Young Master Smeet
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Ideas are material and are subject to causation, that's what I got from the German Ideology. And, as I've said what you alone in the world call Idealism-Materialism is just what I'd call materialism. Use the shorter name, save electrons.I'd accept the fact of the outcome of a vote of my peers, but I wouldn't necessarilly agree that what they said was the truth was so (and I'd reserve the right to campaign to overturn the vote, too). Also, you seem to be implicitly accepting my point about the minority of scientists being right against the majority. This seems to me to validate my point about the vote being unnecessary for finding truth.As I've noted before, by the material process of mathematics alone, Paul Dirac predicted the existence of antimatter (this has been confirmed by evidence).Interestingly, this article (below)http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1014/061014-john-okeefeSeems to give some grist to the rationalist mill, since our brain structure does seem to provide some a priori structures to things like spatial positioning (also it's a further fillip to materialism, as we do seem to be chasing down a good healthy reductionism and proving that the meatbots do think with their grey goo).And, BTW, obviously in socialism the Nobel Prize would be voted on by the entire community and there wouldn't be a financial component.
No, last time I talked about tides cvoming in, I ws asking what would happen if a socialist commonwealth voted to stop the tides? i.e. I was trying to elicit from you a further explanation of what you are talking about through a concrete example, either you can point out the flaw in my quwestion, or take me through how the tides will stop. As you said, any practitioner of science must be able to explain it to an ordinary person…More to the point, i've also asked you whetehr we can all do the same experiment, the point of that question was that we cannot all do the same experiment, and that information must flow through society: I have never been to India, I don't know if it exists, but some people tell me so and I have no reason to distrust them.What I have said is that I, like my comrades, will make up my own mind based on evidence and testimony: you have to accept this is necessary, since new propositions must be put to the socialist commonwealth by a minority (prior to it becoming a majority through a vote), ele there can be no new knowldge. I'd accept the verdict of the vote, but campaign to overturn it if I thought it was wrong, as is the right of a minority in a democracy, n'est pas?
Quote:In this case, the members here are arguing that, even after a revolution, they won't accept that the class as a whole should determine the meaning of the 'material'. That is, your party members are arguing that they, either as individuals or as a party, have access to a means of generating social knowledge that is either not available to the mass of workers, or that the mass of workers can't be trusted with.Erm, no, they're arguing there will be no working class. As to what is material, the answer is everything. Including love, poetry and sex. No one is arguing that we have access to special knowledge, far from it (in my case, the exact opposite, I'm arguing it is through ongoing discussion that we come to know the world, and no vote can nor should stop that discussion).
OED wrote:Idealism: Philos. Any of various views according to which reality is ultimately in some sense mental or mind-dependent; any of various views according to which the objects of knowledge or perception are ideas (in various senses: see idea n.); more generally, any view opposed to some form of realism or materialism.Materialism: Philos. The theory or belief that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications; (more narrowly) the theory or belief that mental phenomena are nothing more than, or are wholly caused by, the operation of material or physical agencies.Dualism:Philos. The doctrine that mind and matter exist as distinct entities; opposed to idealism and materialism.Lbird wrote:Any worker I'm speaking to in the future will be told that the SPGB does not want democratic methods to be adopted by the proletariat in its control of the means of production (which includes, obviously, science)And if you direct them to this discussion, they will see members of the party committed to democratic control of the means of production, and to the democratic organisation of science, and they will wonder why you are saying something that is untrue (even more, they might question how you know what the SP stands for, since by your own light, without a democratic vote, you cannot have any knowledge).I am indeed arguing for democracy within society and science. So it would be untrue for you to tell any workers that you meet the contrary. And I'm sure you would not want to say untrue things to the class.At a philosophical level, never mind the practical, one question you have run away from is what happens to truth prior to a vote. Necessarilly, the new propositions to be adopted will be moved by a minority (and how are they convinced to even begin proposing new theses?) that will become the majority. Democracy does not resolve the epistemological question, there must always be a point at which the minority is right against the majority.
SP,What the party poll said was, in effect, that conference is to be obeyed, Conference has since changed its instructions. Nothing untoward there. If the party poll had said "the form of name shall be the Fishcakes Party" then we'd need a party poll to change the name (or form of name), as it is it said "please abide by a conference decision". A little lawyerly, I know. Some people may care, many do not.
