What’s so Special about Base–Superstructure Determinism?

[DJP]

In a nutshell….

Hardy wrote:

[..]it should be recognised that there is an economic basis and that it produces a superstructure corresponding to it, but these various aspects of the superstructure interact with each other, and all of them react on the economic basis itself, so things are not simply in a watertight compartment like economic basis and the rest, nor should it be thought that the rest is simply the result of the economic basis.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/materialist-conception-history

[twc]

What's In and What's Out?My assertion: Marx is a base–superstructure determinist.My conclusion: What's in and what's out of his base and superstructure depends on which process Marx is considering.Which Process?Marx considers two different processes from the standpoint of base–superstructure determinism — the social process in the Preface and the production process in the Book.Marx states that he uses the former — the materialist conception of history — as guide for the latter, but also for all his studies.MaterialismMarx is not an Idealist, for whom all processes have the same "process-type" [or "substance" or "object Class"] of Idea — for whom processes can arbitrarily interpenetrate because at heart they are all made of the same ideal stuff — for whom determinism, as a relationship between ideas, is ultimately arbitrary.[Common "process-type" and arbitrary determinism are the basis and the downfall of the Hegelian system. Hegel's masterly control over idealist determinism is still one of the world's wonders.]Marx is a Materialist, for whom all processes have different material "process-types" [or "substance" or "object Class"] — for whom material processes can only interpenetrate through an intermediary that interfaces with both — for whom material determinism, as a relationship between processes of material "process-types", is itself a material mechanism, and so ultimately is not arbitrary.Challenge: If you wish to turn base–superstructure determinism into a metaphor only — an idea — why is its determinism anything more than arbitrary, like that of Idealism, and so inadequate to motivate or to realize social revolution?DeterminismConsider the formalism. The Preface is a schema of how a material process relates to itself through phases of its development. The Book is a case-study of how a material base raises a protective superstructure that is ultimately destructive of the base itself.Consider the matter. The Preface examines the social mode-of-production process in general. The Book examines the social mode-of-production process in a development phase [its capitalist economic formation] of the social mode-of-production process in general.Consider the independence. In so far as Marx considers the capitalist production process as autonomous-and-independent, he develops its own base and superstructure atop the base of the social phase, but forever subservient to it.Consider the subservience. In other words, the Book considers an autonomous-and-independent process, that is subservient to a phase, that is subservient to its process. This is the hallmark of directed deterministic dominance.ConvictionCommentators, who mistakenly consider the Preface's social process to be exactly the same process as the Book's production process, and that both should therefore have identical bases and superstructures, might consider whether production within socialism is the same as the socialist economic formation itself?Marx was non-committal about the production-process as such under socialism beyond describing it as being conducted by associated labour. He allows it to follow its own production laws, which will be subservient to its mode-of-production base.But Marx was explicitly committal over what the materialist conception of history determines the social-process's socialist-economic-formation phase to be — a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the material and personal means of labour by the whole community.Marx has conviction in the social-process itself and in its dominance, in all of its phases, over the production process. And so, Marx has conviction in the Party's Object.

[twc]

