LBird
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I’m afraid that you’ve come too late to the discussion, twc.
By about 200 years, sadly.
If this response seems harsh to other readers, I’ve tried very hard many times in the past to engage with twc, but his ‘materialist’ ideology really is a religious belief.
But, here’s a ‘why’ for you, and all the other ‘materialists’:
When attempting to discuss ‘science’, why do ‘materialists’ never mention social production, democracy, class, Marx, politics, socialism, proletariat, philosophy, history, society, etc., etc…?
You’re not here to defend any of those, are youse?
You’re here to defend ‘Science’.
Youse should really change the name of your party to the Scientific Party of Great Britain. It would be far more accurate about your fundamental concern.
ALB wrote: “Did you notice what he just said —that human activity meets “resistance” ? What from? Surely not from what some people might call “matter” ie the world independent of humans and their activity?”
Let’s hope that now the constant lying is clear to all.
‘Matter’, as I’ve explained, is not ‘resistance’. The difference has just been explained – ‘matter’ is supposedly ‘independent of activity’, whereas ‘resistance’ is ‘dependent upon activity’.
These are clearly two entirely different concepts. If ALB wants to choose ‘matter’, he’s entirely free to do so, and be open about this choice. But what ALB actually does is set out to confuse others reading, so that they think ‘matter’ and ‘resistance’ are synonymous, and attribute this to Marxists. Beware the materialists.
ALB will never explain how there can be a ‘world independent of humans’.
Marx argued that any world we know is a social product of our activity. So, its ‘existence’ is a product of our activity. We externalise (Marx: ‘entausserung’) our nature.
By ‘independent’, materialists mean ‘outside of one’s brain‘. ALB’s ‘active subject’ is a ‘biological individual’.
By ‘dependent’, Marxists mean ‘produced by humans’ – of course, this ‘social product’ is outside of a biological brain! BUT… it’s not ‘independent’ of human conscious activity… otherwise, we wouldn’t ‘know it’.
‘Matter’ is a concept within bourgeois physics which parallels ‘Private Property’ within bourgeois economics. Both concepts are meant to remove the need to query just who creates these ‘things’.
‘Matter’ simply supposedly pre-exists its social creator… ‘Private Property’ simply supposedly pre-exists its social creator. Clever, elite, individuals simply ‘stumble’ upon ‘matter’ and ‘private property’, both supposedly just sitting there, passively awaiting the first bright bourgeois who ‘discovers’ them.
Robinsonades, Marx called these asocial, ahistorical ‘individuals’…
ALB wrote: “The difference between us and our feathered friend is that he denies this. He argues that “our mental/material world” is entirely constructed by the human social mind out of nothing”
Once again, I have to intervene in the lies told by ‘materialists’.
Three here.
This is not what ‘divides us’. What ‘divides us’ is democracy. ALB, being a ‘materialist’, will not have a democratic method in science. ALB wants an elite to determine ‘science’, which he regards as a non-political, non-social, non-historical activity.
The second is his lie that Marxists argue “that our mental/material world” is entirely constructed by the human social mind”
Marxists argue “that our mental/material world” is entirely constructed by” human social activity, social theory and practice. Materialists always divide ‘theory’ from ‘activity’ in their false accusations. They wish the uninitiated to think Marxists are ‘idealists’, concerned only with ‘mind’. It is a lie. Workers beware the lies of the materialists.
Third lie: “out of nothing“.
Marxists argue that ‘activity’ creates ‘resistance’. These are two sides of the same coin. There can’t be ‘resistance’ without ‘activity’, and ‘activity’ meets its ‘resistance’.
Our world is our creation, created by our social theory and practice, as our social activity meets its resistance, and we produce from this social activity.
I’ve asked ALB to read Bogdanov, who comes closest to Marx in his understanding of ‘activity/resistance’ – but ALB prefers Bogdanov’s arch-enemy, Lenin, and his ‘materialism’.
Any comrades reading this discussion, and interested to understand – please ask questions about Marx, rather than simply accepting the lies of the ‘materialists’. The ‘materialists’ constantly rewrite what they want Marxists to have said, rather than address what Marxists actually write. Lenin is the archetype of this method.
Bijou Drains wrote: “…the sensory nature of human existance, one which you continuously and studiously ignore…”
Right, BD, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt (reluctantly), and try once more.
