Dialectics of nature, does it work? - Page 2

trivas7 · #21 20th August 2008, 01:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

So, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Well, which is it?

Rosa Lichtenstein · #22 20th August 2008, 08:21

LH:

Quote:

"John ate all his cake, and saved it all for tomorrow."

Can we agree that this is a formal contradiction?

1) At best this is a discursive contradiction. It can only be formal if it is expressed in symbols, such as "p & ~p".

2) But, it is not even a discursive contradiction without the truth of this extra proposition:

A: "No one can both eat all their cake and save it all for tomorrrow".

B: "John ate all his cake, and saved it all for tomorrow."

But, B says A is false!

Alternatively, if B is true, then A is false, and so B cannot be a contradiction!

Nice try, only it wasn't.

So, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #23 20th August 2008, 08:31

Trivas:

Quote:

Well, which is it?

I went though all this in detail with Gilhyle. Please try to stay awake!

Gil attempted to define a 'dialectical contradiction' in a way similar to Scott Meikle:

Quote:

"Marx's absolutely fundamental (Hegelian) idea [is] that the two poles united in an opposition necessitate one another ('belong to and mutually condition each other')...." [Ibid., p.19.]

Quote:

"All the contradictions of capitalist commodity-production have at their heart the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value. Marx reveals this contradiction to lie at the heart of the commodity-form as such, even in its simplest and most primitive form....

"The simple form of value itself contains the polar opposition between, and the union of, use-value and exchange-value.... [Marx writes that] 'the relative form of value and the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belong to and mutually condition each other...but at the same time they are mutually exclusive and opposed extremes.' Concerning the first he observes that the value of linen cannot be expressed in linen; 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is not an expression of value. 'The value of linen can therefore only be expressed relatively, that is in another commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen therefore presupposes that some other commodity confronts it in the equivalent form.' Concerning the second: 'on the other hand, this other commodity which figures as the equivalent, cannot simultaneously be in the relative form of value... The same commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously appear in both forms in the same expression of value. These forms rather exclude each other as polar opposites.'

"This polar opposition within the simple form is an 'internal opposition' which as yet remains hidden within the individual commodity in its simple form: 'The internal opposition between use-value and exchange-value, hidden within the commodity, is therefore represented on the surface by an external opposition,' that is the relation between two commodities such that one (the equivalent form) counts only as a use-value, while the other (the relative form) counts only as an exchange-value. 'Hence, the simple form of value of the commodity is the simple form of the opposition between use-value and value which is contained in the commodity.'" [Meikle (1979), pp.16-17.]

Bold added.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=361

However, if this is the case, and these "poles" mutually exclude one another, they cannot both exist at the same time.

If so, they cannot affect one another, and so cannot change one another, or anything else, for that matter.

In that case, we either still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is (since it can't be one, as it is causally ineffectual) or, if we do know what one is (i.e., "These forms rather exclude each other as polar opposites") then such 'contradictions' can't exist and so are causally ineffectual.

This is so unless we give "mutually exclude" (or "exclude each other") a new meaning.

In which case, we still do not know what "mutually exclude" means --, or if we do, then it cannot be part of a 'dialectical contradiction'.

QED.

Luís Henrique · #24 20th August 2008, 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

A: "No one can both eat all their cake and save it all for tomorrrow".

B: "John ate all his cake, and saved it all for tomorrow."

But, B says A is false!

Alternatively, if B is true, then A is false, and so B cannot be a contradiction!

Ah, OK. But, then, in this case, A^B is a logical contradiction, isn't it?

Luís Henrique

Rosa Lichtenstein · #25 20th August 2008, 12:52

LH:

Quote:

Ah, OK. But, then, in this case, A^B is a logical contradiction, isn't it?

No (you are in fact now caught in a similar bind to that which ensnared Achilles in his debate with the Tortoise, in Lewis Carroll's dialogue -- I have posted it below). This is because, A and B, if held true would now depend on C:

C: "A and B are both true together."

A: "No one can both eat all their cake and save it all for tomorrrow".

B: "John ate all his cake, and saved it all for tomorrow."

But B is false even while A is true, so C is false. In which case, A & B is not a contradiction.

On the other hand, if B is true then A is false, so C is false. Same outcome.

In other words the set of propositions {A, B, C} cannot all be true at once.

In that case:

We still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #26 20th August 2008, 12:55

OK, here is is:

Quote:

What the Tortoise Said to Achilles
Lewis Carroll

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reprinted from Lewis Carroll, "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles," Mind 4, No. 14 (April 1895): 278-280.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Achilles had overtaken the Tortoise, and had seated himself comfortably on its back.