Appearance and RealityMaterialist Conception of HistoryMarx expresses the materialist conception of history as "social being determines consciousness".He expresses it in base–superstructure formalism:The base is "social being".The superstructure is "consciousness".The determinism is "base determines superstructure".Marx and MaterialismAs materialist scientist, Marx doesn't need reminding that our "social being" is a recent occurrence in the scheme of things.He takes "social being" as such because it is the recurrent "immediate" experience for us. He can therefore treat it as an autonomous-and-independent process, even if it ultimately turns out to be subservient to something else that is not an "immediate" experience for us.Marx, like Descartes, builds "consciousness" out of the "immediacy" of experience. While Descartes builds incestuously within the world of "consciousness" itself, Marx cross-fertilizes from the world of "social being" outside the world of "consciousness". That, he asserts, is how we humans actually build our "consciousness".The viability of the superstructures raised upon the materialist conception of history can be the sole and only test of Marx's assertion that "social being determines consciousness". [Counter assertions are irrelevant.][For the benefit of disappointed positivists, although Marx subverts the immediate "positivism" of hitherto existing materialism, he obviously must allow "social being" to discover the universe and find its own adequate location within it. See his situating "social being" within nature, e.g., in his Notes on Wagner.]Marx and DietzgenJoseph Dietzgen studies Marx's superstructure "consciousness" as such, aware that it is determined by "social being". He treats "consciousness" as an autonomous-and-independent process.Dietzgen subverts the "positivism" of hitherto existing materialism by anchoring it in immediate "appearance" and not in "reality". This is what impressed Marx.[Lenin's retrograde political pamphlet on Empirio-criticism anchors materialism in "reality" — in the positivist certainty of "appearance" being "reality". This is an adequate example of Leninist determinism by fiat.]Dietzgen is a base–superstructure determinist, though less formal than Marx. For him, the base of "consciousness" as such is "appearance", its superstructure is "reality", and its determinism is "appearance determines reality".It is important to situate Dietzgen. It is often mistakenly asserted that he provides the foundation for Marx. But it is clear from the above, that his analysis of consciousness into "appearance" and "reality" is subservient to "social being".Marx would never allow that "consciousness", even as "appearance", is foundational to "social being", and neither perhaps did Dietzgen.RecursionDietzgen is the first example in this thread's case for recursive base–superstructure determinism founded upon the materialist conception of history.Appearance and Reality — The PlanetsMy sole reason for exploring base–superstructure determinism is to comprehend the necessity of its determinism. Socialists pin the future of the world on such necessity.So, I explore the conviction that arises out of appearance — the reality of deterministic science — and consider how Marx approached this on the basis of the materialist conception of history.ExemplarThe circuit of the planet Mars through the constellations of the Zodiac is a thoroughly studied instance of appearance and reality.AppearanceMars takes a little over two years to complete its circuit.Throughout half the circuit, Mars gets brighter and eventually outshines the brightest of stars.Throughout the other half of the circuit, Mars gets duller and eventually fades into insignificance.For a couple of months, when Mars is at its brightest, it temporarily loops backwards on its Zodiacal path [retrograde motion].What "on earth" is going on?Reality 1.Retrograde motion was recognized by hunter gatherers who followed the patterns of the night sky. Did some see Mars as forever defying the heavenly order every two years, only to be subdued?Reality 2.Retrograde motion challenged the Greek notion of heavenly perfection. Plato encouraged astronomers to "save the phenomena" — to explain the "appearance" of heavenly imperfection by the Platonic "reality" of heavenly perfection.The best that could be achieved in this Platonic endeavour was to "curve fit" [or to model] the circuits of the planets. This mathematical modelling culminated in the powerful system of the African geometer Ptolemy c. 150 CE.A planet's circuit was decomposed into a circular loop [the epicycle] around a circle [the deferrent] centered on an imaginary point in space [the eccentric] midway between the fixed Earth and an imaginary "twin-Earth" [the equant], from which imaginary twin-Earth [equant] the planet Mars [epicycle] moves perfectly uniformly.In elaborating his model, Ptolemy needed to set in circular motion the eccentric [his model's true centre of the Universe, and not the Earth] and so too the equant [his model's true centre of motion, and not the Earth], and he also needed to correct by adding epicycles to epicycles.All this defies human comprehension as a physical explanation.It also totally explodes the then-current Aristotelian universe. Epicycling planets must continually cut through the crystalline spheres that roll them along!But Ptolemy's system was always an artificial superstructure raised upon an artificial base of circular and uniform motion. Ptolemy never intended to explain, but only to compute.Ptolemy was free to make arbitrary modelling decisions. He does not take his base seriously, because he knows it's artificial.Consequently Ptolemy can set the centre of the Universe in motion and toss aside core religious faith in the centrality of Earth (while clinging to its fixity) because these inconvenient constraints simply don't fit the phenomena [appearance]. They just don't suit his needs, and so, fundamental as they are to the consciousness of antiquity, they simply must go! It's breathtaking what Olympian power one has over a model [imaginary] Universe! Ptolemy never considered his model to be deterministic.Ptolemy unashamedly "saves the appearance" by unintentionally destroying in the process the world view of the ancients — the physics of Aristotle. His system's stunning predictions of planetary positions to within the limits of visual observation over a millennium expose Aristotelian cosmology as impotent dogma, although it took over a millennium to acknowledge this awkward conclusion.Ptolemy's arbitrary cosmological fudges with the Ideal Platonic Forms didn't exactly establish their intended heavenly locale or origin. The reality of heavenly perfection turned out  just as untidy as its messy appearance, and decidedly no better than our imperfect Earth. This, of course, was not what the Idealist philosopher intended at all.Not a bad strike rate for Ptolemy — taking out the most influential scientist [Aristotle] and the most influential philosopher [Plato] of antiquity, and re-positioning the mis-aligned Universe of Jupiter Optimus Maximus himself. But these devastating verdicts are not entirely down to Ptolemy. The "reality" of then undiscovered determinisms ineluctably played a determining role in his non-deterministic modelling.Non-deterministic modelling, like Ptolemy's, constitutes an interesting challenge to scientific determinism. It trades deterministic certainty for pragmatic non-determinism. It lacks conviction — which socialists can never dispense with.Most capitalist economic forecasting takes the Ptolemaic non-deterministic form. However, Ptolemy is destined to remain a giant of predictive science, unlike the current bunch of economic-forecasters.[This is already too long. To be continued…]

