a fact open to any reasonable mind.

Marxism is explicitly defined by a bottom-up approach. If anything, your interpretation of recent history endorses Marxism, specifically the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


OGT: ‘Not so. In fact I can't think of a single materialist who is a dualist. You do not quote a single one. Apparently you expect us to accept your diktat.’

‘Descartes wasn't a materialist. What you have done is refer us to a dualist who also believed in aspects of materialism.’

Disingenuous again! A materialist is a de facto dualist. If there is insensate, dumb matter, who is observing & noting it? Inescapable answer is, consciousness. So materialism entails dualism. However loudly the materialist declaims monism, & however much you wrangle, twist & turn, you cannot deny it.

Descartes’ dualism tried; insofar as he succeeded (not very convincingly), he undermined his materialism. At least he tried honestly, unlike his critics, who attacked his idealsim, yet resorted to closet materialist metaphysics - eg., Darwin's bulldog, Huxley.

More recent quasi-materialist philosophy & science have been hag-ridden by this inability to account for, & incorporate, consciousness/intelligence.

Blah, blah, misinterpreted history-blah, selective-anonymous-quotes-blah, until,


‘Mathematics appeared because human beings are capable of following linguistic rules, based on social practice, and are also capable of solving problems.’

Possibly true, but irrelevant (I assume you are referring to Schamdt-Bessarat). You’re still dodging my challenge, very simple questions & propositions. This is the philosophical issue which stops materialist monism in is tracks, as it stopped you. Let’s be having your answer, not Wittgenstein, early or late, or Plato.

To whit – What is the ontological nature of a point that has a location but no area, or a line that has no width? What is mathematics but pure idealism?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Disingenuous again! A materialist is a de facto dualist. If there is insensate, dumb matter, who is observing & noting it? Inescapable answer is, consciousness. So materialism entails dualism. However loudly the materialist declaims monism, & however much you wrangle, twist & turn, you cannot deny it.

Well, we need more than your say-so that materialism implies dualism. Alas, up to now, you seem to think that we should all bow and scrape, and bend the knee to your towering authority.

Moreover, as the links I posted earlier show, 'consciousness' does not imply what you seem to think it does. Here's my earlier comment:


And how do you know what account of 'consciousness' I have, or haven't got? In fact, had you done a search before you dumped these lame prejudices upon us, you'd have discovered that I have a totally unique view of 'consciousness'. Check these out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-do-we-t98047/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/consciousn...438/index.html

And this essay:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm

In fact, it's your mystical notion of 'consciousness' that leads you into trying to saddle materialism with a doctrine it does not hold, nor which it implies.


Descartes’ dualism tried; insofar as he succeeded (not very convincingly), he undermined his materialism. At least he tried honestly, unlike his critics, who attacked his idealism, yet resorted to closet materialist metaphysics - eg., Darwin's bulldog, Huxley.

More recent quasi-materialist philosophy & science have been hag-ridden by this inability to account for, & incorporate, consciousness/intelligence.

In fact, Descartes began as a mystic, and ended up as one. He required 'god' to guarantee that the clear and distinct ideas he had of substance, reason and truth would not mislead him. Upon that mystical basis, he built the cogito and then his entire system. So, he was not a materialist, but a mystic who derived his version of the material world from his belief in 'god'.

Moreover, he bequeathed to half-hearted materialists (like Blackmore) jargon that compromises their materialism. This is not so with us Historical Materialists.


Blah, blah, misinterpreted history-blah, selective-anonymous-quotes-blah, until,

Yet more dogma?:lol:


Possibly true, but irrelevant (I assume you are referring to Schamdt-Bessarat). You’re still dodging my challenge, very simple questions & propositions. This is the philosophical issue which stops materialist monism in is tracks, as it stopped you. Let’s be having your answer, not Wittgenstein, early or late, or Plato.

No, I'm not referring to this archaeologist.


You’re still dodging my challenge, very simple questions & propositions. This is the philosophical issue which stops materialist monism in is tracks, as it stopped you. Let’s be having your answer, not Wittgenstein, early or late, or Plato.

What 'challenge'? And your 'propositions' are mere assertions. The point is that for every idealist assertion you make, I can counter it with a Historical Materialist explanation, and one that does not require a retreat into the realms of mystery, as yours does.


To whit – What is the ontological nature of a point that has a location but no area, or a line that has no width?

There is none, for such objects are the expression of the rules we use to make sense of the world, based on material practice.

Or do you imagine that heaven (or the 'cosmic intelligence' you seem to believe in) is full of such ghostly points and lines?


What is mathematics but pure idealism?

So you keep saying, but that is no answer. For what is an 'ideal point', which occupies no volume, has no centre, is made of nothing, and has no shape? Calling it 'ideal' is merely to label the problem, not solve it.

So, your 'mystical interpretation' of mathematics offers no solution even to your own questions.:lol:

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesan,


‘Hey, maybe I haven't been keeping up on current events, but what we call "intelligence" has its roots, origins, in nothing other than the ability to apprehend, adjust to, adapt to, and adapt the environment in which living things live.

Like.. single cell creatures respond to stimuli; like simple and more complex creatures actually repeat similar responses to similar stimuli-- they "learn," remember, etc.

WTF is OGT's argument-- that there is an intelligence prior to existence? Doesn't make sense when you put it that way, does it?

I'm not one for "common-sense," simple-mindedness, and/or philosophy as a basis for inquiry and answer, but this question has been not just answered but abolished by history precisely by the fact that history exists.’

There are two kinds of answers that don’t agree with your view, from philosophy & science.

I know too little biology, so refer you to Howard Bloom’s extension website. Prima facie, it is neutral, yet presents powerful scientific evidence that intelligence necessarily existed before the universe formed, & in order to make the universe. The old argument from random interaction of matter is poverty-stricken for evidence. Much the same applies to life-forms. Remember, this theory-answer follows from the science of today, not any other source.

You mention “single cell creatures”, as if these were ‘simple’. Read Bloom, & understand have long & unbelievably complex the route was from Big Bang to this point!

From philosophy, if you argue that matter is dumb & insensate, then you rule out any possibility of it having perceptions or ways of evolving intelligence. You destroy your base categorical definition of matter.

Again, if you think matter has all sorts of dynamic-to-magical potential to evolve into life & intelligence, you follow Bloom & leave Ye Olde materialism behind you. But you can’t have it both ways.

One thing old OGT is on about is that intelligence is not spatially-limited, like those elementary particles that mock distance & interact light-years apart. As Paul Davies examples, we can conceptualise & theorise about the outermost reaches of space. Yet those are so far away, & speeding away so fast, we can never have any emprical contact with them.

