Dialectical materialism

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Hello,

I came to this site knowing nothing about DM, and now ive read lots of posts by people who advocate it and by people who dont, but i still really dont get it.

I have read the Wikipedia page about it. and i still dont understand

1) why people would want to use it
2) why people dont want to use it.
3) how is it used?

So can anyone, as simply as possible, gimme the rundown on it, as it seems like something i should have an opinion on.

pls dont argue though, just try and present me with the facts :)

[redstar2000]

You have a set of difficult choices to make here.

There are a number of "canonical" works that you can seek out and read...which purport to "explain dialectics" and why it's "a good thing".

You will discover that they disagree with each other. :o

OR you can read the critics. There are six collections of posts on my own site that are profoundly critical of "dialectics".

And, my recommendation, there is Rosa Lichtenstein's excellent site...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/

I don't think "dialectics" is something that you need "to have an opinion on". It's really all bollocks and you can be a better revolutionary without it altogether.

But, you will have to put up with a few people who will dismiss your ideas as rubbish because you failed to re-phrase them in "dialectical" terminology.

Good sense always has a price. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Connolly]

Wikipedia explains

Wiki DM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism)

Short definition

Dictionary.com DM (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=dialectical%20materialism)

[D_Bokk]

I've stayed clear of Dialectics and only read the real basics. But Rosa Lichtenstein's essay is pretty interesting and I will probably read it in full this summer, but until then I just skimmed through the first part. I came across this:


So, this allowed Lenin to argue that "John" was at the same time identical with, but different from, all men.

To me, this sounds like doublethink. I wonder if Orwell was criticizing DM when he wrote 1984. Anyway, I'm looking forward into reading the rest later... from the bit I read so far Lenin sounds insane.

[which doctor]

It's confusing, that's about all I know about it. I've attempted to educate myself on it, but I always quit due to boredom.

[Zingu]

Take cover everyone. The Leninist counter artillery barrage should be coming in any moment now. :rolleyes:


I would just stay clear from dialectics, I don't think they are nessecary at all, for me, it only proved to confuse people, plus see all of the junk dialectics have produced...from Hegel's psycobabble to Fukyama's stupid proclimation of the "end of history".

[Axel1917]

Marxism is wothrless without dialectical materialism. I would recommend the following works:

What is Dialectical Materialism? by Rob Sewell:
http://www.marxist.com/study-guide-dialect...materialism.htm (http://www.marxist.com/study-guide-dialectical-materialism.htm)

The ABC of Materialist Dialectics by Leon Trotsky. Contains additional material by Rob Sewell and John Pickard:
http://www.marxist.com/abc-dialectical-mat...ism-trotsky.htm (http://www.marxist.com/abc-dialectical-materialism-trotsky.htm)

Reason in Revolt: Dialectial Philosophy and Modern Science by Alan Woods and Ted Grant:
http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp

It is hard to learn at first, but if you study, you will understand it, unlike redstar2000 and the rest of his anti-Marxist parrots.


1) why people would want to use it

To get a better understanding of society, the world, etc. in their constant state of change and flux. Formal logic has its limits, and Marx and Engels formulated their theories with dialectical materialism.


2) why people dont want to use it.

The Bourgeoisie teach only formal logic because dialectical materialism is a very important aspect of Marxism. They obviously don't want people learning about Marxism. The people that are opposed to it on this site, and other such "Marxists", don't understand it, from what I have seen.


3) how is it used?

It is based on emricial observation, noting change through contradiction, quantitative changes producing qualitiative leaps, some things returning on a qualitatively higher basis, etc. Stephen Jay Gould used aspects of dialectical materialism in his theory of punctuated equilibrea.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Zingu
Take cover everyone. The Leninist counter artillery barrage should be coming in any moment now.

Yeah...more "erudite" cowpies from Axel "Iron Bolshevik Discipline" 1917.


Marxism is worthless without dialectical materialism.

Chairman Ted's version of "Marxism" is worthless with "dialectical" "materialism".

I sure hope no one wastes a nanosecond on it.

But some folks, it must be admitted, were born to waste time. :lol:

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[Axel1917]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Apr 1 2006, 08:42 AM--> (redstar2000 @ Apr 1 2006, 08:42 AM)
Zingu
Take cover everyone. The Leninist counter artillery barrage should be coming in any moment now.

Yeah...more "erudite" cowpies from Axel "Iron Bolshevik Discipline" 1917.


Marxism is worthless without dialectical materialism.

Chairman Ted's version of "Marxism" is worthless with "dialectical" "materialism".

I sure hope no one wastes a nanosecond on it.

But some folks, it must be admitted, were born to waste time. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
And redstar2000 happens to be one of those that is born to waste time, given that he is not capable of thinking.

[Guest1]

Let's steer clear from the spam, and the spam-linking, and stick to the topic please: what is dialectics.

Not whether or not you think it's a conspiracy involving fukiyama.

Axel's links are pretty good, though I think you're looking for something less comprehensive. Reason in revolt is, in my opinion, the best way to understand dialectics because it explains it by a comprehensive analysis of processes in nature and society and draws philosophical conclusions from it, rather than imposing the philosophy on the processes. However, it is quite long.

I'll post a link to something introductory and concise in a bit.

[Guest1]

here:

Dialectal Materialism by J. Pickard (http://www.marxist.com/Theory/JPickard.html)

[More Fire for the People]

1) why people would want to use it
The ‘dialectic’ is a cornerstone of the science of logic, of how things move and operate and come and go out of being. Dialectics is the study of sublation, of a ‘being’ negated but then transcend by a new ‘being’ that maintains some properties of the old. For instance, Einsteinian negated Newtonian physics but retained some properties of Newtonian physics.

The ‘materialist’ aspect of dialectical materialism is the standpoint of a materialistic worldview, i.e. a scientific outlook on life. That is, matter is the absolute knowable and exerts its properties on everything. Or rather, matter alone can be proven to exist. A materialist outlook on life is the most pragmatic and rational.

2) why people dont want to use it.
To understand what is happening now, why the past happened, and how the future will happen.

3) how is it used?
It is used in the same way you would utilize the principles of mathematics, take for instance the use of Euclid’s axioms and propositions. From these rules you can deduce how a circle will behave and why a 30-60-90 triangle has one side that equals ‘x’, another which equals ‘2x’, and another that equals ‘x√3’.

It is important to remember that dialectical materialism is an analytic concept and not a determinate or religious method.

[Social Greenman]

I believe it is up to the individual if he or she would wants to learn dieletics. I never came accross anything written that it was commanded that everyone has to learn it. It been explained that it's an analysis tool. I just have too much on my plate to even bother with it since I have much to read what Marx, Engles, DeLeon, Debs, etc., wrote. However, I don't understand why a person who doesn't use dieletics is considered a non-Marxist? Would that not be considered sectarianism?

[Guest1]

Sectarianism would be refusing to recognize a movement because it doesn't conform to your image of "perfect revolution". However, Marxists are supposed to be the group of activists who understand the theory and try to educate and agitate within the larger movement to radicalize it. To do that, you must support the larger movement, but still hold an independant line and engage in constructive criticism. So someone may support Marxism, but if their method is one of idealism, of everlasting "things" in society as opposed to interacting and ever changing processes, they are no Marxist.

Hence the currently ideologically bankrupt trends on the left, searching for "newness" for newness' sake because they cannot understand what went wrong and how society works, let alone how to build a real movement again in a better way. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there's been this turn to "new ways" of looking at things which has resulted in a completely empty and lifeless class analysis. One which sees class warfare as a dead collection of component parts, as opposed to a living process with periods of quiet build-up followed by explosive clashes.

[Social Greenman]

Thanks CyM for clairifying what sectarianism is. But what of the other question?

[Guest1]

Well, i attempted to explain both, but I admit sometimes I'm not very clear in my responses.

Basically, Marxism is in itself dialectical, there is no Marxism without it. The idea of class dynamics, of the equilibrium within society degenerating until a new society explodes out of the old, this is dialectics applied to sociology.

Without the understanding dialectics provides, what we are left with are rigid lifeless categories that have little to no connection to the living processes they are meant to explain. It is important to encorporate the idea that things change into our analysis at all levels. Dialectics allows you to do that. This is why Marx came to all of his conclusions with its use.

We look at those who have abandoned dialectics, and generally we find two groups:

1) those who end up abandoning the struggle entirely, and become reformists and the like
2) those who lose sight of the movement entirely, and become sectarians who can do nothing but shout at every revolutionary wave that it is not "truly revolutionary".

Really, they're two sides of the same coin. Neither thinks to actually look at what is happening around them, the rising tides, the accelerating processes of mass resistance, etc... They think they can draw their ideas from thin air really, and to hell with what is happening in society.

So again, they can be a supporter of Marxism, but not a Marxist if they abandon the methods and practice of Marxist organizing and analysis. The methods and practice Marx and Engels themselves used.

A much better explanation of why dialectics is necessary is the explanation of what it is that I linked to. It's about 2 pages I think, and really clear, much clearer than I could make it.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
Basically, Marxism is in itself dialectical, there is no Marxism without it.

Watch out whenever you see assertions like this one!

It's usually a sign that whoever's making it "has an agenda" that may be less than attractive if stated in plain words.

For example, if you can be convinced that "dialectics" actually means something, then you might also be convinced that "some people are really good at it" and you "should listen to them and do what they say".

Over the centuries of human history, people have often found it profitable to pretend to "special knowledge" hidden from ordinary people.

"Dialectics" is such a pretense; under a critical eye, it reduces to verbal nonsense in fairly short order.

But those who think that "Marxism" gives them a "license to rule" -- like Chairman Ted or Chairman Bob -- find "dialectics" to be extremely useful...because you can use it to "prove anything" in words.

When entering the magical realm of "dialectics", turn your skepticism up to its highest setting. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Apr 2 2006, 03:19 AM--> (redstar2000 @ Apr 2 2006, 03:19 AM)
Che y Marijuana
Basically, Marxism is in itself dialectical, there is no Marxism without it.

Watch out whenever you see assertions like this one!

It's usually a sign that whoever's making it "has an agenda" that may be less than attractive if stated in plain words.

For example, if you can be convinced that "dialectics" actually means something, then you might also be convinced that "some people are really good at it" and you "should listen to them and do what they say".

Over the centuries of human history, people have often found it profitable to pretend to "special knowledge" hidden from ordinary people.

"Dialectics" is such a pretense; under a critical eye, it reduces to verbal nonsense in fairly short order.

But those who think that "Marxism" gives them a "license to rule" -- like Chairman Ted or Chairman Bob -- find "dialectics" to be extremely useful...because you can use it to "prove anything" in words.

When entering the magical realm of "dialectics", turn your skepticism up to its highest setting. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
I would like to see you disprove dialectics, given that no one has successfully done it in history. Or are your posts angry rantings, given that the "worm of doubt" is chewing away at you? :lol:

In the previous citations, dialectics is proven. Studying dialectics will allow one to understand it.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Axel Iron Bolshevik Discipline 1917
I would like to see you disprove dialectics, given that no one has successfully done it in history.

That's on the same level as the poor godsuckers who show up in the Religion Subforum and demand that we prove that God does not exist!

The "burden of proof" is on you, oh mighty magician, to show us that your "dialectical miracles" are something more than verbal spoon-bending.

You've had a century or so to demonstrate that "dialectics" is "more than just words"...and your failures have been spectacular!

When Chavez's social democrats finally grow weary of your nagging and toss you out on your bums, I look forward with anticipation to Chairman Ted's "dialectical explanation".

It should be hilarious! :lol:

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[Hegemonicretribution]

You have heard both sides now, and as was predicted, there is little consensus.

As far as I am concerned dialectics is something that you can choose to induldge in if you want. CyM suggested that rejection of it leads to materialism, but really that needn't be the case, you can accept the important aspects of materialism with out dialectics. Redstar suggested that dialectics will lead you to become an outdated failure, or reformist, again I would disagree.

I have never seen dialectics as something useful in terms of predictions, but as an analytical "tool" it can be useful. From what I have read, I don't see why formal logic and dialectics can't be used in conjunction, although the more extremists spend a lot of time and effort explaining why not. I would say that later Marxist thinkers did place far too much reliance upon dialectics, but dialectics itself was not the problem. The problem was the dogmatic and linear approach, considering that it wasn't successful. I think that compromise between factions is more important than the philosophical prejudices of opposing camps that are supposedly working for similar goals.

[Guest1]

Well, they are supposed to be used in conjunction.


Watch out whenever you see assertions like this one!

It's usually a sign that whoever's making it "has an agenda" that may be less than attractive if stated in plain words.

For example, if you can be convinced that "dialectics" actually means something, then you might also be convinced that "some people are really good at it" and you "should listen to them and do what they say".
Yes, if I explain Dialectics to him, and get him to understand it so he can come to his own conclusions from it, I will be the next Stalin.


Over the centuries of human history, people have often found it profitable to pretend to "special knowledge" hidden from ordinary people.
The only way to prevent that is to make sure everyone has the tools and the knowledge to understand the world on their own.

This is what this thread is about.


"Dialectics" is such a pretense; under a critical eye, it reduces to verbal nonsense in fairly short order.

But those who think that "Marxism" gives them a "license to rule" -- like Chairman Ted or Chairman Bob -- find "dialectics" to be extremely useful...because you can use it to "prove anything" in words.
Yes, it's soo evil! Read the link, respond to it directly. I'm afraid that if we keep this in the realm of the baseless personal attacks, I may attack you back. So put your facts where your mouth is old man.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

So is the problem, for those of you who don’t want to use DM, that’s its dialectics (Hegel and stuff) or is it dialectical materialism? Or is it both?

I understand that Marx & Engle’s turned dialectics on its head, and created DM.

So, would a person who uses DM compared to someone like Fukuyama who uses another type of dialectics, share the same method of getting to their conclusions?

Also, do people who criticize DM also criticize the dialectics of Fukuyama, for much the same reasons?


You've had a century or so to demonstrate that "dialectics" is "more than just words"

Can i just ask, what this means? What is DM supposed to do, if not just to explain the way the world works? hehe its mainly the thing i am trying to find out.

BTW, thanks for all the feedback everyone! :)

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by bloody_capitalist_sham+--> (bloody_capitalist_sham)So is the problem, for those of you who don’t want to use DM, that it's dialectics (Hegel and stuff) or is it dialectical materialism? Or is it both?[/b]

The "problem" is that you can use historical materialism to actually explain things...in ordinary language that anyone can understand.

Using Historical Materialism (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1139269704&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

Adding "dialectics" to the "mix" is like adding crankcase oil to cakebatter...the result is useless for any purpose.

Hegelian mysticism was the culmination of a long period in European "intellectual" life dominated by "esoteric mysteries" and "hidden keys to knowledge".

Had Marx been "lucky" and gone to college in France or England, then we would know (or care) nothing about "dialectics". It's the "aura effect"...being associated with Marx's name makes "dialectics" intellectually respectable to those who regard Marx's other ideas as profoundly interesting and significant.

Fortunately, that time is finally coming to an end. More and more young lefties think, quite properly, that Hegel was a fraud and that just because Marx "fell for it" doesn't mean that they "have to fall for it too". :D


Che y Marijuana
So put your facts where your mouth is old man.

Chairman Ted is even older than I am...truly a "living fossil". :lol:

Playing the "age card" isn't going to help you here.

Try lazy vulgar American anti-intellectual petty-bourgeois pragmatist! :lol:

That might distract a few people.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 07:25 PM
The "problem" is that you can use historical materialism to actually explain things...in ordinary language that anyone can understand.

Using Historical Materialism (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1139269704&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

Adding "dialectics" to the "mix" is like adding crankcase oil to cakebatter...the result is useless for any purpose.
The real problem for non-Marxists is that their attempts to seperate Dialectical Materialism from Historical Materialism are like trying to classify oranges and orange peel as two distinct fruits.

Historical Materialism is nothing more than the sociological application of the methods of Dialectical Materialism.

Same language, same methods, just applied in a specific field. The words you claim are so mystical about dialectics are the same ones used in historical materialism. Conflict, contradiction, opposing forces, the quantitative accumulation of struggles generalized into a qualitative societal change.

Your false dichotomy falls flat on its face, old man.


Hegelian mysticism was the culmination of a long period in European "intellectual" life dominated by "esoteric mysteries" and "hidden keys to knowledge".
Yes, hegel grew out of the mysticism of his age, but he did stumble upon truth. This is why Marx and Engels demystified his dialectics, or, in Marx's words: "put it on its head".


Had Marx been "lucky" and gone to college in France or England, then we would know (or care) nothing about "dialectics". It's the "aura effect"...being associated with Marx's name makes "dialectics" intellectually respectable to those who regard Marx's other ideas as profoundly interesting and significant.
Had Marx not used dialectics as the basis of his studies, we certainly would have ended up with a much more rigid, and therefore less realistic understanding of revolution.

It is dialectics, the understanding of equilibrium and explosion, that seperated Marx from the idealists who had nothing to say about how to realistically change the world


Fortunately, that time is finally coming to an end. More and more young lefties think, quite properly, that Hegel was a fraud and that just because Marx "fell for it" doesn't mean that they "have to fall for it too". :D
The period of decline amongst the left you speak of is over. It was a short period after the end of the Soviet Union that saw a left incapable of real analysis and paralyzed by lifestylism and sectarianism.

Fortunately, that trend is on the reverse again, and real living analysis is back on the agenda for the left. The new social explosions in south america, the indian subcontinent, and europe have breathed new life into the decaying corpse of the left.


Chairman Ted is even older than I am...truly a "living fossil". :lol:

Playing the "age card" isn't going to help you here.

Try lazy vulgar American anti-intellectual petty-bourgeois pragmatist! :lol:

That might distract a few people.
So you refuse to address the link, and instead would like to engage in some more personal attacks.

Again, answer the link, because your personal attacks will not go unanswered if you don't put some content in your posts.

[Social Greenman]

CyM wrote:


Historical Materialism is nothing more than the sociological application of the methods of Dialectical Materialism.

If that is the case then why did Marx and Engels considered Lewis Henry Morgan to be an independent discoverer of the materialist conception of history? Morgan lived in America and yet he discovered historical materialism apart from Marx without the use of dieletics. Another question is did anyone else come up with dieletics apart from Hegal? Who is Fukuyama? :unsure:

[Guest1]

I have not read Lewis, I was referring to the Historical Materialism of Marx and Engels.

I would imagine that while it may bare some similarities to that of Marx, Lewis's does not have the same organic view of revolution as a theory developed with the conscious knowledge of change that Dialectical Materialism provided Marx and Engels. But I would have to check it out.

As for Hegel, Dialectics has a long history, as far back as greek philosophy, but until Marx it had reached its zenith with Hegel.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Who is Fukuyama?

Ahh, hes just some dude.

He is a neo-conservative, but now renounces that i think.

he is kinda like the right wing academic who said that because the soviet union fell, it proved communism would never come into force and capitalism. or liberal "democracy" was infact the end of history.

In the academic world, people love him because communism is out of fasion, hehe.

and he uses dialectics. So im am glad to hear, they are discedited these days.

Only reason i know about him is at uni they preach his shit like gospel, oh well.

[Guest1]

Fukuyama has very little to do with Marxist dialectics though. Marxist dialectics sees the end of class society not as the end of history, but the beginning of a new history. A history written consciously and rationally by human beings freed from the unconscious and uncontrollable forces of the market.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 3 2006, 02:10 AM
Fukuyama has very little to do with Marxist dialectics though.

Which version of "Marxist dialectics"? ....Marx's version? ....or Engels, or Plekhanov, or Trotsky, or Bukharin's, or Mao, and so on.

I actually find it rather amusing that people get so worked up about this whole subject.

After all, if some people think that 19th century German philosophy is useful, then that's their choice....but if others find it crap (or like myself find it unintelligible), then so be it.

Marx, as far as I know, never used the phrase dialectical materialism....he simply employed dialectics as a method some of the time. He also borrowed some of the methods of the "English Economists" as they are called, despite some of the most prominent ones being Scottish&#33; <_<

Yet, not many people would be "outraged" if someone proposed that a section of Marx&#39;s work which was heavily influenced by the economists was "out of date"....indeed Lenin (and a few others before him) drastically altered Marxist economics with their theories on Imperialism.

So I really don&#39;t see what all the fuss is about when people propose that the tools used with regards the Materialist Conception of History could be altered....after all, times change and tools get old&#33;

Indeed, ComradeRed has proposed in the past that it may be possible to place Historical Materialism in a Mathematical framework....this would likely be a "step up" from dialectics and therefore it does interest me.

After all, copper pipe is better than lead pipe. :P

On a side note, and this relates to my point about Marx and the phrase dialectical materialism, it was Engels who, as far as I know, coined the term Materialist Conception of History (Historical Materialism) and Plekhanov who first used the phrase dialectical materialism....Marx, for once in his life, wasn&#39;t bold enough to give his theory a name.

And additionally, within "Marxist circles", dialectics seems to have taken a role similar to Goodwin&#39;s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law) some of the time....certain well known Marxists will spout a load of rubbish and when questioned about it, they will say that it&#39;s dialectal -- St. Avakian springs to mind here&#33; :lol:

So really, I&#39;d say that if your brain works in a manner that is capable of understanding 19th century German philosophy, then give dialectics a try....but if your brain doesn&#39;t work in such a manner, try to find methods you can understand.
_________

Oh, and CyM, that link is pretty interesting, but really, is dialectics necessary to note change?

After all, couldn&#39;t we just say, in a kind of formal logical sense, that the means of production change (A equals B) and then human consciousness changes too (B equals C) and so on.

I don&#39;t see why dialectics needs to be used here, or that only dialectics can be used....wouldn&#39;t it be easier to just say advancement in technology X produced social phenomena Y?

And aside from that, whatever method you employ to understand social reality, you still have to back it up with evidence and explain why your conclusions are correct....just saying they are correct because of the method you employed in and of itself, isn&#39;t what I&#39;d consider good practice.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Armchair, you are absolutely right, not only do we not need dialectics to account for change, it cannot do so. Indeed, we have countless thousands of words in ordinary material language (and in the sciences) that can be used to depict change to any level of accuracy needed.

Here is how I explained things in Essay Six at my site:

&#39;This is how John Rees put things:

"Ordinary language assumes that things and ideas are stable, that they are either &#39;this&#39; or &#39;that&#39;. And, within strict limits, these are perfectly reasonable assumptions. Yet the fundamental discovery of Hegel&#39;s dialectic was that things and ideas do change…. And they change because they embody conflicts which make them unstable…. It is to this end that Hegel deliberately chooses words that can embody dynamic processes." [Rees (1998), p.45.]

The problem with this passage is that it gets things completely the wrong way round. It is in fact our use of ordinary language that enables us to refer to change. Technical and philosophical jargon (and especially that which was invented by Hegel) is practically useless in this regard since it is wooden, static and of indeterminate meaning, despite what Rees asserts.

As is well-known by Marxists, human society developed because of its constant interaction with nature and as a result of the struggle between classes. In which case, ordinary language could not fail to have developed the logical multiplicity to record changes of limitless complexity.

This is no mere dogma; it is easily confirmed. Here is a greatly shortened list of ordinary words (restricted to modern English) that allow speakers to refer to changes of unbounded complexity:

Vary, alter, adjust, amend, mutate, transmute, modify, develop, expand, swell, flow, differentiate, fast, slow, rapid, hasty, melt, harden, drip, cascade, fade, is, was, will be, will have been, had, will have had, went, go, going, gone, lost, age, flood, crumble, disintegrate, erode, corrode, flake, tumble, cut, crush, grind, shred, fall, rise, spin, oscillate, rotate, wave, quickly, slowly, instantaneous, suddenly, gradually, rapidly, sell, buy, lose, win, ripen, rot, perish, grow, decay, more, less, fewer, steady, steadily, jerkily, slowly, quickly, very, extremely, exceedingly, intermittent, continuous, continual, push, pull, jump, break, charge, assault, dismantle, replace, undo, reverse, repeal, quash, hour, minute, second, instant, destroy, annihilate, boil, freeze, thaw, liquefy, evaporate, solidify, condense, protest, challenge, expel, eject, remove, overthrow, expropriate, defeat, strike, revolt, riot, march, demonstrate, rebel, campaign, agitate and organise….

Naturally, it would not be difficult to extend this list until it contained literally tens of thousands of words all capable of depicting countless changes in limitless detail. It is only a myth put about by Hegel and DM-theorists (unwisely echoed by Rees, and others) that ordinary language cannot express change. On the contrary, it performs this task far better than the incomprehensible and impenetrably obscure jargon Hegel invented in order to fix something that was not broken.

Dialecticians, it seems, would have us believe that because of the alleged shortcomings of the vernacular, only the most recondite and abstruse terminology invented by Hegel (the meaning of much of which is unclear even to Hegel scholars) is capable of telling us what we already know -- and have known for tens of thousands of years -- that things change&#33;

Of course, as Rees himself implicitly conceded, Hegel&#39;s leaden language has to be translated into &#39;ordinary-ish&#39; sorts of words for the rest of us to be able to gain even a dim appreciation the obscure message it contains (that was the whole point of his précis of a key Hegelian &#39;deduction&#39; (discussed in Essay Twelve); pp.49-50 of TAR: The Algebra of Revolution) --, which was that we could not understand change without such assistance&#33; But, if we already have ordinary terms (like those listed above) that enable us to talk about and comprehend change, what need have we of Hegel&#39;s prolix terminology? Conversely, if according to Rees ordinary language is inadequate when faced with the task of translating Hegel&#39;s observations into something we can understand, how would anyone be able to grasp what Hegel meant -- or even determine whether he meant anything at all?

On the other hand, if we are capable of comprehending Hegel&#39;s obscure ideas only when they are written in ordinary terms, why do we need his opaque concepts to reveal to us what our language can or cannot express anyway -- when, manifestly, it must have been adequate enough (on this supposition) for just such a successful re-casting of Hegel&#39;s ideas? If ordinary language can capture what Hegel meant, in what way is it defective? If it can&#39;t, then how might we understand Hegel?

Not surprisingly, if Hegel were correct, no one (including Hegel himself) would be able to understand Hegel, for, ex hypothesi, his words would not then be translatable in terms anyone could comprehend. Conversely, once more, if Hegel&#39;s words are translatable, that must mean that we already have the linguistic resources available to understand change (etc.) perfectly well. Naturally, this implies that on the one hand, if Hegel were correct, no one would be able to understand him, while on the other, if he were incorrect -- and we could understand him enough to be able to say that much -- no one need bother.

The idea that ordinary language cannot cope with slow or rapid change may be summarised by the following sentence:

H1a: Ordinary language cannot account for or depict change.

But, the question is: Is H1a itself written in ordinary language? It certainly looks like it. If it is, it is pertinent to ask what the word "change" in H1a actually means. If we, as ordinary speakers, do not understand this word, what precisely is it that Hegel and Rees are presuming to correct? We may only be educated if we know of what it is that we are ignorant -- that is, if we already know what change is (so that we can at least say that our word "change" does not match this ideal). But, ex hypothesi, we are not supposed to know this since our language is allegedly inadequate in this area.

Contrast H1a with the following:

H1b: Ordinary language cannot account for or depict quantum phenomena.

The situation is not at all like that presented in H1b, where a technical area of knowledge is involved. "Change" as it appears in H1a cannot be an example of a technical use of language, if it is in the vernacular. Of course, if H1a is not in the vernacular, then the word "change" it uses will need to be explicated in terms of the ordinary word "change", so that we might grasp what this typographically identical technical word means. If so, the ordinary word "change" will have to feature in just such an explication, and we would be back to where we were in an earlier paragraph.

Without that explication, if we don&#39;t know what the technical term "change" means, H1a must be incomprehensible; it contains at least one word that no one -- not a single human being -- yet understands, apparently. Unfortunately, this now means that our re-education cannot be initiated by means of H1a (or indeed any other sentence that uses the as-yet-to-be-explained word "change"). Of course, that would also mean that the &#39;dialectical&#39; development of this &#39;word/concept&#39; cannot begin either, for as yet, all we have is an empty word. For all the good it does, it might as well be replaced by "slithy tove".

It could be objected here that while our ordinary terms partially grasp the nature of change, Hegel&#39;s use of language provides the wherewithal to comprehend the concept more fully -- &#39;dialectically&#39; and &#39;scientifically&#39;, as it were. Perhaps then Rees meant the following:

H2a: Ordinary language cannot fully grasp change.

H2b: Specially created terminology is required to enable its comprehension.

But, once again, what does the word "change" in H2a mean? Is it being used in the same way that we use the ordinary word "change"? Or does it possess its own &#39;special&#39; technical sense which has yet to be explained? If it does mean the same as the ordinary term, then where does our common understanding of this word fall short? Why do we need a theory to explain something we already understand?

On the other hand, if the common understanding of this word is defective -- if users of this word do not understand it -- then H2a is incomprehensible, since it contains a word that no one understands. Until we know the extent of our ignorance all the technical/dialectical terminology in the world is of no use.

Alternatively, if the word "change" in H2a has its own special meaning, what is it? And, if that is the case, then what sort of criticism of ordinary language do H2a and H2b represent, if they do not use it? If in H2a the word "change" has a technical sense, how can that word with its special sense be used to criticise the ordinary word (or point out its limitations) if the ordinary word is not itself being used?

Furthermore, if the word "change" has a &#39;dialectical meaning&#39;, how could that meaning possibly help anyone correct the ordinary word if we still do not understand the ordinary word? And how might dialecticians explain to themselves what this special &#39;dialectical meaning&#39; is if all they have is the defective ordinary word "change" to go on? This side of a clear answer to these questions, H2a is as devoid of sense as H1a ever was.

Again, in response to this it could be argued that H2a is not about our understanding of the meaning of a word; it is merely reminding us that ordinary language cannot be expected to operate outside its legitimate sphere of application (i.e., "beyond certain limits"). No one expects ordinary language to cope with complex issues found, say, in the sciences or in philosophy; this does not impugn common understanding, it simply reminds us of its limitations.

Doubtless this is correct, but unless we are told in what way the ordinary term "change" -- as we now understand it -- falls short, a dialectical extension to our knowledge cannot even begin. This shows that despite suggestions to the contrary, H2a is directly about our understanding of this word, for if the word "change" (as it is used in H2a) does not mean what the ordinary word "change" means, then the meaning of H2a itself must be indeterminate. Not only that, if our understanding of the word "change" is even slightly defective, we certainly cannot use it while pretending to correct it. We cannot feign comprehension of a word for the sole purpose of correcting or revising its current (defective) meaning. This is not because this would be a difficult trick to pull off, it is because it is no more of an option than, say, pretending (to oneself) to forget a word.

Conversely, if the word "change" has no meaning (or if it is unclear what it means), neither that word nor its meaning may be corrected by the use of any sentence that also contains that &#39;suspect&#39; word (such as H2a). And, if it is true that our grasp of this word is defective (in any way), then those very same linguistic imperfections must apply to anyone who seeks to correct it by the use of sentences like H2a. Clearly, in that case, such prospective revisers would not be able to comprehend what they themselves were trying to reform, since they would be in the same position as the rest of us, using a word with unspecified shortcomings. On the other hand, if such aspiring reformers understand the word "change" differently from the rest of us then any proposed modification to ordinary language would clearly apply to their own special use of that term -- i.e., to a word that is only typographically similar to the ordinary term "change" (and which special word is still of undisclosed meaning) --, but not to the word "change" as it is used in ordinary language.

The claim here, therefore, is that with respect to the word "change", it is not possible for anyone even to begin to say in what way it fails to mean what it is ordinarily taken to mean (or falls short of it), or even to entertain the possibility that it might do this, without using that word in a way that cannot be subject to such doubts.

Consider the following &#39;attempt&#39; to revise the word in question:

H3: Change does not mean what ordinary language would lead us to believe. It means: "development over time as a result of internal contradictions understood as real material forces acting as parts of a mediated totality."

If this is so, then H3 should be re-written as follows:

H4: Development over time as a result of internal contradictions understood as real material forces acting as parts of a mediated totality does not mean what ordinary language would lead us to believe. It means: "development over time as a result of internal contradictions understood as real material forces acting as parts of a mediated totality."

The replacement of the word "change" in H4 with what it allegedly &#39;means&#39; just creates an incomprehensible sentence (and the same would happen with respect to any of its cognates -- indeed, Hegelians can replace the proposed &#39;dialectical meaning&#39; of "change" in H3 with whatever formula they please, the result will not change (irony intended)).

If it is now objected that the above is unfair then it behoves that objector to indicate in what way our ordinary material words for change fall short of whatever they are supposed to fall short of -- without him or her actually using the word "change" (or one of its synonyms) anywhere in that attempt. Short of doing that, that objector&#39;s use of this word (or one of its cognates) to express his or her own objection (howsoever mild or nuanced, or dialectically motivated) will be subject to the very same unspecified shortcomings, and the objection itself must fail for lack of meaning.

In that case, the objector will be as much in the dark as the rest of us allegedly still are -- only he/she will now be unclear, not just about our ordinary words for change, but about the application of his/her own non-standard, jargonised (dialectical) replacement for it, since he/she would be unclear what it was supposed to be replacing. [That was the point of the ridiculous example given in H4.]

