[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

we can't, as yet, quantify love. But if we could build a fully functional computer simulation of a working brain, then it would become literally possible.

I know that you're joking, YMS, but this is the philosophical problem that 'emergence' throws into sharp relief.Is 'love' an emergent and unmeasurable property, or something that can be counted by reference to the components of the brain?The bourgeois obssession with 'measurement' is a reflection of their money-oriented ideology. You know, 'they know the price of everything, but the worth of nothing'.This is the whole point of the quote that I gave earlier, about counting/counts. One is an 'objective measurement' (sic) but the other is a 'human estimation'.

YMS wrote:

We could then obey our new robot overlords…

We already are, comrade…Bourgeois ideologists brainwashing workers: 'You will say you're an individual'Workers lacking class consciousness: 'Yes, I am an individual'The first task of Communists is to shift the ideological focus of our lives onto the relationships between individuals. 'Individuality' is the smoke-screen of the bourgeoisie, to hide exploitation.Then, when asked by bosses, or their lickspittles in the media or education, 'Are you an individual', workers will answer, 'No! I'm a worker'.Then we'll know we're on our way, comrade!

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

Neo-liberalism is a wrong term…

This was merely meant as a joke, comrade, to echo ALB's use of 'Zen Buddhism', and hopefully to stimulate some discussion about whether we Communists should focus upon 'individuals' (as the ruling class insist that we do) or alternatively focus upon the relationships between 'individuals'.This is all in the context of our discussion about Critical Realism and 'structure/emergence', which as a model stresses 'relationships', as opposed to the so-called 'dialectical laws' (boo! hiss!) of Engels and Lenin.As a model post of objectivity, I'll leave you to judge where my beliefs lie.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Hmmmm….. how many comrades still think of themselves as 'an individual'?

I see that while I've been away leafletting for our local election campaign Morgenstern seems to have converted you to Zen Buddhism …

I see that while I've been away having a good night's sleep the bourgeoisie seems to have converted you to Neo Liberalism …

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

…There is nothing for us in dialectic, as Young Master has indicated it is a just a "dead end for humanity"

I feel compelled to clear Young Master Smeet of this scandalous allegation!In fact, it's me, LBird, who is the culprit.Hopefully, though, YMS will come to agree with me!

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Lbird wrote:

Given that Pannekoek here remarks on the change from 'quality to quantity', and not Engels' 'quantity to quality', I'm not sure that it's relevant to our discussion on dialectics.

Saving that it does seem an intriguing reversal, and, to my reading, suggesting that the transformation from observing qualities and then being able to quantify them is the correct way we should think of them: that should be the dialectical approach.

[my bold]Good luck with trying to 'quantify' a quality like 'love'!Was it Einstein who said,"Not everything that can be counted counts.Not everything that counts can be counted."The 'dialectical approach'? A dead end for humanity, in my opinion.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,I may have been over-reading Pannekoek, it's page 445 in the 1961print:

Panekoek wrote:

It can be remarked that the addition of decimals fundamentally changed the charcter of 'magntitude' [of a star — YMS] From a quality, a class, an ordinal number, it has turned into a quantity, a measure, an amount that can be divide by fractions, a basis of measure.  We cannot speak of a star of the 2,87th magnitude; but we can say it's magnitude is 2.78.

Maybe it was just because I knew he had also written on philosophy, but it does read like the application of dialectic (ish) by a practical scientist.  I have to say the idea that being able to measure numerically seems to be a commonplace of defining the advance of a  science.

Just had a look, YMS, thanks – by the way, pedantry compels me to detail that the passage starts "It must be remarked…" Given that Pannekoek here remarks on the change from 'quality to quantity', and not Engels' 'quantity to quality', I'm not sure that it's relevant to our discussion on dialectics. Do you have any other examples from Pannekoek (this book or elsewhere) which might lend themselves to 'structure/emergence', rather than dialectics?As I've argued, one of the strengths of Critical Realism lies in its stress on relationships which produce something new. That is, something which didn't exist in the components of the structure prior to the formation of the structure.Endless examples can be given from nature (or our understanding of nature!), human productive activity and from society. Not least, Marx's ideas about 'value'.'Value' is nothing to do with 'quantity/quality', or the other two 'dialectical laws', but can be seen as an emergent property from the particular structure of capitalist society.I personally think that 'structure/emergence' is easy to teach and for workers to employ, whereas dialectics always seems to remain in the gift of priests. No matter how many times I've asked dialecticians to explain, they fail. It's of no use in trying to understand the natural or social world.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

…quantitative change leading to qualitative change…

I've already shown, by using Engels' actual example from Anti-Duhring, that this isn't true.

[LBird]

Morgenstern wrote:

Any attempt to make this thought in the head here congruent with that thing over there, is invalid. Which means, of course, that all philosophy is invalid.

Even through practice, it's invalid?And what about the 'philosophy of praxis', ie, 'theory and practice'?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Once comrades get the hang of seeing things as 'structures' (ie. the things in a particular relationship) and that 'structures' have properties that 'emerge' from the relationship, not from the things as individual things which just happened to be heaped together[my emphasis).

Actually of course comrades (at least those interested in the subject) have long known this from reading Dietzgen and Pannekoek.