I’ve never, ever ‘ignored’ ‘human existence’ – this is either a mistake by you (you haven’t actually read what I’ve written) or a lie by you (you have read, and have decided, like Lenin and all materialists, to slander their democratic opponents). To be comradely, I’ll assume that you’re simply mistaken.
‘Human existence’ is not ‘sensory’ – this suggest a passive humanity, which simply ‘takes in’ ‘what exists’ supposedly ‘outside of itself’.
Marx, just like all the other thinkers within his early life, education and development, regarded ‘humanity’ as active.
That’s why Marx’s central (fundamental?) concept is ‘Labour‘.
This ‘labour’ is not blokes with rolled-up shirt sleeves digging a ditch, but an eternal condition of humanity – if one ‘touches matter’, one is engaging in ‘labour’; if one writes the ‘Principia’, one engages in ‘labour’; if one posits ‘singularity’, one engages in ‘labour’.
‘Labour’ is conscious social activity which produces social products (whether widgets or concepts, ditches or algorithms, kids or gods) – it is nothing whatsoever to do with ‘matter’ or ‘material things’, meaning ‘stuff I can touch’ (and since last time you deliberately ignored my ‘etc.’), ‘see, sniff, hear or taste’.
Now, if you want to stick with 18th century ideology about the ‘sensory’, fair enough, but at least be open enough to declare your ideology. It’s nothing whatsoever to do with Marx, and if you reject Marx, again, fair enough, but, again, say so.
You’re a hopeless devotee of bourgeois science, BD, as are all ‘materialists’.
Marx wasn’t, though. He was a democrat.
L. B. Neill wrote: “We are social beings. We socially construct our mental/material world. We put that construct into practice. Call it social constructivism/ social constructionism.”
Yes, I agree with this, and this could also be called, to make Marx’s contribution clear, social productionism.
Since we humans are the creators of any ‘reality’ that we know, this ‘reality’ is ‘reality-for-us‘. There isn’t a ‘reality’ that we don’t know, which can simply become apparent without our active, conscious, production. Whatever is meant by this unknown reality, it is, according to Marx, a ‘nothing for us’.
But…
L. B. Neill wrote: “…what you see is my reality… So it is matter for me…” [my bold]
Once again, L. B., you contradict yourself (perhaps another ‘logical loop’?) – to be consistent, you’d have to write “…what you see is our reality… So it is matter for us…“.
L. B. Neill wrote: “You see LBird, I agree with you- we are taught to know matter”
Yes, I think that we do, perhaps with some definitional aspects about ‘the active subject’ to be discussed, fundamentally agree.
This social agreement, I believe, can provide the basis of a ‘revolutionary science’ (Marx), a ‘science’ that is fundamentally democratic, and thus suitable for the proletariat in its building for a future democratic socialist society.
You’ll have to read about the physics (or any science) yourself, BD.
I’ve given up trying to reason with those who will not engage in faithful discussion. I’m tired of my arguments being altered, and then the lie being used as a basis for further ‘discussion’. It’s the same method as Lenin employed, and I’ve realised that I’m wasting my time with non-democratic materialists.
Hopefully, if you read what I write further in this discussion with L. B. Neill, then your questions will be answered, even if not to your ideological liking.
L. B. Neill wrote: “Look, I know matter is matter.”
I’m sure that you’re aware that this is precisely what ALB, Bijou Drains, and all ‘materialists’ claim: the primacy of ‘I’, in determining whether ‘matter’ exists of not. So, it is ‘matter-for-me’.
L. B. Neill wrote: “A rock does not tell me it is a rock- my socially informed construct tells me it is a rock.”
But this contradicts your earlier claim. The first claim is that a non-social, non-historical ‘I’ knows ‘matter’.
As it is, I agree with your latter claim. Neither ‘rocks’ nor ‘matter’ talk to us, as biological individuals.
I also agree with Marx, that we are social individuals (not merely biological individuals, sense-impression takers) who are conscious, and that consciousness is a socio-historical product.
If Marx is correct, we should be able to give a socio-historical account of the emergence of ‘matter’, who created it, and why they created it. And if it was created socio-historically, we should be able to give a socio-historical account of its disappearance, of its falling out of ‘existence-for’ a social subject.
We can, of course, give such an account.
Put simply ‘one’ only ‘knows matter’, because ‘one’ has been taught to ‘know matter’.