[alanjjohnstone]

i genuinely find this a fascinating thread to read. Some is beyond me so i hope the conclusion is provided in an easily digestible way.

[DJP]

twc wrote:

The base is "social being".The superstructure is "consciousness".The determinism is "base determines superstructure".

It's the first time I've heard "base-superstructure" defined in this way. However you're definition begs the question "what determines social being?"I'm also concerned that your physics may be over 100 years out of date. I await the next installment.

[twc]

DJP wrote:

twc wrote:

The base is "social being".The superstructure is "consciousness".The determinism is "base determines superstructure".

It's the first time I've heard "base-superstructure" defined in this way. However your definition begs the question "what determines social being?"

The answer to all such questions is ultimately derived from our "immediate experience" of "social being" — as Marx asserts in his base–superstructure formulation of the materialist conception of history.As explained in the previous post, the answer emerges in "consciousness" from "appearance" into "reality" for us. A deterministic explanation relies on concepts of the "abstract" and the "concrete" within "consciousness", which need their own post.But, in synopsis, the answer is… The "life" process as base determines "social being" as superstructure.Digging deeper, the "nature" process as base determines the "life" process as superstructure. So, ultimately, nature is the basis of "social being", and so of "consciousness".Of course, Marx knew all this, but eschews the patently obvious approach of "positivism" that starts with "nature" or the "universe". What could possibly be more materialist than doing just that?Well, nature [or the universe] is, paradoxically, an Ideal starting point for consciousness. What do we know about nature [or the universe] that isn't ultimately obtained through the "immediacy" of "social being"?Their "reality" for us is remote from "social being". Hardly a basis for founding "consciousness" itself. And this, apart from the fact that nobody yet knows how to explain "consciousness" in terms of nature or the universe.So the positivist, despite his vaunted positive science, has no choice but to start with an Ideal pronouncement from his academic perch on high about the nature of nature [or of the universe]. Stop to consider what effrontery that is, and how shaky a foundation for our most precious possession of "consciousness".

DJP wrote:

I'm also concerned that your physics may be over 100 years out of date.

Ptolemy's "physics" is two millennia out of date. But then it never was physics.Ptolemy's mathematics is up-to-date, an analog of Fourier analysis, which is indispensable for decomposing waveforms in audio, radio-astronomy and quantum physics.

[Anonymous]

twc wrote:

Appearance and Reality — The PlanetsMy sole reason for exploring base–superstructure determinism is to comprehend the necessity of its determinism. Socialists pin the future of the world on such necessity.So, I explore the conviction that arises out of appearance — the reality of deterministic science — and consider how Marx approached this on the basis of the materialist conception of history.ExemplarThe circuit of the planet Mars through the constellations of the Zodiac is a thoroughly studied instance of appearance and reality.AppearanceMars takes a little over two years to complete its circuit.Throughout half the circuit, Mars gets brighter and eventually outshines the brightest of stars.Throughout the other half of the circuit, Mars gets duller and eventually fades into insignificance.For a couple of months, when Mars is at its brightest, it temporarily loops backwards on its Zodiacal path [retrograde motion].What "on earth" is going on?Reality 1.Retrograde motion was recognized by hunter gatherers who followed the patterns of the night sky. Did some see Mars as forever defying the heavenly order every two years, only to be subdued?Reality 2.Retrograde motion challenged the Greek notion of heavenly perfection. Plato encouraged astronomers to "save the phenomena" — to explain the "appearance" of heavenly imperfection by the Platonic "reality" of heavenly perfection.

