LBird
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Lew wrote: “…must be objectively true.”
Who made this claim, Lew? I didn’t.
twc wrote “…mathematics that you would ban…”.
Who made this claim, twc? I didn’t.
Really, lads, if you want to debate politics, you have to debate with what your opponent argues, rather than make up stories, and then argue with those self-made stories.
What’s the point of having a site dedicated to politics, presumably to win people over to your views, when you can’t debate with criticisms made of your beliefs? Your arguing with ideas no-one holds is completely pointless.
Whereas my arguing with your ideas allows me a focus for my reading and development, which is why I continue to criticise your beliefs.
Lew wrote: “…maths and logic as objectively given.”
The beliefs that you espouse have been comprehensively questioned since the late 19th century, before the SPGB was formed, and during the 20th century have been comprehensively destroyed.
Maths and logic change. There are no ‘objects’ determining maths and logic. ‘Objects’ are, as Marx argued, socially produced (as physics has since confirmed), and so we can change them – objects, maths, logic, and physics.
Of course, ‘maths’ can help us in our on-going planning for production within a democratic socialist society.
But it’s important to realise that any form of ‘maths’ is itself a socio-historical product, and changes with time and place.
The same applies to ‘logic’, too.
Workers would need to discuss and decide upon which version(s) of ‘maths’ and ‘logic’ would be most suited to their own interests and purposes, before attempting to employ them – that is, ‘theory’ precedes, and informs, ‘practice’. A socialist society would be a democratically determined process, with both theory and practice subject to our wishes.
Their is no form of ‘objective maths’, which supposedly ’emerges’ for us from ‘nature’, which we can just passively follow, by allowing a small minority to determine prior to our political actions.
This will, of course, require mass understanding of the different forms of ‘maths’ and ‘logic’, their origins, histories, development, and by WHOM and WHY those contrasting social products were produced. Part of our task is developing such understanding amongst the working class.
Those wanting to leave ‘maths’ to the ‘experts’ are on the wrong political and philosophical road.
Chollet wrote: “Intelligence is situational
The first issue I see with the intelligence explosion theory is a failure to recognize that intelligence is necessarily part of a broader system — a vision of intelligence as a “brain in jar” that can be made arbitrarily intelligent independently of its situation. A brain is just a piece of biological tissue, there is nothing intrinsically intelligent about it. Beyond your brain, your body and senses — your sensorimotor affordances — are a fundamental part of your mind. Your environment is a fundamental part of your mind. Human culture is a fundamental part of your mind. These are, after all, where all of your thoughts come from. You cannot dissociate intelligence from the context in which it expresses itself.”https://medium.com/@francois.chollet/the-impossibility-of-intelligence-explosion-5be4a9eda6ec#:~:text=In%201965%2C%20I.%20J.,of%20any%20man%20however%20clever.
I also recommend: ‘The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do’ by Erik Larsen
alanjjohnstone quoted: “…the word mind is an abstract term, which correctly understood, is used to describe a definite form of activity—the activity of the brain.”
This is an example of the ‘wet-stuff’, biological, individual, ideology of ‘mind’, alan.
Marx regarded ‘mind’ as a social product, and so ‘described a definite form of activity – the activity of’ SOCIETY.
Lew: “The ideas, or the thoughts, of any given epoch are determined in general by the social conditions of that epoch, which also includes relics of past ideas. As these conditions change so do the ideas, over a longer or shorter time.”
This is not Marx’s view, Lew.
If ideas/thoughts are determined by social conditions which includes ideas…
…then conditions and ideas play a part in changing ideas.
And if these conditions are not a social product (ie. not the product of theory and practice), how could we change them?
No, Marx argued that humanly produced social conditions change social conditions. He didn’t separate ‘ideas’ from ‘conditions’. We are the active ‘changer’ of ‘conditions’; we are not the ‘passive’ recipient of ‘active’ conditions.
That understanding was what separated Marx’s views from 18th century ‘materialism’. Without that understanding, we would have to separate society into two, one part (the smaller) which could change ‘conditions’, and a larger part which couldn’t. Which is what the 18th century materialists did – they looked to an elite of ‘educators’ to ‘educate’ the masses. A Leninist party was the result of that ideology. And we already know just how many workers democratically controlled any Leninist party – none.
Bijou Drains wrote: “I am using the term conscious mind, within the commonly used framework derived from Freud. The conscious mind in this sense means, as a part of mind which is responsible for rationalizing, paying attention, logical thinking and reasoning.”
Thanks for your straightforward answer, BD.
The ‘commonly used framework’ that I’m using, on the contrary, is derived from Marx. The essential difference is that Freud is discussing ‘biological individuals’, whereas Marx is discussing ‘social individuals’. This means that any discussion of ‘conscious mind’ for Freud looks within the individual, whereas Marx looks externally to the individual’s society, as it changes over time. So, regarding rationality, attention, logic and reason, Freud doesn’t ask where those concepts came from, who created them, why they created them, for what purpose, and how they’ve changed through history, but simply assumes they are universal concepts, and that they can be simple allied to any individual, in an asocial and ahistorical setting. The framework that I used assumes that all those questions must be determined before attempting to address the ‘conscious mind’.
BD wrote: “For example, if an individual is asked to add one and one, it is the conscious mind which will work out the calculation and give the answer.”