This is why we can be confident that not even Hegel understood this part of his own theory. This is not because it is a difficult theory, or because it employs special technical terms that are completely incomprehensible to the untrained mind. Nor is it because Hegel did not use H3 (or anything like it), it is because of the fact that as soon as any attempt is made (by anyone -- even a person of "genius") to correct ordinary language -- or, just as soon as the vernacular is dismissed as defective or even slightly flawed, and its terms are held to be deficient when applied beyond "certain limits", requiring that they be "surpassed", by-passed or revised -- all meaning disappears.

To repeat, it is not possible to pretend to understand an ordinary word like "change" and then claim that it is defective (whether "speculative reason" initiates such an attempt, or not). Either the objector&#39;s understanding of this word is defective -- and the ordinary term is alright as it is --, or the ordinary word is defective and no one (including that objector) actually understands it. Again, in the latter case, there would then be nothing left to modify; in the former, no one need bother.&#39;

[Taken from Note 19 at:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2006.htm]

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

The above post makes me feel like peter griffin, but stupider :lol:

So, is all dialectics really just using different words than normal?

that cant be it.

What are the kind of words they use? please can you tell me a couple.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 07:55 AM
The above post makes me feel like peter griffin, but stupider :lol:

So, is all dialectics really just using different words than normal?

that can&#39;t be it.

What are the kind of words they use? please can you tell me a couple.
Yeah...it&#39;s like looking behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

Magic Phrases

Unity of Opposites
Negation of the Negation
Primary and Secondary Contradictions
Internal Contradictions
Quantitative Changes
Qualitative Changes
Transformation

And probably a bunch more that I&#39;ve fortunately forgotten.

Learn to mutter these phrases in solemn tones on ritual occasions and you too can become a "Master of the Dialectic". :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BCS:

"So, is all dialectics really just using different words than normal?

that cant be it.

What are the kind of words they use? please can you tell me a couple."

Our best guide to what people mean is what they say, and if what they say makes no sense, however it is sliced, then the presumption must be that nothing with any content was originally communicated.

Now, if someone uses what seem to be ordinary words in odd circumstances and idiosyncratic ways (creative literature to one side), then they cannot complain if others pull them up for it.

Philosophers (and not just DM-fans) have been doing this for years, nay millennia, spinning out their theses using word-trickery and the invention of new (but empty) phrases whenever the vernacular (the material language of ordinary workers) would not let them proceed any further.

Everyone pays such &#39;thinkers&#39; undue respect because they feel intimidated by their seeming profundity (and, in earlier times, by their social-standing -- they were either members of the ruling-class, or the latter were their patrons), but when someone pops up and tells us this &#39;royal person&#39; is as naked as the day he was born, because this trickery has gone on for so long, few listen. It seems too crass a mistake for such &#39;intelligent&#39; thinkers to have made. 2500 years of philosophical hot air based solely on the misuse of language (the very idea&#33;&#33;??); it beggars belief. And yet there is a materialist reason for this; it explains why certain members of the ruling-class, or their hangers-on, so easy fell prey to this age-old error, but you will have to read it for yourself at my site: in the summary to Essay Twelve.]

I am just using a technique invented by Wittgenstein -- aimed at letting the hot air out of traditional philosophy (of which DM is a fourth-rate, distant cousin) -- whereby those using language in a thoroughly sloppy manner, misusing it, or employing it un-thinkingly or dishonestly, are called to account, their theories shown to be nonsense (i.e., too confused even to be counted as true [i]or false).

[Except I am pushing this much further than anyone has ever done; and, as far as I am aware, no one has applied it to dialectics before.]

It is then quite easy to show that not a single philosophical thesis stands up to such deflationary scrutiny -- including the poor relation found in DM.

Few know about this method -- and even fewer like what they see; this is because it robs them of their philosophical illusions (i.e., it takes away the idea that there is meaning to everything, that there is an a priori or essential structure to reality, accessible only to thought, or that the logical structure of our thinking somehow matches the logic of reality -- of course, it could only do that if nature were Mind).

For most people, it was bad enough being robbed of their religious illusions -- being robbed of their philosophical comfort blanket it a deflation too far. So, it is either ignored or rejected out of hand. [You can see this from the mayhem my ideas are causing among the DM-faithful at this site; they haven&#39;t a clue where I am coming from, or a coherent set of tactics to deal with my ideas; they just have a gut feeling that I am robbing them of a very precious illusion -- the last bastion of their consolation that history/nature/the laws of DM, are on their side. Their use of traditional methods to fight my ideas does not work, since my method undermines all traditional thought. They have never encountered it before since it is so little known.]

So, many just cling onto their consoling theses, along with the quirky use of langauge that goes with them, and whistle in the dark, or bury their heads again.

[You can see the attraction of, say, &#39;secular Buddhism&#39; here (check out the thread on the Philosophy Forum where several Lefties let slip that they still hold onto a few guilty consoling secrets), which suggests that there is indeed a &#39;way&#39; set out for humanity, invented by some guru (who used language in odd ways too), one that just exists (i.e., no one outside humanity authored it, but it mysteriously puts humanity right back at the centre of the meaning universe again, implying there is a meaning to life, if you just change the way you see things -- and use language quirkily too).]

Five hundred years ago, Copernicus removed humanity from the centre of the physical universe; Feuerbach, Marx, Wittgenstein (and now my good self, in my own small way) have attempted to remove us from the centre of the meaning universe -- after all, why should reality have any meaning or logic to it? -- so that with all our idols smashed, we stand a chance of fashioning at least this part of reality in our own image, making history fully human for once.

Philosophers have only interpreted world...the point is to challenge them, and change things in our way, not theirs.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 2 2006, 02:13 AM
We look at those who have abandoned dialectics, and generally we find two groups:

1) those who end up abandoning the struggle entirely, and become reformists and the like
2) those who lose sight of the movement entirely, and become sectarians who can do nothing but shout at every revolutionary wave that it is not "truly revolutionary".
I don&#39;t give a shit about dialectics either way, and I don&#39;t fit in either group.


I have not read Lewis, I was referring to the Historical Materialism of Marx and Engels.

I would imagine that while it may bare some similarities to that of Marx, Lewis&#39;s does not have the same organic view of revolution as a theory developed with the conscious knowledge of change that Dialectical Materialism provided Marx and Engels. But I would have to check it out.

Marx and especially Engels&#39;s historical theories were heavily based on Lewis Morgan&#39;s theories. That&#39;s where the whole "stages of history" idea comes from. They modified his ideas with some of their own. see http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...amily/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Morpheus, I am like you, but the situation is even worse.

Every one of the &#39;crimes&#39; CYM attributes to those who reject &#39;dialectics&#39; is committed in profusio by our mystical friends -- except, they have done real damage to our side.

Parties fond of &#39;dialectics&#39; are all riven with sectarian strife, factionalism, expulsions, splits (or if they are Stalinists and/or Maoists, they just imprison and kill one another) and petty-bourgeois personality cults (hence their slavish adherence to their &#39;holy books&#39; and all those heroic pictures of Marx, Engles, Stalin and Mao).

They justify every accommodation with the ruling-class with &#39;dialectical arguments&#39; that would have baffled Hegel (witness the Stalin/Hitler pact, the invasion of Finland, Mao&#39;s attempt to justify an alliance with the Koumintang by means of a spurious invention called &#39;primary and secondary contradictions&#39;, Orthodox Trotskyists who justify every act of tail-ending various third-world nationalist borgeois movements (e.g., reformists like Chavez) with similar bouts of dialectical delirium), etc etc.

They substitute themselves (or anyone and anything) for the working class at every turn (be they the Red Army and Russian Tanks (that somehow (&#33;) brought socialism to E Europe, by-passing the working class, but then subjecting them to forty years of oppression), guerilla armies (China, Cuba, Nepal, etc.), nationalist &#39;reformers&#39; (Castro, who &#39;discovered&#39; Marxism only after he seized power), themselves (as a &#39;vanguard&#39;, as &#39;tribunes&#39;, as &#39;the party of the world proletariat&#39; -- only no one asked them), parliamentary &#39;socialists&#39; (&#39;entryism&#39;), etc.).

The list is as long as it is depressing.

All down to the &#39;dialectic&#39; (which, because it glories in contradiction, can be used to &#39;justify&#39; anything -- and has been so used).

So, small wonder then that Dialectical Marxism is to success as George W is to peace on earth.

Hence, the vehemence of my attacks on these Hermeticists, who have helped to ruin the workers&#39; movement.

[Background theory to this at:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20016-9.htm]

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2006, 08:55 AM
The above post makes me feel like peter griffin, but stupider :lol:
That&#39;s because of her insistance on ivory-tower language and methods, the very things she accuses people like me of.

Funny, I thought the learning forum would be the one place that her stale academia bullshit would be cut down in the interests of actually being understood, oh how wrong I was.


So, is all dialectics really just using different words than normal?

that cant be it.
Because it isn&#39;t.

This isn&#39;t about what words you use. This is about the idea of how change occurs, the fundamental concept of conflicting forces and the violent rupture of the existing equilibrium between them, leading to the establishment of a new one and the accumulation of new conflicts.

That&#39;s all Dialectics is, a concept of change as conflict, as evolution interrupted by revolution, order interrupted by chaos.


I don&#39;t give a shit about dialectics either way, and I don&#39;t fit in either group.
Hence the key word "generally".

[Guest1]

Your next essay will be edited down to a link by the way, this is not the proper space for that, rosa.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

"That&#39;s because of her insistance on ivory-tower language and methods, the very things she accuses people like me of,,,"

Like what? [I suspect you mean that you do not understand enough logic and/or philosophy to follow my arguments....]

[And Hegel used the language of local workmen and women, I suppose?]

Unable to respond, we just get abuse:

"Funny, I thought the learning forum would be the one place that her stale academia bullshit..."

As I have pointed out to you before, I do not work in academia; I have a full-time job and I am a Trade Union rep (unpaid).

You just can&#39;t stand the fact that I am a working-class woman who is able to put together complex arguments, based on the latest work, that you cannot either match or understand.

"Because it isn&#39;t."

But, as I am able to show, but you can only deny (with no supporting argument or proof) that it is just this; as is all of traditional philosophy.

Why you do not just stick your fingers in your ears and shout &#39;La La La&#39; I do not know.

It would be an improvement.

And now we get yet more mysticism:

"This is about the idea of how change occurs, the fundamental concept of conflicting forces and the violent rupture of the existing equilibrium between them, leading to the establishment of a new one and the accumulation of new conflicts."

That&#39;s right, the world is controlled by intellegent forces that argue among themselves -- far more honest people in the past used to just call these the &#39;gods&#39;.

"That&#39;s all Dialectics is, a concept of change as conflict, as evolution interrupted by revolution, order interrupted by chaos."

It&#39;s odd then that it cannot explain change, except by an appeal to mystical intelligences again.

"Your next essay will be edited down to a link by the way, this is not the proper space for that, rosa."

It wasn&#39;t an essay, but a single note from one of them.

I thought you could read?

[You just do not like your mystical faith being challenged.]

[Hegemonicretribution]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 4 2006, 06:58 PM
You just can&#39;t stand the fact that I am a working-class woman who is able to put together complex arguments, based on the latest work, that you cannot either match or understand.

I am pretty much on the fence here, or at least I choose to remain so whilst everything is so hostile, but this is what you accuse dialectitions of Rosa Lichtenstein.

I thoght the point really was that whether or not dialectics could suddenly be understood or not was&#39;t the point, the point was that formal logic was sufficient, and considering what has constituted Marxism thus far, is where we should focus our efforts.

If the arguments against dialectics, formulated using formal logic are complicated and not easily understandable to CyM (someone that does not have too many problems with dialectics) then why?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Heg: I am not sure I understood what you were trying to say, but the point is not that logic is difficult, but that DM-fans have in general only listened to descriptions of it provided by other DM-fans, and have (also in general) not bothered to check whether these mis-descriptions are accurate (which they provably are not). Still, in their reduced state, they will not be told. Not by me, not by anyone. They refuse even to check.

Thus, their ignorance is entirely self-inflicted.

Now that we have extensive resources on the internet to help put this right (some of which material I have brought to their attention, but they refuse even to look at those Essays of mine that try to correct this problem, let alone the links I have posted to assist them claw their way out of their ignorant state); so they are clearly being willfully ignorant.

The basics of modern formal logic are not that difficult to grasp (granted, advanced logic is not at all easy). Hence, in my chiding of comrades like CYM. Axel 1917 and Red Che, I am trying to draw attention to this self-imposed ignorance (in order to further expose the anti-scientific attitude DM fosters in all who fall under its spell --, and no wonder it does this: dialectics was invented a philosopher who confused logic with mystical Idealism, one who would have been, you would have thought, the very last theorist any self-respecting materialist would pay any heed to). DM encourages faith in tradition (note the way DM-fans prefer to quote their holy books, a bit like the theologians who confronted Galileo), and it fosters personality cults (hence also their refusal even to allow for the possibility that Engels and Co made some serious (or minor&#33;) mistakes) -- which anti-scientific faults they readily highlight in their opponents.

So, even though DM-fans claim to be scientific, they almost all ignore modern advances in logic (there are, however, a few notable exceptions to this rule), all the while pontificating about it.

[You might as well expect George W to lecture us on Quantum Mechanics (except, his ignorance is natural, not self-imposed).]

Finally, there is little in Historical Materialism, as far as I am aware, that depends on modern (or ancient) logic. But, you do need a smattering of both to be able to see where DM hits the rocks (and these three comrades refuse to be embarassed by me into learning so much as a microscopic smattering&#33;).

I am merely the messenger here; but, the message I bring is unwelcome news to many comrades -- or, rather, to those comrades who put too much faith in tradition, and too little in the advances in knowledge and logic we have seen over the last 125 years (Axel 1917 even tried to deny this was true of logic&#33;&#33; -- he thinks Woods and Grant are the last word in everything&#33; In him, DM, it seems, has claimed another auto-softened brain as its victim).

Well, they&#39;d better get used to it; things are only going to get worse for DM-fans before I am through.

And that&#39;s a promise....

[shyam]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31 2006, 04:22 PM
Hello,

I came to this site knowing nothing about DM, and now ive read lots of posts by people who advocate it and by people who dont, but i still really dont get it.

I have read the Wikipedia page about it. and i still dont understand

1) why people would want to use it
2) why people dont want to use it.
3) how is it used?

So can anyone, as simply as possible, gimme the rundown on it, as it seems like something i should have an opinion on.

pls dont argue though, just try and present me with the facts :)
i too waiting for reply...
in addition any body can explain each and evry thing as simple as possible...

[Guest1]

I&#39;d like people to take a look at the past two pages, where a clear discussion was taking place, and contrast it to Rosa&#39;s spam-essay on dialectics.

I&#39;m not sure about you, but the H1a, H3 crap came out of nowhere to me. She&#39;s taken a simple subject and turned it to an inaccessible, unintelligible mess.

Way to go.

My response however, is this. Your problem Rosa is your deep-seated belief that the only issue we have with the traditional view of change is the wording, which is not it. It&#39;s a view of how change happens, not what words to use to describe it. That was what you missed in your spam-essay.


"This is about the idea of how change occurs, the fundamental concept of conflicting forces and the violent rupture of the existing equilibrium between them, leading to the establishment of a new one and the accumulation of new conflicts."

That&#39;s right, the world is controlled by intellegent forces that argue among themselves -- far more honest people in the past used to just call these the &#39;gods&#39;.
What the fuck is your problem? Where did I say anything about intelligent forces? When someone says you need to change your oil to reduce friction, do you ask them if they think that your engine is angry at the frame?


"That&#39;s all Dialectics is, a concept of change as conflict, as evolution interrupted by revolution, order interrupted by chaos."

It&#39;s odd then that it cannot explain change, except by an appeal to mystical intelligences again.
The only appeal to mystical intelligences here, is my attempt to have a conversation with a wall behind a keyboard, who calls herself a logician.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

"I&#39;m not sure about you, but the H1a, H3 crap came out of nowhere to me. She&#39;s taken a simple subject and turned it to an inaccessible, unintelligible mess."

[And Hegel is clarity itself is he?]

Oh dear, still incapable of following an ordinary language argument, CYM? One written largely in the the material language of workers, and not the ruling-class language Hegel filched from Plotinus, Proclus, Eckhart, Boheme and Fichte?

"My response however, is this. Your problem Rosa is your deep-seated belief that the only issue we have with the traditional view of change is the wording, which is not it. It&#39;s a view of how change happens, not what words to use to describe it."

Well, it turns out that every time you lot try to &#39;explain&#39; change, or how you see it happenning, the language you use falls apart faster than Bush&#39;s excuse for invading Iraq. I merely pointed this out. Sorry to spoil your mystical reverie.

In that non-Essay (once again, the post you refer to was merely a footnote to a longer Essay) I was not analysing the dialectical account of change, merely exposing the empty ruling-class langauge you lot have borrowed from Hegel, and the rest. In fact, I demolish the DM-account of change, if such it may be called, in several other essays (which you refuse to read -- so stay ignorant).

As I show -- and the argument was clearly over your head (or you have mysteriously lost the capacity to concentrate) -- ordinary langage is perfectly adequate to account for change; it is the wooden language you lot use that isn&#39;t.

[E.g., it implies, despite all your attempts to deny it, that light bulbs can change themselves and that plants argue with the seeds from which they grow. And you have the cheek to point a few grubby fingers at me.]

And, the use of language is important here, that is, unless you have another way of communicating your ideas (Aldis lamp? Semaphore? Morse Code?).

Now, I seem to recall that you have tried to use language coherently from time to time. So even you agree it is imporatnt to refrain from writing nonsense (like the stuff Hegel filled all those books with).

I would merely wish you did this more often. Hence the sound advice I keep giving you.

But do I get any thanks?

You are lucky I do not give up on you. Then you&#39;d be scr*wed.

Now, ruling-class theorists have denigrated the langauge of ordinary workers for thousands of years; Hegel and DM-theorists are thus merely the latest in a long line.

But, I can understand if you are miffed and a little embarrassed at having your class loyalties exposed so publicly.

I did not wish this one you; you are the one who keeps putting his head over the parapet, and adverting both to your logically-challenged state, and to the fact that you prefer the wooden ruling-class jargon Hegel used, over good old-fashioned material language. [Where &#39;to contradict&#39; means the &#39;gain-say&#39;, for example.]

My advice: stop inflicting public pain on yourself in this way, CYMrade (or we will begin to suspect you like being humiliated by a woman -- and for free).

"What the fuck is your problem? Where did I say anything about intelligent forces?"

So, this means you are now going to drop the idea that forces contradict one another (i.e., that they argue among themselves), eh? Good.

And please issue yourself another warning (fat chance&#33;) for using the &#39;F&#39; word.

Hegel did not teach you to do this. You&#39;ve been knocking around with street dialecticans haven&#39;t you, you naughty boy. Bad associations spoil useful comrades.

On a more serious note, this is not very intelligent language, CYM. I would say I had hoped for better from you, but to be honest, its about what I expected.

For all your love of contradictions, you DM-geeks do not like to be contradicted, do you, you little tinkers.

[Which must mean that your theory cannot change; think about it -- if you can.]

"The only appeal to mystical intelligences here, is my attempt to have a conversation with a wall behind a keyboard, who calls herself a logician."

We can conclude several things from this:

1) Your attempt to contradict me (when coupled with your recent (but welcome)denial that contradictions reveal intelligence at work) means that you do not rate your own intelligence very high; possibly zero?

For my part, I think you are being a little hard on yourself; but whatever makes you happy. I do not like to contradict you DM-nuts, since you use the &#39;F&#39; word, and that is very scary.

See how my typing is getting very shaky.

2) You have run out of arguments, and are now falling back on the usual DM-tactic: abuse.

So, I accept your surrender, comrade. It was long overdue.

I now declare this thread is clean -- exorcised free from all those nasty mystical Hermetic ghosties.

Go in peaces, my son -- and CYM no more.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Shyam, I&#39;d try to do this myself, but what you are asking is in fact impossible to achieve in any thread monitored by CYM; he has threatened to delete any of my Essays that he &#39;deems&#39; spam.

So, you will find a summary of my ideas on this at my site:

http://www.anti-dialectics.org.

Check out Essay Sixteen, broken into parts here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_...een%20Index.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_sixteen%20Index.htm)

[Guest1]

The word contradiction is bourgeois?

This is hilarious, nothing in that word implies intelligent forces.

You have contradicting, or conflicting forces, whatever you wanna call it.

These forces accumulate, and one breaks through.

Tadaa&#33;

There&#39;s your change.

That is dialectics in a nut-shell.

See? No need for crazy-talk, or 60 page essays.

This is the learning section, simplify.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

"The word contradiction is bourgeois?"

It&#39;s mystical use is Hermetic, and thus ruling-class. [I did not use the word &#39;bourgeois&#39;.]

"This is hilarious, nothing in that word implies intelligent forces."

I agree, so why do you lot keep saying that forces can contradict, if they cannot speak?

The joke is on you.

And now we get to the deep, penetrating logic we have come to know and loathe from DM-mystics:

"These forces accumulate, and one breaks through."

So, forces save money (accumulate) and then one escapes from jail, eh?

"There&#39;s your change."

Where?

"That is dialectics in a nut-shell."

And that is the proper place for it, except I&#39;d change the second half of that word to "house".

"See? No need for crazy-talk, or 60 page essays."

And that is why dialetics will never be a science because of know-nothings like you.

You cannot (or will not) work the details out, and your &#39;theory&#39; (sorry, joke of a theory) stays at the hand-waving stage. To compound things, you refuse to look at the problems associated with the mystical ideas you blandly swallow (you are clearly unaware of them).

"This is the learning section, simplify."

Done it.

I used ordinary language, not the mystical jargon Hegel filched from idealist mystics.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

OK, I&#39;ve read part of this thread, but I still do not understand how dialectical reasoning is supposed to "work". I know how formal logic works (I think), and I know how the scientific method is supposed to work.

What more do Marxists, as supposedly scientific people, need more than that?

It has been said that formal logic cannot deal with change. However, scientists have created theories on how main sequence stars change into red giants via fusion of their hydrogen (and helium I think) reserves into heavier elements. The Main Sequence star has now changed into a Red Giant. This theory was created using formal logic. How is DM superior? Scientists, using formal logic, have explained to a layman like me how and why main sequence stars change into red giants.

How can DM, with it&#39;s own technical jargon, explain it any clearer?

Needless to say, I am deeply skeptical of the utility of DM due to the massive success that formal logic has in explaining how things change.

[LSD]

I&#39;ll be honest, I just don&#39;t get the point of "dialectics" or "dialectic" materialism.

Firstly, from what I&#39;ve read, most of the underlying theory is fundamentally flawed and worse, several "dialactical laws" are demonstrably false.

That said, though, I am in no way a "dialetician" and do not claim to have a complete grasp on the subject. And so it is certainly possible that there are some useful aspects to dialectical theory.

But if that is true, why can they not be recognized independently of Hellegian metaphysics? That is if, say, the "law of the negation of the negation" is actually true, then it must also be demonstrably true.

And since there is nothing nescessarily illogical about such a "law", if it can be empiracally or logically demonstrated to be true then why could it not simply be adopted as scientific theory?

Where, in short, is the need for the word "dialectics"?

If its precepts are externalistically valid then they&#39;re externalistically valid. If they&#39;re not, then they&#39;re not. And either way, it presents absolutely no problem to formal logic.

But accepting that "dialectics" should be used "in addition to" formal logic or as a guiding "philosophy" of formal logic, nescessitates that we expand our frame of reference, something which should only be done when absolutely nescessary.

Logic, as it presently exists, is predicated on a few axiomatic principles. From these axioms, along with obervational data, all of our current understanding of the universe can be derived.

Now, of course, the problem with axioms from a materialist perspective is that, by definition, they cannot be proven. Accordingly, if our aim is to be as materially objective as possible, then we have an obligation to minimze our axioms.

Adding "dialectical" principles to the list strikes me as an example of unnescessarily complicating our base table. Again, if the fundmanetal principles of "dialectics" are true they can be derived from pre-existing axioms and principles.

So, to take another example, if quantitative change "must" inevitably lead to qualitative change and that rule exists as an absolute then, by definition, it would be constantly observed and so logically induced.

Similarly, if such a "law" motivates all universal variables than even in a purely theoretical setting, scientists would discover that such a "law" were consistantly required.

And, in fact, it kind of is already. I, personally, reject the "quantitative into qualitative" "law" as dialectically stated, but the fact is that in some form the above cannot be denied.

That form however is simply elementary physics.

For thousands of years, now, we have accepted that, outside of the classroom, infinity has no reality. Accordingly, any process must in the end stop. From a "dialectical" perspective, that stop (in whatever form it takes) is considered a "qualitative change" and as such a validation of "dialectical theory".

It&#39;s really a bit of a cop-out though, isn&#39;t it.

Worse though, it&#39;s actually even paradoxically inconsistant when it comes to some very concrete questions; the origin and nature of the universe, for instance.

Some "dialeticians", you see, assert simultaenously that all quantitative changes must result in qualitative ones and that that universe has no end. If the contradiction doesn&#39;t seem immediately apparent, just remember that the universe is constantly undergoing quantitative changes.

This problem really can&#39;t be overlooked. The fact that these "dialectical" axioms result in contradictive results must be considered. "Dialectics" does claim to be the "logic of contadiction", but somehow I doubt that&#39;s what&#39;s meant by it. :D

Carrying on though, "dialectics" chief claim is, again, that it is capable of understanding and describing change, whereas "formal logic" is not. Frankly, I&#39;m baffled by such a suggestion.

Firstly, "formal logic" is far from being the anachronistic beast that "dialeticians" perceive it to be. It may trace back to ancient times but that is soley because so many of its precepts are intuitive.

Axiomatically speaking, however, it is a constantly evolving method and, more importantly, a constantly verified one.

And that said, it must be pointed out that for all its criticisms of it, "dialectics" is nonethless itself predicated on "formal logic"&#33;

As far as I can tell, "dialectics" makes a set of elementary assertions (supposedly based on obervational data) and then logically derives its rules and predictions from them. It is just as "formal" in its use of logic as any other "scientific" hypothesis and certainly offers nothing that could "supplant" logic.

Now, it&#39;s true that some "dialecticians" go further in their philosophy and construe from "dialectical materialism" a philisophical approach regarding mathematics and scientitific methodology, but from what I&#39;ve seen, this is highly controversial even in "dialectical" circles.

Accordingly, I&#39;m fairly confident in saying that the ant-deductive approach adopted by some "dialectical" scholllars is more about personal taste than it is about orthodox Marxism.

In fact, even on this board, I have seen self-described adherents to "dialectics" argue on both sides of "dialectic" questions. In a recent thread in S&E, for instance, one member argued that "dialectics" nescessitates an infinite universe, while another asserted the reverse.

Frankly, I have no way of telling which one was right. Neither, by the way, does anyone else. Yes, we can compare their statements with "dialectical" axioms, but, really, what&#39;s the point?

Who cares whether or not someone sticks to a set of rules unless those rules have objective importance. And, as yet, I have not seen anyone demonstrate that that is true for "dialectics".

I am no scientist but, tellingly, neither are most "dialeticians". Furthermore, it would seem that, even without their "dialectical" help, science has managed to truck on just fine. In the hundred and fifty years since Marx and Engles "refined" Hegel&#39;s mysticism, science has been able to significantly advance without reference to Prussian philosophy.

Einstein did not need to reference his copy of Wissenschaft der Logik before formulating his groundbreaking theorums; nor did Hawking need to brush up on his Engles before discovering the singularity.

The fact is that for all the insistance that the "dialectic" is essential, historically it hasn&#39;t been.

And so accordingly, I am retiscent to needlessly clutter our scientific method by adding principles of which we have no convincing evidence.

If people wish to "believe" in the "dialectic", I suppose that is their right. But 150 years after its introduction, it is becoming increasingly and increasingly unlikely that "dialectics" is going to play any serious role in the history of humanity.

Honestly, though, that doesn&#39;t matter. In the end, labels and "credit" are insignificant. All that matters is progress itself, and if certain tenents of "dialectics" turn out to help in that endeavour, they will be discovered independently. But if, as I suspect, they don&#39;t, it&#39;s all the better for science.

The simpler we keep our tools, after all, the easier they are to wield.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Thank you LSD for your very clear and concise post on this matter. It has helped me no end.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Noxion and LSD, I think you are largely right, but Formal Logic (to be precise, modern Tense Logic) handles change eminently well (even Aristotelian Logic can cope with it, as I showed on an earlier thread).

The only people you will find making this claim are those who know no logic (over and above that which they have read in other DM-tracts, the authors of which tracts will have copied these myths off other DM-fabulators).

You will find them saying things like Aristotle&#39;s logic is based on the law of identity (when Aristotle never even so much as mentions this &#39;law&#39;, or refers to identity at all -- this notion only appears in Western thought after the 17th century&#33;).

No matter how many times they are told they all say the say incorrect things.

No change there then.

And LSD, modern logic does not need axioms; check out Gentzen&#39;s system called: Natural Deduction (which is non-axiomatic):

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/M...ns/Gentzen.html (http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Gentzen.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Gentzen

[Unfortunately, Gentzen was a Nazi supporter&#33; But that should no more put us off his system than Hegel&#39;s right wing ideas put off dialecticians.]

And I take apart the Quantity into Quality &#39;law&#39; here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


I am no scientist but, tellingly, neither are most "dialeticians". Furthermore, it would seem that, even without their "dialectical" help, science has managed to truck on just fine. In the hundred and fifty years since Marx and Engles "refined" Hegel&#39;s mysticism, science has been able to significantly advance without reference to Prussian philosophy.

Soviet scientists, especially during Stalin&#39;s time, were a notable exception to that, primarily because genuflection before the altar of diamat was often essential for winning state support for scientific research. It was not uncommon in the Soviet Union for scientific debates to take the form of clashes over the proper interpretation of dialectical materialism. Thus, in the Soviet debates over genetics, the Soviet Mendelians like Vavilov made the argument that Mendelism represented the true dialectical understanding of heredity, whereas, Lysenko and his disciples contended that they represented the true dialectical materialist position. The Lysenkoists won that debate in the sense that Stalin threw his support to them rather than to the Mendelians, who wound up in the gulags.

In the West, the British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, after becoming a Communist, became insistent that he found inspiration for his researches in dialectical materialism. This later became a bit embarassing for him, once Stalin firmly opted for Lysenkoism, since Haldane was one of the leading Mendelian geneticists in the world. For that and other reasons, he eventually withdrew from the British CP.

On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the paleontologist (and "red diaper baby"), Stephen Jay Gould professed to find some inspiration in dialectics.

For example in The Panda&#39;s Thumb, there is an essay "Episodic Evolutionary Change," where Gould sketches out the relation of his punctuationalism with dialectics. He writes:

"If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices. In the Soviet Union, for example, for example, scientists are trained with a very different philosophy of change - the so-called dialectical laws, reformulated by Engels from Hegel&#39;s philosophy. The dialectical laws are explicitly punctuational. They speak, for example, of the "transformation of quantity into quality." This may sound like mumbo jumbo, but it suggests that change occurs in large leaps following a slow accumulation of stresses that a system resists until it reaches the breaking point. Heat water and it eventually boils. Oppress the workers more and more and bring on the revolution. Eldredge and I were fascinated to learn that many Russian paleontologists support a model very similar to our punctuated equilibria."

"I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well. (I often fly over the folded Appalachians and marvel at the striking parallel ridges left standing by gradual erosion of the softer rocks surrounding them). I make a simple plea for pluralism in guiding philosophies, and for the recognition of such philosophies, however hidden and unarticulated, constrain all our thought. The dialectical laws express an ideology quite openly; our Western preference for gradualism does the same more subtly."

"Nonetheless, I will confess to a personal belief that a punctuational view may prove to map tempos of biological and geologic change more accurately and more often than any of its competitors - if only because complex systems in steady state are both common and highly resistant to change."

I think a careful reading of Gould&#39;s words will indicate that he viewed dialectics as a heuristic for generating hypotheses concerning the behavior of complex systems. Note that he considered what he called the punctuational view to be a "constraining prejudice" - what Gerald Holton (about whom Gould had written favorably in the NY Review of Books) would call a &#39;themata.&#39; Note also that Gould talked about expanding our range of "constraining prejudices" rather than dogmatically insisting upon the need to replace gradualism by punctuationalism. Gould recognized that such views are not ultimately true or false but only more or less useful in helping us to formulate new testable hypotheses.

[Guest1]

Well, that quote pretty much says it, as was repeated over and over again, dialectics is not a replacement for formal logic. It&#39;s a complimentary philosophy that better explains more complex processes.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 7 2006, 02:04 PM
Well, that quote pretty much says it, as was repeated over and over again, dialectics is not a replacement for formal logic. It&#39;s a complimentary philosophy that better explains more complex processes.
Scientists deal with extremely complex processes all the time - The Met Office, as far as I know, does not use dialectics.

[Guest1]

Whether it does or not is irrelevant, it&#39;s been shown to be useful in eliminating unfruitful hypotheses and to be useful in approaching processes of change from the right perspective.

How much time would have been saved had Darwin not subscribed to gradualism, and realized then and there that species were born in build-ups and explosions?

As for LSD and the infinite universe, that is not exclusively dialectical. The reasons given by dialecticians tend to be, but even just simple formal logic excludes the possibility of a finite universe. It&#39;s just straightforward materialism. If everything comes from something, you have an infinite chain of causality. Period. There is no "time outside of time", where nothing was there, and then there was. There is no infinitely small starting point, requiring an infinitely large amount of energy to explode into the universe we see today.

