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Tom Rogers wrote:

 I would define race specifically as a biological, sociological and physiological expression of local variation within a human population which aggregates into sufficient discrete commonalities among the sub-population that it can be distinguished to a greater or lesser extent from other human populations, near and far, but with sufficient plasticity that the subject population shall remain, above all, human and still able to breed within other human populations and otherwise share the universal human experience.  The local variations should be measurable so that the expressions of race can be classified, recognised and falsified using accepted scientific methodologies.  In that respect, race is both a social construct and a physical and material reality and can be deployed conceptually using various modes and means.  Now, I am not an anthropologist, and this being my own definition, it should be treated as provisional as I am sure it reflects an imperfect understanding of the subject.  I am not going to use this home-brewed definition to enumerate the different races for you, but I do think the definition above is testable.

"Race" as "Expression"You define "race" as a measurable "expression" of human biology, sociology and physiology.But "expression" is not a directly measurable attribute of any thing/process. It can only be inferred indirectly from directly measurable attributes of a thing/process.Your definition comes preloaded with the directly un-measurable category "race" but fails to specify any directly measurable categories that "race" purportedly "expresses". It lacks any prescription of what measurable categories to measure, and so lacks one of the essential preconditions for making the definition scientific.Your definition comes preloaded with the unstated rule that whatever directly measurable categories are measured they will "express" the directly un-measurable category "race". Your definition of "race" is, as it must be for you, appropriately racial.But your definition necessarily relies on directly measurable categories to "express" a directly un-measurable category "race". It is scientifically obliged to establish a criterion of proof for testing whether selected measures "express" the non-measure "race", but it explicitly fails to meet this scientific obligation.So your definition lacks an explanation that links observation to theory — an explanation of how "race" happens to "express" itself. Without a link between theory and observation, your definition lacks another essential precondition for making it scientific.Naturally, your definition implies its own unstated criterion of proof. It unquestioningly assumes point blank that positive associations between measured attributes are ipso facto "expressions of race". That is pure nonsense without a theory of "race". Pure wishful thinking.Your definition's implied criterion of proof is thus racial, as is appropriate for your theoretical stance that "race" exists and needs only to be found. But its methodology reveals your unstated theory of "race" — whatever attributes happen to measure positive on some arbitrary scale are unquestionably "expressions of race".To make sense of clusterings of racially "expressed" measures, you have little choice but to establish a racial scale — a theory of "race". Otherwise nothing in your definition makes sense.So far your definition reveals itself as subjective, ill-defined, imprecise, apparently unconscious of its presuppositions, and scientifically useless."Race" as StrategyIn apparent openness, your definition actually seems to imply not science but strategy. Its implied strategy is to define "race" as the necessary outcome of an exhaustive search for positive associations among undisclosed measurable attributes of human biology, sociology and physiology.Such a strategy is the reverse of normal science. It proceeds from observation to theory, rather than from theory to observation. You wish to establish a new paradigm [like Newton and Einstein] from observation to new theory. Except those heroes of science were motivated by a deep crisis in existing theory. What is your deep theoretical crisis?Your strategy implies a search algorithm. Definitions that imply realization by search algorithm might be expected to state the problem unambiguously. They might be expected to helpfully specify objective criteria for search target, search procedure and search termination — telling us what to seek, how to seek it, and when to terminate.Your definition lacks these helpful algorithmic essentials. It is therefore algorithmically vague and so incapable of unambiguous implementation.Nevertheless, your definition implies its own well-defined condition of search closure. The target may be unknown and the methodology may be undefined, but the closure is crystal clear. The search for evidence of "race" can terminate upon finding whatever it is able to transform into whatever it's looking for.[If only Kuhnian revolutionary science were always so easy to prosecute!]Your definition unconsciously stacks the deck to ensure its own pre-determined success. For it, any clustered association is ipso facto an "expression of race". Your search for "expression of race" is satisfied once it finds something — anything — that it can use to justify itself. Really, so easy!Such facile closure on seeking evidence of "race" parallels the esoteric entry into ancient mysteries — you would not have sought me if you had not already found me."Race" as MetaphysicsOf course, you are only a wishful Kuhnian revolutionary scientist. You are more naturally a metaphysician.Your open-ended definition sets in train on open-ended "research program" that forces its implementation to establish the credibility of your definition's unstated-but-assumed metaphysics.Yours is not a scientific "research program", in which assumptions are consciously brought out into the open and made explicit for all to see, and where positive results are predictively subservient to clearly formulated criteria.For your definition's implied "research program", the dominant but unstated over-riding criterion is embodied in unstated but implied metaphysics — everything that measures positively has got to be an "expression of race". Your program — like the dominant program in cosmology among the ancients — is inextricably subservient to its motivating metaphysics.Such a "research program" is an unconscious parody of Plato's cosmological "saving of the phenomena", where geometric epicycles predict the behavior but only do so by subverting the explanatory physics. The ancient cosmologists honestly acknowledged that they were engaged in predictive geometry of periodic systems, and were decidedly not engaged in exploring physical reality."Race" as MathematicsYour definition implies mathematical analysis of measured categories that cluster to reveal "races". But clustering alone does not turn measured clusters of category frequencies into "expressions", let alone into "expressions of race".[In fairness, many of the great pioneering mathematical statisticians began similarly motivated.]Clusters must be proven to be more than mathematical — or more than predictive mathematically — to be "expressions of race". Otherwise they might be "expressions" of "non-race", just as epicycles are mathematical figments and are not physical actualities.We simply don't know what the mathematical clusters may indicate because your definition doesn't define "race" apart from whatever presumed "expressions of race" happen to cluster together."Race" without DeterminismYour definition clearly needs a scientific theory to force the conviction that it lacks for others than yourself. It needs a robust theory of how human biology, sociology and physiology "express" themselves to reveal "race".But you, its author, disown any scientific theory outright. In a previous post you protested "… when have I claimed adherence to biological-determinism (or any form of determinism, for that matter)?".You presumably then place your faith in "appearance" alone — the very thing that always has to be explained deterministically by science. The very thing that forms the fundamental basis of non-science from creationism to climate skepticism.Science, unlike your definition, relies on determinism. For your definition to be scientific it must derive from a theory of how "race" determines its measured "expressions". Yours is apparently unable to do so, or you have chosen not to do so.Without determinism, clusters of measured categories remain just so many clusters without further scientific significance, without necessity, unproven because unprovable, devoid of science."Race" as TaxonomySo your definition finally resolves not into science but into a non-explanatory taxonomy — even if you deem it to be and dress it up as science.We are not surprised that scientific "race" must parade as science. Its "science" is designed to emerge without encouragement directly from its loaded "taxonomy" of association of the kind you wish to gather.But, when dealing with the "races" of humanity, loaded taxonomies always "express" political views, just as you've "expressed" yours in association with "race" in previous posts.Supporters of scientific "race" roundly protest the "politics" of its non-supporters — just as you have done in previous posts. They prefer to sit back and let the "facts" of loaded "taxonomies" ineluctably "speak for themselves" — just as your definition is intended to issue forth consent.For supporters of scientific "race", taxonomy trumps science. Science becomes superfluous baggage. Let the scientist squirm before the might of loaded classification. Nothing could be more obvious than "race" when you can measure it, cluster its "expression" and taxonomize it.Measure but Why?Just what do you want to measure in order to determine a cluster of attributes that inexorably separate person from person? What motivates you to embark on an enterprise to divide fellow humans?.Biology, sociology and physiology are disparate things — apples and oranges territory. You seek cross correlations between distributions of disparate attributes taken from such disparate domains.Do you propose measuring length of nose, flaring of nostrils, hair of chest, intellect, beauty, refinement, cannibalism, matriarchy, patriarchy…?.Your definition is cautiously silent on what to measure. Yet your terminology is incautiously provocative about "race"  — you distinguish a "sub-population" from "other human populations" and refer to a "subject population".As to your definition's much-ado about scientific methodology — such methodological ballast betrays the non-scientist adding what he deems necessary to bolster the scientific credibility of his definition.But I see where your methodological ballast is directly targeted and singularly focused. Its [presumably Popperian] falsifiability applies only to locating an "expression of race" at its precise elevation on your presumed racial scale of cross-category clustering. Naturally these indispensable cluster measures [of something, whose significance is assumed but that we readers of your definition know not what] must always be Popper falsifiable.Significantly though, the racial scale itself and the "race expressed" in the racial scale is not declared to be Popper falsifiable.At long last… I have found your definition of "race" to be either unconsciously obtuse or to be consciously devious. Shining through its imprecision is one shimmering light of crystal clarity — "expressions of race" must be found because they exist.What amazes me about your definition is how deftly it smuggles in assent to your primary assertion of the existence of "expressions of race".

