[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Go and speak to some scientists, you'll find none of them believe in naive realism or think they are uncovering the absolute unmediated "Truth".

Well, YMS and ALB do. They've both said so, finally.So do you. You're a 'physicalist'. Or are 'physical' things not true? If everything is 'physical', what about Marx's value? He categorically denies that it has anything 'physical' in it. 'Not an atom of matter', he insists.Philosophy really is out of the reach of the party, isn't it?Yes, yes, yes, Vin, that mud on your hands really is there. So, that's sorted out the philosophy of science, eh? If Vin's got mud on his hands, or Vin can touch a rock, what's the need for all this nonsense about 'science'.The individualist, empiricist, method of the 19th century bourgeoisie.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

'Objective Truth' leads to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.

Is that really true?If so what makes it true?

The deaths of hundreds of millions of workers and Communists?We've listened to the 'Objective Truthists' for far too long. But, we're learning, slowly…If only we'd listened to Marx, rather than Engels.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

They always argue that they have a method which gives them special insight into 'really what reality is'

This is pure strawman repeated for the umpteenth time. Almost no-one would claim this today.

'Almost no-one'?What is it they say about 'ruling class ideas, DJP?Or have you ditched Marx as well as workers' democracy?And it wasn't me who used the phrase 'objective truth', but your party comrade ALB.ajj, should you keep listening to these fellow party-members, because they have the best interests of the working class at heart? That's not sarcasm. They really believe it.Me? I think that the working class should decide its own interests, by a democratic vote, and reject 'objective truth' for the bourgeois myth that it is. Parties are not god, and they don't have an access to reality which is denied to the proletariat. No party does. They always claim to have this access to 'objective truth'. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the comedy duo 'DJP & ALB'…

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

oh i am sure there will be an instant retort of the importance of this discussion for working class ideas and the promotion of their consciousness…but again on those other threads i have asked just what relevance it all has for us mere workers with mundane matters on our mind such as ALB's question.

This is the  tightest I can get the explanation, ajj, since I know that, unlike the other 'experts', you don't pretend to follow or understand the intricacies of this 'esoteric' debate.'Objective Truth' leads to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.I think that this is very relevant 'for us mere workers'.To expand just a titchy bit, if workers allow any authority outside of their own democratically-arrived at opinion (any authority including so-called 'reality') to dictate to them, they'll be powerless.This notion that 'workers have to dicate what reality is' goes entirely against the myths of the bourgeois scientists and the fools who follow Engels' materialism. They always argue that they have a method which gives them special insight into 'really what reality is', when the determination of 'what reality is' is a human task, and thus a task for the whole of society, if one is a Communist.I hope that this helps a little, if only to explain what is at stake.

ajj wrote:

Since you forgo membership of the SPGB (and other groups), LBird, can i hear some practical advice on how we firstly communicate our ideas so that the meet with a receptive audience that our ideology (and yours, despite differences) are simply is not reaching.

My 'practical advice' is to first find an audience willing to listen. I thought that I might be given a hearing on LibCom, the ICC site, and here, but they've all proved to be in thrall to the ruling class idea of 'objective truth', so I've never yet been able to put that 'practical advice' into 'communicating our ideas'.I had high hopes of the SPGB, after years of searching, but the disappointment continues. Y'know what they say about 'the ruling ideas in any society being the ideas of the ruling class'…You wouldn't believe the venom against the very suggestion of 'workers' democracy within science'. You'd think I'd suggested digging up the corpse of Marx and buggering his remains.Now, Engels… perhaps….

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Trouble is, my returned insults are accurate insults, whereas yours just suggest that any worker who dares to argue for democracy is an oddity and alone.

Surely the proletariat have to vote on that to determine if it's an objective fact or not?

Yes, 'sneering and ignorance' just about sums up your approach. All the time I've spent trying to reason with you has been completely wasted.Have a nice day with your 'Truth'.And it's part of ALB's 'objective truth', isn't it?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

So, in other words "I'm the only communist in the village, everybody else are dumb and ignorant Leninists"

Just what I'd come to expect from the SPGB.Still can't have a discussion, just insults.Trouble is, my returned insults are accurate insults, whereas yours just suggest that any worker who dares to argue for democracy is an oddity and alone.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

This is not a mere matter of opinion ("ideology") but is the case irrespective of whether people agree with it or not or what they might think. It is an objective fact.

There we go. Even you're infected, ALB, with the Leninist certainty.Because I'm a Marxist, I insist that only the proletariat can decide on what is 'objective' and what isn't.