 As Earth (blue) passes a superior planet, such as Mars (red), the superior planet will temporarily appear to reverse its motion across the sky.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Retrograde_Motion.bjb.svg

[twc]

The left-hand side of your diagram shows our hard-won "reality" — after Ptolemy.The right-hand side of your diagram shows our ever-recurring "appearance" [or "reappearance"] that is played out every couple of years:it was playing out before life emerged on Earth,it played out for Egyptian astronomers three-and-a-half millennia ago,it last played out in March this year, it will continue to play out after life shuffles off the Earth.[That's scientific determinism for you!]This "appearance" hasn't changed throughout the lifetime of our "social being" because the phenomenon itself hasn't changed.But our "social being" has changed, and with it our "consciousness" of the "reality" behind the "appearance" has changed, even though our naive immediate apprehension of the "appearance" has remained forever the same.ConvictionThe diagram demonstrates, in Marxian terms, "appearance as a whole" — "appearance" after being tested in the crucible of "social being".The diagram incidentally makes the point that, for us, "reality" is neither "positive" nor absolute, but is part of the changing superstructure of our "consciousness" — that very same "consciousness" that is based on our "social being". Consequently, "reality" must be comprehended as a social construct, just like all our social-constructs — our language, our institutions and [as demonstrated] our science.Not only does "social being" construct "reality" for us, "social being" also tests "reality" for us. It is in the testing of our social constructs through the practice of our "social being" that we gain conviction in our social "consciousness's" constructs.In other words, "social necessity" compels us to build socially-shared constructs, of which we are considering "reality" to be one such socially-necessary construct.Like all social constructs, "reality":arises from our "social being",is tested by social practice where it originated — in our "social being",is conceived and judged by its utility for our "social being",stands or falls by the judgement of "consciousness" — ultimately by our "social being".Socially-necessary constructs of our "consciousness" arising naturally from and tested within our "social being" are what Marx's materialism is about. For us socialists — the "reality" of the "class struggle", "class consciousness" and "socialism" can't be reduced to arbitrary "positive" absolutes — absolutes that thereby lack demonstrable foundation for conviction. For us, deterministic conviction is everything!Conviction arises out of Hegel's/Engels's "[freedom is the] recognition of necessity" — the necessity of Marxian base–superstructure determinism.Reality 1.Our primtive forebears couldn't conceive that the left-hand side "reality" of the diagram needed to exist. They saw it as no more than the ground on which they stood. The right-hand side "appearance" remains unchanged.Reality 2.The Platonists and Aristotelians merged the left-hand "reality" and right-hand "appearance" sides of the diagram into a nest of transparent shells centered on the Earth, with Mars mid-way out, and the stars on the outermost [seventh heaven], although it was actually the eighth shell. This constituted the pure harmony of the spheres. Earth was, appropriately for a slave society, the impure seat of corruption.Reality 3.Ptolemy's left-hand side of the diagram exploded into an astonishingly complex epicyclic/deferent construction which, if intended to constitute "reality", could only reflect the work of an artificer god who kept changing his mind — and continually correcting himself.  The right-hand side "appearance" remains unchanged.Reality 4.Copernicus's [published 1543] left-hand "reality" side of the diagram appears almost as complex as Ptolemy's. It relies on about as many epicycles, but it discards Ptolemy's equant, and it centers all planetary deferents on the Sun. Thus, Copernicus turned the planets into the denizens of the Solar System, we now recognize them to be.Yet Copernicus failed to make significant mathematical improvement in forecasting planetary positions over Ptolemy.However, no-one could fail to appreciate that Copernicus's Sun-centered model:made sense of retrograde motion,made it possible for people to see the Sun as being the centre of the Universe, and not the Earth,made a devastating assault upon hitherto conceived "reality".Reality 5.Everything after Copernicus — Kepler, Newton [whose inverse-square gravitational theory is adequate for computing most interplanetary travel], Poincaré, Einstein, and the moderns who grapple to reconcile Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics — is standard textbook astronomy, physics and history-of-science. For present purposes, it seems unnecessary to elaborate. But the successful assault upon hitherto existing "reality" mounted by each of these post-Ptolemaic scientists has equally illuminating tales to tell about determinism, necessity and conviction, that must be considered [perhaps in future posts].