The party is made up of proletarians standing under a musty banner. We are members of the working, class, part of the working class movement, inextricably, and addressing ourelves to the working class as a whole. We organise ourselves separately from reformist movements for clarity of ideas, and to enable us to be an exclusively working class orientated organisation. I'm prepared to say we disagree with Chuck on this one. Our interests are not different from the working class' but certainly different from other working class parties that are not socialist.
But you don't. Whenever you're met with an objection, or a proposition, you just pick up the ball or resort to ad hominem. In fact, ad hominem is your default position, you ignore the words and play (what you imagine to be) the man.If everytime someone asks you what you mean by democracy and science you accuse them of being conservatives calling for practical examples, you don't help us understand what you're saying. AFAICS we simply don't understand what you're trying to say. tehre's clearly something useful there, but it's not coming across.AFAICS your 'Idealism-Materialism' neologism is just exactly what I understand by materialism, I just don't use the same, slightly otiose, name for it.
I have to say I have never actually read Engels on science, I'm basing my contribution to this debate almost entirely on The German Ideology and the description of materialism there, and Theses on Feuerbach (plus a bit of general philosophy I've picked up off the floor).I mean, also, I don't disagree with the philosophical principle of democratic organisation of science (indeed, that's what I've been arguing for), our disagreements are entirely practical (theory and practice anyone?) AFAICS.Personally, by the way, i have debated with free marketees, and found the process useful. The whole point of debate is to start from a point of disagreement. But then, you don't seem to believ in debate, do you?
We don't idolise Marx & Engels,the above is a tactical suggestion, we've chosen different tactics, we are decidedly partyists, in preference to the tyranny of structurlessness and also our specific focus upon the conscious acceptance of socialist ideas.
Short answer, IIRC the party poll itself merely affirmed that the cofnerence result should be enforced, rather than affirming an express policy. Teh second answer is that since the mebers who wanted to go to the wall over the issue have all left, and the majority never don't give a damn about the name. Who, after all, cares about what the name on the the Head Office Feaces is?
Because our enemies could vote maliciously, and choosig the worst candidates, or even worse, voting to cause confusion. We can hold our committee members to account, and our fellow members if they behave in such a way as to disrupt the objects of the party: we can't expell non-members.
Open primaries are a terrible idea, they are a form of state assimilation of political parties, that removes control of the party from an active membership and hands it over to a bureaucratic elite (also, in the states, a party has to qualify for registration for primaries). Also, the issue of avoiding spoiler votes raises its head. Tories could vote and select terrible candidates. We have the membership test and formal membership for a reason: accountability. We want to know that the people taking decisions for our organisation know what it stands for, and share the essential ideas that we exist to promote.
The Morning Star have been wetting themselves over the Kurdish Republic of Rojava:http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-8069-Kurds-keep-resisting-Isis-attack-on-Rojava#.VDPiD9jgdhc
As I said, it can't occur on a ballot paper (and I don't agree it's always likely to occur generally). Socialist Pubnk is right, we have to read the motion in such a way as to make it effective.
To take a comparative method:An Animist society might well just (reasonably, and scientifically) believe that the sea moves through the instigatioin of people (and lets rememebr, animals are people here) since people make things happen. they're just invisible people we call spirits. All they know is sometimes they get angry, and need to be placated.A theistic society, being more hierarchical, believes that a king has ruled, and the seas move according to his will. We can discover the mind of this king/god through what the sea does.An inductive society, perhaps more sea faring than the others, observes that the tides are usually high or low at a certain point in the calendar, or when a certain star is in the sky at sunset (stone age polynesian island tribes could do this).A scientific society would apply the inductive knowledge of tide times hitherto, and could add in knowledge of gravity and motion, and say that by predicting the motions of the moon we can calculate the axial tilt of the earth and it's effect on the fluid dynamics of the oceans (also with regard to proximity to the sun and the relative expansion of the water as it heats and cools). That is, applying theory proven in other areas to make predictions regarding the tides. Adding in the effect of wind (calculated from astronomy and meteorology) we could predict freak flooding. Maybe, even further, such a society might build on reclaimed land, and might need to predict the effects of reclamation on the volume and height of water in an estuary (as in London).
