When we observe a system, we recognize opposites according to the parameters and properties we define or give priority to. For example, if, on the real line, we use addition as the parameter, then the opposite of 5 is -5, while if we use multiplication, it is 0.2 ! Here, in both the cases, the criterion for being "opposite" to a given element is to result in the identity element of the group under the given operation, when the operation is performed on both the elements. In the cases mentioned above, we have 5 + (-5) = 0 , 5 * 0.2 = 1 .

When we observe a particular process in a system, we try to observe various properties of the process, and depending on the ones we want to observe, and the one among them which is most likely to affect the others greatly by its outcome, we identify a possibility and its negation as the primary contradiction. For example, the well known contradictions defined by Maoism are dependent on our decision to observe class-dynamics. Had we decided to observe, say, dynamics of food habits instead, the contradictions would have been entirely different.


As a system transforms, the contradictions might not(and generally do not) remain static. For example, when a colony is fighting its freedom struggle led by a united front, the major contradiction is between the revolutionary masses and imperialism-feudalism-comprador capitalism. But as soon as the revolution is accomplished, the revolutionary masses themselves divide into two antagonistic camps; the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The country's future; its return to a colonial state, or its development into a socialist state or a capitalist state now depends upon the outcome of this contradiction.


Now observe, that feudalism-colonialism, national capitalism, and socialism cannot exist simultaneously in a given society for a long time(while the society changes they can co-exist for a very very short time). So when we fix a suitable time-bound from below when we observe a society, any two of these systems can be considered as the negation of the remaining one. Thus, a contradiction's nature might be such that it cannot be resolved until it itself transforms radically. In the case above, if we judge by the initial contradictions during the revolution, the prevalent system, if the revolution suceeds, transforms only to a part of what constituted its opposite.

Now let us look at your examples.


While transforming, the system in question might change the nature of its opposite and the contradiction itself.


This example is not sufficient for characterizing all contradictions, as it assumes them to be static.


Again, the contradiction is not necessarily with what they become. You are defining a man to be a boy's opposite, and the process that you are studying is John's growth into a man. In this case John's contradictions will not necessarily be with other men. His primary contradiction will be with the opposing class, as a member of his whole class, because that is the chief factor which will radically shape John's future.


We shall see whose theory is a failure.

While the carpenter makes the table, he saws the wood, hammers nails into it. All this while the wood has been exerting an equal and opposite force on him. If you observe the process of manufacturing a table, then this indeed is the "struggle" mentioned.

And you cannot consider the wood solely as a system if you want to study its modification (and conclude that the wood struggles with the table, thereby trying to prove by giving naive examples of how useless DM is ? What a pathetic attempt!), as the agent that introduces the modifying force, the carpenter that is, remains outside the system.

Again the same fallacy of assuming the contradictions,opposites to be static and defining the contradictions wrongly as a whole when compared to the system observed. And by the way, steam does turn into water during boiling process.

Based on what I wrote earlier, it must be clear why I am not countering this text-barricade separately. I can only suggest a re-reading of Mao's works.

Red Cat:

But do these turn into one another, and do they 'struggle' with one another? According to the dialectical Bible, they should.

1) How is this a 'contradiction'? The only reason for saying so is the fact that Hegel used this word, and he did so as a result of his confusing a 'negative' form of the 'law of identity' with the 'law of non-contradiction'. But, the former concerns the alleged identity between an object/process and itself, whereas the second concerns the truth-functional link between a proposition and its negation; it is not about the relation between objects/processes.

2) This just repeats a tired piece of Revisionism, invented to excuse class collaboration with the Guomindang.

But, according to Engels, Lenin and Mao, such 'opposites' turn into one another. In that case, feudalism-colonialism and/or national capitalism should turn into capitalism, and capitalism should turn into feudalism-colonialism and/or national capitalism.

Well, I covered that in this comment:

You:

Not so; I added in the proviso that these could be changing all the time. Hence, a changing O* and O** would still be subject to the above absurd consequences.

Unfortunately, your revised theory contradicts (somewhat fittingly, one feels) what the dialectical gospels tell us. Here is Mao, for example:

Bold added.

I don't have a philosophical theory, nor do I want one.


