[DJP]

If no-ones named it's not a warning, just a reminder. Not that I'm the moderator though.Less of the paranoia please 

[DJP]

There's a little bit about how I got involved in politics here:http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/page/more-about-theoryandpracticeorgukI came across the party on the internet on MySpace. I was looking at the page of the journal "Aufheben" and saw one of it's "friends" was "The Socialist Party of Great Britain". I looked at the MySpace page took up the free trial subscription offer, saw there was a local branch meeting in my city, went along and that where it all started. Think I went to meetings for about a year before I joined up.Turns out that one of the branch members was friends with one of my girlfriends mother, so about a year or two before I became aware of the party I had been told by her that I should talk to x "because he was in the socialist party" but never took up the offer because I thought "the socialist party" meant "the socialist workers party"…

[DJP]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We wouldn't book a stall at the Labour Party conference, and we're nearer them than we are the anarchists…

Debatable

[DJP]

CR is 6 minutes.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

it's the 'natural sciences' which have 'demonstrably failed methods'.

Well, they must have a strange definition of "failure"….

[DJP]

Vin Maratty wrote:

Social science does not need competing theoretical perspectives. As  Kuhn and others have suggested this leads to the paradigm with the most powerful supporters being adopted and used by scientists.To solve social ills the working class needs to adopt the marxist paradigm of the MCH and C and rejecect the bourgeois method of competing theoretical perspectives. Applied Marxism will lead to a greater understanding of the world and to remedies for social ills

You do know there are competing perspectives within what could be called Marxism, right?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Marx argued, on the contrary, that we should apply the methods of the social sciences to the natural sciences.

Does he? Where?

[DJP]

steve colborn wrote:

If an "artificial stimulus" is thought to be needed to overcome "dormancy", then it is probably not going to be sustainable, even in the short to medium term.I am quite happy with the blogsite, as presently done and am able to "cope", with more than one post a day, as I suspect are mose visitors to the site.

Amen to that

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

[reluctantly] What do you think about my outline of CR, DJP?

Is that a description of CR in post 398?You're just explaining emergent properties and levels of abstraction / explanation, I don't think that's exclusive to CR.I don't think speed is a good example of an emergent property. Speed isn't an emergent property, it's what could be refered to as a primary property. The traffic jam example is much better.I thought CR (at least of the kind you where talking about) is an attempt to gel together cognitive relativism with scientific realism?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

If ALB, Vin and YMS have managed to move to a reasonable tone, and actually ask meaningful questions, and supply further details, how come you've remained in the 'sneering' mode?

I fail to see what is unreasonable about asking a question after someone has made a statement.The last few questions I have asked are pretty simple and if you have a robust theory should be easily answered..We're just discussing abstract ideas, there's no need to take it personally…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

we need to discuss human theory first, rather than external reality.

Unless you presume telepathy how is another's theory not also a part of external reality?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

You won't believe this, but when I said that whether 'the sun goes round the earth' or 'the earth goes round the sun' is a 'truth' that depends upon which society is saying it, some, employing bourgeois ideology, denied it!

So if it is true that "truth" depends upon which society is saying it" this means that  it is false that "truth" depends upon which society is saying it". Since in society people don't think that truth depends on which society is saying it.It's a bit like the Barbers paradox "The barber is a man in town who shaves all those, and only those, men in town who do not shave themselves."

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

To continue the banter, how, then, can it be said that Newton was wrong, as somebody wrote last night?

This is the problem with cognitive relativsm. In one breath "truth" is defined as what most people in a society think is true. Then in the next breath "truth" comes to mean "in accord wih reality". It's a game of inconsitency and moving goalposts…By LBirds standards it must currently be true that god exists, since atheists and the non-religous currently only make around 18% of the population.It also must be much more true that socialism is impossible.How can you currently claim that either of these proposistions are false without also dropping the premise that truth is relative to a society?

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

Agree it looks good but don't think we should automatically copy stuff from our SOYMB blog there. There's already too much stuff on the blog, sometimes more than 3 posts a day, which defeats the purpose as followers won't read so much. One post a day, as with most other blogs, should be enough. Despite repeated requests to post less (even from blog committee members and a recommendation from the internet committee) nobody takes any notice.

I don't know. Do people go to blogs with the intention of reading every article? In this case I'm not sure that less is more..

[DJP]

gnome wrote:

One question.  The companion parties are listed but should there not also be a listing of the many other individual contacts around the world?

Yes. Good idea

[Author]

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