I wasn't. However, I believe it's just a problem of semantics, which is why I asked you to explain, so things can become clear. But it's up to you...

According to the dialectical Holy Books, processes and objects change because of their 'internal contradictions', that is, because of a 'struggle' between dialectically-connected opposites. But, because of this, these objects/processes also inevitably turn into their opposites.

But, this cannot happen with your table example, since a table is not the opposite of wood, nor do they 'struggle' in any obvious way.

And yet, even if they did 'struggle', the table would have to exist alongside the wood for this to happen. In other words, it would have to exist before it existed!

Moreover, tables would make themselves out of wood, by-passing the need for human labour.

So, dialectics cannot explain even the manufacture of tables, let alone anything else.

Alternatively, if dialectics were true, there would be no tables.

Or anything else, for that matter.

So, this is not a problem of 'semantics'. The 'theory' is fundamentally flawed.

Rosa you ask

My explantion is that you wrote:

I was making the reasonable assumumption that you were using No. 3 definition below in refering to it as impenetrable as in the above quote from you.

On that assumption you had described it as being incapable of being understood and therefore, presumamably, did not consider yourself capable of understanding it.

Eh no....but I assume that is a snide reference to my point that your ideas are a philosophical theory, rather than a serious suggestion by you that I actually think 'everything' is a philosophical theory.

It might be if it was a theory.

Gil falls into the trap, yet again (what a loser!):

Impenetrable to the OP, not me, you wally.

And you say I am pedantic!

I take my non-dialectical hat off to the expert!

And not just mine, anyone I quoted, even before you read what they had to say, was branded as spouting some theory or other -- on the assumption, therefore, that everything is a philosophical theory.

Indeed, why do you think I use 'scare quotes' whenever I refer to it?

Negation of the negation applies here, doesn't it? Wood becomes table, wood is thus negated. But table is wood, which is the negation of the negation, and yet the wood we have now is not the same we had earlier, it's different in that it has utility etc. So the dialectical process of change is proved.

BenHur:

Well, the whole point of being brief is to leave out such complications. So, if you wanted the full answer, why did you ask for a very short reply?

Wood is not 'negated' by being bulit into a table, it is still wood.

In addition, do you really think there is a 'struggle' between the table and this wood?

If not, then you disagree with Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin...

If you do, then tables should be able to manufacture themsleves, and we can save on human labour costs.

In that case, the dialectic, far from being an 'adomination' to the bourgeoisie, is a decided gift; they can sack all their workers, and watch tables 'self-develop'!

Which, perhaps, explains that old anti-dialectical joke:

Q: How many dialecticians does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None at all; the lightbulb changes itself.

I don't understand why Rosa doesn't get almost every single one of her posts edited for flaming. By now shouldn't she have been warned, double warned, triple warned and banned, if consistent rules were being applied? It seems like pretty major favoritism.

And she really drags the forum down with her behavior imo.

JJ:

I get 'flamed' all the time. But, no one complains when that happens to me. BTB, for example, has been doing this for well over two years.

I always give as good as I get, often worse.

If that upsets you, too bad...

It should upset the mods, that's the point of moderation.

JJ:

What? Over calling someone a wally? They are not quite as easily phased as you seem to be.

This is already explained. Pay attention to this paragraph from August Thalheimer's work:

Source:http://www.marxists.org/archive/thal.../diamat/11.htm

BenHur:

I don't think so. [I have read and studied this stuff for longer than most RevLefters have been alive, so this is not new to me!]

First, the germination of grain is a natural process. Wood being made into tables isn't. There is thus no natural way wood can be 'negated' to form a table.

Second, according to the dialectical Gospels, opposites in struggle cause change, but then they also turn into one another.

If that is so, plants must stuggle with seeds, and a seed must turn into the plant it is struggling with, and the plant must change into the seed it is struggling with too.

Have you ever seen plants do this?

Third, it is quite bizarre to speak of seed being 'negated'. Seeds are not items of language. Now, it makes some sort of crazy sense for Hegel to talk this way (since he imagined everything was Mind, or the development of Mind, and hence language was implicated in everything, so to speak), but not for materialists.

Plants may only be negated if they are sentences or clauses.

Unless, of course, you mean by 'negate' something different from the rest of us.

I note you also skipped past all this:

Only judging you by the standards you apply to others.....interesting if that makes me look like a looser....cos what it makes me look a bit like is you.

You obviously never tried to make a table

It makes perfect sense if the materialist understands the profound sense in which language is a material reality and not something separated out from material reality as you constantly presume. 'Seeds' are actually items of language ?

Gil:

In fact, it shows that your criticism of me along these lines was ill-conceived.

You obviously do not know what a table is, or perhaps how they are made.

Given this 'theory', the 'opposite' that the wood becomes (i.e., the finished table) has to 'struggle' with its own 'opposite' (the wood).

In that case, the table has to be finished before it is finished, otherwise it cannot 'struggle' with the wood. If so, why bother making the table in the first place? It is already there ready to 'struggle' with the wood!

Of course, human beings struggle with wood to make tables, but even then the wood does not become the human being who made the table, which it would have to do if we were to believe Lenin and the other dilaectical prophets, who tell us that objects turn into the things with which they 'struggle'.

Indeed, language is a material reality, and the reality of language is that it is items of language that can be negated, not objects in the world.

And our use of negation in language has no implication built into it that things have changed, or have partaken in 'non-being' (to use the mystical gobbledygook), otherwise we should have to assume that George W Bush had changed simply because of the following;

G1: George W Bush is not a socialist.

Moreover, your argument suggests that you should also think (if you were consistent -- ha!) that because we have other signs in language that they can be said to apply to things in reality. In that case, we should expect to see imperative objects, since we have the "!" sign. Or, that there are punctuated objects because we have punctuation marks.