I agree, but then this description in ordinary terms cannot be reconciled with the dialectical holy books. There, we are told that things turn into whatever it is they are struggling with. In that case, the carpenter must turn into the table, and the table into the carpenter!

Well, this shows how dialectics cannot even cope with a simple table, that's how pathetic a 'theory' it is.

Don't pick a fight with me; I didn't dream it up. Pick a fight with Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Mao. It's their screwy 'theory', and it can't cope with change.

All I have done is highlight its major flaws; but I didn't create these flaws. You seem to think I did.

Not so, once more. I specifically said these were changing objects/processes:

Bold added.

And I made this point several times. This suggests that in your haste, you merely skim-read my post.

Been reading and studying them for well over 25 years; still can't make head-or-tail of his version of dialectics.

And your response suggests you can't, either!

Here the system is an abstraction. Since it is has been defined us, and is at a very simple level, the question of an operation resulting in possibilities of different answers does not arise. About "turning" into some other element, that is what mathematical operands undergo during the operation.


We use the term "contradiction" because wee are mainly refering to mutually exclusive elements; the existance of one element contradicts the existance of the other.

And this just repeats a tired piece of counter-revolutionary slandering, invented to excuse the slanderers' own perpetual state of inaction.


I used the term national capitalism just to distinguish it from imperialist capitalism acting on a colony.

The point that I wanted to make that not necessarily will the elements turn into ALL of their opposites, or wholly to their opposites.

But the dynamic nature of the contradictions themselves would require the notion of the negation of an element to change.

I don't realize where I contradicted this. And we don't have any "gospels". We update and challenge our ideology every moment to consolidate it.

Good.


But you are arbitrarily defining your systems and contradictions. Well, in the cases as simple as you have mentioned, contradictions also tend to be as simple. If you consider the table as a more or less closed system, then its internal contradictions will cause it to break and rot into worthless pieces over time.

Again, you have overlooked that when contradictions change, O* and O** do not remain each others' opposites anymore.
Absolutely not!!
Give it another try then !

In class-struggle violent contradictions are inevitable, though the number of casualties is generally grossly over-estimated. And we don't blame anyone. Rather you imagine mass-murders in history and blame us because you don't have any movement that has got something to show. We don't deny that there had been some wrong policies. But these have a large chance of happening during socialist construction.

Some good sources:

http://revcom.us/a/033/socialism-com...talism-pt9.htm

http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress...p-part-2-of-5/

Red Cat:

But, even in mathematics, such 'abstractions' do not turn into one another; what happens is that one set of elements is mapped onto another.

So, in your original example, the 5 you used did not change. Had it done so, you would not be able to use it again. Look, there it is on the page, unchanged. All that has happened is that it has been mapped onto the output element by whatever operation you chose.

If they are mutually exclusive, then they cannot exist together. And if that is so, they cannot interact -- since one of them does not exist. On the other hand, if they do exist together (even if only momentarily), then they cannot be mutually exclusive.

Unless, if course, you are using the phrase 'mutually exclusive' in a new and unexplained sense.

But, even if you were right, why call this a 'contradiction'? It bears no relation to its use in ordinary language, nor in formal logic. Why not a 'tautology' or a 'disjunction' (there is just as much reason to call it this).

But we already know the answer to that one: dialecticians use this word since it is traditional to do so. They just copied it off Hegel, who screwed up in the way I outlined in my last post.

Not so, if it is correct, which it is. And, inaction is better than class collaboration (especially if those one is trying to collaborate with are the mass murderers of workers and communists, such as the Guomindang).

It matters not, since Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Mao (among many others) tell us that whatever these opposite are, they turn into one another.

So, if the opposite is 'national capitalism' then it must turn into socialism, and socialism must turn into 'national capitalism'.

Did this happen?

And that is what I have catered for; here it is again:

Now if you want to move this discussion onto a consideration of the 'notions' involved, then they can only change, according to the dialectical prophets, if they struggle with their opposites, and if they do, they also change into those opposites. So, the very same problems will simply reappear at the level of the 'notions' involved.

Anyway, the actual 'contradictions' on the ground, as it were, would still grind to a halt, and for the reasons I gave. They are not affected by what we think of them: so if they struggle with their opposites, and then turn into them, the problems I outlined in my earlier post will still apply.

