Science for Communists?
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DJP wrote:Bakunin wrote:A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of its government and direction.But that which is true of scientific academies is also true of all constituent and legislative assemblies, even those chosen by universal suffrage. In the latter case they may renew their composition, it is true, but this does not prevent the formation in a few years' time of a body of politicans, privileged in fact though not in law, who, devoting themselves exclusively to the direction of the public affairs of a country, finally form a sort of political aristocracy or oligarchy. Witness the United States of America and Switzerland.Consequently, no external legislation and no authority – one, for that matter, being inseparable from the other, and both tending to the servitude of society and the degradation of the legislators themsleves.Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed on me by no one, neither by men nor by God. ions and even their directions Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour. I receive and I give – such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subbordination.https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/authrty.htmDavid Adam wrote:“Teach the people?” Bakunin once asked. “That would be stupid. . . . we must not teach the people, but incite them to revolt.”8 Marx had always rejected this approach. In an argument with Weitling, who was an advocate of individual dictatorship, Marx said that to rouse the workers without offering any scientific ideas or constructive doctrine was “equivalent to vain dishonest play at preaching which assumes an inspired prophet on the one side and on the other only the gaping asses.”9 Marx specifically criticized the Bakuninists in the First International in similar terms: “To them, the working class is so much raw material, a chaos which needs the breath of their Holy Spirit to give it form.”
http://libcom.org/library/marx-bakunin-question-authoritarianismYou stick to Bakunin for your 'individualist' ideology, DJP, and I'll stick to Marx, for my 'Communist' ideology.We all know that Bakunin hid his 'authoritarianism' behind the myth of 'individualism'. [read the link, comrades]It always goes back to 'special' individuals, at first in 'woodwork' or any other artisan activity, then 'science', then 'politics'.Elitism in science will bolster elitism in politics.
DJP wrote:LBird wrote:The Cheshire Cat and its smile, and 'physicalism'.Tell me more..
What a coincidence! "'Quantum Cheshire Cat' becomes reality"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28543990
LBird wrote:This approach is very different from YMS's (and DJP's?) constant harping on about 'individuals', rather than 'classes'.Where do I harp on about individuals, my whole thrust has been about ideology being matter of class not individual. When there are no more classes there is no more ideology and we will be individuals, fully realised, in an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
It's alleged it takes 10,000 hours of work to become an exprt in any field (this also applies to music, sport and art). Now, 10,000 hours is a lot of life, and we all have finite lives. At some point, we have to surrender to expertise.Now, obviously, there are spaces for democratci control. Will we build a sucessor to CERN? That's a democratic question. All scholarly communications should be available freely, everyone should have access to acadmic libraries. Publishing houses should have juries or elected boards to decide what to put into mass runs (and there needs to be a variety of publishers).Obviously, only one eye can go to a telescope at a time (or put another way, time with a massive radio telescope will need to be booked), and a demonstrated capacity to use it should be at least one critirion. Any (shudder) individual should be free to follow whatever object of study they choose, but when serious resources are required, and collaborative effort is needed, then that is a matter for democratic control.Is someone who has spent 10,000 hours studying physics an elite? no, because they haven't spent 10,000 hours studying biology, or working a lathe, or farming. People will do different work, and each specialism is equally useful to society; and that is what social production of knowledge looks like.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:This approach is very different from YMS's (and DJP's?) constant harping on about 'individuals', rather than 'classes'.Where do I harp on about individuals, my whole thrust has been about ideology being matter of class not individual. When there are no more classes there is no more ideology and we will be individuals, fully realised, in an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Even under Communism, YMS, with every individual fully developed by our society, 'reality' will still not tell us 'what it is'.Our different views of 'reality' will no longer have a 'class' basis, but there will be different views, and we'll have to vote on these options.We should be open from the start that in Communist society all humans will collectively decide what 'reality is'.Sometimes we'll make mistakes, because humans do, and so our 'scientific method' will emphasise the need for more than one 'True Account'. Thus, the 'authority' of 'scientists' will be downgraded: we'll no longer have an elite who allegedly employ a 'special, neutral method' outside of the democratic control of all of us. Our method will produce 'Options for Choice', not 'The Truth'.Debate, dissent and criticism will be at the heart of our unified scientific method, encompassing all disciplines from physics to sociology.
Young Master Smeet wrote:It's alleged it takes 10,000 hours of work to become an exprt in any field (this also applies to music, sport and art). Now, 10,000 hours is a lot of life, and we all have finite lives. At some point, we have to surrender to expertise.Now, obviously, there are spaces for democratci control. Will we build a sucessor to CERN? That's a democratic question. All scholarly communications should be available freely, everyone should have access to acadmic libraries. Publishing houses should have juries or elected boards to decide what to put into mass runs (and there needs to be a variety of publishers).Obviously, only one eye can go to a telescope at a time (or put another way, time with a massive radio telescope will need to be booked), and a demonstrated capacity to use it should be at least one critirion. Any (shudder) individual should be free to follow whatever object of study they choose, but when serious resources are required, and collaborative effort is needed, then that is a matter for democratic control.Is someone who has spent 10,000 hours studying physics an elite? no, because they haven't spent 10,000 hours studying biology, or working a lathe, or farming. People will do different work, and each specialism is equally useful to society; and that is what social production of knowledge looks like.Perhaps you're missing the part of a 'scientific education' under Communism that will make it a requirement that any 'specialist' will be taught to explain their findings to a non-specialist audience, YMS.The separation of 'science' from the 'arts' will be rejected, and 'individual findings' will only reach the status of 'scientific knowledge' after a vote by non-specialists.If 'it' can't be explained to our society, 'it' won't be 'scientific knowledge'.To maintain otherwise, that 'the masses' can't ever understand 'specialities', is to join Bakunin.I'm not a Bakuninist, YMS. Are you?
