LBird
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Wez wrote: “What are your thoughts on the ‘Enlightenment’? Is it essentially bourgeois ideology or a triumph of reason and science?”
This is the key question.
Is ‘reason and science’ outside of ‘bourgeois ideology’?
If the answer is ‘yes’, where does that leave Marx’s ideology of ‘modes of production’?
On my part, I regard the ‘Enlightenment’ as a fundamental part of the emergence of capitalism, and so, that ‘reason and science’ are not universal truths, but ‘bourgeois reason’ and ‘bourgeois science’, and are both socio-historical products, that we can change.
DJP wrote: “Evolutionary biology is capitalist ideology as it contradicts the supreme proletarian teachings on LBirdian idealism-materialism.”
I know that you’re averse to discussion, DJP, but perhaps this might help you understand the debate:
I especially recommend chapter 6.
Thomas More wrote: “Dead nature? I would be interested in reading the avian’s view of how life began on Earth. At some point, he must concede, the “inanimate” became animate.”
“Dead nature” and “Inanimate nature” are ideological synonyms, Thomas.
If you choose to believe that “animate” emerged from “inanimate” (ie. ‘living nature’ from ‘dead nature’), that’s your ideological choice. But to ‘concede’ this, whether by human or by avian, is to have the preceding belief. Then, all ‘evidence’ will be chosen to confirm that belief.
Thomas More wrote: “Like it or not (and I like it, being without prejudice), the ancestor of both avians and Marxists was … mud!”
‘Liking’ is a ‘prejudice’, Thomas.
My ‘prejudice’ was also Marx’s: the ancestor of humans was humans, and their historic and changeable social production, producing both consciousness and being.
Good luck with the ‘mud ideology’!
If comrades wish to call Marx’s ‘ideal-material’ (mind-matter) ‘stardust’, that’s fine by me.
As long as we’re talking about ‘conscious activity’ by humans, social production of our nature, we’ll all get along just fine.
The problems start when the 18th century bourgeois ideology of ‘matter’ (dead nature, conscious-less stuff) is chosen to be employed.
What’s more, even the bourgeois ideologists have moved on. For example, see this week’s article in The Grauniad:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/26/physics-particles-physicists
Hiya, BD, point of order on ‘rascal’, it’s usually ‘scally’ round these parts!
Yeah, you’re right of course… any mention of ‘matter in motion’ is like a red rag to a bull.
Marx never used that term, or even that concept.
Marx’s big thing was ‘social production’. Which requires ‘consciousness’, which he never reduced to ‘matter’.
But try telling that to the ‘materialists’, and contradicting their ‘rock and mud’ fetish!
Thomas More wrote: “Spiritus means breath, and breath is material.”
And ‘material’, according to Marx, meant something like ‘relevant’ to human production.
A bit like a ‘material fact’ in a courtroom.
It certainly doesn’t mean ‘matter’ (ie. only stuff humans can touch, etc.)
So, ‘material’ is nothing to do with the outdated ideology of ‘matter in motion’. Modern physics has completely undermined that conceptual construct.
I’m trying to discuss the philosophy of maths with you, Lew.
If you think that’s ‘nonsense’, fair enough, but don’t pretend that your apparent inability to discuss the topic of this thread is caused by me.
I’m trying to find out why you think that it’s possible that in a socialist society (which can only exist after a mass, democratic, active movement has built it) ‘people may decide to … accept maths and logic as objectively given’.
The existence of socialism would be evidence that ‘people’ had freely chosen to socially produce their own objects, including maths and logic.
If you adhere to an ideology that ‘maths and logic’ will determine ‘people’ and their ‘objects’, just say so.
But if you admit this, it’s the end for any form of ‘socialism’ based upon democratic mass activity, and will be the result of an elite party who’ll claim to be ‘building socialism’ FOR the masses.
It’s Leninism, Lew.
Indeed, Cyber-Leninism.
Lew admits writing: “…accept maths and logic as objectively given.”
How does the ‘object’ ‘give’ to you, Lew?
This claim means that the ‘object’ is active, and you are passive.
And passive ‘acceptance’ of socio-historical products like ‘maths and logic’ would mean that you accept what an elite minority have produced, in their own interests and for their own purposes.
What are the politics and philosophy behind passive acceptance by the majority of the beliefs of a small minority? It sounds like religion or conservativism (or those ‘scientists’ espousing either or both, in favour of their own elite beliefs).
On the contrary, democratic communists and Marxists would stress the need for the majority to become active in all areas of social production, and help to change those social products in favour of our interests and purposes. Science, maths, logic, objects, have to be produced to create our socialist world. We can change our world.
Lew wrote: “…must be objectively true.”
Who made this claim, Lew? I didn’t.
twc wrote “…mathematics that you would ban…”.
Who made this claim, twc? I didn’t.
Really, lads, if you want to debate politics, you have to debate with what your opponent argues, rather than make up stories, and then argue with those self-made stories.
What’s the point of having a site dedicated to politics, presumably to win people over to your views, when you can’t debate with criticisms made of your beliefs? Your arguing with ideas no-one holds is completely pointless.
Whereas my arguing with your ideas allows me a focus for my reading and development, which is why I continue to criticise your beliefs.
Lew wrote: “…maths and logic as objectively given.”
The beliefs that you espouse have been comprehensively questioned since the late 19th century, before the SPGB was formed, and during the 20th century have been comprehensively destroyed.
Maths and logic change. There are no ‘objects’ determining maths and logic. ‘Objects’ are, as Marx argued, socially produced (as physics has since confirmed), and so we can change them – objects, maths, logic, and physics.
Of course, ‘maths’ can help us in our on-going planning for production within a democratic socialist society.