We can change this teaching, and introduce theories and concepts suitable for the building of a democratic socialist society, where humanity as a whole determines its own ‘reality’.
Or, as for the ‘materialists’, we can leave this power to create our reality in the hands of an elite. But this would divide society into two, as Marx famously warned.
L. B. Neill wrote: “I would prefer a parrot, looking at me square on, challenged my statement- or else it all becomes… immaterial!
Matter has no voice until our thinking gives it so… and yet… it still hurts when you stub your toe on it.
Keep the debate active!!!”
I’m always willing to debate the difference between Marx and ‘materialists’, L. B. Neill. I just hope we can keep it to the issues involved, and stop the personal attacks, which, especially since Lenin, seem to be part and parcel of the elite materialist response to their democratic critics.
Your notion of ‘matter’ being related to ‘stubbing one’s toes on it’, reflects Bijou Drain’s earlier stance. This means that you both regard the ‘active subject’ as a ‘biological individual’. For youse, the determinant of ‘matter’ is a ‘biological individual’s physical experience and opinion’.
But for Marx (and necessarily for democratic socialists), the ‘active subject’ is a ‘social producer’. This is not an ‘individual’, but socio-historical group of humans, and within democratic socialism, humanity.
The key political question is: ‘who (or what) has the power to determine ‘matter’?‘
The ‘materialists’ deliberately pretend that it is a question of ‘biological individuals’ and their ‘touch’ (or any other sense), and pretend that this is the basis of the social activity of ‘physics’. Clearly, it isn’t, because physics (and maths, etc.) are not based upon ‘touch’ (etc.) but upon, as Marx said, social theory and practice. ‘Physics’ is under the political control of an elite, and materialists wish to retain this elite control (otherwise, they would accept democratic voting within physics, and the democratic determination of ‘truth’).
This, again, is what Marx said: the materialists will divide society into two: an elite who allegedly know a ‘matter’ which pre-exists the conscious activity of humanity in producing its knowledge, and a mass who remain ignorant, and can’t be allowed to vote on whether ‘matter’ should ‘exist’ or not.
As we all know, ‘matter’ no longer exists in contemporary physics, since the elite have moved onto ‘mass’ and ‘energy’. There are other alternatives, too.
The key political question for democratic socialists is: how can the determination of the content of our world be determined and changed by an elite, if we hope to build democratic socialist society? Change must be under democratic control.
Our world is the socio-historical product of conscious human activity, and thus we can change it.
ALB wrote: “We don’t often have controversial discussions here but we should, as that’s one of the reasons the forum is for. Most are with our feathered friend but after 5 years of discussing with a parrot this has become rather predictable and boring.”
‘Controversies’ are for those who can think critically, ALB. I suspect that you think that youse ‘don’t often have’ them for good reasons. Reiteration of outdated beliefs is religious thought.
Rather better to be thought, by a materialist, to be a ‘predictable and boring parrot‘, than to be a ‘predictable and boring rock‘. At least the parrot has consciousness.
Good luck with ‘matter’, my pre-Marx, 18th century revivalist.
Bijou Drains wrote: “Actually, practically everything in science can be sensed in a direct way…”
We’ll have to agree to disagree, on this one, BD. 🙂
If I were to produce a list of ‘stuff’ from ‘science’, which neither of us, or anyone else, has even touched, etc., I’d be here till xmas!
Bijou Drains wrote: “…we discover as children that things that are hot burn us.”
Yes, so every member of humanity could participate in a vote on this and agree. Hot things burn.
But what has this to do with ‘science’? Almost everything to do with ‘science’ can’t be sensed in such a direct way. Who would have an interest in making others believe that a political and philosophical discussion about the democratic control of science within socialism is about ‘burnt fingers’? Perhaps those who wish to deny democracy within ‘science’.
No-one ever saw, heard, smelt, tasted or touched an atom.
Atoms are social products, produced by an atomised society (initially by wealthy Ancient Greeks, and then again by wealthy Europeans, for similar socio-economic reasons). For generations within bourgeois society, ‘atoms’ (I know it’s unbelievable!) were believed to be real! They simply existed.
We now know much better, though. The ‘uncuttable’ was ‘cut’.
The problem is, who determines whether atoms ‘exist’ of not? They certainly ‘existed-for’ someone, at some period. ‘Atoms’ have a history, and go in and out of ‘existence’, depending upon the society that has an interest in creating them.