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A few observations on your riposte.

Tom Rogers wrote:

[1] I have demonstrated this [race as a life-separating agency] in one or two posts above, but elementary social observation also reveals it.  You only have to pick up a history book to see it, too. [2] Christians are engaged in worship of Christ (regardless of his historicity or metaphysicality)[3] a 'racist' would not be engaged in any form of worship as a racist.  [4] we don't say that an alchemist worships alchemy … even though alchemy is largely discredited scientifically. 

[1] History shows tribe, class, nation, religion, politics as divisive agencies within the same popularly acknowledged racial group. History shows tribe, class, nation, religion, politics consciously forbidding inter-marriage between tribe, class, nation, religion, politics within the same popularly acknowledged racial group.History shows popularly acknowledged racial groups [relentlessly] out-lawing miscegenation on biologically racial grounds — not to pollute "racial purity" — which would presumably be unnecessary if the popularly assumed biological racial determinism held sway. [Although these "biologically unnecessary" prohibitions are framed and imposed in tribal, class, national, religious, political forms.]Whatever the biological determinism history shows biological determinism's subservience to social determinism. For me, whatever minute differences, they simply don't matter in the scale of things — in a society in which one class robs and rules another [namely, us — regardless of [popularly acknowledged] race].[2] Leave the sentient Christian the remaining comfort to worship his/her metaphysics…[3] History shows the reverse —  "Aryan supremacy", "chosen race", ancient superiority over the "barbarian". Ironically, the Empire came to worship the alien god of a barbarian people, and that has discomforted Christian racists down the ages.[4] Alchemy was driven by greed — the transmutation of base metal into gold — the worship of unbounded wealth.[For your interest, whatever reservations you still  hold out for the academic minutiae of "racial" distinction, alchemy is wholly discredited scientifically.]

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For honest Christians, Christ does exist as a [divinely determined— sacred-text revealed] life-eternalising agency.For honest Racists, Race does exist as a [biologically determined] life-separating agency.Such conviction is circumstantially faith and/or prejudice, but is real for those who hold it.   

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Tom Rogers wrote:

Incidentally, what is a 'racist' if race does not exist?