Ergo, idealism is primary & rules. Get out of the Victorian Olde Curiositie Shoppe & to grips with the contemporary world. There’s a 21st century revolution to make, & it cannot be made with 19th century ideas.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


I know too little biology

You seem to know even less philosophy.:(

[S.Artesian]

Here's where we get to where OGT is going:

"If there is insensate, dumb matter, who is observing & noting it? Inescapable answer is, consciousness. So materialism entails dualism. However loudly the materialist declaims monism, & however much you wrangle, twist & turn, you cannot deny it."

What is this but the sophisticate's version of: If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does the tree still make a noise?

In this version we get: Does the forest even exist if nobody is there to observe it?

Now I ask how does this relate to Marxism? Better yet, how does this relate to the critique of capitalism, to an apprehension of its, capitalism's, immanent tendencies towards its own abolition?

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘Here's where we get to where OGT is going:

"If there is insensate, dumb matter, who is observing & noting it? Inescapable answer is, consciousness. So materialism entails dualism. However loudly the materialist declaims monism, & however much you wrangle, twist & turn, you cannot deny it."

What is this but the sophisticate's version of: If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, does the tree still make a noise?

In this version we get: Does the forest even exist if nobody is there to observe it?

Now I ask how does this relate to Marxism? Better yet, how does this relate to the critique of capitalism, to an apprehension of its, capitalism's, immanent tendencies towards its own abolition?’


Where we get, oh appealer to the gallery, is the realization that materialism is a monism (one stuff) & it is not viable, since it cannot even admit to consciousness w/out self-destructing. It can only recognise the material objects of consciousness. The many reasonings & evidence for this I covered (low-level Philos 101 material), involving neither trees nor forests. So have so many philos & scientists in the past, that it’s now old hat, & why physics dumped materialism as a philos orthodoxy.

Where this gets Marxists is the next step. First you have to honestly admit that materialism does not ‘run’, & cease kicking & screaming against the self-evident & current of history.

I gave just one practical political implication that you did not read or have overlooked. Materialist dead-heads believe that ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’. In our present ‘crisis’, this means there can be no free or cheap energy. This is poisonous capitalist propaganda. The universe is one huge, free energy system. If you are stuck with the materialist science of the 19c, you will be oblivious to the claims for cold fusion, & many other cheap energy alternatives identified by some modern physicists. To the hard-headed materialist-positivists, the shit-head Gradgrinds, these are nonsense.

If you want to kill a better future before it can be born, join the scientistic poodles of capitalism & stick to materialism. Motto, “If we cannot eat it, drink it, screw it, or make a buck out of it, we ignore it or kill it”.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,

thanks for a straight answer (at last) to my thrice-issued challenge –


OGT: ‘What is the ontological nature of a point that has a location but no area, or a line that has no width?’

‘There is none, for such objects are the expression of the rules we use to make sense of the world, based on material practice.’

Exactly! You are spragged on one horn of the dilemma. The strictest concepts of mathematics which we use to interpret ‘hard’ reality exist only as ideas (idealism). Thank you!


‘Or do you imagine that heaven (or the 'cosmic intelligence' you seem to believe in) is full of such ghostly points and lines?’

That’s for you to answer, materialist-monist-manque. If only matter exists, where do ideas & mind enter? Maybe as Hegel’s haunting Geist?


OGT: ‘What is mathematics but pure idealism?’

‘So you keep saying, but that is no answer. For what is an 'ideal point', which occupies no volume, has no centre, is made of nothing, and has no shape? Calling it 'ideal' is merely to label the problem, not solve it.’

Not at all. For idealists, who are true & consistent monists, ideas, concepts, consciousness, all are prior, primary & so the ultimate stuff. Matter is made by, & post, consciousness. The nature of that intelligent conciousness is a matter for science’s ongoing investigations: simple.


‘So, your 'mystical interpretation' of mathematics offers no solution even to your own questions.’

On the contrary, idealism offers a framework of thinking that accomodates both matter & consciousness, why modern physics has adopted it. Mystical it may be to you, but science is quite properly involved with the investigations of mysteries – what else? If it followed the materialist path, it would be permanently looking up its own backside, the well-worn path into the well-established ‘truths’ of the 19c - a most undignified & sterile position.

Einstein launched an invisble fourth dimension at the onset of the 20th century. Are Marxists ready for the 21st century, or will they continue to closet themselves with their beloved Victorian antiques?

[S.Artesian]

No, not all materialists believe there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some materialists, Marxists, have shown that a specific class eats for free all the time [and is not under 12 and accompanied by an adult].

Social materialists, Marxists, argue that "free" is a social concept based on the organization, expropriation of the labor of others.

As a matter of fact, the "no free lunch" school of political economy [and political economy, not Marxism, it is] is the ideology of the Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Greenspan, Hayek, von Mises, school of falsification. Their "materialism" is of course nothing but an ideology designed to obscure the actual basis for all lunches, free or comped, or with the tab picked up by any number of government funded special funding facilities.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Exactly! You are spragged on one horn of the dilemma. The strictest concepts of mathematics which we use to interpret ‘hard’ reality exist only as ideas (idealism). Thank you!

They do not only exist as ideas, since they do not exist as ideas at all. They feature in practice (which is not ideal), and on very material pages (or do you think that theorems are written in the air)?

But, let us suppose you are right. What form does the idea of a Hermite Polynomial take? Or an Abelian Group? If they are merely 'ideas', how can you be sure you have the same 'idea' of any such mathematical objects as anyone else? And how can you be sure you have the same idea today as you had yesterday?

In fact, you can't.

On the other hand, if mathematical objects are given in the expression of rules actioned in the public domain, then the above questions answer themselves.

But, let's make this idea more concrete: what precisely is your idea of this number: 123456789876543212345678987654321.75463774?

Now, us materialists do not need 'ideas' to grasp this number. All we need to know about it is given in the numeral I have just posted, and which appears on your very material screen, and the rules we have for generating and ordering the Rationals.

Historical Materialism 1; Idealism 0.:)


That’s for you to answer, materialist-monist-manque. If only matter exists, where do ideas & mind enter? Maybe as Hegel’s haunting Geist?

Not so; it's your question and your problem.

And where have I said that only matter exists?

In fact, I have made no ontological claims at all, here, or anywhere else, for that matter.


Not at all. For idealists, who are true & consistent monists, ideas, concepts, consciousness, all are prior, primary & so the ultimate stuff. Matter is made by, & post, consciousness. The nature of that intelligent consciousness is a matter for science’s ongoing investigations: simple.

But, this in no way answers the questions asked, or the point I made; here it is again:


So you keep saying, but that is no answer. For what is an 'ideal point', which occupies no volume, has no centre, is made of nothing, and has no shape? Calling it 'ideal' is merely to label the problem, not solve it.

You have yet to tell us what your 'idea' of these amounts to. Telling us these are 'concepts' is no answer. It labels the problem, it does not solve it. Again, in contrast, if I am asked what an Abelain Group is, I can write something down for all to see. You can't do that with your 'concepts'.