All a vote can tell us is what the majority agree is the case, not what is the case. So a motion "The socialist party believes" is true because the socialist party, as a body corporate would have a majority that agrees a particular case. Voting on whther thre is gravity or not is fairly pointless. It wouldn't change the minds of the anti-gravity crowd. I'd be against universities taking positions, rather than letting rsearchers just get on with saying what they want.he democratic input would come in at the publication stage, in publishing and dissemination and in what gets prominance in the attention economy (attention being a still scarce product, due to the finitude of human life).I agree, there must be debate, dissent and criticism, and I don't think those should be closed down by an artificial vote. Reality will be created by our common efforts, but our common efforts as freely associating individuals in discourse.
Oh, and yes, I agree, specialists must explain themselves, that is vitally important, but some things can't be understood without specialist training, that takes time, too. So some people will have 5,000 hours of practice in science, some people will have less than a 1,000, each needs to have material available to their understanding, and say, local libraries will stock material for the 1,000 hour folk, while university libraries will have texts for the 10,000 hour folk (the print runs for them will be less).
Young Master Smeet wrote:All a vote can tell us is what the majority agree is the case, not what is the case.Could you describe the 'scientific method' which doesn't require voting, YMS? The method that does tell us 'what is the case'?'Scientists' throughout the 19th century alleged that they had one that told us 'what the case is', but Einstein disproved that allegation.This has been the basis of discussion by philosophers ever since, and, indeed, by the brighter physicists, like Rovelli.
Rovelli, The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy, wrote:This reading of scientific thinking as subversive, visionary, and evolutionary is quite different from the way science was understood by the positivist philosophers… (p. xii)Facile nineteenth-century certainties about science— in particular the glorification of science understood as definitive knowledge of the world—have collapsed. One of the forces responsible for their dismissal has been the twentieth-century revolution in physics, which led to the discovery that Newtonian physics, despite its immense effectiveness, is actually wrong, in a precise sense. Much of the subsequent philosophy of science can be read as an attempt to come to grips with this disillusionment. What is scientific knowledge if it can be wrong even when it is extremely effective? (p. xv)But answers given by natural science are not credible because they are definitive; they are credible because they are the best we have now, at a given moment in the history of knowledge. (p. xvi)'Best' is an estimation, the product discussion, by humans.Do you wish an elite to make 'estimations', YMS, or a whole society?
LBird wrote:Do you wish an elite to make 'estimations', YMS, or a whole society?If you mean by 'elite' someone like a brain surgeon then I would prefer the 'elite' to make the estimation rather than wait for a democratic decision. Tho' I would not refer to a specialist as 'elite'. That would obfuscation.
Young Master Smeet wrote:So some people will have 5,000 hours of practice in science, some people will have less than a 1,000…[my bold]Yes, 90% will have over 5,000 hours, and 10% will have less than a 1,000…What?That wasn't your assumption?My assumptions are based upon my political ideology, that of Communism, which asserts that the proletariat has the innate ability to run the economy and society, by democratic means. This, of course, includes 'science' as part of the means of production, so I 'assume' that 5,000 hours is a gross underestimate of the time which will be put in by most workers to develop their understanding of the world we live in.Errrr…. You're not assuming that most people are naturally thick, are you, YMS?Now, there's a 'ruling class idea' if there ever was one!
Vin Maratty wrote:LBird wrote:Do you wish an elite to make 'estimations', YMS, or a whole society?If you mean by 'elite' someone like a brain surgeon then I would prefer the 'elite' to make the estimation rather than wait for a democratic decision. Tho' I would not refer to a specialist as 'elite'. That would obfuscation.
Vin, mate, try just reading on this thread, and try to think about what's being said, and keep your comments to a minimum, for now.You're out of your depth, comrade. I'm trying to give you good advice.2nd Warning: 2. The forums proper are intended for public discussion. Personal messages between participants should be sent via private message or by e-mail.
5,000 hours on architecture, on physics, on chemistry, on art, literature, music: if, of course, I so choose to do so. Not everyone will put in the time, and not everyone needs to put in the time. Of course, those that care will make up their own minds (that will happen whether or not there is a vote). Irrespective of the numbers, you'll need to make available material for the 1,000 hourers as well as the 5,000, 10,000 and 50,000 hourers.Frankly, I'd prefer juries over voting, as a more sensible course, backed up by open debate. Between us, together, we'll be able to manage society collectively, that doesn't mean I personally will need to know how many nuts there are in a widget thrashing machine.
LBird wrote:You're out of your depth, comrade. I'm trying to give you good advice.Doesn't this contradict your whole case?? I am a proletarian incapable of understand 'elites' like yourself and partaking in your elite discussions.You are a tragedy and you protesteth too much.
LBird wrote:Vin, mate, try just reading on this thread, and try to think about what's being said, and keep your comments to a minimum, for now.You're out of your depth, comrade. I'm trying to give you good advice.When you are unable to give an answer you inevitably become personal. Why not deal with the content of my post. Would you as a 'communist' (Shakespear comes to mind here) allow an 'elite' (your words) make undemocratic decisions about your treatment?
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