LBird
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DJP wrote:LBird wrote:Simply, the 'mind' is not the 'brain'. These are differing philosophical positions, DJP, between what we're saying.
Yes that is correct. But mind is not independent of brain..
No-one is arguing that it is, DJP.Just like Marx argued that value is not independent of commodity, for example, a 'tin of beans'.But value cannot be reduced to a 'tin of beans'.It's the 'tin of beans' in a specific social relationship.To reduce a 'structure' (mind, value) to its components (brain, commodity) is an example of 'reductionism'.When components are in a particular, specific, relationship, they can form a structure. This structure can then produce emergent properties, that are not present at the level of the individual components of the structure.So, if firefighters pour oxygen and hydrogen on a fire, it causes on explosion.But if those firefighters take the elements oxygen and water which have been previously chemically combined into a compound called 'water' (there is no special 'wetness' added, it is a product of the structural combination), and pour that on the fire, the fire is extinguished.'Wetness' doesn't exist at the elemental level; 'value' doesn't exist at the tin of beans level; mind doesn't exist at the 'brain' level.Wetness, value and mind are all products of a particular combination of their components, but the structure doesn't exist, as you say, without the components. But it can't be reduced to those components, either.The key concept, for us as for Marx, DJP, is relationship.
DJP wrote:LBird wrote:If one places the 'x' between the ears of the individual, one is 'fetishising' the 'relationship' which exists between the nearest ears of the two individuals.Clattrap. I'm really starting to think you're aff yer head.If I was to aim the cross hairs of my revolver firmly between your ears and pull the trigger your mind would cease to be.Simularly if I was to slip some LSD into your drink the only effect would be in your mind, not in the mind of any others near you.Your mind is firmly placed inside your skull.I think we should change the discussion now to angels and pinheads.
Spoken like a true individualist and reductionist, DJP!Simply, the 'mind' is not the 'brain'. These are differing philosophical positions, DJP, between what we're saying.That's why your understanding of value is 'materialist', whereas I'm with Marx, and see value as a social relationship.
mcolome1 wrote:Vin Maratty wrote:LBird wrote:Or do you think 'value' doesn't exist, because 'there is no-thing outside or beyond matter'? Marx clearly thinks 'value' is 'outside' of 'matter'.Does he? Without getting out and dusting down my copy of capital I think Marx refers to 'Value' as a relationship between people expressed as a relationship between things. The relationship is in all our heads and has a material existence within our grey matter.
That is what Marx called the fetishism of the commodity.
Yes, I gave an example of this 'fetishisation of relationships', earlier. That is, the making of a 'relationship' into a 'thing'.
LBird wrote:DJP wrote:If we are to presume mind-brain identity then the concept 'ghost' or 'father christmas' are just the result of a certain configuration of grey matter inside the brain.[my bold]To hold that opinion, DJP, is fair enough. But it's an individualist explanation, and so is likely to be anathema to Communists.The opposite viewpoint, that the mind is social, suggests that the mind lies in relationships between 'brains'.That is "the concept 'ghost' or 'father christmas' are just the result of a certain configuration of relationships outside the brain".This is a social and historical view of concepts, not a 'grey matter', mechanical materialist, view of concepts.One way of picturing this difference between us, is to ask which ears does the mind lie between, when given a photo of the two of us together.On the photo, you'd put an 'x' between your ears, and another between my ears. Our faces would each have an 'x' on them. Whereas, I'd place a single 'x' between our two nearest ears, in the middle of the photo.
If one places the 'x' between the ears of the individual, one is 'fetishising' the 'relationship' which exists between the nearest ears of the two individuals.'Relationships' are not 'objects' (or 'physical things'); they are relationships between 'objects'.As Marx says, there is not an ounce of matter in value (not even 'grey matter'), because value is a social relationship.
DJP wrote:LOL I'd like to know how philosophy of science escapes the tag of 'bourgeois' to.Well, you know my views that 'science' comes in both 'bourgeois' and 'proletarian' flavours, and I've tried to stimulate a discussion on it before, but we never get very far, do we?I've asked questions, to try to bring into focus the differences, but it seems 'unspoken assumptions' are preferred to 'outlining beliefs'.Ah well, never mind!