Finally, we can see the sort of mess this sloppy logic of yours gets you into: it encourages you mystics to think that tables make themselves, and that they are made before they are made!

Going by your logic, dictionary=Shakespeare. Hopefully, you see where that can lead. Raw material and finished goods are the opposites here, and the struggle produces an entity that's different from the original, yet retains its characteristics. This is what change or evolution is all about, and this is more pronounced in sentient beings. An example can only take you so far. Somehow, I get the feeling you're arguing for the sake of arguing, without any seriousness, and trivializing the whole thing.

BenHur:

I am sorry, you lost me here.

Recall, this is not my 'logic'. I am merely working out the consequences of what the Dialectical Gospels tell us.

I agree, but unfortunately, the Dialectical Prophets tell us the following:

1) Things can only change because of a struggle between 'opposites'.

2) Things change into their opposites.

Thus, if a table is the opposite of a pile of wood (which it must be if the one changes into the other), then there must be a struggle between that table and that pile of wood.

In that case, the table must already exist in order for it to 'struggle' with that pile of wood.

Hence the table must exist before it exists.

Have you ever seen a struggle between the table that results at the end of this process and the pile of wood from which it emerges, both existing at the same time, or they could not change (if the Dialectical Holy Men are to be believed)?

Now, your explanation of change is perfectly OK, but it does not agree with what Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, and Lenin (among others) tell us. [See below.]

Or, to put it another way, if a human being struggles with a pile of wood in order to make tables then, and if things turn into that with which they struggle (as the Dialectical Magi tell us), then piles of wood should turn into human beings, and vice versa.

Even your mate Thalheimer says so too:

Bold added.

Thalheimer, pp.170-171. Quoted frmm here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/thal.../diamat/11.htm

Now, your explanation is based on common sense and ordinary language, that is why it works, and that is why we do not need dialectics at all to explain change.

In fact, if dialectics were true, some pretty odd things would happen, and we'd have to warn carpenters never to try to make a table, on pain of them all turning into a pile of wood!

Not so; I am merely showing you how ridiculous dialectics is, when you work out its consequences.

Now, where is my reading of the Dialectical Gospels wrong?

Here is what they say, only now more fully (bold added):

References and links can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/...Explain-Change

It would not be difficult to double or even treble the length of this list of quotations (as anyone who has access to as many books and articles on dialectics as I have will attest), all saying the same thing.

Ok, if you think I am misinterpreting these characters, where have I gone wrong?

Well thats your mystical platonic dualism, that this distinction is more important to you than it is in reality. You are confused because you think this sequence of argument is correct:

This would be a picture view of language, which you know is false. But that seduces you into the false view that

This is wrong when applied to actual language use in practice, rather than to trivial invented examples.This is your dualism

Yea Yea, that must be right, of course I dont know what a table is....of course, great hypothesis !

You have interpreted key terms the same way I interpreted 'impenetrable'....which is the same way you earlier interpreted 'false' when I spoke of a false argument. Pedantry is the key to your approch.

BTW carpenters do know that tables ultimately do turn into piles of wood...but different wood than it started as....they dont worry cos if they struggle well with the original form of the wood the revised form lasts a long time before turning into the pile of wood. Thats the dialectic of joinery.

Gil:

A fine taunt coming from a Hermetic mystic.

But, even you mystics have to use language to describe the world, and hence even you have to use it correctly.

On the contrary, I do not 'know' the 'picture theory' is false. In fact, if it is a philosophical theory, it is nonsensical.

But you mystics hold to this 'false theory', for you see negation in language picturing certain processes in reality.

Well, much as we would like to accept your word as gospel here, we are going to need to see a few examples of this 'language' you speak of in actual use. Perhaps you can tell us how it might feature on a picket line, or on an anti-Nazi demo?

[But we both know you really mean 'in use in Hegelian philosophy' and/or in the alleged 'materialist' version, which, as you might be able to guess, begs the question.]

Pick a fight with the OP, for it is his example, not mine.

And sloppy thought is the bane of yours.

Anyway, I don't think so. Lets' walk you through it again (only this time, do try to concentrate):

According to the Dialectical Prophets (quotations above):

1) Things can only change because of a struggle between 'opposites'.

2) Things change into their opposites.

Thus, if a table is the opposite of a pile of wood (which it must be if the one changes into the other), then there must be a struggle between that table and that pile of wood (according to the wise old dialectical sages quoted above).

In that case, the table must already exist in order to 'struggle' with that pile of wood.

Hence the table must exist before it exists.

Have you ever seen a struggle between the table that results at the end of this process and the pile of wood from which it emerged --, both existing at the same time, or they could not change one another (if the Dialectical Holy Men are to be believed)?

Or, to put it another way, if a human being struggles with a pile of wood in order to make tables then, and if things turn into that with which they struggle (as the Dialectical Magi tell us), then piles of wood should turn into human beings, and vice versa.

Yes, maybe so, but do they also believe that tables do this because of a 'struggle' between that table and its opposite, a pile of dust? They should if they were daft enough to study the Dialectical Gospels, and then believe all they read there.

Indeed, dialectical carpenters might well believe this whacko 'theory' (and perhaps this is also part of the reason for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism? After all, why should workers trust Marxists who think tables struggle with piles of dust?) -- but those still in possession of their sanity mercifully do not.

How on Earth is such a convoluted description of how wood becomes a table remotely useful?

It is much simpler and more truthful to state that "tables are often constructed out of wood".

What do you mean by "negated"? It's still wood, whether it's in the form of a tree or a table.

No, all you've proved so far is that it's possible to slap arbitrary labels on vaguely-defined processes.

I actually agree with NoXion here. It doesn't seem useful at all.

By the way, where do the trees come into all this discussion of wood and tables?