[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

I/we (arguably always we ) argue that the mind is it's own system which has only a contingent relationship to the world beyond the senses. Look at it this way. There is a time lag in acquiring sense data, making sense of it, and our being aware of it. By the time we 'see' a thing, consciously, it is long gone. We are just experiencing echoes.

But the 'mind' is much more than an individual brain. Although you've acknowledged 'we', it reads like you're talking about an 'individual consciousness'.And 'echoes' sounds awfully passive, rather than regarding humans as active producers of knowledge.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

In other words, that we have an eagle eye view of the cosmos. Our brains are like a camera obscura that reflects the cosmos through the pinhole of the senses to form an image of it in the brain.

This is the 'naive realist' view of the world, based upon positivist science.This isn't the view of Critical Realism.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

The normal, 'naive' view of reality is that it is out there and we apprehend it with our minds.

Well, the alternative to this 'normal, naive view' is that the mind creates reality. Surely you're not arguing this?Certainly, the basis of Critical Realism is that there is an objective world, 'out there', which exists prior to, and separately from, our perception of it.We discussed all this on the 'Pannekoek' thread, so I won't reprise that, but human understanding comes from our subjective social interaction with an external objective reality.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

We have nothing meaningful to say about the world beyond the senses.

But, at any given point, much of the world is 'beyond our senses'.As Marx argued, 'senses' are much more than the biological receptors of an individual, and 'human senses' are social and develop with society, and so are also historical.Surely the whole point of science is to go 'beyond our senses', in some way?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,actually, I'm not joking, I'm in with the Singularitarians on the immnent emergence of human constructed super human intelligence (when I say "I" I obviously mean the linguistically constructed retroactive justification for the actions of the meat-bot hitting the the keyboard right now).

Good one, comrade! You nearly had me there!We all know, of course, that 'super human intelligence' will only emerge with Communism.I have faith in us 'meat-bots'!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

we can't, as yet, quantify love. But if we could build a fully functional computer simulation of a working brain, then it would become literally possible.

I know that you're joking, YMS, but this is the philosophical problem that 'emergence' throws into sharp relief.Is 'love' an emergent and unmeasurable property, or something that can be counted by reference to the components of the brain?The bourgeois obssession with 'measurement' is a reflection of their money-oriented ideology. You know, 'they know the price of everything, but the worth of nothing'.This is the whole point of the quote that I gave earlier, about counting/counts. One is an 'objective measurement' (sic) but the other is a 'human estimation'.

YMS wrote:

We could then obey our new robot overlords…

We already are, comrade…Bourgeois ideologists brainwashing workers: 'You will say you're an individual'Workers lacking class consciousness: 'Yes, I am an individual'The first task of Communists is to shift the ideological focus of our lives onto the relationships between individuals. 'Individuality' is the smoke-screen of the bourgeoisie, to hide exploitation.Then, when asked by bosses, or their lickspittles in the media or education, 'Are you an individual', workers will answer, 'No! I'm a worker'.Then we'll know we're on our way, comrade!

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

Neo-liberalism is a wrong term…

This was merely meant as a joke, comrade, to echo ALB's use of 'Zen Buddhism', and hopefully to stimulate some discussion about whether we Communists should focus upon 'individuals' (as the ruling class insist that we do) or alternatively focus upon the relationships between 'individuals'.This is all in the context of our discussion about Critical Realism and 'structure/emergence', which as a model stresses 'relationships', as opposed to the so-called 'dialectical laws' (boo! hiss!) of Engels and Lenin.As a model post of objectivity, I'll leave you to judge where my beliefs lie.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Hmmmm….. how many comrades still think of themselves as 'an individual'?

I see that while I've been away leafletting for our local election campaign Morgenstern seems to have converted you to Zen Buddhism …

I see that while I've been away having a good night's sleep the bourgeoisie seems to have converted you to Neo Liberalism …

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

…There is nothing for us in dialectic, as Young Master has indicated it is a just a "dead end for humanity"

I feel compelled to clear Young Master Smeet of this scandalous allegation!In fact, it's me, LBird, who is the culprit.Hopefully, though, YMS will come to agree with me!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lbird wrote:

Given that Pannekoek here remarks on the change from 'quality to quantity', and not Engels' 'quantity to quality', I'm not sure that it's relevant to our discussion on dialectics.

Saving that it does seem an intriguing reversal, and, to my reading, suggesting that the transformation from observing qualities and then being able to quantify them is the correct way we should think of them: that should be the dialectical approach.

