Marx and Chaos Theory - some stupid bs I wrote for physics c

[antieverything]

This is just an abstract I wrote because I had to do one on Chaos theory...I thought you guys might enjoy it. I make no claims to the quality of this...I did it in about 15 minutes.

The article I am analyzing can be found here: http://www.marxist.com/science/chaostheory.html
[hr]
This article attempts to show the relationship between Marx's theories of Dialectical Materialism and modern Chaos Theory. It begins by explaining some of the more interesting attributes of chaos in systems by using the illustration of computer controlled weather simulations and how they wildly diverge by slightly tweaking variables. This is compared to the "butterfly causing a hurricane" saying. Because of the fact that such slight changes can change the results of a system so wildly, it is impossible to predict weather with any accuracy more than two or three days ahead.

The article then goes on to describe Marxism—and all social science—as a study of a huge chaotic system subject to the same laws as any other system. "Marxism applies itself to perhaps the most complex of all non-linear systems—human society. With the colossal interaction of countless individuals, politics and economics constitute so complex a system that alongside it, the planet’s weather systems looks like clockwork." The difference between pure sciences and social sciences is that in social sciences, only trends can be separated from the entire system—the causes cannot be known precisely.

The ultra-divisiveness of labor that is created in capitalist society is then compared to the ultra-specialization of individual scientists. The advent of Chaos Science has caused the mass realization that the sciences are all interrelated. I don't think that I possess a good enough understanding of Chaos Theory to fully understand the relationship but I believe that this ultra-specialization is sort of the "path of least resistance" and as such is the natural path caused by entropic forces.

One of the cornerstones of Marxism is the historical inevitability of the proletarian's development of an identity and the revolutionary movement that this causes. In the case of science, the entropic forces have lead to a limit in specialization and the least work is now spent in de-specialization. The article says that scientists had hit a dead end so this would mean that the work spent in the current (or previous) system would be spent inefficiently. There is evidence that points to the fact that the ultra-specialization of labor can become counter-productive as well. The transformation of man into machine caused by this process can have social repercussions that could actually hurt efficiency. For example, factories in which workers have a clear sense of purpose often produce better products more efficiently. Certainly, the mechanical drudgery forced onto the industrial proletariat is not conducive to creating such an environment.

[redstar2000]

An interesting thread.

As it happens, I live in a part of the world that has occasion to regularly consult the National Hurricane Center website. They use nine different models to predict hurricane direction and intensity and most of them agree with considerable accuracy on where the hurricane is going and how severe it will be when it makes landfall.

Human social systems are indeed much more complex than any set of inaminate forces can be. And, of course, no one would ever provide the funding to develop a computerized model of Marxist reality.

So, it's not really practical, but...I wonder. Could it be possible, in principle, to include enough variables and sophisticated math that revolutionary insurrections could be predicted? Chaos theory says no. But is chaos theory really "the last word" on the subject?

:cool:

[Exploited Class]

In discussion as to how to predict social trends vs. weather forcasts. You might all know about Japan's new super computer, the one that is going to figure out how the earth's global system works. It isn't that the computer can't compute all the variables correctly. The issue is what variables to put into it and how to obtain them that is the chore. I would think that this too is going to be a problem with calculating needs within a marxist society.

Once you can obtain all the needed information for proper calculations, you can easily forsee future needs with an excellent degree of accuracy. I would assume at least. I would say the same about weather as well, its obtaining accurate inputs and variables that will be the problem, and then getting the variables that actually have some type of direct impact and not just variables will be the second part to overcome.

With weather you would need to properly and accuratly be able to measure the ocean's current and know to what degree it effects the weather and what type of weather in particular. Jet stream, volcanic eruptions, geo-thermal releases above and below the ocean levels. Tides, solar flare's, migration of animals, pollution, storm patterns would all play significant roles. Also the more accurate information and for longer periods of time, the more accurate the forecasts.

I believe that with enough accurate inputs over a reasonable amount of time the foreseable future needs of a marxists society on a global scale can work.

Trends however might not be foreseable only guessed upon. Like slap bracellets, bellbottoms, pet rocks and Chevy Chase show.

[antieverything]

Heh heh, I remember slap bracelets!

If you find the concept of predicting the future through mathematics to be interesting, I reccomend the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It deals with psychohistory--using complex mathematical equations to predict the future on a mass scale.

[Uhuru na Umoja]

Although you may predict where insurrections are likely to happen, I doubt that you could ever definitively state where and when they would occur. Here is an instructive passage from Barbarar Tuchman's essay "Is History a Guide to the Future?" (from a collection of her essays, "Practising History"):

"If history were a science, we should be able to get a grip on her, learn her ways, establish her patterns, know what will happen tomorrow. Why is it that we cannot? The answer lies in what I call the Uknowable Variable - namely, man. Human beings are always and finally the subject of history. History is the record of human behavior, the most fascinating subject of all, but illogical and so crammed with an unlimited number of variables that it is not susceptible to the scientific method nor of systematizing."

