[robbo203]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I get you now. Makes sense.But I can see a problem, for us.If large sections of the working class live in impoverished nations, that have never had decent conditions, how are we going to bring them around to wanting socialism? Forgive me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that the SPGB and socialist movement  as a whole think that world socialism must come about at the same time?

 That is an interesting point – albeit it slightly off topic. I was arguing with a left communist on Revleft some weeks ago and put forward what I thought was the SPGB view that,  as a socialist  majority captured political power in each country it would immediately abolish capitalism.  However since this has to start somewhere  you would effectively have what the Stalinists call “socialism in one country” – except of course that it would be real socialism and not state capitalism and,  more to the point, would presuppose the existence of mass socialist parties elsewhere who were on the brink of capturing political power as well (which needless to say was not the case when the Soviet Union was around). My left communist opponent contended that the first country in the world  where a socialist majority came to power would have to install a dictatorship of the proletariat and continue  operating capitalism until such time as socialist parties came to power everywhere in which case they could collectively and simultaneously  institute world socialism So what is the SPGB’s official position on this matter or does it have one?  A link would be appreciated

[robbo203]

Ed wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

What is morality after all? At bottom it has to do with a concern for the welfare and wellbeing of others.  It is based on the assumption that others have value in themselves and not simply as a means to your own ends – what is called , “instrumentalism”

Morality is the expression of ruling class interests. Anything can and has been be justified morally, murder, rape, slavery, genocide anything you like. It is then used as part of our social conditioning in order to get the lower classes to accept their lot in life. On an individual level morality is very rarely the same as anyone else and thus can not be measured in any objective way. It’s also mostly bullshit anyway, what people will say that they find morally acceptable they’ll happily break without batting an eyelid. And that is the real point socialists who think they are acting on moral grounds can quite easily change their mind when they find something morally wrong.

 You are completely and utterly missing the point.  Everyone has a moral point of view – you wouldn’t be human otherwise.  Its not peculiar to the ruling class alone.  That just ridiculous. Oddly enough having started out claiming that morality is the expression of ruling class interest you then end up saying it varies from one person to another.  You cant have it both ways, you know,. If morality is so variable as you say then to put it down to being the mere expression of ruling class interests is a tad misleading, don’t you think? This naff reductionist argument crops up in the Communist Manifesto, too  “Law, morality, religion are…so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. The basic  argument seems to be that ruling ideas of society are those of the ruling class So if people tend to talk  in moral terms this is obviously a ruling class conspiracy to use morality “as part of our social conditioning in order to get the lower classes to accept their lot in life”. It does not seem to occur to you that not all ideas are ruling class ideas – unless, of course,  you think socialist ideas are also  the expression of ruling class interests . Just because people talk in moral terms does not mean they are faithfully reflecting the ruling class outlook into which they have supposedly been “socially conditioned” Heard of the concept of hegemony BTW.  I find all this talk of the…ahem … “lower classes” being socially conditioned into accepting their lot in life rather disempowering and misleading.  Its projecting the view that we are mere putty in the hands of our rulers. Its reinforcing our sense of our own impotence. I just don’t buy this argument, frankly.  Quite often its the opposite  that is the case – the ruling class being socially conditioned into accepting the ideas of the “lower classes”.  This for instance is the case with populist  type governments where politicians pander to the prejudices of the electorate. Your analysis is too simplistic  

Ed wrote:

 

robbo203 wrote:

How many times have I heard socialists come out with the assertion: “I want socialism because it is in my material self interests.”  It makes me cringe every time I hear this because it is so misleading. Actually,  if it really was the case that what drives you to want socialism is self interest and nothing else then you would be better advised to cease forthwith your dilettantish dabbling in a revolutionary socialist political movement and focus your energies on becoming a capitalist instead –  or at least stabbing your fellow workers in the back on your way up the career ladder or whatever Yes, of course “self interest” is involved to an extent but other things matter too and this is the  point . I find it extraordinary that the above post can even invoke the idea of “material class interests” without seeing that in alluding to the interests of others in the working class you are actually and unavoidably adopting a moral perspective!  Morality, like I said is other oriented.  So the “case for socialism” must  by definition to an extent be grounded in morality if it involves workers coming to identify with each other on a class basis.

I want socialism because it’s in my self interest. But I recognize that my self interest is inextricably linked to the rest of my class. You sound like that Gina Rinehart. “It’s easy to become a millionaire like me you just have to work harder”. It’s complete bollocks. There are only rare instances where people can catapult themselves into the bourgeois class from starting out with nothing. And even then they’re usually supported through higher education and receive some start up capital. Most of the world don’t have that luxury and never will. You might as well say “why don’t you buy a lottery ticket it’s in your best interest” despite the fact that your chances of winning are 116,531,800/1 (euro millions). Funnily enough those are probably about the same odds of becoming part of the bourgeois proper. Although if I had the chance to run a business I’d have no moral qualms about exploiting surplus value from others labour. Of course revolution would then not be in my self interest and I would be a socialist on purely scientific grounds.

 I did not say you would become a capitalist if you strove to become one did I?  There is no comparison between what I’m saying and what  Gina Rinehart is saying.  Of course the chances of you becoming a capitalist are absolutely minuscule but thats not the point,  is it?  The point is that if you want socialism for no other reason than that it is in your self interests then you might as well forget about socialism in that case because if its self interest that motivates you would be better advised to strive to become a capitalist  (or even just a better paid worker).  Whether you will become a capitalist is another matter entirely, obviouslyYou claim to ” recognize that my self interest is inextricably linked to the rest of my class”. Well it wouldn’t be –  would it?  –  if you what you are adopting here is a purely “instrumentalist approach” to the rest of your class. If you see them as simply a means your own selfish ends then clearly it is not true that your self interest is linked to the rest of your class.  Ironically you more or less admit this yourself  when you say Although if I had the chance to run a business I’d have no moral qualms about exploiting surplus value from others labour.  What you saying here is that the realisation of your self interest in the form of running your own business would actually demonstrate that far from your interests being “inextricably linked to the working class” those interests  would actually be opposed to the working class who you would happily exploit to further your own self interests!  The instrumentalist approach to fellow workers that comes across when you say “I recognize that my self interest is inextricably linked to the rest of my class”  will be take  a step further and put  into practice should you come to run a business and use these self same fellows to enrich yourself.  

