I'm not sure if plush forums pings you if I edited your tag, so I'm replying directly here to ping you. (mods feel free to delete this post)

I own this one in English.

I think I found the paragraph you're talking about. Is it from the last paragraph of Chapter X?

Two points can profitably be noted at once. First, if we propose to start with the infinite divine substance, and if the affirmation of the existence of this substance is not to be regarded as an hypothesis, it has to be shown that the definition of the divine essence or substance involves its existence. In other words, Spinoza is committed to using the ontological argument in some form or other. Otherwise God would not be prior in the order of ideas. Secondly, if we propose to start with God and to proceed to finite things, assimilating causal dependence to logical dependence, we must rule out contingency in the universe. It does not follow, of course, that the finite mind is capable of deducing the existence of particular finite things. Nor did Spinoza think that it was. But if the causal dependence of all things on God is akin to logical dependence, there is no place for free creation, nor for contingency in the world of material things, nor for human freedom. Any contingency which there may seem to be is only apparent. And if we think that some of our actions are free, this is only because we are ignorant of their determining causes

If so, maybe that's enough context for your @180 Proof - I don't know Spinoza worth squat. I'd be only guessing based on the meanings of the words there.

Mine just don't fit the cookie cutter alternatives presented when one is taken to exclude the others, that's all — javra

This would account for the difference, too, then. Perhaps many of our fellows here on TPF feel the same? The thought being that each thought should be treated individually, and feeling that our beliefs cannot fit the cookie cutters?

Surely the professional group also engaged in critical thought, though. I'd say, sure, everyone who answered was engaged in critical thought. It's the differences between the communities I was looking for an explanation for.

Or are you making the stronger contention that those who did choose should engage in more critical thought?

Previously I put this down to contrariness. I now wonder if it might be vacillation or trepidation. Or simple failure to commit? — Banno

I'd put another spin on the difference.

Our community is less homogenous than the professional community, and so it's harder to say the three views put on offer are of the sort where one can actually go ahead and make a choice, even knowing all the difficulties.

Or perhaps this is just a way of coming down firm on "trepidation" as an explanation for the difference.

It makes sense to feel trepidation on an online poll, I think.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention -- that your theory between the Grundrisse/Capital forms works! (ala M-C-C-M/M-C-M, etc.)That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for taking a stab at it.

I'm not holding back "buts" in this conversation either -- I'm just really open-ended on a first reading, even if I'm familiar with a writer. And this being notebook selections, rather than a worked out whole, ups the difficulty in making strong assertions even more.

I came across a good passage today that relates pretty directly. Honestly, this section is proving to be a lot easier than the previous ones. And his splitting up into a alpha and beta "result" when taking the production process as content of capital gets along with your guess along the lines of concrete/formal characters of capital. (And, in this, I'm beginning to glimpse a distinction between material and both of those -- because Marx refers to the exchange value in capital circulation which does not exist circulation as a kind of rarified, formal value that still exists, and in a way is more material because of its alien character than, say, the concrete description of the labor process, which intentionally points out how the worker is a part of that)

I've never seen a passage in Marx that puts together the labor theory of value and how it relates to supply/demand until this one. It's so clear that there certainly must be another passage in Marx that disproves it somehow ;) :

The use value of a thing does not concern its seller as such, but only its buyer. The property of saltpetre, that it can be used to make gunpowder, does not determine the price of saltpetre; rather, this price is determined by the cost of production of saltpetre, by the amount of labour objectified in it. The value of use values which enter circulation as prices is not the product of circulation, although it realizes itself only in circulation; rather, it is presupposed to it, and is realized only through exchange for money. Similarly, the labour which the worker sells as a use value to capital is, for the worker, his exchange value, which he wants to realize, but which is already determined prior to this act of exchange and presupposed to it as a condition, and is determined like the value of every other commodity by supply and demand; or, in general, which is our only concern here, by the cost of production, the amount of objectified labour, by means of which the labouring capacity of the worker has been produced and which he therefore obtains for it, as its equivalent.

So, supply-demand as a more particular force on commodity price, or in the more general form, the cost of production, or the amount of objectified labor, but in this much wider sense where the laboouring capacity is what's being produced along with -- so not an individual firm, the economics of the firm, supply/demand, but rather the total, and therefore political, economy.

At least, it's a quote from the Grundrisse I can now flip out to support my general interpretation of Marx.

