LBird
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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.
Back to the grind.
Bijou Drains wrote: “The actions I raised were actions which were based on observable brain activity”.
Once more, a simple question.
Is this a ‘conscious brain’ (ie a living brain) or a ‘conscious-less brain’ (ie. the matter itself, wet meat, a corpse’s brain).
If it’s the former, you’re trying to discuss ‘an active mind’, not ‘matter itself’.
I’d just like to openly support Bijou Drains’ position expressed above. At least BD tries to debate, if not very well – I suspect that the rest would shut me up, if they had the power to do so, without damaging their own image as ‘libertarians’ committed to ‘free’ speech.
Whilst I’m like an “arm wrestling …double jointed octopus which has covered itself in baby oil and dropped a tab of acid”, at least I can argue my position without insulting my opponent (because I’d be banned by the moderator if I wrote that of Bijou Drains or of any other poster, as I was last time I responded to insults by better insults).
Furthermore, I’ve got news for you BD. Youse are “some kind of Leninist group think sect, where all debate and discussion needs to be focussed on the needs of the vanguard”.
Your ‘vanguard’ is ‘matter’. And it’s causing precisely the same sort of problems that Marx predicted it would.
Anyway, good luck with the wet matter of the brain, and its adventures in politics.
Finally, thanks Bijou Drains – there’s always hope whilst debates continue.
I have answered the question BD.
Read my last post, to alan, in conjunction with my earlier replies to you.
Your ideology is to assume that an unexplained link between ‘brains’ and ‘politics’ shows that ‘social production’ is dependent upon biology.
As I’ve already said, you are a Skinnerist.
Furthermore, I’ve politely asked you to show the link between ‘in-growing toenails’ (biology) and conscious activity – you should be able to explain this, if biology is at the root of conscious human activity.
Marx argued that BOTH ‘biology’ and ‘mind’ were required for conscious human activity which can change things, that is, socially reproduce our world to our designs.
If you insist that a child’s smile to its mother is outside of conscious activity, it’s your task to show how this is possible. I’ve already supplied some objections to your claims, to help you formulate a better reply.
Of course, my replies to you won’t employ your ideology, but Marx’s, which I openly state is behind my views – unlike you, who hides their ideological views.
I should point out to alanjjohnstone, the originator of this thread, that the assumption that ‘brain’ equals ‘mind’ is an ideological assumption.
That is, he makes a categorical error, of juxtaposing ‘brain’ (a biological organ) with ‘politics’ (a socio-historical conscious human activity).
If alan really wants to seek the source of politics in brains, like many bourgeois ideological scientists do, that’s his choice. But alan should be aware of that choice, and consciously justify it to himself, rather than just assume that the two are linked.
I’d advise alan to research the ideology of his ‘researchers’, to whom he links.
Anyone reading this thread can see that I answer questions, and outline my democratic and Marxist beliefs about minds.
The materialists refuse to seriously engage with any questions about their materialism, and ALWAYS turn to abuse of individuals (‘fatuous’), just as Lenin, the archetypal materialist, did.
Put simply, the title of the thread is an ideological one, based upon elitist bourgeois materialism, that ‘brains’ (wet stuff) are the basis of politics. For democratic Marxists, it’s not the ‘brain’, but the ‘mind’, which is of central concern.
The mind is a socio-historical human product, and thus we can democratically change it.
Bijou Drains’ concerns with the role of in-growing toenails in the development of proletarian consciousness and the building of socialism is an ideological dead-end for workers.
Since Bijou Drains seems to be fascinated by movement in biological individuals, I’ve another question for him to ask…
“I will also ask you another question, is a person who has growing toenails, displaying behaviour?”
Bijou Drains wrote: “So an infant smiling at its mother is not a behaviour?”
Is it social? Does it require only a single biological individual, or a relationship between humans?
Does the smile ever change? Is it fixed, so that the infant smiles whatever the socio-historic developments involving it?
Is it a social product of the mother’s learned socio-historic growth?
Is BD a secret Skinnerist? Or is BD unaware of their own ideology?
