the difference between Marxism and original communist theory/ideology

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird is hiding his pure idealist ideology which puts him at odds with "idealism-materialism" by refusing to explain what existed prior to the evolution of human consciousness …

You'll have to read the answer that I've already given, robbo.You might not like it, but it's there.When you show that you understand my answer (not 'agree with', but just understand), we can continue to discuss these epistemological issues.We're not getting anywhere by you ignoring (or, worse, failing to understand) what I write.I'm happy to help – try to understand the various claims for the 'subject-object' relationship. I follow Marx on his view of this relationship. I don't hide my ideology.

 But you havent provided an answer to the question I posed – what existed before human consciousness evolved if not matter?  If you have provided an answer show me where it is .  Copy and paste it here for all to see!

[LBird]

YMS, post #385 wrote:

But the social product is a thought, a sign, a signifier, not yellow in itself.

You clearly claim to know that something is not 'in itself', so you must know 'in itself' to say that something is not 'it'.

Young Master Smeet, post #388 wrote:

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… not yellow in itself.

How do you know 'yellow', in itself, YMS?You must have a method that allows you, alone, to 'know' stuff 'in itself'.Your claim is nothing to do with Marx's method, of social theory and practice.

Nope, don't need to have such a method, perfectly legit to say we cannot know the thing in itself.

Now, you claim that "we cannot know the thing in itself".You have to clarify for yourself what you can or can't know, YMS, because you're just contradicting yourself.Or, bit of advice, keep your contradictory claims further apart than 3 posts, because it's too easy to see your mistakes.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird is hiding his pure idealist ideology which puts him at odds with "idealism-materialism" by refusing to explain what existed prior to the evolution of human consciousness …

You'll have to read the answer that I've already given, robbo.You might not like it, but it's there.When you show that you understand my answer (not 'agree with', but just understand), we can continue to discuss these epistemological issues.We're not getting anywhere by you ignoring (or, worse, failing to understand) what I write.I'm happy to help – try to understand the various claims for the 'subject-object' relationship. I follow Marx on his view of this relationship. I don't hide my ideology.

 But you havent provided an answer to the question I posed – what existed before human consciousness evolved if not matter?  If you have provided an answer show me where it is .  Copy and paste it here for all to see!

If you can't read and understand the first time, a second won't help.You'll have to read for yourself. I can't read for you.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird is hiding his pure idealist ideology which puts him at odds with "idealism-materialism" by refusing to explain what existed prior to the evolution of human consciousness …

You'll have to read the answer that I've already given, robbo.You might not like it, but it's there.When you show that you understand my answer (not 'agree with', but just understand), we can continue to discuss these epistemological issues.We're not getting anywhere by you ignoring (or, worse, failing to understand) what I write.I'm happy to help – try to understand the various claims for the 'subject-object' relationship. I follow Marx on his view of this relationship. I don't hide my ideology.

 But you havent provided an answer to the question I posed – what existed before human consciousness evolved if not matter?  If you have provided an answer show me where it is .  Copy and paste it here for all to see!

If you can't read and understand the first time, a second won't help.You'll have to read for yourself. I can't read for you.

 I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

 What are you on about. Post number 42 on this thread is by Capitalist Pig, not you. Can toy kindly copy and paste your response to my question

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

 What are you on about. Post number 42 on this thread is by Capitalist Pig, not you. Can toy kindly copy and paste your response to my question

Snakes and ladders is a 'game', robbo.And '42' is the answer to life, the universe and everything.I'm playing a 'game', just like you, robbo.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

 What are you on about. Post number 42 on this thread is by Capitalist Pig, not you. Can toy kindly copy and paste your response to my question

Snakes and ladders is a 'game', robbo.And '42' is the answer to life, the universe and everything.I'm playing a 'game', just like you, robbo.

 I see. So in response to a serious question all you can offer is a puerile retort like this.  So you lied through your teeth about having answered my question – didnt you LBird? –  and you prefer to display your elitist contempt for others by mocking the questions they ask you in good faith. By all means continue playing your silly "game", LBird,  At least now we know never to take you seriously ever again

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

Snakes and ladders is a 'game', robbo.And '42' is the answer to life, the universe and everything. I'm playing a 'game', just like you, robbo.

I see. So in response to a serious question all you can offer is a puerile retort like this.  So you lied through your teeth about having answered my question – didnt you LBird? –  and you prefer to display your elitist contempt for others by mocking the questions they ask you in good faith.By all means continue playing your silly "game", LBird,  At least now we know never to take you seriously ever again

Quit the games and answer the question. It is bad enough posts aren't trimmed and we have to read all this.