ALB wrote:

For the record, I too think that it can be said that it is "true" that socialism is the only framework within which the problems currently confronting humanity in general and the wage and salary working class in particular can be solved. This is not a mere matter of opinion ("ideology")…

For the  record, I agree with you, about 'socialism'.But, I agree with you because I'm a totally-biased Communist, who recognises that I have to get my 'biases' adopted, by their own choice, by persuasion, by the entire proletariat.I'm an 'ideologist', and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm 'biased' against some 'science'. I haven't got an 'open mind' when it comes to vivisection of pregnant women without anaesthetics by 'Dr.' Mengele.The 'idea' that science is an unbiased search for the Truth, and scientists are the best ones to tell us what that consists of, is nonsense, and itself entirely unscientific, according to philosophers of science since Einstein.What was it that Robert Oppenheimer said? 'Physicists have known sin'?This guff, that you personally are privy to an 'objective fact' is a lie, and it's a lie that we now know that Leninists employ, when they insist that the Party knows better than the Class.You're ideologically-driven, ALB, as is every scientist, and as am I.The difference is, I'm open with the class (and myself, unlike others here, it seems). If they don't freely become Communists, we won't see Communism.Unless, in another way, using a special, though hidden, method, you're going to carry out a revolution, just like the ICC, behind the backs of the proletariat?Do me a favour, mate! It's the 21st century, and we workers have heard that one before!The SPGB pays lip service to workers' control, just like the rest, who're still peddling Engels' woeful crap.Ask YMS who's going to determine 'maths', and they'll answer 'mathematicians'; ask DJP who's going to determine 'mind', and they'll answer 'psychologists'; ask Vin who's going to determine 'mud pies', and they'll answer 'mud pies'.And, following the same method, ask ALB who's going to determine 'socialism', and they'll answer 'Me! I have access to objective truth'.No, maths, mind, mudpies, socialism, and science in its entirety, will be determined by the proletariat, using democratic methods.At least I'm open about my 'biases'. If any comrades think they can get to socialism without workers taking control of all of society's activities, then you try explaining that elitism to them. They might even vote for it, have me locked away in the Lubianka, but in my opinion it won't be the Communism that Marx envisaged, which is a revolutionising of society by the democratic, class conscious, proletariat.Not fuckin' elite scientists and academics. No wonder 'professor' Piketty's 'War and Peace'-like tome and hymn to reformism is worshipped by so many 'socialists', who should really know better.He's a paid prize-fighter for the bourgeoisie, just like those scientists who are not yet Communists.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

He claims that he is putting forward Marx's view but Marx went no further than to say that the human mind played a creative role in understanding nature and so did not simply passively reflect the outside material world.

[my bold]That is correct.This 'creative role in understanding' is the exact opposite of YMS's 19th century 'positivist science' method of obtaining 'the truth' which emerges from 'a clear and accurate apprehension of the world'.

Young Master Smeet, post #299, wrote:

I'd argue that socialism is not an ideology. I'd suggest that socialism is the truth, based on a clear and accurate apprehension of the world, and that ideology is the process of mystifications and obfuscation of the world as it lies.

Rovelli, the physicist, makes it clear that the science of Newton does not produce 'a clear and accurate apprehension of the world'. That is impossible. Philosophers know it, physicists know it, even the god-botherers know it, but the communist movement which still looks to Engels, does not know it. I include the SPGB in that assessment. The most damning verdict I can deliver is to call this 'method of science' the 'Leninist method'. If that doesn't wake up the Rip van Winkles here, nothing will.I won't engage any further, because I consider the other posters on this thread to be individualist, bourgeois, religious adherents of an outdated 'science' (and cloth-eared). I've only responded to you, ALB, due to my respect for your other achievements, not least, in company with alanjjohnstone, of clarifying for me during debates on LibCom with the various 'market socialists' about 'free access' communism.Even this post is against my better judgement.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'm saying that 'knowledge production' is social. 

 That is not new. 

Neither is your refusal to accept it.If you accepted it, you'd tell me which 'social knowledge' you employ to understand a rock.You mouth the words, you repeat the formula, but it's an empty phrase to you.

Vin Maratty wrote:

Your aunt sallies or straw men are wearing thin.

But not your ignorance, eh?

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Vin,I know it isn't what LBird is saying, although it does have some bearing.  

No, it isn't what I'm saying.I'm saying that 'knowledge production' is social. That means, to oversimplify for effect, that how a 'rock' is understood depends upon the society doing the understanding.Rocks do not tell us 'what they are'. Physics employs socially-produced theories to try to understand 'rocks'.Those who think that them touching a rock exhausts our scientific knowledge of rocks are employing an individualist, empirical, method. This was, indeed, thought to be the basis of science, but Einstein's ideas on relativity blew that myth apart.Individuals and their (supposed) 'individual sense' are not, and can't be, the basis of the scientific method. That pretense is part of bourgeois ideology, and goes hand-in-hand with neo-classical notions of 'value as individual opinion', rather than 'value as social relationship'.

[LBird]

northern light wrote:

Damn you L Bird, don't you dare give up now ! I/We ( I assume I'm not the only one ) have stuck it out for 27 pages, in the hope of learning something new.

