Science for Communists?
- This topic has 1,435 replies, 28 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Since no-one has objected to what’s been said so far, or argued that ‘science produces The Truth’ (which was the position of science prior to Einstein), I’ll quickly recap:
LBird, post #48, wrote:This is the first step: to answer the question: 'Is there a problem with scientific knowledge, or is it true?'It seems to me there are two answers: 'Yes, there is a problem' or 'No, there isn't a problem'.As long as, for now, we proceed with some consensus that 'Yes, there is a problem', I'll try to go on and illustrate that 'problem'.And DJP has agreed that there is a ‘problem’ within ‘science’, and the problem is one of the status of the ‘scientific knowledge’ that ‘science’ produces:
DJP wrote:Yes nothing can give us the Truth of the capital T kind…This retreat by science from the position that it produces ‘The Truth’, a 100%-accurate copy in our minds of what is being ‘observed’, has really troubling implications.Put simply, if one says “the knowledge produced by science is 99.999999% ‘true’ ”,one is left open to the following objection,“but how do you know that it’s only 0.000001 that is unknown?; it might be that 99.999999% is actually unknown, and science only knows 0.000001% about what is being observed’.It’s a bit like having a board with what you suspect is four squares, and saying you ‘know’ three of them, and are aware that only the fourth remains unknown. This is vulnerable to the objection that perhaps the ‘board’ is a chessboard, with 64 squares, and ‘knowing’ three of them would mean that 61 are unknown.Now that I’ve illustrated the problem, I’ll allow comrades to comment, before I take this explanation any further.
Vin Maratty wrote:Reminder 99 fairness and objectivity1st Warning: 14. Rule enforcement is the responsibility of the moderators, not of the contributors. If you believe a post or private message violates a rule, report it to the moderators. Do not take it upon yourself to chastise others for perceived violations of the rules. 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.
Why did my post #60 receive a warning? This getting is ridiculous
Who would flag my post #63? It not offensive! Everything I say needs a warning?
LBird wrote:This retreat by science from the position that it produces ‘The Truth’, a 100%-accurate copy in our minds of what is being ‘observed’, has really troubling implications.Now you've shifted the meaning of what you are referring to as "science". Previously we where talking about scientific knowledge, now you are talking about comentators on science or scientific institutions. This is important to notice as shifts in meaning during the course of an argument cause it to go off track.Did all scientist subscribe to niave realism to begin with? I don't think that is true. Look at early modern scientists or philosophers such as Descartes, Liebniz, Hume or Kant I don't think any of them can be fitted into this catergory. Sceptism (and the idea that the mind plays an acive role in perception) forms the base of how science has deveoped right from the beginning. Though I still think you haven't adequately explained what you would take to be sufficient grounds for calling one statement "true" and another "false". (Let's forget about capital T truth for now).
Vin Maratty wrote:Why did my post #60 receive a warning? This getting is ridiculous2nd Warning: 14. Rule enforcement is the responsibility of the moderators, not of the contributors. If you believe a post or private message violates a rule, report it to the moderators. Do not take it upon yourself to chastise others for perceived violations of the rules. 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.
Vin Maratty wrote:Who would flag my post #63? It not offensive! Everything I say needs a warning?3rd Warning: 14. Rule enforcement is the responsibility of the moderators, not of the contributors. If you believe a post or private message violates a rule, report it to the moderators. Do not take it upon yourself to chastise others for perceived violations of the rules. 15. Queries or appeals relating to particular moderation decisions should be sent directly to the moderators by private message. Do not post such messages to the forum. You must continue to abide by the moderators’ decisions pending the outcome of your appeal.
This is the Stanford Enclyclopedia page on "Truth":http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/Perhaps some brief comments on it might clarify things?
LBird wrote:Let’s try once more.Now, given what I’ve said at the start, and presuming that Vin actually bothers to read what I write (and I’m not entirely sure that he does), what reason could there be for Vin’s posting of the ‘Walford ideology’?It seems to me there are two choices:either, Vin is trying to wind me up, by deliberately posting off-topic diversions to derail the thread (yet again, I might add, because there seems to be a history of this derailment within threads on this site which try to discuss science from a Communist perspective);or, Vin really is being honest, and really just doesn’t understand anything whatsoever about ideology, Communism, Marx, ‘ruling class ideas being the ruling ideas’, ‘material conditions’, ‘means of production’, etc.Now, perhaps I’m being too generous about Vin, and I’m wrongly assuming that he does understand about ‘ideology, Communism, Marx, etc. etc.’. That assumption of mine leads me to think Vin is a troll, and is deliberately trying to spoil these discussions, for ideological reasons of his own (in this case, I would hazard a guess that he’s employing Engelsian ideas about science).The alternative, it seems, is that I should be less generous to Vin, and use baby-talk to him about the big world of ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, and assume that he’s a naïve innocent abroad, who really does give Walford’s ideology some credence.Well, what a tirade LBird and that is some accusation.