Well... to be fair he's more cheerful in the sexy murder poet way. (Liam Kofi Bright's Two Tendencies linked: it answers the question why "we" do philosophy)

There were two "buts" I had while reading (I'm sticking to my no working on weekends commitment.;) )

Thus the total amount of money required to circulate M1, — fdrake

I can't tell if we're supposed to be able to derive how much money should be in circulation at a given time, or if it'd be better to somehow substitute, for M1, some function of the quantity of goods in a market, something like a supply-demand function. At times it seems like he's focused on a single commodity market, almost as literally as the market metaphor would have us think, and then he quickly expands to say "of course the banker pays the grocer pays the clerk pays the gas man and that would influence how much money is needed too".

Also, and this may be nothing I'll say up front -- I'm wondering about the differences between M-C-C-M/C-M-M-C and the latter, as you've broken it out. (EDIT: Just to be clear, "the latter" I mean M-C-M/C-M-C, "latter" as in coming from Capital)

But, with that being said, I think that the mathematization is a nice clean picture, and while I'm still trying to tease out this possible difference in meaning ala the M-C-M-C... formulations, I do tend to think of each one of those parts of exchange as forming a chain as you've laid it out, and you can look at each dayd as a moment, and depending upon which side you start with tells you which moment you're dealing with.

:heart:

Hrmmm...

I think the one thing in your thoughts that makes it difficult for me to connect to is your emphasis on the individual.

Mostly because, this being a lingual way of connecting, who are you talking to? Are you talking to us? Or is it just an expression you feel the need to express, regardless of who is reading?

Cool.

I agree the familiarity of patterns is a factor. I think that's a large part of why I wanted to push against this notion of deliberation! "familiarity" is a comfort, one which I also go back to: I like what's familiar. I'm sure others do too.

And you're right in saying we can be both. I think that's why I wanted to highlight how existential ethics presupposes freedom. "The unconscious" basically unseats freedom. It stops freedom from being an ethical consideration -- and it's not the only theory which limits freedom either. Including, from the angle I've been talking, material freedom.

I think I'm just trying to point out that condition. There are times...

where we are being deliberate we are actually unconscious of what it is that is informing our choices. We can be deliberate and clueless simultaneously. — Tom Storm

And that's a point to undermine existential ethics. If there ever is a time we are not free, then it's not bad faith -- it's a lack of freedom.

The sentence I had in mind was "Humans are existential animals" and that was the part I had meant to disagree with, especially in regards to deliberation: it just seemed too... false? Most people do not deliberate their every action, after all. I wanted to correct this notion to something more like "people *could* deliberate their actions"

Maybe too fine a distinction, since you're noting you agreed :)

But that's why I asked about habit. Habit, to me, seems like the obvious counter-example that people do things deliberately. We often do things not for a reason, but simply because we did it yesterday (no and! And is post hoc).

I remember liking both of them. I even got to see them give talks through the organizations then.

For me I think I traveled elsewhere after because my political beliefs have been more materially focused, in the sense of who gets to own what according to what rules, rather than personally focused. (probably explains why I still remember people who wanted equal rights) -- for me, there were too many people who just wanted to be accepted in the current regime, and I already knew that was wrong ;)

Ooooo. Some interesting disagreement! :)

What do you make of habit?

This is a constant theme and I am going to continue it as I see it of utmost importance to the human animal. Humans are an existential animal. That is to say, why we start any endeavor or project (or choose to continue with it or end it) is shaped continually by a deliberative act to do so. — schopenhauer1

I think I'd rather say as a condition of existential ethics one presumes a kind of freedom in talking that way. I wouldn't say that all human beings, qua their humanity, are existential. Something I like to highlight in reference to existentialism is how in spite of the existential condition, people by and large do not act in this deliberative manner -- including me!

But that doesn't go against an existential creed -- I'm not a pure being of active deliberation. I have attachments arrived at by means other than making a choice. And I'm comfortable with that. Now, with respect to the existential condition, which I believe to be the case, the one thing I could point out is just because I'm comfortable doesn't mean I'm free of choice. I could choose against my comfort. And, in fact, sometimes it is good to do so.