1) You said this (in you last but one post):

And yet Mao explicitly says:

Which is the opposite (again, this is rather fitting) of what you said. The words highlighted tell us that everything in the entire universe changes into its opposite and that this is because of a struggle of opposites, and these opposites are the contradictory elements involved.

2) You are defending the sacred words (the gospel) of Mao here.

Ok, let's work this out: a table T, if left alone, will slowly decay into dust D over time. If this theory of Mao's is correct, this must be because of T's internal contradictions, which make it turn into its opposite, D. But, in order to do this, according to Mao, it must struggle with this opposite D. In that case, the table T must struggle with the dust D that it is to become! So the dust must exist before it exists!

Moreover, we are told these opposites turn onto one another.

So T must struggle with D in order to turn into D, and D must struggle with T in order to turn into T.

Hence, in the dialectical universe, tables struggle with dust, and turn into dust, and dust struggles with tables and turns into tables --, if left to themselves

If this is not so, either Mao is wrong, or tables cannot change, or both.

I also covered this!

If this is so, then these changed opposites cannot change any further since they no longer have an opposite to bring this about.

The system grinds to a halt, as I indicated.

Plainly so, since you keep skipping past points I have already made as if I haven't made them.

I never stop, and the more I study Mao, the more confused I see he is.

Just one quick question to Rosa:
Do you think that Mao made all those mistakes, which cost a lot peoples lives, just because his theory was bad? Doesn't that have to do with more things than just dialectics or theory?

No, I suspect he'd have made them anyway; he just used dialectics to sell his ideas to the party cadres, and to help rationalise his overnight about-turns. Without dialectics he might have found it hard to justify the many about-turns the CCP made.

This is because dialectics can be used to 'justify' anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath. This is because it glories in contradiction.

Here's one example of many:

So, Mao used this 'theory' to rationalise class collaboration and the denial of democracy, just as Stalin had done earlier:

[Just watch how Red Cat still uses it to 'justify' class collaboration.]

Thank you Rosa.
I should learn more about dialectics and stuff, since I don't know a lot about it.

Take my advice: steer well clear of it. You do not need to know anything about dialectics, unless, like me, you want to demolish it.

If you start with two sets, and map one to another, of course the sets change when concerned with the process of mapping. Is the formation of a map between them not a change?
When you use the sets afresh again, you are separating them from the process they underwent. Thus it is a new system altogether.

When we talk of mathematical structures alone, systems are not that easy to identify, because they are abstractions that exist in our thoughts.

Let us consider an example. In capitalism, the main social contradiction boils down to private ownership of means of production versus social mode of production. Why are these in contradiction? Because they are ultimately not compatible to each other and tend to give rise to socialism. Capitalism and socialism are the mutually exclusive elements that are associated with the contradiction.

Spare them at this point at least.

What is more efficient a method of collaborating with the bourgeoisie than to call oneself a communist and yet remain inactive and useless for the proletariat while trying to deviate them with concocting inapplicable theories?

And as for class collaborasionism, what the class collaborationists have achieved in India is enough to make the Indian proletariat laugh at you if you attempt to explain your "communist" theories to them.

Not necessarily into all of them in the same system.
Seriously, aren't you aware of any counter-revolution?


Why what I say is consistent with this must be clear by now due to the example of capitalism and socialism I gave.

Also, note that Mao merely states that all processes and objects must transform. Not that they will transform into every opposite definable.


I have mentioned earlier that the nature of the outcome depends on type of contradiction you choose. Since your system is so simple, let me tell you, yes, there is an infinitesimal probability that the dust will change back into the table. Happy now? In general we don't consider such systems because the magnitude of the outcome is extremely irrelevant.
Not so. New processes come up within the system.


Believe me, I just hate answering long posts point by point. That is why I make mistakes.


The problem is that you seek to represent things with extremely simple models and then generalize the properties you obtain from them . This might not work all the time.

I really wish such zeal was expressed in demolishing capitalism.

The pictures posted in the shining path thread do speak more than a thousand words on who is collaborating with whom.