At the end of the day I think that she is right - we will never be able to predict human actions completely accurately. However, I do agree with you that general trends in history may make insurrections likely in certain areas, I just don't feel that we will ever be able to be sure...

[peaccenicked]

I think it was Q on Star Trek who once said "Thats what I like about human beings, always looking for patterns that are not there.'' The patterns we examine are in a sense incomplete but If a fascist is shooting at you , one wants a pattern to go on unless one is a devout Quaker or Bhuddist. Marx is not really that big on inevitibility and his writings are enough influenced by
Aristotle to show that he had a high respect for contingency or accident.
Marx was looking for the main line of history that all other things being equal without anomolous developments would inevitably march in an evolutionary direction. Marx paints the pattern of this possible evolution as that needed for healthy human development.
Personally I feel that both Stalinism and Unipolar Globalisation are anomalous developments that go against healthy human development and the fall of the American Empire which if it takes the pattern of most entities will die, will thus bring history nearer to the teleology or pathology of what Marx envisaged as the pattern of healthy societal development.
Chaos theory is interesting to me in so much it relates to ananoulous developments.
A joke I told during the Clinton period was ''Monica Lewinsky bats her eye-lids, bombs start dropping on Iraq.''

One of the most interesting aspects of the History of Marx and theorists strongly influenced by Marx is the discussion on the relationship between accident and necessity.
Here the interplay of opposites has caused me more confusion than any other aspect of Marx's and Engels general theory.
Quite frankly I get a headache everytime I try to get my head round it.



(Edited by peaccenicked at 7:12 pm on Jan. 28, 2003)

[antieverything]

good points, nicked.

Umoja, predicting the mass behavior of collections of humans isn't really that far out. All matter is made up of millions and millions of different things that all act erratically individually but collectively, their behavior is predictable.

[redstar2000]

An amusing sidelight to this discussion: one group of folks who can get ample funding without difficulties is the Santa Fe Institute...used to be a bunch of guys who modeled new atomic weapons, now they develop computer models that "prove" that democracy is "impossible" and classless societies "always" degenerate into new class societies. Ah, those initial assumptions...!

On a sadder note, one of the tragedies of 20th century communism was the widely-held conviction that Marxism could be used to predict the immediate future in useful detail. From the earliest statements of the Communist Internationale to the latest stalinist/trotskyist/maoist grouplet, one prediction followed another...and their record was, and is, just awful, probably worse than chance!

And this happened even though Marx and Engels made predictions in their own lifetimes that proved totally wrong...if they couldn't do it, whatever gave all these other folks the conceit that it could be done and they were the ones to do it?

I think it would be a wonderful step forward if the left could stop thinking of Marxism as a "crystal ball"...and see it as a set of tools for finding out with considerable accuracy what is really taking place right now. And, of course, for figuring out what really did happen in the past and why it happened the way it did.

:cool:

[Exploited Class]

Quote: from redstar2000 on 1:19 am on Jan. 29, 2003
And this happened even though Marx and Engels made predictions in their own lifetimes that proved totally wrong...if they couldn't do it, whatever gave all these other folks the conceit that it could be done and they were the ones to do it?

Well I hope you are American Redstar or this joke isn't going to fly at all...

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated.
We're gonna do it!

Give us any chance, we'll take it.
Give us any rule, we'll break it.
We're gonna make our dreams come true.
Doin' it our way.

Nothin's gonna turn us back now,
Straight ahead and on the track now.
We're gonna make our dreams come true,
Doin' it our way.

There is nothing we won't try,
Never heard the word impossible.
This time there's no stopping us.
We're gonna do it.

On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We're gonna make our dream come true.
And we'll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.

[antieverything]

I think it would be a wonderful step forward if the left could stop thinking of Marxism as a "crystal ball"...and see it as a set of tools for finding out with considerable accuracy what is really taking place right now. And, of course, for figuring out what really did happen in the past and why it happened the way it did.My sentiments exactly.

[peaccenicked]

ditto.
One of the biggest problems of modern militant materialism that it is grounded dot and comma on the poineering political economy of Marx, it is though it is at the base of the crystal ball.
The result is a refusal to think politically of the situation as it is now. A tendency to tranlate world events in the interests of a sect and not for the working class as the universal class.
This greatest impoverishment of Leftish literature.
It this that makes writers that at not at the heads of Parties more interesting, more insightful, ultimately more truthful.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 6:23 pm on Feb. 4, 2003)