Good News: And No Religion, Too
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TM- “Supreme arrogance is a quality of the human species alone, as far as we know.”
Clearly you have not met my cat
You cannot think or do other than you think or do at any moment..
Very profound!
But the implication seems to be that what happened in the past could not have been otherwise. And that what happens in the future wonât either?
If so, Buddhism wonât be the only religious view that you will have secularised. There will also have been âpredestinarianismâ, as espoused by some Christian and Muslim priests, that all past, present and future events have already been decided by their god from the start (I realise that on your view you would not have been able to have helped taking this view).
QuĂš serĂ serĂ . Whatever you will think will be what you will think. The other very profound corollary of your view. Or, as you have also put it (and couldnât help putting it):
âWe may bring about socialism or we may not. But whatever we do or not do, we will do what we do.â
In which case, what are we doing in arguing the case for socialism, why donât we just wait and see if happens?
The common misunderstanding of my position, which I hold with the other materialist opponents of free will.
Recognising that the universe is governed by necessity does not make me a fatalist. Nor has it anything to do with predestination.
Predestination is the Calvinist doctrine that “the elect”, e.g. their Church members, are PREDESTINED for Heaven. So it is completely irrelevant to the necessity vs free will argument.You need to read your Shelley, Godwin, Voltaire and Holbach, as well as the Western Socialist’s famous Free Will article.
We want socialism, which is why we try our best to motivate others toward it. If people have free will, their will would not be subject to motive, so trying to motivate them would be a waste of time. It’s because will (thoughts and feelings) spring from antecedents and are therefore not free, that we try to push their thoughts and therefore their actions toward the socialist objective.
Socialism’s realisation will mean they had the motivation to achieve it; its failure to materialise will mean they didn’t. Either way, what will be will be. But because we are motivated we must do our utmost to push their minds toward the positive way.If they don’t make socialism then they couldn’t. If they do, they could. If I forgot to buy the paracetamols, I couldn’t have remembered, because I didn’t.
I have read Shelley and Godwin and other materialists from that period. But also Marxâs criticism of 18th materialism as one-sided as, for instance, in his Theses on Feuerbach â because it sees humans only as the passive creatures of their environment without taking account that what humans do is part of the environment and can affect it and so the the experience of other humans and what they do as a result of this.
In your reply, you seem to be conceding that, while the past could in principle be explained by a particular combination of circumstances (in fact a long chain and wide network of them), the future is still open to some extent because what humans do, intentionally or otherwise, will have an effect on what other humans do, as can unexpected or uncontrollable natural events (like your asteroid on its way to hit Earth or some massive volcanic explosion or even a hurricane or an earthquake).
This is not the same as saying that people have âfree willâ in the sense that theologians understand it. It is saying that the exact course of the future cannot be predicted because we canât know what is going to happen (canât know your future âchain of causationâ). This means that what some humans do today can have an effect on what happens. If some humans decide,because of their experience and reflection on it, to get together to propagate socialist ideas this will change the experience of other humans.
Of course this wonât have much effect unless the development of the productive forces has made socialism a possibility and in fact the only solution to the material problems confronting the vast majority of humans. All propagating socialist ideas can do is hasten people coming to realise this and acting on it.
Maybe thatâs what you mean by âmotivated will and the chain of causationâ.
I never said humans were passive. Of course they change their environment, but in response to motivation.
We make the future in the same way.
Yes. Our aim must be to nudge the chain of causation in the direction we would like to see.
Yes again, the material conditions are ripe for socialism and we know that and work to nudge consciousness forward.We don’t know what will happen, of course. We don’t just wait to see, because that would minimise the possibility of a favourable outcome.
But in talking of the past, we know what happened – like me forgetting the paracetamols – so we can’t say “could have” because obviously it couldn’t because it didn’t. What happened happened.It’s like saying “You should have thought of that before you did it.” Not an issue, because I didn’t think of it, so could not.
The human will affects the chain of causation, but that will itself is compelled to yield to the strongest motive weighing upon it, which in turn is influenced and determined by a multitude of factors within an individual as well as outside of him, and not all are conscious. These are determined by personal history and experiences as well as social reality. You weren’t born a socialist. You became one. You cannot cease being one – unless a stronger motive comes along to change your thinking.
As well as reading books, one can confirm these things by contemplating one’s life. Know someone well enough, and one can say in advance how they are likely to respond to a certain situation, what they are likely to do, etc.
You expect yesterday’s friend to still be your friend today. If not, then you will seek the motive for his change of attitude toward you. But, were his will independent of causation, his behaviour would be totally anarchic, without history.
Social historical development would also not exist, were there no cause and effect.TM – “Itâs like saying âYou should have thought of that before you did it.â Not an issue, because I didnât think of it, so could not.”
The important thing is not that you should have thought about it, but that you could have thought about it. In the same way history can’t be different doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been different.
We can speculate for fun. But to say “it could” is to ignore all the antecedents that led up to what actually happened.
It was not in one’s power to think about what one didn’t think about at any given moment. It is ludicrous to say one could have.
One cannot will to will.
And free will is really an insidious notion that buttresses capitalism: from punishment and penal law to the Great Man Theory.
It rejects materialism.Necessity was the one truth that Godwin said would take the longest for people to accept, and he was right.
Your argument that if something didnât happen it couldnât have happened is an amusing paradox (the corollary of âwhat will be, will beâ â âwhat was, was what had to beâ) but a bit pedantic if insisted on.
What is wrong with that saying socialism could have been established 150 years ago? As you pointed out, in the first post introducing your paradox, an if clause is implied, in this case âif a majority of the working class had wanted it.â
Presumably, you accept that it is not illogical to say that âsocialism could have been established 150 years ago if a majority of the working class had wanted itâ.
Also, that it is acceptable to say that the material conditions for socialism existed 150 years ago since this is a question of fact not logic.
Then there is a question of at what time the statement about when socialism could be established was made. If someone, say Engels, in 1880 said that socialism could be established in the coming years, would that have been a logical fallacy (in 1880)? In other words, was the future establishment of socialism in the coming years an open question in 1880? Was its non-establishment in, say, 1890 predetermined by events up to 1880?
Finally (of course) is this still the case: if someone says today, in 2022, that socialism could be established in the coming years, are they wrong? If not, why not?
Will socialism only be possible when it is established?
Yes, you can add an if clause, but that makes it purely hypothetical. You can say that, but it isn’t what happened, so therefore it wasn’t able to happen, or it would have. The chain of causation did not go that way.
The material conditions have long existed but the consciousness has not yet fully developed. If it does, socialism will happen; if it doesn’t, it won’t. We want it to, so we must continue to work for it.
Was the consciousness enough in 1890? No. Is it yet? No. Will it be? We don’t know. We must work at it. But our will for it has been produced by our life experience, based on numerous personal as well as social factors. Our will is not its own First Cause, and neither is anybody’s. It is within the chain of causation and follows the same laws of motion, of cause and effect, as everything in nature.The material conditions exist; the consciousness has yet to develop where most are concerned. If it happens, it could. If it doesn’t, it couldn’t.
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