Ed wrote:

 

robbo203 wrote:

Oddly enough Engels hinted at the kind of position I’m advocating here in his Anti Duhring

And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressed” (F Engels Anti-Dühring, Moscow 1947, p117).I think this supports my position much more than yours

 No it does not it.  He is talking about the morality of the  oppressed class vis-a-vis the morality of the ruling class.  Your contention is that ” morality is the expression of ruling class interests”. Period  Engels,  by contrast,  is saying it can be either that OR it can be be the class morality of the oppressed class.  This is what I am saying the SPGB should recognise and stop pretending that its case has nothing to do with a moral rejection of capitalism

[robbo203]

It would perhaps  be helpful to think of a socialist society in terms of a gift economy – “from each according to his/her abilities to each according to his/her needs.  The dominant form of reciprocity in that case would be generalised reciprocity  (see for example this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_%28cultural_anthropology%29) Gift exchanges are fundamentally unlike market exchanges.  They are essentially moral transactions  – another reason why I consider the SPGB’s reluctance to recognize that its standpoint is in fact a moral one to be nonsensical.  The purpose of gift exchanges is to bind people together in ties of reciprocal obligation, not to separate individuals into atomistic economic actors  who perceive themselves to have separate and indeed competing interests .  Thus, the seller of a commodity wants as a high a price as possible while the buyer has the opposite interests.  With gift exchanges what is important is not so much what is being exchanged as the social bonding that results form  it With generalised recprocity the sense of moral obligation is diffused – or generalised.  If people take according to their needs without payment of any kind  – that is without any quid pro quo arrangement applying – then there is a generalized expectation that they should also contribute according to their needs.  How they do that is up to them.  Generalised reciprocity amounts to nothing more than a kind of background form of moral pressure on individuals which highlights the fact that we are all dependent on each other and that we all need to pull together to make society tickObviously if you have free access to foods and services there is no way in which an individual artisan say could start selling his or her product to the general population.  Priced goods would be no match for free goods in that respect and even if people had the means with which to buy priced goods why would they want to?  Why for that matter would the seller want to sell his or her goods when he or she could likewise get what he or she need for free from the communal distribution points I think the point that Fabian is getting at is that people should be able to do their own and dispose of their product as they chose. O have some sympathy this view but think it needs to be pointed out that this would apply to a very narrow range of goods which can be individually produced such as artisanal products or food from your kitchen garden etc etc .  The great bulk of goods produced are essentially produced by cooperative labour and cannot be disposed of in this way .  In fact the only way that makes any sense is to make such goods available to the general population via the communal distribution stores. However in the case of individually produced goods, I see no  problem with the idea of person X exchanging a bunch a carrots for a handcrafted wooden utensil from person Y.  This is not generalised reciprocity but balanced or symmetrical reciprocity since it is directed at specific individuals    but it could certainly supplement the latter in a socialist society .  Its not strictly barter  because again the motivation is different . – it is not so much carried out in order to obtain a bunch of carrots or alternatively a wooden utensil.  These things re almost incidental to the process which is to solidify and cement a relationship between X and Y.

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

 

robbo203 wrote:

Morality does not have to be bourgeois morality.  The morality of the socialist movement is a proletarian morality. The bourgeoisie don’t have a  monopoly on “morality” but this is what we are encouraged to believe it would seem.

This is what was actually said; nowhere does the statement exclude the possibility of elements of a proletarian morality coming into play.

 This is muddled and contradictory.  If being ” indignant”  means “elements of a proletarian morality coming into play ” then why say the case for socialism is not grounded in morality but in material interests alone?   Why not just come with it straightforwardly and admit that the case for socialism is based BOTH on a moral repugnance towards capitalism AND on what is perceived to be the material interests of the working class? This pussyfooting around the notion of morality is, as far as I’m convinced, baggage from the long tradition that has infected the socialist movement from the beginning with its emphasis on the fact-value distinction and its delusional tendencies towards scientism 

gnome wrote:

However, the issue of Marx and morality poses a conundrum. On reading Marx’s works at all periods of his life, there appears to be the strongest possible distaste towards bourgeois capitalist society, and an undoubted endorsement of future communist society. Yet the terms of this antipathy and endorsement are far from clear. Despite expectations, Marx never says that capitalism is unjust. Neither does he say that communism would be a just form of society. In fact he takes pains to distance himself from those who engage in a discourse of justice, and makes a conscious attempt to exclude direct moral commentary in his own works.The initial argument that Marx must have thought that capitalism is unjust is based on the observation that Marx argued that all capitalist profit is ultimately derived from the exploitation of the worker. Capitalism’s dirty secret is that it is not a realm of harmony and mutual benefit but a system in which one class systematically extracts profit from another. How could this fail to be unjust? Yet it is notable that Marx never concludes this, and in Capital he goes as far as to say that such exchange is “by no means an injustice”.

  Yes but he also in “Capital ” compares this process of exploitation to the “age old activity of the conqueror who buys commodities from conquered with the money he has stolen from them”  and talks of the economic surplus having been “embezzled” from the worker.  How does one square that with the claim that there is no injustice involved?The plain fact of the matter was that Marx writings on the matter of morality were contradictory. I agree with  Alvin Gouldner when he refers to what he calls the “two marxisms” – Scientific Marxism and Critical Marxism  (A Giddens,  Social Theory and Modern Sociology,1987, Polity Press Cambridge  p.256-262 ) which, in his view, are fundamentally irreconcilable. 

gnome wrote:

Furthermore, again according to Marx, “in any society the ruling ideas are those of the ruling class” (The German Ideology – 1846) , which inescapably include precepts of morality.