[twc]

CorrectionMy attribution to Ptolemy of "epicycles on epicycles" is wrong!This baseless charge has certainly entered our popular vocabulary, and I recall it being referenced in 20th century scholarly accounts.I took a quick glance through Ptolemy's Almagest — I lack the courage/inclination/leisure to study Ptolemy's monumental, but outdated, classical-geometry tome —  and find that it contains no geometric constructions with more than a single epicycle on a deferent.Astronomer Owen Gingerish is a dedicated scholar who has studied the Almagest. In his "The Book Nobody Reads" [p. 57], Gingerish states something along the lines:"As it turns out, a major difficulty with this epicycles-on-epicycles theory is that historians examining books on Ptolemaic astronomy from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have found absolutely no trace of multiple epicycles being used for each planet. The Alfonsine Tables, for instance, were apparently computed using Ptolemy's original unadorned methods."  [from Wikipedia on "Deferent and epicycle" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle#Epicycles_on_epicycles%5D

[Hud955]

I haven't followed this entire discussion, so forgive me if I've misunderstood anything, but I'm not sure I agree with this construction of appearance and reality.  Scientific realism is, after all, the view (crudely) that things are as they appear to be to the senses.  If they tend to diverge then that's because you aren't looking hard enough or are viewing the world through the wrong medium. There is no absolute motion in the universe, only relative motion.  A consequence of that is that there is no single way of describing the motion of the planets.   Mars' retrograde motion when the Earth is taken as the reference point is perfectly real.  On the other hand, the movements of the planets, Mars included, relative to the sun show no retrograde motion and are broadly elliptical.  And there is no contradiction between these two statements.  Appearance and reality are in complete harmony.  What the history of human enquiry shows is not a contradiction between appearance and reality but a slow process of reducing the contradiction between appearance/reality and our observation and modelling of it. It's Ptolemy's mistaken assumption of a geocentric universe not a contradiction between appearance and reality that led him to misinterpret the motion of Mars and therefore to try to describe it by means of epicycles.  It's Copernicus's mistaken assumption that the 'natural' motion of the planets about the sun was circular that led him to burden his heliocentric model of the universe with epicycles too.  The accuracy of our attempted explanations and constructions of this aspect of appearance/reality will depend on whether we assum the sun goes round the earth or the earth goes round the sun. And this can't be settled simply by observations of their relative motion from Earth . Ptolemy and (most of) his contemporaries simply made a geocentric assumption and it happened to be the wrong one, though one quite understandable at the time.   It's only when people started observing the motion of physical bodies on the earth more closely in the seventeenth century and realised that the model provided by Aristotelian mechanics was incorrect that the new Classical model came into being.  And it is only then that observation (an appeal to appearance) began to provide evidence for a heliocentric universe and eventually a heliocentric solar system.  (And even that took a good deal of interpretation and an appeal to the rationalistic principle of Occam's Razor).  Fundamentally, though, we get closer to reality through a more detailed and accurate observation of appearance, not by setting up an antagonism between the two.

[alanjjohnstone]

Colin Turnbull in the Forest People gave an interesting account of how pygmies because they are brought up in the jungle and have their visibility restricted because of the trees and so when he took one of the pygmies on a trip that involved crossing a vast plain, the pygmy was unable to comprehend perspective…the buffalo in the distance , the hills in the distance were for him not the same ones as when seen closer up. The tiny buffalo far off were just that – a tiny species of buffalo.History of art i think also demonstrates that what we consider a natural trait to see things in perspective is an acquired talent by the brain of interpreting the real world.

[twc]

Beautiful examples, indeed.It's also gratifying to learn that my stuff isn't all that incomprehensible — thank you.[It's easy to write about complex matters, but much harder to convey your meaning, and still harder to digest as a reader. Young Feuerbach wrote back to his father that Hegel was definitely meant to be heard. His students adored him as a lecturer. His stimulating enthusiasm clarified everything, and electrified them all. As is well known, Hegel's formal works are notoriously difficult for those who didn't attend his lectures. Hegel must be acknowledged for unravelling mediated "appearance" as outlined in my previous post.]By the way, you earlier hoped that the conclusions I draw from this thread would be simple and comprehensible. I do hope so.It's too soon to tie the loose strands of this and related threads [and I may be off-line over the coming Christmas and New Year], but expect the general encouraging conclusion, whenever it emerges naturally from the discussion, to be pleasantly surprising.