[my bold]Good luck with trying to 'quantify' a quality like 'love'!Was it Einstein who said,"Not everything that can be counted counts.Not everything that counts can be counted."The 'dialectical approach'? A dead end for humanity, in my opinion.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,I may have been over-reading Pannekoek, it's page 445 in the 1961print:

Panekoek wrote:

It can be remarked that the addition of decimals fundamentally changed the charcter of 'magntitude' [of a star — YMS] From a quality, a class, an ordinal number, it has turned into a quantity, a measure, an amount that can be divide by fractions, a basis of measure.  We cannot speak of a star of the 2,87th magnitude; but we can say it's magnitude is 2.78.

Maybe it was just because I knew he had also written on philosophy, but it does read like the application of dialectic (ish) by a practical scientist.  I have to say the idea that being able to measure numerically seems to be a commonplace of defining the advance of a  science.

Just had a look, YMS, thanks – by the way, pedantry compels me to detail that the passage starts "It must be remarked…" Given that Pannekoek here remarks on the change from 'quality to quantity', and not Engels' 'quantity to quality', I'm not sure that it's relevant to our discussion on dialectics. Do you have any other examples from Pannekoek (this book or elsewhere) which might lend themselves to 'structure/emergence', rather than dialectics?As I've argued, one of the strengths of Critical Realism lies in its stress on relationships which produce something new. That is, something which didn't exist in the components of the structure prior to the formation of the structure.Endless examples can be given from nature (or our understanding of nature!), human productive activity and from society. Not least, Marx's ideas about 'value'.'Value' is nothing to do with 'quantity/quality', or the other two 'dialectical laws', but can be seen as an emergent property from the particular structure of capitalist society.I personally think that 'structure/emergence' is easy to teach and for workers to employ, whereas dialectics always seems to remain in the gift of priests. No matter how many times I've asked dialecticians to explain, they fail. It's of no use in trying to understand the natural or social world.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

…quantitative change leading to qualitative change…

I've already shown, by using Engels' actual example from Anti-Duhring, that this isn't true.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

Any attempt to make this thought in the head here congruent with that thing over there, is invalid. Which means, of course, that all philosophy is invalid.

Even through practice, it's invalid?And what about the 'philosophy of praxis', ie, 'theory and practice'?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Once comrades get the hang of seeing things as 'structures' (ie. the things in a particular relationship) and that 'structures' have properties that 'emerge' from the relationship, not from the things as individual things which just happened to be heaped together[my emphasis).

Actually of course comrades (at least those interested in the subject) have long known this from reading Dietzgen and Pannekoek.

Hmmmm….. how many comrades still think of themselves as 'an individual'?This notion is, in my opinion, the most powerful within the current ruling class ideology.Almost everybody brought up in bourgeois society, when asked, 'Are you an individual?', will answer 'Yes'.It's far more difficult to cling to this ideological construct once one starts to use Critical Realism's concepts, like 'structure' and 'emergence'.As some have said before, I think Marx's ideas fit far better into this way of thinking, than into Engel's amateur ideas about 'dialectical laws', informed by 19th century positivism. The so-called 'laws' of quantity into quality, interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation, are hocus-pocus.I once asked some SWP comrades how did the membership 'interpenetrate' with the central committee. Blank faces all round. It's an empirical fact that no Leninist party has allowed this Engelsian 'mechanism' to work. It's bullshit for the hard-of-thinking.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Fair enough. I don't feel very strongly about this, though I think quantity/quality works rather well with the effects of an increase or decrease of temperature on H2O. But I suppose this could also be expressed as a relationship between temperature and H2O. I'm not going to get worked up about it as we're not talking about a 'law of nature' but only about a way of describing something.

Well, it's more than mere 'description'.Once comrades get the hang of seeing things as 'structures' (ie. the things in a particular relationship) and that 'structures' have properties that 'emerge' from the relationship, not from the things as individual things which just happened to be heaped together.Quantity/quality isn't as useful for understanding simple, everyday things, and then being able to use the understanding developed with simple things to understand more complex things. 'Structure' works, 'addition' doesn't.For example, adding trees doesn't give one a wood. A million trees don't make a wood, if each tree is 100 yards apart, or if the trees are laid touching each other. That would just be a plantation with a million trees in it, or a woodpile. No emergent properties.But place the trees 10 yards apart, a wood develops because of their closeness giving cover for the development of plant and animal populations, and a whole new ecosystem emerges. The ecosystem is not a property of individual trees, but is an emergent property of the wood. The wood is not just trees, but trees in a particular relationship.Relationships matter. The structure is a new entity. The lesson for studying society should be obvious.1 million trees apart equals 1 million entities.1 million trees close together equals 1,000,001 entities (1 million trees and 1 wood).Structures and emergent properties are a very useful way for understanding the world, both natural and social.Quantity/quality? Nah.

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