But there's probably not a good rule for such times. Hence my hesitation on your focusing upon "deliberation"

Heh, well, we certainly disagree on "rights" then. "Rights", like property, arise out of how we interact with one another, and so are subject to change insofar that we interact differently. And I'd lean more towards the notion that nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to social rules: insofar that the social rules do not lead to dissolution of the social organism, then they are permissible in this wider sense I mean, where the social rules cannot be taken for granted. (and, most broadly, extinction is the final stage of evolution, and there have been the death of social organisms before, so even rules which lead to social death are permissible, if harder to pass on)

I think that with small groups it can be easier to understand the "lay of the land", but that they are as diverse as large groups and will also fight over perceived territory within the group and against other groups: that is, property relations are still a source of conflict, even in small groups. Territory is another way of saying "property" -- that is mine, by right, and I will obtain it. (on the other hand, the "bad" anarchy is run purely by the right of might, so non-legal formulations do not necessarily lead to some kind of golden age either -- and it's important to note this! A lot of the reason people believe the state is preferable is to say it's better to consolidate the use of violence to a bureaucracy which adjudicates its proper use which has some kind of democratic control. But that's only true if the state is actually acting in your benefit!)

So, I think legalism, with all its pitfalls and injustices, arises from a particular kind of relationship with the world, and with other people. Civilization erects artificial social structures: barriers, strata, hierarchies, functions and distinctions; it allocates goods and resources according to an entirely artificial system of divisions. (And it's madly, fatally dysfunctional) — Vera Mont

My intellectual heritage, ala Rousseau, would agree with this notion of artificial social structures removing freedom from people who are born free.

But I'm more inclined to see these social structures as a natural part of our living together. If history is a guide, then we are naturally the sorts of creatures which create hierarchies in order to survive against the other hierarchies which also developed -- in a sense hierarchies are more powerful than non-hierarchies, at least at a certain point of economic development, and so they were the "natural" structures which came out of the process of social selection. The non-hierarchical societies could not organize militarily as efficiently, and so were wiped out -- so this just so anthropological story goes, at least.

So rather than point to some kind of pure state of freedom to which we are born in, I'd say that there are material conditions of freedom.

And insofar that those material conditions of freedom are satisfied, then and only then could legal property be morally worthwhile. In the language of rights people would call these positive rights.

But that's the intellectual tradition I'd prefer to break from, because as far as I can tell its social products just aren't working too well -- we can at least agree on that! :D

I'm not sure that applies to war - excerpt class war, of course. But I think this is a useful way to look at the situation, and I generally agree. — Vera Mont

Cool. I don't mean to say this is all there is to the matter, either, so "a useful way to look" is good enough for me.

I would, however, want to define 'property' more exactly, because whenever the topic arises, we always get the quibblers who consider a cobbler's last 'capital assets' and demand to move a dozen idle squatters into some poor fisherman's hut. So we need to distinguish real estate and land and water rights (the property which is theft) from the clothes on ones back and the tools of one's trade. — Vera Mont

I would have said there's a difference between private and personal property at one point, and attempted a definition game of sorts.

Now, I think I am uncertain about such distinctions. I think I want to say that the distinctions aren't as important up front, because that is the legalistic way of looking at property, in a nutshell: there are rules about our material world which are enforced by some social organ.

So we have the OP's scenario of equal damages by value (though not be consequence), but varying the numbers of people who are stealing, and the numbers of people who they are stealing from.

In our present way of looking at property then I think @Banno's got it right -- scenario 1 is worse than scenario 2 because it points to a much more pervasive problem of half a million people stealing, clearly indicating that the "rules" aren't really working, whereas in the second scenario you just have the usual case of a person trying to break the rules.

Consequentially I think 1 is at least worse because it results in one person losing their livelihood, which I'm guessing the scenario is meant to highlight.

The scenario I meant to highlight how value isn't always financial, that squatters steal in accord with the rules, by our rules of property, and the only consequences are utilitarian good -- a greater number of people have comfort than before. But I don't want to justify this ethically. Rather, I want to get under the notion of property as a legal right, somehow. I'm thinking it's the "real" culprit, more or less. In this other notion of property that I'm uncertain how to define, but could point to the practices of anarchists at least as exemplifying it, scenario 1 would take care of the guy who lost his business, and scenario 2 is effectively borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor, just spread out over a million people, and that level of property drift, as far as I can tell, already exists. We don't demand an exchange every time we trade property, after all. (EDIT: though if one person accumulates all the drift, then ala anarchy that'd be a problem -- another difference in these theories of property)