I'm close to getting banned, I'm sure, but I really am finding it difficult to get the discussion back on stream.This can only happen when comrades are at least willing to give a hearing to a case. If minds are already 'made-up', then nothing I say will have any effect.There are some posters who 'know' that 'class analysis' only applies to 'social' issues, and not 'science'. I've tried my best to explain that this isn't just an 'individual opinion' that they hold, but a core 'ruling class idea', an ideological belief.They've picked up this 'opinion' from society, not from 'passive study of rocks', but they seem to think it's a totally uncontroversial, non-political, sensible position to take, and that they thought it up all by themselves, individually, entirely by coincidence.If I ask who told them that 'physics is non-political' (a central tenet of 19th century science, which thinkers like von Ranke tried to translate to historiography), they look baffled at the very question. They regard me as a lunatic, just for suggesting that 'ideas' of 'reality' just might be 'social'.When I ask them to tell me the method they use to get this uncontroversial, neutral, 'scientific' knowledge, they, once again, seem baffled by the question. 'Method?' 'In physics?' They just 'do science', in the old, unproblematic, 19th century, way. The 20th century has passed them by.I'm drifting now, and tempted to tell them all to 'Fuck Off'. Childish, I know, northern light, but it will be strangely satisfying when I do it. I don't think I've got another 27, pointless, pages in me.It will need the entry of other comrades, beside SocialistPunk, into the discussion to revitalise my enthusiasm. I don't mind explaining to comrades who genuinely what to know 'how' ruling class ideas influence science, but I'm not going to continue to joust with those who think ruling class ideas end with 'economics'. They even think that they're 'individuals', for god's sake!

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Why won't you declare your political position on science?Why not just say 'science is outside of politics', or 'rocks can be understood by individuals without employing an ideology', and we can start to locate your 'true' beliefs?

No I don't see how capitalist ideology affects the findings of geology or astronomy or any other science where the area of enquiry is not related to class power.

So, which ideology states that 'knowledge' is not 'social'?Or, if 'knowledge is social', which ideology states that 'social' has nothing to do with classes?Or, if 'knowledge is social, and it is related to classes', which ideology separates out 'knowledge of the physical from knowledge of the social', and insists that 'social class knowledge only applies to the social'?Why won't you reveal your ideology?

DJP wrote:

If you could calmly and clearly explain why you think otherwise I might change my mind. But surely at some stage this will involve touching upon "truth" and other things…

This is an outright lie.You're not open to changing your mind. It's as closed as the day you first read my first contribution about 'science' over twelve months ago.I've tried academic methods, of quotes and links to everything that I said (Marx, Pannekoek, Lakatos, Schaff, to name but a few); I've tried simple non-academic explanation (chessboards and their unknown number of squares); and I've tried contempt and personal abuse, in an attempt to wake you up. But nothing at all, no method whatsoever, has had the slightest effect.I really have no idea at all what your motivation is for your continued destruction of this thread (and others) is.Have you really nothing better to do? I know I have, and I'm beginning to resent this continued waste of my time, and my wasted efforts to encourage some discussion about science and Communism.I blame SocialistPunk; perhaps they are a 'tethered goat' to keep my interest, in some perverse joke that I'm not party to.

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

This is becoming a very public disgrace.

It certainly is! What, with you being the only communist and 'proletarian scientist' in the world. LOLI don't suppose you come across any in the last party you left? 

The shakespearean monkeys are on fire today, Vin.Do you copy them in their gait?

[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

LBird wrote:

Why not start a thread of your own, titled 'Science for Socialists', where you can discuss individuals and their truth, and forget all this nonsense I keep blathering on about, regarding classes, social knowledge, social subject, critical realism?

Yes socialists are scientists, yes there are classes in society and yes knowledge is social and yes we are social beings. You add nothing to that.Why accuse me of not accepting that there are classes, that knowledge is social and human beings are social beings.?Your tactic is to attribute a belief to a forum user then shoot it down.  

So, you do use class analysis to understand the rock in front of your face, do you?Or do you use 'your' eyes?If you really do agree that there are classes in society, knowledge is social, humans are social beings, then you'll agree that understanding the rock in front of your eyes requires society and social knowledge, and you'll reject the 'individualism' of the 'I can see the rock with my own eyes' method.Well?If you agree, I'll ask you to outline your scientific social understanding of the rock in front of your eyes, or at least the method to be employed in this process of gaining 'knowledge'.If you don't agree, I'll accuse you of paying 'lip service' to 'classes, social knowledge and humans as social beings'.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Actually Bertrand Russell did also write some really succint and clear introductory books about philosophy, and they're now all in the public domain. I recomend a look, even if our censor of the proletariat disagrees…

And still you continue to avoid 'Science for Communists'.Be my guest, anyone. Go and read Betrand Russell.DJP can't answer my questions about his views of politics and science, the title of this thread, and so slanders me as a 'censor'.Derailer. Ignorant derailer. Slanderous, ignorant derailer. Secretive, slanderous, ignorant derailer.Is DJP really the best that the SPGB can offer a thread with this title? Don't you have anyone in the party who can engage?This is becoming a very public disgrace.The only comrade who seems to be really interested is SocialistPunk, who I believe has left the party? It's beginning to seem a wise decision.

[Author]

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