As a concrete example of my above answer, one would have to determine the mathematical background of the individual concerned, because many historical humans wouldn’t even understand the theory of ‘add one and one’, never mind the practice of ‘working out the calculation’. Mathematics is a socio-historical product, and varies by the societies within which individuals are developed.
BD wrote: “In this framework the subconscious mind includes the parts of the mind that are not actively consciously being engaged, i.e. out of awareness, but are still influential on the outcomes of thought and behaviour.”
But you don’t explain where this ‘subconscious mind’ comes from, neither as a concept or as a social product. For example, does Freud give us example of where HE acts unconsciously? How would he know, if he is unconscious of his act? If he knows, or can get to know, his ‘subconscious mind’, why doesn’t, or can’t, everyone? Or does Freud divide society into two, those with the capacity to know their ‘subconscious mind’, like him, and those (the majority?) who don’t? Doesn’t this seem reminiscent of Marx’s famous warning to workers to ask the question ‘who educates the educators?’?
That’s probably enough to be going on with. I suspect that Freud is favoured by those who regard ‘mind’ as an internal individual issue, related to the ‘brain’, which biological individuals just have as an accident of birth, and it can’t be changed (hence the focus on ‘instinct’). For Marx though, ‘mind’ is a socio-historical product, and its production can be changed by humans, which is why socialism is possible. We are not driven by ‘instincts’ from within the brain in politics. Which, of course, is the subject of the thread.
Back to the grind.
Bijou Drains wrote: “The actions I raised were actions which were based on observable brain activity”.
Once more, a simple question.
Is this a ‘conscious brain’ (ie a living brain) or a ‘conscious-less brain’ (ie. the matter itself, wet meat, a corpse’s brain).
If it’s the former, you’re trying to discuss ‘an active mind’, not ‘matter itself’.
I’d just like to openly support Bijou Drains’ position expressed above. At least BD tries to debate, if not very well – I suspect that the rest would shut me up, if they had the power to do so, without damaging their own image as ‘libertarians’ committed to ‘free’ speech.
Whilst I’m like an “arm wrestling …double jointed octopus which has covered itself in baby oil and dropped a tab of acid”, at least I can argue my position without insulting my opponent (because I’d be banned by the moderator if I wrote that of Bijou Drains or of any other poster, as I was last time I responded to insults by better insults).
Furthermore, I’ve got news for you BD. Youse are “some kind of Leninist group think sect, where all debate and discussion needs to be focussed on the needs of the vanguard”.
Your ‘vanguard’ is ‘matter’. And it’s causing precisely the same sort of problems that Marx predicted it would.
Anyway, good luck with the wet matter of the brain, and its adventures in politics.
Finally, thanks Bijou Drains – there’s always hope whilst debates continue.
I have answered the question BD.
Read my last post, to alan, in conjunction with my earlier replies to you.
Your ideology is to assume that an unexplained link between ‘brains’ and ‘politics’ shows that ‘social production’ is dependent upon biology.
As I’ve already said, you are a Skinnerist.
Furthermore, I’ve politely asked you to show the link between ‘in-growing toenails’ (biology) and conscious activity – you should be able to explain this, if biology is at the root of conscious human activity.
Marx argued that BOTH ‘biology’ and ‘mind’ were required for conscious human activity which can change things, that is, socially reproduce our world to our designs.
If you insist that a child’s smile to its mother is outside of conscious activity, it’s your task to show how this is possible. I’ve already supplied some objections to your claims, to help you formulate a better reply.
Of course, my replies to you won’t employ your ideology, but Marx’s, which I openly state is behind my views – unlike you, who hides their ideological views.
I should point out to alanjjohnstone, the originator of this thread, that the assumption that ‘brain’ equals ‘mind’ is an ideological assumption.
That is, he makes a categorical error, of juxtaposing ‘brain’ (a biological organ) with ‘politics’ (a socio-historical conscious human activity).
If alan really wants to seek the source of politics in brains, like many bourgeois ideological scientists do, that’s his choice. But alan should be aware of that choice, and consciously justify it to himself, rather than just assume that the two are linked.
I’d advise alan to research the ideology of his ‘researchers’, to whom he links.
Anyone reading this thread can see that I answer questions, and outline my democratic and Marxist beliefs about minds.
The materialists refuse to seriously engage with any questions about their materialism, and ALWAYS turn to abuse of individuals (‘fatuous’), just as Lenin, the archetypal materialist, did.
Put simply, the title of the thread is an ideological one, based upon elitist bourgeois materialism, that ‘brains’ (wet stuff) are the basis of politics. For democratic Marxists, it’s not the ‘brain’, but the ‘mind’, which is of central concern.
The mind is a socio-historical human product, and thus we can democratically change it.
Bijou Drains’ concerns with the role of in-growing toenails in the development of proletarian consciousness and the building of socialism is an ideological dead-end for workers.
Since Bijou Drains seems to be fascinated by movement in biological individuals, I’ve another question for him to ask…
“I will also ask you another question, is a person who has growing toenails, displaying behaviour?”
Bijou Drains wrote: “So an infant smiling at its mother is not a behaviour?”
Is it social? Does it require only a single biological individual, or a relationship between humans?
Does the smile ever change? Is it fixed, so that the infant smiles whatever the socio-historic developments involving it?
Is it a social product of the mother’s learned socio-historic growth?
Is BD a secret Skinnerist? Or is BD unaware of their own ideology?
I, ironically, won’t hold my breath, heavy or shallow, for a Marxist-inspired answer!