 Which is precisely why resistance to the ideas of a ruling class must  inescapably include precepts of morality. that run counter to their precepts.

[robbo203]

gnome wrote:

Socialists are indignant about the effects of capitalism on people and the environment. However, the case for socialism is not grounded in morality but in material class interests. Marxism reveals, as no other theory can, how capitalism came into being, what its dynamics are, why it must exploit and what it must be replaced with. Morality does not exist in a timeless social and economic vacuum; the current (basically liberal) notions of rights, obligations, justice, etc. misrepresent the exploitative social relations of capitalism and are inappropriate in the struggle for socialism. In all societies there must be rules of conduct or the society would fall to pieces. In a socialist society, when it has been established, there will be rules of conduct in harmony with its social basis. The moral outlook will be the custom, based on voluntary co-operation with common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

Another classical example of the kind of conceptual muddle that seems to underlie much  SPGB thinking The case for socialism, it is claimed,  is not grounded in morality  but in ” material class interests”.  Why is it not possible to be grounded in both these things? Why should it be seen as one or the other?  Socialists are said to be  “indignant” about the effects of capitalism but how is that indignation not a sense of moral repulsion at what capitalism does?   How can one even begin to talk about the working class being “exploited” without this entailing a sense of moral outrage? The very term exploitation is a morally loaded one.  So why not just call a spade a spade?I suspect all this nonsense about socialism having nothing to do with morality stems from an old fashioned  historical attachment of some socialists to a  deluded scientism and the pretension to being  value-free in one’s analysis of capitalism – so called “scientific materialism”.  It goes back to 19th century positivism, and has been a blight on the socialist movement ever since. Marx ironically in his early writings regarded the fact-value distinction as a symptom of human alienation and so it is. In his “1844 Manuscripts”, he contended   that it “stems from the very nature of estrangement that each sphere applies to men a different and opposite yardstick—ethics one and political economy another.”Anyone who thinks they can  be in the business of changing society without this engaging or challenging the kind  of values people hold is seriously misinformed What is morality after all? At bottom it has to do with a concern for the welfare and wellbeing of others.  It is based on the assumption that others have value in themselves and not simply as a means to your own ends – what is called , “instrumentalism” How many times have I heard socialists come out with the assertion: “I want socialism because it is in my material self interests.”  It makes me cringe every time I hear this because it is so misleading. Actually,  if it really was the case that what drives you to want socialism is self interest and nothing else then you would be better advised to cease forthwith your dilettantish dabbling in a revolutionary socialist political movement and focus your energies on becoming a capitalist instead –  or at least stabbing your fellow workers in the back on your way up the career ladder or whatever Yes, of course “self interest” is involved to an extent but other things matter too and this is the  point . I find it extraordinary that the above post can even invoke the idea of “material class interests” without seeing that in alluding to the interests of others in the working class you are actually and unavoidably adopting a moral perspective!  Morality, like I said is other oriented.  So the “case for socialism” must  by definition to an extent be grounded in morality if it involves workers coming to identify with each other on a class basis. On the face of it, the reason why some socialists reject the notion of morality is contained in this sentence above Morality does not exist in a timeless social and economic vacuum; the current (basically liberal) notions of rights, obligations, justice, etc. misrepresent the exploitative social relations of capitalism and are inappropriate in the struggle for socialism But who says morality exists in a timeless social vacuum?  This  is a complete straw argument. Not only that,  it is one that is completely contradicted by the following sentence which shows  morality not to be timeless afterall : In a socialist society, when it has been established, there will be rules of conduct in harmony with its social basis. The moral outlook will be the custom, based on voluntary co-operation with common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. Implied in this is the idea  that morality far from being “timeless”  is eminently adaptable according to the kind of society you live in. Well,  if that is the case why then are we not  also talking about the movement to establish socialism likewise adapting morality accordingly in line with  that objective – in other words, accepting that the case for socialism is also in part a moral one?   Morality does not have to be bourgeois morality.  The morality of the socialist movement is a proletarian morality. The bourgeosie dont have a  monopoly on “morality” but this is what we are encouraged to believe it would seem. Oddly enough Engels hinted at the kind of position I’m advocating here in his Anti DuhringAnd as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressed” (F Engels Anti-Dühring, Moscow 1947, p117).

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Perhaps I’m nitpicking

Yes you are!

Quote:

I was saying that determinism implies more than just causality.  It also implies directionality. – some things are causal agents; other things are effects – and hierarchy – some things are more determining than others, etc. So a non deterministic model is not necessarily one that is a-causal.  It’s the pattern of causality that makes it deterministic…

I don’t know where you’re getting this definition from. None that I’ve came across define it so narrowly, or with so many caveats. Broadly speaking it just means “the doctrine that every event has a cause”.But I’m getting the feeling this discussion has passed it’s usefulness now…

 When people refer to “determinism”,  as when they ascribe to Marx, say,  (as some do)  the idea of “technological determinism”,  they usually mean by this that some aspect of reality is being adduced – in this case the  technological infrastructure of a given society –  to account for certain other aspects of that society.  This is the point that I am getting and, incidentally,  its  not a particularly narrow definition of determinism either even if it is not quite as wide as yours.    Saying that “every event has a cause” is indeed a kind of generalised definition of “determinism” but a rather anaemic one in my view. Its not particularly meaningful or useful in the same way that if the only colour we could see was red  (or different shades of red) then “red” would not be particular meaningful eitherHowever,  in the context that we are talking about, we are not trying to explain small discrete “events” but, rather, large scale patterns such as a  certain belief system of types or social institutions.  Do such things have some single cause as might be said of “an event”?  When you try to claim that they have then it is in this sense that you might reasonably be called a “determinist.”  It is a form of determinism based on reductionism in which the causal process may be grossly oversimplified and is often viewed as one way process.  There is something about that here if you go to this link:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism#Factor_priority.  You can see there are a number of different kinds of “determinisms” that come under this headingI find it difficult to believe that you have not come across this particular usage.   The SPGB, for instance sometimes criticises biological or genetic determinism which tries to explain human behavior in terms of genetic endowment .  When the party does this it is not attacking  the idea that “events have a cause” but is attacking what it sees as a simplifcation of reality –  the view that human behaviour is “determined” by our  genes – genetic determinismChanging the subject slightly, there is also something called called “soft determinism” or compatibilism which argues  that free will and determinism are compatible.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism)  I guess that would make me a compatibilist in that case!  The notion that we have no free will whatsoever is just as ridiculous as the notion that we have absolute free will, in my view.   The truth lies somewhere in between…..