And yet you want us to substitute your vague and inconsistent musings for the clear rules we have that delineate mathematical practice and the nature of mathematical objects, which have served us well for several thousand years, in the public domain, and thus in the material world.


On the contrary, idealism offers a framework of thinking that accommodates both matter & consciousness, why modern physics has adopted it. Mystical it may be to you, but science is quite properly involved with the investigations of mysteries – what else? If it followed the materialist path, it would be permanently looking up its own backside, the well-worn path into the well-established ‘truths’ of the 19c - a most undignified & sterile position.

You say 'modern physics' has adopted your viewpoint. Can we see the original data sheets returned by the survey of a representative sample of modern physicists that supports this contention?

And even if you are right, your viewpoint cannot tell us what these mysterious 'concepts' are. You do not even attempt to do so, and you claim to believe in them!


Einstein launched an invisible fourth dimension at the onset of the 20th century. Are Marxists ready for the 21st century, or will they continue to closet themselves with their beloved Victorian antiques?

Well, you tell us, what is your idea/concept of the fourth dimension?

In contrast to you, I can give you a concrete instantiation of it, so that it is no longer 'invisible'.

And what 'antiques' do you mean? You keep forgetting to tell us.

Wonder why...:rolleyes:

[Old Git Tom]

S.Artesian,


‘No, not all materialists believe there is no such thing as a free lunch. Some materialists, Marxists, have shown that a specific class eats for free all the time [and is not under 12 and accompanied by an adult].’

Sure; the ruling minority gets freeness by stealing the lunches of millions.


‘Social materialists, Marxists, argue that "free" is a social concept based on the organization, expropriation of the labor of others.’

Agreed; it seems the main theft system today is the deficit banking scams, of various cunning kinds. I tend to view the Fed & Bank of England as the head capos of the ‘aristocratic mafia’. Our taxation systems are protection money paid to them, since now there seems little hope of ever paying off the ‘national debt’.

And, and, modern ‘cybernation’ technology offers the prospect of the abolition of work, as we know it, altogether.


‘As a matter of fact, the "no free lunch" school of political economy [and political economy, not Marxism, it is] is the ideology of the Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, Greenspan, Hayek, von Mises, school of falsification. Their "materialism" is of course nothing but an ideology designed to obscure the actual basis for all lunches, free or comped, or with the tab picked up by any number of government funded special funding facilities.’

Exactly, agreed; that is why we should be very careful not to allow this ideological poison to infect the left, via a shared materialism. Our dreams of a finer future are, or should be, based in solid realities, solid science & technology. That these advances are not yet realised does not lessen the revolutionary power of our dreams. Revolutions are made by ideas. When enuf people wake up from the capitalist nightmare, the rev happens. That is the revolution.

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


OGT: ‘The strictest concepts of mathematics which we use to interpret ‘hard’ reality exist only as ideas (idealism). Thank you!’

‘They do not only exist as ideas, since they do not exist as ideas at all. They feature in practice (which is not ideal), and on very material pages (or do you think that theorems are written in the air)?’

Ideas certainly manifest in the social arena. The problem for you as a materialist-monist is to tell us where new ideas come from. Eg., if they ‘emerge’ from practice, you are claiming they had some pre-existence? Where? How? They are sorta, kinda, not new, just sorta, kinda hidden beforehand?


‘But, let us suppose you are right. What form does the idea of a Hermite Polynomial take? Or an Abelian Group? If they are merely 'ideas', how can you be sure you have the same 'idea' of any such mathematical objects as anyone else? And how can you be sure you have the same idea today as you had yesterday?’

Never heard of him/her/them. Ideas (like language) are social constructs, since sapiens is a social animal. There is no other way to correctly understand him/her. We are sure about shared ideas insofar as we can discuss them. 100% consensus is rarely achieved, or necessary, since we can talk on, or continue to experiment, & circulate texts. In a healthy society, the existence of a degree of indeterminacy is both inevitable & productive. Eg, 1+1=2 is as logically solid & uncontroversial as anyone could wish. It is also trite, since devoid of anything but idiot-level content.


‘But, let's make this idea more concrete: what precisely is your idea of this number: 123456789876543212345678987654321.75463774? Now, us materialists do not need 'ideas' to grasp this number. All we need to know about it is given in the numeral I have just posted, and which appears on your very material screen, and the rules we have for generating and ordering the Rationals.’

Exactly, you have to retreat into more ideas to validate your ideas, as Hilbert retreated to his ‘infinity’ to explore his math problem. There is no datum of ‘matter’ to appeal to, is there?

Materialism 0; Idealism 1.


‘And where have I said that only matter exists?’

If you are a materialist, you can only play with one kind of stuff – matter. If you are retreating into dualism, you have Descartes’ problems of Philos 101. Make your mind up, please.


‘In fact, I have made no ontological claims at all, here, or anywhere else, for that matter.’

Nice for you: you grant yourself great freedom to dodge & obfuscate. Now you see a monist, now you don’t. From dull, dumb, inarticulate matter, you can conjure up a many-spendored thing of wondrous potentials & epiphenomena - materialist metaphysics.


‘And yet you want us to substitute your vague and inconsistent musings for the clear rules we have that delineate mathematical practice and the nature of mathematical objects, which have served us well for several thousand years, in the public domain, and thus in the material world.’

Vague & inconsistent to your befuddled mind, not mine. Math really began in Vedic India, travelling to Greece & Islam. It has never shaken off its mystical/religious/philosophical birthright. It has served us well, absolutely agreed. But its fundamental truth value can never be explained fully by its use value. As I asked earlier, does utility justify a convenient lie?


‘You say 'modern physics' has adopted your viewpoint. Can we see the original data sheets returned by the survey of a representative sample of modern physicists that supports this contention? And even if you are right, your viewpoint cannot tell us what these mysterious 'concepts' are. You do not even attempt to do so, and you claim to believe in them!’

Capitalist ideology rules, as you should know. Since scientists in the overwhelming majority are the helpless poodles of capitalism, they rarely venture into the ideological minefield to overtly challenge capitalism’s materialist values. Most science funding comes from gov/armament industries, food/agri/chemical industries, etc. Good doggies learn not to bite the hand that funds them. Rupert Sheldrake challenged Darwinian materialist orthodoxy, & was put out of work for 25 years.


OGT: ‘Einstein launched an invisible fourth dimension at the onset of the 20th century. Are Marxists ready for the 21st century, or will they continue to closet themselves with their beloved Victorian antiques?’

‘In contrast to you, I can give you a concrete instantiation of it, so that it is no longer 'invisible'.’

The 4th dimension itself is invisble, you silly-billy. Its effects have been verified? So have the effects of immaterial ideas.