Like a 'Christian', even though Christ doesn't exist as a life-eternalising agency.So a 'Racist', even if Race doesn't exist as a life-separating agency.Social being determines consciousness — ideology is pervasive. 

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emily_chalmers wrote:

Is socialism inevitable?

Yes. In the sense that it is determined.No. In the sense that determined processes can be derailed by other determined processes.InevitabilityIt is determined that you — the complex adaptive system called Emily Chalmers — will mature, have kids, gain wisdom, and [barring genetic predispositions] live to a ripe old age, perhaps look back upon a life of satisfying achievement, and eventually die to make way for a newer generation in a newer world in part of your making.But it is also possible that other circumstances may intervene to subvert the inevitability of this determinism.Determinisms are only inevitable in isolation, but the world is the only "isolated" thing/process we know, to which all other thing/processes are subservient.One of the goals of socialism is to minimize the effects of disruptive determinisms upon our own, just as this has ever been the goal of human society once it gained consciousness of itself as an entity — an organism or process of which we [just like Emily Chalmers] are an integral part.A class-divided society is always prey to disruptive determinisms that arise directly from its social being. Slaves, serfs, workers and their masters are subject to determinisms that overwhelm that of their own lives.Class-divided societies deterministically subvert themselves. In the most abstract sense, society is the essential unity for us — our language, our arts, our science, our culture, our relationships are society's. They are social. They are only Emily Chalmers's because she is a part of society. But she is also a part of a divided unity. She is a riven soul, just like the rest of us, because our unity — our essential social being — is riven.Mankind is damn inventive! Our society has always solved its problems in the past, and it will solve its class divisions because they will confront society's consciousness as over-determining our lives, of preventing our society [and so you Emily Chalmers] from moving forward, from holding us all intolerably back in ways that canon law, or shariah law, or feudal law, or chattel slave law inevitably became or will become to be despised by society as so much oppressive chaining of our social determinism — of the freedom that arises from necessity.If this isn't determinism and so, in the qualified sense, inevitability, then these words have no meaning, no social substance, for me nor for anyone else.We now confront capitalist law — which is what Marx devoted his life to unravelling. He showed how capitalism works — and must always work — to reproduce the privileges that must accrue to class control, to reproduce the subservience that must accrue to class lack-of-control, to reproduce [unfortunately for both classes] the inevitable social disruptions that must accrue to a class-divided society.The qualification that intervening processes may disrupt society's deterministic development into socialism now  boils down to — what irretrievable damage to the world can the capitalist class unconsciously wreck upon the natural foundation of our social world?So, recognizing such qualification, socialism is inevitable because it is scientifically determined.Social Being determines ConsciousnessMarx studied society — our social being. He based his study on determinism — in other words, he based his study on [qualified] inevitability.For Marx, social being determines our consciousness. Not the other way round — which is our ordinary commonsense, but non-scientific, way of viewing things.For Marx, the social relations of ownership and control of the means by which society must live — the necessity of it producing, maintaining and reproducing itself — are the basis upon which our consciousness feeds, intervenes, expands.Capitalist social relations of production consist of a class owning all the necessary resources of social production [minerals, fuels, agricultural seed and sperm, ocean stocks] and all the necessary instruments of social production [factories, mines, infrastructure]. But this social ownership and control is useless and these social resources and instruments remain idle without the socially-necessary third ingredient — workers to apply society's instruments they don't socially own to society's resources they don't socially own to produce the social goods [the wealth of society] they also don't own but need to consume in order to reproduce society — for those who do socially own and control the means whereby society must live.Surely, this is social necessity writ in large bold capital letters that even the blind can detect — although it took a Marx to first recognize it.The social consciousness that necessarily [inevitably] arises from this class ownership and control of the social resources and social instruments of production that are absolutely indispensable for society to exist — a state of affairs that every five-year old comprehends by analogy with his/her own life or that of his/her own pet animal — flows as a direct consequence of class ownership and control of what Marx called the "means of production". If that ain't determinism then nothing is!The social history of the 20th century, which Marx never lived to see, proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the correctness of Marx's determinism. Marx's determinism wrecked Lenin and Stalin. Marx's determinism wrecked the labour parties. Marx's determinism, through those two deluded non-class conscious movements — wrecked our social, and so our personal, lives. [By "non-class conscious", Emily, I mean not having conviction in Marx's determinism, and so not having conviction in our Party's Object. In other words, movements that failed to acknowledge, openly opposed, and so consciously worked against instead of in full consciousness of, the social inevitability you are asking about here.] With conviction based upon outcome — the only proof we have that we understand anything — the Socialist party holds that mankind will recognize the necessity, the inevitability, the determinism of the Socialist Party's Object…A system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of living by and in the interests of the whole community.Recognition of the necessity to work to attain our Object is what is meant by working class consciousness.A united non-class society, inoculated against the exigencies of disruptive social determinisms — war, famine, poverty, depravation, mental depression — follows inevitably. Our descendants will look back and see more clearly from their privileged vantage point how all these disruptive horrors arose necessarily from our social being — one in which the capitalist class owned and controlled the very means of our living — one in which the capitalist class robbed and ruled us because they'd taken away from our control the means whereby we lived — they'd stolen our lives.Compared to this robbing and ruling of the working class by the capitalist class, nothing much else matters. The inevitability of its resolution is up to Emily Chalmers as much as to each and everyone of us.In that sense, socialism is inevitable.