Red Cat:

Who said anything about sets changing, or otherwise? The point was that the number 5 does not change, which is what you suggested. Look, it is still there on the page.

I'm not sure what this has got to do with anything.

Well, I am sure they are not compatible, but you used the phrase 'mutually exclude', and if that is so they cannot co-exist, and so cannot 'contradict' one another. On the other hand, if they do co-exist, they cannot 'mutually exclude' one another.

You keep ignoring this fatal defect.

I'm sorry, what does this mean?

Not so, if it means you have to abandon Marxism. As Bobkindles pointed out, this cavalier attitude helped turn the CCP into a petty-bourgeois, substitutionist/nationalist movement -- and all rationalised by this contradictory 'theory' of yours.

You seem to know what hundreds of millions of workers in India think.

Minor point: can you post the data upon which this hyper-bold claim of yours is based?

This is not what Lenin and Mao seem to say, but even if you are right, it still leaves this 'theory' of yours in a hole.

What has that got to do with anything?

Are you seriously suggesting that socialism must always turn into capitalism. But this is exactly what Mao's words imply.

Not so, as my comments above show.

Well no, he actually says this:

So, he explicitly says:

This is the opposite of what you intimated.

But, you keep ignoring the fact that, according to Mao, the dust has to co-exist with the table for it to 'struggle; with it. This is not possible, since the dust that the table turns into has to co-exist with the dust that the table will one day become. You surely do not believe that these can co-exist, do you? That is, that the future dust (that the table turns into) exists alongside the table it 'struggles' with. But, according to Mao, these must co-exist.

And how does dust 'struggle', exactly?

Moreover, my choice of example was deliberate, since if this 'theory' of yours cannot cope with tables, or with dust, then it will be totally useless when it comes to more complex processes.

No wonder then that dialectics has presided over almost total failure world-wide.

It can't even cope with tables! Or dust....

Then, either these have no opposites -- and so cannot change -- or if they have opposites, then the same problems (outlined in my long post above) apply to them.

Odd then that every Dialectical Marxist (Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist, academic, libertarian, Hegelian, etc.) with whom I have debated this here (and on other boards) makes the same 'mistakes'...

And yet, as I pointed out above, if this theory of yours can't cope with simple systems, it stands no chance in the real world.

Anyway, my 'systems' are neither complex nor simple, just universal.

So, my demolition is entirely general, that is why I used symbols.

Red Cat:

Well, it's because I think this 'theory' is partially responsible for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism that I devote so much energy to demolishing dialectics.

----------------------

RC:

No need for pictures; the historical record shows who the collaborators were: the CCP.

Generally we specify the domain and range of a function when we study it. Hence the notion of a set.
You need to relate it with the physical world. That way pure mathematical calculations become related with our brains, and the corresponding changes need to be taken into account.


The reason why I gave that particular example was to point out that conrtadiction might take place within the processes that lead to the mutually exclusive processes. So, the pre conditions for the emergence of a process that cannot occur simultaneously with the present one, may lie in the present process itself.

Nomenclature is to trivial a topic in this case to be debated.

That is only one possibility. The other is that the history of China has been grossly falsified by counter-revolutionaries.

Please visit the relevant threads and see for yourself.

Not at all. Note that in the examples of semi-colonies and imperialism, the term "opposites" does not refer to mutually exclusive processes anymore. It refers to the contradictions within the processes in the sense that they will give rise to something which exhibits the mutual exclusiveness property along with the present process.

And it is not that just because socialism and capitalism can turn into each other that socialism will always turn into capitalism.

"Struggle" does not refer to dust-guerrilleros fighting the wood-army. It merely refers to the state where dust transforms into wood(with infinitesimal probability) and vice-versa. No offence meant, but I would suspect something different from what you are suspecting.

But your analyses and generalizations are wrong. That is why it is better to consider examples from the real world.

Historical record grossly falsified by counter-revolutionaries, that is.

Red Cat:

Yes, I am fully aware of this; I am a mathematician, after all; what I question is what this has to do with your claim that numbers change.

Maybe so, but what has this got to do with whether numbers can change?

Again, this is no help at all, since if these 'processes' are "mutually exclusive" they cannot co-exist, and so cannot 'struggle' with one another -- and hence cannot 'contradict' one another. On the other hand, if they do co-exist, if they are locked in 'struggle', then they cannot be "mutually exclusive".