An even bigger ethical problem is presented by money. It's the substance of corruption and the easiest means of injustice. When law is based on property rights - held above human rights, if only because property rights are easy to spell out precisely in law and human rights are hard to define, hard to agree about, hard to set down in black and white and to administer - we have an ethical dislocation. When property is expressed in terms of $ value, which itself is arbitrary and mutable, we have another level of ethical dislocation. If degree of criminality is evaluated in absolute monetary terms - $XX.XX, rather than property taken as % of property owned - we have no ethical standard left on which to base judgment. The legal issue is wholly separate from the moral one. — Vera Mont

This part about it being hard to agree and set down in black and white and administer human rights -- that's a lot of where my suspicions to such approaches comes from. It's an intellectual approach which seems to make arbitrary what really probably shouldn't be arbitrary.

So part of my thinking, here, is to attempt to move outside the framework of "rights", conceptually. And property is a good topic for working through that.

For myself, though I certainly agree that circumstances being what they are justify taking back what's already owed, I tend to think that our property relations cause conflict: in a cold and bizarre way, it's our accounting practices which lead us to war.

One way to put property relations is to say that person's have legal rights within states, and one of those rights is the right to property.

It's this foundation of rights, or at least property rendered as legal rights, that I'd push against. It's not just the circumstances which justify theft, nor is it the circumstances of re-interpreting property as belonging to those below (since they are the genesis of wealth) -- rather, the whole idea of property as a right is what I'd push against.

In the abstract I think it's hard to say something definite. But, as a for instance, squatters taking over unused buildings is a case of theft by property rights. But in this other way of looking at property, it's actually a more efficient redistribution mechanism than the legal one.

Hrm.

I hope not. I was hoping to point to something bigger.

Thinking more along the lines of it's no longer theft because we're all OK.

Rather than the legal definition of property/theft, which I'm pushing against, I'm saying theft is from some other's needs, rather than some other's property.

You know. Good old Marxist schlock ;)

Contrarian-wise, I might say that we already live in both these communities.

Overall, however, I prefer a community which doesn't care about small "theft". I think we are a social species, in spite of our attempts to make us otherwise.

Property is theft? No! We own it all. And we've yet to figure out how "we" owning things works.

Oh, and as it happens, it's a command, not a proposition. — unenlightened

Ooooo.... that's pretty good.

Meaning-as-command: of course you can lie about it, but there it is!

heh. Yeah. I go back and forth :D

I believe the different positions cannot be mapped to one another.

But I don't think that's lost on the respondents, either.

That is one of the reasons I just decided to choose one of the three main ones on offer.

hrmm I have said that philosophy begins in religion, because I think that's where I'd first encountered ideas that I'd still describe as "philosophical", and I was a bit contrarian on those ideas (and, relative to my birth, still am)

I wouldn't call it a loss in faith, but rather being raised with certain answers as a means for grasping the world, and disagreeing with those answers probably primed my mind for the question-and-answer ambiguity that is common to philosophy. It's not like I have many more answers now than I did then -- if anything philosophy has been a psychological relief for me because it's shown me how all those beliefs just aren't all that important.

For me, the old philosophical goal of liberation, then, keeps being a psychologically rewarding reason to continue pursuing philosophy. More than religion, I've found way more personal liberation in philosophy.

But I also just enjoy complicated things, and thinking -- somehow along the way, while those were some initial psychological proddings that got me into philosophy, I got what I call "bitten by the bug": while I am still interested in my personal philosophy, of course, I really started to fall in love with it as a topic unto itself.

There's an aesthetic element to my appreciation, now. And while I started out insisting on truth, that was a Christian belief all along, and it's become less important with time. Hence, liberation.

Non-skeptical realism, here.

I answered the question from the perspective of what I believe in my heart of hearts, rather than what I argue. Where my thinking at, now, is that the real is absurd. This could be read in a skeptical, idealist, or realist sense, and I'd prefer to emphasize the realist sense: somewhere in the observation that reality is absurd, beyond meaning, yet impinges upon meaning there's a phenomenological argument I've yet to tease out for realism.

This was also a great highlight. I'm going to try and read it with the analogy: presupposition as "part of the foundation", positing as "the next bit of how it's being built". Need the first to get going, need the second to keep going. — fdrake

Right! That's a good breakdown as I understood it.

:D Great minds and such.

His little snippets after the fact have been quite useful in looking back, so I was glad he gave us one to think through rather than just the pure text as it is -- which we both agree is pretty hard, even though we're interested in it!