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

But the fact that you cannot produce direct empirical evidence for the existence of consciousness does not mean it does not exist.  This is problem with positivism , it precludes all other sorts of knowledge and epistemological approaches such as rationalism and phenomenology

This is not what I said “Harris says that consciousness is the only self evident truth, or something like that.” Can you not read?

 I’m not quite sure what you are on about.  I was referring directly to Harris’ comment as follows:The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.[6]  Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience Perhaps I’m nitpicking but if Harris had qualifed his statement  by saying there is no emprical evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world I might have been happier 

DJP wrote:

Quote:

The example it gives of such a cascading event is the 3 domino pieces. Push one and it knocks over the other which knocks over  the final piece.  There is in other words a sense of directionality which is implied in the very idea of a “cascading” event.  A deterministic system implies more than just the universality of causality. It implies a hierarchy or a sense of temporal priority. So the third domino piece tippling over can  be explained by the first domino piece toppling over which affects the second and thus the third.  However the third cannot account for the first toppling over.  To that extent we have a one way deterministic account.

Yes that is because in the example we are moving forward in time, spooky hey? That surely never happens in real life?Again your not reading the whole article and quoting bits out of context, look at the other examples given for deterministic systems. Would you be happier if instead of “determinism” I used the word “causality”?

 What article are you talking about?  The Harris article or the Wiki article? I was referring to the latter which you linked to to substantiate your definition of determinism.  I was saying that determinism implies more than just causality.  It also implies directionality. – some things are causal agents; other things are effects – and hierarchy – some things are more determining than others, etc. So a non deterministic model is not necessarily one that is a-causal.  It’s the pattern of causality that makes it deterministic…

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I did however go to the Sam Harris link and to be honest some of the stuff he wrote seems contradictory and incoherent.  For instance, consider this The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.[6]  Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience.

 This point is explained further in the footnote. Has anyone ever held and photographed an intent or a feeling? We might be able to view a brain scan of someone intending or feeling something but this tells us nothing of what the actual experience is like.

 But the fact that you cannot produce direct empirical evidence for the existence of consciousness does not mean it does not exist.  This is problem with positivism , it precludes all other sorts of knowledge and epistemological approaches such as rationalism and phenomenology For instance,  on this basis I could just as easily retort that economic classes in a Marxian sense do not exist.  You cannot photograph or empirically capture in some way the essence of an economic class and yet as socialists we are certain that economic classes exist.  Why? My argument is that everything that Harris has to say about about physical existence presupposes his consciousness of it. Even the very act of articulating a long and thoughtful argument to show that there is no evidence for the existence of consciousness is itself evidence for the existence of consciousness 

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

and this Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves.So what Harris is saying here is that, on the one hand,  there no evidence for consciousness  and on the other  that there are “signs” of consciousness.  Figure that one out if you will….

The only evidence for consciousness is consciousness itself but as consciousness is something that can only be experienced privately it seems hard to know how science can objectively observe it.

 But  this is precisely why I stress the limits of scientific understanding and the risk of “scientism”. It is also why I feel uncomfortable about the fetishisation of “scientific materialism”  – as if science can explain everything. It cant. Science is an extremely  useful tool to aid understanding but it is not the be all and end all.  Its also why I dont like the term scientific socialism,.  Apart from anything else socialism is also a question of values

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

There then follows a truly astonishing claimNevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle. I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. So what is Harris trying to say here?  If he accepts that there is consciousness (and it would be difficult to see how he could deny that since how else would  be able to apprehend the physical processes and properties he speaks of without consciousness, which is ridiculous) then how would he explain the existence of  this consciousness?  There are only 3 alternatives I can think of assuming we accept that consciousness exists 1) that consciousness and the physical world has always coexisted in a universe that had no beginning 2)  that consciousness was “created” alongside the physical world at some point in time 3)  that consciousness emerged from the physical world Harris’ rejection of emergence theory would there seem to commit him to either 1) or 2)

Harris says that consciousness is the only self evident truth, or something like that. But rejects the ego as a fiction.You’re right he is committed to options 1 or 2 or maybe some other ones you haven’t thought of. His answer is probably “we don’t know” which at this moment in time would be the correct one.If you cannot admit the problems with emergence as an explanation of consciousness then that’s your problem not mine.There’s some good stuff of Harris’s site you should give it a read to get the full gist of his argument before prematurely accusing him of being inconsistent.

 Yes sure I will do some more reading of Harris but logically speaking it seems to me that he can hardly deny that consciousness exists – denial would itself constitute proof of consciousness – in which case I can only  logically think that one of the 3 options I outlined above must be the explanation. To me that is emergence theory.  the alternative is creationism or the mystical idea that consciousness has always existed. Of course there are, and always will be,  “problems” with emergence as an explanation of consciousness. I’m not denying that – but that again points to the limits of scientific understanding.  We may never know how consciousness or mind appeared as an emergent property of the brain but we do know that it exists by inference and that it exerts downward causation for which there exists pretty solid indirect evidence of an empirical kind  – psychosomatic effects etc 

DJP wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

No that is not a deterministic model that you are describing – quite the opposite. It is an a-deterministic model. If everything happens because of everything else then you cannot pin down anyone thing as the cause of anything else.  A deterministic model implies that some components of the universe exert a causal influence and other do not and that the latter can be explained in terms of the former

Well I just checked and there’s nothing in the standard definition of a deterministic system which says that effects do not go on to be causes.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_system_(philosophy)The problem is not ‘determinism’ per se but ‘economic determinism’, ‘technological determinism’, ‘genetic determinism’ etc which take one factor as the sole explanation of others.

