Wez
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ALB wrote: ‘By the way, quantum mechanics is an explanation of phenomenon observed in the movement of sub-atomic particles and has no application outside that field.’
You couldn’t be more mistaken. Quantum mechanics has caused a crisis of cultural understanding of the world. The synthesis of the observer and the observed is a profound concept applicable to every phenomena. I notice you’ve changed the question you ask from ‘what are forces composed of’ to how are they measured. Presumably because you can’t answer my question you concentrate on the other. Your need for things to be described in ‘physical terms’ betrays a very old fashioned kind of mechanical materialism. While in hospital I am continually asked ‘what number would you describe the pain as between 1 and 10’ when my answer would be it’s a creeping malaise that is always present but intensifies at certain times for no apparent reason. In other words I don’t believe measurement is always the royal road to reality. We’ve had this debate as long as I’ve known you and the hole doesn’t seem to be any deeper now than it was at the beginning. By the way how is the force of gravity described in ‘physical terms’? The physicists of the world would be very interested to know.
DJP -Yep, that’s me. I don’t know if you’ve read my account of my adventures on radio: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2012/2010s/no-1299-november-2012/fyah-inna-babylon-marxist-media/
DJP – I have a recording of one of my early shows and would like to share it with you – if you’re interested how can this be done? As for grabbing a mic now there’s nothing I would like to do more but it looks like I’ll be in hospital again very soon (subjected to hospital radio, groan) as my health is rubbish. Who knows if I’ll regain the strength to hit the airwaves once more – my public await with bated breath.
Almamater – So why go into such detail about what you are doing on this forum? You have made your life my business through discussing it here. What you don’t like is my identifying it as ‘individualistic’ rather than socialist. Am I mistaken?
ALB -Here’s a question for you – what is the force of gravity composed of? Similarly what is the force of electromagnetism composed of or the strong and weak nuclear forces? These are meaningless questions surely?
DJP – ‘From that you can work out a strategy for getting your message out there. If you end up reaching nobody it doesn’t matter how much you want to undermine consumerism.’
Having been a graphic designer all my working life I perfectly understand how marketing ‘works’. I had to endure endless meetings where people tried to second guess the tastes of others – very tedious. The best advice I ever got was ‘make the show that you would want to listen to. If it fails then so be it but don’t play anything merely because you think the audience would like it.’
Almamater – ‘I do not like anybody giving me order and telling me what to do, and I do not want to participate in any party activities, committees, or even writing for the socialist standard .
I am running my own websites’How very bourgeois individualistic of you Almamater – don’t you believe in democracy?
TM – Originally I think Freud thought of the libido as an actual chemical entity – which led Reich on his fruitless search for ‘orgone’. Sigmund thought that science was a matter of ‘matter’ and hoped his psychoanalysis would one day be described in a similar style as was physics. Since quantum mechanics nobody thinks of physics in that way.
ALB & BD – I’ve always thought of the concepts as metaphorical like ‘a force of nature’ or ‘desire’ being a manifestation of the sexual instinct. In the end all language (including that of science) are metaphors. They still seek a complete scientific explanation for the ‘force’ of gravity. The ‘quantum’, photon, singularity, dark matter etc. are all metaphors.
DJP – I don’t know the reasons why you can’t ‘get involved’ but it maybe that, like myself, you have serious health issues that might preclude me occasionally from proceeding with such a project. As a broadcaster I invited DJs onto my show to discuss their favourite albums which, as it turned out, were all political at their heart. I hope it doesn’t ‘all come down to marketing’ since the broadcasts will seek to subvert and undermine consumerism and its demographic designations.
TM – Yes Freud had abandoned his old ‘libido’ theory (to which ALB always refers) in favour of a thoroughly psychological one containing the rival forces of ‘Eros’ (the life force) and ‘Thanatos’ (the death instinct). I find his mature work more interesting than his earlier more ‘mechanical’ theories.
ALB quotes Feud saying: ‘One of the passages from Freud that was read on the programme was that humans are born with “the instincts to destroy and kill, which we assimilate as the aggressive or destructive instincts”. By “we” he meant “psychoanalysts” and which rules out as completely utopian a free society without a repressive state.’
Freud had no political understanding whatsoever which is why his theories need the addition of a Marxian perspective. Marx’s theory of alienation has profound psychological implications which can be, and have been, explored by those using psychoanalytical techniques. We do not reject Darwin’s work because he was a Christian so let’s give Freud some slack for being a Viennese petty bourgeois. My contention, along with that of the Frankfurt school, is that Freud’s ‘death instinct’ has its roots in the alienation created by capitalism.
DJP – I understand why you reject my more ‘populist’ ideas but if we go your route aren’t we in danger of ‘preaching to the converted’ and attracting just the educated minority who are interested in political theory? Your contention that a music content would be ‘trite cliche’ would seem to exclude one of the most powerful vehicles of communication available to our species. Have you seen the massive audiences at rock concerts etc.? And what does ‘talk about socialism’ mean – politics is a part of everyday lives and we need to link ordinary experiences with socialist consciousness and I don’t think an endless list of intellectual lectures as on MHI is attractive to the ‘average worker’. Anyway this is just my perspective and you might be correct but perhaps we might attempt a ‘synthesis’ of our different approaches?
DJP – That looks good – and we have quite a large archive of debates etc. that we could post. However the MHI website does look a bit ‘dry’ so perhaps we could add some ‘rebel music’ with a DJ and some more eye catching graphics? I’m not a big fan of ‘phone-ins’ but they do seem to attract audiences. We could provide movie and music reviews etc.
Almamater – I always wanted to try and set up a radio station so that we could respond to events as they happen. The cost is minimal (I believe although I don’t know the cost of licenses etc. these days) to set up an online broadcast. I was told that we don’t have the personnel but if any comrades are interested in such a project let me know as I have some broadcasting experience and these days we can all broadcast from home.