‘And what 'antiques' do you mean? You keep forgetting to tell us. Wonder why... ‘

Darwinism, macro-empiricism, positivism, materialism, the universe composed & bigger & littler balls, ‘work’ conceived of as muscular workers swinging hammers at big lumps of metal, etc., etc. Not forgetting, ‘Capital’ itself. For many Marxists, it has ceased to be a guide to action, it has become a holy scripture. A hundred & one dogmatists fight over the correct interpretations. This of itself hampers them from interpreting the events of the 21st century effectively. All the answers MUST be in the holy writings. If we can’t find them, it is becos we have misinterpreted the words. All these egs., given before. You consistently fail to perceive them. I wonder why?


Marx wisely & correctly adopted dialectics since reality is an ever-changing flux (got from Heraclitus). Unlike his modern epigones, he knew theory always limped behind practise. Instead of continuing the development of his theory, the dogmatists grovel in worship, when not engaged in sectarian cat-fights.

[anticap]

For anyone wishing that Old Git Tom weren't so long-winded, Deepak Chopra has graciously summarized him below, beginning at 6:45:

99oYQ7aJzoM

The entire program (http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaceOff/) is worth watching for Sam Harris's characteristically lucid points (most of which are spent dismantling Chopra's "woo-woo," as Michael Shermer calls it), if you can tolerate Shermer's typical attempts to interject his own religion (laissez-faire capitalism), and Jean Houston's completely irrelevant childhood stories.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Ideas certainly manifest in the social arena. The problem for you as a materialist-monist is to tell us where new ideas come from. Eg., if they ‘emerge’ from practice, you are claiming they had some pre-existence? Where? How? They are sorta, kinda, not new, just sorta, kinda hidden beforehand?

Where have I said I am a 'materialist monist'?


Eg., if they ‘emerge’ from practice, you are claiming they had some pre-existence? Where? How?

Where have I said they "emerge from practice"?

Once more, you need to stop making stuff up.


Never heard of him/her/them.

And yet you are quite happy to pontificate about mathematics.


Ideas (like language) are social constructs, since sapiens is a social animal. There is no other way to correctly understand him/her. We are sure about shared ideas insofar as we can discuss them. 100% consensus is rarely achieved, or necessary, since we can talk on, or continue to experiment, & circulate texts. In a healthy society, the existence of a degree of indeterminacy is both inevitable & productive. Eg, 1+1=2 is as logically solid & uncontroversial as anyone could wish. It is also trite, since devoid of anything but idiot-level content.

In that case, the material world is the source of ideas, not the other way round.


Exactly, you have to retreat into more ideas to validate your ideas, as Hilbert retreated to his ‘infinity’ to explore his math problem. There is no datum of ‘matter’ to appeal to, is there?

Well, as you admit above, the material world is the source of our ideas, not the other way round.

And, you have yet to tell us what your 'idea' of 123456789876543212345678987654321.75463774 is. I deny you have one. Care to show otherwise?


If you are a materialist, you can only play with one kind of stuff – matter. If you are retreating into dualism, you have Descartes’ problems of Philos 101. Make your mind up, please.

Not so, there are plenty of other things we can use. And where precisely am I "retreating into dualism"? Still fantasising, eh?

Moreover, we are still waiting for you to tell us what these 'problems' are. Short of making stuff up, you have yet to do this.


Nice for you: you grant yourself great freedom to dodge & obfuscate. Now you see a monist, now you don’t.

I have never advanced a single monist thesis, and I defy you to show otherwise. On the contrary, as we can now see, you are free to lie and fib as the mood takes you.


From dull, dumb, inarticulate matter, you can conjure up a many-splendored thing of wondrous potentials & epiphenomena - materialist metaphysics.

Where have I 'conjured' a single thing? And Historical Materialism is not a metaphysical theory, it's a scientific one.

More lies.


Vague & inconsistent to your befuddled mind, not mine. Math really began in Vedic India, travelling to Greece & Islam. It has never shaken off its mystical/religious/philosophical birthright. It has served us well, absolutely agreed. But its fundamental truth value can never be explained fully by its use value. As I asked earlier, does utility justify a convenient lie?

And yet you can't tell us what your idea of mathematical objects is, or why your 'theory' does not imply an infinite regress.

And I'd like to see your proof that mathematics began as you say.


As I asked earlier, does utility justify a convenient lie?

Why ask that of me? Where have I suggested it does?

You'd be far better occupied not making stuff up, and devoting some thought to the intractable problems your 'theory' creates. But, as we have already seen, you prefer flowery rhetoric.


Capitalist ideology rules, as you should know. Since scientists in the overwhelming majority are the helpless poodles of capitalism, they rarely venture into the ideological minefield to overtly challenge capitalism’s materialist values. Most science funding comes from gov/armament industries, food/agri/chemical industries, etc. Good doggies learn not to bite the hand that funds them. Rupert Sheldrake challenged Darwinian materialist orthodoxy, & was put out of work for 25 years.

So what? What does this prove? You were asked to provide the evidence that physicists think the way you do. We are still waiting...

And, I note, once more, you do not even attempt to reply to this:


And even if you are right, your viewpoint cannot tell us what these mysterious 'concepts' are. You do not even attempt to do so, and you claim to believe in them!

Or, the other problems your 'theory' faces.


The 4th dimension itself is invisible, you silly-billy. Its effects have been verified? So have the effects of immaterial ideas

This is a particularly brainless answer to this comment of mine:


In contrast to you, I can give you a concrete instantiation of it, so that it is no longer 'invisible'.

This is all the more so, since you can't tell us what your 'idea' of the fourth dimension is. If you could, you would have done so by now. So, in your mind, it thus assumes the a status on a par with gryphons and harpies, except, we can form ideas of these mythical beasts. We, and you, can form no idea of the fourth dimension.

And yet I can post a material version of it, that you will be able to see. And this is how Einstein went about it too.

At last(!), an attempt to inject some substance into your 'criticisms':


Darwinism, macro-empiricism, positivism, materialism, the universe composed & bigger & littler balls, ‘work’ conceived of as muscular workers swinging hammers at big lumps of metal, etc., etc. Not forgetting, ‘Capital’ itself. For many Marxists, it has ceased to be a guide to action, it has become a holy scripture. A hundred & one dogmatists fight over the correct interpretations. This of itself hampers them from interpreting the events of the 21st century effectively. All the answers MUST be in the holy writings. If we can’t find them, it is becos we have misinterpreted the words. All these egs., given before. You consistently fail to perceive them. I wonder why?

Marco-empiricism isn't a science, let alone a 19th century one. The same is true of the other things you list other than Darwinism, and perhaps atomism. [The stuff about 'muscular workers' isn't a science (it's an empirical statement, and a false one, too), either, let alone one that Marxists accept.]