LBird wrote:Let’s try once more.Vin Maratty, post #12, wrote:I mentioned George Walford who's ;“basic premise was that people’s assumptions and identifications (the factors making up their ‘ideology’) are not explicable in terms of material conditions in general and their relationship to the means of production in particular—and are never likely to be.[my bold]Vin quotes a non-Communist, non-Marxist ideologist, when I’ve already called the thread ‘Science for Communists’, and pleaded with those who don’t share my ideas to start their own thread, perhaps ‘Science for Non-Communists’ like George Walford (whoever he is).
LBird, post #1, wrote:I'd like to start a new thread to discuss 'science' with those who already consider themselves Communists.By that, I mean those who already share similar ideas to me about society.I think that I take a broadly Marxist perspective, and so don't consider myself an 'individual', but a 'worker'. I think 'ideas' are socially-produced and class-based, so that 'ideas about science' will also be of class origin. I think, again broadly, that there are two competing 'ideas' about the world (social and natural), that is, 'ruling class' ideas and 'exploited class' ideas, and that these are relevent to a discussion about 'science'.Now, given what I’ve said at the start, and presuming that Vin actually bothers to read what I write (and I’m not entirely sure that he does), what reason could there be for Vin’s posting of the ‘Walford ideology’?It seems to me there are two choices:either, Vin is trying to wind me up, by deliberately posting off-topic diversions to derail the thread (yet again, I might add, because there seems to be a history of this derailment within threads on this site which try to discuss science from a Communist perspective);or, Vin really is being honest, and really just doesn’t understand anything whatsoever about ideology, Communism, Marx, ‘ruling class ideas being the ruling ideas’, ‘material conditions’, ‘means of production’, etc.Now, perhaps I’m being too generous about Vin, and I’m wrongly assuming that he does understand about ‘ideology, Communism, Marx, etc. etc.’. That assumption of mine leads me to think Vin is a troll, and is deliberately trying to spoil these discussions, for ideological reasons of his own (in this case, I would hazard a guess that he’s employing Engelsian ideas about science).The alternative, it seems, is that I should be less generous to Vin, and use baby-talk to him about the big world of ‘politics’ and ‘economics’, and assume that he’s a naïve innocent abroad, who really does give Walford’s ideology some credence.It must be obvious to all by now, I’m really confused as to why a discussion about the relationship between science and Communism can’t get off the ground, on a site that I’m assuming is a Communist site.Perhaps I need telling: the SPGB is not a Communist organisation. Then it will be shown quite clearly that I’m the ‘naïve innocent abroad’, and should go back to my books and playing alone with my intellectual ‘mud pies’, and leave the world of politics to adults, like Vin.
1st Warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
Found this short film explaining the fascinating and mind boggling double slit experiment.http://www.richannel.org/the-double-slit-experimentAnybody fancy a Nobel prize?
Young Master Smeet Post #19 wrote:(OED definitions of science)So, there are more OED definitions, but the broad thrust is of reliable systematic knowledge, which we could roughly formulate as knowledge derived for and with an Other (in) mind: that does not exist just for me but for an Other. That differs from language, the shaping of my thoughts into a form I can transmit them to an Other in as much as the idea was created with the other in mind. The language games of science are highly structured with definite registers.Back when I was first trying to grapp[le with some basic terms. I'll leave ideology alone for now, but we will have to come back to it, because the common sense value doesn't hold. Indeed, as has been argued elsewhere before, ideology is common sense…
Actually, I don't think I can completely abandon discussion of ideology: since ideology and science (or science reformulated as pragmatism, realism, reason, logic, etc.) are often posited as antonyms. Tony Blair made a career out of contrasting realism to ideology (and thus, ideologically, distorting the meaning of ideology, hence one reason we can't use the common sense definition). I'll leave it there for now.
SocialistPunk wrote:Found this short film explaining the fascinating and mind boggling double slit experiment.http://www.richannel.org/the-double-slit-experimentAnybody fancy a Nobel prize?Thanks for that, SP Fascinating edit: I wont reveal my answer just yet, you might nick my Nobel Prize.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.