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In the context of "appearance" delivering  to "consciousness" what it relies on in the patterns of "raw experience" as filtered by "reality"…Professional scientists must condition their "appearance" to deliver in all sorts of "reality" domains — a common enough necessity that explodes Paul Feyerabend's dramatic pontification that "incommensurable" "realities" are unbridgeable.The striking example for base–superstructure determinism is Crick and Watson recognizing in the 2D angular domain of X-ray crystallography a double-helix crystal lattice in the 3D spatial domain.[Note: I mean that DNA is a striking example of a base that raises a superstructure.]They had professionally primed their consciousnesses to conceive "appearance" in two visually distinct "realities" [where structures in one "reality" are wide, corresponding structures in the other "reality" are narrow; where they multiply numbers in one, they make running summations in the other, etc.]. But, as professionals, they had taught themselves to think in both domains and to detect signature similarities in the differences.These two domains are, of course, deterministically linked by the Fourier Analysis that is analogous to "epicycles on epicycles" [although maligned Ptolemy isn't actually guilty of this misdemeanor].Marx was far too deep a materialist thinker — ahead of us all —  to fall for grounding "consciousness" in "reality".  "Reality" can only be a utility for "consciousness". For us, "reality" is prosaically superstructual because our "consciousness" is. That's the new materialism for you!

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Hud955 wrote:

Scientific realism is, after all, the view (crudely) that things are as they appear to the senses.

Sense Data and AppearanceWhat is presented to the senses is not what "appears" to us. What "appears" to us is not the unmediated [or immediate] sense data presented to us. What "appears" to us is mediated [or mediate] sense data — the presented sense data already decomposed into "things" and "processes" of significance for us.Such mediation constitutes the necessary processing of the patterns of sense data into our conceived "reality" of them as "things" and "processes" — the patterns of "things" and "processes" we've come to identify and recognize within the sense data presented to us.For consciousness, this already unconsciously-processed sense data is what constitutes "appearance".Unconscious processing of sense data is essential to human "consciousness". To that extent it constitutes unconscious pre-processing for human "consciousness". So "appearance" is sense data unconsciously pre-processed for "consciousness" to dig its teeth into, so to speak.As such, automatic post-processing of sense data or automatic pre-processing for "consciousness" must be a flexible process. We are not intellectual automatons. Our "consciousness" must adapt to its world — our "social being" — the place we need it for.It must necessarily be conditioned to identify the content within sensual patterns that are significant for us social creatures. Otherwise we could neither learn from our past nor adapt to our future.Thus "appearance" cannot be neutral sense data at all. It must necessarily be biased sense data — sense data that has been unconsciously sliced, diced and conditioned by our socially derived conception of "reality"."Appearance", as sense data that is necessarily mediated by our conceived "reality", cannot be "reality" itself.What "appears" to us only appears to be "reality". That's why we have to prove its "reality" in practice.For consciousness, there is no such thing as sense data; there is only "appearance" mediated by "reality".ExamplesWhat is presented to our senses [as an adult] is what is presented to our senses as a baby, but what "appears" is totally different. And what constitutes the "reality" for us as adults or as children or as babies is totally different.What is presented to our senses [as moderns] is what is presented to Ptolemy's senses [or a hunter–gatherer's or Newton's]. What "appears" to each is perhaps only mildly different. But what constitutes the "reality" for a hunter–gatherer, Ptolemy or Newton is totally different.In both examples, the adult or Newton is presented with the same raw sense data, but unconsciously pre-processes it into vastly or slightly different "appearances", and interprets it as totally different "realities" from a baby or Ptolemy.In describing the conceptual chasm between Ptolemy's and Newton's scientific "realities", Thomas Kuhn characterized their "realities" as being "incommensurable" precisely because each conceived essentially the same "appearances" in scientific ways that were totally incompatible to the other. They inhabited different "realities".Babies spend time learning to identify patterns, as preparation for recognizing that patterns hold content for them. Adults build flexibly upon this foundation.[As an aside… Edit: I've removed an extract that I took from unpublished work on child psychology.]Contrary to "scientific realism" — things can't just be as they appear to our senses.

Hud955 wrote:

If they [appearance and reality] tend to diverge then you just have to look harder or view the world through a different medium.

Divergence"Appearance" gives us changing patterns translated into "things" and "processes" based on our conceived "reality". In other words, "appearance" is, thankfully for our need to navigate a changing world, already loaded by our conception of "reality".Unravelling content from pattern is precisely the role "reality" is required to play in "appearance".In this limited sense, "appearance" and "reality" do converge. But it is we who unconsciously impose the convergence. It is we who impose our conceived "reality" upon sense data to reconstitute it as "appearance". Our "appearance" is both loaded with and contaminated by our conceived "reality". Our "appearance" is biased toward us. It could not be otherwise.This is precisely where Marx detects dialectics at work…Convergence — "reality" necessarily imposed upon "appearance" — will eventually turn into divergence — of "reality" overthrown by "appearance". Necessity re-imposes the new "reality" upon "appearance".The helpful "reality" that makes sense of the patterns of sense data, and turns them into "things" and "processes" for us, will eventually become a fetter. It is then that we must change our conception of "reality" to free ourselves from the "dead hand of the past".Life would be straightforward if "appearance" directly gave us "reality". As Marx says, "there would be no need for science". There would hardly be need for thought.Unfortunately, "appearance" is necessarily loaded with doses of "unreality".Like most sentient persons, Marx recognized that ultimately "reality" is its own "foundation" but, unlike most sentient persons, he conceived "reality" as a social product. For him, everyone else's [including the scientific realist's] obvious truism that "reality founds everything" was ultimately a contentless abstraction. Materialist Marx would never base anything on a pure abstraction.Marx saw Hegelian Idealism as one of the few worthy examples of a system that takes "reality" — for Hegel, the Idea — as its own foundation. As a young man, Marx saw Hegel's extraordinary system wreck itself on its own foundation.Materialist Marx recognized the fragility of basing our "consciousness" of "appearance" upon "reality" — an as-yet-to-be-discovered thing — the outcome rather than starting point — looking through the wrong end of the telescope.Apparently-objective "appearance" is already fashioned by our conception of its "reality".For Marx, the key to "reality" lay in its prosaic necessity for us. Its necessary utility to guide us through our changing "social being".