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird,Maybe we come from different experiences of philosophy, but I'm actually a bit sniffy about real, given its etymology, i.e. that real = royal, i.e. that what is real is a product of authority (Money is "real" because the King says so). Maybe you could define what you mean by real (and by critical-realism)?Perhaps it's best for you to read:Roy Bhaskar (2008) A Realist Theory of Science Verso, LondonHe thinks that the 'real' consists of mechanisms, events and experiences. It's not an easy book, but it's a key text for realism.A bit easier is:Margaret Archer (2003) Realist social theory CUP, CambridgeA collection of differing writers on the subject can be found in:Jon Frauley and Frank Pearce (eds.) (2007) Critical Realism and the Social Sciences Univ Toronto Press,which includes an introduction to Bhaskar's ideas in chapter 2.Happy exploring!
Vin Maratty wrote:None of this supports your previous argument. In fact it is unrelated.That's not a very helpful comment, Vin. Mere opinion without supporting argument. It's not clear what you actually want: a reply or a confession.
VM wrote:Are you merely saying that human beings actively think and are creative.Beats saying that 'rocks talk to us', as the materialists insist!
DJP wrote:"Naturalism" is the view that most things can and are best described through the framework of the natural sciences. Therefore it is a physicalist position.I think you need to look at the broader literature rather than trying to do a micro-Marxologist job.Where do you get your views from, DJP? Links to bourgeois philosophy sites are not too useful, as I've pointed out to you before.As to 'broader literature', I suggest the 'philosophy of science' for you!
As promised, YMS:
Marx, EPM, wrote:Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both. We see also how only naturalism is capable of comprehending the action of world history.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmSo, Marx's 'naturalism or humanism' is neither 'idealism' nor 'materialism', but their unity. So, perhaps, 'idealism-materialism'; or 'critical realism' is better, nowadays. Engels, by the 1880s, seems to have forgotten these works from the 1840s (if he ever understood them?).
Marx, EPM, wrote:Only here has what is to him his natural existence become his human existence, and nature become man for him. Thus society is the complete unity of man with nature – the true resurrection of nature – the consistent naturalism of man and the consistent humanism of nature.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm'Nature' isn't something to be 'discovered', but something to be 'humanised'. Knowledge is created by active humans, using the scientific method of 'theory and practice'. And humans are fallible, and knowledge is not a mere reflection of reality.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird,Charlie pre-dated Einstein by a wee bit, so didn't have the benefit of knowing (or is that "flapping") that E=MC^2, i.e. that matter and energy are the same thing.Anyway, it would have helped if you'd continued the quote:Uncle Charles wrote:If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity.My bold. The value is a substance, and definitely material. That is, not in human minds, not in the mind of God, but in the real substance of social relations.
[my latter bold]This is the key philosophical point, YMS.'Real' doesn't mean 'material' (or, 'matter')So, I'd agree that 'value' is 'real' (ie., as Marx says, and opposing DJP, 'not in human minds'), but it is not 'material' (as Marx also says, in the quote I gave earlier).'Matter' is a 19th century concept that has given way in 20th century philosophy of science to 'real'. That's why we can say that human thought is real, but is not some mysterious, and never defined, 'matter'.As you rightly observe, 'Charlie pre-dated Einstein by a wee bit'. But we post-date Albert, and we have to update our 'idealist-materialist' views. And as it so happens, Marx's views are entirely compatible with modern Critical Realism. However, the same can't be said for Fred Engels' travesty of 'materialism'.If we maintain Marx was a 'materialist', to put it simply, we're f*cked. The religious know it, too. We can't undo what humans have learned about nature since Einstein.But, if it turns out Marx was an 'idealist-materialist' (or, perhaps what we would now call a 'critical realist'), and 150 years ahead of his time, then we can still use his insights. Otherwise, if we stick to Engels' 'materialism' (dialectic or not), we might as well join a religious order, because they are in advance of 19th century thinking (and us, if we cling to 'materialism').PS. I'll dig out a quote from Charlie
DJP wrote:The fact that goods and objects appear as commodities and values is not due to any physical characteristic of the good or object itself.So far, so good! We agree.