No reason at all to believe in a finite universe, the "beginning" is just god through the back door.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Whether it does or not is irrelevant, it&#39;s been shown to be useful in eliminating unfruitful hypotheses and to be useful in approaching processes of change from the right perspective.

I beg to differ. Compared to formal logic, DM is quite frankly confusing.


How much time would have been saved had Darwin not subscribed to gradualism, and realized then and there that species were born in build-ups and explosions?

Well, that itself was discovered using the normal kind of logic that scientists use everyday, so dialectics can&#39;t exactly claim that "crown".


As for LSD and the infinite universe, that is not exclusively dialectical. The reasons given by dialecticians tend to be, but even just simple formal logic excludes the possibility of a finite universe. It&#39;s just straightforward materialism. If everything comes from something, you have an infinite chain of causality. Period. There is no "time outside of time", where nothing was there, and then there was. There is no infinitely small starting point, requiring an infinitely large amount of energy to explode into the universe we see today.

Observations of the material universe indicate that it&#39;s expanding, strongly suggesting finity. Big Bang theory tells us that the universe began as a singularity, not how that singularity came about. Also, a finite universe does not require an infinite amount of energy to exist.

Besides, a universe infinite in time is impossible in it&#39;s current form due to the laws of thermodynamics (If the universe has been around for an infinite amount of time then the whole universe would be the same temperature - infinity is more than enough time for total entropy to set in), and a universe infinite in space is impossible due to the light speed barrier.

The Big Bang theory has been tested by the world&#39;s best cosmologists and has not been found wanting.


No reason at all to believe in a finite universe, the "beginning" is just god through the back door.

Utter bullshit. Big Bang theory requires no supernatural element.

[LSD]

Originally posted by Stephen J. Gould+--> (Stephen J. Gould)If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices.[/b]

I would tend to agree with Gould here, especially as he is not "endorsing" the "dialectical". What he is saying is that gradualism is often an unconscious assumption in Western thought and that it it&#39;s important that we not let ourselves be misled by it.

Basically, he is pointing out that researcher bias cannot be dismissed and that it is essential that we be as open minded as possible.

That is the very opposite of "dialectics", however, because "dialectics" by its nature nescessistates that we restrict our studies. That&#39;s what "law" does after all, it restricts.


Originally posted by Stephen J. Gould+--> (Stephen J. Gould)I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.[/b]

Absolutetely on the ball&#33; :)

How any one can claim after reading that that Gould in any way supports "dialectics" as a "philosophy of science" is beyond me. He quite clearly makes his opinion known here and it&#39;s that "dialectics" as formulated is too "grandiose" to be useful.

It would "nonsensical", in his words, to try and apply "dialectics" exclusively.

Now, supporters will rebut this by claiming that "dialectics" is "not" exclusive and that it&#39;s meant to be used in "conjunction" with "formal" science. All that I can say to that, though, is what&#39;s the point then?

Basically we are ending up with the conclusion that sometimes things are punctial and sometimes they are gradual or perhaps sometimes negation is negated and sometimes it is not or how about sometimes quantitative change leads to qualitative change but sometimes it doesn&#39;t.

Frankly, that seems like a frightful waste of time.

If "dialectical" "laws" are not actually "law" then they are useless to science. Either "dialectical" rules are always true or we bunk the whole business.

Remember, a broken clock is right twice a day, that doesn&#39;t mean it shoudn&#39;t be thrown away.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
Well, that quote pretty much says it, as was repeated over and over again, dialectics is not a replacement for formal logic. It&#39;s a complimentary philosophy that better explains more complex processes.

But, again, what&#39;s the point?

If the "dialectical" premises are correct then they will be found to be so independently. Where is the nescessity to complicate science by introducing an entirely new "philosophy" to address issues that are already being addressed?

In other words, the word "dialectics", and what using it signifies, is the problem here.

Science, after all, is not a monolithic or unchanging entity. It is constantly updating and improving itself and often this means adopting from previously "unscientific" fields.

Herbal or orthomolecular medicine, for example, is often considered to be unscientific because so many of its claims are "spiritual" or "new age" in nature. That said though, there is some convincing evidence that some so-called "alternative" treatments are effective. Accordingly, today we see science attempting to measure exactly how and why that is so that the beneficial aspects can be properly utilized.

So, similarly, it is not impossible that there may be some value hiddin within esoteric Prussian metaphysics. And if that turns out to be true, then we should definitely attempt to integrate those principles with our current understanding but we should not adopt "dialectics" in any form, merely because it happens to be occasionaly right.

Science is based on certain basic logical and empirical principles. Adding an entire set of new axioms undermines that base.

It doesn&#39;t matter whether it&#39;s called a "theory" or a "revelation" or a "philosophy"; anything that is inserted into logic or science without rigorous evidence behind it, destroys the entire framework of scientific enquiry.

Luckily, of course, most scientists realize this and have no patience for "dialectics". Like with the PETA movement, this is a cause which is doomed from the start. The world has quite simply moved on.

Hegel&#39;s time is over.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
Whether it does or not is irrelevant, it&#39;s been shown to be useful in eliminating unfruitful hypotheses and to be useful in approaching processes of change from the right perspective.

Except it hasn&#39;t&#33;

For all the talk of the value of "dialectics" and "dialectical" materialism, we have still yet to see concrete evidence that, as a "philosophy", "dialectics" yields results.

Sure, it&#39;s had a few hits and misses along the way. "Dialecticians" love to claim that Soviet scientists understood quantum physics before western ones. That&#39;s despite the fact, however, that much of their findings were later discredited and that most of the truly important beakthroughs (like those by Hawking, Penrose, and Feynman) were made by non-"dialectical" researchers.

And I don&#39;t think that we even have to go into the Lysenko debacle. Let&#39;s just keep in mind that as far as the Soviet "dialecticians" of the day were concerned, Lysenko was perfectly correct.

And that, you see, is the problem with "dialectics". For all its claims of being scientific, the fact is that it is eminently hard to determine just what is "proper" or "inproper" use of the "dialectic"&#33;

Unlike with the scientific method, there is no established means of verifying "dialectical" conclusions. Who&#39;s to say what&#39;s the antithesis or what&#39;s the synthesis? How does one determine when a qualitative change occurs as opposed to a exogenously induced one?

A science that isn&#39;t scientific is worse than useless. And unless "dialectics" finds away to make itself falsifiable, there is simply no point in trying to use it.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
How much time would have been saved had Darwin not subscribed to gradualism, and realized then and there that species were born in build-ups and explosions?

Well, how much time would have been lost if Mendel had assumed that all changes are punctual?

You see the problem is not in making wrong assumptions, it&#39;s in making any assumptions. That includes both a "dialecal" and non-"dialectical" ones.

The critical difference, however, is that logic does not rely on gradualism. Despite the claims of "dialecticians", logic is quite capable of dealing with punctuated change. Indeed, even in evolution itself, the theory of punctuated equilibrium has a substantial following, even though virtually no evolutionary biologists have even heard of "dialectics".

Cultural biases and hidden assumptions are always a problem in science. People do tend to subconsciously inject their societal beliefs into their research. But the solution to "western" bias is not to replace it with a Prussian one&#33;

Cultural bias must be eliminated not modified. And assuming that "all change is punctual" is just as illogical as assuming that all change is gradual.

Again, accepting "dialectics" requires that we accept its chief tenants as valid, and since these tenants are intrinsically assumptive, buying into "dialectics" requires that we critically undermine science.

Now, supporters of "dialectics" like to speak a great deal about "philosophies" and how "dialectics" is not a science it&#39;s a "guiding philosophy". The problem with that statement, though, is that, far from restricting itself to scientific philosophy, "dialectical" materialism makes claims about the world.

For one obvious example, it claims that quantitative change "must" result in qualitiative change. Well, that&#39;s not a statement about "science", it&#39;s a statement about material reality.

More than that, it&#39;s an unfounded one&#33;

The fact is that sometimes change is gradual and sometimes quantitative changes just go continue.

Likwise the "law" of the "negation of the negation", if applied to, say, biology, would result in entirely eronious conclusions. Many biological processes operate completly circularly. And the same is true for science accross the board.

You see, the lesson here is not that "formal logic" is bad, it&#39;s that bias is bad.

So should scientists keep open minds? Yes. Should they explore all possibilites when conducting research? Yes. Should they adopt "dialectical materialism" as a "philosophy of science"? Absolutely not.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
As for LSD and the infinite universe, that is not exclusively dialectical. The reasons given by dialecticians tend to be, but even just simple formal logic excludes the possibility of a finite universe.

No it doesn&#39;t

Again, if that were true, there would be more support for the steady state theory. As it stands, of course, virtually no one believes in a changeless universe.

There was a time, however, about 50 years ago, when steady state was dominant. What happened? It was proven to be incorrect. Now, is the Big Bang a "perfect" replacement? Do we know "everything" about it? Of course not, but to reject that which we do know because it is incomplete, is the hight of suicidal arrogance.

A lot of our knowledge is rudimentary and undeveloped, but it&#39;s still better than it&#39;s been at any time in human history, and it took absolutetly no "dialectics" to get us here.

I read the book, Fehr, and so I understand the position you&#39;re coming from. But take it from someone who has at least a basic grasp of theoretical physics, Grant and Wood are dead wrong.

I did a little research, by the way, and neither of them are scientists or have any training in the field. Worse than that, they show, in their writing, a complete lack of understanding on even the elementary issues.

For one thing, they outright reject any scientific theory based on deductive mathematics, even if it is later confirmed through observation. Rather they seem to be endorsing some kind of bizarre meta-inductive approach by which all science must not only be entirely based on obervations but must also be intuitive to retired British politicians&#33; :D

Basically, if they don&#39;t get it, it "must" be wrong. Sorry, but I am going to take the consensus of the entire scientific field over the personal opinion of a couple of labour MPs.


Che y [email protected]
It&#39;s just straightforward materialism. If everything comes from something, you have an infinite chain of causality. Period.

Current theoretical physicical data indicates that the universe exploded several billion years ago. Whether this was truly the "beginning" or not, we can&#39;t know, but that the universe has been expanding from a central point over billions of years and that radiation from an enormous central explosion is still detectable ...these are facts.

How does your "constant universe" theory account for CMB? How does it explain Penzias&#39; and Wilson&#39;s discovery?

Your desire to throw out the entire Big Bang theory because it is not perfect and does not explain all the facts is disturbingly similar to the Creationistss claim that evolution must be bunked because it is not perfect and does not explain all the facts.

Neither, of course, are valid.


Che y Marijuana
No reason at all to believe in a finite universe, the "beginning" is just god through the back door.

Bullshit.

It may initially seem "uncomfortable" that the Big Bang seems vaguely Judeo-Christian, but that&#39;s a complete and utter coincidence.

Think about it. There are only two real possibilites for a creation myth: either, one, the universe has always existed (like in some Native American traditions), or two, it had a begining (such as in Judaic and classical myths).

Now, throughout history, the latter has been far more common than the former. Why? Because people have observed that the world around them is finite and so projected this characteristic back to the universe itself.

In other words, you&#39;re looking at this backwards and giving Christianity far too much credit.

You see, the reason that Christians today believe that the universe had a begining is because, thousands of years ago, it was observed that everything is finite. And that obervation, as far as we can tell, was correct.

Myths you see, do not invent themselves.

Furthermore, it is also worth noting that most scientists today do not believe that the Big Bang was the true begining, merely the begining of this universe. It&#39;s somewhat complex, but one of the more interesting ideas currently flaoting around is that Big Bang like events are actually the result of the collision of two paradimensional planes resulting in the release of mass energies at a singularity point.

Obviously, this is all speculation, but to claim that the Big Bang nescessitates "God" is utter rubbish.

Scientists accept the theory of the Big Bang because observational and theoretical data support it. Period&#33;

I&#39;ll grant you, it would make a much finer argumentative tool if science told us that the universe didn&#39;t have a beginning. It would certainly make it easier to debunk Christian mythology.

But it is just as dangerous to abuse science to disprove religion as it is to abuse it prove it.

[Guest1]

I&#39;ll post a more in-depth reply when I get back, I have to go continue organizing the elections now, but I wanted to reply more specifically on the finite universe.

In saying that everything has a beginning, including the universe, you are asserting that the universe is a "thing". The reality is, the universe does not exist beyond a concept or a word, except as a collection of things. It is not an object that has a beginning or an end. It is an abstract classification we use to describe the vast mixture of emptiness and matter in varying concentrations that exists.

What you are looking for is, is there a beginning to matter, which again, is just an abstract classification we use to describe the material universe. I think it&#39;s pretty clear that there is no singular beginning, even if in our portion of the universe an explosion (or many) may have occurred. It is quite possible that there are explosions in the history of the universe, but to say that any of it could be a beginning point is wrong.

As for whether or not they are scientists, it&#39;s a book that takes a broad view of the history and present debates within science, and uses that as a basis to draw philosophical conclusions. It is perfectly within their right to do that, so long as their sources are well-documented, which they are.

[LSD]

In saying that everything has a beginning, including the universe, you are asserting that the universe is a "thing".

That&#39;s a semantic coincidence, not an important theoretical distinction.

No, the universe is not a "thing" in the traditional meaning of that word. But it does have a distinct existance. That is, the "universe" as described by general relativity means space-time and all that it encompases.

It&#39;s possible that the universe is more than this (especially if string theory is correct), but that the universe is distinct is not disputed.

I think that a lot the confusion here is actually due to nothing more than the complexity of the subject. Those of us who have not studied advanced theoretical physics or topology or quantum mechanics are simply not equiped with the cognitive tools to fully process this information.

Instead we try to approch these questions from "intuitive" or "common sense" angles, which is, of course, completely futile.

The universe is not restricted to human "common sense", it is far far more complex than that. And to imagine that the vast intricacies of existance can be described through Prussian metaphysics is blindingly naive.


What you are looking for is, is there a beginning to matter, which again, is just an abstract classification we use to describe the material universe.

Not just matter, matter-energy.

And, again, within theoretical physics, "matter" is not an "abstract", it&#39;s very much a concrete form. Our tendency in lay speech to be vague and nonspecific in these terms does not reflect on the scientific community.

And speaking of that community, over the years, it&#39;s managed to come up with some very established and very credible laws of matter and energy. One of those is the second law of thermodynamics.

As I&#39;m sure you know, it bascially states that entropy increases. Now if, as you claim, matter has no finite begining, then it must have been here for ever which would, naturally, nescessitate that entropy has been increasing infinitely; that entropy has infinitely increased.

Obviously that hasn&#39;t happened.

Now, your book basically dismisses thermodynamics as "irrelevent" to large systems, but offers absolutely no evidence in favour of this radical diversion. Rather that fact that the second law leads to some "bleak" conclcusions is enough for them to dismiss the topic entirely.

This is quite similar to how they address other scientific mainstays. Ignoring them if they don&#39;t like them or openly assuming their nonexistance if they conflict with "dialectics".

And, always, their mantra is that "new discoveries are on the horizon", we "haven&#39;t discovered yet" the critical key that will prove them correct.

Well, sorry, but science doesn&#39;t allow that kind of reasoning. We work with the data we have now to construct the conclusions that make sense. Whether or not contradicting data will come later is something that we cannot say and we certainly cannot base a paradigm on the "future"&#33;

If there is no evidence in favour of "dialectics" today (and there isn&#39;t), then we must accept that its scientifically a non-issue. If someday that changes, we can bring up the topic again, but for now it&#39;s a moot subject.


I think it&#39;s pretty clear that there is no singular beginning

You may believe that, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

Again, neither of us are scientists, but thos who have devoted their lives to styudying this subject have reached a pretty coherent consensus. If the question was really as open as you insist it is, there would be far more contention among scientists.

The fact is, again, that all of our observational and theoretical data take us back to the same place.

We don&#39;t know if the Big Bang was the begining of existance, we do know that it was almost certainly the begining of our present universe and that basic scientific laws dictate that the universe cannot be infinite.

Again, our knowledge is still limited, but that does mean that we should throw out that which we do know.


As for whether or not they are scientists, it&#39;s a book that takes a broad view of the history and present debates within science, and uses that as a basis to draw philosophical conclusions. It is perfectly within their right to do that, so long as their sources are well-documented, which they are.

Well, of course&#33;

I never denied that they had a "right" to publish the book. They had the "right" to publish any damn thing they wanted to, the question, however, is whether or not they are credible.

And, again, I must say that I found them to be extremely ignorant on the important questions and frustratingly rigid in their analyses.

Like I was pointing earlier, the problem with laymen approaching complex theoretical physics is that, most of the time, they don&#39;t understand it. So it is with this book.

The misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, and downright inaccuracies in that text are too numerous to count. I highly doubt that it was intentional, but, again, because the authors were largely ignorant about the subject at hand, a good deal of their "information" is just plain wrong.

An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, but there are situations in which authority is nescessary. You wouldn&#39;t want a fireman to assemble your car and you wouldn&#39;t trust a car mechanic to perform open heart surgery.

Likewise, when it comes to science, you really want it to be done by scientists: people with an understanding of the elements involved.

In this case, neither of the authors had any degree of training in any of the relevent fields.

And, since you raised the issue, it must be pointed out that in terms of citation, the book is woefully lacking.

Yes, they occasionaly document their claims, but in a 400 page book, they have barely 100 references.

By contrast, a 200 page Chomsky book that happens to be sitting on my desk has over 700 citations despite being half the size. And a Pinker book I have which is about the same size as Reason in Revolt has over 1000.

And neither of those books are contending anything particularly earth-shattering&#33; Not to the degree that your book is. When someone is contending that the entire scientific establishment is wrong and that a universally accepted theory is incorrect, there is a nescessity for even more scrupulousness.

Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. And, whether it be general relativity, the Big Bang, or singularities, this book makes some pretty extraordinary claims&#33;

Unfortunately, it fails to actually back any of them up with cold hard science.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I am away from home at present so I cannot reply to these comments.

I get back on Monday, so I will respond then.

[JimFar]

It is said that Marx wanted to write a short book on dialectics, in which he would spell out what he considered to be its "rational kernal," but he never got around to doing the book. It seems to me that Stephen Gould, in the short excerpt that I provided above, managed to come close in laying out the rational kernal of dialectics. For him, to the extent that there was any value at all in dialectics for science, it was as a heuristic for suggesting testable hypotheses concerning the behaviors of complex systems. In Gould&#39;s view, Engels&#39; "dialectical laws" have some value insomuch as they provided an alternative set of constraining prejudices to the ones prevalent in Western societies (i.e. recognizing that change can occur in discontinuous jumps as well as gradually, that complex systems can be understood holistically as well as reductively), and that&#39;s it. Dialectics, as Gould readily admitted, cannot prove or verify hypotheses; to do that requires usage of the traditional scientific methods of experimental testing in conjunction with ordinary inductive and deductive reasoning. To the extent that dialectics may have any value for science, it is in the context of discovery, not in the context of justification, where it has no value at all.


To push dialectics as possessing the exclusive truth about the world, would in Gould&#39;s view be nonsensical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

"Well, that quote pretty much says it, as was repeated over and over again, dialectics is not a replacement for formal logic. It&#39;s a complimentary philosophy that better explains more complex processes."

Well, once again, since you know as much logic as I do Martian, you are in no position to judge.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JimFar, thanks for those comments, but I fear that enlisting Gould to the lost DM-cause will do both it and his reputation no good. I have attempted to say why I think so at my site.

"It is said that Marx wanted to write a short book on dialectics, in which he would spell out what he considered to be its "rational kernal,""

Well, the fact that he never wrote this &#39;book&#39; suggest he came to the conclusion that it wasn&#39;t all that important.

And even if he had have done, the &#39;rational core&#39; of DM is non-existent. So it would have been a very short book indeed.

LSD: nice set of replies&#33;&#33;


Noxion: same comment&#33;

[piet11111]

i tried reading through this thread and i still dont know what dialectics is.

fortunatly i dont have any scientific ambitions so i can afford to leave the bullshitting to the professionals.

but the undeniable ability of dialectics to confuse poeple to the core seems to imply that its a tool for bullshitting and if some dialectician gets caught he/she can put forth the bulletproof defense that the person who states the emperor has no clothes simply failed to "grasp the dialectic"

untill someone can provide (understandable &#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;) evidence of dialectics as a usefull tool for whatever anything but bullshitting then im ofcourse ready to withdraw my accusation of dialectics being gibberish.

[JimFar]

It is said that a young heathen once came to Rabbi Hillel, demanding that he teach him the whole of Torah, while standing on one foot. The great rabbi, instead of being angered or flustered by this absurd demand, calmly replied that the whole of Torah can be summarized as "What is hateful to you, do not do unto others. All the rest is commentary. Now go and study."

It seems to me that piet11111 is making a somewhat similar request. Fortunately, I think Stephen Jay Gould provided us with an answer as to what is the rational core of dialectics. It can be summed as a few rules of thumb: (1) Recognize that change can occur in discontinuous jumps as well as gradually, especially when we are dealing with complex systems (2) Recognize that complex systems may display emergent as well as resultant properties. Gould held to the opinion that living organisms may have properties that are not reducible to the laws and concepts of physics and chemistry, although all biological phenomena is consistent with those laws and concepts. Consciousness, for example, may be an emergent property of organisms with a highly developed central nervous system. (3) Keep in mind that scientific explanations may be holistic as well as reductionist.

That seems to me to represent the rational core of dialectics. Everything else is bullshit. Now go and study.

[piet11111]

(1) Recognize that change can occur in discontinuous jumps as well as gradually, especially when we are dealing with complex systems (2) Recognize that complex systems may display emergent as well as resultant properties. Gould held to the opinion that living organisms may have properties that are not reducible to the laws and concepts of physics and chemistry, although all biological phenomena is consistent with those laws and concepts. Consciousness, for example, may be an emergent property of organisms with a highly developed central nervous system. (3) Keep in mind that scientific explanations may be holistic as well as reductionist.

and how does this differ from the scientific aproach ?
and why the need to talk gibberish that nobody understands ?

dialectics still make no sense to me.

[JimFar]

piet1111 wrote:


and how does this differ from the scientific aproach ?
and why the need to talk gibberish that nobody understands ?

dialectics still make no sense to me.

Like I said, everything else is just bullshit. Marxists shouldn&#39;t need to rely upon anything but what is good science. Anything else, is just an effort to bamboozle people (including oneself).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Forgive me for saying this Jim, but that would rule out everything Hegel ever wrote (to say nothing of the vast bulk of the meandering waffle Marxist &#39;philosophers&#39; have inflicted upon us).

And I think LSD dealt with your &#39;Gouldian&#39; points.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


Forgive me for saying this Jim, but that would rule out everything Hegel ever wrote (to say nothing of the vast bulk of the meandering waffle Marxist &#39;philosophers&#39; have inflicted upon us).

I don&#39;t know. It may just rule out only 95% of what he wrote. :)

The problem with Hegel, is that while he did uncover a few truths, he thoroughly buried them under tons and tons of metaphysical bullshit. No wonder the early analytical philosophers like Frege, Russell, and Moore wanted to bury him and be done with it. Nevertheless, an examination of the history of 20th century analytical philosophy suggests that despite analytical philosophy&#39;s anti-Hegelian origins, certainly quasi-Hegelian themes have appeared in the work of some of its leading figures, as Richard Rorty, amongst others have noticed. Quine&#39;s critique of logical necessity and Sellars&#39; attack on "giveness" in Rorty&#39;s view pave the way for new Hegelian (and Heiddegerian) projects of deconstruction. One thinks of such things like Quine&#39;s Duhemian holism, which seems to me to have a certain quasi-Hegelian character to it. Then there is also the case of Karl Popper. He wrote a famous anti-Hegelian essay, "What is dialectics?" but if one looks at his later philosophical work, much of it seems to have an almost quasi-Hegelian character, given the later Popper&#39;s evolutionism which characterized much of his thinking on cosmological, epistemological, and socio-political issues.

The Soviet philosopher, Igor Naletov in his book, Alternatives to Positivism (Moscow: Progress Books, 1984), made similar observations concerning Popper. As Naletov noted, Popper started out with a strongly anti-Hegelian, strongly anti-dialectical viewpoint but Naletov contends that as Popper developed his philosophy further especially in debate with the Vienna Circle he began to "...reproduce increasingly, though unconsciously, the ideas of German classical and, in particular, Hegelian dialectics.The more anti-positivistic he became, the louder sounded the Hegelian notes in his concept of objective knowledge, "inherent" knowledge, cosmic, physical, biological and cultural evolution." (pp. 256-7). Naletov goes on to argue that this evolution in Popper&#39;s thought can be understood if we "... take into account the similarity of the situations in European bourgeois philosophy in the middle of the 20th and the early 19th centuries." (p. 257).

Perhaps, Naletov went too far here, but I think he was basically on the money concerning Popper. Having said that, I must admit that I much prefer Frege, Russell, Popper, Quine, and Wittgenstein to Hegel. And if both Rorty and Naletov are correct about analytical philosophers recapitulating certain Hegelian or quasi-Hegelian themes, it is clear that to the extent that the analytical philosophers do this, they do so in a much more rigorous, not to say lucid manner, than did the old Prussian professor. In one of these threads, someone commented that if Hegel or the other dialecticians did manage to discover some genuine truths, then those truths will be rediscovered by scientists with the advantage that they will not bury them under the kind of metaphysical bullshit that we find in Hegel and most of the other dialecticians.

So yes, I am inclined to think that those Marxists who devote themselves to reading Hegel&#39;s Phenomenology of Spirit or his Science of Logic are probably wasting time that could be better used elsewhere. There are just a few simple truths in his work that we need concern ourselves with and once we do that then we can safely bury the old Prussian.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim, once again thanks for that, but I am fully aware of the themes (or sell-outs&#33;) derived from Hegel in some forms of modern analytic philosophy, but I put that down to the inherent idealism in all traditional thought (which accounts for the easy slide into metaphysics (linguistic Idealism, as I call it) you find even in Rorty, and certainly in Popper (what a fraud he is&#33;)).

I try to account for this in Essay Twelve at my site.

[There on the lines that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling-class; so no wonder modern exemplars of traditional thought back-sassed into idealism.]

That is why I say a plague on all of them, and I curse their fig-trees to the tenth generation. I can find nothing useful in 95% of traditional thought, and this rises to 100% in Hegel (but see below) -- houses of cards as W used to say.

The only part of Hegel worth bothering with is his ethics, and even then, you can get much of that from Aristotle, Rousseau and Kant (among others).

"it is clear that to the extent that the analytical philosophers do this, they do so in a much more rigorous, not to say lucid manner, than did the old Prussian professor. In one of these threads, someone commented that if Hegel or the other dialecticians did manage to discover some genuine truths, then those truths will be rediscovered by scientists with the advantage that they will not bury them under the kind of metaphysical bullshit that we find in Hegel and most of the other dialecticians."

Ok, perhaps we can learn something from Hegel&#39;s page numbering.

But, the &#39;truths&#39; he hit on there we already knew about (e.g., one follows two, etc.).

That is about all I am prepared to concede.

Make of that crumb what you will.

However, I am with Hume on what should be done with his books.

[Schelling is a far better philosopher, and he knew how to construct an argument -- unlike Hegel. A writer well worth reading.]

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2006, 12:56 PM

(1) Recognize that change can occur in discontinuous jumps as well as gradually, especially when we are dealing with complex systems (2) Recognize that complex systems may display emergent as well as resultant properties. Gould held to the opinion that living organisms may have properties that are not reducible to the laws and concepts of physics and chemistry, although all biological phenomena is consistent with those laws and concepts. Consciousness, for example, may be an emergent property of organisms with a highly developed central nervous system. (3) Keep in mind that scientific explanations may be holistic as well as reductionist.

and how does this differ from the scientific aproach ?
and why the need to talk gibberish that nobody understands ?

dialectics still make no sense to me.
The book, Reason in Revolt: Dialectical Philosophy and Modern Science proves dialectical materialism in a brief way. Read it online at http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hey, Axey Baby, you missed this:

What do you think about your two sub-gurus, W and G, believing that light-bulbs can change themselves?

Don&#39;t beleive me? Check out that Bible you believe in, RIRE:

"Dialectics explains that change and motion involve contradiction and can only take place through contradictions.... Dialectics is the logic of contradiction....

"So fundamental is this idea to dialectics that Marx and Engels considered motion to be the most basic characteristic of matter.... [Referring to a quote from Aristotle] [t]his is not the mechanical conception of motion as something imparted to an inert mass by an external &#39;force&#39; but an entirely different notion of matter as self-moving....

"The essential point of dialectical thought is not that it is based on the idea of change and motion but that it views motion and change as phenomena based on contradiction.... Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The dialectical law which expresses this idea is the unity and interpenetration of opposites....

"The universal phenomena of the unity of opposites is, in reality, the motor-force of all motion and development in nature. It is the reason why it is not necessary to introduce the concept of external impulse to explain movement and change -- the fundamental weakness of all mechanistic theories. Movement, which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter....

"...Matter is self-moving and self-organising." [Woods and Grant &#39;Reason In Revolt&#39;, (Wellred Publications, 1995), pp.43-45, 47, 68, 72. Emphases added.]

In that case, there is no need to look for external causes -- so they tell us --; matter just moves itself.

Pretty clear, n&#39;est ce pas?

This must mean that, say, if a cat gets run over by two drunken dialecticians in a Honda, the cat actually kills itself and spreads its own carcass across the road, spontaneously -- and the Honda and the drunken DM-fans had nothing to do with it, it was just bad timing. Nature self-made such suicidal felines.

This is incredibly innovative science, so important, we should re-name the book these two jokers wrote: &#39;Reason in Remission&#39;, as a result.

Whaddya think?

[Anyway, all is not lost: That quote also means that that god-awful book (&#39;Reason in Reverse&#39;) wrote itself.

That should get W and G off the hook, since it helps explain why their book contains so many serious errors. They were self-made. No need to look for an external cause.

Pretty useful this diabolical logic or yours, Axey.]

Anyway, I think you missed the post by LSD (above) which trashes Woods and Grant&#39;s amateur attempt to defend pre-scientific, mystical Hermetcism.

And finally, remember: the dialectical demon might rub you out one day, as you self-destruct like that cat.

Stay away from Hondas; they seem to get it cross....

[Axel1917]

And of course, Rosa insists on not understanding anything at all. Not surprising. You wonder why the dialecticians pretty much stopped paying attention to you. I also doubt that LSD even understood the work, given that anti-dialiectical organizations have gotten nowhere. They have never overthrown the Borugeoisie once in history. And as for science, Gould himself used dialectical analysis in some of his works.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey Baby (summoned up enough courage to try to respond to scary little Rosa?):

"You wonder why the dialecticians pretty much stopped paying attention to you."

No need to wonder, you (collectively and severally) cannot reply.

"I also doubt that LSD even understood the work..."

Well, once more, as you seem to be a comrade who struggles with anything more complex than the funny pages, you are in no position to judge, or even to point any fingers (always assuming you have total control over them).

But, any comments on the pre-Aristotelian science Woods and Grant have sold you?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 07:17 PM
And of course, Rosa insists on not understanding anything at all. Not surprising. You wonder why the dialecticians pretty much stopped paying attention to you. I also doubt that LSD even understood the work, given that anti-dialiectical organizations have gotten nowhere. They have never overthrown the Borugeoisie once in history. And as for science, Gould himself used dialectical analysis in some of his works.
This is exactly the sort of thing that deeply troubles me about DM. If you attempt a deconstruction of their "logic" they almost immediately claim that you "don&#39;t understand"

It&#39;s becoming more and more apparent to me that DM is simply sophistry masqeurading as some sort of logic.

[piet11111]

Originally posted by NoXion+Apr 14 2006, 08:24 PM--> (NoXion @ Apr 14 2006, 08:24 PM)
[email protected] 14 2006, 07:17 PM
And of course, Rosa insists on not understanding anything at all. Not surprising. You wonder why the dialecticians pretty much stopped paying attention to you. I also doubt that LSD even understood the work, given that anti-dialiectical organizations have gotten nowhere. They have never overthrown the Borugeoisie once in history. And as for science, Gould himself used dialectical analysis in some of his works.
This is exactly the sort of thing that deeply troubles me about DM. If you attempt a deconstruction of their "logic" they almost immediately claim that you "don&#39;t understand"

It&#39;s becoming more and more apparent to me that DM is simply sophistry masqeurading as some sort of logic. [/b]
well fortunatly enough you are not alone in understanding the nature of DM.

its been long overdue to ditch it into the thrashcan of bad ideas.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Noxion, absolutely right, but the doctrines found in DM work a little bit like those you find in Theology (such as the Trinity); they are meant to mystify (and to be accepted by naive believers, who do not ask awkward questions -- like Axel, CYM and Red Che) so that a few dialectical guru&#39;s (like Woods and Grant, Bob Avakian, Gerry Healy, etc.) can dominate the small ponds they control (and which they keep small, by splits and expulsions, to maintain control).

Apart from at my site, this is well argued for here:

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Bac...xt27/Cults.html (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext27/Cults.html)

Mirrored here:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general434.html

and here:

http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/touri...liticalleft.htm (http://www.csj.org/infoserv_articles/tourish_dennis_politicalleft.htm)

Summarised here:

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Bac...xt27/Intro.html (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext27/Intro.html)

And in more detail in Tourish, D., and Wohlforth, T. (2000), On The Edge. Political Cults Right And Left (M E Sharpe, New York).