 No, the piece from Wikipedia is not saying what you are saying – at least as I interpret it  For example it says In a deterministic system, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or effect, and every reaction, in turn, becomes the cause of subsequent reactions. The totality of these cascading events can theoretically show exactly how the system will exist at any moment in time. The example it gives of such a cascading event is the 3 domino pieces. Push one and it knocks over the other which knocks over  the final piece .  There is in other words a sense of directionality which is implied in the very idea of a “cascading” event.  A deterministic system implies more than just the universality of causality. It implies a hierarchy or a sense of temporal priority. So the third domino piece tippling over can  be explained by the first domino piece toppling over which affects the second and thus the third.  However the third cannot account for the first toppling over.  To that extent we have a one way deterministic account. Transferring this argument to a discussion of society and history  in general  you might have a crude deterministic model such as contained in Marx’s famous formulation that social being determines consciousness and not the other way round. Though this is a caricature of his thinking which was much more nuanced than that, it conforms to what I would call a deterministic model –  there is a one way movement of cause and effect. The thing to note is that this does not have to be absolute – it can be relative depending on how much weight you attach to the factor “social being” in comparison with consciousness”.  So it would still be possible to propose a relatively  deterministic model if you see consciousness having a pretty weak reciprocal influence on social being compared with the effect of the latter upon the consciousness itself

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

I don’t think anyone is denying this “downward causation” either. All I’m denying is that there can be causes that are not caused by something or something else.

  This is specifically not what is being said,  Neither Horgan nor myself would suggest anything to contrary.  The question is not whether there can be such a thing for which there can be no cause but rather what that cause is.  Can mind itself be a causal agency in the world? You would seem to accept that it can since you accept the reality of ” downward causation” 

DJP wrote:

Until yesterday I don’t think I had heard of Sam Harris. But the briefest look at his website shows that the final sentence of this is pure strawman. See this for example: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness

John Horgan wrote:

But the strange and wonderful thing about all organisms, and especially our species, is that mechanistic physical processes somehow give rise to phenomena that are not reducible to or determined by those physical processes. Human brains, in particular, generate human minds, which while subject to physical laws are influenced by non-physical factors, including ideas produced by other minds. These ideas may cause us to change our minds and make decisions that alter the trajectory of our world.”

 Again myself, or Sam Harris, do not deny that ideas have an influence in the world. The question is do minds somehow magically escape the world of causation? There is a lot of empirical evidence to suggest they do not. And if they do I have not seen an explanation of how they do this, but maybe I’ve missed something.Did you watch that video Robin?I’m not convinced that ’emergence’ is an adequate theory of how consciousness came into being anyhow, but I admit I need to look into the issue more.

Unfortunately I have no audio facility on my decrepit computer so there was no point in me watching the video.   I did however go to the Sam Harris link and to be honest some of the stuff he wrote seems contradictory and incoherent.  For instance, consider this The problem, however, is that no evidence for consciousness exists in the physical world.[6]  Physical events are simply mute as to whether it is “like something” to be what they are. The only thing in this universe that attests to the existence of consciousness is consciousness itself; the only clue to subjectivity, as such, is subjectivity. Absolutely nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system, suggests that it is a locus of experience. and this Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. So what Harris is saying here is that, on the one hand,  there no evidence for consciousness  and on the other  that there are “signs” of consciousness.  Figure that one out if you will…. There then follows a truly astonishing claimNevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle. I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. So what is Harris trying to say here?  If he accepts that there is consciousness (and it would be difficult to see how he could deny that since how else would  be able to apprehend the physical processes and properties he speaks of without consciousness, which is ridiculous) then how would he explain the existence of  this consciousness?  There are only 3 alternatives I can think of assuming we accept that consciousness exists 1) that consciousness and the physical world has always coexisted in a universe that had no beginning 2)  that consciousness was “created” alongside the physical world at some point in time 3)  that consciousness emerged from the physical world Harris’ rejection of emergence theory would there seem to commit him to either 1) or 2)  

DJP wrote:

 

robbo203 wrote:

It concerns me that there are Marxists who toy with the deterministic language of a teleological model of society and history.

No-ones suggesting a “theological model of society”. Teleological explanations explain things in the sense that things happen “in order to” do something. Deterministic explanations explain things in the sense that everything happens “because of” everything else. Clearly not the same thing. I am not a Marxist by the way!

 No that is not a deterministic model that you are describing – quite the opposite. It is an a-deterministic model. If everything happens because of everything else then you cannot pin down anyone thing as the cause of anything else.  A deterministic model implies that some components of the universe exert a causal influence and other do not and that the latter can be explained in terms of the former This is fully compatible with a teleological view of history which in effects looks at this one way causal relationship between determining and determined aspects of the universe as working itself out over time.  So the claim that  “socialism in inevitable” implies that the development of  the economic base of capitalism has a built in or inexorable consequence of turning workers into socialists who in turn must necessarily introduce socialism.  In other words socialism comes about as a result of a lawlike process which can only have socialism as its outcome

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

STOP THINKING OF DOLPHINS RIGHT NOW!We do not choose what comes into our consciousness, and neither are we aware of, or choose, the myriad of factors that contribute into us making a choice. What other things did you think about when you read this sentence? Did you choose them?Am I responsible for my actions? On the deepest level, no. I didn’t create the circumstances that gave rise to my being. On a practical level, yes. People are social animals and as social animals it is advantageous to encourage certain behaviours and discourage others. Men make their own history but under conditions not of their choosing, but it is also under conditions not of their choosing that men are made.Mind states are not reductable to brain states, I agree. But I’m not sure how “Mind must then be seen as having a degree of autonomy in its own right” necessarily follows. The non-reductive things are things like intentionality “aboutness” and phenomenological experiences i.e. the ‘what it is like’-ness of a mental state. It seems difficult as to how you’d capture these in a physical description of the brain. Non-reductivness does not mean that mind states are free from the influence of physical laws.

