LBird
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Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What's your opinion? I'm not the only person here, others watching might be interested to hear, ignore me, reply as if I were dead and my ideology with me. Give your opinion to the world.
[my bold]RIP YMS.
Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What's your opinion?You won't let me answer, YMS, because your Engelsist ideology tells you that only 'matter' can answer, so my opinion is 'idealism'.
Young Master Smeet, post #11, wrote:oh, p.s. Marx is dead, he has no opinion of anything.You'll have to ask for Marx's opinion, YMS, rather than Engels' – oh, wait, Engels is dead, too – you'll have to consult direct with 'matter', I'm afraid, YMS.You and ALB apparently have a 'special' way of asking 'matter' without worrying about 'consciousness', so that should present you with no trouble.Has ALB got matter's number?Ask him that one.
Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What do you think?'Think'? Your Engelsist ideology does not recognise 'thinking', YMS, because 'thinking' is 'ideological', and a 'thinker' is an 'Idealist'.If I tell you what we're 'thinking', and why we 'think' it, and where and when those 'thoughts' emerged socio-historically, you acccuse me of 'idealism'.Why not just ask 'matter'? For you, 'matter' is the 'active side'. Then you won't have to waste your time with the 'dead thinkers' that you abhor so much.It's so much more modern to ask the 'rocks' what they 'think', isn't it? And have done with all this 'philosophy' stuff that's plagued the 'clear thinking' of us 'dead matter'.
ALB wrote:LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Engels says that it doesn't, and that 'matter' exists prior to activity.
Ask him this one, YMS: Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?
I'm surprised an Engelsist like you, ALB, full of 'contempt' for Marxism, has even thought of that!What does 'exist' mean?YMS, ask ALB that one.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Quote:Engels says that it doesn't.Engels is dead, he has no opinion of anything.How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What do you think? You're not dead, are you?
Yes, since we are made of 'dead matter', we're all dead, too, YMS.Wow! The results of your Engelsist ideology are amazing!
Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Young Master Smeet, post #11, wrote:oh, p.s. Marx is dead, he has no opinion of anything.Engels says that it doesn't.
Young Master Smeet wrote:How does activity create matter?Engels says that it doesn't, and that 'matter' exists prior to activity.Since I know that you and the rest don't read a word of what I write, you're going to have to find out about Marx's 'theory and practice' without my help.Step 1: identify your ideology.Step 2: ignore Step 1.That's it, you're finished, YMS!Congrats!
The inescapable link between 'consciousness' and 'being' is 'activity'.'Matter' is a product of such 'activity'.Engels didn't understand this.Frederick Engels is absolutely wrong.And his wrongness has had absolutely devastating consequences for the movement for socialism.If 'material conditions' are pretended to be simply 'out there', then the minority actually creating them will remain in power.The alleged breaking of this inescapable creative link, leads inexorably to Leninism.
Young Master Smeet wrote:(p.s. you've added Aunt Sally/Straw man to the list….)I though that we might get through just one day with the SPGB without resorting to accusations/abuse, but it seems to be endemic within the party. For once, I'll let it be.I've patiently explained, YMS, and if you don't like my explanation, you'll have to explain that 'dislike' to yourself.You seem, at present, to be blaming me, rather than blaming your ideology, but, there we go.I'll leave it at that for today, because I know we won't make any further advance on our exchange so far.
YMS wrote:Nope, I'm afraid you still haven't explained how inorganic nature relates to human labour.I'm afraid that I have, YMS, and at great length.Both the production of 'qualities' and 'differentiation'.There are two answers: for one ideology, 'qualities' are within 'inorganic nature'; for the other ideology, 'qualities' are actively produced in 'organic nature'.For the first ideology, the claims of the second are meaningless; for the second ideology, the first can't explain active production by societies.You don't seem to like this answer, that involves 'consciousness' and ideologies, and want an answer that only involves 'inorganic nature' to the exclusion of 'consciousness' and ideologies.That desire of yours is a product of your current ideology.You want to 'passively know' the 'world' without involving a 'active knowing subject'.We hold differing political and philosophical views about 'nature', YMS.That is the 'explanation'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Quote:What bit is so difficult to understand?How something with qualities can interact with something that has no qualities. Please explain that.