But you try telling this to the ‘materialists’!
Thomas More wrote: “I think L. Bird is saying that humanity is God, and nothing exists without us.” [my bold]
Yes, I am saying this, Thomas – with one caveat. It’s better expressed as:
“I think L. Bird is saying that humanity is God, and nothing exists-for-us without us.” [my bold]
The basic concept of ‘materialism’ is ‘exists’; whereas for Marx it is ‘exists-for-us’ – that is, ‘what exists’ is an externalisation of our conscious activity, and so is ‘what exists-for-us’.
This is a commonplace in post-Kantian German Idealism, and was Marx’s starting point. What he introduced was the notion of a ‘social individual’, rather than, for example, Fichte’s ‘biological individual’.
For Marx, the active subject in the process of creation was ‘social’, not ‘individual’, not ‘god’, and not ‘matter’. We create individuals, god and matter. They are all social products, and we can change them. We do not contemplate ‘existence’, but create ‘existence-for-us’. And thus, we can change ‘existence-for-us’.
Wez wrote: “Beware of contemporary conceit ALB. The future may look back on our own view of ‘reality’ as anachronistic just as we see the metaphysics of the past as outdated.”
Yes, Wez, ‘reality’ is historical – and thus social and human. The metaphysics of 18th century ‘materialism’ have been outdated for a long while. Ironically, Marx participated in that. But his views have been obscured.
Marx today would probably be called a ‘constructionist’. He argued that we ‘externalise’ our own ‘nature’. His term ‘Entausserung’ means ‘externalisation’, or ‘production’. We are active in the process of building our world.
ALB wrote: “…postmodernists and oids use in their dogma that “beliefs create reality.””
But who here is arguing that postmodernist dogma, ALB?
As far as I can tell, the postmodernists/idealists/religious have no presence on this site, never mind on this thread.
The conversation here is between those, like you, the ‘materialists’, who argue that ‘reality itself’ pre-exists the social production of it. And so, ‘reality itself’ is sitting there, waiting to be ‘discovered’. Fine, it’s a common enough belief, and focusses on ‘The World’.
But the other side, like me, the ‘Marxists/democratic socialists’, argue that ‘reality’ is a social product. This is not anyone saying ‘beliefs create reality’. It’s following Marx’s views, that human conscious activity creates what it knows (Marx refers to Vico in Capital, so he was familiar with Vico’s arguments). That is, social theory and practice produces ‘Our World’.
The problem with the concept of ‘The World’ is that we can’t change it, if ‘reality itself’ precedes our making of it. We can only simply contemplate it. Once known, this ‘reality’ is known forever.
This is the problem and the debate.
We know that the ‘scientists’ of the 19th century were wrong about this belief in ‘reality itself’, as Einstein showed (and many, many others).
And for us, who aspire to build towards socialism, surely we’re better adopting a scientific ideology that stresses ‘society and nature’ as an intertwined couplet, as did Marx, and that democracy must play a part in this social production of our reality.
ALB, quoted Loren Goldner: “Our starting-point must be the direct opposition between the body of doctrine which came to be known as ‘Marxism’, codified in the First, Second, Third and Fourth Internationals, and the ideas of Karl Marx. After separating these two, I want look at the relation between ‘Marxism’ and the body of ideas known as the Enlightenment, chiefly those of the French eighteenth century thinkers. Then I should turn to the earlier tradition sometimes called ‘Hermetic’, which includes magic, astrology and alchemy. I want to show how, when modern rational science defeated this outlook, it also lost something of value: its attitudes to humanity and nature.”
I must say, I totally agree with Goldner, here.
It’s precisely the ‘lost value’ of ‘humanity and nature’ that Marx, too, focussed upon.
ALB wrote: “Sounds a bit mumbo-jumboist to me”
It sounds of inestimable value to democratic socialists, to me.
The bourgeoisie’s separation of ‘society and ‘nature’ was an entirely ideological step. It’s purpose was to keep ‘science’ and ‘nature’ out of the hands of democratic forces, as displayed during the English Revolution of the 1640s.
Only the ruling class benefitted from this separation. To maintain it, is to support the ruling class, and separate society into two: those who know and do ‘science’, an elite minority, and those who can’t know and can’t do ‘science’, the vast majority.
The role of socialists is to challenge the power of the elite, wherever it is manifested – as it is in their current version of ‘science’.