1) You forget that us Marxists (including myself, but you already know this) have been among Darwin's most severe critics; here is Engels:


"1) Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin's method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact. Until Darwin's time the very people who now see everywhere only struggle for existence (Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, etc.) emphasized precisely cooperation in organic nature, the fact that the vegetable kingdom supplies oxygen and nutriment to the animal kingdom and conversely the animal kingdom supplies plants with carbonic acid and manure, which was particularly stressed by Liebig. Both conceptions are justified within certain limits, but the one is as one-sided and narrow-minded as the other. The interaction of bodies in nature -- inanimate as well as animate -- includes both harmony and collision, struggle and cooperation. When therefore a self-styled natural scientist takes the liberty of reducing the whole of historical development with all its wealth and variety to the one-sided and meagre phrase 'struggle for existence,' a phrase which even in the sphere of nature can be accepted only cum grano salis [with a grain of salt -- RL], such a procedure really contains its own condemnation.

"...I should therefore attack -- and perhaps will when the time comes -- these bourgeois Darwinists in about the following manner:

"The whole Darwinists teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes's doctrine of bellum omnium contra omnes [from Hobbes's De Cive and Leviathan, chapter 13-14] and of the bourgeois-economic doctrine of competition together with Malthus's theory of population. When this conjurer's trick has been performed (and I questioned its absolute permissibility, as I have indicated in point 1, particularly as far as the Malthusian theory is concerned), the same theories are transferred back again from organic nature into history and it is now claimed that their validity as eternal laws of human society has been proved. The puerility of this procedure is so obvious that not a word need be said about it. But if I wanted to go into the matter more thoroughly I should do so by depicting them in the first place as bad economists and only in the second place as bad naturalists and philosophers.

"4) The essential difference between human and animal society consists in the fact that animals at most collect while men produce. This sole but cardinal difference alone makes it impossible simply to transfer laws of animal societies to human societies....

"At a certain stage the production of man attains such a high-level that not only necessaries but also luxuries, at first, true enough, only for a minority, are produced. The struggle for existence -- if we permit this category for the moment to be valid -- is thus transformed into a struggle for pleasures, no longer for mere means of subsistence but for means of development, socially produced means of development, and to this stage the categories derived from the animal kingdom are no longer applicable. But if, as has now happened, production in its capitalist form produces a far greater quantity of means of subsistence and development than capitalist society can consume because it keeps the great mass of real producers artificially away from these means of subsistence and development; if this society is forced by its own law of life constantly to increase this output which is already too big for it and therefore periodically, every 10 years, reaches the point where it destroys not only a mass of products but even productive forces -- what sense is their left in all this talk of 'struggle for existence'? The struggle for existence can then consist only in this: that the producing class takes over the management of production and distribution from the class that was hitherto entrusted with it but has now become incompetent to handle it, and there you have the socialist revolution.

"...Even the mere contemplation of previous history as a series of class struggles suffices to make clear the utter shallowness of the conception of this history as a feeble variety of the 'struggle for existence.' I would therefore never do this favour to these false naturalists....

"6) On the other hand I cannot agree with you that the 'bellum omnium contra omnes' was the first phase of human development. In my opinion, the social instinct was one of the most essential levers of the evolution of man from the ape. The first man must have lived in bands and as far as we can peer into the past we find that this was the case...." [Engels to Lavrov, 17/11/1875. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

2) Where have Marxists committed themselves to the existence of changeless atoms?


For many Marxists, it has ceased to be a guide to action, it has become a holy scripture. A hundred & one dogmatists fight over the correct interpretations. This of itself hampers them from interpreting the events of the 21st century effectively. All the answers MUST be in the holy writings. If we can’t find them, it is becos we have misinterpreted the words. All these egs., given before. You consistently fail to perceive them. I wonder why?

Not so, Marx's theory is constantly being updated and modified, just like other theories in science are. Sure, we defend certain core ideas in his work, but if anyone can show they are misguided...


I wonder why?

Probably since you prefer to make stuff up?:lol:


Marx wisely & correctly adopted dialectics since reality is an ever-changing flux (got from Heraclitus). Unlike his modern epigones, he knew theory always limped behind practise. Instead of continuing the development of his theory, the dogmatists grovel in worship, when not engaged in sectarian cat-fights.

But, Heralclitus was an idiot, who imagined he could derive fundamental truths about reality, valid for all of space and time, from what he thought was true about standing in a river (the details surrounding which he got wrong too)!

And you want to criticise us for adhering to allegedly obsolete science -- by quoting this ancient mystic, and fool!? http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/images/smiles/rotf.gif

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,

you contribute another frenzied & lengthy chapter of textual alarums & excursions, hoping to raise enuf dust to cover your retreat. This is a simple, elementary philos issue & you were nailed bang-to-rights at least two posts back.


‘Where have I said I am a ‘'materialist monist'’? ‘

Rosa, that is the ‘materialism’ part of the historical materialism you claim to uphold. Are you reading & understanding this? If you are a consistent materialist, you are a monist. There is one stuff & one stuff only – matter.

But this puts you in a corner immediately, as I keep saying. You have then to invent some way of inserting intelligence/consciousness. INSOFAR as you are successful, you are then a dualist. This is not an option, it is a logical imperative. This is philosophy, not the pick ‘n mix ideas counter where you can chose the soft-centered sweeties & reject the hard to chew consequences of logic.

If you are trying to be some kind of ontological pluralist, you are certainly not a materialist-monist. Then you lose the simplicity of Marx’s empiricism. Hard, ‘objective reality’ changes to a universe of many different kinds of stuff, & potentially endless shape-shifting forms.

If you are trying to be some kind of neutral monist, you have further problems. Like, if you want to ascribe to dumb, inarticulate matter some of the attributes of consciousness (emergent or inherent), consider this. In principle (note that), you cannot deny the belief that stone idols have magical properties – containing the spirit of some god, or having the power to grant wishes.

Of course, “Pshaw” you cry. But as a neutral monist, a fortiori, you cannot dismiss the possibility that some unknown power or ‘fluence’ does exist in stone. So if Zog makes obeissance to an idol, & then has a large catch of fish, you may well believe there is no connection between the two events - it is a chance conjunction – but in principle, you may not dismiss this as superstition. That’s the situation the flexibility of neutal monism lands you in.


‘But, Heralclitus was an idiot, who imagined he could derive fundamental truths about reality, valid for all of space and time, from what he thought was true about standing in a river (the details surrounding which he got wrong too)! And you want to criticise us for adhering to allegedly obsolete science -- by quoting this ancient mystic, and fool!?’

I didn’t quote, I menioned Heraclitus becos Marx was an admirer of parts of his writings. As for mystic & fool, read the above, & try to get a grip.

In your next gruelling chapter, please tell all your enthralled readers (2?), briefly if possible, what your ontology is, & its relationship to Mx’s philos of dialectical materialism; not historical materialism, that was Mx’s method for applying DM to analysing history/society.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


you contribute another frenzied & lengthy chapter of textual alarums & excursions, hoping to raise enuf dust to cover your retreat. This is a simple, elementary philos issue & you were nailed bang-to-rights at least two posts back.