Hmmmm….. how many comrades still think of themselves as 'an individual'?This notion is, in my opinion, the most powerful within the current ruling class ideology.Almost everybody brought up in bourgeois society, when asked, 'Are you an individual?', will answer 'Yes'.It's far more difficult to cling to this ideological construct once one starts to use Critical Realism's concepts, like 'structure' and 'emergence'.As some have said before, I think Marx's ideas fit far better into this way of thinking, than into Engel's amateur ideas about 'dialectical laws', informed by 19th century positivism. The so-called 'laws' of quantity into quality, interpenetration of opposites and the negation of the negation, are hocus-pocus.I once asked some SWP comrades how did the membership 'interpenetrate' with the central committee. Blank faces all round. It's an empirical fact that no Leninist party has allowed this Engelsian 'mechanism' to work. It's bullshit for the hard-of-thinking.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Fair enough. I don't feel very strongly about this, though I think quantity/quality works rather well with the effects of an increase or decrease of temperature on H2O. But I suppose this could also be expressed as a relationship between temperature and H2O. I'm not going to get worked up about it as we're not talking about a 'law of nature' but only about a way of describing something.

Well, it's more than mere 'description'.Once comrades get the hang of seeing things as 'structures' (ie. the things in a particular relationship) and that 'structures' have properties that 'emerge' from the relationship, not from the things as individual things which just happened to be heaped together.Quantity/quality isn't as useful for understanding simple, everyday things, and then being able to use the understanding developed with simple things to understand more complex things. 'Structure' works, 'addition' doesn't.For example, adding trees doesn't give one a wood. A million trees don't make a wood, if each tree is 100 yards apart, or if the trees are laid touching each other. That would just be a plantation with a million trees in it, or a woodpile. No emergent properties.But place the trees 10 yards apart, a wood develops because of their closeness giving cover for the development of plant and animal populations, and a whole new ecosystem emerges. The ecosystem is not a property of individual trees, but is an emergent property of the wood. The wood is not just trees, but trees in a particular relationship.Relationships matter. The structure is a new entity. The lesson for studying society should be obvious.1 million trees apart equals 1 million entities.1 million trees close together equals 1,000,001 entities (1 million trees and 1 wood).Structures and emergent properties are a very useful way for understanding the world, both natural and social.Quantity/quality? Nah.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

The issue is, does using a theory of 'quantity/quality' give a better understanding than 'structures/emergence'?

That's what I was trying to say. Or, rather, does the description (form of words) 'quantity/quality' give a better understanding of some phenomena than the description 'structures/emergence'? If not, why not?

No.Quantity/quality: merely adding bricks transforms into wallsStructure/emergence: putting bricks into a certain relationship produces new propertiesWe can use the latter to understand all sorts of physical and social phenomena. The former is near to useless.The focus on 'relations' is the key.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Aren't "the transformation of quantity into quality" and "the emergence of structure" just two different ways of describing the same phenomena?

No. One is a supposed 'law'. The day I see a pile of bricks 'transform' into a wall, just by mere addition, I'll believe Engels.New structures giving new properties is what allows bricks to form walls and produce, for example, 'protection'.The specific relationships between components is the key to understanding. Quantity/quality doesn't stress relationships, just numbers, so it's less useful.Given that we're Marxists, the usefulness of the relational aspect of this theory shouldn't need emphasising.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,the books at home. I'll try and get a ref tonight.

Thanks.

YMS wrote:

My reading of Pannekoek was that quantity/quality wasn't in nature, but the development of the human understanding of nature.

Yeah, understanding, not nature.The issue is, does using a theory of 'quantity/quality' give a better understanding than 'structures/emergence'? At present, I don't think so. I think critical realism is more useful than dialectics.

YMS wrote:

So, the quality of overwhelming military force transforms into the military science when we can analyse and quantify military capacity (and thus understand it better).

I'm not sure I get your meaning, here. 'Quantify' is a human judgement. 'Quantitative change leading to qualitative change' is a supposed 'law of dialectics', according to Engels; that 'law' is what I'm objecting to, not humans making judgements.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,Would you include Pannekoek in critical realism.  ISTR finding his version of the quality/quantity thing (in his history of astronomy) interesting, not least because it kind of chimes with the now widespread view that the advance of a science can be compared to it's capacity to quantify it's object of study (for him it was the quality of brightness).

YMS, I've never studied Pannekoek in relation to critical realism.My post 265 was a comparison of Engels' claims that his example of the French army in Egypt provided an example of 'quantity into quality'. I think it's nothing of the sort, and 'structures and emergence' explains the example better. My post is part of a larger critique of so-called 'dialectical laws'.On Pannekoek and astronomy, I bought his book on your recommendation on the other thread, but I haven't had time to read it, yet. If you could give me the pages that refer to his use of 'dialectical laws', like 'quantity/quality', I'll have a look.I don't deny that sometimes quantities change into quality, but more often they don't. Piles of bricks, no matter how many are added to the mound, will never take on the qualitative change into a wall.To me, this means the so-called 'dialectical law of q into q' is nonsense, and that Engels was wrong to formulate it, and that his own example is meaningless: more French soldiers, alone, don't simply evolve by numbers into a force that could defeat the Mamelukes.The notions of 'structure' (the form those extra numbers of soldiers took in organisation) and 'emergence' (new qualities of discipline, effective firepower, esprit d'corps, command and control, etc.) is a better guide to why the French prevailed, not 'dialectics'.

[LBird]

Unless we move on to discussing 'dialectics' in a comparison with 'critical realism', I'm going to bow out of this thread.I'm not interested any further here in Hegel, Rosa or Wittgenstein.DJP, what do you think of my post 265, which I wrote with you in mind, since you mentioned Bertell Ollman's book and critical realism?

[Author]

Posts