I, ironically, won’t hold my breath, heavy or shallow, for a Marxist-inspired answer!
As I’ve said, BD, the concept of ‘behaviour’ depends upon one’s definitions and assumptions.
For example ‘how one breathes’ is entirely different to ‘breathing’ as an involuntary reflex.
Again, ‘impulse’ is not ‘behaviour; ‘involuntary’ is not behaviour.
Furthermore, ‘masturbation’ is a social behaviour, not biological individual involuntary impulse.
Lastly, Marxists are not Skinnerists, because ‘the whole issue is how to free [hu]man[ity]’.
If you wish to define ‘behaviour’ as ‘any action or movement’, that’s fair enough, but you should specify it as that. It wouldn’t be a definition that I would share. I would define ‘behaviour’ as ‘conscious human action’, because unconscious activity is a product of a society that pretends that ‘individuals’ are the location of ‘behaviour’, rather than the socio-historical conditions being the location of ‘behaviour’.
‘Unconscious individuals’ are socially produced, and we can change that.
Of course, at the root of my definitions and assumptions are democracy, Marx’s social productionism, and our ability to change our world.
I suspect that those who want ‘any action or movement’ to be the defining characteristic of ‘behaviour’ are not interested in those three assumptions.
Which is fair enough, but then they should outline their ideological beliefs – Individualism? Fixity? Matter? A supposedly asocial and ahistorical ‘Science’?
On the contrary, I would stress – society, change, human production, and ‘science’ as a socio-historically changing product. Marx’s concerns, too, in fact.
Bijou Drains wrote: “…we also need to be careful about the pure behaviourist (Skinnerist) assumption that all behaviour is learnt. It clearly isn’t. For instance, following birth, we didn’t learn to breathe by trial and error.”
We have to conceptually separate ‘biological behaviour’ from ‘social behaviour’.
Since ‘biology’ (eg. breathing) is fixed, we have no choice, so it’s not a ‘behaviour’.
‘Behaviour’ is always social, so it is a socio-historical product, and so we can change it.
One’s definitions and assumptions will determine one’s views.
Value cannot be measured. It’s a social relationship, that can be estimated by society, through the mechanism of a democratic vote.
Price can be measured. It’s an individual opinion, related to an individual’s estimation of valuable-to-them.
Bourgeois science has mathematised nature and physics, in its drive to ‘measure’ so-called ‘objective reality’, which is a by-product of capitalist valuation and money.
Once money and measurement are taken out of any social equation, we are left with ‘value’ being determined, not by ‘price’, but by us. That’s why we can democratically overthrow ‘value’, and determine for ourselves what is ‘valuable-to-us’.
‘Price’ and ‘matter’ are the stuff of individuals, not of democratic producers, of socialists.David Adam, ‘Karl Marx & the State’ (alan’s link) wrote:
“To reiterate Marx’s point, there is a material contradiction in commissioning members of a divided and atomized civil society to somehow represent the general interest of that society. Even from a formal point of view, the deputies recognized as deriving their mandate solely from the popular masses, become, once elected, independent of their electors, and are free to make political decisions on their behalf. This is distinct from Marx’s vision of a society that “administers its own universal interests.” As Marx put it, “The efforts of civil society to transform itself into a political society, or to make the political society into the real one, manifest themselves in the attempt to achieve as general a participation as possible in the legislature . . . . The political state leads an existence divorced from civil society. For its part, civil society would cease to exist if everyone became a legislator.”9 There is an important point here: the separation of the state from civil society depends on limiting popular participation in government.”
The same political and philosophical point applies to science, too.
The separation of science from civil society depends on limiting popular participation in science.
The only democratic socialist answer is ‘to achieve as general a participation as possible in’ science.
If anyone is interested in a ‘scientific’ application of Marx’s social productionism, have a read of the chapter ‘Science as Social Action’, in Lewontin, R. C. (1993) Biology as Ideology, pp. 105-23, in which he argues that ‘organisms create their own environment’, and thus are able to change it.