Follow the discussion here:

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story...ch_text=tourish (http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60690&search_text=tourish)

A member of rapidly-dwindling rump left over from the break-up of the Militant tendency (in the UK), but not the &#39;true faith&#39; splinter that Axel is locked into, the SP -- in fact they booted Woods and Grant out -- attempts to respond to Tourish (who was a prominent member of the Irish franchise of the Militant before it self-destructed (so you see, things do change themselves&#33;), and a very intertesting (and long) debate ensues.

Tourish wins hands down.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Piet:

"well fortunatly enough you are not alone in understanding the nature of DM.

its been long overdue to ditch it into the thrashcan of bad ideas."

Correct, too; but DM so badly serves its novitiates that they find they can no longer think for themselves, or argue logically (since their theory champions logic that pre-dates Aristotle -- which is why they adhere to a doctrine that teaches that light bulbs can change themselves - and cannot explain why it does not imply this, as you can see with Axel and his floundering &#39;replies&#39;).

[piet11111]

DM seems a bit cult-ish leaving no room for clear explanations or free thought.
and if you are not able to understand the gibberish and say that the emperor has no clothes then they simply say you dont grasp the dialectics.

but i fail to understand the atraction of DM has to some atleast to poeple that want communism.
DM to me is very counter-productive as nobody manages to understand it and if new poeple looking to communism as an alternative stumble upon this mountain of rubbish they are highly likely to reject communism.

i know i would had i not stumbled upon redstar2000&#39;s website that is clear to understand and to form an opinion from.

[LoneRed]

oh yes, lets all ditch dialectics for demarchy, come on everybody, throw your name in the hat now, dont be shy

[LSD]

I also doubt that LSD even understood the work

I understood it all too well.

I understood that they completely ignored 50 years of hard science, I understood that they ditched basic theromodymaics in favour of Prussian metaphysics, I understood that they didn&#39;t offer a shred of proof for their claims, and, while we&#39;re engaged in ad hominem attacks, I understood that neither of the authors have any training in science whatsoever.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the sole credential that either Mr. Woods or Mr. Grant have is that they used to be in the British Labour party&#33;

Not exactly an Oxford PhD, is it? :lol:


given that anti-dialiectical organizations have gotten nowhere. They have never overthrown the Borugeoisie once in history.

Neither has a non-authoritarian one, a non-statist one, a non-peasant one, or a non-"deformed" one.

You know why?

Because those kinds of parties are excellent at industrializing third world societies and bringing them into modern capitalism.

Those kind of parties also tend to be easily influenced by aesthetically useful "doctrines". "Dialectics" is the perfect tool for an authoritarian "socialist". It&#39;s completely "Marxist" and completely incomprehensible.

When one is attempting to convince a population that dictatorial rule is actually somehow "communistic", having the mystical "dialetic" to fall back on is remarkably useful.

It zero relevence, however, when discussing real communist revolution.


And as for science, Gould himself used dialectical analysis in some of his works.

Is that what you think? Because I remember him saying something about "dialectics" being "nonsensical" and overly "grandiose"...

Oh wait, here it is:

Originally posted by Stephen J. Gould
I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this [dialectical materialist] philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.

[JimFar]

In addition to the articles that Rosa cites concerning political sectarianism there is also John Lacny&#39;s essay on the ISO in the United States,"The Joy of Sects" (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Sectariana/ISO.html) , which covers not dissimilar experiences on the other side of the pond.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim:

Thanks for that reference.

Having just read it (but I seem to recall seeing it a while back), all I can say is that my experience of the UK/SWP is somewhat different. Indeed, I joined them bcause it was clear to me after several years examining the ideas and practices of other groups that it was the least sectarian party I could find.

[By the way, are you the Jim Far... who, until recently, was in e-mail correspondence with me?]

LoneVoice:

"oh yes, lets all ditch dialectics for demarchy..."

Who is arguing for that?

I think we are all arguing that we ditch dialectics becuase it makes no sense (as I and others have attempted to show), and we all prefer science to mystical speculation.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


[By the way, are you the Jim Far... who, until recently, was in e-mail correspondence with me?]

Yes, and please remind me to give your regards to Ralph Dumain. :P

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In that case, get him the check this out:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Dumain.htm

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


n that case, get him the check this out:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Dumain.htm

I had thought of doing that before but then I thought better of it. My computer has sensitive ears. I don&#39;t think it could take the yelling. :)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim:

You are a wus...

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by LSD+Apr 15 2006, 12:32 AM--> (LSD @ Apr 15 2006, 12:32 AM)
I also doubt that LSD even understood the work

I understood it all too well.

I understood that they completely ignored 50 years of hard science, I understood that they ditched basic theromodymaics in favour of Prussian metaphysics, I understood that they didn&#39;t offer a shred of proof for their claims, and, while we&#39;re engaged in ad hominem attacks, I understood that neither of the authors have any training in science whatsoever.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the sole credential that either Mr. Woods or Mr. Grant have is that they used to be in the British Labour party&#33;

Not exactly an Oxford PhD, is it? :lol:


given that anti-dialiectical organizations have gotten nowhere. They have never overthrown the Borugeoisie once in history.

Neither has a non-authoritarian one, a non-statist one, a non-peasant one, or a non-"deformed" one.

You know why?

Because those kinds of parties are excellent at industrializing third world societies and bringing them into modern capitalism.

Those kind of parties also tend to be easily influenced by aesthetically useful "doctrines". "Dialectics" is the perfect tool for an authoritarian "socialist". It&#39;s completely "Marxist" and completely incomprehensible.

When one is attempting to convince a population that dictatorial rule is actually somehow "communistic", having the mystical "dialetic" to fall back on is remarkably useful.

It zero relevence, however, when discussing real communist revolution.


And as for science, Gould himself used dialectical analysis in some of his works.

Is that what you think? Because I remember him saying something about "dialectics" being "nonsensical" and overly "grandiose"...

Oh wait, here it is:

Stephen J. Gould
I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this [dialectical materialist] philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well. [/b]
Your bottom quote from Gould proves my point. Dialectics does not replace formal logic. It supplements it.

With all of your nonsense of the revolutions automatically leading to capitalism and such, that alone speaks of your void of understanding of the subject at hand.

Woods and Grant also cited a good deal of scientific works. And you dare to accuse them of not offering a shred of proof? You anti-Marxists are all the same in that you are dogmatic sectarians.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey Baby:

"Dialectics does not replace formal logic. It supplements it."

Perhaps you would like to tell us how you know this for a fact if you know about as much logic as I do about Tibetan?

[Answer, you merely copied it off other dialecticians, who copied it off still others..., and then you simply believed what you read, and did not bother to check. so, you are all the same -- and are thus living proof of the accuracy of the law of identity, at least here.]

"Woods and Grant also cited a good deal of scientific works. And you dare to accuse them of not offering a shred of proof?"

I grant you they do go in for selective quotation -- a bit like creationsist do to &#39;prove&#39; the Book of Genesis is compatible with modern science.

And it is no more impressive.

And they ignore the mountain of evidence that refutes DM.

[At my site, I take apart what little evidence they have stitched together to support their &#39;theory&#39;, and outline some of the material they ignore -- but you are too scared to look.]

But, anyway, if you think this is proof, then that just confirms how logically-challenged you really are.

But we knew that already.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Dialectics does not replace formal logic. It supplements it.

Even then, DM is not necessary. Does the British Meteorological Office use dialectics when making weather predictions? Structural Engineers?

You see, every day scientists deal with extremely complex everchanging systems without resorting to dialectics.


You anti-Marxists are all the same in that you are dogmatic sectarians.

You had better stop calling non-dialecticians anti-Marxists. Marxism doesn&#39;t need DM.

[piet11111]

the most important characteristic of a communist is being very critical about everything.
dialecticians are clearly not critical about dialectics so if you want to label someone anti-marxist you should start with yourself axel1917

also your statement that poeple that reject dialectics are not marxist is very typical for a dialectician that is cornered.
perhaps you should try working on counter arguments instead of resorting to name calling.

[LSD]

If anyone here holds Reason in Revolt in particularly high regard and can&#39;t bear to see it critisized, you might want to skip over this post because I am about to demolish it.


Your bottom quote from Gould proves my point. Dialectics does not replace formal logic. It supplements it.

:lol:

And how does it do that?

When would it be appropriate to rely on "dialectical" "rules" and when are they "nonsensically" "grandiose"?

You see, again, "dialectical materialism" is not a "philosophy of science" and it is not some sort of meta-structural paradigm. Raqther, tt makes very specific assertions about the real world.

One such assertion is that "quantitative change always leads to qualitative change"; put more simply that&#39;s all change is punctual.

Now either that "law" is true or it isn&#39;t. There isn&#39;t some kind of "suplemental" truth between the two.

Gould&#39;s point in that quote, which you seemed to have completely missed, was that not only is this "law" not universal, but it would be "nonsensical" to think so.

In other words, "dialectics" is wrong&#33;


Woods and Grant also cited a good deal of scientific works.


Well, actually ...no.

As I already pointed out, in an over 400 page book, they cited barely 100 sources; most of which are nonscientific in nature.

For instance, in their 3-page bibliography, Hegel is referenced 5 times, Engles and Lenin are each referenced twice, and Trotsky is referenced an astounding 9 times.

That&#39;s right about ten percent of the "scientific works" these authors chose to use were written by one Leon Trotsky&#33; :lol:

Moving on, Marx is referenced 5 times, Trotkyist maintstays like Conforth and Dietzgen each get 3 mentions, and even Stepanova gets a listing with her biography of Engles.

So, Ok, we&#39;ve now covered about 25% of the entire bibliography and we&#39;ve yet to see a single scientist&#39;s name&#33;

What about the remaining 75%? Well its full of such names as Lefebvre, Spinoza, and Plekhanov. Theologists, philosophers, and lots of dead Russians but, again, no scientists&#33;

Finally, when we comb the list we see that Isaac Asimov is cited -- I guess he&#39;s almost a scientist :lol: -- as are such classical figures as Aristotle, Darwin, Freud, Piaget, and Popper (quoting the textbook, as it were). Important names of the last century, however, nanes like Rosenberg, Penrose, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauling, Watson, Gamow, Planck, Einstein, none of these are to be found.

Indeed, of the again, barely 100 souces listed at the end of this book, and excluding the "classics", there are a sum total of three serious scientists who&#39;s names appear.

The first is Stephn Hawking, one of the most important quantum physicists ever, but the only work of his that they cite is his popularly addressed A Brief History of Time. Since they are, effectively, trashing his entire body of work, you&#39;d think that they&#39;d reference one of his scientific papers ...but no.

The next scientist they cite is Richard Feynman, another brilliant quantum and theoretical physicist who radically transformed our understanding of the universe. As with Hawking, however, Wood and Grant choose to only reference a non-technical piece of his, namely a set of lectures that he gave in 1969.

Finally, the remaining scienists unfortunate enough to be included in this shameful list is Stpehn J. Gould. In fact they cite him 4 times. Again, though, they use his non-scientific works and do it entirely out of context.

So, what are we left with?

In a 400 page book that makes some astounding assertions about science and the universe, we find not a single citation of a serious scientific paper, not a single refernce to any technical work, only about a dozen books written by actual scienists, and only three written in the last 25 years.

That&#39;s, again, in a 400 page boook.

In case you&#39;re unaware of the current standards for academic rigourousness, if this were an actual scientific piece, there would have to be at least several thousand up to date and peer-reviewed sources in a book this size.

...they have three.


And you dare to accuse them of not offering a shred of proof?

Indeed I do&#33;

They may have fluffed out their biblography with names like Aristotle, Freud, Hobbes, and Popper. But, in terms of scientific proof, you&#39;re damn right there isn&#39;t a shred&#33;

In fact, most damningly, whenever they actually try and back up their ludicrous claims, they stop citing serious people and end up falling back on such discredited loons as E.J. Lerner&#33; :lol:

In chapter 9, The Big Bang, in which they make some of their most radical claims about the universe, out of a total of 76 footnotes, 9 were Engles, 5 were Hegel, and an astounding 13 were the aforementioned Lerner.

Of the rest, we again see names like Asimov and Freud, but actual scientists appear only 3 times; Hawking once, Feynman twice.

Now both Hawking and Feynman were instrumental in crafting our current understanding of the universe, so one could hardly try and deconstruct that understanding without referencing ther works.

In typical form, however, Wood and Grant don&#39;t actually cite any of their technical papers. Rather in all three incidences, they reference direct quotes of a non-scientific nature.

For instance, they quote Feynam as saying that the problem of time is a "measurement" one, and then procede from this to declare that relativity is wrong&#33; :lol:

Later on, they quote Hawking as saying that we&#39;ve "come a long way since Ptolemy and Aristotle" only to mock him and decry him as being arrogant.

This is not the way that a serious scientific book works. A real study of physics presents arguments based on science not rhetoric. If Woods and Grant, retired politicans, really think they can disprove Feynman and Hawking, Quantum physicists, they have yet to demonstrate it. So far all they&#39;ve done is call them names.

I guess that works in politics, but in science, it just doesn&#39;t cut it.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 05:39 PM







From LSD:



:lol:

And how does it do that?

It states that it is not universal in the sense that formal logic is not replaced by dialectics, but rather supplemented by it. Rosa has not bothered to make any basic understandings.




When would it be appropriate to rely on "dialectical" "rules" and when are they "nonsensically" "grandiose"?

Clearly you don&#39;t understand Marxism, now do you? Why don&#39;t you read what Marx and Engels had to say on the subject at hand? Woods and Grant also noted some examples in Reason in Revolt, but clearly you don&#39;t remember any of them.


You see, again, "dialectical materialism" is not a "philosophy of science" and it is not some sort of meta-structural paradigm. Raqther, tt makes very specific assertions about the real world.

What nonsense&#33; To say that Marxism was made by mere assumptions&#33;



One such assertion is that "quantitative change always leads to qualitative change"; put more simply that&#39;s all change is punctual.

Now either that "law" is true or it isn&#39;t. There isn&#39;t some kind of "suplemental" truth between the two.

Gould&#39;s point in that quote, which you seemed to have completely missed, was that not only is this "law" not universal, but it would be "nonsensical" to think so.

And again, you don&#39;t understand basic things. Formal logic breaks down at certain points, and dialectics supplements it here. That is what Gould was saying. That is what Woods and Grant are saying. That is what Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky said. Your attacks on dialectical materialism, in reality, are a rehash of Bourgeois philosophical criticisms made against Marxism in the name of "updating Marxism."&#33;


In other words, "dialectics" is wrong&#33;

In other words, you are acting like one of those OI hooligans by attacking something that you don&#39;t understand&#33;




Well, actually ...no.

As I already pointed out, in an over 400 page book, they cited barely 100 sources; most of which are nonscientific in nature.

For instance, in their 3-page bibliography, Hegel is referenced 5 times, Engles and Lenin are each referenced twice, and Trotsky is referenced an astounding 9 times.

They pioneered the science of dialectics. Reason in Revolt is obviously intended to be a starting point for things. Woods and Grant themselves said that it was not intended to be a replacement for reading many works on dialectics and science. Of course, you chose to leave out this little detail, of which destroys your rant. How dishonest.


That&#39;s right about ten percent of the "scientific works" these authors chose to use were written by one Leon Trotsky&#33; :lol:

Moving on, Marx is referenced 5 times, Trotkyist maintstays like Conforth and Dietzgen each get 3 mentions, and even Stepanova gets a listing with her biography of Engles.

So, Ok, we&#39;ve now covered about 25% of the entire bibliography and we&#39;ve yet to see a single scientist&#39;s name&#33;

They needed to do a good deal of citation of the original dialecticians to get people to see what dialectics really is (something you have not seen&#33;).




What about the remaining 75%? Well its full of such names as Lefebvre, Spinoza, and Plekhanov. Theologists, philosophers, and lots of dead Russians but, again, no scientists&#33;

See above.




Finally, when we comb the list we see that Isaac Asimov is cited -- I guess he&#39;s almost a scientist :lol: -- as are such classical figures as Aristotle, Darwin, Freud, Piaget, and Popper (quoting the textbook, as it were). Important names of the last century, however, nanes like Rosenberg, Penrose, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauling, Watson, Gamow, Planck, Einstein, none of these are to be found.

Uh, they do mention things about Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, and others. Clearly, you are not very good with reading comprehension. The book is largely intended for introducing people to Marxism. In an appendix to the US version, it was recommended that people read, at the very least, Gould&#39;s main works. This book does not pretend to be the most comprehsensive source out there on science. Nonetheless, it does show how dialectics applies to science, and it helps get people on track for understanding dialectics. I myself intend to read many scientific works when I have more spare time in the future.



Indeed, of the again, barely 100 souces listed at the end of this book, and excluding the "classics", there are a sum total of three serious scientists who&#39;s names appear.

According to your unauthoratative, uneducated "synposis" of the book, that is.



The first is Stephn Hawking, one of the most important quantum physicists ever, but the only work of his that they cite is his popularly addressed A Brief History of Time. Since they are, effectively, trashing his entire body of work, you&#39;d think that they&#39;d reference one of his scientific papers ...but no.


What is wrong with breaking Hawking&#39;s mystical aspects at their weakest link?




The next scientist they cite is Richard Feynman, another brilliant quantum and theoretical physicist who radically transformed our understanding of the universe. As with Hawking, however, Wood and Grant choose to only reference a non-technical piece of his, namely a set of lectures that he gave in 1969.

Again, the book is intended to be a quick work to get people acquainted with dialectical materialism. Were you expecting Woods and Grant to write a 50 volume set?


Finally, the remaining scienists unfortunate enough to be included in this shameful list is Stpehn J. Gould. In fact they cite him 4 times. Again, though, they use his non-scientific works and do it entirely out of context.

Again, in an appendix to the US edition, it was recommended that Marxists read at least Gould&#39;s main works. You have no clue what you are talking about, just like Rosa and Co.


So, what are we left with?

In a 400 page book that makes some astounding assertions about science and the universe, we find not a single citation of a serious scientific paper, not a single refernce to any technical work, only about a dozen books written by actual scienists, and only three written in the last 25 years.

That&#39;s, again, in a 400 page boook.

And again, you don&#39;t understand the purpose of the book or what was covered in it, nwo do you?


In case you&#39;re unaware of the current standards for academic rigourousness, if this were an actual scientific piece, there would have to be at least several thousand up to date and peer-reviewed sources in a book this size.

...they have three.

Again, you do not understand anything. See above posts.



Indeed I do&#33;

And your "argument" holds no water.




They may have fluffed out their biblography with names like Aristotle, Freud, Hobbes, and Popper. But, in terms of scientific proof, you&#39;re damn right there isn&#39;t a shred&#33;

And again, this simply isn&#39;t true. The work is intended to get people started, and it was recommended to do futher reading, according to Woods and Grant. You are putting words in the mouths of Woods and Grant. Of course, people like you and Rosa must always restor to dishonesty to make your arguments appear to look well, when in reality, they are shoddy.


In fact, most damningly, whenever they actually try and back up their ludicrous claims, they stop citing serious people and end up falling back on such discredited loons as E.J. Lerner&#33; :lol:

In chapter 9, The Big Bang, in which they make some of their most radical claims about the universe, out of a total of 76 footnotes, 9 were Engles, 5 were Hegel, and an astounding 13 were the aforementioned Lerner.


In more recent editions, they briefly noted new insight into the big bang theory. Not to mention that there have been debates over the big bang in marxist.com articles.


Of the rest, we again see names like Asimov and Freud, but actual scientists appear only 3 times; Hawking once, Feynman twice.

Now both Hawking and Feynman were instrumental in crafting our current understanding of the universe, so one could hardly try and deconstruct that understanding without referencing ther works.


Again, things broke in the mysticsm at the weakest links. Those that wish to go more in-depth should read more works.



In typical form, however, Wood and Grant don&#39;t actually cite any of their technical papers. Rather in all three incidences, they reference direct quotes of a non-scientific nature.

For instance, they quote Feynam as saying that the problem of time is a "measurement" one, and then procede from this to declare that relativity is wrong&#33; :lol:

Later on, they quote Hawking as saying that we&#39;ve "come a long way since Ptolemy and Aristotle" only to mock him and decry him as being arrogant.

This is not the way that a serious scientific book works. A real study of physics presents arguments based on science not rhetoric. If Woods and Grant, retired politicans, really think they can disprove Feynman and Hawking, Quantum physicists, they have yet to demonstrate it. So far all they&#39;ve done is call them names.


Again, see above posts.



I guess that works in politics, but in science, it just doesn&#39;t cut it.

See above posts. Perhaps you are not capable of thinking.

[piet11111]

:o it appears axel1917 is going to get thrashed im definitly going for email notifications for this thread.

(sorry if this is spam but i need to post for email notifications)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It states that it is not universal in the sense that formal logic is not replaced by dialectics, but rather supplemented by it.

And I have stated why this is not necessary in my mention of the Met Office.


Clearly you don&#39;t understand Marxism, now do you? Why don&#39;t you read what Marx and Engels had to say on the subject at hand?

You haven&#39;t demonstrated why DM is essential to marxism, only asserted it. Not good enough.


What nonsense&#33; To say that Marxism was made by mere assumptions&#33;

Assumptions that are found to be true upon observation of the material universe.


And again, you don&#39;t understand basic things. Formal logic breaks down at certain points, and dialectics supplements it here. That is what Gould was saying. That is what Woods and Grant are saying. That is what Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky said.

Again, you make assertions and back them up by appealing to authorities unqualified on the subject of the philosophy of science. Even when you reference Gould you do so with one of his non-peer reviewed articles.


They pioneered the science of dialectics. Reason in Revolt is obviously intended to be a starting point for things. Woods and Grant themselves said that it was not intended to be a replacement for reading many works on dialectics and science. Of course, you chose to leave out this little detail, of which destroys your rant. How dishonest.

You&#39;re not supposed to attack the foundations of other subjects when writing articles on an introductory level.


They needed to do a good deal of citation of the original dialecticians to get people to see what dialectics really is (something you have not seen&#33;).

They also need to cite many peer-reviewed articles written on the subject of cosmology when proposing a radical change in how we approach it. They fail to do this.


Uh, they do mention things about Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, and others. Clearly, you are not very good with reading comprehension. The book is largely intended for introducing people to Marxism.

An introductory book to Marxism does not need to attack the strongest cosmological theories. In fact, it does not have to have anything to do with cosmology at all.

So what is it? an introduction to Marxism or an attempt to disprove the strongest theories in cosmology?


What is wrong with breaking Hawking&#39;s mystical aspects at their weakest link?

Because A Brief History Of Time is not an academic piece. It is intended for general consumption by the public, and as such has to be simplified so that the reader does not need a PhD to understand it.


In more recent editions, they briefly noted new insight into the big bang theory. Not to mention that there have been debates over the big bang in marxist.com articles.

Because as we all know, marxist.com is overflowing with qualified cosmologists :lol:


Again, things broke in the mysticsm at the weakest links.

Then they should have cited Hawking&#39;s actual papers on the subject, not a pop science book intended for general consumption.

[LSD]

It states that it is not universal in the sense that formal logic is not replaced by dialectics, but rather supplemented by it.

I asked for an expansion and you give me repetition. How typically "dialectical". <_<


What nonsense&#33; To say that Marxism was made by mere assumptions&#33;

That&#39;s not what I said.

What I said was that "dialectics" is based on a set of assertions. Assertions like "the law of the negation of the negation" and the "law of quantitative into qualitative".

If you are contending that these "dialectical" "laws" are not in fact assertions, I&#39;m perfectly willing to entertain any evidence you wish to present on the subject. So far, though, even the most ardent "dialecticians" do not claim to have actually empircally verified Hegel&#39;s guess-work. Rather they tell us to simply "accept" it as "philosophy".

Well, there&#39;s a name for things that you "accept" without proof: assertions&#33;


And again, you don&#39;t understand basic things. Formal logic breaks down at certain points, and dialectics supplements it here.

Again, provide examples&#33;

Where does "logic break down" and where does "dialectics" come in?

At this point I think I&#39;ve pretty coherently shown that you can&#39;t fall back on Reason in Revolt as a crutch. It&#39;s attempts to "demonstrate" "dialectics" are clearly laughable as are its efforts to understand science.

If you want to claim that logic is "incapable" of dealing with change or whatnot, then you&#39;re going to have to provide your own plain-language examples.


That is what Gould was saying.

:( At this point I have no choice but to conclude that you are simply incapable of understanding the english language, because there is no other explanation for your inability to read what Gould was saying.

For the, hopefuly, last time, this is what Gould said:

Originally posted by Stephen J. Gould+--> (Stephen J. Gould)I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this [dialectical materialist] philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.[/b]

Do you understand now? He&#39;s saying that "gradualism sometimes works"&#33; That means that "sometimes" quantitative change does not produce qualitative change; a direct contradiction of a "dialectical materialist law".

Gould, of course, also went on to say that:

Stephen J. Gould
If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices.

But that is not an endorsement of "dialectics". Rather, he is critisizing all "constraining prejudices" be they "Western" or "dialectic".

You see "formal logic" does not "require" gradualism. "Formal logic" accounts for punctuality all the time. Rather there tends to be a cultural bias in favour of gradual solutions and that is what Gould is condemning.

All assertions are destructive, whether they be "Aristotlian" or "dialectical". Logic must be empirical and falsifiable and "dialectics" is neither.


They pioneered the science of dialectics. Reason in Revolt is obviously intended to be a starting point for things. Woods and Grant themselves said that it was not intended to be a replacement for reading many works on dialectics and science.

Then people need to stop citing it as some sort of "tome".

Reason in Revolt is a work of amateur pretention but, honestly, that&#39;s probably the best that Woods and Grant could hope for anyways. Neither of them has any training in any of the relevent fields and so to expect that they could competently write on them is ludicrous.

So you&#39;re right, is unfair to expect "science" from a couple of retired labour MPs. But by the same token, it is unfair to hold up their book as some sort of "authority" on anything.


Uh, they do mention things about Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, and others.

They may "mention" them, but they don&#39;t reference them.

And, incidently, those "mentions" are pathetic.

In chapter 9, the Big Bang, Niels Bohr, one the most preeminant scientists in the fields is "mentioned" exactly twice. The first is a slanderous accusation against him (of course they don&#39;t cite any source). This maligning is replete with name-calling (he is refered to as "the idealist physicist") and innuendo ("Bohr was quite prepared to...").

The second "mention" is just more name-calling, although this time in the service of a greater goal. Here the authors are trying to convince the reader that they&#39;re "not really" contradicting Einstein and so claim that Einstein "spent the last decades of his life fighting against the subjective idealist views of Heisenberg and Bohr".

And that&#39;s it&#33;

In a fifty-page chapter discussing cosmology, Niels Bohr is "mentioned" twice, he is cited not at all, and he is referenced never.

Grant and Wood could have confronted Bohr&#39;s theories directly, instead they, again, chose to call the man names.

The same is true for Heisenberg and "others".


This book does not pretend to be the most comprehsensive source out there on science.

No, but it pretends to be credible, something which I have demonstrated it to be far from.


Nonetheless, it does show how dialectics applies to science

No it doesn&#39;t&#33;

It may claim to do that, but, again, it doesn&#39;t actually back up any of its claims with evidence.

Now, I don&#39;t know how familiar you are with actual science writing. But in the real world of scientists, when one presents a radical contention regarding an established and credible theory, one is obligated to cite sources.

Woods and Grant don&#39;t do that.

When they, for instance, reject thermodynamics in the 8th chapter, the only person that they cite on the entire page is Leon Trotsky.

Similarly, in chapter 9, when they declare the universe to be "infinite", they rely solely on their own "common sense" and don&#39;t cite anyone&#33;

What Reason in Revolt "shows" is that "dialectics" applies to "dialectics", nothing more. Because the "science" that it discusses has no relation to the science of modern theoretical physics.

I mean, really, even a complete layman on the subject can see how flimsy their arguments are. But if you really want, I can continue presenting examples.

Again looking at chapter 9, on page 210, Wood and Grant reject the concepts of singularities, relative space-time, and the Big Bang. Their argument for this is as follows:

1) theoretical physics involves a lot of theoretical discussion; theology also involves a lot of theoretical discussion, therefore theoretical physics is like theology and superstitious.
2) the big bang theory says the universe had a begining; the Church also says that the universe had a begining, therefore the big bang theory is superstious.
3) relative time is counter-intuitive, therefore its impossible
4) Engles thought the universe was infinite.

That is literally the sum total of their "arguments" against three fundamental theoretical physics concepts. I trust that it is quite clear to everyone how all four are obvious logical fallacies.

And before anyone thinks to accuse me of "dishonesty", I refer you to Reason in Revolt, chapter 9 (http://www.marxist.com/science/bigbang.html). Search for the phrase "Passages such as this forcefully remind".


According to your unauthoratative, uneducated "synposis" of the book, that is.

And you disagree?

Tell me, then, who else do they cite that is of comparable repute? Other than Hawking, Feynman, and Gould, which scientists appear in the bibliography that you would consider modern, relevent, and significant?


What is wrong with breaking Hawking&#39;s mystical aspects at their weakest link?

What&#39;s "wrong" is that that isn&#39;t what they do.

They don&#39;t present Hawking&#39;s scientific arguments and then logically refute them, rather they present Hawking&#39;s historical opinion (that we&#39;ve progressed since Aristotle) and then make fun of him.

They don&#39;t actually present a reason why he&#39;s wrong, they just assume that he is and then procede to call him names.

Well that&#39;s not good science, hell it&#39;s not even bad science. It&#39;s actually nothing more than pathetic grade-school crap; calling people bad words because they disagree with you.

If Woods or Grant want to "break" Hawking&#39;s "mysticism" there was plenty of opportunity to do so. For one thing, they could have actually cited a single paper he wrote. They then could have laied out his argument and deconstructed it.

Not only did RIR fail to do the latter, it even failed to do the former&#33;


Again, the book is intended to be a quick work to get people acquainted with dialectical materialism. Were you expecting Woods and Grant to write a 50 volume set?

No, I wasn&#39;t "expecting" them to do anything. But if they set out to write a book on science they are obligated to be scientific.

If they weren&#39;t "up" to that task then they shouldn&#39;t have bothered; bad science is worse than useless.


Of course, people like you and Rosa must always restor to dishonesty to make your arguments appear to look well, when in reality, they are shoddy.

:lol:

"Dishonesty"? :rolleyes: You have yet to show a single instance where I was wrong on any of my specific charges, let along "dishonest" on them.

I have listed numerous reasons why Reason in Revolt is woefully lacking based on fundamental principles of science and academic rigourousness. If you wish to challange any of them, you are invited to, although I do warn you that, unlike Grant and Wood, I check my facts.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey Baby:

"Rosa has not bothered to make any basic understandings."

What does that randomly-typed sentence mean?

"Formal logic breaks down at certain points, and dialectics supplements it here."

Once again, you keep saying this, but since you (and Woods and Grant) know no logic, you are in no position to judge.

And who said this:

"And again, you don&#39;t understand basic things....you are acting like one of those OI hooligans by attacking something that you don&#39;t understand&#33;"?

Goodness, it was Axel&#33;

And for once, you got something right -- so why are you attacking Formal Logic when you know no Formal logic?

"You have no clue what you are talking about, just like Rosa and Co."

Well, at least I have read RIRE (many times, I am afraid, and made detailed notes on it), but you refuse to read anything I have written -- so how would you know?

"Of course, people like you and Rosa must always restor to dishonesty to make your arguments appear to look well, when in reality, they are shoddy."

Again, how are you failing to be dishonest yourself if you comment on things of which you are ignorant (like Logic), and have not read what I have written -- nor seem capable of responding to it.

And any comment on Woods and Grant&#39;s pre-Aristotelian science?

"Dialectics explains that change and motion involve contradiction and can only take place through contradictions.... Dialectics is the logic of contradiction....

"So fundamental is this idea to dialectics that Marx and Engels considered motion to be the most basic characteristic of matter.... [Referring to a quote from Aristotle] [t]his is not the mechanical conception of motion as something imparted to an inert mass by an external &#39;force&#39; but an entirely different notion of matter as self-moving....

"The essential point of dialectical thought is not that it is based on the idea of change and motion but that it views motion and change as phenomena based on contradiction.... Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The dialectical law which expresses this idea is the unity and interpenetration of opposites....

"The universal phenomena of the unity of opposites is, in reality, the motor-force of all motion and development in nature. It is the reason why it is not necessary to introduce the concept of external impulse to explain movement and change -- the fundamental weakness of all mechanistic theories. Movement, which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter....

"...Matter is self-moving and self-organising." [Woods and Grant &#39;Reason In Revolt&#39;, (Wellred Publications, 1995), pp.43-45, 47, 68, 72. Emphases added.]

In that case, there is no need to look for external causes -- so they tell us --; matter just moves itself -- and light-bulbs can change themselves.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LSD, excellent responses, by the way, but:

"Now, I don&#39;t know how familiar you are with actual science writing. But in the real world of scientists, when one presents a radical contention regarding an established and credible theory, one is obligated to cite sources."

Well, I actually linked to a site which published genuine scientific papers, and copied a page ot two, so comrades like Axel (who seems to know little science, and no logic at all) could see the difference between real science and the amateur criticism of it, but it went straight over their heads.