Hud955 wrote:

Fundamentally, though, we get closer to reality through a more detailed and accurate observation of appearance, not by setting up an antagonism between the two.

Naive RealismWith regard to anchoring science on "naive realism"…"Naive realism" is the solid anchor of the geocentric cosmology still taught by Orthodox monotheists  [yes, Maimonides's universe is still taught in Orthodox Israeli high-school curricula and synagogues] half a millennium after Copernicus. [See "Attitudes of Educated Orthodox Jews towards Science" http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=nussbaum_fi_30_1%5D"Naive realism" is the solid foundation of intelligent design — views sanctified by the lawgivers of Orthodox Christianity, Judaism and Islam."Naive realism" was Lenin's dogmatic trump card in his "Materialism and Empiriocriticism".I know you take a critical attitude toward "scientific reality" and "naive realism".My argument against them is that one can't be naive about mental processes that aren't themselves naive — that aren't themselves entirely objective because they necessarily contain subjective elements.Consequently, we [you and I] both judge the same scientific processes critically, but from different "realities". Our opposing views are to that extent "incommensurable".

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Pygmy BuffaloesI found the episode of the pygmy and the buffaloes in Colin Turnbull's "The Forest People" fascinating.For others, who may be interested, here it is in the author's own words… 

Quote:

And then he saw the buffalo, still grazing lazily several miles away, far down below. He turned to me and said, ‘What insects are those?’ At first I hardly understood, then I realized that in the forest vision is so limited that there is no great need to make an automatic allowance for distance when judging size. Out here in the plains, Kenge was looking for the first time over apparently unending miles of unfamiliar grasslands, with not a tree worth the name to give him any basis for comparison. The same thing happened later on when I pointed out a boat, in the middle of the lake. It was a large fishing boat with a number of people in it. Kenge at first refused to believe it. He thought it was a floating piece of wood. When I told Kenge that the insects were buffalo, he roared with laughter and told me not to tell such stupid lies. When Henri, who was thoroughly puzzled, told him the same thing, and explained that visitors to the park had to have a guide with them at all times because there were so many dangerous animals, Kenge still didn’t believe, but he strained his eyes to see more clearly and asked what kind of buffalo they were that they were so small. I told him they were sometimes nearly twice the size of a forest buffalo, and he shrugged his shoulders and said he would not be standing out there in the open if they were. I tried telling him they were possibly as far away as from Epulu to the village of Kopu, beyond Eboyo. He began scraping the mud off his arms and legs, no longer interested in such fantasies. The road led on down to within about half a mile of where the herd was grazing, and as we got closer, the insects must have seemed to get bigger and bigger. Kenge, who was now sitting on the outside, kept his face glued to the window, which nothing would make him lower. I even had to raise mine to keep him happy. I was never able to discover just what he thought was happening, whether he thought the insects were changing into buffalo, or whether they were miniature buffalo growing rapidly as we approached; his only comment was that they were not real buffalo, and he was not going to get out of the car again until we left the park. 

 

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Beautiful examples, indeed.It's also gratifying to learn that my stuff isn't all that incomprehensible — thank you.[It's easy to write about complex matters, but much harder to convey your meaning, and still harder to digest as a reader. Young Feuerbach wrote back to his father that Hegel was definitely meant to be heard. His students adored him as a lecturer. His stimulating enthusiasm clarified everything, and electrified them all. As is well known, Hegel's formal works are notoriously difficult for those who didn't attend his lectures. Hegel must be acknowledged for unravelling mediated "appearance" as outlined in my previous post.]By the way, you earlier hoped that the conclusions I draw from this thread would be simple and comprehensible. I do hope so.It's too soon to tie the loose strands of this and related threads [and I may be off-line over the coming Christmas and New Year], but expect the general encouraging conclusion, whenever it emerges naturally from the discussion, to be pleasantly surprising.

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CorrectionMy attribution to Ptolemy of "epicycles on epicycles" is wrong!This baseless charge has certainly entered our popular vocabulary, and I recall it being referenced in 20th century scholarly accounts.I took a quick glance through Ptolemy's Almagest — I lack the courage/inclination/leisure to study Ptolemy's monumental, but outdated, classical-geometry tome —  and find that it contains no geometric constructions with more than a single epicycle on a deferent.Astronomer Owen Gingerish is a dedicated scholar who has studied the Almagest. In his "The Book Nobody Reads" [p. 57], Gingerish states something along the lines:"As it turns out, a major difficulty with this epicycles-on-epicycles theory is that historians examining books on Ptolemaic astronomy from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have found absolutely no trace of multiple epicycles being used for each planet. The Alfonsine Tables, for instance, were apparently computed using Ptolemy's original unadorned methods."  [from Wikipedia on "Deferent and epicycle" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle#Epicycles_on_epicycles%5D