 Nobody -leastways, not me – is saying mind states are free from the influence of physical laws. The bio- chemistry of the brain can obviously have mental and behavioural effects.  For example, the rate at which serotonin and acetylcholine is released through biochemical activity in the brain can affect one’s mental state and give rise to mood disorders such as depression which, in turn, can be regulated by medication.  But, even so, the mind is more than the brain upon which it depends.  The mind can effect the brain , can exert “downward causation” on the brain as I tried to show earlier In precisely the same way society depends on empirical  individuals but exerts “downward causation” on individuals.  This does not mean that society exists as something ontologically separate from individuals  (any more than the mind exists separately from the brain). But  it does mean that society cannot be explained simply in terms of psychological facts  or “human nature” expressed in individuals.  This is so basic to a Marxist theory of history and society that I cannot see how anybody claiming to be a Marxist can deny it. Emergence theory, I suggest,  is the paradigm within which a sound Marxian approach to things can  operate  but it means abandoning once and for all any kind of totalistic  or deterministic mode of explanation in favour of an interactive approach. It means recognising that history is creative  process as much as a determined one. It means acknowledging that we can choose  and that we do have free will but it is not absolute free will; it is constrainedI very much agree with the passage from the article to which OGW provides a link:Here’s the difference. The man with a tumor has no choice but to do what he does. I do have choices, which I make all the time. Yes, my choices are constrained, by the laws of physics, my genetic inheritance, upbringing and education, the social, cultural, political, and intellectual context of my existence. And as Harris keeps pointing out, I didn’t choose to be born into this universe, to my parents, in this nation, at this time. I don’t choose to grow old and die.But just because my choices are limited doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just because I don’t have absolute freedom doesn’t mean I have no freedom at all. Saying that free will doesn’t exist because it isn’t absolutely free is like saying truth doesn’t exist because we can’t achieve absolute, perfect knowledge.Harris keeps insisting that because all our choices have prior causes, they are not free; they are determined. Of course all our choices are caused. No free-will proponent I know claims otherwise. The question is how are they caused? Harris seems to think that all causes are ultimately physical, and that to hold otherwise puts you in the company of believers in ghosts, souls, gods and other supernatural nonsense.But the strange and wonderful thing about all organisms, and especially our species, is that mechanistic physical processes somehow give rise to phenomena that are not reducible to or determined by those physical processes. Human brains, in particular, generate human minds, which while subject to physical laws are influenced by non-physical factors, including ideas produced by other minds. These ideas may cause us to change our minds and make decisions that alter the trajectory of our world. This perfectly sums up my own position. If we cannot choose as conscious beings and so exert a cause ourselves  then we are left with a fatalistic teleological view of the universe in which the future is already decided and lies latent within the configuration of forces that constitute the present.  Actually, I would maintain that this view – because it surrenders the future to what has gone on in the past –  is the most hyper-idealistic and mystical view imaginable.  We are rendered completely at the mercy of some unimaginably vast objective mechanism in which everything is predetermined and worked out in advance.  FATE has replaced God in this schema or perhaps it might just be an expression of God’s “will” It concerns me that there are Marxists who toy with the deterministic language of a teleogical model of society and history.  Though Marx explicitly rejected teleology,  there are some passages in his writings that skirt perilously close to a teleological viewpoint –  like the famous one about social being determining consciousness rather than consciousness determining being – as if consciousness and social being could ever be separated in the first place and as if causality in this case could be demonstrated  in the manner in which one billiard ball impacts upon another and “causes” the latter to move in a given direction and with a given velocity The attempt to dismiss free will,  human intentionality and human creativity as  mere idealism is utterly misplaced and is itself a form of hyper-idealism.  It reduces us to the status of tiny cogs in a  vast machine whose purpose is inpenetrable to our mortal minds Freedom and necessity are both ONLY understandable in relation  to each other and to that extent I go along with the quote from Engels that you provide.   But I still cannot escape the niggling feeling that what is being suggested is  that freedom  (free will  , human creatively) is some kind of by-product of “objective necessity” and if this is the case then this is to misconceive the relation between them.  The one is never separate from the other  in the same way that consciousness is never separate from social being and so cannot be fully explained – or determined –  in terms of that latterWe are always free to choose even if  we are constrained in what we choose.  We should acknowlege and celebrate this fact because the self emancipation of the working class depends upon us freely choosing to get rid of capitalism and establish socialism

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

To me all this talk of non-reducibility and emergence seems to be side stepping the issue. Is it possible to have ‘free will’ as traditionally conceived without  contravening the laws of physics? The answer still seems to me to be a firm NO.To me to talk of ‘free will’ only makes sense in the context of absence of coercion i.e. “I did it of my own free will” i.e. I wasn’t forced to do something. But even in this sense the meaning is fuzzy.

 Well no – this talk of non reducibility and emergence is not side stepping the issue.  It is very much to do with the issue.  If mind is not reducible to the brain as emergence theory contends then that rules out a deterministic interpretation of brain-mind interactions.  Mind must then be seen as having a degree of autonomy in its own right.  Of course,  that might not necessarily mean that the mind is still not  “determined ” in some sense . There are other forms of determinism to which it may in theory be subject such as environmental determinism which became popular in the 19th century  but has been largely discredited by  cultural anthopology since then I take a moderate  – and, as  I like to think, reasonable   –  position on the question of free will and really dont see what the laws of physics have got to do with it.  We cannot choose some things but we can choose others  and it would be absurd to deny we cannot.  If you see a young thug beating up an old woman you can choose to intervene or you can choose not to.  You have free will to that extent.  We are not talking about free will in some absolutist sense but in a relative sense and to deny that is to abdicate completely a sense of responsibility for your own actions.  That doesnt seem a tenable postion for a socialist to take who, after all, urges precisely that workers should take their destiny in their own hands and strive for their own self emanicipation. I’m with Marx on this. Men make their own history but under conditions not of their own choosing.  They still neverthless make choices in the process of making their own history and to that extent exercisie a degree of what might reasonably be called “free will”