So don&#39;t hold your breath on that one&#33;

They haven&#39;t a clue what hard science should look like, and that is why they accept the &#39;laws&#39; of dialectics based on a few pages of annecdote.

In order to prove even a minor principle in science, it takes months of work, piles of fresh evidence, and rigorous argument -- and any evidence appended must be subject to re-testing; and even then it can take years to change things.

But, these &#39;major additions&#39; to human knowledge, these &#39;laws of dialectics&#39;, are accepted by DM-fans based on a few pages of indirect quotation and far too much waffle copied from Hegel.

Hard science?

Do bears s**t in the Vatican?

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by LSD+Apr 15 2006, 10:19 PM--> (LSD &#064; Apr 15 2006, 10:19 PM)
It states that it is not universal in the sense that formal logic is not replaced by dialectics, but rather supplemented by it.

I asked for an expansion and you give me repetition. How typically "dialectical". <_<


What nonsense&#33; To say that Marxism was made by mere assumptions&#33;

That&#39;s not what I said.

What I said was that "dialectics" is based on a set of assertions. Assertions like "the law of the negation of the negation" and the "law of quantitative into qualitative".

If you are contending that these "dialectical" "laws" are not in fact assertions, I&#39;m perfectly willing to entertain any evidence you wish to present on the subject. So far, though, even the most ardent "dialecticians" do not claim to have actually empircally verified Hegel&#39;s guess-work. Rather they tell us to simply "accept" it as "philosophy".

Well, there&#39;s a name for things that you "accept" without proof: assertions&#33;


And again, you don&#39;t understand basic things. Formal logic breaks down at certain points, and dialectics supplements it here.

Again, provide examples&#33;

Where does "logic break down" and where does "dialectics" come in?

At this point I think I&#39;ve pretty coherently shown that you can&#39;t fall back on Reason in Revolt as a crutch. It&#39;s attempts to "demonstrate" "dialectics" are clearly laughable as are its efforts to understand science.

If you want to claim that logic is "incapable" of dealing with change or whatnot, then you&#39;re going to have to provide your own plain-language examples.


That is what Gould was saying.

:( At this point I have no choice but to conclude that you are simply incapable of understanding the english language, because there is no other explanation for your inability to read what Gould was saying.

For the, hopefuly, last time, this is what Gould said:

Originally posted by Stephen J. [email protected]
I emphatically do not assert the general "truth" of this [dialectical materialist] philosophy of punctuational change. Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.

Do you understand now? He&#39;s saying that "gradualism sometimes works"&#33; That means that "sometimes" quantitative change does not produce qualitative change; a direct contradiction of a "dialectical materialist law".

Gould, of course, also went on to say that:

Stephen J. Gould
If gradualism is more a product of Western thought than a fact of nature, then we should consider alternate philosophies of change to enlarge our realm of constraining prejudices.

But that is not an endorsement of "dialectics". Rather, he is critisizing all "constraining prejudices" be they "Western" or "dialectic".

You see "formal logic" does not "require" gradualism. "Formal logic" accounts for punctuality all the time. Rather there tends to be a cultural bias in favour of gradual solutions and that is what Gould is condemning.

All assertions are destructive, whether they be "Aristotlian" or "dialectical". Logic must be empirical and falsifiable and "dialectics" is neither.


They pioneered the science of dialectics. Reason in Revolt is obviously intended to be a starting point for things. Woods and Grant themselves said that it was not intended to be a replacement for reading many works on dialectics and science.

Then people need to stop citing it as some sort of "tome".

Reason in Revolt is a work of amateur pretention but, honestly, that&#39;s probably the best that Woods and Grant could hope for anyways. Neither of them has any training in any of the relevent fields and so to expect that they could competently write on them is ludicrous.

So you&#39;re right, is unfair to expect "science" from a couple of retired labour MPs. But by the same token, it is unfair to hold up their book as some sort of "authority" on anything.


Uh, they do mention things about Heisenberg, Bohr, Einstein, and others.

They may "mention" them, but they don&#39;t reference them.

And, incidently, those "mentions" are pathetic.

In chapter 9, the Big Bang, Niels Bohr, one the most preeminant scientists in the fields is "mentioned" exactly twice. The first is a slanderous accusation against him (of course they don&#39;t cite any source). This maligning is replete with name-calling (he is refered to as "the idealist physicist") and innuendo ("Bohr was quite prepared to...").

The second "mention" is just more name-calling, although this time in the service of a greater goal. Here the authors are trying to convince the reader that they&#39;re "not really" contradicting Einstein and so claim that Einstein "spent the last decades of his life fighting against the subjective idealist views of Heisenberg and Bohr".

And that&#39;s it&#33;

In a fifty-page chapter discussing cosmology, Niels Bohr is "mentioned" twice, he is cited not at all, and he is referenced never.

Grant and Wood could have confronted Bohr&#39;s theories directly, instead they, again, chose to call the man names.

The same is true for Heisenberg and "others".


This book does not pretend to be the most comprehsensive source out there on science.

No, but it pretends to be credible, something which I have demonstrated it to be far from.


Nonetheless, it does show how dialectics applies to science

No it doesn&#39;t&#33;

It may claim to do that, but, again, it doesn&#39;t actually back up any of its claims with evidence.

Now, I don&#39;t know how familiar you are with actual science writing. But in the real world of scientists, when one presents a radical contention regarding an established and credible theory, one is obligated to cite sources.

Woods and Grant don&#39;t do that.

When they, for instance, reject thermodynamics in the 8th chapter, the only person that they cite on the entire page is Leon Trotsky.

Similarly, in chapter 9, when they declare the universe to be "infinite", they rely solely on their own "common sense" and don&#39;t cite anyone&#33;

What Reason in Revolt "shows" is that "dialectics" applies to "dialectics", nothing more. Because the "science" that it discusses has no relation to the science of modern theoretical physics.

I mean, really, even a complete layman on the subject can see how flimsy their arguments are. But if you really want, I can continue presenting examples.

Again looking at chapter 9, on page 210, Wood and Grant reject the concepts of singularities, relative space-time, and the Big Bang. Their argument for this is as follows:

1) theoretical physics involves a lot of theoretical discussion; theology also involves a lot of theoretical discussion, therefore theoretical physics is like theology and superstitious.
2) the big bang theory says the universe had a begining; the Church also says that the universe had a begining, therefore the big bang theory is superstious.
3) relative time is counter-intuitive, therefore its impossible
4) Engle&#39;s thought the universe was infinite.

That is literally the sum total of their "arguments" against three fundamental theoretical physics concepts. I trust that it is quite clear to everyone how all three are obvious logical fallacies.

And before anyone thinks to accuse me of "dishonesty", I refer you to Reason in Revolt, chapter 9 (http://www.marxist.com/science/bigbang.html). Search for the phrase "Passages such as this forcefully remind".


According to your unauthoratative, uneducated "synposis" of the book, that is.

And you disagree?

Tell me, then, who else do they cite that is of comparable repute? Other than Hawking, Feynman, and Gould, which scientists appear in the bibliography that you would consider modern, relevent, and significant?


What is wrong with breaking Hawking&#39;s mystical aspects at their weakest link?

What&#39;s "wrong" is that that isn&#39;t what they do.

They don&#39;t present Hawking&#39;s scientific arguments and then logically refute them, rather they present Hawking&#39;s historical opinion (that we&#39;ve progressed since Aristotle) and then make fun of him.

They don&#39;t actually present a reason why he&#39;s wrong, they just assume that he is and then procede to call him names.

Well that&#39;s not good science, hell it&#39;s not even bad science. It&#39;s actually nothing more than pathetic grade-school crap; calling people bad words because they disagree with you.

If Woods or Grant want to "break" Hawking&#39;s "mysticism" there was plenty of opportunity to do so. For one thing, they could have actually cited a single paper he wrote. They then could have laied out his argument and deconstructed it.

Not only did RIR fail to do the latter, it even failed to do the former&#33;


Again, the book is intended to be a quick work to get people acquainted with dialectical materialism. Were you expecting Woods and Grant to write a 50 volume set?

No, I wasn&#39;t "expecting" them to do anything. But if they set out to write a book on science they are obligated to be scientific.

If they weren&#39;t "up" to that task then they shouldn&#39;t have bothered; bad science is worse than useless.


Of course, people like you and Rosa must always restor to dishonesty to make your arguments appear to look well, when in reality, they are shoddy.

:lol:

"Dishonesty"? :rolleyes: You have yet to show a single instance where I was wrong on any of my specific charges, let along "dishonest" on them.

I have listed numerous reasons why Reason in Revolt is woefully lacking based on fundamental principles of science and academic rigourousness. If you wish to challange any of them, you are invited to, although I do warn you that, unlike Grant and Wood, I check my facts. [/b]
Did you even read any of my previous posts? You clearly understood nothing I said. You wonder why I (or anyone else as well) don&#39;t bother with an in-depth refuation of your points. You are so hopelessly ignorant it isn&#39;t even funny. You still claim that the work is something that it was never intended to be, a large work composed of many thick volumes. The Rosa puppets are hopelessly doomed. Our tendency is getting places, unlike your scattered sects. Dialectics is real, and if you bothered analyzing things and reading up on Marxism, you would know that. Most of Rosa&#39;s fans are probably teens that think it is cool to like communism and scare their parents. They have a disdain for any kind of deep study or critical thought. There is a reason why geniuses as Marx and Engels used this stuff, you know. No one in history has successfully disproved dialectics. It never claimed to replace formal logic. An accumulation of gradual changes, for example, produces a qualitative leap. You have not read any basic Marx, Engels, or even Hegel, for that matter, as is evident from your posts. Had you known anything about what you were attacking, such simple facts would not escape you, now would they?

Why are you asking for examples if you really know as much about dialectical materialism as you claim to? Simple. You don&#39;t understand it, just as is the case of all of its critics.

piet11111, why don&#39;t you actually bother reading what acutal Marxists have to say about this subject? Rosa tries to appear smart by putting links to 30+ page essays in virtually every post and using "big words" wherever she can. Those that actually tried looking at her site all the way through found it utterly unimpressive. There is a reason why most dialecticians don&#39;t even bother responding in-depth to her. She has a history of evasiveness (see past threads of people arguing against her), not understanding basic concepts, abusive ad hominems, etc. Such use of ad hominems is clearly a weakness on her behalf.

Rosa and Co. are in strong opposition to Marxism. History has shown that anti-dialecticans have a tendency of not being all that leftist in the last analysis.

Of course, such dogmatic anti-dialectical attacks are expected. Most of this board is composed of anti-Marxist types. Most of them are probably juveniles as well.

Name one anti-dialectical tendency that has overthrown the rule of the Bourgeoisie. There hasn&#39;t been one. ;) Formalism is hopeless to explain everything, hence Gould, for example, using aspects of dialectics here and there. One of America&#39;s eighty-one "living legends," a giant thinker, had realized the importance of dialectics in science. Regardless of what one thinks of Woods and Grant, I think that that alone is proof of its importance and how it pertains to things.

[ComradeRed]

Um, Axel, were you intending to include a point in that post or were you intending to leave it on your head?



Why are you asking for examples if you really know as much about dialectical materialism as you claim to? Simple. You don&#39;t understand it, just as is the case of all of its critics. I suspect that dialecticians don&#39;t really know what it is, and this is why they shirk all explanations of it that also makes sense.

It doesn&#39;t matter how ingenius your "negation of the negation" may be, how "indescribably accurate" it may be, how "omniscient" you are because of it; if you can&#39;t explain how it works in words that people understand, it&#39;s irrelevant.

It&#39;s "so simple" that it can&#39;t do a geometric proof, or create a structure nearly as rich as Euclidean geometry. Try using that as an argument for dialectics: "So simple, it&#39;s useless" :lol:

...And impossible to describe without ranting off topic.


Name one anti-dialectical tendency that has overthrown the rule of the Bourgeoisie. There hasn&#39;t been one. wink.gif Formalism is hopeless to explain everything, hence Gould, for example, using aspects of dialectics here and there. One of America&#39;s eighty-one "living legends," a giant thinker, had realized the importance of dialectics in science. Regardless of what one thinks of Woods and Grant, I think that that alone is proof of its importance and how it pertains to things. Wow, such dialectical thought is astounding&#33; Maybe you need this (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=34861) more than anyone here.

"Why Einstein didn&#39;t use dialectics, therefore I&#39;m right and you&#39;re wrong" :lol:

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917)Most of them are probably juveniles as well.[/b]

Resorting to ageist slurs now are you?

Quite amusing actually, considering that your profile has your year of birth being 1985 which makes you 20....I&#39;m only two years younger than you, but am I a "juvenile"? :lol:

CyM actually discusses this in a manner that is informative, where as you just wish to publicly breast beat and call names. Let me give you a tip here, reserve this stuff for the internet....because in the real world, your attitude isn&#39;t going to impress anyone.

And any more ageism on your part, and I&#39;m going to bring it up in the Commie Club....I just don&#39;t find mocking the young an endearing quality.


Noxion
Structural Engineers?

I would love to know how you could apply dialectics to Structural Engineering....and what results you&#39;d get.

Interestingly, from my knowledge on the subject, Structural Engineers rely solely on mathematical calculations and yet you don&#39;t see many buildings falling down. :lol:

Where as the Soviet Union wasn&#39;t really any good at Construction and, for instance, recently the roof of a Moscow market collapsed because the load bearing capacity didn&#39;t take into account heavy snow....this building was built in 1972 I think, so maybe the Structural Engineers "dialectally" calculated the load bearing capacity&#33; :lol:

Actually, more seriously, and the DM fans should know about this, has dialectics ever been applied to Construction? Because I&#39;d probably understand that a lot better than dialectics applied to Science in general.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2006, 03:45 AM



From Comrade Red:


Um, Axel, were you intending to include a point in that post or were you intending to leave it on your head?

Did anyone bother reading those articles I posted?



I suspect that dialecticians don&#39;t really know what it is, and this is why they shirk all explanations of it that also makes sense.

I know what dialectical materialism is. Unlike you, I have read it and bothered understanding what it is about. I don&#39;t bother explaining things in depth becasue of the dogmatic responses I would get. I also don&#39;t have time to post very lengthy responses, of which would be required to explain dialectics.



It doesn&#39;t matter how ingenius your "negation of the negation" may be, how "indescribably accurate" it may be, how "omniscient" you are because of it; if you can&#39;t explain how it works in words that people understand, it&#39;s irrelevant.

The articles you ignored explain it. Due to my lack of time, there is a reason why I posted those links.




It&#39;s "so simple" that it can&#39;t do a geometric proof, or create a structure nearly as rich as Euclidean geometry. Try using that as an argument for dialectics: "So simple, it&#39;s useless" :lol:

Again, dialectical materialism supplements formal logic when it breaks down. It does not replace it altogether. This point is the one you guys keep missing.



...And impossible to describe without ranting off topic.

The anti-dialecticians are the ones ranting and acting like OI types, not me.




Wow, such dialectical thought is astounding&#33; Maybe you need this (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=34861) more than anyone here.

"Why Einstein didn&#39;t use dialectics, therefore I&#39;m right and you&#39;re wrong" :lol:

Again, dialectics and formal logic supplement each other. Revolutionary processes are quite dialectical, and again, no anti-dialectical movement has ever succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. As someone said about you awhile back, you make no attempt to analyze the real world.

Do a bit of reading:

http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide1.html

http://www.marxist.com/Theory/ABC.html

http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marx...icalmaterialism (http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marxism.html#dialecticalmaterialism)

"Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought."

-Engels, from Anti-Dühring ;)

[Jesus Christ!]

I too had no idea was it was until I read that dictionary.com definition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey Baby, you seem to be getting desperate, I think you are describing yourself here:

"Did you even read any of my previous posts? You clearly understood nothing I said. You wonder why I (or anyone else as well) don&#39;t bother with an in-depth refuation of your points. You are so hopelessly ignorant it isn&#39;t even funny."

Your ignorance of Formal Logic rivals that of Woods and Grant, but still you lecture the rest of us. I wonder you do not do evening classes in brain surgery.

And I seriously doubt you are capable of mounting an "in-depth refutation" of either LSD or myself.

Hence all your bluster.

You can always prove me wrong -- but then you are too scared to read any of my Essays, aren&#39;t you?

You can&#39;t even defend W&G&#39;s egregious return to pre-Aristotelian physics, for goodness sake&#33;

And now the plaintive cry of someone whose writings (&#39;he&#39; claims), or those of which he &#39;approves&#39; are being ignored:

"Did anyone bother reading those articles I posted?"

I certainly did, but then I am prepared to pay you the courtesy of trying to find out what you or other DM-fans have said before I pass comment.

You should try it some time.

It will at least prevent you from looking foolish in public, as here:

"Rosa tries to appear smart by putting links to 30+ page essays in virtually every post and using "big words" wherever she can..."

1) You haven&#39;t read them, so how do you know.

2) What &#39;big words&#39; do I use?

3) Did I hear you ever complain about the length of Das Kapital? Or that Marx used &#39;big words&#39;? Or tried to &#39;look smart&#39;? Have you even complained to W&G that their book is 400+ pages long?

"The Rosa puppets are hopelessly doomed. Our tendency is getting places, unlike your scattered sects..."

I can recall members of Militant back in the 1980&#39;s making similar grandiose claims (they were &#39;on the verge of taking over the UK Labour Party&#39;, etc.), just before those &#39;entryists&#39; kicked Woods and Grant out, and then nose-dived.

Like other Trotskyist sects, your track record does not inspire confidence.

Still you refuse to learn from experience.

[You might like to reflect on the fact that that makes you less-intelligent than unicellular organisms. Oh no, more &#39;big words&#39;&#33;]

Small wonder you are the non-existent deity&#39;s gift to failure.

You lot have tried dialectics, and it failed; get used to it.

[LSD]

You still claim that the work is something that it was never intended to be, a large work composed of many thick volumes.

Actually, if you&#39;d re-read my post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292052547), you&#39;d see that the only thing that I "claim" about the "work" is that it is uncredible.

I honestly don&#39;t care what the "intent" of Grant and Woods was, all that I know is that what they produced is unscientific rubbish.

A book doesn&#39;t have to be "large" or "thick" to be valid, it just has to cite its sources and rely on consistant and logical argumentation. RIR does neither. Rather it engages in blatant fallacial reasoning and resorts to ludicrous assertion and outright name-calling in its pursuite of the "dialectical".

My point is that not that Grant or Woods are "evil" or that they have somehow "done wrong". I, again, don&#39;t really care about them. My only purpose in deconstructing their book is to demonstrate, once again, that attempts to "defend" "dialectics" inevitably result in contradiction and fallacy.

I also want to remove this crutch that so much of the Trotskyist pro-"dialectical" crowd here loves to rest on so as to force them to think for themselves&#33;


No one in history has successfully disproved dialectics.

That&#39;s because there&#39;s nothing to disprove&#33;

If "dialectics" actually relied on scientific premises, we could analyze and deconstruct them, but as it is, "dialectical" laws are nothing but rote assertions blowing in the wind.

And, of course, what really damns "dialectics" is that while its supporters have been touting its "wisdom" for a century and a half now, no one has ever managed to prove it in the first place&#33;

Before you demand that we "disprove" this assorted pile of idealist Prussian metaphysical, you are obligated to present even a sliver of evidence in its defense.

No more excuses, no more evasions, no more reliance on horribly uncredible "tomes".

This is "put up or shut up" time, Axel, and you haven&#39;t "put".

If "dialectics" is the tool you claim it to be (a supplement to formal logic, philosophy of chang, etc...) then prove it&#33;


It never claimed to replace formal logic. An accumulation of gradual changes, for example, produces a qualitative leap.

Always??? :huh:

Are you claiming that gradualism is never the "end of the story"?

Well, it seems that your good friend Stephen J. Gould would disagree:

Originally posted by Stephen J. Gould
Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.

Wow, it seems that even your "supporters" disagree with you on this one&#33; :lol:

But "dialectics" supports you, doesn&#39;t it? "Quantitative change must lead to qualitative change", etc..?

Now you&#39;re somewhat equivocating by claiming that that first quantitative change can be gradualist in nature, but still, if you wish to assert the general validity of "dialectics", you must defend general punctualism, musn&#39;t you?

Otherwise, a key "dialectical law" is demonstrated to be false&#33; :o


Why are you asking for examples if you really know as much about dialectical materialism as you claim to?

Axel, it&#39;s because I understand "dialectics" that I&#39;m asking for examples. Because I understand that it doesn&#39;t apply to the real world.

The better question here is that if you "understand" this "philosophy" you defend so much, why can&#39;t you do as I ask?

For days now, you have evaded and avoided, coming up with excuse after excuse for why you aren&#39;t "obligated" to give an example of "dialectics" in real-world action.

Well, you&#39;re right. This is just a message board and you are not "obligated" to do anything. But if you want anyone to take you seriously in your defense of "dialectics", you&#39;re going to have to be willing to engage.

Endlesly referencing amateur works of fiction like Reason in Revolt just won&#39;t work anymore.

[ComradeRed]

I know what dialectical materialism is. Unlike you, I have read it and bothered understanding what it is about. I don&#39;t bother explaining things in depth becasue of the dogmatic responses I would get. I also don&#39;t have time to post very lengthy responses, of which would be required to explain dialectics. No, I have read the literature; it&#39;s just that the literature is incoherent.

The explanations that I have seen are just as incoherent, and when asked for elucidations the author usually gets very frustrated, throws her arms in the air, and walks away.

What I would prefer to see is a step-by-step application of dialectics, with justifications of each step in simple English. This too has been a source of frustration for dialecticians, for some reason.



Again, dialectical materialism supplements formal logic when it breaks down. It does not replace it altogether. This point is the one you guys keep missing. Perhaps you would know if dialectics are relational or not? I&#39;ve read from Re-inventing Marxism that dialectics is "relational" -- though it rather fails at succussfully explaining how.

And I would hate to point this out, but there a lot easier ways to present a relational system of analysis (even nonlinear ways)...with math (of course&#33;).

Where would this be applied, though? Where does logic "break down"?


Revolutionary processes are quite dialectical, and again, no anti-dialectical movement has ever succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. As someone said about you awhile back, you make no attempt to analyze the real world. :lol: And this comes from the lot that doesn&#39;t want to show their work&#33; :lol:

And your argument is illogical, the "Black Swan" fallacy. As Wikiversity points out: An inductive argument is one in which the premises support the conclusion, but do not necessitate it. In a good inductive argument, the truth is merely probable. An argument with inductive reasoning makes the milder claim. For example, an inductive argument:

1. I have seen four million swans, and they have all been white.
2. Therefore, all swans are white.

As we can see, simply because one has not seen a black swan, it does not follow that they do not exist.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by LSD+Apr 16 2006, 10:16 AM--> (LSD &#064; Apr 16 2006, 10:16 AM)











[/b]
From LSD:



Actually, if you&#39;d re-read my post (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292052547), you&#39;d see that the only thing that I "claim" the "work" is is uncredible.

I honestly don&#39;t care what the "intent" of Grant and Woods was, all that I know is that what they produced is unscientific rubbish.


Actually, it is not unscientific. The science in the work, I admit is very basic, but nonetheless it serves as a brief introduction that should encourage the reader to read other works on science and dialectical materialism. I would personally be interested in writing a long work, of which was far more in-depth than RiR, if I only had the time and experience necessary to embark on such a task.



A book doesn&#39;t have to be "large" or "thick" to be valid, it just has to cite its sources and rely on consistant and logical argumentation. RIR does neither. Rather it engages in blatant fallacial reasoning and resorts to ludicrous assertion and outright name-calling in its pursuite of the "dialectical".

RiR does cite its sources, although it largely deals with basic science. The argumentation throughout the book was consistent, although basic. As for name-calling, talk about hypocrisy, as that is what your leader, Rosa, does all the time&#33;



My point is that not that Grant or Woods are "evil" or that they have somehow "done wrong". I, again, don&#39;t really care about them. My only purpose in deconstructing their book is to demonstrate, once again, that attempts to "defend" "dialectics" inevitably result in contradiction and fallacy.

Actually, it does not result in the absurd (not dialectical) variety of contradiction or fallacy., The work is a very basic one. There are also basic phenomena that show the validity of dialectics, whether it be freezing water, the masses moving, evolution, all that is useful in the past being carried on in a higher form in the future, etc.




I also want to remove this crutch that so much of the Trotskyist pro-"dialectical" crowd here loves to rest on so as to force them to think for themselves&#33;


You are calling it a dialectical crutch? Has Dühring come back from the dead, posting under the useranme of LSD? :lol: It is not a crutch at all. The masses don&#39;t move in a formalistic manner, you know. They will take and not retalitate to all kinds of pinpricks for some time, until that the build-up of such pinpricks produces that critical point, i.e. that final pinprick dealt to them by the Bourgeoisie that sets them into motion. And this is just one simple example. It is little wonder why so many anti-dialecticians are pessemsitic about the masses being "too dumb to take action," as they don&#39;t understand how mass movement has dialectical character to it.


That&#39;s because there&#39;s nothing to disprove&#33;

This point of yours is completely devoid of originality and proof.



If "dialectics" actually relied on scientific premises, we could analyze and deconstruct them, but as it is, "dialectical" laws are nothing but rote assertions blowing in the wind.

Again, how is the work of Gould anti-scientific? Or the observation of how the masses move? Or how scientific communism is a return to primitive communism on a much higher qualitative level? Your points are based on complete misunderstandings of what dialectics actually is.



And, of course, what really damns "dialectics" is that while its supporters have been touting its "wisdom" for a century and a half now, no one has ever managed to prove it in the first place&#33;


Marx/Engels did. Lenin/Trotsky did. Gould did. Even Hegel did in a good deal of ways (see his points on freezing water or what a body is when it is alive vs. being a corpse at the examination of the anatomist).




Before you demand that we "disprove" this assorted pile of idealist Prussian metaphysical, you are obligated to present even a sliver of evidence in its defense.

I have done that. You repeatedly insist on ignoring Gould though. I put some very basic examples above as well.



No more excuses, no more evasions, no more reliance on horribly uncredible "tomes".

Yeah, Rosa&#33; :P



This is "put up or shut up" time, Axel, and you haven&#39;t "put".

And you have "put," hypocrite?




If "dialectics" is the tool you claim it to be (a supplement to formal logic, philosophy of chang, etc...) then prove it&#33;

See some those articles I put. Woods and Grant also proved it in a very basic way in RiR. Punctuated equlibrea is also excellent evidence of it.


Always??? :huh:

Are you claiming that gradualism is never the "end of the story"?


Well, it seems that your good friend Stephen J. Gould would disagree:

Stephen J. Gould
Any attempt to support the exclusive validity of such a grandiose notion would border on the nonsensical. Gradualism sometimes works well.

Gradualism does work well in some areas. Many basic things cannot be done without it. When it comes to other things, say the cause of WWI, it is different. The rival imperialist superpowers had already had a lot of tensions built up between them. The assassination of the archduke was the spark that hit the powder keg that had already been built up. Had the bullet missed, or of the person never assassinated the archduke, some other event would have surely put the war into action. Scientific communism is taking all that is useful from primitive communism and putting it into a higher form. The communism is no longer confined to mere consumption, it is worldwide, etc. If you cut up an organism and kill it, and then put the parts back together, it is still dead. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts in this case. These examples are very simple, and they prove that gradualism cannot solve everything.



Wow, it seems that even your "supporters" disagree with you on this one&#33; :lol:

Okay........



But "dialectics" supports you, doesn&#39;t it? "Quantitative change must lead to qualitative change", etc..?

Given that the gradual accumulation of the quantitative change does produce that critical point in which any more change will produce that qualitative leap.




Now you&#39;re somewhat equivocating by claiming that that first quantitative change can be gradualist in nature, but still, if you wish to assert the general validity of "dialectics", you must defend general punctualism, musn&#39;t you?

Otherwise, a key "dialectical law" is demonstrated to be false&#33; :o


Could you elaborate a bit more on what you mean about this?




Axel, it&#39;s because I understand "dialectics" that I&#39;m asking for examples. Because I understand that it doesn&#39;t apply to the real world.

The better question here is that if you "understand" this "philosophy" you defend so much, why can&#39;t you do as I ask?

Your previous posts, based on a misunderstading of the most basic examples, of which I have shown, indicate otherwise.

As for not doing what you ask, I am very short on time, and people like Rosa are in fact dogmatists that don&#39;t think critically. Arguing with them is about as fruitless as arguing with a religious fundamentalist.


For days now, you have evaded and avoided, coming up with excuse after excuse for why you aren&#39;t "obligated" to give an example of "dialectics" in real-world action.


Did anyone even read those articles? Not to mention that I have given very simple examples as well above.



Well, you&#39;re right. This is just a message board and you are not "obligated" to do anything. But if you want anyone to take you seriously in your defense of "dialectics", you&#39;re going to have to be willing to engage.

The last time we engaged, we got nothing but dogmatic nonsense from redstar2000 and Rosa. That is why you don&#39;t see us posting in great detail on the subject at hand anymore. It is rather pointless posting things when the opponent does not understand it, and keeps saying the same things over and over again no matter how badly they are losing (like the OI people do).


Endlesly referencing amateur works of fiction like Reason in Revolt just won&#39;t work anymore.

Basic science is not fiction, despite its simple character.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey:

"The last time we engaged, we got nothing but dogmatic nonsense from redstar2000 and Rosa."

Like what?

Check this out -- here are some things that change in quality with no nodal &#39;leaps&#39; contrary to what Engels says:

Melting or solidifying plastic, metal, rock, sulphur, tar, toffee, sugar, chocolate, wax, butter, cheese, and glass. As these are heated or cooled, they gradually change (from liquid to solid, or the reverse). In fact, it is difficult to think of a single phase transformation from solid to liquid (or vice versa) whcich is not gradual. Even the albumen of fried or boiled eggs changes slowly (but non-nodally) from clear to opaque white while they are being cooked.

Oh dear, yet more internal contradictions in dialectical materialism -- which means, according to Lenin, you will have to change your theory.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Axel1917
The science in the work, I admit is very basic, but nonetheless it serves as a brief introduction that should encourage the reader to read other works on science and dialectical materialism.

Well, as I requested a page back, could you link, or even recommend, an in-depth work on how dialectics can be applied to Construction processes....be it Structural Engineering, Architecture, Civil Engineering or whatever.

I&#39;ve had a search over the internet, and all I can find are pieces on Construction where someone has mentioned dialectics almost in passing....they say something like the contradiction between the Architectural design and the public is dialectical in nature.

But that&#39;s not what I&#39;m after....I would like to see a comprehensive work which explains both how and why dialectics can be used in the design of buildings.

If you know of no such work, perhaps you could forward my request to Mr. Woods and Mr. Grant....surely someone would have written on the subject.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Armchair, I suggest you do not hold your breath on this one.

Axel just ignores things that do not fit into his safe little world; a very &#39;scientific&#39; attitude, as I am sure you agree.

[LSD]

Actually, it is not unscientific.

No, actually it is.

Now, I have already demonstrated in-depth why that is, and I still await your refutation of these points. Before we begin another round of this, how about you address the points that have already been raised.

I refer to this (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292052385) and this (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292052547) post in specifc, pay special attention to the parts where I analyzed the bibliography as well as as where I deconstructed their "criticisms" of theoretical physics.


RiR does cite its sources

Yeah, all hundred. :lol:

Again, for a scientific work that is virtually nothing.

And as I&#39;ve already shown in detail those sources which it does bother to reference are almost universally worthless. Unfortunately, though, it appears I must repeat myself. <_<

In their 3-page bibliography, Hegel is referenced 5 times, Engles and Lenin are each referenced twice, and Trotsky is referenced an astounding 9 times.

That&#39;s right about ten percent of the "scientific works" these authors chose to use were written by one Leon Trotsky&#33; :lol:

Moving on, Marx is referenced 5 times, Trotkyist maintstays like Conforth and Dietzgen each get 3 mentions, and even Stepanova gets a listing with her biography of Engles.

So, Ok, we&#39;ve now covered about 25% of the entire bibliography and we&#39;ve yet to see a single scientist&#39;s name&#33;

What about the remaining 75%? Well its full of such names as Lefebvre, Spinoza, and Plekhanov. Theologists, philosophers, and lots of dead Russians but, again, no scientists&#33;

Finally, when we comb the list we see that Isaac Asimov is cited -- I guess he&#39;s almost a scientist :lol: -- as are such classical figures as Aristotle, Darwin, Freud, Piaget, and Popper (quoting the textbook, as it were). Important names of the last century, however, nanes like Rosenberg, Penrose, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauling, Watson, Gamow, Planck, Einstein, none of these are to be found.

Indeed, of the again, barely 100 souces listed at the end of this book, and excluding the "classics", there are a sum total of three serious scientists who&#39;s names appear.

The first is Stephn Hawking, one of the most important quantum physicists ever, but the only work of his that they cite is his popularly addressed A Brief History of Time. Since they are, effectively, trashing his entire body of work, you&#39;d think that they&#39;d reference one of his scientific papers ...but no.

The next scientist they cite is Richard Feynman, another brilliant quantum and theoretical physicist who radically transformed our understanding of the universe. As with Hawking, however, Wood and Grant choose to only reference a non-technical piece of his, namely a set of lectures that he gave in 1969.

Finally, the remaining scienists unfortunate enough to be included in this shameful list is Stpehn J. Gould. In fact they cite him 4 times. Again, though, they use his non-scientific works and do it entirely out of context.