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The left-hand side of your diagram shows our hard-won "reality" — after Ptolemy.The right-hand side of your diagram shows our ever-recurring "appearance" [or "reappearance"] that is played out every couple of years:it was playing out before life emerged on Earth,it played out for Egyptian astronomers three-and-a-half millennia ago,it last played out in March this year, it will continue to play out after life shuffles off the Earth.[That's scientific determinism for you!]This "appearance" hasn't changed throughout the lifetime of our "social being" because the phenomenon itself hasn't changed.But our "social being" has changed, and with it our "consciousness" of the "reality" behind the "appearance" has changed, even though our naive immediate apprehension of the "appearance" has remained forever the same.ConvictionThe diagram demonstrates, in Marxian terms, "appearance as a whole" — "appearance" after being tested in the crucible of "social being".The diagram incidentally makes the point that, for us, "reality" is neither "positive" nor absolute, but is part of the changing superstructure of our "consciousness" — that very same "consciousness" that is based on our "social being". Consequently, "reality" must be comprehended as a social construct, just like all our social-constructs — our language, our institutions and [as demonstrated] our science.Not only does "social being" construct "reality" for us, "social being" also tests "reality" for us. It is in the testing of our social constructs through the practice of our "social being" that we gain conviction in our social "consciousness's" constructs.In other words, "social necessity" compels us to build socially-shared constructs, of which we are considering "reality" to be one such socially-necessary construct.Like all social constructs, "reality":arises from our "social being",is tested by social practice where it originated — in our "social being",is conceived and judged by its utility for our "social being",stands or falls by the judgement of "consciousness" — ultimately by our "social being".Socially-necessary constructs of our "consciousness" arising naturally from and tested within our "social being" are what Marx's materialism is about. For us socialists — the "reality" of the "class struggle", "class consciousness" and "socialism" can't be reduced to arbitrary "positive" absolutes — absolutes that thereby lack demonstrable foundation for conviction. For us, deterministic conviction is everything!Conviction arises out of Hegel's/Engels's "[freedom is the] recognition of necessity" — the necessity of Marxian base–superstructure determinism.Reality 1.Our primtive forebears couldn't conceive that the left-hand side "reality" of the diagram needed to exist. They saw it as no more than the ground on which they stood. The right-hand side "appearance" remains unchanged.Reality 2.The Platonists and Aristotelians merged the left-hand "reality" and right-hand "appearance" sides of the diagram into a nest of transparent shells centered on the Earth, with Mars mid-way out, and the stars on the outermost [seventh heaven], although it was actually the eighth shell. This constituted the pure harmony of the spheres. Earth was, appropriately for a slave society, the impure seat of corruption.Reality 3.Ptolemy's left-hand side of the diagram exploded into an astonishingly complex epicyclic/deferent construction which, if intended to constitute "reality", could only reflect the work of an artificer god who kept changing his mind — and continually correcting himself.  The right-hand side "appearance" remains unchanged.Reality 4.Copernicus's [published 1543] left-hand "reality" side of the diagram appears almost as complex as Ptolemy's. It relies on about as many epicycles, but it discards Ptolemy's equant, and it centers all planetary deferents on the Sun. Thus, Copernicus turned the planets into the denizens of the Solar System, we now recognize them to be.Yet Copernicus failed to make significant mathematical improvement in forecasting planetary positions over Ptolemy.However, no-one could fail to appreciate that Copernicus's Sun-centered model:made sense of retrograde motion,made it possible for people to see the Sun as being the centre of the Universe, and not the Earth,made a devastating assault upon hitherto conceived "reality".Reality 5.Everything after Copernicus — Kepler, Newton [whose inverse-square gravitational theory is adequate for computing most interplanetary travel], Poincaré, Einstein, and the moderns who grapple to reconcile Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics — is standard textbook astronomy, physics and history-of-science. For present purposes, it seems unnecessary to elaborate. But the successful assault upon hitherto existing "reality" mounted by each of these post-Ptolemaic scientists has equally illuminating tales to tell about determinism, necessity and conviction, that must be considered [perhaps in future posts].

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DJP wrote:

twc wrote:

The base is "social being".The superstructure is "consciousness".The determinism is "base determines superstructure".

It's the first time I've heard "base-superstructure" defined in this way. However your definition begs the question "what determines social being?"

The answer to all such questions is ultimately derived from our "immediate experience" of "social being" — as Marx asserts in his base–superstructure formulation of the materialist conception of history.As explained in the previous post, the answer emerges in "consciousness" from "appearance" into "reality" for us. A deterministic explanation relies on concepts of the "abstract" and the "concrete" within "consciousness", which need their own post.But, in synopsis, the answer is… The "life" process as base determines "social being" as superstructure.Digging deeper, the "nature" process as base determines the "life" process as superstructure. So, ultimately, nature is the basis of "social being", and so of "consciousness".Of course, Marx knew all this, but eschews the patently obvious approach of "positivism" that starts with "nature" or the "universe". What could possibly be more materialist than doing just that?Well, nature [or the universe] is, paradoxically, an Ideal starting point for consciousness. What do we know about nature [or the universe] that isn't ultimately obtained through the "immediacy" of "social being"?Their "reality" for us is remote from "social being". Hardly a basis for founding "consciousness" itself. And this, apart from the fact that nobody yet knows how to explain "consciousness" in terms of nature or the universe.So the positivist, despite his vaunted positive science, has no choice but to start with an Ideal pronouncement from his academic perch on high about the nature of nature [or of the universe]. Stop to consider what effrontery that is, and how shaky a foundation for our most precious possession of "consciousness".