But it’s important to realise that any form of ‘maths’ is itself a socio-historical product, and changes with time and place.
The same applies to ‘logic’, too.
Workers would need to discuss and decide upon which version(s) of ‘maths’ and ‘logic’ would be most suited to their own interests and purposes, before attempting to employ them – that is, ‘theory’ precedes, and informs, ‘practice’. A socialist society would be a democratically determined process, with both theory and practice subject to our wishes.
Their is no form of ‘objective maths’, which supposedly ’emerges’ for us from ‘nature’, which we can just passively follow, by allowing a small minority to determine prior to our political actions.
This will, of course, require mass understanding of the different forms of ‘maths’ and ‘logic’, their origins, histories, development, and by WHOM and WHY those contrasting social products were produced. Part of our task is developing such understanding amongst the working class.
Those wanting to leave ‘maths’ to the ‘experts’ are on the wrong political and philosophical road.
Chollet wrote: “Intelligence is situational
The first issue I see with the intelligence explosion theory is a failure to recognize that intelligence is necessarily part of a broader system — a vision of intelligence as a “brain in jar” that can be made arbitrarily intelligent independently of its situation. A brain is just a piece of biological tissue, there is nothing intrinsically intelligent about it. Beyond your brain, your body and senses — your sensorimotor affordances — are a fundamental part of your mind. Your environment is a fundamental part of your mind. Human culture is a fundamental part of your mind. These are, after all, where all of your thoughts come from. You cannot dissociate intelligence from the context in which it expresses itself.”https://medium.com/@francois.chollet/the-impossibility-of-intelligence-explosion-5be4a9eda6ec#:~:text=In%201965%2C%20I.%20J.,of%20any%20man%20however%20clever.
I also recommend: ‘The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do’ by Erik Larsen
alanjjohnstone quoted: “…the word mind is an abstract term, which correctly understood, is used to describe a definite form of activity—the activity of the brain.”
This is an example of the ‘wet-stuff’, biological, individual, ideology of ‘mind’, alan.
Marx regarded ‘mind’ as a social product, and so ‘described a definite form of activity – the activity of’ SOCIETY.
Lew: “The ideas, or the thoughts, of any given epoch are determined in general by the social conditions of that epoch, which also includes relics of past ideas. As these conditions change so do the ideas, over a longer or shorter time.”
This is not Marx’s view, Lew.
If ideas/thoughts are determined by social conditions which includes ideas…
…then conditions and ideas play a part in changing ideas.
And if these conditions are not a social product (ie. not the product of theory and practice), how could we change them?
No, Marx argued that humanly produced social conditions change social conditions. He didn’t separate ‘ideas’ from ‘conditions’. We are the active ‘changer’ of ‘conditions’; we are not the ‘passive’ recipient of ‘active’ conditions.
That understanding was what separated Marx’s views from 18th century ‘materialism’. Without that understanding, we would have to separate society into two, one part (the smaller) which could change ‘conditions’, and a larger part which couldn’t. Which is what the 18th century materialists did – they looked to an elite of ‘educators’ to ‘educate’ the masses. A Leninist party was the result of that ideology. And we already know just how many workers democratically controlled any Leninist party – none.
Bijou Drains wrote: “I am using the term conscious mind, within the commonly used framework derived from Freud. The conscious mind in this sense means, as a part of mind which is responsible for rationalizing, paying attention, logical thinking and reasoning.”
Thanks for your straightforward answer, BD.
The ‘commonly used framework’ that I’m using, on the contrary, is derived from Marx. The essential difference is that Freud is discussing ‘biological individuals’, whereas Marx is discussing ‘social individuals’. This means that any discussion of ‘conscious mind’ for Freud looks within the individual, whereas Marx looks externally to the individual’s society, as it changes over time. So, regarding rationality, attention, logic and reason, Freud doesn’t ask where those concepts came from, who created them, why they created them, for what purpose, and how they’ve changed through history, but simply assumes they are universal concepts, and that they can be simple allied to any individual, in an asocial and ahistorical setting. The framework that I used assumes that all those questions must be determined before attempting to address the ‘conscious mind’.
BD wrote: “For example, if an individual is asked to add one and one, it is the conscious mind which will work out the calculation and give the answer.”
As a concrete example of my above answer, one would have to determine the mathematical background of the individual concerned, because many historical humans wouldn’t even understand the theory of ‘add one and one’, never mind the practice of ‘working out the calculation’. Mathematics is a socio-historical product, and varies by the societies within which individuals are developed.
BD wrote: “In this framework the subconscious mind includes the parts of the mind that are not actively consciously being engaged, i.e. out of awareness, but are still influential on the outcomes of thought and behaviour.”
But you don’t explain where this ‘subconscious mind’ comes from, neither as a concept or as a social product. For example, does Freud give us example of where HE acts unconsciously? How would he know, if he is unconscious of his act? If he knows, or can get to know, his ‘subconscious mind’, why doesn’t, or can’t, everyone? Or does Freud divide society into two, those with the capacity to know their ‘subconscious mind’, like him, and those (the majority?) who don’t? Doesn’t this seem reminiscent of Marx’s famous warning to workers to ask the question ‘who educates the educators?’?
That’s probably enough to be going on with. I suspect that Freud is favoured by those who regard ‘mind’ as an internal individual issue, related to the ‘brain’, which biological individuals just have as an accident of birth, and it can’t be changed (hence the focus on ‘instinct’). For Marx though, ‘mind’ is a socio-historical product, and its production can be changed by humans, which is why socialism is possible. We are not driven by ‘instincts’ from within the brain in politics. Which, of course, is the subject of the thread.