And you take the opportunity to inflict yet more flowery rhetoric on us.




Rosa, that is the ‘materialism’ part of the historical materialism you claim to uphold. Are you reading & understanding this? If you are a consistent materialist, you are a monist. There is one stuff & one stuff only – matter.

You keep telling me what I believe. Perhaps you can tell me what my favourite colour should be, and rearrange my wardrobe, while you are at it.

[I]I'm not a materialist monist, since that is a philosophical theory. I'm a Historical Materialist, since that is a scientific theory. If there turns out to be some other 'stuff' (as you call it) in the universe, or anywhere else for that matter (no pun intended), that is up to science, not me, to legislate.


But this puts you in a corner immediately, as I keep saying. You have then to invent some way of inserting intelligence/consciousness. INSOFAR as you are successful, you are then a dualist. This is not an option, it is a logical imperative. This is philosophy, not the pick ‘n mix ideas counter where you can chose the soft-centered sweeties & reject the hard to chew consequences of logic.

Why do you keep attributing to be a belief in 'consciousness'? If you followed those links I posted a while back, you'll have seen that I attack this concept.

And why do you think I have to insert anything? Intelligence is a behavioural trait. We assess it by what people can do, not by what's in their head. In that case, it has no 'dualist' implications.

And, I'd like to see you try to explain how 'mind' is able to move bits of matter about the place. Descartes struggled, and failed. Let's see if you can do any better.


If you are trying to be some kind of ontological pluralist, you are certainly not a materialist-monist. Then you lose the simplicity of Marx’s empiricism. Hard, ‘objective reality’ changes to a universe of many different kinds of stuff, & potentially endless shape-shifting forms.

Once more, I'm not interested in 'ontology'. I do not want one, nor do I need one. I hold that all ontological theories are just hot air. I explain why here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1680732&postcount=38

And at great length (in fact, at PhD length) here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

Once more, you need to stop making stuff up about what I do or do not believe, and try to tackle the serious problems your own view presents (which you once again ignore).

And I'd like to see the proof that Marx was an empiricist. :lol:

But, we know you do not do proof...

And still, you try to tell me what I believe:


If you are trying to be some kind of neutral monist, you have further problems. Like, if you want to ascribe to dumb, inarticulate matter some of the attributes of consciousness (emergent or inherent), consider this. In principle (note that), you cannot deny the belief that stone idols have magical properties – containing the spirit of some god, or having the power to grant wishes.

Once more, I do not attribute 'consciousness' to anything, since, as I pointed out in an earlier thread, this is a throwback to the ancient mystical ideas you dote upon, and which you'd like to tell us are somehow 'modern'. :lol:


Of course, “Pshaw” you cry. But as a neutral monist, a fortiori, you cannot dismiss the possibility that some unknown power or ‘fluence’ does exist in stone. So if Zog makes obeissance to an idol, & then has a large catch of fish, you may well believe there is no connection between the two events - it is a chance conjunction – but in principle, you may not dismiss this as superstition. That’s the situation the flexibility of neutral monism lands you in.

Yet more flowery rhetoric, compounded by make-believe...

Are you related to J K Rowling, by any chance?


I didn’t quote, I mentioned Heraclitus becos Marx was an admirer of parts of his writings.

So what? I have already told you I do not accept everything Marx says.

And you need to explain how it is possible to arrive at a fundamental truth about reality, valid for all of time and space, from what one thinks is true about stepping into a river (even if you manage get the details right that Heraclitus got wrong).


As for mystic & fool, read the above, & try to get a grip

Indeed, I rather think I have a firm grip on you, with your flowery rhetoric, make-believe, vague ideas, contradictory 'theories', and pre-scientific fairy-tales you somehow think are cutting edge science.:lol:


In your next gruelling chapter, please tell all your enthralled readers (2?), briefly if possible, .

I already have: I do not possess one, and do not want one. But I have no doubt you'll manage to invent something else from that.


what your ontology is, & its relationship to Mx’s philos of dialectical materialism; not historical materialism, that was Mx’s method for applying DM to analysing history/society

Marx wasn't a dialectical materialist; the theory was invented by Plekhanov, long after Marx died.

And the 'dialectic' he used in Das Kapital had every trace of Hegel excised; it more closely resembled the dialectic one finds in Aristotle, Kant, Ferguson, Millar, Smith, Robertson, and Stewart.

More details here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/scrapping-dialectics-would-t79634/index4.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1693775&postcount=260

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1693776&postcount=261


your enthralled readers (2?),

One more than you, then...

[Old Git Tom]

Rosa Lichtenstein,


‘I'm not a materialist monist, since that is a philosophical theory. I'm a Historical Materialist, since that is a scientific theory. If there turns out to be some other 'stuff' (as you call it) in the universe, or anywhere else for that matter (no pun intended), that is up to science, not me, to legislate.’

Aha! There we have it. You cannot specify an ontology, since that is precisely a philos matter of logical categories, not science.

Historical materialism is a method of analysing history & societies, not a philosophy. It is not a science, it’s an ideological tool. If it were a science, it would be subject to revision & updating, if not replacement, by the advances of science. What other ‘science’ began & stopped developing in the 19c?

In your mind, Marxism has become ossified as a dogma. You are mentally trapped in the age of steam & cannot accommodate what modern physics has demonstrated.

The eminent scientist I quoted on matter you dismissed as an idiot – quelle surprise. Yet Heraclitus, one of the giants of the past, is by you also an idiot. One too modern for you, one too ancient. Exactly: your slot is the 19c. Your antiqe dogma is about as much use to a modern revolutionary as mutton-chop whiskers & cycling bloomers, & as ridiculous.

My ‘rhetorical’ writing style may not appeal to you, but then neither does yours to me. If you think sounding like a staccato speak-your-weight machine stylish, go for it.

I visited this site in hopes of finding a functioning, live intelligence, capable of discussing the actual crises developing in the world. I have had little luck, & zilch with you. You are no revolutionary. Your actual occupation is, tireless Zealot-warrior in the sectarian infighting that seems to mark the final decay of Marxism.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa Lichtenstein,

Aha! There we have it. You cannot specify an ontology, since that is precisely a philos matter of logical categories, not science.

Historical materialism is a method of analysing history & societies, not a philosophy. It is not a science, it’s an ideological tool. If it were a science, it would be subject to revision & updating, if not replacement, by the advances of science. What other ‘science’ began & stopped developing in the 19c?

In your mind, Marxism has become ossified as a dogma. You are mentally trapped in the age of steam & cannot accommodate what modern physics has demonstrated.