DJP wrote:

I'm also concerned that your physics may be over 100 years out of date.

Ptolemy's "physics" is two millennia out of date. But then it never was physics.Ptolemy's mathematics is up-to-date, an analog of Fourier analysis, which is indispensable for decomposing waveforms in audio, radio-astronomy and quantum physics.

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Appearance and RealityMaterialist Conception of HistoryMarx expresses the materialist conception of history as "social being determines consciousness".He expresses it in base–superstructure formalism:The base is "social being".The superstructure is "consciousness".The determinism is "base determines superstructure".Marx and MaterialismAs materialist scientist, Marx doesn't need reminding that our "social being" is a recent occurrence in the scheme of things.He takes "social being" as such because it is the recurrent "immediate" experience for us. He can therefore treat it as an autonomous-and-independent process, even if it ultimately turns out to be subservient to something else that is not an "immediate" experience for us.Marx, like Descartes, builds "consciousness" out of the "immediacy" of experience. While Descartes builds incestuously within the world of "consciousness" itself, Marx cross-fertilizes from the world of "social being" outside the world of "consciousness". That, he asserts, is how we humans actually build our "consciousness".The viability of the superstructures raised upon the materialist conception of history can be the sole and only test of Marx's assertion that "social being determines consciousness". [Counter assertions are irrelevant.][For the benefit of disappointed positivists, although Marx subverts the immediate "positivism" of hitherto existing materialism, he obviously must allow "social being" to discover the universe and find its own adequate location within it. See his situating "social being" within nature, e.g., in his Notes on Wagner.]Marx and DietzgenJoseph Dietzgen studies Marx's superstructure "consciousness" as such, aware that it is determined by "social being". He treats "consciousness" as an autonomous-and-independent process.Dietzgen subverts the "positivism" of hitherto existing materialism by anchoring it in immediate "appearance" and not in "reality". This is what impressed Marx.[Lenin's retrograde political pamphlet on Empirio-criticism anchors materialism in "reality" — in the positivist certainty of "appearance" being "reality". This is an adequate example of Leninist determinism by fiat.]Dietzgen is a base–superstructure determinist, though less formal than Marx. For him, the base of "consciousness" as such is "appearance", its superstructure is "reality", and its determinism is "appearance determines reality".It is important to situate Dietzgen. It is often mistakenly asserted that he provides the foundation for Marx. But it is clear from the above, that his analysis of consciousness into "appearance" and "reality" is subservient to "social being".Marx would never allow that "consciousness", even as "appearance", is foundational to "social being", and neither perhaps did Dietzgen.RecursionDietzgen is the first example in this thread's case for recursive base–superstructure determinism founded upon the materialist conception of history.Appearance and Reality — The PlanetsMy sole reason for exploring base–superstructure determinism is to comprehend the necessity of its determinism. Socialists pin the future of the world on such necessity.So, I explore the conviction that arises out of appearance — the reality of deterministic science — and consider how Marx approached this on the basis of the materialist conception of history.ExemplarThe circuit of the planet Mars through the constellations of the Zodiac is a thoroughly studied instance of appearance and reality.AppearanceMars takes a little over two years to complete its circuit.Throughout half the circuit, Mars gets brighter and eventually outshines the brightest of stars.Throughout the other half of the circuit, Mars gets duller and eventually fades into insignificance.For a couple of months, when Mars is at its brightest, it temporarily loops backwards on its Zodiacal path [retrograde motion].What "on earth" is going on?Reality 1.Retrograde motion was recognized by hunter gatherers who followed the patterns of the night sky. Did some see Mars as forever defying the heavenly order every two years, only to be subdued?Reality 2.Retrograde motion challenged the Greek notion of heavenly perfection. Plato encouraged astronomers to "save the phenomena" — to explain the "appearance" of heavenly imperfection by the Platonic "reality" of heavenly perfection.The best that could be achieved in this Platonic endeavour was to "curve fit" [or to model] the circuits of the planets. This mathematical modelling culminated in the powerful system of the African geometer Ptolemy c. 150 CE.A planet's circuit was decomposed into a circular loop [the epicycle] around a circle [the deferrent] centered on an imaginary point in space [the eccentric] midway between the fixed Earth and an imaginary "twin-Earth" [the equant], from which imaginary twin-Earth [equant] the planet Mars [epicycle] moves perfectly uniformly.In elaborating his model, Ptolemy needed to set in circular motion the eccentric [his model's true centre of the Universe, and not the Earth] and so too the equant [his model's true centre of motion, and not the Earth], and he also needed to correct by adding epicycles to epicycles.All this defies human comprehension as a physical explanation.It also totally explodes the then-current Aristotelian universe. Epicycling planets must continually cut through the crystalline spheres that roll them along!But Ptolemy's system was always an artificial superstructure raised upon an artificial base of circular and uniform motion. Ptolemy never intended to explain, but only to compute.Ptolemy was free to make arbitrary modelling decisions. He does not take his base seriously, because he knows it's artificial.Consequently Ptolemy can set the centre of the Universe in motion and toss aside core religious faith in the centrality of Earth (while clinging to its fixity) because these inconvenient constraints simply don't fit the phenomena [appearance]. They just don't suit his needs, and so, fundamental as they are to the consciousness of antiquity, they simply must go! It's breathtaking what Olympian power one has over a model [imaginary] Universe! Ptolemy never considered his model to be deterministic.Ptolemy unashamedly "saves the appearance" by unintentionally destroying in the process the world view of the ancients — the physics of Aristotle. His system's stunning predictions of planetary positions to within the limits of visual observation over a millennium expose Aristotelian cosmology as impotent dogma, although it took over a millennium to acknowledge this awkward conclusion.Ptolemy's arbitrary cosmological fudges with the Ideal Platonic Forms didn't exactly establish their intended heavenly locale or origin. The reality of heavenly perfection turned out  just as untidy as its messy appearance, and decidedly no better than our imperfect Earth. This, of course, was not what the Idealist philosopher intended at all.Not a bad strike rate for Ptolemy — taking out the most influential scientist [Aristotle] and the most influential philosopher [Plato] of antiquity, and re-positioning the mis-aligned Universe of Jupiter Optimus Maximus himself. But these devastating verdicts are not entirely down to Ptolemy. The "reality" of then undiscovered determinisms ineluctably played a determining role in his non-deterministic modelling.Non-deterministic modelling, like Ptolemy's, constitutes an interesting challenge to scientific determinism. It trades deterministic certainty for pragmatic non-determinism. It lacks conviction — which socialists can never dispense with.Most capitalist economic forecasting takes the Ptolemaic non-deterministic form. However, Ptolemy is destined to remain a giant of predictive science, unlike the current bunch of economic-forecasters.[This is already too long. To be continued…]