"So you've got to the end of our race-course?" said the Tortoise. "Even though it does consist of an infinite series of distances? I thought some wiseacre or other had proved that the thing couldn't be done?"

"It can be done," said Achilles. "It has been done! Solvitur ambulando. You see the distances were constantly diminishing; and so --"

"But if they had been constantly increasing?" the Tortoise interrupted "How then?"

"Then I shouldn't be here," Achilles modestly replied; "and you would have got several times round the world, by this time!"

"You flatter me -- flatten, I mean" said the Tortoise; "for you are a heavy weight, and no mistake! Well now, would you like to hear of a race-course, that most people fancy they can get to the end of in two or three steps, while it really consists of an infinite number of distances, each one longer than the previous one?"

"Very much indeed!" said the Grecian warrior, as he drew from his helmet (few Grecian warriors possessed pockets in those days) an enormous note-book and a pencil. "Proceed! And speak slowly, please! Shorthand isn't invented yet!"

"That beautiful First Proposition of Euclid!" the Tortoise murmured dreamily. "You admire Euclid?"

"Passionately! So far, at least, as one can admire a treatise that won't he published for some centuries to come!"

"Well, now, let's take a little bit of the argument in that First Proposition -- just two steps, and the conclusion drawn from them. Kindly enter them in your notebook. And in order to refer to them conveniently, let's call them A, B, and Z: --

(A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.

(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.

(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.

Readers of Euclid will grant, I suppose, that Z follows logically from A and B, so that any one who accepts A and B as true, must accept Z as true?"

"Undoubtedly! The youngest child in a High School -- as soon as High Schools are invented, which will not be till some two thousand years later -- will grant that."

"And if some reader had not yet accepted A and B as true, he might still accept the sequence as a valid one, I suppose?"

"No doubt such a reader might exist. He might say 'I accept as true the Hypothetical Proposition that, if A and B be true, Z must be true; but, I don't accept A and B as true.' Such a reader would do wisely in abandoning Euclid, and taking to football."

"And might there not also he some reader who would say 'I accept A and B as true, but I don't accept the Hypothetical '?"

"Certainly there might. He, also, had better take to football."

"And neither of these readers," the Tortoise continued, "is as yet under any logical necessity to accept Z as true?"

"Quite so," Achilles assented.

"Well, now, I want you to consider me as a reader of the second kind, and to force me, logically, to accept Z as true."

"A tortoise playing football would be -- " Achilles was beginning

"-- an anomaly, of course," the Tortoise hastily interrupted. "Don't wander from the point. Let's have Z first, and football afterwards!"

"I'm to force you to accept Z, am I?" Achilles said musingly. "And your present position is that you accept A and B, but you don't accept the Hypothetical --"

"Let's call it C," said the Tortoise.

"-- but you don't accept

(C) If A and B are true, Z must be true. "

"That is my present position," said the Tortoise.

"Then I must ask you to accept C."

"I'll do so," said the Tortoise, "as soon as you've entered it in that note-book of yours. What else have you got in it?"

"Only a few memoranda," said Achilles, nervously fluttering the leaves: "a few memoranda of -- of the battles in which I have distinguished myself!"

"Plenty of blank leaves, I see!" the Tortoise cheerily remarked. "We shall need them all!" (Achilles shuddered.) "Now write as I dictate: --

(A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.

(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.

(C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.

(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other."

"You should call it D, not Z," said Achilles. "It comes next to the other three. If you accept A and B and C, you must accept Z."

"And why must I?"

"Because it follows logically from them. If A and B and C are true, Z must be true. You don't dispute that, I imagine?"

"If A and B and C are true, Z must he true," the Tortoise thoughtfully repeated. "That's another Hypothetical, isn't it? And, if I failed to see its truth, I might accept A and B and C', and still not accept Z. mightn't I?"

"You might," the candid hero admitted; "though such obtuseness would certainly be phenomenal. Still, the event is possible. So I must ask you to grant one more Hypothetical."

"Very good. I'm quite willing to grant it, as soon as you've written it down. We will call it

(D) If A and B and C are true, Z must be true.

"Have you entered that in your notebook?"

"I have!" Achilles joyfully exclaimed, as he ran the pencil into its sheath. "And at last we've got to the end of this ideal race-course! Now that you accept A and B and C and D, of course you accept Z."

"Do I?" said the Tortoise innocently. "Let's make that quite clear. I accept A and B and C and D. Suppose I still refused to accept Z?"

"Then Logic would force you to do it!" Achilles triumphantly replied. "Logic would tell you 'You can't help yourself. Now that you've accepted A and B and C and D, you must accept Z!' So you've no choice, you see."