"Capital is not a simple relation, but a process, in whose various moments it is always capital" -- this makes me think of what you were highlighting @Number2018, under the section titled "Transition from circulation to capitalist production -- Capital objectified labour etc. -- Sum of values for production of values." on page 258.

Harvey's lecture: "When you isolate equality, freedom, and reciprocity as admirable attributes, then you are admiring bourgeois attributes" -- I like Harvey pointing out how these are bourgeois values in class, and argues that bourgeois constitutions, like the United States, already sustain those values in terms of exchange.

A good definition of capital right across the page of my last quote on 259:

"As soon as money is posited as an exchange value which not only becomes independent of circulation, but which also maintains itself through it, then it is no longer money, for this as such does not go beyond the negative aspect, but it is capital"

--- Harvey just mentioned a phrase that keeps coming up in the reading "point of departure", still trying to wrap my head around that one in a technical sense, but I'm thinking that might be a ghost chase too

Posit/presuppose from Harvey -- that was nice to hear. I'd never thought of "posit" as "you have to add something else"

This is a good picture Harvey points out between Use-value and Exchange-value, where use-value disappears, but exchange-value lives on in circulation.

Interesting highlight between simple exchange, and capital on page 272:
"Labour as mere performance of services for the satisfaction of immediate needs has nothing whatever to do with capital, since that is not capital's concern. If a capitalist hires a woodcutter to chop wood to roast his mutton over, then not only does the woodcutter relate to the capitalist, but also the capitalist to the woodcutter, in the relation of simple exchange"

Harvey highlights this from page 278:
"It must be kept in mind that the new forces of production and relations of production do not develop out of nothing, nor drop from the sky, nor from the womb of the self-positing Idea; but from within and in antithesis to the existing development of production and the inherited, traditional relations of property. While in the completed bourgeois system every economic relation presupposes every other in its bourgeois economic form, and everything posited is thus also a presupposition, this is the case with every organic system. This organic system itself, as a totality, has its presuppositions, and its development to its totality consists precisely in subordinating all elements of society to itself, or in creating out of it the organs which it still lacks. This is historically how it becomes a totality"

Interesting that Harvey believes the Grundrisse is a prelude to a new society. Whereas Capital is strictly a scientific treatise, Harvey decides to read the Grundrisse as a sort of answer to the proverbial question "OK, what now?" -- and he gives an answer which allows us to answer the question, which is interesting. As if the "what now?" is purposefully not addressed.

Hrm! Interesting Harvey's reading about totality/organism as opposed to syllogism (ala, bourgeois economics).

Made dinner listening and now I'm at the part I've yet to read in the lecture.

Again, I like how Harvey keeps connecting the text to our world.

Hrm! "Labor is the yeast" -- interesting analogy, given that yeast reproduces itself, and you're able to scoop some off at the end before it dies to keep making more product!

I'm glad to hear Harvey emphasizing "roles" too -- "worker" is a role within a process, and not a macho man pouring molten iron with his bare hands just to feed his family. "the worker" is a role as is "the capitalist"

***

And into Q&A.

"Do not come out of the Grundrisse expecting to have a coherent labor theory of value" interesting.

"you could say there are 5, or rather 4, or rather 3 classes" :D -- I'm glad Harvey's responding to the questions with honesty, in saying "I admit this part is odd, and this is why": some motivation to dig deep

On the question of bourgeois freedoms: good question. And I like how Harvey doesn't just say "Yes", but points out how these are still bourgeois values. "not so much the transformation of the ideological concepts, but the practices which will allow those ideological precepts to make sense"

"remember it's an alienated labor and an alienated capital, right throughout for next time"

Oh, these are harsh to get through, I'm not going to lie. Capital was poetry in comparison :D

Turns out cramming before class never gets old. — fdrake

:D

Page 284... just shy of the mark. Luckily, looking ahead, March 7th is Spring Break/Book Release, so there's a lull for us to catch up in just around the corner. I have captured some good highlights, but my reading was more through the dead leaves this time so I'd be less distracted. I'll type some of them up as I listen to class

Still trying to figure out my schedule. I'm catching up with reading today, like last week. I like your expositions @fdrake. They are helping me see some of the structure that I wasn't seeing, and are very lucid.

