ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Here's Anton Pannekoek (writing in 1938) on what we are doing (and what we are not doing) when we talk of "gravity" and its "laws" (it's from Chapter 3 of his book on Lenin As [Crap] Philosopher):
Quote:Gravity, physicists said, is the cause of falling. Here cause is not something preceding the effects and different from it; cause and effect are simultaneous and express the same thing in different words. Gravity is a name that does not contain anything more than the phenomena themselves; in denoting them by this word we express the general, the common character of all the phenomena of falling bodies. More essential than the name is the law; in all free movements on earth there is a constant downward acceleration. Writing the law as a mathematical formula we are able to compute the motions of all falling or thrown bodies It is not necessary now to keep the phenomena all in our head; to know future cases it is sufficient to know the law, the formula. The law is the abstract concept our mind constructed out of the phenomena. As a law it is a precise statement that is assumed to hold good absolutely and universally, whereas the phenomena are diversified and always show deviations which we then ascribe to other, accessory, causes.Newton extended the law of gravity to the celestial motions. The orbit of the moon was “explained” by showing that it was pulled by the same force that made stones fall onto earth; so the unknown was reduced to the known. His law of universal gravitation is expressed by a mathematical formula through which astronomers are able to compute and predict the celestial phenomena; and the result of countless predictions shows the truth of the law. Scientists now called the gravitation the “cause” of all these motions; they saw it as a reality floating in space, a kind of mysterious imp, a spiritual being called a “force” directing the planets in their course; the law was a command somehow present in nature which the bodies had to obey. In reality there is nothing of the sort; “cause” means the short summary or compendium, “effect” means the diverse multitude of phenomena. The formula binding the acceleration of each particle to its distance from the other ones, expresses in a short form exactly the same course of things as does a lengthy description of the actual motions. Gravitation as a separate something pulling and steering the bodies does not exist in nature but only in our head. As a mysterious command permeating space it has no more real existence than has Snell’s law of refraction as a command to the light rays on how they have to go. The course of the light rays is a direct mathematical consequence of the different velocity of light in different substances; instead of by the command of a law it can equally well be represented by the principle that light, as it were an intelligent being, chooses the quickest route to reach the aim. Modern science, in an analogous way, in the theory of relativity renders the motions in space not by gravitational force, but by prescribing the shortest road (the “geodesic”) in the distorted four-dimensional space-time. Now again physicists came to consider this warped space as a “reality” behind the phenomena. And again it must be stated that, like Newton’s gravitation, it is only a mental abstraction, a set of formulas, better than the former, hence more true, because it represents more phenomena which the old law could not explain.The same goes for gravitational waves. It too "is only a mental abstraction, a set of formulas, better than the former, hence more true, because it represents more phenomena which the old law could not explain."
Vin wrote:ALB wrote:Oh no, what have I done !you to blame this time, then
I suppose so but under normal circumstances it should be possible to have a rational discussion as to whether "gravitational waves" have always existed waiting to be "discovered" (as the original report suggested) or whether some stream of phenomena in principle observable has now come to be observed, and labelled "gravitational waves". In other words, the phenomenon always existed and it's just that it has now been described, more accurately/usefully in terms of being able to predict the way it will continue to manifest itself. But, unfortunately …
Actually, have scientists "found", "discovered" gravitational waves or have they, rather, come up with a more accurate description of what has been observed?
This news item from today's papers is probably the explanation behind the radicalism of the Independent's journalists, at of the one who choses the Quote of the Day. The paper is likely to be closed:http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/11/independent-owner-considering-closing-national-print-titlesMaybe there is a connection between the industrial class struggle and political class consciousness ….
Article in Wednesday's papers about Peer-to-Peer lending which is supposed to be an alternative to banking. Actually, both are based on the same principle of people with money who don't want to use it themselves for the time being lending it to people who do need money for something. Banks are not doing anything essentially different from the P2P companies. They too are financial intermediaries. In both cases the money has to be there and, as Lord Turner points out, the borrowers need to be checked to see that they will repay any loan. Banks, No one has yet come up with the theory that P2P lenders can create the money they lend out of thin air.http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/10/former-city-regulator-warns-peer-to-peer-lending-lord-turner
No. The Party would make itself ridiculous if it tried to control what members say on twitter, their blogs, etc just as we would if we tried to control their letters to the press, conversations in pubs, etc. If members express anti-socialist views there are other ways in the rulebook of dealing with this
Actually, not only was chapter 1 of Capital not an analysis of capitalism (and not meant to be), but even when, in the following chapters, Marx introduces capitalism as a system of commodity production based on wage labour he is still working with a model which he knows is not the same as actually existing capitalism. He openly recognised this in the following footnote in chapter 9 on "The Rate of Surplus Value":
Quote:The calculations given in the text are intended merely as illustrations. We have in fact assumed that prices = values. We shall, however, see, in Book III., that even in the case of average prices the assumption cannot be made in this very simple manner.So, Marx only gets to analysing capitalism as it really is by stages (simple commodity production, capitalist commodity production on the assumption that prices = values, capitalist commodity production with the averaging of the rate of profit).The footnote is here.I think that he had in fact already drafted Volume III before Volume I was published (in 1867).
ALB wrote:According to this, from an Iranian news agency, the Kurdish nationalists have been getting air support from the Syrian government and Russia for these advances against the so-called "moderate" Jihadists:http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941119001478More on this from the same source:http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941121000772
jondwhite wrote:Surely a domain name to attract people is not as good as a high Google ranking?The US comrades have that in hand too:
Quote:comrade S … has agreed to create the site and take the technical measures needed to get it high on the lists of sites that people get when they do the search.Another quote for the file, about one of the new banks set up to challenge the oligopoly of the established ones (from yesterday's Times):
Quote:Metro takes far more in deposits than it lends to customers. Deposits are now £5.1 billion, compared with £3.5 billion in loans, making its loan-to-deposit ratio 69 per cent at the end of 2015. The model, Metro says, is ultra-safe, but it also makes it difficult to generate profits, because banks normally make money from charging more on loans than they pay out in interest to depositors.Metro Bank in fact made a loss in 2015 as in previous years. They seem to be using deposits to expand their business (more branches) than for loans to others. A sensible start-up business strategy maybe, but not something that could properly be described as "ultra-safe". In any event, they are not creating anything out of thin air.
Our US comrades are to it, according to this email:
Quote:… an idea that has been accepted by the other WSPUS members active on our forum. It was reported in the US press that as a result of Bernie Sanders calling himself a socialist internet searches on the word "socialism" have surged. [The] idea is to take advantage of this by creating a new website using the domain name whatissocialism.org (or .net) specially designed to attract people who do these searches.As an aside, I see Mason describes Sanders as "the first serious leftwing candidate in the history of the Democratic Party" but what about FD Roosevelt? Isn't Sanders advocating the same sort of "New Deal" policies? I know he's denouncing billionaires and calling for a political revolution but didn't FDR do much the same?
There does seem to be an anarchist at large in the i paper, as a comrade has just pointed out that its Quote of the Day for the previous issue (5 February) was:
Quote:As a psychopathic creature, the corporation can neither recognise nor act upon moral reasons to refrain from harming others. JOEL BAKANBakan's book and film The Corporation are very good but the irony here is that the i paper is owned by a Russian oligarch … by means of the legal construct of a corporation.
According to this, from an Iranian news agency, the Kurdish nationalists have been getting air support from the Syrian government and Russia for these advances against the so-called "moderate" Jihadists:http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941119001478