So, what are we left with?

In a 400 page book that makes some astounding assertions about science and the universe, we find not a single citation of a serious scientific paper, not a single refernce to any technical work, only about a dozen books written by actual scienists, and only three written in the last 25 years.

That&#39;s, again, in a 400 page boook.

In case you&#39;re unaware of the current standards for academic rigourousness, if this were an actual scientific piece, there would have to be at least several thousand up to date and peer-reviewed sources in a book this size.

...they have three.


As for name-calling, talk about hypocrisy, as that is what your leader, Rosa, does all the time&#33;

Firstly, I don&#39;t have a "leader", secondly, an ad hominem is a fallacy no matter who&#39;s making it.

If you wish to dispute my arguments, do so, but insulting my character -- or even more ludicrously, insulting someone else&#39;s character :rolleyes: -- is completely non-productive.


There are also basic phenomena that show the validity of dialectics

Such as?

"Ice freezing" perhaps? :lol:

Water doesn&#39;t freeze because of "dialectical" laws or because one change "transforms" into another. Water freezes because when the molecules are sufficiently slowed down, their velocity no longer supercedes their binding.

But this is by no means a "punctual" process&#33;

I understand that to a nineteenth century "philsopher" like Hegel, it might look like a "sudden" change. Hell, it might have been his inspiration for his "theories". It certainly does appear to validate his hypothesis.

But when you understand what is happening under the surface, you realize that it is entirely gradual. Some molecules bind before others, some bind and then seperate. As the temperature gets lower, more and more of them tend to clump up until eventually, there&#39;s a solid created.

Chemically speaking, this is a gradual transformation. The "qualitative leap" is entirely superficial.


Again, how is the work of Gould anti-scientific?

It isn&#39;t. But then, again, Gould called "dialectics" "non-sensical" and "grandiose" so he isn&#39;t exactly the poster-child you think he is.

I am sick of repeating myself on this one, so just have a look at my previous posts. Gould does not support "dialectics" and he does not base his work upon it.

Why you are incapable of understanding this I don&#39;t know, but if you are honestly so unwilling to bend on this issue, I would advise that you dig up some of Gould&#39;s technical work ...and count how many times the word "dialectic" appears.


Or the observation of how the masses move?

You&#39;re being pretty vague here, so I&#39;m not exactly sure which "observation" you&#39;re refering to, but dismissing the unscientific assertions of "dialectics" does not mean contradicting any particular empirical discovery.

Look, "dialecticically" influenced ideas could be right in some cases. Certainly some of its "laws" are occasionaly valid in certain instances (otherwise Hegel wouldn&#39;t have come up with them). But adopting "dialetics" as a philosophy means more than accepting its occasional relevence, it means accepting it as scientifically valid.

Again, if "dialectics" is true then "dialectical laws" must be as well. That would require that idealist rules like the "negation of the negation" or the "self-motivation of matter" would have to be accepted as universal.

Doing that would completely undermine science and leave us in a utopian wasteland of bankrupt Prussian mysticism.


Marx/Engels did. Lenin/Trotsky did. Gould did. Even Hegel did in a good deal of ways

Yeah, people keep claiming that. Somehow, however, they consistantly seem unable to replicate this work in plain english.


Gradualism does work well in some areas.

Really?

But I thought that quantitative change "must" lead to qualitative?

Isn&#39;t that what Hegel asserted and Engles repeated?

If gradualism "works", then what happened to "dialectic&#39;s" "law" on the subject? Of what value is the assertion of "quantative change" if its only sometimes right and when exactly are we supposed to take these "laws" at face value and when are they irrelevent?

You see, again, for a theory to be scientifically valid, it must be falsifiable.

Well, here&#39;s an opportunity to falsify "dialectics": "dialetics" hypothesizes that all change is characterized by contradiction and that transformation is the result of two opposing forces interacting. Furthermore it practically asserts that this contradiction is made manifest by the inevitable transformation of quantitative change into qualitative change.

Accordingly, if we can find a single instance in which this hypothesis is not corroborated, we have disproved "dialectics" and are scientifically obligated to dispose of it.

You see this is not a "philisophical" issue, nor is it a "political" one. It&#39;s a logical one.


If you cut up an organism and kill it, and then put the parts back together, it is still dead. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts in this case.

What idealist mystical claptrap&#33; :angry:

If a person isn&#39;t just the "sum of his parts", what is he the sum of? His parts plus "God"? Perhaps his "soul" must be considered? <_<

The reason that you can&#39;t make a living body out of dead parts is that youre dealing with dead parts.

You see, the question itself is flawed. A living person isn&#39;t made up of dead organs, he&#39;s made up of living ones. And so the question that you should be asking is if we remove all his organs and keep them alive and then put them back together will we end up with a whole person, and the answer to that is yes&#33;

When a person is killed, they don&#39;t lose some "spirit" or "emergent quality", rather their homeostatic functions cease and they begin to necrose.

Once the brain is deprived of oxygen for too long it begins to break down. It&#39;s not a matter of "philosophy", it&#39;s just a basic biological fact. If we had the tools to repair that damage then we could bring someone back from the dead. At present, we do not.

But, by the way, that is not a permament situation&#33;

Within a few centuries, we will be able to do exactly what you describe (re-animate a corpse). You see, again, you are relying on outdated "science" in constructing your examples.

Neither Hegel nor Engles could imagine the technology we have today, let alone that which we will have tomorrow. Medical science is advancing at such a rate that the time will be soon upon us that your hypothetical "impossibility" will be nothing of the kind&#33;


These examples are very simple, and they prove that gradualism cannot solve everything.

Something which no one has claimed.

The only thing demanding "absolutes" here is "dialectics"&#33;

According to "dialectics", remember, gradualism solves nothing; everything, rather, is a matter of "contradictions".

A proposition, of course, which is complete nonsense.


Given that the gradual accumulation of the quantitative change does produce that critical point in which any more change will produce that qualitative leap.

Again I ask, always?

Does quantitative change always lead to qualitative change?

This is a very simple question, Axel, but it strikes at the heart of the "dialectical" question. Because if the answer is no then you are, in effect, contradicting "dialectics", but if the answer is yes, then you are contradicting reality.

So before you answer, think carefuly. To which do you owe your allegiance; to "dialectics" or to materialism. Because in this case, they are in contradiction.


Did anyone even read those articles?

I&#39;m sorry, but I&#39;ve read enough "dialetical materialist" apologism to last me a life time. I just completed a 400 page book on the subject, after all. One which you and others claim to be a "good" and "basic" introduction to the subject.

Upon finishing it, however, I find that I am even less convinced of "dialectics" than I was going in&#33;

But that may be because I actually have some knowledge of the subjects involved. You see in my more foolish youth, I considered a career in the sciences and so devoted a good deal of my class time to studying physics, chemistry, and biology.

And let me tell you, anyone with even a basic understanding of theoretical physics or elementary chemistry would see through their rather flimsy "arguments" before even finishing the first chapter.

But then I suspect that the "target audience" of Reason in Revolt is not as knowledgable in these areas as I am.

Now, I have posted several very specific deconstructions of obvious logical and argumentative fallacies which Wood and Grant made, and I am more than willing to post many more.

First, however, I would like someone to actually respond&#33;

Now, you claim that RIR is both credible and "scientific" so I, again, ask that you "put your money where your mouth is"&#33;

If this book really is the "resource" that you claim it to be, then reconstruct its arguments&#33;


Basic science is not fiction, despite its simple character.

Of course not, but as I&#39;ve already explained, Reason in Revolt is not "basic" science, it&#39;s bad science.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LSD, well done for all the effort you put into this, but do you not get the impression that you are talking to the deaf, here?

[anomaly]

Originally posted by LSD
The fact is that for all the insistance that the "dialectic" is essential, historically it hasn&#39;t been.
For me, this says it all.

Despite the constant ramblings by so-called &#39;dialecticians&#39;, I see nothing very &#39;compelling&#39; in DM at all.

We&#39;ve gotten by quite well without it. There&#39;s no reason the left can&#39;t continue to get by without it.

Usually these debates about &#39;dialectics&#39; result in some &#39;dialectician&#39; like Axel claiming how stupid all of us are. Basically, as NoXion said a few pages back, sophistry masquerading as logic.

To me, DM seems a tool of authoritarianism, and Avakian has certainly proven this much.

Well, I&#39;ve been here at revleft for almost a year now. I&#39;ve learned a whole lot. And you know what? I did it all without a &#39;proper understanding&#39; of the subtle inner-workings of dialectics. How awful&#33; :lol:

So I&#39;ll let the dialecticians keep spewing this unintelligible (to steal from AS :P ) exercise in Hegelian mysticism. I&#39;ll stick to theory.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM)
Axel1917
The science in the work, I admit is very basic, but nonetheless it serves as a brief introduction that should encourage the reader to read other works on science and dialectical materialism.

Well, as I requested a page back, could you link, or even recommend, an in-depth work on how dialectics can be applied to Construction processes....be it Structural Engineering, Architecture, Civil Engineering or whatever.

I&#39;ve had a search over the internet, and all I can find are pieces on Construction where someone has mentioned dialectics almost in passing....they say something like the contradiction between the Architectural design and the public is dialectical in nature.

But that&#39;s not what I&#39;m after....I would like to see a comprehensive work which explains both how and why dialectics can be used in the design of buildings.

If you know of no such work, perhaps you could forward my request to Mr. Woods and Mr. Grant....surely someone would have written on the subject. [/b]
I don&#39;t really know anyting about construction or engineering. Sorry. Formalism does play a major role in them, in addition to mathematics, though. There are some dialectical aspects in mathematics, but I don&#39;t know much about math either. I don&#39;t know much about these subjects, and I have not studied them, so I am unable to go into detail on this at the moment.

Nonetheless, dialectics does apply to things like science and society. There is a reason why Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky used it, afterall. Capital is rigorously dialectical, for example.

Considering that you are a redstar2000 puppet (you even bold practically every other word in your posts, just like him&#33;), why should I consider you to be credible of all people? :rolleyes:

I don&#39;t have time to respond to LSD at the moment, but his foundations are starting to crumble&#33; He has been ignoring some of my examples, and he sounds a bit insecure when he says things like "dialectics may be right," "it is right in certain instances," etc.&#33;

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM)
Axel1917
The science in the work, I admit is very basic, but nonetheless it serves as a brief introduction that should encourage the reader to read other works on science and dialectical materialism.

Well, as I requested a page back, could you link, or even recommend, an in-depth work on how dialectics can be applied to Construction processes....be it Structural Engineering, Architecture, Civil Engineering or whatever.

I&#39;ve had a search over the internet, and all I can find are pieces on Construction where someone has mentioned dialectics almost in passing....they say something like the contradiction between the Architectural design and the public is dialectical in nature.

But that&#39;s not what I&#39;m after....I would like to see a comprehensive work which explains both how and why dialectics can be used in the design of buildings.

If you know of no such work, perhaps you could forward my request to Mr. Woods and Mr. Grant....surely someone would have written on the subject. [/b]
I don&#39;t really know anyting about construction or engineering. Sorry. Formalism does play a major role in them, in addition to mathematics, though. There are some dialectical aspects in mathematics, but I don&#39;t know much about math either. I don&#39;t know much about these subjects, and I have not studied them, so I am unable to go into detail on this at the moment.

Nonetheless, dialectics does apply to things like science and society. There is a reason why Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky used it, afterall. Capital is rigorously dialectical, for example.

Considering that you are a redstar2000 puppet (you even bold practically every other word in your posts, just like him&#33;), why should I consider you to be credible of all people? :rolleyes:

I don&#39;t have time to respond to LSD at the moment, but his foundations are starting to crumble&#33; He has been ignoring some of my examples, and he sounds a bit insecure when he says things like "dialectics may be right," "it is right in certain instances," etc.&#33;

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM--> (Armchair Socialism @ Apr 16 2006, 10:31 PM)
Axel1917
The science in the work, I admit is very basic, but nonetheless it serves as a brief introduction that should encourage the reader to read other works on science and dialectical materialism.

Well, as I requested a page back, could you link, or even recommend, an in-depth work on how dialectics can be applied to Construction processes....be it Structural Engineering, Architecture, Civil Engineering or whatever.

I&#39;ve had a search over the internet, and all I can find are pieces on Construction where someone has mentioned dialectics almost in passing....they say something like the contradiction between the Architectural design and the public is dialectical in nature.

But that&#39;s not what I&#39;m after....I would like to see a comprehensive work which explains both how and why dialectics can be used in the design of buildings.

If you know of no such work, perhaps you could forward my request to Mr. Woods and Mr. Grant....surely someone would have written on the subject. [/b]
I don&#39;t really know anyting about construction or engineering. Sorry. Formalism does play a major role in them, in addition to mathematics, though. There are some dialectical aspects in mathematics, but I don&#39;t know much about math either. I don&#39;t know much about these subjects, and I have not studied them, so I am unable to go into detail on this at the moment.

Nonetheless, dialectics does apply to things like science and society. There is a reason why Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky used it, afterall. Capital is rigorously dialectical, for example.

Considering that you are a redstar2000 puppet (you even bold practically every other word in your posts, just like him&#33;), why should I consider you to be credible of all people? :rolleyes:

I don&#39;t have time to respond to LSD at the moment, but his foundations are starting to crumble&#33; He has been ignoring some of my examples, and he sounds a bit insecure when he says things like "dialectics may be right," "it is right in certain instances," etc.&#33;

[LSD]

I don&#39;t have time to respond to LSD at the moment, but his foundations are starting to crumble&#33;

:rolleyes:

Suuuure they are Axel. I suppose you "don&#39;t have time" to back that claim up though. :lol:

If your stopping by for a quicky, though, could I trouble you for an easy yes or no?

Again, does the "quantitative to qualitative" rule apply in every case?

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Rosa+--> (Rosa)Armchair, I suggest you do not hold your breath on this one.[/b]

To be honest, I&#39;m beginning to see your point.

I&#39;ve read all the debates on this subject so far, and whilst you and redstar do seem to enjoy lacing your criticisms with a bit of poisonous wit ( <_< ), the simplest requests that have been asked of the defenders of dialectical reasoning have been rejected.

ComradeRed asked for dialectics to be mathematically shown....that didn&#39;t happen.

LSD has asked a series of questions in this thread....they&#39;ve been dodged.

I asked some simple questions here....

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292046061 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292046061)

....and whilst your response was interesting, the silence of those that promote dialectics was disappointing. :(

And then again, when I asked if someone had applied dialectics to Construction (if it was of any use, then someone must have because Structural Engineering especially, takes bits from a variety of sciences), a subject which I&#39;d be possibly able to judge whether the application was worthwile, the response I get is this....


Originally posted by [email protected]
Considering that you are a redstar2000 puppet (you even bold practically every other word in your posts, just like him&#33;), why should I consider you to be credible of all people? :rolleyes:

So fuck it.

If he honestly didn&#39;t know of any application of dialectics to Construction, then fine....but then, if like Grant, his response to stuff is personal abuse, then I&#39;m inclined to just go, as I said, fuck it.

I&#39;ve read a fair amount of Marx&#39;s work, and Engels for that matter, and I&#39;ve even found some Plekhanov interesting....and at no point have I found that not knowing shit about dialectics led me to not understand the point and it&#39;s only really Economics that I get cropped up on (but that&#39;s because my brain doesn&#39;t "do" Economics :( ).

So really, I don&#39;t see any point in bothering to actual spend any time looking into this subject....I can understand what the old farts were saying and as long as I understand that, then I&#39;m happy. <_<


anomaly
So I&#39;ll let the dialecticians keep spewing this unintelligible (to steal from AS :P ) exercise in Hegelian mysticism. I&#39;ll stick to theory.

What did LSD say about that Stalin quote now....something like it was devilishly smart and not likely to have been the product of Stalin&#39;s poor writing talents. :lol:

And I&#39;m afraid, that quote, especially the "Hegelian mysticism" bit, seems out of my range....you&#39;ve likely stolen it off Rosa or redstar. <_<

[anomaly]

Originally posted by AS
you&#39;ve likely stolen it off Rosa or redstar.
I actually stole the &#39;unintelligible&#39; from you, AS. Not the Hegelian mysticism. ;)

The &#39;mysticism&#39; part was stolen from RS2K. However, before I blindly used it, I read a bit about DM. And as far as I can see, there&#39;s nothing in dialectics that doesn&#39;t qualify as mysticism.

It is a set of assertions. And if something in reality disagrees with those assertions...well, then we&#39;re just too dumb to see the &#39;dialectic nature&#39; of whatever we&#39;re observing. :lol:

Like you, I just don&#39;t see the neccesity of the stuff.

[VermontLeft]

Id never actually even heard of &#39;dialectic materialism&#39; before joining this forum (ive read some Marx but not as much as some of the freaks here :P) and ive got to say that im not impressed by this thread&#33;

Axe1917, if your not going to actually defend what you believe in i dont know why you got into this argument cause you are losing SO bad that its not even funny&#33;

i never really got the other threads, mainly cause i only understand every second word that Rosa writes (i dont know what it is but i just cant figure it out, no offense babe ;)) but in this thread LSD&#39;s kinda made it pretty clear (he&#39;s my new favourite poster btw :lol:).

i mean like armachair said there, he asked some questions and then you didnt answer them and then you said that he "cracked" or whatever which is just a lie :angry: not to mention not really an argument...

so far, from what i can tell, the only actual thing that people have said in favour of DM is quotes or links to other people. if this thing is so fcking important thne how comer you cant just explaion it yourselfs????

also LSD seems to have done a good job with that book that people keep talking about (i started reading the link but it is REALLY BORING :lol:) and if that stuff he said is true then its pretty much crap (and if wasnt someone would have said so&#33; :o)

like whatever im not philosopher or whatever and im still in school but even i know that the big bang happend and that it wasnt a "conspiracy" or whatevr :rolleyes:, and come on anyone who like quotes TROTSKY or ENGLES on science quiestoins is kind of asking for it... :lol:

oh and also what was up with that dead body back together thing? i though that this was supposed to be dialectical MATERIALISM not dialectical RELIGION. believing in souls or "greater than the sum" crap? WTF??? :blink:

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Armchair Socialism+Apr 17 2006, 02:42 AM--> (Armchair Socialism &#064; Apr 17 2006, 02:42 AM)
Originally posted by Rosa+--> (Rosa)Armchair, I suggest you do not hold your breath on this one.[/b]

To be honest, I&#39;m beginning to see your point.

I&#39;ve read all the debates on this subject so far, and whilst you and redstar do seem to enjoy lacing your criticisms with a bit of poisonous wit ( <_< ), the simplest requests that have been asked of the defenders of dialectical reasoning have been rejected.

ComradeRed asked for dialectics to be mathematically shown....that didn&#39;t happen.

LSD has asked a series of questions in this thread....they&#39;ve been dodged.

I asked some simple questions here....

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php...st&p=1292046061 (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=48119&view=findpost&p=1292046061)

....and whilst your response was interesting, the silence of those that promote dialectics was disappointing. :(

And then again, when I asked if someone had applied dialectics to Construction (if it was of any use, then someone must have because Structural Engineering especially, takes bits from a variety of sciences), a subject which I&#39;d be possibly able to judge whether the application was worthwile, the response I get is this....


[email protected]
Considering that you are a redstar2000 puppet (you even bold practically every other word in your posts, just like him&#33;), why should I consider you to be credible of all people? :rolleyes:

So fuck it.

If he honestly didn&#39;t know of any application of dialectics to Construction, then fine....but then, if like Grant, his response to stuff is personal abuse, then I&#39;m inclined to just go, as I said, fuck it.

I&#39;ve read a fair amount of Marx&#39;s work, and Engels for that matter, and I&#39;ve even found some Plekhanov interesting....and at no point have I found that not knowing shit about dialectics led me to not understand the point and it&#39;s only really Economics that I get cropped up on (but that&#39;s because my brain doesn&#39;t "do" Economics :( ).

So really, I don&#39;t see any point in bothering to actual spend any time looking into this subject....I can understand what the old farts were saying and as long as I understand that, then I&#39;m happy. <_<


anomaly
So I&#39;ll let the dialecticians keep spewing this unintelligible (to steal from AS :P ) exercise in Hegelian mysticism. I&#39;ll stick to theory.

What did LSD say about that Stalin quote now....something like it was devilishly smart and not likely to have been the product of Stalin&#39;s poor writing talents. :lol:

And I&#39;m afraid, that quote, especially the "Hegelian mysticism" bit, seems out of my range....you&#39;ve likely stolen it off Rosa or redstar. <_< [/b]
Apparently you did not see what I was saying last time. I don&#39;t really know anything about construction and engineering. I have not studied them. What makes you think that I am qualified to speak about it?

Did you not yourself recently say that you did not have the "capacity" to understand dialectics, or something like that? Now you dare to say that you can draw a conclusion about it? Again, I don&#39;t know about construction, so why are you asking me about it? I don&#39;t know if Woods knows about it. Ask him yourself if you want to know so badly.

As for math, I don&#39;t know much about that either. I think that Marx had a notebook on mathematics, but I have not read it, nor have I understood it. I don&#39;t really know enough about that subject to comment on it. Again, sorry. He was asking the wrong guy there.

As for LSD, he has dodged a lot of articles that CyM and myself put forth. I intend for those articles to do the explanation of the utter basics, due to my lack of time.

You specifically ignored what I said earlier than the fact of you being a redstar2000 puppet, maintaining that I don&#39;t know enough about construction to comment about it.

VermontLeft, I had put forth articles that explain basics. Everyone that opposes dialectics has ignored them. Sorry, but acting like a fundie and ignoring proof is not going to make anti-dialecticians win.

LSD, as for quantity into quality, a gradual quantitative accumulation, given that it keeps continuing, will produce a critical point in which a quantitative change will produce a qualitative leap. It is irritating how you don&#39;t even bother to seriously read previous articles and such.

Now you want me to rewrite RiR? I don&#39;t have time to write two volumes that make up over 400 pages. If it were not for sheer dogmatism and flaming on the behalf of Rosa and Co. derailing threads, I am sure that we dialecticians would have actually bothered doing that already. The sheer dogmatism, arrogance, and nonsense of the anti-dialecticians makes me wonder how much I am going to bother posting in reply. Something tells me that it may be fruitless. I don&#39;t know how much I am going to post from now on. You hypocritcally dodge issues brought up by our articles when you accuse us of dodging what you have had to say. You say we are losing. Any expert Marxist will say otherwise. I may post something. I am not sure. I sometimes wonder if you people have bothered reading from the heaps of books that have been written by Marxists in a seroius and critical manner, no offense intended.

VermontLeft, calling it "too boring" is really a poor excuse not to read the citations.
And you haven&#39;t even heard of it?&#33; Who is really doding things here? You are proving my point that a lot of anti-dialecticans tend to be people that don&#39;t care for long study. I actually had to study dialecticss and such. I thought that it would be boring, but it turned out otherwise. Sure, it was quite long and difficult at times, but perserverence paid off. Three years ago, I would have probably argued a lot like AS or redstar2000. But I have thought critically, and I have learned.

Sorry for the short reply. I am briefly dropping in before I go to bed and get ready for work tomorrow.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Axel1917
Everyone that opposes dialectics has ignored them.
I think this proves my point about the authoritarian use of dialectics.

Anyone who disagrees with dialectics, do not post, for all your time and energy prove futile in the face of such god-like perfection.

:angry:

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by anomaly+Apr 17 2006, 04:54 AM--> (anomaly @ Apr 17 2006, 04:54 AM)
Axel1917
Everyone that opposes dialectics has ignored them.
I think this proves my point about the authoritarian use of dialectics.

Anyone who disagrees with dialectics, do not post, for all your time and energy prove futile in the face of such god-like perfection.

:angry: [/b]
Diamat and dialectical materialism are not the same thing. Sorry to prove you wrong. You have a history of ingnoring evidence that refutes you (see how he has repeatedly ignored Ted Grant&#39;s book that disproves the ultra-left and anarchist nonsense regarding the Bolshevik Revolution, for example).

The reason why I post so little, as well as why I am hesitant to bother posting in depth to the dogmatists is becasue unlike you people, I don&#39;t spend most of my day on the Internet posting on message boards. I am busy enough with work alone. While you are spending all day posting, I am trying to learn something about Marxism. We are serious about our Marxism, and sometimes we don&#39;t like posting if people are going to be dogmatic about things and make it a waste of time for us to post those things in the first place.

[LSD]

Axel, although you seem to have "found the time" to post, can I take it that you are still not going to actually respond to my arguments? <_<


As for LSD, he has dodged a lot of articles that CyM and myself put forth.

That is entirely untrue.

I have not read every single volumous link that you or anyone else has chosen to post. But I&#39;ve met you more than halfway on this issue.

Again, I read a 400 page book on this subject&#33; A virtual "tome" of "dialectical" knowledge and a source that pro-"dialectics" posters on this board have repeatedly touted as being a valuable and credibly resource on the subject.

I found it to be severly lacking in both scientific rigour and basic logical soundness, but I did not merely assert this position. Rather, I explained how I can to this conclusion and provided examples in support of my contention.

Namely, I posted and deconstructed several of Grant and Woods arguments as well as probing their bibliography to demonstrate the poverty of their citations.

Now, as of yet, no one has actually even attempted to refute these charges, let alone been successful at it.

You have made a lot of personal attacks and ad hominems ("you don&#39;t understand", "you can&#39;t understand", "you&#39;re all fundies", "you&#39;re not marxists", etc...) but you haven&#39;t actually laid out any coherent defense of either Reason in Revolt as a book or its arguments as logic.

Regardless though, you have attempted to still fall back on it as a valid "defense" of "dialecticts". Without bothering to address my refutations of it, you somehow manage to insist upon its validity as a "reference" in this discussion.

You have also resorted to invoking the spirit of Stephen J. Gould to bolster your case, although you have now lost that particular opportunity as you have chosen to completely disagree with him (see "nonsensical" and "grandiose" above).

Now you indicate that you wish to "stop" this discussion because you have become "frustrating". Frankly, I&#39;d find that funny if it weren&#39;t so insulting.

Look, respond, don&#39;t respond, but get off your fucking "high horse".

You have done nothing but evade and avoid since this discussion began. If you want to actually engage, there are pages of posts you need to deal with.

Until then, I highly doubt that anyone here is going to take you seriously.


LSD, as for quantity into quality, a gradual quantitative accumulation, given that it keeps continuing, will produce a critical point in which a quantitative change will produce a qualitative leap.

That would be a yes, then?

I see you&#39;ve chosen "dialectics" over materialism. How tragic. Nonetheless, I am obligated to now shatter your little idealist fantasy.

You want an example of complete gradualism? How about universal expansion.

Grant and Wood for all their bluster on the Big Bang theory, don&#39;t ever actually dispute that galaxies are moving away from one another. They claim that the it&#39;s not the universe that it expanding, but rather our local area of it, but that&#39;s just quibbling.

The point is, even according to two "dialecticians", galaxies are moving away from one another. That is undeniably a change and yet it is a purely gradual one.

In fact, by "dialectical" reasoning it must be a gradual one because if the universe were to reach a "qualitative change" it woud underine the entire notion of "steady state"&#33; :o

Or how about entropy?

RIR may deny the second law when it comes to large systems, but even Grant and Woods aren&#39;t brash enough to deny its validity on local ones.

And in such systems the accumulation of entropy never reaches "punctuality". It, again, merely continues.

How does "dialectics" account for this direct contradiction? How can a "law" be so wrong?

You see, again, this comes down to falsifiability. Real science is based on the fundamental principles of empiracism. That is, for a theory or paradigm to be accepted as valid it must implicitly contain a set of falsifiable conditions.

For instance, the current model of gravity would be falsified if a body was found to not act in accordance with its predictions. At present, and with absolutely no "dialectical" help, that has yet to happen. Accordingly, we can be fairly certain of being probably right in our understanding of gravity.

...hmmm, that wasn&#39;t a very confident statement there, was it? :lol:

But you see that&#39;s science&#33; It isn&#39;t a "confident" game. Most of the time theories are thrown out the moment they get tested and more hypotheses get tossed around research labs than you would believe, but when something is actually found its so very important because its so very real.

Now do you see what an insult it is to science to sully it with "dialectics" and other assorted idealism? "Dialectics" is not scientific, it&#39;s not even logical.

It&#39;s nothing but a set of assertions about the world that have never been empirically verified.

Now, I know that no "dialeticians" actually care about confirming their "philosophy", but if they did, they would find that it is all too easily falsified.

It doesn&#39;t matter which example you chose or which law you test; the counter-examples are numerous.

Remember, all it takes is one. Just one example of "dialectics" being wrong, and we are scientifically obligated to scrap it.

Now, can you honestly say with a straight face that there is not one example where "dialectical" rules breakdown? Now one instance of true perpetual gradualism or absolute circularity?

Honestly???


Now you want me to rewrite RiR?

No, I want you to admit that it is not credible as a source&#33;


The sheer dogmatism, arrogance, and nonsense of the anti-dialecticians makes me wonder how much I am going to bother posting in reply. Something tells me that it may be fruitless. I don&#39;t know how much I am going to post from now on.

In other words, "you can&#39;t take the heat".

I think that "getting out of the kitchen" is the traditional response.


You hypocritcally dodge issues brought up by our articles when you accuse us of dodging what you have had to say.

Please list one "issue" that I have "dodged" in this thread. I, again, have not read every single article that you&#39;ve posted. But I have attempted to address all the relevent issues that have been raised.

Again, though, if you&#39;re going to make accusations, be specific about it. What "issues" did I "dodge" and where did I do so.

The use of links would be most appreciated.

[Axel1917]

I will get to what you say later, LSD, but this really caught my eye:


Remember, all it takes is one. Just one example of "dialectics" being wrong, and we are scientifically obligated to scrap it.


By this logic, we have to scrap formal logic, for it breaks down at certain points, i.e. there is at least one instance when it is wrong. Gould&#39;s research is proof it being wrong in at least one instance&#33;

As for Gould in regards to nonsense, grandoise, etc., he is clearly stating that dialectics does not replace formalism. Dialectics and formalism supplement each other.. That is what is meant by him not advocating a "universally true" method of it, and that is why he shows why formalism has its place in some instances. He even shows how distorted diamat had helped Soviet scientists get an advantage over Western ones. You clearly have not understood what he has said, nor have you even understood sections of RiR, it seems. If he was so anti-dialectics, why did he mention that even diamat helped Soviet scientists get an edge? Why did he praise Engels on some of his work in the field? Why didn&#39;t he call them outright lunatics and claim that only formalism works if what you say is correct? Even you were saying that "dialectics may be right." "It may work here and there." You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Your arguments here seem to be weak links that break easily, LSD. I know I could easily address all of your points and tear them apart. "Is it worth my time?" is the question (most of the dialecticans have already said no to you in this aspect). I am short on time (reading time is something I don&#39;t get much of, believe me&#33;). Is it really worth spending many hours digging out the two volumes of RiR and other works by Marx/Engels and Lenin/Trotsky just to address some point on this board? That is the question. What you really want me to do (put a massive, in-depth rebuttal) is going to take at least several tens of hours for me to do. Is it really worth my time?

I will not call RiR a source that is not credible. Could Grant and Woods have written a better, more in-depth book? Obviously. I would also argue that pats of the section on cosmology are a bit dated as well (the authors had briefly noted some new insights into it in prefaces to various editions), but the work contains very basic scientific aspects that are intended to get the reader to go out in his/her own and read other works. I think you rip on it because it is not as in-depth as you wish it was. Do I hold suspicion in regards to Eric Lerner? Yes. Does that invalidate the book itself? No, I don&#39;t think so. Dialectics and science is an interesting field indeed. Had I the time and knowledge, I would definitely write an in-depth book(s) (the Das Kapital of dialectics, perhaps&#33;) that would make RiR look like a small piece of paper. I am sure that Woods and Grant would like it as well. I would make sure that this book would meet that criteria you keep screaming about as well. I again think that you are expecting RiR to be more of what it is not. I would aruge that RiR is better suited to beginners than those that are more experienced. I would not expect, say, a pamphlet to meet the criteria you scream about. I also would not expect a mere book for beginners, especially given how 400 pages isn&#39;t that much, covering many topics, to intend to meet such criteria.

Why didn&#39;t you read the other citations (by the way, I did put links to those&#33;)?

I don&#39;t know when I will be able to get an in-depth post in respone to what you have said, if ever (it may not be worth my time, given how dogmatic you people tend to be). I do know that your foundations are crumbling, by your admissions of "dialectics may be right," "it may work here and there," etc. That sound insecure, and I am sure that any dialectician knows this as well by analyizing that.

And again, I don&#39;t know enough about construction, engineering, or mathematics to address certain points that have been made.

You see, LSD, this post I made is what I would consider to be extremely brief in an overall manner. I think that you can tell it would take quite a bit of time for me to post all of what you want me to post. If this was largely dedicated to only a small section of what you are wanting me to post, I think you can get the idea of what I would actually post in response. I think Lenin remarked that it takes a certain amount of pages to popularly explain and refute several lines of misunderstanding. I don&#39;t know if it would be worth my time to post that much. And even if it was worth my time, I don&#39;t think I would have the time to post that much. :( I don&#39;t know how much I am going to post to get to all of the points. You see, I don&#39;t live a "redstaresque" life when it comes to how often I am on the Internet.

[LSD]

By this logic, we have to scrap formal logic, for it breaks down at certain points

Really? List them.