For next week, just fyi, the final reading for online is on this page on the following paragraph:

An interest of 24 on a capital of 40 is too much; but 24 = 3/5 of 40 (3 × 8 = 24); i.e. in addition to the capital, only 2/5 of the capital grew by 100%; the whole capital therefore by only 2/5, i.e. 16%. [67] The interest computation on 40 is 24% too high (by 100% on 3/5 of the capital); 24 on 24 is 100% on 3 × 8 (3/5 of 40). But on the whole amount of 140, it is 60% instead of 40; i.e. 24 too much out of 40, 24 out of 40 = 60%. Thus we figured 60% too much on a capital of 40 (60 = 3/5 of 100). But we figured 24 too high on 140 (and this is the difference between 220 and 196); this is first 1/5 of 100 then 1/12 of 100 too much; 1/5 of 100 = 20%; 1/12 of 100 = 8 4/12% or 8 1/3%; thus altogether 28 1/3% too high. Thus on the whole not 60%, as on 40, but only 28 1/3% too much; which makes a difference of 31 2/3, depending on whether we figure 24 too many on the 40 [or on] the capital of 140. Similarly in the other example.

In the first 80 which produce 120, 50 + 10 was simply replaced, but 20 reproduced itself threefold: 60 (20 reproduction, 40 surplus).

Hours of labour
If 20 posit 60, making up triple the value, then
60 180.

Rather than follow the rules cutting edge science establishes them. — Fooloso4

Isn't that the same for the artists?

I'm sitting in the peanut gallery. I take a pragmatic view. Reductionism in science has been and continues to be successful. That seems to be where most of the attention goes, but not all of it. Some scientists are more interested in larger scale views. If's not a question of one or the other but of what works. — Fooloso4

Fair.

I'm nowhere near the foundations. I just do my lab job, while thinking my little thoughts. Philosophically the one thing that grounds my wonderings is I'm actually thinking about this stuff in terms of what I ought believe. But in a speculative sense, at least. (since, as you can see, I entertain some odd beliefs)

I agree that it's a question of what works -- I think that's what I mean by multiplicity, at least in part. What works is relative to some project, as far as I can tell.

So a plumber knows what makes a pipe work. There's a reason for the pipe, there is knowledge associated with plumbing which is technical enough to require training.

Of course no one thinks plumbing is the fundament.

But in what way is science's "what works" different such that we should pay attention to it for the purposes of thinking about the fundament?

I'm not sure what you mean by a candidate for reduction. Much of biology is already reductive - genetics, DNA, genomes, biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, But systems science is non-reductive, it is dynamic and integrative. — Fooloso4

That's interesting. I mean, I agree with the beginning part but I'm curious what you count as non-reductive science.

If you will allow a guess now that you've explained what you mean by between the poles: reduction is the downward motion towards particulars, and holism is the upward motion towards universals. Or, in terms of particular sciences, reductionism is from biological entities' functions to physical forces, and holism is from the whole (whatever that may be) in order to understand the particulars. (I think, in my mind, I think about going back and forth here between wholes and particulars to "check" the relations between ideas, so that's why I filled in as I did before).

Or am I wrong?

I did not mean a double reductionism. The opposite ends of the spectrum are not opposite ends of reductionism. Reductionism is one end and holism at the other end. — Fooloso4

Sorry. I'm filling in gaps where I ought to be asking questions.

I'll just ask an open one: what is the spectrum between reductionism and holism? Are these two methods, or what?

The discontinuities may be a matter of our lack of knowledge. — Fooloso4

I agree they may be. My feeling on what will happen is based on what seems to be -- which perhaps qualifies this as a myth too, now that I think on it.

While I can acknowledge the possibility, my report remains the same -- it's the discontinuities which make me feel doubt, at least in my rationalist story.

For a long time science became increasingly specialized, but there has more recently been an increase in multidisciplinary approaches. — Fooloso4

True. And it's super interesting stuff. I love these approaches.

I think the way my view of science would accommodate that would be similar to artistic movements through history -- there are practitioners who, after upon developing their craft, get to push the boundaries of where things have been.

Just as the artists had to follow certain rules, so do the scientists. The specifics of those rules make each craft what it is. Science as a human craft where we produce knowledge, now that we have a sufficiently rich economy.

With that picture in mind --and it is only a picture -- it's hard for me to believe in a reductionism to the whatevers of physics that we invent in the future. (and this goes back to my picture of science as a social practice which will, by being a social practice, always change rather than arrive at a final picture)

I agree. — Fooloso4

Hrm! I am surprised. How do you make sense of the multiplicity while retaining reductionism as you've laid it out so far?