[twc]

Pygmy BuffaloesI found the episode of the pygmy and the buffaloes in Colin Turnbull's "The Forest People" fascinating.For others, who may be interested, here it is in the author's own words… 

Quote:

And then he saw the buffalo, still grazing lazily several miles away, far down below. He turned to me and said, ‘What insects are those?’ At first I hardly understood, then I realized that in the forest vision is so limited that there is no great need to make an automatic allowance for distance when judging size. Out here in the plains, Kenge was looking for the first time over apparently unending miles of unfamiliar grasslands, with not a tree worth the name to give him any basis for comparison. The same thing happened later on when I pointed out a boat, in the middle of the lake. It was a large fishing boat with a number of people in it. Kenge at first refused to believe it. He thought it was a floating piece of wood. When I told Kenge that the insects were buffalo, he roared with laughter and told me not to tell such stupid lies. When Henri, who was thoroughly puzzled, told him the same thing, and explained that visitors to the park had to have a guide with them at all times because there were so many dangerous animals, Kenge still didn’t believe, but he strained his eyes to see more clearly and asked what kind of buffalo they were that they were so small. I told him they were sometimes nearly twice the size of a forest buffalo, and he shrugged his shoulders and said he would not be standing out there in the open if they were. I tried telling him they were possibly as far away as from Epulu to the village of Kopu, beyond Eboyo. He began scraping the mud off his arms and legs, no longer interested in such fantasies. The road led on down to within about half a mile of where the herd was grazing, and as we got closer, the insects must have seemed to get bigger and bigger. Kenge, who was now sitting on the outside, kept his face glued to the window, which nothing would make him lower. I even had to raise mine to keep him happy. I was never able to discover just what he thought was happening, whether he thought the insects were changing into buffalo, or whether they were miniature buffalo growing rapidly as we approached; his only comment was that they were not real buffalo, and he was not going to get out of the car again until we left the park. 

 

[twc]

Hud955 wrote:

Scientific realism is, after all, the view (crudely) that things are as they appear to the senses.

Sense Data and AppearanceWhat is presented to the senses is not what "appears" to us. What "appears" to us is not the unmediated [or immediate] sense data presented to us. What "appears" to us is mediated [or mediate] sense data — the presented sense data already decomposed into "things" and "processes" of significance for us.Such mediation constitutes the necessary processing of the patterns of sense data into our conceived "reality" of them as "things" and "processes" — the patterns of "things" and "processes" we've come to identify and recognize within the sense data presented to us.For consciousness, this already unconsciously-processed sense data is what constitutes "appearance".Unconscious processing of sense data is essential to human "consciousness". To that extent it constitutes unconscious pre-processing for human "consciousness". So "appearance" is sense data unconsciously pre-processed for "consciousness" to dig its teeth into, so to speak.As such, automatic post-processing of sense data or automatic pre-processing for "consciousness" must be a flexible process. We are not intellectual automatons. Our "consciousness" must adapt to its world — our "social being" — the place we need it for.It must necessarily be conditioned to identify the content within sensual patterns that are significant for us social creatures. Otherwise we could neither learn from our past nor adapt to our future.Thus "appearance" cannot be neutral sense data at all. It must necessarily be biased sense data — sense data that has been unconsciously sliced, diced and conditioned by our socially derived conception of "reality"."Appearance", as sense data that is necessarily mediated by our conceived "reality", cannot be "reality" itself.What "appears" to us only appears to be "reality". That's why we have to prove its "reality" in practice.For consciousness, there is no such thing as sense data; there is only "appearance" mediated by "reality".ExamplesWhat is presented to our senses [as an adult] is what is presented to our senses as a baby, but what "appears" is totally different. And what constitutes the "reality" for us as adults or as children or as babies is totally different.What is presented to our senses [as moderns] is what is presented to Ptolemy's senses [or a hunter–gatherer's or Newton's]. What "appears" to each is perhaps only mildly different. But what constitutes the "reality" for a hunter–gatherer, Ptolemy or Newton is totally different.In both examples, the adult or Newton is presented with the same raw sense data, but unconsciously pre-processes it into vastly or slightly different "appearances", and interprets it as totally different "realities" from a baby or Ptolemy.In describing the conceptual chasm between Ptolemy's and Newton's scientific "realities", Thomas Kuhn characterized their "realities" as being "incommensurable" precisely because each conceived essentially the same "appearances" in scientific ways that were totally incompatible to the other. They inhabited different "realities".Babies spend time learning to identify patterns, as preparation for recognizing that patterns hold content for them. Adults build flexibly upon this foundation.[As an aside… Edit: I've removed an extract that I took from unpublished work on child psychology.]Contrary to "scientific realism" — things can't just be as they appear to our senses.