Gould&#39;s research is proof it being wrong in at least one instance&#33;

No, Gould&#39;s research shows that gradualism is sometimes wrong, not logic.

You do understand the difference, right?


That is what is meant by him not advocating a "universally true" method of it

If a "law" is not universal, it is of absolutely no use.

Not to mention that you have already staked your position on this one. You said, and I quote "as for quantity into quality, a gradual quantitative accumulation, given that it keeps continuing, will produce a critical point in which a quantitative change will produce a qualitative leap."

You didn&#39;t say "sometimes", you didn&#39;t say "when formalism breaks down", you said "will".

Well you can&#39;t have it both ways.

Either every change follows "dialectical" rules or not and if not then frankly what&#39;s the point?


I will not call RiR a source that is not credible.

Yes, I&#39;ve noticed. But you asked what I "wanted" and I was honest.

Frankly, I don&#39;t expect that you&#39;ll ever concede this point, but I hope that any members browsing this thread will come to understand just was a pile of rubbish that book actually is.

It might spare them the agony of having to plod through its over 400 pages and maybe the next time some "dialectician" advises that they read it, they can link to this thread.

I certainly intend to&#33;


I think you rip on it because it is not as in-depth as you wish it was.


No, I "rip on it" because it is unscientific and factually wrong.

Again, I don&#39;t mind "basic" science. What I do mind is bad science and Reason in Revolt has that in spades.


Why didn&#39;t you read the other citations (by the way, I did put links to those&#33;)?

I&#39;m sorry, "citations"? :huh:

I honestly have no idea what you&#39;re trying to ask.


I do know that your foundations are crumbling, by your admissions of "dialectics may be right," "it may work here and there," etc.

Firstly, I said nothing of the sort. What I said is:
Look, "dialecticically" influenced ideas could be right in some cases. Certainly some of its "laws" are occasionaly valid in certain instances (otherwise Hegel wouldn&#39;t have come up with them). But adopting "dialetics" as a philosophy means more than accepting its occasional relevence, it means accepting it as scientifically valid.

Again, if "dialectics" is true then "dialectical laws" must be as well. That would require that idealist rules like the "negation of the negation" or the "self-motivation of matter" would have to be accepted as universal.

Doing that would completely undermine science and leave us in a utopian wasteland of bankrupt Prussian mysticism.If that was too subtle for you, I was trying to give you the bennefit of the doubt. I was saying that it&#39;s possible that sometimes "dialetic" ideas or ideas that are ostensibly "dialectical" in nature might be useful (although frankly, I haven&#39;t seen it yet), but that nonetheless we cannot adopt "dialetics" as a "philosophy of science".

That is, even if "dialetics" were actually demonstrated to be relevent (something which it has not been), it would still be fundamentally ascientific and amaterialist.

That you are now trying to "twist" my statement into some sort of "confession" is an indication of just how desperate you&#39;ve become.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by LSD
Now, can you honestly say with a straight face that there is not one example where "dialectical" rules breakdown?
Axel, as a reader, I&#39;m quite interested in your answer here. So do answer. It seems the entirety of this issue hinges upon it. (are DM &#39;laws&#39; actually laws?)

[Axel1917]

Sorry, you caught my eye again. I also edited my previous post.



If a "law" is not universal, it is of absolutely no use.

So, since Newtonian physics breaks down at certain points, and another form of physics is needed for when it breaks down, it is of no use? :lol:

From anomaly:


Axel, as a reader, I&#39;m quite interested in your answer here. So do answer. It seems the entirety of this issue hinges upon it. (are DM &#39;laws&#39; actually laws?)


That will take some time. I will see what I can get to (I don&#39;t know when that will be, especially since it is back to work for me starting tomorrow.). I can&#39;t make any guarantees that I will have the time to cover everything that needs to be covered.

[LSD]

So, since Newtonian physics breaks down at certain points, and another form of physics is needed for when it breaks down, it is of no use?

Except Newtonian physics doesn&#39;t "break down".

Some Newtonian principles have been demonstrated to be false and they have indeed been dumped. Sure, school children are still taught his law of gravity because its so damn simple, but no serious scientist still relies upon it, specifically because it is not universal.

There are laws which are restricted in their application -- for instance they only apply when dealing with speeds lower than a certain value or when certain forces are not present -- but they are nonetheless unviersal within their constraints.

"Dialectics" is not universal within its contraints.

Hell, you can&#39;t even answer the simple question of whether or not it is ever wrong without contradicting yourself twice&#33;

You claim that "dialectics" is both "law" and "supplement", but you simply cannot have it both ways. Either it always applies to a set of conditions or it does not. And if it is truly a "law" then it must be the former.

So here&#39;s another obvious question that you won&#39;t be able to answer, how are we supposed to know when to apply "logic" and when to apply "dialectics"? Let me guess through "dialectics"? :lol:

[anomaly]

The question I asked (or rather, repeated) was whether DM rules are always true. It&#39;s a simple yes or no answer.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey:

"By this logic, we have to scrap formal logic, for it breaks down at certain points..."

Where?

And any comment on these facts (or is your head still in the sand)?

From an earlier post:

"Check this out -- here are some things that change in quality with no nodal &#39;leaps&#39; contrary to what Engels says:

Melting or solidifying plastic, metal, rock, sulphur, tar, toffee, sugar, chocolate, wax, butter, cheese, and glass. As these are heated or cooled, they gradually change (from liquid to solid, or the reverse). In fact, it is difficult to think of a single phase transformation from solid to liquid (or vice versa) whcich is not gradual. Even the albumen of fried or boiled eggs changes slowly (but non-nodally) from clear to opaque white while they are being cooked."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Anomaly, you have probably noticed that Axel does not respond to things that embarrass his theory, and since he knows no logic (other than the garbled stuff he read in RIRE), he cannot answer your question (except, perhaps to re-post the confusions he found in W & G).

Here are a few of the things I said about that book:

"Unlike most dialecticians, Woods and Grant (the two authors of RIRE) at least reference a couple of introductory works on logic (i.e., those written many years ago by A. A. Luce, and Cohen and Nagel), but it is quite clear from what they say about logic they can’t have understood much of what they read:

&#39;Even the simplest judgement, as Hegel points out, contains a contradiction. &#39;Caesar is a man,&#39; &#39;Fido is a dog,&#39; &#39;the tree is green,&#39; all state that the particular is the universal. Such sentences seem simple, but in fact are not. This is a closed book for formal logic, which remains determined to banish all contradictions not only from nature and society, but from thought and language itself. Propositional calculus sets out from exactly the same basic postulates as those worked out by Aristotle in the 4th century B.C., namely the law of identity, the law of (non-) contradiction, the law of excluded middle, to which is added the law of double negation. Instead of being written with normal letters, they are expressed in symbols thus:

a) p = p

b) p = ~p

c) p V = ~p (sic)

d) ~(p ~ p) (sic)

All this looks very nice, but makes not the slightest difference to the content of the syllogism.&#39; [Woods and Grant, RIRE, pp.97-98.]

However, when translated, these symbols &#39;mean&#39; the following:

a) p is equal to p

b) p is equal to not-p

c) p or equals not-p (sic)

d) not both p not-p (sic)

c) and d) are just gibberish. Clearly, these two comrades did not copy this prize example of syntactical confusion from a logic text written anywhere on this planet -- which could mean that they simply made it up. At any rate, this shows that they made no effort to understand much of what they constantly deride. [Witness the way that they have confused the Propositional Calculus with Aristotelian Syllogistic. The former was invented by the Stoics (and then largely forgotten until the middle of the 19th century); Aristotle knew nothing of it, as far as we know.]

Of course, the reference these authors make to contradictions allegedly implicit in simple predicative propositions is also based on a novel piece of grammar. &#39;Caesar is a man&#39; (P1) does not say the particular is the universal, and can only be made to do so by imposing on it a grammatical theory that these two comrades failed to justify. And even if (P1) could be construed in this way, Woods and Grant failed to say why that would be a contradiction, as opposed to being a simple falsehood, or just plain unvarnished nonsense.

Other factual and interpretive mistakes these two make include the following:

(1) On page 97, they mention an unknown character (one &#39;George Boyle&#39;), who they allege was one of the founding fathers of modern logic. Unless Woods and Grant know more about the &#39;secret history of logic&#39; than anyone else, it looks like they have confused this fictional character with George Boole. A small mistake? You would think, but it is symptomatic of their sloppy approach to all matters logical, a characteristic they share with most dialecticians.

(2) They assert (on page 97, again) that Wittgenstein (in the Tractatus) tried to develop a formal language for the propositions of science &#39;based on the old laws of identity, contradiction and excluded middle&#39; when Wittgenstein in fact went to great pains to argue that identity was not needed in a perspicuous formal language:

"It is self-evident that identity is not a relation between objects…. Russell’s definition of &#39;=&#39; is inadequate…. Roughly speaking, to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all…. The identity sign, therefore, is not an essential constituent of conceptual notation. And now we see that in a correct conceptual notation pseudo-propositions like &#39;a=a&#39;, &#39;a=b.b=c.Éa=c&#39;, &#39;(x)x=x&#39;, &#39;(&#036;x)x=a&#39;, etc cannot even be written down." [Wittgenstein (1972), pp.106-07; Propositions 5.5301, 5.5302, 5.5303, 5.533, 5.534.]

And, contrary to what these two comrades assert about Wittgenstein basing his logic on the &#39;law of (non) contradiction&#39; (etc), he declared:

&#39;Tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases -– indeed the disintegration -– of the combination of signs.&#39;

Indeed, far from trying to base his formal system on the principles these two comrades say he does, Wittgenstein&#39;s fundamental idea was that the whole of logic derived from something he called the &#39;General Form of a Proposition&#39;:

&#39;The description of the most general propositional form is the description of the one and only general primitive sign in logic.... The general form of a truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general form of a proposition.&#39; [Ibid, pp.95, 119; Propositions 5.472 and 6.]

[Added later: Wittgenstein (1972) refers to the [i]Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Routledge).]

In fact, chapter 4 of RIRE contains nearly as many errors as it does paragraphs....

Moreover, Woods and Grant&#39;s interpretation of science reminds one of the approach adopted by Creationists: the only &#39;evidence&#39; quoted is that which allegedly supports their view (and even then it is shoehorned into a dialectical boot it won&#39;t fit); negative evidence is just ignored."

This is posted here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/append...s%20and%20Grant (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/appendix_to%20page%20seven.htm#Woods%20and%20Grant )

More here (where you will find I respond to the claims made about Formal Logic by DM-fans, including W&G):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2004.htm

I e-mailed Woods about this and other things in 2004, but you can still find (over a year later&#33;) the same errors on their web page version of that book. So much for a concern for accuracy&#33;

[Some of the above symbols have been garbled by the html formatting here; you can find the originals at the links I posted.]

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2006, 06:20 AM
The question I asked (or rather, repeated) was whether DM rules are always true. It&#39;s a simple yes or no answer.
I have not seen a logic to overtake dialectical materialism when there is a point that breaks down. I have not heard of any kind of credible logic besides that of formal and dialectical. I don&#39;t know if there is a point in which DM breaks down. I have not heard of some kind of "third logic" to supplement it as of yet.

The rules of dialectical materialism, where they apply, seem to be always true in those areas that it applies to. There are areas where it does not apply so much, and formal logic works fine. There are areas where dialectics takes over. What do you mean by "always true?" Universal in that it replaces formal logic? The answer would be a definite no there.

I don&#39;t know when I will be able to get into this. My break at work is almost over, and for me to reply to everything that LSD wants, well, that would make Rosa&#39;s site seem to contain only five sentences. :o I don&#39;t know what I will get to or when I will get to it. I am busy with work, planning on what to discuss next with IMT comrades, etc. Too swamed I am. :(

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey:

"I have not seen a logic to overtake dialectical materialism when there is a point that breaks down. I have not heard of any kind of credible logic besides that of formal and dialectical."

You know no Formal Logic, so who do you think you are kidding?

I have just posted this on another thread here (in response to &#39;Bloody Capitalist Sham&#39;); it will, I hope, show you how much logic you are unaware of:


"BCS, since the mid-19th century, dozens of new logics have been developed, which now means that 95% of logic is less than 150 years old.

The old Formal Logic of Aristotle is now only of interest to antiquarians (and, of course, DM-fans, who still to this day know nothing of these developments, no matter how many times they are told).

Something called &#39;classical logic&#39; was developed by Frege, Peano, Russell and Whitehead (among others) in the years between 1879 and 1920, and completely revolutionised it (consigning the old logic to the stacks shelves in University libraries):

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

You would think this referred to the logic discovered in ancient Greece, but this would be a mistake; it is the logic most undergraduates in philosophy or mathematics have to learn.

Since then, dozens of other post-classical logics have been constructed: tense logic (the logic of inferences to do with time and change -- which alone makes a mockery of the claim that logic cannot handle change), modal logic (originally developed by Aristotle and other Greek Logicians -- it has to do with inferences to do with possibility and necessity), epistemic logic (related to knowledge and belief), deontic logic (related to ethical inferences), many-valuued logic (a logic that allows for other things over and above truth and falsehood), and many others.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-temporal/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-epistemic/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-manyvalued/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-deontic/

Common sense has nothing to do with logic, and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows exactly what it is.

There are so-called &#39;Informal Logics&#39; that deal with everyday reasoning, which is about as close as you get to a link between logic and common sense.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/

99% of this goes right over DM-fans heads, but still they pontificate on the subject.

On the revolutionary change that occured in the later 1870&#39;s in logic, a result of the work of Frege, see:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/frege.htm#H2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lo...of_modern_logic

Hope this helps&#33;"

[anomaly]

Ok, Axel.

Well, here&#39;s a question that&#39;s even more important: what exactly is the practical use of this dialectical muck? AS pointed out a few pages back that he has learned everything he knows without dialectics, and the same can be said of me (and probably many rev-lefters).

So why do you insist that we learn this useless set of assertions that break down at some points and aren&#39;t always true? :huh:

[ComradeRed]

AXEL&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; :

Originally posted by "Axel"

The rules of dialectical materialism, where they apply, seem to be always true in those areas that it applies to. There are areas where it does not apply so much, and formal logic works fine. There are areas where dialectics takes over.Well, I am geniunely curious, could you point out one such field where dialectics has taken over?

And could you demonstrate step by step the application of dialectics in the fields?

What makes dialectics a "good tool"?

I&#39;m sure for a busy person like yourself, you&#39;d not prefer responding (I know the feeling), but looking at your cite sites it&#39;s on "Why Dialectics = Marxism" or Trotsky&#39;s "ABCs of Dialectics" or some other such thing that doesn&#39;t really address these questions.

Reflecting on some thoughts CyM and I exchanged (through pm), I really don&#39;t think dialectical materialism (from my shody understanding of it) is dialectical...or else dialectics have been extremely poorly explained to me.

I have been told by others that my thread "Darwinism and Historical Materialism" in Theory was "very dialectical", yet I put it quite logically (if I do say so myself :P). I doubt that dialectics is the important thing in dialectical materialism, and that "dialectical materialism" is a very bad misnomer :o

Out of curiousity, if the Marxist perspective of "dialectics" could be preserved whilst put outside of a dialectical form, would you accept it?

[Guerrilla22]

Isn&#39;t there something to be gained in understanding Marxist thought from understanding dialetics? Despite the fact quite a few people find dialetics completely useless, they were something both Marx and Hegel discussed.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917)I don&#39;t really know anything about construction and engineering. I have not studied them. What makes you think that I am qualified to speak about it?[/b]

I&#39;m not asking you to debate Structural Engineering, rather I would just like to see a work where dialectics is applied to Structural Engineering (or other Construction fields).

I don&#39;t have the required level of knowledge to judge whether dialectical claims about science are accurate or not, but I could determine whether its claims about science were of any use when applied to Construction....for instance, can dialectics be used in roof design?

I quite frankly, don&#39;t care if you be able to discuss the subject....I just want to see the philosophy you promote applied to something useful&#33;


Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917)Now you dare to say that you can draw a conclusion about it?[/b]

Based on my knowledge with regards Construction, I think I would be able to conclude whether someones attempt to apply dialectics to Construction was valid.

All I want to see is it applied to Construction....and from there, I&#39;ll likely be able to judge (1) whether the person actually understands what they are discussing; (2) whether this application in any way benefits our understanding of Construction processes; and (3) whether using dialectics during Construction processes is worthwile.

Personally, I have not come across an example whether the rules/laws that govern Construction processes "break down"....indeed the mathematical formula&#39;s that are applied, don&#39;t "break down", rather human error is the most common form of failure.

But if dialectics is a useful method, then it should add something to our understanding....for instance, could a rigorous dialectical model help deepen our understanding of why materials fail?

That&#39;s all I&#39;m interested in....se dialectics applied in a way that can be either shown to be useful or rubbish. Not much to ask for.


Originally posted by Axel1917
I don&#39;t know if Woods knows about it. Ask him yourself if you want to know so badly.

If you could provide me with an e-mail address, I&#39;ll send him an e-mail with my request. :)


[email protected]
Id never actually even heard of &#39;dialectic materialism&#39; before joining this forum (ive read some Marx....

Unless you&#39;ve also read Marxists, then you won&#39;t have come across the term....Engels, as far as I&#39;m aware, coined both the terms historical materialism after Marx died, and materialist conception of history and it was Plekhanov who first used the phrase dialectical materialism.

For all the talk of dialectical materialism being "essential" to Marxism, Marx never called the Marxist paradigm "dialectically materialist". :lol:

You may be interested in this piece: The Origins of Dialectical Materialism (http://marxmyths.org/jordan/article.htm)

I don&#39;t agree with everything in that piece, but I think the author makes a very important point....Engels had his own views too&#33;

Modern day Marxism, really has its roots in three thinkers....Marx, Engels and Plekhanov. And whilst these guys all had similar views, all three of them had slightly different views on how to analyse the world and what conclusions could be drawn with regards how you frame the paradigm.

Personally, I think that both Engels and Plekanhov both went past Marx in the sense that they pretty much introduced rigid epochs....I think that was an improvement.

Where as I also think that both men over-emphasised the importance of dialectics....it certainly seems Marx was far less certain with regards dialectics than either Engels or Plekhanov.

Really, I think it&#39;s probably preferable to try and read those three separately and decide personally whether you think old fart 1, 2 or 3 was right on this particular thing.

To just read them as if they are "disciples" of Marx incapable of thinking for themselves, is really an insult to two intelligent guys.


ComradeRed
I have been told by others that my thread "Darwinism and Historical Materialism" in Theory was "very dialectical", yet I put it quite logically (if I do say so myself :P ). I doubt that dialectics is the important thing in dialectical materialism, and that "dialectical materialism" is a very bad misnomer :o

I think this follows on from what I was saying above....in my opinion, the Marx of The German Ideology for instance, is not "dialectical" but rather he sets out series of arguments and conclusions and presents them in a logical manner.

[Janus]

Despite the fact quite a few people find dialetics completely useless, they were something both Marx and Hegel discussed.
That is one arguement that pr-dialetics people use in that Marx and Hegel made their observations through dialectics, therefore that would dropping the means would nullify the conclusions. However, anti-dialeticians state that these observations can still be kept if they have been empirically proven and therefore do not need dialectics as any kind of proof. As other members have noted, it is useless to accept a certain method of thought if it is only right some of the type. That would make it quite unnecessary.

[Janus]

Except Newtonian physics doesn&#39;t "break down".
Newtonian physics is unable to describe certain phenomenon at the subatomic level. This is where quantum mechanics comes into play. However, this proves that we should be more open to different ideas rather than just accept any idea indefinitely. Thus, it&#39;s not really much of a justification for the validity of dialectics.

[Guerrilla22]

Yes, however, my point is that understanding what is meant by dialetics is not necessarily a bad thing.

[LSD]

Newtonian physics is unable to describe certain phenomenon at the subatomic level.

Absolutely true, but Newtonian physics as it is presently constructed is restricted to the macroscopic.

Again, the universality of natural "laws" does not exclude their being constrained.

Not to mention that, again, many of Newton&#39;s "laws" have been abandoned. His theories on gravity and acceleration, for instance, while still around due to their simplicity, are no longer considered scientifically valid.

That is why General Relativity was introduced and why it is now the guiding paradigm on matters of macroscopic relation. Now, it is true that GR does not apply to the sub-atomic or quantum scale, and we are indeed required to turn to QT at that point.

As I&#39;m sure you&#39;re aware, one of the most popular pursuits in the sciences today is the quest to unify these two theories.

But to try and compare this apparent dualism with "dialectics" is to miss the point entirely. There&#39;s a difference between having two scientific theories for two different situations and having two different sciences.

"Dialectics" is not a scientific theory. For one, it fails the primary requirment of being based on evidence, and for another it is easily falsifiable.

That said, "dialecticians" arrogantly assert that not only are their "laws" valid, but that they can "suplmenet" science itself&#33; That "dialectics" should be "adopted" as a "philosophy of science"&#33; :o

I trust the ludicrousity of such a proposal is apparent to all the non-"dialecticians" here.


Yes, however, my point is that understanding what is meant by dialetics is not necessarily a bad thing.

Understanding "dialectics", in the sense of having a classical mastery of the subject, would undoubtably require months of arduous study and painful examinations of obtuse Prussian manuscripts.

Frankly, who has the time?

Having a general understanding of what "dialectics" "means", however, is probably a good idea for any revolutionary leftist today, if only because they are likely at some point to be confronted by an orthodox "Marxist" who insists that they base decisions on it.

Better that they be prepared to debunk such myths.

I&#39;m quite certain that the time will come when this will no longer be the case, when "dialecticians" will have no more place in serious circles, but until that happens its a good idea that everyone be made aware of just how useless "dialectics" really are.

After all, there are still some so-called "leaders" out there who insist that their "mastery of the dialectic" grants them special authority.

Granted, there are fewer and fewer of them, but they and their desciples still pop up from time to time (think RCP and MIM). And like with the Bible, when talking with fanatics, it pays to understand the object of their devotion.

It makes exposing it so much easier&#33; :lol:

[peaccenicked]

Dialectics is simple.
It is a way of looking at things. All concrete entities develop historical with a beginning, a middle and an end. In general there are laws of development.
In order for something to develop something old inside must cease to be. This is called the negation of the negation. In general when a lot of entites amass then that building up changes the nature of another process. This called a quantitative change leading to a qualitative change. Also in general when an entity has opposite attributes, these oppositions are united by a larger group, black and white;colour. male and female;gender. there are countless examples in nature.

dialectics is difficult

There is little doubt that the philosophical discussion began by the Greeks on the relationship between the universal,the particular and the individual as theorised in Hegels "Logic" provided the basis of capital, labour time and commodity.

[peaccenicked]

"In order for something to develop something old inside must cease to be"
This way of thinking does not always come easily to some comrades.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 17 2006, 08:36 PM
Axey:

"I have not seen a logic to overtake dialectical materialism when there is a point that breaks down. I have not heard of any kind of credible logic besides that of formal and dialectical."

You know no Formal Logic, so who do you think you are kidding?

I have just posted this on another thread here (in response to &#39;Bloody Capitalist Sham&#39;); it will, I hope, show you how much logic you are unaware of:


"BCS, since the mid-19th century, dozens of new logics have been developed, which now means that 95% of logic is less than 150 years old.

The old Formal Logic of Aristotle is now only of interest to antiquarians (and, of course, DM-fans, who still to this day know nothing of these developments, no matter how many times they are told).

Something called &#39;classical logic&#39; was developed by Frege, Peano, Russell and Whitehead (among others) in the years between 1879 and 1920, and completely revolutionised it (consigning the old logic to the stacks shelves in University libraries):

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

You would think this referred to the logic discovered in ancient Greece, but this would be a mistake; it is the logic most undergraduates in philosophy or mathematics have to learn.

Since then, dozens of other post-classical logics have been constructed: tense logic (the logic of inferences to do with time and change -- which alone makes a mockery of the claim that logic cannot handle change), modal logic (originally developed by Aristotle and other Greek Logicians -- it has to do with inferences to do with possibility and necessity), epistemic logic (related to knowledge and belief), deontic logic (related to ethical inferences), many-valuued logic (a logic that allows for other things over and above truth and falsehood), and many others.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-temporal/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-epistemic/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-manyvalued/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-deontic/

Common sense has nothing to do with logic, and you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows exactly what it is.

There are so-called &#39;Informal Logics&#39; that deal with everyday reasoning, which is about as close as you get to a link between logic and common sense.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/

99% of this goes right over DM-fans heads, but still they pontificate on the subject.

On the revolutionary change that occured in the later 1870&#39;s in logic, a result of the work of Frege, see:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/frege.htm#H2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lo...of_modern_logic

Hope this helps&#33;"
Rosa, why should anyone trust Bourgeois philosophers? They have been discredited so badly it is not even funny&#33; There is a reason why everyone thinks that postmodernist academic types are cretins&#33;

Armchair Socialism, I don&#39;t really know much about construction. There would be dialectical aspects, say in the contradition between the interests of the workers doing the construction and the interests of the onwer(s) of the construction site (basic class struggle). I don&#39;t know much about the actual process, aside from, say, a gradual accumulation of say, bricks or building material will produce a critical point in which any further addition will produce the structure in its complete manner. The quantity into quality (the gradual addition of bricks/material making a critical point in which one more will make it whole) would show the gradual "pinpricks" the workers get under class society. These "pinpricks" from the ruling class accumulate until a critical point is reached, in which the next "pinprick" will result in workers&#39; action, say a strike, or even if the conditions are present, proletarian revolution. The example of, say the bricks, seems rather silly at first glance, but it is applied to the real world, based on initial empirical observation, first in some parts by Hegel, fully by Marx and Engels. People wonder why workers do nothing when they are attacked so much. This explains it. They don&#39;t just become a bit more revolutionary each day in a slow gradual process (is this what redstar2000 think, and therefore thinks that the pace will continue slowly, hence how he thinks that revolution won&#39;t happen until sometime around 2100?). The workers will not seem to change, when in reality, these gradual accumulations underneath the surface of things continues. When the critical point is reached, the workers will do something, and it seems to almost come out of nowhere. That is why Marx had compared the revolution to a mole burrowing under the ground, only being seen when it actually surfaces. The burrowing does happen though, underneath the surface, despite formalism&#39;s inabilty to see it. I think that this itself is a basic example of its usefulness in analyzing how the masses react and why they seem not to be so revolutionary at first. This would be an application of dialectics to the class struggle. Trotsky termed it the molecular process of revolution. There is a short summary, but I can&#39;t find it. There is a long one at http://www.marxist.com/molecular-process-w...tion1180804.htm (http://www.marxist.com/molecular-process-world-revolution1180804.htm) I have not had time to read that long one.

I am not sure of this, but I think that Woods can be reached at [email protected] , if I recall correctly.

I am short on time still. I don&#39;t know how I will be able to answer everything. :(

As for Marxism being preserved without a dialectical form, I don&#39;t think that is possible. You would throw out the proven molecular process of revolution and replace it with something absurd, to begin with. Trotsky called Marxism without dialectics useless (he compared it to the clocks of his days without a spring). Sure, parts if it even get formal in ways (law of the Excluded Middle here), in that in the last analysis, one is either for proletarian dictatorship or Bourgeois dictatorship, with there being no middle ground there, but the dialectical aspects remain.

I think marxists.org has a brief defintion of dialectics at http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dialectics

[LSD]

These "pinpricks" from the ruling class accumulate until a critical point is reached, in which the next "pinprick" will result in workers&#39; action, say a strike, or even if the conditions are present, proletarian revolution. The example of, say the bricks, seems rather silly at first glance, but it is applied to the real world, based on initial empirical observation, first in some parts by Hegel, fully by Marx and Engels. People wonder why workers do nothing when they are attacked so much. This explains it.

Axel, I think I finally understand why you are so determined to defend "dialectics", and it&#39;s not about "logic".

For you, "dialectical" laws are a comfort and no matter how much time I or anyone else didcate to debunking them, they have become too much of an integral part of your psychological paradigm for you to shed them based on the words of some anonymous internet user.

It&#39;s gonna have to come from inside yourself, and there is, realistically, nothing that I can do to precipitate that. Someday you will have to realize that Hegel&#39;s ideas simply have no bearing to the real world, but when that will be I cannot say.

In the meantime, you will continue to rely upon your "molecular" worldview to expalin the seeming passivity of the working class and to keep your hopes alive for a revolutionary insurrection in the forseeable future.

And while I certainly understand the motivation, I still think that it is irresponsible to peddle falsehoods, even they are comforting ones.

The working class today is not "suffering pinpricks" in anticipation of some massive "qualitative change", they are merely ideologically reactionary. There are numerous reasons for why this is and it will doubtlessly change in the near future, especially as living standards continue to decline; but, right now, its the way things are.

Pretending that there is some sort of "dialectic" force "guiding" all of this is entirely counterproductive and, frankly, even borders on the theistic.

It is both historically incorrect and ideologocially dangerous to take the view that revolutions "must" follow "dialectical" "laws" and it is politically suicidal to model one&#39;s actions on such a notion.

Revolutions do often seem to "come out of nowhere" (although they sometimes don&#39;t), but that is not because of "inherent contradictions" or "negation of the negation", it&#39;s because of historical nature.

Real mass uprisings require a broad and distributed support base and that requires cross-political action. That is very rarely organizationally-driven and usually can only emerge due to circumstancial chance.

There were no "dialectical" "quantitative changes" leading up to February 1917. There were changes happening alright, but they were not in any way "gradual" or "progressive". Nor was it a "qualitative" change that lead to the strikes of February 23rd, it was actually International Women&#39;s Day&#33; There was no culmination of "building forces" or "contradictions", there was merely an opportunity for broad expression and people took advantage of it.

I would also remind you that the social situatoin at this point was roughly unchanged from months before and that during this period no "quantitative changes" of any significance can be found. In total, despite the insistance of Bolsheviks actual and ideological, the "dialectality" of the Russian Revolution is basically nonexistant.

That&#39;s just one example, of course, but it highlights the point that even in its most "useful" application -- analyzing historical revolutions -- (or so its defenders say), "dialectics" fails.

And in terms of contemporary class politics, applying "dialectics" is even more ridiculous as it assumes a complete lack of individual motility.

I mean really, do you honestly assume that the workers are "quantitatively" changing but somehow don&#39;t know it? That, unlike Russian workers in the years leading up to 1917, their "dialectical" procress is completely "under the radar"?

Frankly, this "molecular" theory sounds like nothing more than a last ditch attempt to liven the spirits of leftists demoralized by the failure of the working class to absorb their message.

Well, unfortunately, these happen to be reactionary times, and it not uncommon to find oneself dispirited by what one sees around one. But we cannot allow ourselves to become so desperate that we clings to any "theory" that offers emotional respite.

If the universe were truly a "dialectic" place, our jobs would be a lot easier. If the workers were really just "accumulating pinpricks" then you&#39;d be exactly right and a revolution would be around the corner.

Unfortunately, that world exists only in the dreams of utopian idealists and Hegelian philosophers.

The reality is that although revolution is probably inevitable, it is almost certainly not "around the corner".

It sucks I know, but there it is. :(

[VermontLeft]

VermontLeft, calling it "too boring" is really a poor excuse not to read the citations.

yeah i know :lol: so i was actually gonna try reading som of it, but then LSD kind of showed how its all crap anyways. :P

Id a thought that youd a argued against him, but you really didnt so ive got to take his word on this one. PLUS he actually showed a whole bunch a reasons why these dudes didnt know their shit on science so theres no way im going to believe them.

and like i said before, anyone who doesn&#39;t believe in the big bang and thinks that Engles is a good source on SCIENCE is kind a asking for it... :lol:


For all the talk of dialectical materialism being "essential" to Marxism, Marx never called the Marxist paradigm "dialectically materialist".

Really? that&#39;s kind of really interesting...

so if Marx never actually talked about dialectics, why are all these people say that its so important to marxism and communism? :o

it seems to me that communism works just fine without all of this extra shit so why not keep it simple and only use what we gotta?

[black magick hustla]

dialectics are not complex at all. .

it is just basically thesis+antithesis=synthesis, and from there the mystical obscure rhetoric we are very fond of branches out. i bet dialectics can "work" if you are creative enough to someway cram something you want into the "dialectical" laws. i think it is given too much intellectual credit, and that traditional science should be used instead of that shit.

however, marxism itself is modelled diallectically regardless if redstar or rosa disagrees. the whole concept of society changing abruptly because of conflict between classes is dialectical. The whole marxist theory about people&#39;s mindset being molded by material conditions, and thus by the present modes of production is very similar to the hegelian concept of a world spirit, which develops because of a series of conflicts and contradictions, and represents the mayority of the peoples "mentality". You can smell "dialectics" when you read marx.

As marx said, he turned hegel upside down, and tried to convert that idealism into materialism.

if you like buzzwords, then dialectics is for you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey:


Rosa, why should anyone trust Bourgeois philosophers? They have been discredited so badly it is not even funny! There is a reason why everyone thinks that postmodernist academic types are cretins!

But you accept certain things from Hegel (given you have to flip him, to do this); and I posted those links not to try to convince anyone the logics they refer to were 'correct', but to illustrate the fact that there are scores of new logics around, and that Aristotle (as excellent as he was) is now an anachronism.

Howver, uou seem to trust others only when they agree with Woods and Grant; so what is the problem here?