And if theses 'contradictions' "take place within the processes that lead to the mutually exclusive processes", as you claim, then these 'contradictions' themselves cannot be "mutually exclusive", as you had originally alleged.

Now, in response to this post of mine:

You reply:

But, were is the "nomenclature" in what you said?

Here it is again:

Again, what does this (which contains no "nomenclature) mean?

You sound like a 'true believer', with whom it is pointless to debate.

However, the substitutionism of the CCP is not open to debate; and this was 'justified' by the use of dialectics.

Ok, which threads here, or anywhere else for that matter, contain the results of the in-depth survey of what every worker in India thinks? All 500 or so million of them! Kindly post the links, and, if you are correct, I will withdraw what I have said, and apologise profusely.

Go on, put the link where your mouth is.

I double-dog dare you...

But, even if this is were so, according to Mao, these must turn into one another. So, for example, anti-imperialists must turn into imperialists, and imperialists must turn into anti-imperialists, and so on.

But, this is not what Mao says; he tells us that everything (not most things, but everything) turns into its opposite. This implies that socialism must turn into capitalism. Unless, of course, (shock" horror!") Mao was wrong. He could be; he wasn't a 'god'.

So, Mao and Lenin were wrong when they said this 'struggle of opposites' is an 'absolute'. On your revisionist theory (you will get pilloried for this! I'd keep this quiet, or it's off to the gulag for you!), there is no 'struggle' here, just a bland 'transformation', with nothing to bring it about.

Here is Mao:

Mao is just as clear as Lenin was: all development is a 'struggle of opposites':

So, either you are right, or Lenin and Mao are wrong.

Anyway, given your revisionist theory, how do we know that there is a 'struggle' going on anywhere else? If things can just change, with no 'contradictions' bringing this about, then perhaps this can happen everywhere too? How can you rule this out except by dogmatic assertion?

Well, what in fact happens is the same as is happening here; they (and you) have given this 'theory' of yours very little thought, even though you all naively swallowed it. When confronted with its absurd consequences, as you have been here, you have to think on the hoof, and come up with the sort of revisionist, ad hoc, repairs we have seen you try to pull above, all the while ignoring what Engels, Lenin, and Mao actually said.

You skim-read their work, and you do the same to my posts -- and then decide to ignore what you do not like or cannot answer, hoping I'll go away. [My 12,000+ posts (in four years) should tell you that I won't.]

And, I predict you will continue to do this, since there is no answer to my objections. So, you just ignore stuff you can't answer.

And yet, you can't show where I go wrong.

You will find plenty of real world examples here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

Use the 'Quick Links' at the top to go to these sections:

Red Cat:

And how do you know you can trust the tall stories you have been told?

First let us define a system properly. I understand exactly which point you are questioning. But if we see it that way, it is not a dynamic process. We are just discovering a relation between a number and whatever it is mapped to. This means that the relations existed irrelevant of whether we discovered it or not. Now, the whole thing so far being an abstraction, completely static systems are possible. So it is not really a dynamic process. I mean that let us not debate on why contradictions are not called tautologies. I was referring to the achievements of the Indian Maoists so far. But since you demand an in-depth study of the whole of the Indian proletariat, you give me the right to demand the same concerning the proletariat of revolutionary China which would prove that they held that the CPC collaborated with the GMD against their interests.You are just taking advantage of some linguistic ambiguities which are too easy to resolve. It is too obvious that Lenin and Mao exactly meant what I mean by "struggle" and "opposites turn into one another". These guys actually fought for communism, and if they really thought that it would reverse back into capitalism, then they wouldn't. So please stop twisting the meanings of simple things.Oh yes, I know that you have made so many posts in four years and it is really a credit being that patient. But I don't want you to go away; I just want you to realize that your "demolition of dialectics" is meaningless.That you are assuming something that dialecticians did not mean.I really am not interested. A thousand more theories will, and are popping up which claim to negate MLM. What I need to see before I am interested in them is a single organization that upholds some such theory and has taken a single step towards revolution by conducting armed struggle.

Because I subordinate other sources to revolutionary sources.