Hud955 wrote:

If they [appearance and reality] tend to diverge then you just have to look harder or view the world through a different medium.

Divergence"Appearance" gives us changing patterns translated into "things" and "processes" based on our conceived "reality". In other words, "appearance" is, thankfully for our need to navigate a changing world, already loaded by our conception of "reality".Unravelling content from pattern is precisely the role "reality" is required to play in "appearance".In this limited sense, "appearance" and "reality" do converge. But it is we who unconsciously impose the convergence. It is we who impose our conceived "reality" upon sense data to reconstitute it as "appearance". Our "appearance" is both loaded with and contaminated by our conceived "reality". Our "appearance" is biased toward us. It could not be otherwise.This is precisely where Marx detects dialectics at work…Convergence — "reality" necessarily imposed upon "appearance" — will eventually turn into divergence — of "reality" overthrown by "appearance". Necessity re-imposes the new "reality" upon "appearance".The helpful "reality" that makes sense of the patterns of sense data, and turns them into "things" and "processes" for us, will eventually become a fetter. It is then that we must change our conception of "reality" to free ourselves from the "dead hand of the past".Life would be straightforward if "appearance" directly gave us "reality". As Marx says, "there would be no need for science". There would hardly be need for thought.Unfortunately, "appearance" is necessarily loaded with doses of "unreality".Like most sentient persons, Marx recognized that ultimately "reality" is its own "foundation" but, unlike most sentient persons, he conceived "reality" as a social product. For him, everyone else's [including the scientific realist's] obvious truism that "reality founds everything" was ultimately a contentless abstraction. Materialist Marx would never base anything on a pure abstraction.Marx saw Hegelian Idealism as one of the few worthy examples of a system that takes "reality" — for Hegel, the Idea — as its own foundation. As a young man, Marx saw Hegel's extraordinary system wreck itself on its own foundation.Materialist Marx recognized the fragility of basing our "consciousness" of "appearance" upon "reality" — an as-yet-to-be-discovered thing — the outcome rather than starting point — looking through the wrong end of the telescope.Apparently-objective "appearance" is already fashioned by our conception of its "reality".For Marx, the key to "reality" lay in its prosaic necessity for us. Its necessary utility to guide us through our changing "social being".

Hud955 wrote:

Fundamentally, though, we get closer to reality through a more detailed and accurate observation of appearance, not by setting up an antagonism between the two.

Naive RealismWith regard to anchoring science on "naive realism"…"Naive realism" is the solid anchor of the geocentric cosmology still taught by Orthodox monotheists  [yes, Maimonides's universe is still taught in Orthodox Israeli high-school curricula and synagogues] half a millennium after Copernicus. [See "Attitudes of Educated Orthodox Jews towards Science" http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=nussbaum_fi_30_1%5D"Naive realism" is the solid foundation of intelligent design — views sanctified by the lawgivers of Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam."Naive realism" was Lenin's dogmatic trump card in his "Materialism and Empiriocriticism".I know you take a critical attitude toward "scientific reality" and "naive realism".My argument against them is that one can't be naive about mental processes that aren't themselves naive — that aren't themselves entirely objective because they necessarily contain subjective elements.Consequently, we [you and I] both judge the same scientific processes critically, but from different "realities". Our opposing views are to that extent "incommensurable".

[alanjjohnstone]

Time certainly affects the memory as you can see by the embellishments I made in my original comment and the actual reference.I can also heartily recommend Turnbull's other book, The Mountain People. It is an account of a society in terminal breakdown, where schadenfreude is the order of the day, where theft and neglect of the vulnerable is common. A community that has become all for self instead of one for all. Turnbull locates the cause to the re-location of the tribe and its inability to provide for itself in the new environment.

[Author]

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