It seems, the problem is that these links show W&G are wrong (and that is the only reason you are burying your head in the sand, again), and that logic is alive and well, and has advanced way, way beyond Aristotle, and, in the case of tense logic, can handle change.

Get used to it, Axey, you DM-fans know nothing (or almost nothing) of the advances in logic since 1879, but you are still happy to pontificate.

You (plural) even get Aristotles's logic wrong -- as I demonstrate at my site.

But, you are too scared to look.

And in that earlier post on this page, I list just a few of the egregious mistakes W&G make; there are plenty more.

-----------

Peacenicked and Marmot, you obviously haven't been keeping up with the debate here; those simple 'truths' you retail have all been debunked.

Check out my site for more details.

And Marmot, thesis, antithesis, synthesis is a Fichtean shema that Hegel did not use, since it was too formulaic, and symplistic.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18 2006, 11:18 AM
Axey:

"Rosa, why should anyone trust Bourgeois philosophers? They have been discredited so badly it is not even funny&#33; There is a reason why everyone thinks that postmodernist academic types are cretins&#33;"

But you accept certain things from Hegel (given you have to flip him, to do this); and I posted those links not to try to convince anyone the logics they refer to were &#39;correct&#39;, but to illustrate the fact that there are scores of new logics around, and that Aristotle (as excellent as he was) is now an anachronism.

Howver, uou seem to trust others only when they agree with Woods and Grant; so what is the problem here?

It seems, the problem is that these links show W&G are wrong (and that is the only reason you are burying your head in the sand, again), and that logic is alive and well, and has advanced way, way beyond Aristotle, and, in the case of tense logic, can handle change.

Get used to it, Axey, you DM-fans know nothing (or almost nothing) of the advances in logic since 1879, but you are still happy to pontificate.

You (plural) even get Aristotles&#39;s logic wrong -- as I demonstrate at my site.

But, you are too scared to look.

And in that earlier post on this page, I list just a few of the egregious mistakes W&G make; there are plenty more.

-----------

Peacenicked and Marmot, you obviously haven&#39;t been keeping up with the debate here; those simple &#39;truths&#39; you retail have all been debunked.

Check out my site for more details.

And Marmot, thesis, antithesis, synthesis is a Fichtean shema that Hegel did not use, since it was too formulaic, and symplistic.
Again, I don&#39;t think that anyone here cares for contemporary Bourgeois philosophers. Why do you follow them so much? You haven&#39;t even proven that you are a leftist, given that pretty much every post of yours has something to do with anti-dialectics. Perhaps you are some kind of reformist hiding beneath a "leftist" cloak? I don&#39;t think you are going to find anyone here that prefers to use Bourgeois philosophy in favor over Marxist philosophy&#33; Hegel at least made discoveries in his time. Today&#39;s "philosophers" make up all kinds of pro-Bourgeois nonsense it is not even funny. One will look in vain for a single idea in their works that was not better expressed many years ago by a different philosopher, from what I have been told.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axey:


"Again, I don't think that anyone here cares for contemporary Bourgeois philosophers."

Such as Hegel?


"Why do you follow them so much?"

(A) I don't; if you had read what I posted at my site you would have seen that I debunk all philosophy, not just DM.

Once again, I posted these links because another poster asked for help, and they show that logic has moved on since you DM-fans fell asleep over 140 years ago.

And logic is a science; it is indeed a branch of mathematics. What are you going to do, reject all modern mathematics too?


"You haven't even proven that you are a leftist..."

Neither have you.


"Perhaps you are some kind of reformist hiding beneath a "leftist" cloak?"

Maybe you are.


"I don't think you are going to find anyone here that prefers to use Bourgeois philosophy in favor over Marxist philosophy!"

See point (A) above.


"Hegel at least made discoveries in his time."

Like what?

These perhaps: How to confuse everyone? How not to reason? How to borrow off mystics? How to make stuff up?


"Today's "philosophers" make up all kinds of pro-Bourgeois nonsense it is not even funny."

I agree.

And you would know that I agree if you plucked up enough courage to read what I have to say, instead of continuing to make such ignorant attacks.


"One will look in vain for a single idea in their works that was not better expressed many years ago by a different philosopher, from what I have been told."

Well, I at least have checked; you just rely on what you have been told.

Do others wipe your bottom for you too?

Any comment on the errors I have pointed out in W&G's book?

Or are you going to ignore them, and hope they correct themselves, like light-bulbs change themselves?

But, great news on that front!

It looks like scientists have developed something that might help you DM-fans:


"A light source that could put the traditional light bulb in the shade has been invented by US scientists.

The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) emits a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply.

The material, described in the journal Nature, can be printed in wafer thin sheets that could transform walls, ceilings or even furniture into lights.

The OLEDs do not heat up like today's light bulbs and so are far more energy efficient and should last longer.

They also produce a light that is more akin to natural daylight than traditional bulbs.

"We're hoping that this will lead to significantly longer device lifetimes in addition to higher efficiency," said Professor Mark Thompson of the University of Southern California, one of the authors of the paper.

Old fashioned

Traditional light bulbs were invented more than 130 years ago. Since then the basic principle of creating light remains the same, although the design has been tweaked...."

BBC Thursday, 13 April 2006, 11:04 GMT 12:04 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4906188.stm

Damn it!! It looks like I might have to think up another example to embarrass your 'theory'.

This should do: Did RIRE write itself?

It seems it must have done if the 'authors' of RIRE also said:


"Dialectics explains that change and motion involve contradiction and can only take place through contradictions.... Dialectics is the logic of contradiction....

"So fundamental is this idea to dialectics that Marx and Engels considered motion to be the most basic characteristic of matter.... [Referring to a quote from Aristotle] [t]his is not the mechanical conception of motion as something imparted to an inert mass by an external 'force' but an entirely different notion of matter as self-moving....

"The universal phenomena of the unity of opposites is, in reality, the motor-force of all motion and development in nature. It is the reason why it is not necessary to introduce the concept of external impulse to explain movement and change -- the fundamental weakness of all mechanistic theories. Movement, which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter....

"...Matter is self-moving and self-organising." [Woods and Grant 'Reason In Revolt', (Wellred Publications, 1995), pp.43-45, 47, 68, 72. Emphases added.]

So, W&G did not write their own book. [Nice contradiction this: the writers of RIRE prove they did not write RIRE.]

Great 'theory' this is of yours Axey.

And you criticise others for believing 'nonsense'.....

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18 2006, 11:18 AM


And Marmot, thesis, antithesis, synthesis is a Fichtean shema that Hegel did not use, since it was too formulaic, and symplistic.
Really?

You are right, I haven&#39;t been following the debate. And frankly, I don&#39;t care that much, as I said before, I think DM is just tautology and sophistry.
However I can understand how dialectics can be "useful" if you analyze history with it. That is why Hegel got alot of fans, his conception of the world spirit kinda made sense.

Well, I haven&#39;t really read Hegel, but I had to research his stuff because i wanted to understand some stuff that used hegelianism, many 19th century philosophers liked to write using hegelian nonsense, and even some contemporary philosophers (like the guys from the Situationist International).

But I can understand why some people think marxism without DM is not marxism though.

PS: Rosa, you should use quote boxes ([Quote.][Quote./] without the periods), makes posts easier to read. It would atleast help me alot reading your stuff ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marmot:


"However I can understand how dialectics can be "useful" if you analyze history with it."

[Is that better?]

If dialectics makes no sense, then how can it help anyone understand anything?


But I can understand why some people think marxism without DM is not marxism though.

Yes, I think you are right; it is part of a deep-seated tradition.

But, all scientific advance is predicated on someone, or some group, questioning tradition; which is what I am doing.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18 2006, 06:44 PM
Marmot:


"However I can understand how dialectics can be "useful" if you analyze history with it."

[Is that better?]




But I can understand why some people think marxism without DM is not marxism though.

Yes, I think you are right; it is part of a deep-seated tradition.

But, all scientific advance is predicated on someone, or some group, questioning tradition; which is what I am doing.

If dialectics makes no sense, then how can it help anyone understand anything?

Well it "makes sense", if it didn&#39;t, there wouldn&#39;t have been smart guys like marx who used it.

Hegel argued, in an idealistical level that history&#39;s abrupt changes are made through conflicts. Marx argued the same but he did it in a meterialistical level.

That is why I said "I can understand why dialectics can be useful when you analyze history."

[yes, that is better]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marmot:


Well it "makes sense", if it didn&#39;t, there wouldn&#39;t have been smart guys like marx who used it.

That does not follow; some pretty smart people have accepted nonsesne before: Newton spent all his adult life studying biblical numerology, Great Pyramidolgy, Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy.

And some very intelligent people have accepted belief in God, and in the Trinity -- neither of which make any sense.



Hegel argued, in an idealistical level that history&#39;s abrupt changes are made through conflicts. Marx argued the same but he did it in a meterialistical level.

Well, that is what the traditional brochure says; I just deny it.

What is more I can prove it.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Axel

Rosa, why should anyone trust Bourgeois philosophers? They have been discredited so badly it is not even funny&#33; There is a reason why everyone thinks that postmodernist academic types are cretins&#33; Sorry, but Hegel was also one of those bourgeois philosophers. Why then should we accept dialectics?

:huh:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red, good point, but you know how they argue:

Hegel wrote when the bourgeois were the revolutionary class; so the way they saw things was not yet clouded by their need to produce an ideological smokescreen.

This is no longer true, sicne they are vthe ruling-class.

My objection is that philosophers have always produced such smokescreens, no less so than Hegel.

As Marx said:

The ruling ideas are always those of the ruling-class.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Axel1917+--> (Axel1917) I don&#39;t know much about the actual process, aside from, say, a gradual accumulation of say, bricks or building material will produce a critical point in which any further addition will produce the structure in its complete manner. The quantity into quality (the gradual addition of bricks/material making a critical point in which one more will make it whole)....[/b]

So, you&#39;re saying you build and then its built, that a project is underway and then it finishes....that is the use of dialectics?

A bricklayer who&#39;s never heard of dialectics could tell you that....and he could also give you a lot more in terms of useful information without using dialectics. I mean, would a "dialectical analysis" of building a house tell us anything?

Using mathematical calculations we can work out how many bricks are needed, how much labour is required, how long the project would take to complete and so on.

Does dialectics add anything to this?

Additionally, using the definition of Quantity into Quality given here (http://www.marxist.com/Theory/JPickard.html), and using you statement, I can&#39;t see how you can label bricklaying "dialectical".

After all, you&#39;ve offered no definition of "complete", which means that "complete" could mean anything....I suspect you mean that the building is "complete" in the sense that it can now be occupied.

But, as we all know, many buildings are occupied which have faults....in other words, they&#39;ve not been "completed" properly.

Yet if quantitative change "must" result in qualitative change, then how is it possible that a building can be only quantitatively built and that the qualitative change hasn&#39;t taken place?

After all, I could deliberately not include one roof-slate and this would mean that the building was not complete and therefore that qualitative change hasn&#39;t taken place.

And additionally, I&#39;m not sure you could even label a completed building qualitative change....after all, the process is very gradual, and you really couldn&#39;t say there&#39;s a qualitative change because, as I&#39;ve said, you really can&#39;t tell at what point a building becomes "complete".

Unless of course, you&#39;re willing to give a point at which we can determine when a building is "complete" (the point where qualitative change takes place)....if you did say when this happens, then we&#39;d have a hypothesis that could either be validated or falsified.

If there were a model, which we could use to decide at what point qualitative change takes place, then we could see whether qualitative change "must" take place because we could conduct an experiment to determine that.

Aside from this, thanks for the e-mail address, I&#39;ll e-mail them within the next few days....I&#39;ll probably post both my e-mail and their response in this thread.


Originally posted by [email protected]
so if Marx never actually talked about dialectics, why are all these people say that its so important to marxism and communism?

He talked about dialectics (most of the references are in his letters), but he never said "this is a dialectically materialist analysis" or something similar....it was Plekhanov and the rest of the Russian Marxists who constructed the dialectical materialist paradigm.

Yet for instance, in the essay The Materialist Conception of History (1891) (http://marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1897/history/part1.htm), Plekhanov, in my opinion, lays out solid logical and materialist arguments as to why things happen and makes no reference to dialectical methods (negation of negation and so on).

If memory serves me correctly, that particular explanation of the materialist conception of history came across as rather mechanical to me....and in my view, a mechanical and mathematical historical materialism would be a very interesting thing.


Marmot
the whole concept of society changing abruptly because of conflict between classes is dialectical.

You could probably look through the works of Marx&#39;s and find evidence in support for both a dialectically language type change and a non-dialectical mechanical-esque type change.

The mechanical change would go something like: the material conditions of epoch X, lead to social form Y. And then when technological advancement and overall societal advancement is halted by societal form Y, the ruling class is overthrown by class Z.

Basically, if we were able to frame human society in a mathematical framework, we could predict that when a certain social form reaches the value of 10....it&#39;s time for a change&#33;

[black magick hustla]

That does not follow; some pretty smart people have accepted nonsesne before: Newton spent all his adult life studying biblical numerology, Great Pyramidolgy, Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy.


C&#39;mon, i dont think comparing dialectical materialism to "gasp" christianity is really giving credit to the former. dialectics were developed through observation and critical thinking, and were intended to give an explanation of what hegel considered truthful. i dont think that the creative mind behind christianity was trying to explain what he considered truthful or his observations.

the religiousness of newton was mostly there due to social conditioning. the guys who went to listen to hegel&#39;s lectures were there because they personally found them logical and truthful. hegelianism was not something hammered into marx&#39;s skull science he was a kid.


You could probably look through the works of Marx&#39;s and find evidence in support for both a dialectically language type change and a non-dialectical mechanical-esque type change.

The mechanical change would go something like: the material conditions of epoch X, lead to social form Y. And then when technological advancement and overall societal advancement is halted by societal form Y, the ruling class is overthrown by class Z.

Basically, if we were able to frame human society in a mathematical framework, we could predict that when a certain social form reaches the value of 10....it&#39;s time for a change&#33;

It is not just the language.

As i said before the concepts behind it, the revolutions, class wars, abrupt changes, etc. are pretty much dialectical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marmot


dialectics were developed through observation and critical thinking, and were intended to give an explanation of what hegel considered truthful.

I deny this; dialectics was actually an off-shoot of the same rubbish that occupied Newton: Hermetic Philosophy.

Check this out:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/...ks/en/magee.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm)

They both share the same mystical view of reality, which has no support at all from observation (as I display in excrutiating detail at my site).


the religiousness of newton was mostly there due to social conditioning. the guys who went to listen to hegel&#39;s lectures were there because they personally found them logical and truthful. hegelianism was not something hammered into marx&#39;s skull science he was a kid.

Correct, but Hegel&#39;s Herneticism was also derived form his upbringing -- he was brought up in the German Pietist tradition, a branch of the Lutheran Church that had been heavily influenced by Jakob Boehme, a mystic who lived 150 years earlier, and one of the most important of early modern Hermetic &#39;thinkers&#39; -- who dreamt up most of his ideas, he did noit observe them in nature.

This is no mere speculation; in his Hisroty of Philosophy, Hegel spends more time on Boehme than on any other modern mystic, and acknowledges his importance.

The link above underlines this; but you can read it here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...hp/hpboehme.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpboehme.htm)

Check these out too:

http://www.erols.com/nbeach/boehme.html

http://www.augustana.ab.ca/~janzb/boehme.htm

I plan to devote a whole Essay at my site to this later on -- and link this way of viewing the world with ruling-class ideas, ones that have been around for the last 4-5000 years, in order to underline Marx&#39;s claim that the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class.


As i said before the concepts behind it, the revolutions, class wars, abrupt changes, etc. are pretty much dialectical.

So people keep saying, but when pressed for proof, we just get vague hand waving, or more obscure jargon (which is unclear even to Hegel experts).

In order to be precise about the details (as opposed to hopelessly unclear or jargonistic), comrades have to use terms drawn from Historical Materialism (minus the Hegel-speak) and ordinary language.

[JimFar]

Rosa wrote:


Correct, but Hegel&#39;s Herneticism was also derived form his upbringing -- he was brought up in the German Pietist tradition, a branch of the Lutheran Church that had been heavily influenced by Jakob Boehme, a mystic who lived 150 years earlier, and one of the most important of early modern Hermetic &#39;thinkers&#39; -- who dreamt up most of his ideas, he did noit observe them in nature.

BTW that was essentially the same kind of upbringing that Engels had too. Didn&#39;t Engels write somewhere that he regarded Boehme as one of the fathers of dialectics?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Jim, correct; I traced the links between Engels and Pietism a few months ago (I am writing this from work so I do not have access to them).

Whether Engels said this about Boehme or not, I do not know; but if he did he was wrong. Boehme was merely an intermediary.

Dialectics originates in the work of Plotinus, Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius (as I am sure you know):

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-d...ius-areopagite/ (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/)

And possibly earlier still: Hermes Trismegistus (Mercury) and Thoth himself, the Egyptian &#39;god&#39; who invented philosophy (or a priori knowledge of the world):

http://hometown.aol.com/egyptart/thoth.html

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/thoth.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/emerald.html

That might tell you a little bit about why I am so against it&#33;

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by ComradeRed+Apr 18 2006, 09:39 PM--> (ComradeRed &#064; Apr 18 2006, 09:39 PM)
Axel

Rosa, why should anyone trust Bourgeois philosophers? They have been discredited so badly it is not even funny&#33; There is a reason why everyone thinks that postmodernist academic types are cretins&#33; Sorry, but Hegel was also one of those bourgeois philosophers. Why then should we accept dialectics?

:huh: [/b]
Unlike today, the Bourgeois philosophy back then was making some advances, and was not completely bankrupt as it is now.

How on earth does Rosa post all of this? She must sit behind a computer all day, like redstar2000 does. :o I, on the contrary, am quite pressed for time.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2006, 05:36 PM
I, on the contrary, am quite pressed for time.

I think you should put this in your signature....because it would save you the time you have to spend writing "I don&#39;t have much time" in every post you make&#33; :lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Axel:

"Unlike today, the Bourgeois philosophy back then was making some advances, and was not completely bankrupt as it is now.."

How do you know if you enforce a permanent or semi-permanent state of ignorance on yourself (yet again)?

You are like the Catholics, who used to have an Index of books they were not allowed to read.

And, Hegel -- advances? Do me a favour.

Back into mysticism is no advance.

"How on earth does Rosa post all of this?"

Most of it has been prepared years ago, which you would know if you could come out from under those bed-covers, and pluck up enough courage to read my Essays.

Or is your safe little world too comforting for you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Armchair, well said.

An even better idea: if Axel just posts a blank space, it would constitute a more powerful argument than anything he has scraped together so far, and it would save us the time having to wade through the dross.

[piet11111]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 19 2006, 06:33 PM
An even better idea: if Axel just posts a blank space, it would constitute a more powerful argument than anything he has scraped together so far, and it would save us the time having to wade through the dross.
:lol: but that would be spamming.

perhaps its a better idea to close this thread instead.
its quite obvious who had the better arguments and going on seems pointless to me.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spamming, I agree, but it would be superior spamming compared to the randomly typed stuff he inflicts on us at present.

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Axel

Unlike today, the Bourgeois philosophy back then was making some advances, and was not completely bankrupt as it is now. Yes, for that time period, they made some advances...does it still make advances?

Does it make sense to bring back a 200 year old philosophy? Or, if we are to think that it began with Heraclitus et al., a 2000+ year old philosophy? :huh:

Isn&#39;t reactionary to try to "roll back the wheel of time"?

[More Fire for the People]

Isn&#39;t reactionary to try to "roll back the wheel of time"?
Therefore, we should abandon Euclidian geometry.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hopscotch:


Therefore, we should abandon Euclidian geometry.

Well, in the Theory of Relativity, they have done just that.

But Philosophy is not like Geometry, and Hegelianism is not your usual Philosophy.

Geometry is based on Formal reasoning (but not on Aristotelian Logic). Philosophers usually try to use the same kind of logic, but often use informal reasoning based on jargon they introduce; but in many cases this jargon bears some resembalnce to ordinary words.

Hegel began with mystical notions (derived from Egypt 2500 years earlier), introduced acres of impenetrable jargon (some of which he adapted from other jargon-meisters like Kant), and devoted hundreds of pages to &#39;deriving&#39; results from this via what can only be called word-trickery.

No logic at all, not even informal reasoning. Just spurious word-magic, which has clearly mesmerised far too many of the unwary.

If that is an &#39;advance&#39;, we should promote David Blaine to professor of Philosophy at Harvard.

[ComradeRed]

Therefore, we should abandon Euclidian geometry. We have, it&#39;s called "Metric geometry"; though - as Rosa points out - in reality, Riemannian (or pseudo-Riemannian) geometry is used.

The forms of it are actually quite modern...dating to the middle of the 20th century for some recent developments (though we are currently working on replacing it with Quantum Riemannian geometry -- a field that I am tangentially working in&#33;).

Euclidean geometry&#39;s only use is to teach formal reasoning; the geometry itself is unimportant and trivial.

As a matter of fact, Cartesian geometry is the norm for High school students in the U&#036; to learn because of its simplicity whilst preserving the formal reasoning (try reading the first book of Euclid [i]Elements[/i :lol:).

[Janus]

Newtonian physics as it is presently constructed is restricted to the macroscopic.

Again, the universality of natural "laws" does not exclude their being constrained.

Not to mention that, again, many of Newton&#39;s "laws" have been abandoned. His theories on gravity and acceleration, for instance, while still around due to their simplicity, are no longer considered scientifically valid.

That is why General Relativity was introduced and why it is now the guiding paradigm on matters of macroscopic relation. Now, it is true that GR does not apply to the sub-atomic or quantum scale, and we are indeed required to turn to QT at that point.

As I&#39;m sure you&#39;re aware, one of the most popular pursuits in the sciences today is the quest to unify these two theories.

But to try and compare this apparent dualism with "dialectics" is to miss the point entirely. There&#39;s a difference between having two scientific theories for two different situations and having two different sciences.

"Dialectics" is not a scientific theory. For one, it fails the primary requirment of being based on evidence, and for another it is easily falsifiable.

That said, "dialecticians" arrogantly assert that not only are their "laws" valid, but that they can "suplmenet" science itself&#33; That "dialectics" should be "adopted" as a "philosophy of science"&#33;

I trust the ludicrousity of such a proposal is apparent to all the non-"dialecticians" here.

I agree. I was simply clarifying that a theory doesn&#39;t have to be able to describe everything in order to be valid. Therefore, one can&#39;t put the arguement that dialectics should be kept since Newtonian physics is kept.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Janus:


Therefore, one can&#39;t put the arguement that dialectics should be kept since Newtonian physics is kept.

With all due respect Janus, I think it is crazy to mention Newton&#39;s work in the same century (let alone the same breath) as DM.

Among other things, Newton&#39;s work received substantial scientific support from day one; it was based on clearly defined concepts and previously established principles. It is highly predictive, and unified most of Physics for 200 years.

Contrast that with DM: it was based on mystical ideas of the worst possible kind, garbled and ill-defined notions (many of which resist clarification to this day), it predicts nothing at all, and gains no support from any physical science.

Based on your argument, we might as well stick to alchemy and astrology just because a few benighted souls think they work.

[Janus]

You misunderstand me, Rosa. I was staying that just because there are some problems with Newtonian physics doesn&#39;t mean that dialectics should also be kept since there are problems as well. This was the arguement that Axel was arguing, not me. He was trying to make a comparison with newtonian physics and dialectics. LSD and I were arguing against this.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Apologies to you, Janus, for not understanding your point&#33;

Now that I have sobered-up, I can see the &#39;can&#39;t&#39; that my inebriated eyes could not make out earlier&#33;

[LoneRed]

I guess if your against Dialectics, you gotta be drinking

It explains a lot Rosahttp://websmileys.com/sm/drink/trink08.gif

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Lone, and if you are for dialectics, you have to be drinking more.

Does that explain your tag?

[Janus]

Apologies to you, Janus, for not understanding your point&#33;

Now that I have sobered-up, I can see the &#39;can&#39;t&#39; that my inebriated eyes could not make out earlier&#33;
No problem, I probably could&#39;ve phrased my statements a little better.

Come on people, could we have a discussion without resorting to ad hominem attacks?


it predicts nothing at all
I thought that the whole problem with dialectics is that it only works some of the time. Therefore, it&#39;s more of a superfluous thing rather than a truly valuable tool.

[ComradeRed]

No, the problem is that it is of no use.

Being as lazy as I am, why should we keep it? Afterall, it doesn&#39;t predict or do anything of use.

[Janus]

I never said that it was really useful or extremely valuable. I was stating that you really don&#39;t need dialectics to prove things, therefore making it somewhat superflous rather than a valuable scientific tool. It can explain things and sometimes be right, but it is also useless some of the time as well.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Janus, I think you are being far too kind to dialectics; it is as if you had said:

"I thought that the whole problem with the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ is that it only works some of the time. Therefore, it&#39;s more of a superfluous thing rather than a truly valuable tool."

And no doubt you will find Christians who might believe this (and worse), but since that doctrine is arrant nonsense, it cannot explain anything, nor can it &#39;work&#39;.

I claim the same for dialectics.

I have yet to see any proof to the contrary.

[Janus]

Janus, I think you are being far too kind to dialectics
All that I&#39;m saying is that you don&#39;t have to have or need dialectics to explain something.


it is as if you had said:

"I thought that the whole problem with the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ is that it only works some of the time. Therefore, it&#39;s more of a superfluous thing rather than a truly valuable tool."
I don&#39;t understand that analogy at all. You&#39;re comparing dialectics to something that requires one to totally drop all their rationality even though it explains absolutely nothing?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Janus, the point of that analogy was that dialectics makes as much sense as the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ.

DM-fans have to abandon their materially-based good sense in order to substitute into their heads ruling-class mystical ideas (that no one can explain -- as my site seeks to show in painstaking detail).

So why use it, or either?

[Janus]

So why use it, or either?
I wasn&#39;t supporting that position. I was stating that we can do without dialectics and that it doesn&#39;t have to be used to explain something. Something that is only right sometimes but not others isn&#39;t really valuable at all. I was responding to a previous post questioning Newtonian physics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Janus, I really didn&#39;t follow that last reply; thereseemed to be too many, or perhaps too few, negative particles; for example here:


Something that actually only gets it right isn&#39;t really valuable at all.

[Janus]

I edited it. Sorry, I was in a rush when typing that response. All I was saying is that dialectics seem more superfluous than anything else and that it isn&#39;t crucial to explaining some type of phenonmenon. My original post had been in response to Axel&#39;s post and not yours.

[VermontLeft]

Do we really need 8 pages on this?

dialectical "materialism" is a 150-year old "theory" that makes no science sense and hasnt actually proven anything in all that time. isnt it pretty fucking obvious that its time to move the fuck on&#33;?&#33;?

i mean really guys, i know that marx liked some of hegle&#39;s stuff, but the dude was living in the nineteenth century. accept that he may haver been wrong on some shit and lets get on with actually useful shit&#33; :rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vermont, as much as I agree with your sentiments, dialectical materialism will not go away because you do not like it, or do not think it works, or even because you think it is 150 years old.

There are thousands of comrades out there who swear by it, so: yes its refutation does merit 8 pages; in fact, at my site, when I am finished in a few years, I will have devoted in excess of 1500 pages to its refutation.

[VermontLeft]

yeah rosa, i guess your right :blush:

i just think its sad that this is still so much of an "issue" for the left. but I didnt mean to insult the hard work that you and LSD and redstar and comradered and others did in this thread. sorrry if I offended ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vermont, have no fear, I took your comments in the spirit they were given.

It is frustrating to see so much time and energy wasted on this &#39;theory&#39; and its refutation, but, if I am right, this &#39;theory&#39; has been a major contributory cause (among others) to Marxism&#39;s abysmal failure over the last 100 years or so, so its demise is long over due.

[Janus]

What we&#39;re trying to say is that we don&#39;t need dialectics to prove something. You could say that dialectics accounts for something like class struggle but does it really prove it?


accept that he may haver been wrong on some shit and lets get on with actually useful shit&#33;
:lol: :lol: Rosa would&#39;ve never spent all that time writting those essays if it were that easy.

[ComradeRed]

What we&#39;re trying to say is that we don&#39;t need dialectics to prove something. You could say that dialectics accounts for something like class struggle but does it really prove it? How? :huh: I would like to see a check list or a recipe (or something better than canonical quantization procedures :P) on "using" dialectics.

Is there any criteria on what is dialectical anymore or is everything "inherently" dialectical and those who "can&#39;t see it" is "wrong"?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Janus, I am not sure what point you are making (unless, of course, you were merely being ironic), but I have been working on this &#39;project&#39; intensively for nearly 8 years, although I have been reading and thinking about it for over 20. It will take at least another 5 or 6 to finish (but even then I will be updating and improving the arguments contained in the Essays at my site indefinitely).

If I can, I will then try to re-write Historical Materialism (with the Hegelian virus removed, quarantined, and destroyed), so that my work is not all negative.

This is not easy to do because the mistakes DM-fans make are of the same sort that ruling-class theorists have been making for 2500 years; they are simple errors, but extremely difficult to spot, since no one until Wittgenstein spotted the source of confusion (although there are suggestions in Marx&#39;s writings he was thinking along similar lines, he just never developed his ideas in this direction, since I do not think it interested him, or he had more pressing things on his mind).

I try to summarise these errors (and their cause) here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20016-12.htm

A full account will appear when Essay Twelve is published later this year.

[red team]

I&#39;m not so sure about discarding DM entirely.

It seems that the meaning of any word can only be socially meaningful as opposed to simply its dictionary definition if it&#39;s opposite actually exists in social reality.

For example, does it make any sense to talk about Serfdom and Feudal tyranny if Feudal society doesn&#39;t exist anymore and is not a part of anybody&#39;s social experience in the industrialized west? We only have a vague idea of what it means to be a serf and how horrible it might have been, but this is simply from it&#39;s formal definition. Why do you think there are celebrity worshipping idiots who fantasize about the "glamorous" life of members of the British monarchy rather than condeming it as an oppressive relic of the past. That is because Feudalism has no social reality for them as it actually does have for the Nepalese masses who are under the power of a real monarchy. Exploitation as it really socially exists for workers having to "slave away" for their exploitative boss is more of a reality than Feudal monarchies (at least in the western world). Similarly slavery doesn&#39;t exist as what historical slaves understand slavery to actually be for citizens in an industrialized country because its not a part of the social reality. Exploitation exists as a sort of pseudo-slavery, but even then your boss doesn&#39;t have the socially recognized right to beat you up or kill you if you displease him/her nor is it a part of anybody&#39;s social experience (apart from consensual playing with slavery :lol: ).

Similarly, I&#39;m pretty sure that even in "real" Communist societies if it ever does come there will be generations of people who have never experienced exploitation, but will confuse exploitation with the civic duty to contributing part of the workforce. Work avoiding people who complain about "exploitation" when privileges are refused them when they freeload and shirk the duty of work. But, they are not really being exploited as what exploitation has historically been experienced by workers living in this epoch. All will be guaranteed food, shelter and healthcare, but some lazy ass will complain about exploitation because he will consider it a right to have that color T.V. without working a day for it. It&#39;s really motivation to perform duty rather than exploitation because exploitation will no longer exist as a social reality.


Negation of the negation is the obliteration of the meaning of A, so think tristate instead of binary.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red Team, thanks for those thoughts, but, if I may speak plainly, very little of what you posted was relevant to DM.

Indeed, I can and do accept much of what you say, even if I&#39;d put it differently, although I reject dialectics.

And your last sentence does not seem to make sense.


Negation of the negation is the obliteration of the meaning of A, so think tristate instead of binary.

I am not sure that the Negation of the Negation (NON) has anything to do with obliterated meanings, but even if it had, are you really suggesting that, to use Engels&#39;s own example, when a plant &#39;negates&#39; a seed, and is &#39;negated&#39; in turn in the new seed, that the meaning of the word "plant" (or even "seed") is obliterated?

If so, how can we continue to use that word and mean anything by it? We would have to read Engels&#39;s own writings and wonder what his words meant.

And what gave plants such power over our words?

The NON makes no sense to begin with (as I establish at my site**); so it is poweless to obliterate anything, with or without the help of a few seeds.

It makes no sense since it confuses linguistic categories with material objects and processes.

That&#39;s about as crass an error as confusing, say, a map with the terrain mapped, or a music score with the music played.

We can call this a fetishisation of language; attributing it with magic powers that run the world. This misidentifies the product of social relations among human beings (how we use language to communicate) as the real relations between things -- to adapt Marx&#39;s brief analysis of the fetishisation of money (in Kapital).

Hegel got this general idea from his mystical forebears, who thought logic (the Greek Logos, of New Testament fame) ran the universe.

That is why I call it a ruling-class idea (which explains my implacable hostility to this &#39;theory&#39;), inadvertently smuggled into Marxism because of contingent features of Marx and Engels&#39;s biographies (at a time when the working-class was too small and weak to provide a materialist counterweight to the Idealist theories with which Marx and Engels had been educated).

This is no longer true.


------------------------------

** Here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

About 3/4&#39;s of the way down the page.

[Janus]

How?
By saying that class struggle is due to the contradictions between different forces. Like I said, do we really need it and does it actually prove it? I think no.


(unless, of course, you were merely being ironic),
Yeah, it was meant to be a joke (as can be seen by the laughing smileys). :)