I don't know what that would look like since much or the focus of physics is not on living organisms. But here is where multidisciplinary approaches come into play. — Fooloso4

I think if we begin with the notion that biology is the queen of the sciences, not in terms of logical relations between the extensions of terms, but in terms of what a science looks like when it's been perfected -- then that's how you'd begin to pick apart the physical sciences.

In a way this almost relates to the OP, because I'm making the argument from success of the sciences -- but saying biology is very successful, and so a candidate for reduction.

Yup. The media personalities were actually what made it harder to organize, IMO.

I put it in the lounge because I was wishing and pining :D -- there were legitimate concerns that people had I met, and real organizations came out of it that still operate today.

I suppose I believe that most people are philosophical in the loose sense of wondering about things, but it's easy to stop that impulse and I think that the personalities which focused people's attention mostly tried to stop that impulse, but in reverse.

And because there were no material conditions tied to it in terms of the people who were paying attention to them, it'd entirely depend on how appealing the personalities were to the general public -- which they weren't :D

Sweet. Glad someone else felt all those things, too. I was in college at that time and there were organizations putting on events that I participated in.

The one thing I remember, even though I had all these doubts, were the people who were there because they were a minority in their culture, and it was a kind of way to connect to others in that similar situation. The quieter part of the group? Basically just wanting to be treated like anyone else. And it got drowned out in the noise.

I suppose that's why I think back to it, still, even though I also dislike the usual suspects -- other than, as you mentioned, Dennett. I disagree with him on so, so many things, but he does have the distinction of having written something interesting on the problem of free will this late in the conversation. Way more than I've done! :D

The self is the overarching temporally extended narrative construct of a necessarily embodied and social consciousness which turns the animal acting in an environment into a subject. It is that through which the individual recognizes that it is one of many, i.e., an individual in a society of individuals, which are also selves. The self is that which recognizes itself as a self in a world of selves.* — Jamal

:up:
:nerd: :grin:

We know the amoeba made a decision because it's not just flowing along with the current. That's what volition is: going against wind, so to speak. Id like to do a thread on identity one day. Maybe after you're through with Marx — frank

Hell yeah, sounds good to me.

:D



So we're similarly situated, but I'm still interested in the ideas and differences, and I'm going to keep it to reductionism now.

Your notion of reductionism appeals to the whole, which I am certainly more inclined towards -- the notion that understanding the whole and its parts and their respective relationships is a very appealing form of reductionism. I think what gets me are the discontinuities, which I've been attempting to point out with my various examples of theories. But that isn't to say I'm opposed to reductionism -- I'd just say that scientific theories are frequently independent of one another developed by their own particular group of people studying that problem or companies working on a product. There's a common theoretical core, but that common theoretical core isn't conceptual, it's cultural. It's a craft whereby one figures out how to reduce observations to theories, or vice versa. So I agree with this notion of a double-reductionism, between wholes and parts.

I think I'm just very uncertain about there being only one way of putting it all: where others see unity, I see multiplicities upon multiplicities, and I see no reason to believe science will be finished.

And, a problem with beginnings, as you noted in the reference to the Arche thread: We could re-interpret physics in terms of biology, saying that biology is the queen of the sciences -- how would you respond to this proposal? Would that still be the physical reduction that you're talking about?

I think a good case can be made for biological teleology at the level of organisms. Cell differentiation allows for one kind of stuff, a totipotent cell, to become other kinds of stuff, all the other cells that make up the organism. It is purposeful in the sense that it functions toward an end, the living organism. — Fooloso4

Cool, so we're pretty close in conception it seems. Just coming at it from a different angle.

The beauty of nature is manifest in appearance. The appearance is no longer present in reduction to something else. — Fooloso4

OK, that makes sense now. Thanks!

I prefer Kuhn, too. I'd say that my approach to the question has been heavily inspired by his approach to the philosophy of science -- treating science as a social-historical entity rather than a superior methodology which can be discovered by philosophers.

In an attempt to bring this back to the thread topic, we should consider whether the beauty of nature is biologically significant. If we conclude it is, and I think we should, we have good reason to think reductionism does not tell us the whole story. — Fooloso4

I'm interested. The conflict I was attempting to bring out was roughly between mechanism and teleology, and the difficulties reduction has with this apparent conflict.

How does the conclusion that the beauty of nature is biologically significant lead to a belief in the limits of reductionism?