[robbo203]

Groan.  Obviously you have some difficulty following a logical train of thought.  It not me who has an “obsession” with religion but the Party – by flagging up religious belief as a reason for turning down applications for membership from solid socialists –  whereas from my point of view the question of religious  beliefs is or should be utterly  irrelevant.  Thats what I mean by it being a matter of indifference to me,It is an irrational policy to turn away socialists when the point of  having a political  party is surely to grow – not to put unnecessary obstacles in the way of that growth.  That is a compelling enough  argument for jettisoning this daft  and irrelevant anti-religion policy and if you cant see that well then,  yes,  you are irrational!In fact the policy itself which is allegedly designed to ensure (according to ALB) that only people with a  …ahem  ..rational view of society and history can join it,  is itself irrational and self defeating from that point of view since paradoxically being in denial about the irrational aspects  in all of us whether we are in the SPGB or not , and claiming to be completely rational is itself an example of irrationality to add to the other examples of irrationality one could list about the SPGB

[robbo203]

Well,  the WSPUS approach certainly seems superior to, and  rather more nuanced than,   the SPGB’s.  There is the hint of  a suggestion that the holding of religious views is irrelevant to one being a socialist or not  – which is my position. A religious socialist would not necessarily disagree with the suggestion that  the (ethical elements of religious teaching) “don’t in themselves lead to an understanding of the causes of such injustices”.  People are capable of wearing different caps on their heads at different times.  A religious scientist does not let her religion get in the way of her science. Nor would a religious socialist let his religious views get in the way of his understanding and advocacy of socialism  ( and if it  did, it would “come out in the wash anyway” – as I have always argued –  and express itself as opposition to some real aspect of the case e.g.. the principle of anti-leadership  and you would have a legitimate case for expulsion on those grounds rather than the mere holding of religious ideas per se which is irrelevant The bit on historical materialism is reasonably OK but it is important to recognize that it is historical materialism and not metaphysical materialism that is being emphasized.  My only quibble would be with the expression the “human brain weaves its ideas”. This seems to treat mind as a mere epiphenomenon incapable of “downward causation” – of interacting with or influencing  the brain even though it is  ultimately dependent on the brain .I tried to explain this in the thread on materialism  On the other hand the peice  does acknowlege that ideas do have an influence – as in  they “eventually exert their own influence on the cycle”So does the WSPUS now accept religious applicants – or certain categories of religious socialists – albeit under stringent conditions?

[robbo203]

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

An  idea is not a “material condition” is it?  There is no such thing as a unicorn in material  reality yet people have the thought of a unicorn.

Of course it is! Unless you can show it is something else. Where did the idea of the unicorn come from if not from the physical brain? When an artist ‘creates’ they create form their material existence and the creation takes place within their physical brain. and with the use of their physical body.

 No. You are confusing two quite separate things again.  The idea of unicorn itself is not a material thing, it does not have an objective material  existence unless you want to denude the term “material” of any real meaning.  The “idea” is a figment of our imagination,To imagine it certainly requires a human brain.  However it is one thing to say that imagining a unicorn requires a human brain , it is quite another to say that it “comes from” the human brain.  For one thing,  the human brain is an organ that processes sensory input.  The component traits of our imaginary unicorn are traceable, as I said earlier, to characteristics of several different kinds of animals which characteristics are then assembled imaginatively in the mind  in the form of a montage which we call a unicorn.  So even on your own materialist terms, it is simply  not true that the idea of  unicorn “came from the physical brain” . It came at least in part from outside the human brain in the form of the sensory perception of objects external to the brain – namely the aforementioned animals – that constituted the raw material out of which the idea of a unicorn emerged For another thing, as I ve argued in an earlier post, the brain and the mind are NOT one and the same thing.  Brain does not equal mind.  Mind depends on the brain but is not reducible to the brain. It is crucial to understand  this point in order to properly grasp the nature of mind-brain interactions. This has important implications for a materialist conception of  history .  For instance , the SPGB would point to the role of ruling class propaganda in perpetuating capitalism.  But what is propaganda but a set of ideas circulating in the social environment which the mind assimilates and acts upon to modify  the behavior of the individual concerned.  It really does not make much  sense in terms of a Marxist theory of society and history to say that “ideas come from the human brain”.  Are you suggesting we now have capitalist brains wired up to perpetuate capitalism? Old fashioned identity theory in the cognitive science which cliams that brain states equal mind states has been superseded by non reductive physicalism which sees the relationship between mind and brain as one of  token identity rather than type identity.  An example of a type identity is “the morning star” and the evening “star” which is the same planet – Venus -seen at different times of the day.  Token identity is different…If I were to say that the book I was reading at the moment – let us say, “Wuthering Heights” – was a library book,  I would be alluding to a token identity in this case.  I would  not be saying that there is something about  this book called “Wuthering Heights” which means that it can only ever be obtained  from a library (one could conceivably purchase it from a bookshop) since that would entail a type identity in which “Wuthering Heights” supervenes on “library book”.  I would simply be asserting that this  particular copy – or token instance – of the book I am reading, called “Wuthering Heights”, happens to come from a library and that what this indicates is nothing more than a token identity. So it is with the relationship between mental events and neurophysical events. The pain that I experence today may involve a particular neurophysical event and the synaptic firing of a particular neuron but the pain I experienced the day before might have involved a different neurophysical event or process.  Of course , every pain involves a neurophysical event just as every copy of Wuthering Heights is a book but it does not follow that my pain must involve the same neurophysical event anymore than every copy of Wuthering Heights must be a library book We know very well that identical cognitive tasks can be performed under quite different neurophysical conditions.  I can still add up 2 and 2  and arrive at 4 which I first learnt to do as as child but the neurophysical  configuration of my brain is quite different now. It is this assymetry between brain states and mind states that decisively refutes the claim that the latter can be completely explained in terms of the former.  That being so one is logically bound to accept the conclusion that mind – at least in its workings –  has a degree of  autonomy in relation to the brain despite being dependent on the brain We know also that the mind, despite being dependent on the brain , can exert what is called “downward causation”on the brain  (as well as being subject to upward causation by the brain) in the form of such phenomena as psychosomatic effects etc which I’ve already touched on.  There is a quite interesting discussion of downward causation here:http://www.counterbalance.org/evp-mind/downw-body.html There is another interesting piece here:We can speculate whether the relationship of the mind to the brain represents an emergent quality. Individual brain-cells have no emotion, or memory, or self-consciousness. Consciousness arises through the interactions of billions of brain cells, and once it exists, there is a downward causation: the new structural level of consciousness begins to determine the behavior of the components, as the recently discovered brain functions that are summarized under the term “neuroplasticity” demonstrate. We now know that brain functions can be re-located to new areas of the brain in case of injuries. (Stroke victims learn how to speak again, re-learn motor skills, etc.) Learning a skill will create new synaptic connections, or even trigger the growth of new nerve cells. Consciousness exists within matter, but once it exists it is no longer determined by it. The physical brain is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for consciousness. The human mind, once created, acts according to a logic of motivations, emotions, and thought processes that is no longer determined by physical processes. Rather, it acts by ordering the causal chains of physical systems – The human mind begins to function as a cause in the physical worldhttp://braungardt.trialectics.com/sciences/physics/emergence/    