I though that I had, YMS.For my ideology (Marx's idealism-materialism), 'qualities' are produced by humans, and so are within 'organic nature'.For your ideology (Engels' materialism), 'qualities' are simply within 'inorganic nature'.To you, 'qualities' are 'something out there', within 'being' alone, and outside of 'consciousness'.To me, 'qualities' are 'relations produced', between 'consciousness' and 'being'.You are juxtaposing static possessed 'qualities', I am producing dynamic relational 'qualities'.As to which ideology is suited to change, you have to decide.I fear that you want an answer that is 'True', and so are searching for this, from your ideological perspective.The answer, however, is a socio-historical 'truth', from my ideological perspective.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Quote:Which 'piece of logic' would that be, YMS?That if inorganic nature has no qualities, there is no relationship, and for all intents and purposes, does not exist. Why would Marx talk about inorganic nature if the qualities of Labour alone produced organic nature?
What bit is so difficult to understand?From your ideological point of view, 'qualities are as they are, and are found within inorganic nature'.In opposition to this, Marx argues that 'qualities are produced, and are found in organic nature'.
YMS wrote:Lets take Tony:Quote:For Historical Materialism it is a question of the relationship of our thoughts to the phenomena which we experience as the external world.For those who dabble in English, that sentence can only be read there being pheneomena of experience of the external world.
Yes, and 'experience' is not a passive experience, as for your ideology, but is an experience created by human activity, during its social theory and practice upon 'inorganic nature'.Marx goes as far as to say that even human senses are social, and so what an individual 'experiences' is a social experience (involving perception), and not merely a biological experience. So, if it were possible to transfer an individual to another society, that individual would 'experience' the world differently. That is, 'phenomena' are socially produced.
YMS wrote:I mean, there is a relationship between a lock and a key, between pencil and paper, but there is no relationship with a void, unless a party brings some qualities that affect, combine with or change the otehr, there is no relationship.Yes, and the relationships produced by active humans with a lock and key are either the states of 'a locked door' or 'an unlocked door'. That is, the relationship between 'a lock and a key' is not one of juxtaposition of static things, but an active one in which humans are the active side. The same goes for 'pencil and paper', when employed by active humans a 'drawing' is produced.
YMS wrote:I cheerfully accept that humans create their social world, and all things in it, including ideas (which are entirely material from beginning to end); I'm happy to accept thatour ideas come from our being in the universe, and it is our active processes of living in it that produces ideas, but we are limited in what we can do, and our ideas are limited by what we can do.Which philosophy puts its focus on 'limits', and which puts its focus upon 'changes'?That is, what we can attempt to do with social theory and practice.Humans were and are 'limited' by all sorts of 'biological facts', but we attempt to change those 'facts of nature'.We don't have wings, but we can fly.As I say, for a supposed socialist, I find your focus upon what humans can't do, more suitable to a conservative philosophy of 'what we have, we hold, and no further'.The emphasis on 'limits' is hardly conducive to a philosophy of revolution.Whatever happened to the attitude of 'All that is solid melts into air'?
Marx wrote:All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned…https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htmNot exactly your "but we are limited in what we can do, and our ideas are limited by what we can do", is it?
Young Master Smeet wrote:Relational between what? If there is no quality of nature, there is no relationship.Quote:No, I keep saying, we produce 'organic nature' from 'inorganic nature', by social theory and practice.If there is no quality to 'inorganic nature' then there is no need for Marx and Pancake to refer to it (a simple textual matter). There is only social theory and practice producing organic nature (or society, for Cakey boy).What I want is for you to respond to this simple peice of logic.
Which 'piece of logic' would that be, YMS?What's so difficult about understanding a productive relationship between an active, creative humanity and 'inorganic nature'.You simply want 'quality' to be within 'inorganic nature'.Marx argues that we produce our 'organic nature', which is clearly where 'qualities' lie. That is the 'qualities' are 'relational qualities'.
YMS wrote:Accordng to oyu, nature is a blank slate we can write anything on we want, is that not the case?No, I keep saying, we produce 'organic nature' from 'inorganic nature', by social theory and practice.This is nothing to do with a mythical 'blank slate nature', which is a concept that only makes sense to materialists, or humans 'doing anything they want'.It's a social production relationship.You want to discuss some mythical 'nature out there' which is fixed, and can be known passively, as it is.Our 'nature' is the dynamic product of human labour.That's why we can change it, which is the whole point of Marx's philosophical works.You want to passively observed something that is fixed, something that is not our product, and thus that we can't change.You want to interpret the world, as it is.