DJP wrote:"Value" is not a physical property of objects but a social relationship…And again!Value is a 'social relationship'.
DJP wrote:…that exists "in all our heads and has a material existence within our grey matter."Ahhh… now we can see the problem.As before, you've reduced a 'social relationship' to its components of the 'grey matter' of individual brains.This is the difference between our conceptions, DJP.I'm with Marx on this. Social relationships cannot be reduced to the individuals that comprise those social relationships.The influence of 'ruling class' ideas on the science of mind, I'm afraid. Bourgeois individualism, at root.Bourgeois science has a tendency to reduce 'structure' to 'components', because that is how it understands its society and itself. Hence, its tendency to look for problems of the mind (a social relationship) inside individuals' 'grey matter', like genes, synapses, etc.Luckily for the bourgeoisie, if 'value' is physically inside our heads, they can remove it by a lobotomy.You can go first at the counterrevolutionary clinic, DJP, when they get their hands on us Communists! I'll be standing right behind you!
I'm not sure I know what you're talking about anymore, twc.I'd like a discussion, as I've said before, but you seem to prefer ranting at ghosts of your own creation. If you think I'm a Stalinist, why engage with me?I'm the one who argues that even 'scientific truth' should be produced by voting, so I'm not sure how that makes me complicit with your 'Communists'.If anything (like Marx), I'm a (too-?) radical democrat. Now, I can be criticised for that, but that leaves my criticisers on the side of the elite experts, that small section separate from society, that Marx warns us against.
Vin Maratty wrote:LBird wrote:Or do you think 'value' doesn't exist, because 'there is no-thing outside or beyond matter'? Marx clearly thinks 'value' is 'outside' of 'matter'.Does he? Without getting out and dusting down my copy of capital I think Marx refers to 'Value' as a relationship between people expressed as a relationship between things. The relationship is in all our heads and has a material existence within our grey matter.
But…
Marx, Capital, p. 138, wrote:Not an atom of matter enters into the objectivity of commodities as values.… Marx isn't talking about 'grey matter', but 'commodities'. You're talking about a different issue, aren't you? Further, if this 'relationship is all in our heads', don't you think 'value' has an 'objective' existence of some kind, contrary to Marx?
DJP wrote:LBird wrote:Only if I was a reductionist, and reduced structures to their components. I'm not a reductionist, DJP.I think structures have emergent properties. I've been through this before, though, so I won't labour the point with you, now.OK that's all well and good. But, as far as theories of mind go, emergence and supervenience inherits rather than supersede the problems of reductionism.
Could you explain further what you mean, DJP? What are the 'problems of reductionism' to which you refer?And can you tell me which ideological approach you're using to understand these issues? For example, are you a reductionist or a critical realist, or something else?
Young Master Smeet wrote:Everythign is matter, there is no-thing outside or beyond matter.Perhaps I can illustrate the problem, YMS.
Marx, Capital, p. 138, wrote:Not an atom of matter enters into the objectivity of commodities as values.[my bold]From this, I have to ask, do you think Marx is wrong? He clearly thinks 'value' has some sort of 'objectivity', but also that it isn't 'matter'.Or do you think 'value' doesn't exist, because 'there is no-thing outside or beyond matter'? Marx clearly thinks 'value' is 'outside' of 'matter'.
DJP wrote:I'd put it this way though "The meaning of words and concepts like 'ghost' or 'father christmas' are the result of certain relationships between brains"I don't see how meaning or concepts can exist outside brains.Surely 'between' means a 'relationship'?How can a relationship exist inside the components?
DJP wrote:Wouldn't that entail you having to explain how consciousness could exist free floating in space?Only if I was a reductionist, and reduced structures to their components. I'm not a reductionist, DJP.I think structures have emergent properties. I've been through this before, though, so I won't labour the point with you, now.