The eminent scientist I quoted on matter you dismissed as an idiot – quelle surprise. Yet Heraclitus, one of the giants of the past, is by you also an idiot. One too modern for you, one too ancient. Exactly: your slot is the 19c. Your antiqe dogma is about as much use to a modern revolutionary as mutton-chop whiskers & cycling bloomers, & as ridiculous.

My ‘rhetorical’ writing style may not appeal to you, but then neither does yours to me. If you think sounding like a staccato speak-your-weight machine stylish, go for it.

I visited this site in hopes of finding a functioning, live intelligence, capable of discussing the actual crises developing in the world. I have had little luck, & zilch with you. You are no revolutionary. Your actual occupation is, tireless Zealot-warrior in the sectarian infighting that seems to mark the final decay of Marxism.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to defend our Lady Gaga of the anti-dialectic, but historical materialism as a method and a content [and I agree completely that historical materialism is not a science, but rather simply what it says it is, an analysis of social history]is in fact subject to revision and updating. I can recall several "big" moments in that process, like Trotsky's analysis of the permanent revolution in Results and Prospects, Connolly's writings on labour and Irish history, numerous works on the Mexican Revolution, studies of Reconstruction in the US, Soboul's work on the sans-culottes in the French Revolution, Eric E. Williams work on the Caribbean, CLR James' study of the Haitian Revolution.. etc. etc.

What we call, an imperfectly, historical materialism, is not an ideology, but anti-ideological, just as Marx's work is not "political economy," but anti-political economy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

OGT:


Aha! There we have it. You cannot specify an ontology, since that is precisely a philos matter of logical categories, not science.

Can't you read? I do not want an ontology, and nor do I need one --, but it would be very easy for me to invent one. But what would its status be? You say:


since that is precisely a philos matter of logical categories, not science

What 'logical categories'? And how do you know they reflect the world, and aren't just empty notions, like Gryphons and Harpies?

You are, once again, long on assertion, desperately short on proof.


Historical materialism is a method of analysing history & societies, not a philosophy. It is not a science, it’s an ideological tool. If it were a science, it would be subject to revision & updating, if not replacement, by the advances of science. What other ‘science’ began & stopped developing in the 19c?

It is subject to revision, as I pointed out. The more we learn, the more it's revised.


What other ‘science’ began & stopped developing in the 19c?

No idea, but HM isn't one of them.

Once again, you think that if you assert something several times, it automatically becomes true.

But, what have you got to put in its place? An ancient , mystical theory that you can't defend.:lol:


In your mind, Marxism has become ossified as a dogma. You are mentally trapped in the age of steam & cannot accommodate what modern physics has demonstrated.

You are like a stuck record.

Proof please...

Once more, you don't do that, do you?

But, even if you are right, you too are stuck, but in your case it's in a bronze age time warp. 19th century science, even if I am stuck with it, which I'm not, is infinitely preferable to your world of mysterious 'intelligences' that somehow control things (about which you can tell us nothing).


The eminent scientist I quoted on matter you dismissed as an idiot – quelle surprise. Yet Heraclitus, one of the giants of the past, is by you also an idiot. One too modern for you, one too ancient. Exactly: your slot is the 19c. Your antiqe dogma is about as much use to a modern revolutionary as mutton-chop whiskers & cycling bloomers, & as ridiculous.

It's not my fault if you keep quoting idiots. Perhaps that explains you, too.


Yet Heraclitus, one of the giants of the past, is by you also an idiot.

Well, you have yet to tell us why he is held in such esteem (by you/?) if he came out with the idiotic things he said; such as, that everything flows, based on his experience of stepping into a river!

How is it possible to decide what is true, for all of time and space, based on what one thinks is the case with one river (and then get that wrong too)?

You do not even attempt to address this -- you are more concerned to invent stuff to attribute to me.

Calling him an idiot was praise indeed. Moreover, I find I cannot argue with those who might want to say the same of you.


My ‘rhetorical’ writing style may not appeal to you, but then neither does yours to me. If you think sounding like a staccato speak-your-weight machine stylish, go for it.

It's not your style that's the problem, it's that it's practically all you have.

You certainly do not present any evidence to back up the things you keep attributing to me, nor do you even try to address the fatal flaws I have pointed out in your antiquated and ramshackle 'theory'. So, point that grubby finger of yours at yourself.


I visited this site in hopes of finding a functioning, live intelligence, capable of discussing the actual crises developing in the world

None on Planet Idiot, from where you hale, eh?


I have had little luck, & zilch with you.

Indeed you have had no luck with me; the dice were loaded before you came. We do not tolerate irrational mystics like you.


You are no revolutionary.

You'd not know, anyway. You prefer to live in a world of fantasy.


Your actual occupation is, tireless Zealot-warrior in the sectarian infighting that seems to mark the final decay of Marxism.

Yes, it's all my fault...:rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

'Comrade' Artesian:


but historical materialism as a method and a content [and I agree completely that historical materialism is not a science, but rather simply what it says it is, an analysis of social history]is in fact subject to revision and updating. I can recall several "big" moments in that process, like Trotsky's analysis of the permanent revolution in Results and Prospects, Connolly's writings on labour and Irish history, numerous works on the Mexican Revolution, studies of Reconstruction in the US, Soboul's work on the sans-culottes in the French Revolution, Eric E. Williams work on the Caribbean, CLR James' study of the Haitian Revolution.. etc. etc.

And, on what basis do you say it's not a science?

[trivas7]

Marxism is explicitly defined by a bottom-up approach. If anything, your interpretation of recent history endorses Marxism, specifically the dictatorship of the proletariat.
And don't you see the utopianism of advocating for a social system that has historically never existed?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


And don't you see the utopianism of advocating for a social system that has historically never existed?

One can just imagine a medieval Lord, in, say, the late 15th century, saying to a merchant, who longs for a bourgeois revolution:


And don't you see the utopianism of advocating for a social system that has historically never existed?

With such a mentality, we'd all still be living in caves.:lol:

[Am I the only one here who thinks that this is precisely where Trivas lives?]

[trivas7]

Trivas:
One can just imagine a medieval Lord, in, say, the late 15th century, saying to a merchant, who longs for a bourgeois revolution:

Exactly; why do you presume to have insight into the next social revolution?



With such a mentality, we'd all still be living in caves.:lol:
OTOH, it's been communism in practice that has lead entire nations back to pre-industrial economies.

[S.Artesian]

Exactly; why do you presume to have insight into the next social revolution?

OTOH, it's been communism in practice that has lead entire nations back to pre-industrial economies.


Really? Where has such a communism been in practice-- let me guess you'e going to answer Cambodia. Right, the US bombing of Cambodia, the destruction of its rural areas through bombing, artillery, and infantry assault... that played no part.

The US overthrow of Sihanouk and imposition of Lon Nol had absolutely no part in the conditions that led to the immiseration of the entire country.

Right, it was all because of those evil communists.

Take the needle out of your arm, jack, if you want to talk about history.