"Whatever Logic is good enough to tell me is worth writing down," said the Tortoise. "So enter it in your book, please. We will call it

(E) If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true. Until I've granted that, of course I needn't grant Z. So it's quite a necessary step, you see?"

"I see," said Achilles; and there was a touch of sadness in his tone.

Here narrator, having pressing business at the Bank, was obliged to leave the happy pair, and did not again pass the spot until some months afterwards. When he did so, Achilles was still seated on the back of the much-enduring Tortoise, and was writing in his note-book, which appeared to be nearly full. The Tortoise was saying, "Have you got that last step written down? Unless I've lost count, that makes a thousand and one. There are several millions more to come. And would you mind, as a personal favour, considering what a lot of instruction this colloquy of ours will provide for the Logicians of the Nineteenth Century -- would you mind adopting a pun that my cousin the Mock-Turtle will then make, and allowing yourself to be re-named Taught-Us?"

"As you please!" replied the weary warrior, in the hollow tones of despair, as he buried his face in his hands. "Provided that you, for your part, will adopt a pun the Mock-Turtle never made, and allow yourself to be re-named A Kill-Ease!"

http://www.ditext.com/carroll/tortoise.html

This will always stand in the way of anyone trying to say (in propositions) what our ordinary use of language shows, as Wittgenstein noted.

Our ordinary use of language shows what a contradiction is, so your attempt to say what they are is doomed.

Give up -- you can't win this one...

Rosa Lichtenstein · #27 20th August 2008, 12:57

By the way, for those who do not know, this dialogue is based on one of Zeno's paradoxes:

http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/prime/...tort/index.asp

See also the discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_th...id_to_Achilles

trivas7 · #28 20th August 2008, 15:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

I went though all this in detail with Gilhyle. Please try to stay awake!

A simple yes or no suffices. In truth you're not interested in what a dialectical contradiction might be; your only motive on this forum by your own admission is to repudiate the dialectical method of Marxism.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #29 20th August 2008, 15:51

Trivas:

Quote:

A simple yes or no suffices. In truth you're not interested in what a dialectical contradiction might be; your only motive on this forum by your own admission is to repudiate the dialectical method of Marxism.

It is irrelevant what I am or am not interested in, what matters is that you lot cannot say what a 'dialectical contradiction' is --, or if you can, then we know that they cannot exist, and hence cannot change anything.

And we have already established that Marx was not interested in 'dialectical contradictions', so this is comment of yours light years away from the truth:

Quote:

dialectical method of Marxism

trivas7 · #30 20th August 2008, 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

And we have already established that Marx was not interested in 'dialectical contradictions', so this is comment of yours light years away from the truth:

Nonsense; this has not been "established" to anyone's satisfaction but your own. I suggest you read Marx with an open mind, not the filter of your Wittgensteinian predilections.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #31 20th August 2008, 18:39

Trivas:

Quote:

Nonsense; this has not been "established" to anyone's satisfaction but your own. I suggest you read Marx with an open mind, not the filter of your Wittgensteinian predilections.

Not so; the comrades here (I exclude you since you never made much of an effort) who attempted to take me on in this matter were not able to show where my reasoning was faulty, or my evidence incorrect.

And of course, if one reads what Marx actually said, he and I see eye to eye on this.

Unless, of course, you can show differently (ha, some hope!).

Even so: We still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

trivas7 · #32 21st August 2008, 01:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Not so; the comrades here (I exclude you since you never made much of an effort) who attempted to take me on in this matter were not able to show where my reasoning was faulty, or my evidence incorrect.

OTC, your unwillingness to comprehend has been pointed out repeatedly.

Quote:

And of course, if one reads what Marx actually said, he and I see eye to eye on this.

I have no idea what the this refers to. I dare say neither do you.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #33 21st August 2008, 07:53

Trivas:

Quote:

OTC, your unwillingness to comprehend has been pointed out repeatedly.

Only by those who can't answer my arguments.

Quote:

I have no idea what the this refers to. I dare say neither do you.

Quite the contrary. Unfortunatley for you mystics, Marx clearly indicated that 'his method' contained not one atom of Hegel.

This is what you had pointed out to you back in May:

Quote:

Trivas:

Quote:

Then you agree with what he wrote in the afterword to the third German edition of Das Kapital:

Sure, but you quote selectively, for Marx also quoted a reviewer thus:

Quote:

"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:*

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

You will note that Marx calls this the 'dialectic method', and 'his method', but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the sort of dialectics you have had forced down your throat, for in it there is not one ounce of Hegel -- no quantity turning into quality, no contradictions, no negation of the negation, no unities of opposites, no totality...