[LBird]

Matt wrote:

Quit the games and answer the question. It is bad enough posts aren't trimmed and we have to read all this.

Yeah, robbo and YMS, "quit the games and answer the question"!Tell us what your social theory and practice is. What is your ideology and method?Good 'intervention', Matt! They don't like 'intervention', the 'materialists'!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Matt wrote:

Quit the games and answer the question. It is bad enough posts aren't trimmed and we have to read all this.

Yeah, robbo and YMS, "quit the games and answer the question"!Tell us what your social theory and practice is. What is your ideology and method?Good 'intervention', Matt! They don't like 'intervention', the 'materialists'!

 Matt's riposte was directed at you LBird in case you hadnt realised this. My philosopy is what you  call "idealism-materialism" since I hold that science is never value free and that the facts are always selected in accordance with our preexisting theories. Your philosopy on the other hand is pure idealism and opposed to everything Marx wrote.  You seriously maintain that the material world cannot exist without human perception so that prior to the evolution of human beings, nothing existed according to you.  There was not, nor could there ever be, anything called matter.  Galaxies and black holes never existed before we came along.  The dinasours are simply a creation of our own imagination and never actually existed.  The fossil record must a complete fraud according to your line of idealist thinking. You have far more in common with a Jehovah Witness than a Marxist, LBird

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

My philosopy is what you  call "idealism-materialism" since I hold that science is never value free and that the facts are always selected in accordance with our preexisting theories.

Nice one, robbo! We're getting somewhere, at last!Right! Since 'theories' are social, and related to interests and purposes, can you tell me whose 'interests and purposes' are behind the 'preexisting theories' that you adopt?I'm a Democratic Communist, and look to Marx's ideas about social production of 'theories', which are linked, within a class-divided society, to the 'interests and purposes' of conflicting classes.So, 'science' is an arena of class struggle, and one aspect of this is that the democratic proletariat must decide for itself its own 'interests and purposes', and so any 'theory' to be adopted by the producers must be examined and debated by the producers themselves, never mind the 'practice' which follows!And whether the social product of the proletariat's theory and practice is 'true' or not, can only be decided by the producers themselves. Often, a 'knowledge product' of 'science' can be 'true' in one historical era (or decade!) and 'false' in another, so its status can only be determined by a vote. Only the producers can change the status of a socio-historical product.Is this Marxist, class-based, democratic, social productionist model of the 'scientific method' the one that you, too, argue for?

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

You clearly claim to know that something is not 'in itself', so you must know 'in itself' to say that something is not 'it'.

Not at all, sometime all I can know of one thing is that it is not another thing. Whatwe do know, is that there is a difference, not necessarily what the difference is.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 And whether the social product of the proletariat's theory and practice is 'true' or not, can only be decided by the producers themselves. Often, a 'knowledge product' of 'science' can be 'true' in one historical era (or decade!) and 'false' in another, so its status can only be determined by a vote. Only the producers can change the status of a socio-historical product.Is this Marxist, class-based, democratic, social productionist model of the 'scientific method' the one that you, too, argue for?

 Apart from your stupid  impractical  and utterly pointless idea of billions of people voting on the truth of tens of thousands scientific theories there is not much I would disagree with in the "idealist-materialist" approach you outline as I've made clear countless times. Indeed I was pushing this argument on this forum long before you first appeared on this forum.The fact that scientific knowledge is socially produced does not in any way validate your crackpot theory of voting on  scientific theories. There are lots things that are "socially produced" that we dont need to vote upon,  The sewage system in Shanghai is a social prodict but does that mean the citizens of Upper Volta or Guinea Bissau have a vested interest in voting on the precise configuration of this system.  Of course not  I keep on saying this but you still haven't got your head around this basic point that democracy is about practical decisions that impact on our lives.  It is NOT about theories or whether they are truthful or not.  What is true for one person may not be for another and a vote is not going to alter that fact in any way.  So why are you so obsessed with the idea of a voting on the truth of a scientific theory, eh? But my main point is this and I note you have studiously evaded it – you are NOT an  idealist materialist .  You are an idealist and nothing more  since you clearly believe matter cannot exist outside of human beings perception of it and consequently nothing existed before human beings appeared on the scene. Your whole argument is totally opposed to the "idealism materialism" you claim to espouse and as such is totally opposed to everything Marx wrote on the matter as well.

[LBird]

Ah! What a shame, robbo.You were playing games all along!You still won't read what I'm writing.Ah well, back to the merry-go-round:end of the snake in box 42, robbo.I'll have to wait now until someone posts who's genuinely interested in discussing Marx's social theory and practice, and democratic production.

[Author]

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