[Dean]

OTOH, it's been communism in practice that has lead entire nations back to pre-industrial economies.

Really? I've never heard of a popularly managed regime that was responsible for massive reactionary economic change. What regimes are you talking about?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trogolodite...er..sorry, Trivas:


Exactly; why do you presume to have insight into the next social revolution?

Who said I had? But anyone who says this:


And don't you see the utopianism of advocating for a social system that has historically never existed?

is either an idiot, or knows no history -- or both.


OTOH, it's been communism in practice that has lead entire nations back to pre-industrial economies.

Oh, I see, like the way that the US has kept Haiti in a pre-industrial state? Or the way that the good Christians in the US military 're-designed' Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or the way that N Vietmam was nearly 'bombed back to the stone age'? Or the way that the indigenous population of the USA was all but wiped out? And what of the indigenous Tasmanians, too?

Oh, and, by the way, I'm not a Communist, so you can't throw that rubbish in my direction.

[trivas7]

Really? Where has such a communism been in practice-- let me guess you'e going to answer Cambodia. Right, the US bombing of Cambodia, the destruction of its rural areas through bombing, artillery, and infantry assault... that played no part.

How about Mao's China, whose Cultural revolution produced famine for millions on an unprecedented scale? Stalin's mismanagement of agricultural production and its resulting famines for millions? Lenin's Russian, where there was a total breakdown of industrial productivity? The list goes on and on. Excuse as you, history has already pronounced its verdict on this particular "stage of human development".

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


How about Mao's China, whose Cultural revolution produced famine for millions on an unprecedented scale? Stalin's mismanagement of agricultural production and its resulting famines for millions? Lenin's Russian, where there was a total breakdown of industrial productivity? The list goes on and on. Excuse as you, history has already pronounced its verdict on this particular "stage of human development".

Artesian is not a Maoist, so you can't use China against him.

As for Russia, over 80% of the economy was destroyed by the war instigated by invading white armies. So blame the capitalists for this, not Lenin.

[S.Artesian]

How about Mao's China, whose Cultural revolution produced famine for millions on an unprecedented scale? Stalin's mismanagement of agricultural production and its resulting famines for millions? Lenin's Russian, where there was a total breakdown of industrial productivity? The list goes on and on. Excuse as you, history has already pronounced its verdict on this particular "stage of human development".


Except clearly, neither the Cultural Revolution, or the debacle following the "Great Leap Forward" had anything to do with communism. Nor did either take China backwards from being an industrial society, as at both times, China was overwhelmingly agrarian.

The mismanagement of agriculture by Stalin, the forced collectivization of the peasantry, again took place prior to significant increases in industrialization, and again Stalin had nothing in common with communism. The agricultural policy of the 5 year plan had everything to do with primitive accumulation to finance industrialization by reducing consumption and living standards, and nothing to do with communism.

And Lenin? Are you referring to war communism? The Bolsheviks were fighting a civil war, which sapped the strength of the working class, reducing it in numbers by half... and more than that, this wasn't communism, but the attempt of the infant revolution to defend itself from the attack of landlords, bourgeoisie, royalists.

You need to know a bit more about Marxism, about actual concrete analysis of social modes of production before you start claiming that communists took societies backwards to "pre-industrial" conditions.

[trivas7]

Except clearly, neither the Cultural Revolution, or the debacle following the "Great Leap Forward" had anything to do with communism. Nor did either take China backwards from being an industrial society, as at both times, China was overwhelmingly agrarian.

You need to know a bit more about Marxism, about actual concrete analysis of social modes of production before you start claiming that communists took societies backwards to "pre-industrial" conditions.
That's like saying the Founding Fathers had nothing to do with the development of industrial capitalism in the USA. Are you trying to persuade me that the historical Communist movement had nothing to do with Marx and that "actual concrete analysis of social modes of production" had nothing to do with the policies of avowed Marxist governments that lead their nations into the ditch of pre-industrialism? I ain't buying it.

[S.Artesian]

That's like saying the Founding Fathers had nothing to do with the development of industrial capitalism in the USA. Are you trying to persuade me that the historical Communist movement had nothing to do with Marx and that "actual concrete analysis of social modes of production" had nothing to do with the policies of avowed Marxist governments that lead their nations into the ditch of pre-industrialism? I ain't buying it.

And I'm not selling that.

"The founding fathers" were a collection of slaveholders and merchants. Their economic, class connections, led to their Constitution, the development of capitalism in the US, and the conflicts between slaveholders and emerging industrial bourgeoisie.

Concrete social conditions determine "ideology," not the other way around. That's Marxism.

So first, when you claim that communism took societies backwards from industrialization, youneed to establish that the societies were indeed industrialized before this so-called reversal. You haven't, and you can't, because the societies were not industrialized.So when discussing the privation, and compulsory confiscations of "war communism" during the Russian civil war, the emphasis is on the war not the ideological label of communism.

When discussing the cultural revolution, or when discussing the Great Leap Forward and the havoc it created in China, you have to actually understand Marx's analysis of industrialization under capitalism; the inability of capitalism to develop in, or develop China, the actual relations between city and countryside in China, and what the real content of the Great Leap forward was-- what it attempted to do. You have failed to do any of that, and the Great Leap Forward didn't take China back from industrialization, it failed to lead to industrialization, with famine and near-famine conditions following on that failure, just as famine conditions developed in the USSR in 1933 from the enforced collectivization of the peasantry-- a collectivization undertaken precisely because the USSR was not industrialized.

When analyzing the Cultural Revolution in China, you need to grasp its origin as a pre-emptive counterrevolution by Mao against the growing opposition to Mao and his policies after the failure of the Great Leap

It's important to know some things about the conomic histories on the USSR and China, and read some of Marx's own work on capitalist development before we claim that Marx's critique of capitalism and his revolutionary activity lead to "de-industrialization."

[trivas7]

And I'm not selling that.

It's important to know some things about the conomic histories on the USSR and China, and read some of Marx's own work on capitalist development before we claim that Marx's critique of capitalism and his revolutionary activity lead to "de-industrialization."
And this is exactly where we disagree. Disavowal of the history of communism as the real, historical implementation of Marxism is the only way you save face in the validity of Marxism.

[S.Artesian]

And this is exactly where we disagree. Disavowal of the history of communism as the real, historical implementation of Marxism is the only way you save face in the validity of Marxism.


Right, we disagree.... history according to you is the product of ideas; essentially it's a conspiracy. Actual material conditions have nothing to do with responses to actual material conditions. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Let me ask you... Pinochet in Chile, was that the product of the post-grad faculty of the University of Chicago School of Economics?

We sure do disagree. I think it's important to know something about economic history before make accusations that communists have taken industrial societies backward to pre-industrial conditions, and you don't think it's important to know anything about economic history. You don't think it's important to even know if an actual industrialized society was in existence.