So, Marx's method has had Hegel totally extirpated. For Marx, putting Hegel on 'his feet' is to crush his head.

And of the few terms Marx uses of Hegel's in Das Kapital, he tells us this:

Quote:

"and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him."

So, the 'rational core' of the dialectic has not one atom of Hegel in it, and Marx merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of this mystical theory.

And it is little use you telling me he called Hegel a 'mighty thinker', since he pointedly put that in the past tense:

Quote:

"I criticised the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic nearly thirty years ago, at a time when is was still the fashion. But just when I was working on the first volume of Capital, the ill-humoured, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated Spinoza in Lessing's time, namely as a 'dead dog'. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker" and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Ibid., pp.102-03. Bold emphasis added.]

Moreover, one can call a theorist a 'mighty thinker' and totally disagree with him or her. [For instance, I think Plato was a 'mighty thinker' but I disagree with 99% of what he said.]

Still less is there any use in your referring to the Grundrisse -- Marx saw fit not to publish that work, but he did publish the above comments.

So, Marx and I agree that 'his method' contains no Hegel whatsoever; only I go even further and ditch the jargon with which Marx 'coquetted'.

Now, we have been over this many times here, as I told you, in numerous threads.

May I suggest you bother to read a few threads before making a fool of yourself here in future.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...4&postcount=73

Either you have a very poor memory, or you prefer not to "think about things you do don't think about", just like so many Fundamentalist Christians -- or both.

Neither Gil not BTB were able to answer these points.

trivas7 · #34 21st August 2008, 15:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Only by those who can't answer my arguments.

I, for one, have never understood what your "arguments" amount to.

Quote:

And of course, if one reads what Marx actually said, he and I see eye to eye on this.

Again, what does the this refer to?

Rosa Lichtenstein · #35 21st August 2008, 15:31

Trivas:

Quote:

I, for one, have never understood what your "arguments" amount to.

Yes, playing dumb is probably your best tactic.

Quote:

Again, what does the this refer to?

As I said, playing dumb is your best tactic.

Dystisis · #36 23rd August 2008, 23:07

Quote:

Nature, on the other hand, does not constitute a single integrated whole. Nature may be infinite, even contain an infinity of infinites. But it consists of fragmented totalities which have no inner unity, no universal and necessary interconnection. The disunity of nature forbids any universal dialectic.

First off, what do you mean by "infinity of infinites"? Surely one of those infinites would be enough. All infinites are infinities of infinities... of infinities... ad nausea. The pythagoreans called them (infinite and irregular numbers) "unspeakables" for this reason, it is in my opinion absurd to try and approach infinity as a "number" in a classical sense.

Anyways, I would say that nature is in perfect unity and that everything (think atomic) are in a perfect unity. I don't know if I can prove this to you, in a similar way that science is unable to do so, it is just something you kind of figure out. See my signature, physically a drop of water is no more or less remarkable (or has no more or less effect on nature) than a bullet, presuming their mass is equal. Everything is in a constant state of interaction.

I would say that infinity is unity -- and the other way around, because besides unity there is only division creating a number of units, computable (thus not infinite) and derived from the unity. This may seem murky but use a perfect sphere as an example. Like infinity, a perfect sphere is impossible to calculate and create for us humans because it consists of an infinite amount of intercepting planes. Coincidentally (not really) a sphere or circle is also what we use as a "symbol" for 1 or unity, because it is the simplest undivided form.

I will look over the rest of the thread later and comment further if it contains anything which has anything to do with how nature works, as opposed to how the minds of secluded philosophers work..!

gilhyle · #37 27th August 2008, 21:21

Rosa, you say:

Quote:

Our ordinary use of language shows what a contradiction is,

Quote:

At best this is a discursive contradiction. It can only be formal if it is expressed in symbols, such as "p & ~p".

I see you have hijacked another reasonable thread Rosa and prevented another reasonable question being given any serious discussion.

Rosa Lichtenstein · #38 27th August 2008, 21:33

Gil:

Quote:

I see you have hijacked another reasonable thread Rosa and prevented another reasonable question being given any serious discussion.

But, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is --, or if we do, then we know they cannot exist, ans so cannot change anything.

You 'reasonable' mystics just cannot cope with the fact that you lot have been rumbled.

gilhyle · #39 28th August 2008, 08:00

But, Rosa still does not even know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is --, or if she does, then she thinks they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything

Rosa Lichtenstein · #40 28th August 2008, 11:35

Gil:

Quote:

But, Rosa still does not even know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is --, or if she does, then she thinks they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything

That's OK, since I'm in good company, for you are in the same predicament as I, and so is everyone else.

Unless, of course, you can show differently.

But, you'd have done that already, if you could...

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