[robbo203]

TheOldGreyWhistle wrote:

 Consciousness IS a material condition. Therefore to say that ideas take on an independent existence is to say that one material condition becomes independent of all others.Marx wrote:“Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical, real consciousness that exists for other men as well, and only therefore does it also exist for me; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men.”If material conditions do not determine consciousness, then it has always fascinated me to find that 100% of people speak their native language. Why –  if people can have ideas independent of their material conditions – didn’t one of my brothers or friends spontaneously speak Chinese or Latin? Why do we all speak English?

 I think what you doing here is confusing consciousness – or the capacity for consciousness – with the content of consciousness – the thoughts or ideas we entertain in our head.  Its the ideas or thoughts I am talking about , not consciousness per se.  An  idea is not a “material condition” is it?  There is no such thing as a unicorn in material  reality yet people have the thought of a unicorn.  Many of them think that a god exists but I wouldn’t have thought the SPGB of all people would take kindly to the thought that god is part of our material realityYou might say an idea is a ” reflection” of  material conditions. It may be but  equally  it may not be and this is the point that I was trying to convey in saying that ideas have a certain autonomy in that sense and that human beings have a capacity to be creative , to go beyond what materially exists in and through their imaginings.  To use the example of the  unicorn again,  we can certainly trace the various traits of a unicorn to different actually existing animals in material reality. However,  in  the process of selecting  and assembling this montage of traits  we go beyond what exists in material reality .  We enter a world of surreality I repeat  –  yes our thought processes  depends on material reality, (and quite literally  on the human brain).   but they are not reducible to the latter.  To use again the analogy I used earlier – thoughts are not like mushrooms that grow out of the compost heap that is “material conditions”; they can, for instance grow,  out of other thoughts  . Reflection can lead to insights that might have never occurred to anyone before.or have never been put into material practice before Material conditions do not not so much generate ideas as filter them. I liken “material conditions” to a kind of censor that allows some ideas to grow while discouraging or banning others . Who gets to act as the censor is question of social power and the balance of forces in society.  In any event what this censor does is to try to shape the overall pattern of ideas manifest on society  but it does not in the literal sense of the word, give rise to ideas. : it respond to them The belief that it – material conditions – does give rise to ideas actually boils down to a kind of mystical idealism which supposes that there  is such a thing as an objective rationality embedded in our material existence.  So for example you get the claim made by many on the left that a socialist revolution needs to be preceded by a catastrophic  economic crisis –  almost as  though one can automatically  read into a economic crisis the need for a socialist revolution. Thats bollocks  frankly because we know that economic crises can just as easily pave the way to a fascist takeover..  There is no objective rationality out there that compels us to read events one way rather than another which means  that how we read events is a matter of subjective interpretation. To put it differently, it is the ideas that we hold in our head which conditions our response to material reality rather than material  reality conditioning our ideas  Point is that this nonsensical idea  that there is such a thing as an objective rationality is directly linked to the silly dogma that ideas are simply a reflection of material reality and nothing more.Anyway, this is how I understand the materialist conception of history – not as some kind of crude deterministic  model of how ideas come to lodge themselves in people’s heads but as a model which gives due allowance for human creativity and our self evident  ability to surpass our material conditions.  As I mentioned earlier some of the stuff Marx and Engels wrote might have lent themselves to a crude deterministic interpretation but equally some other stuff that they wrote is much more in keeping with what I think is the correct approach to a materialist conception of history .For example ,  thisAccording to the materialistic conception of history, the production and reproduction of real life constitutes in the last instance the determining factor of history. Neither Marx nor I ever maintained more. Now when someone comes along and distorts this to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor, he is converting the former proposition into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis but the various factors of the superstructure – the political forms of the class struggles and its results – constitutions, etc., established by victorious classes after hard-won battles – legal forms, and even the reflexes of all these real struggles in the brain of the participants, political, juridical, philosophical theories, religious conceptions and their further development into systematic dogmas – all these exercise an influence upon the course of historical struggles, and in many cases determine for the most part their form. There is a reciprocity between all these factors in which, finally, through the endless array of contingencies (i.e…, of things and events whose inner connection with one another is so remote, or so incapable of proof, that we may neglect it, regarding it as nonexistent) the economic movement asserts itself as necessary.(http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21a.htm) 

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