[twc]

What's In and What's Out?My assertion: Marx is a base–superstructure determinist.My conclusion: What's in and what's out of his base and superstructure depends on which process Marx is considering.Which Process?Marx considers two different processes from the standpoint of base–superstructure determinism — the social process in the Preface and the production process in the Book.Marx states that he uses the former — the materialist conception of history — as guide for the latter, but also for all his studies.MaterialismMarx is not an Idealist, for whom all processes have the same "process-type" [or "substance" or "object Class"] of Idea — for whom processes can arbitrarily interpenetrate because at heart they are all made of the same ideal stuff — for whom determinism, as a relationship between ideas, is ultimately arbitrary.[Common "process-type" and arbitrary determinism are the basis and the downfall of the Hegelian system. Hegel's masterly control over idealist determinism is still one of the world's wonders.]Marx is a Materialist, for whom all processes have different material "process-types" [or "substance" or "object Class"] — for whom material processes can only interpenetrate through an intermediary that interfaces with both — for whom material determinism, as a relationship between processes of material "process-types", is itself a material mechanism, and so ultimately is not arbitrary.Challenge: If you wish to turn base–superstructure determinism into a metaphor only — an idea — why is its determinism anything more than arbitrary, like that of Idealism, and so inadequate to motivate or to realize social revolution?DeterminismConsider the formalism. The Preface is a schema of how a material process relates to itself through phases of its development. The Book is a case-study of how a material base raises a protective superstructure that is ultimately destructive of the base itself.Consider the matter. The Preface examines the social mode-of-production process in general. The Book examines the social mode-of-production process in a development phase [its capitalist economic formation] of the social mode-of-production process in general.Consider the independence. In so far as Marx considers the capitalist production process as autonomous-and-independent, he develops its own base and superstructure atop the base of the social phase, but forever subservient to it.Consider the subservience. In other words, the Book considers an autonomous-and-independent process, that is subservient to a phase, that is subservient to its process. This is the hallmark of directed deterministic dominance.ConvictionCommentators, who mistakenly consider the Preface's social process to be exactly the same process as the Book's production process, and that both should therefore have identical bases and superstructures, might consider whether production within socialism is the same as the socialist economic formation itself?Marx was non-committal about the production-process as such under socialism beyond describing it as being conducted by associated labour. He allows it to follow its own production laws, which will be subservient to its mode-of-production base.But Marx was explicitly committal over what the materialist conception of history determines the social-process's socialist-economic-formation phase to be — a system of society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the material and personal means of labour by the whole community.Marx has conviction in the social-process itself and in its dominance, in all of its phases, over the production process. And so, Marx has conviction in the Party's Object.

[twc]

DJP wrote:

This article may be of interest: http://libcom.org/library/separation-economic-political-capitalism-ellen-meiskins-wood

Her observation:   In capitalism, the economy exploits and the state controls.Our conclusion (since 1904):  Control the state to abolish the exploitation.Her conclusion (in 1981, in thrall to Lenin):  Combine the economic-and-political class struggles.Most of her article is excellent. Her defence of the materialist conception of history is devastating to her opponents, G. A. Cohen and Simon Clarke. Appreciation of her achievement will have to await another thread.Our present topic has moved on to the puzzling intermixing of base and superstructure or, specifically, the intermixing of the economic and the legal-and-political spheres — something which also puzzles Ellen Meiskins Wood.

DJP wrote:

Is this or that part of the base or the superstructure?For instance class ownership property relations, which are a 'base' element, are also a legal relationship, part of the super-structure. A change in the legal structure (the super-structure) would in this case result in a change in the base!To me it's seems a mistake to make rigid splits between economic and political spheres since they are both in a co-determining relationship.

It is a complex task to unravel intertwined actualities.I know of only one way to accomplish this — to examine the intertwined complexity through base–superstructure deterministic science. This will follow in instalments.For the moment, recall how Marx in Capital  scoffed at the apparently co-determining relationship of supply-and-demand, which "explains nothing when they balance out".Co-determinations, in the form of equilibrium and reciprocity, are everywhere and omnipresent. They may be conditions of determinisms, but can't be deterministic themselves because they are bi-directional.Determinism, like time, implies direction. Otherwise, it's something else…

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