Wez
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Anyway TM to save you any tedious research here’s my introduction to Freud’s Death Instinct. https://wezselecta.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-death-instinct.html#comment-form
Perhaps BD might be interested too?TM – ‘I don’t know about “death instinct”, which sounds ridiculous to me.’
A curious statement by someone who admits he’s ignorant of Freud’s later work. You should really read up on something before passing judgement. Presumably, like the rest of us, there are lots of things that ‘sounded ridiculous’ to you before you did a bit of research?
DJP- I’m no expert on animal behaviour, as TM will tell you, but don’t many animals seek out a quiet place to die when life becomes unsupportable?
BD – My point being that Newtonian ‘force of attraction’ is a metaphor that works perfectly well without there being any ‘physical manifestation’ of it – as ALB was demanding for the life force (Eros). I think you have entirely misunderstood Freud’s theory of the ‘death instinct’ because you ignore the internal dialectic of contradictory instincts within the psyche. I did write about this in an attempt to explain it in some depth and I can send it to you if you wish. As for there being no evidence of the existence of such an instinct I can only point to the dark age that was the 20th century. If someone could explain to me the levels of fear, hatred, sadism, violence and racism that brought about the holocaust and many other terrible political phenomena better than the Marxian synthesis with the theory of the death instinct then let me know. I do not believe that mere ‘false consciousness’ can explain such self destructive behaviour of our species alone.
There is no force of attraction between masses – Einstein proved this in his theory of general relativity. Why doesn’t it surprise me that you rely on Newton – talk about ‘old school’. Even if there was a ‘force of gravity’ what would it be composed of?? Eros and Thanatos are metaphors within a theory – you might just as well ask what are the emotions composed of.
ALB – ‘Of course physicists know what gravity is. It’s the attraction between things that have mass.’
Well that’s alright then, you’ve just solved one of the greatest mysteries in science. In Einstein’s theory of gravity (general relativity) there is no ‘force of attraction’ between masses and the effect is caused by the curvature of space.
BD – I’m only interested in Freud’s theories as they can be used to explain political ideology. As far as I know no other psychological theory has been used for such a purpose?. Of course his theories have to be complemented by a Marxian perspective to make any sense which is what, I believe, the Frankfurt guys did with some success. You plainly believe his theories have no application in terms of individual therapy but, presumably, there are therapists who would disagree with you on that?ALB wrote: ‘By the way, quantum mechanics is an explanation of phenomenon observed in the movement of sub-atomic particles and has no application outside that field.’
You couldn’t be more mistaken. Quantum mechanics has caused a crisis of cultural understanding of the world. The synthesis of the observer and the observed is a profound concept applicable to every phenomena. I notice you’ve changed the question you ask from ‘what are forces composed of’ to how are they measured. Presumably because you can’t answer my question you concentrate on the other. Your need for things to be described in ‘physical terms’ betrays a very old fashioned kind of mechanical materialism. While in hospital I am continually asked ‘what number would you describe the pain as between 1 and 10’ when my answer would be it’s a creeping malaise that is always present but intensifies at certain times for no apparent reason. In other words I don’t believe measurement is always the royal road to reality. We’ve had this debate as long as I’ve known you and the hole doesn’t seem to be any deeper now than it was at the beginning. By the way how is the force of gravity described in ‘physical terms’? The physicists of the world would be very interested to know.
DJP -Yep, that’s me. I don’t know if you’ve read my account of my adventures on radio: https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2012/2010s/no-1299-november-2012/fyah-inna-babylon-marxist-media/
DJP – I have a recording of one of my early shows and would like to share it with you – if you’re interested how can this be done? As for grabbing a mic now there’s nothing I would like to do more but it looks like I’ll be in hospital again very soon (subjected to hospital radio, groan) as my health is rubbish. Who knows if I’ll regain the strength to hit the airwaves once more – my public await with bated breath.
Almamater – So why go into such detail about what you are doing on this forum? You have made your life my business through discussing it here. What you don’t like is my identifying it as ‘individualistic’ rather than socialist. Am I mistaken?
ALB -Here’s a question for you – what is the force of gravity composed of? Similarly what is the force of electromagnetism composed of or the strong and weak nuclear forces? These are meaningless questions surely?
DJP – ‘From that you can work out a strategy for getting your message out there. If you end up reaching nobody it doesn’t matter how much you want to undermine consumerism.’
Having been a graphic designer all my working life I perfectly understand how marketing ‘works’. I had to endure endless meetings where people tried to second guess the tastes of others – very tedious. The best advice I ever got was ‘make the show that you would want to listen to. If it fails then so be it but don’t play anything merely because you think the audience would like it.’
Almamater – ‘I do not like anybody giving me order and telling me what to do, and I do not want to participate in any party activities, committees, or even writing for the socialist standard .
I am running my own websites’How very bourgeois individualistic of you Almamater – don’t you believe in democracy?
TM – Originally I think Freud thought of the libido as an actual chemical entity – which led Reich on his fruitless search for ‘orgone’. Sigmund thought that science was a matter of ‘matter’ and hoped his psychoanalysis would one day be described in a similar style as was physics. Since quantum mechanics nobody thinks of physics in that way.
ALB & BD – I’ve always thought of the concepts as metaphorical like ‘a force of nature’ or ‘desire’ being a manifestation of the sexual instinct. In the end all language (including that of science) are metaphors. They still seek a complete scientific explanation for the ‘force’ of gravity. The ‘quantum’, photon, singularity, dark matter etc. are all metaphors.
DJP – I don’t know the reasons why you can’t ‘get involved’ but it maybe that, like myself, you have serious health issues that might preclude me occasionally from proceeding with such a project. As a broadcaster I invited DJs onto my show to discuss their favourite albums which, as it turned out, were all political at their heart. I hope it doesn’t ‘all come down to marketing’ since the broadcasts will seek to subvert and undermine consumerism and its demographic designations.
