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?

I don't think it's that we observe physical laws. We use physics to explain what we observe. Do we really observe acts of volition? Or is volition a theory to explain observations? In other words, is there a clash of explanations when we try to reconcile decision making with physics? I would be one who says there's no bridge between the two. — frank

"volition" is too squishy to count as a theory, I think, unless we mean folk-theory. But then I'd be hesitant to use "observations".

I think what I'd say is that we're so ignorant we don't know if there is or is not a clash. So I agree with you in believing there's not a bridge between the two.

Physics, especially when viewed as an all-encompassing body of explanations, is essentially a deterministic domain, right? — frank

I could argue the case elsewise, but I'm fine with dropping it too.

The area of decision making is about identity (who makes the ATP? who shot down the balloon?) Decision making marks off the natural from the supernatural (per the literal meaning of that word.) And ultimately, it's the engine of emotion we call morality. I suspect that reduction is never going to happen here. Any attempt to reduce is going to give way to eliminativism.

Do you agree with that?

I think identity is a rich concept. I'm not following how decision making marks off the natural from the supernatural.

I'm interested in this idea of giving way to eliminativism. Not that you're wrong. However, sometimes a defense of reducitonism, as you noted, is that it does not lead to eliminativism.

So why is it that reductionism, when it comes to -- let's just say people? -- gives way to eliminativism?

Yes. It's a bad time in history to be reductive because the foundation of physics is unfinished. We could make bridge laws to what we've got, only to find out tomorrow that it's all completely different from what we thought. — frank

I think what I'd caution against is the idea that science has foundations that can be finished. At least, some very intelligent people have claimed to have found these foundations, and they don't all agree with one another.

The lense I understand science through is as a social activity. So supposing a unity between the general theory of relativity and quantum theory is widely accepted, since that's generally thought to be the foundational science, then what's stopping some smart guy in the future from pointing out a mistake or fudge or possibility -- which, given that it's a human activity, is inevitable -- just to make their mark?

I think that there will always be scientists who desire to be the foundation, and so further foundations shall be built.

Which isn't the same as to say it's false! I'm just uncertain about foundations.

Rather than cannot know I would say we do not know. But methodologically reduction has been enormously successful. I take a pragmatic approach. We should not abandon reductionism, but we should be aware of its limits. — Fooloso4

I think with what I've said thus far I should say "we do not know", but I feel we cannot know. Just because of the sketch I already gave to say where my thinking is coming from. I know it needs work to establish the claim.

I agree that we should not abandon reductionism. I think we're on the same page in just trying to understand its limits, though perhaps disagree on our general assessment of where those limits are, or at least are expressing different sorts of notions on limits at the moment -- I'm sure we could come to understand one another.

I'm glad that I'm at least sensible to someone other than myself.

Definitely going out on a limb here, but responding to your ending about the beautiful more than anything. Perhaps off topic from reductionism, and should be splintered off, but I'll see what you think. (I'm loving the exchange btw):


I sometimes wonder about the beautiful. Especially its relationship to the just. Justice was a concern of Plato, yet I question his commitment on the basis of owning slaves. This is clearly an anachronism, yet I don't think it an ethically inappropriate one. It's just one of those things which humans do (still today, I might add) that clearly isn't ethical.

I think, at times, the beautiful can seduce us away from the just. Not that it's bad -- but we are easily led away from the pursuit of justice. (tho I still think the beautiful very important. I'm no aestheteascetic)

Not that I blame people. In its pursuit, justice is almost inhuman -- or, at least, implementations of justice are inhuman.

So I can see wisdom in the beautiful games. And perhaps the beautiful games will lead us to something serious.

But justice still calls -- in a way if I wiled my time pursing beautiful games, I'd be forgetting the people I know who suffer: We will always need bronze souled people, and they ought to be comfortable and happy and know that their children will be OK because we are living a stable life together. When we let go of myth, we see that there are no hierarchies of souls, only different tasks to be done from different positions within the social organism.

Cool, glad someone else is on the same page as me there.

Ahhh OK that helps me.

Oh I wouldn't go so far as to call it an account. This is all very rough, scratch-pad level wonderings on my part. Usually I do this in a notebook, but others were wanting to read along so I thought it might be a good way to eventually get a conversation started, or at least be able to read others thoughts and notes as they go through the text.

The format of the class means that how much you get out of it depends very much on the student (at least for those like me who aren't taking this for a grade) -- no grades and no certificate and no feedback from writing papers to see if you have misread something and all that. So this was a way of maybe, somehow, focusing myself enough to stay on target ;)

I'm not sure what Harvey will or will not cover. I myself haven't read the Grundrisse, so I couldn't even give you heads up beyond the table of contents.

But I'm not so sure about this:

It may be concluded that instead of this appearance - ‘the totality of the process appears as an objective interrelation,’- it is indeed generated by ‘the mutual influence of conscious individuals on one another and by their own collisions with one another.’ — Number2018

except perhaps in a dialectical sense where there is another moment, which is generally what I think socialism is meant to be: When what was an alien relationship becomes something which is controlled by those who live under that relationship, and so it is no longer an alienation but rather political autonomy.

Trying to address your post @Fooloso4

You would assert that

I mean that the most basic "stuff" of the world is physical — Fooloso4

As I am using the term in the sense that nothing else is posited as fundamental. All that comes to be, life, consciousness, mind, comes to be from the physical structures, forces, and interactions that underlie them. — Fooloso4

and that we need to look at the two-sidedness of reduction, needing to know both what we are reducing and what we are reducing to, and realizing that what we are reducing might be a better way to look at things even if it is reducible.

Would you say this is in conflict with my belief that we cannot know these statements? I'd say we cannot know that the most basic stuff of the world is physical, and we cannot know there is nothing else. But, simultaneously, I would say we don't need to know it either, and that knowledge of such things is beyond us.

Why?

I suppose it's because I don't know that it's the case, and I'm not sure what could even be a good reason to believe it. My argument would be from the multitude of beliefs about what reality fundamentally is: this sort of question has been answered in so many ways by intelligent people. Just look at philosophy! One reason I doubt any assertion about what reality fundamentally is is because people smarter than I have disagreed upon the subject. And they had their reasons, too. So why should I trust a belief just because I have a reason when they had their reasons, and yet we'd assert, today, that they were wrong?

One reason I can think of that I find persuasive is that there is some ethical justification for the belief. But, then, you can see why I'd assert that scientific knowledge does not lead to knowledge about the fundament. Instead, I'd say it's our activity which gets us closer to the fundament, but then as we interact with it the richness of being overflows our concepts. However, this is an encounter rather than a reason. I can't reason my way to the boundary of concepts -- I'd be staying within the concepts at that point. I have to grasp the world, and do so through my concepts, but in grasping it becomes a part of my projects, my desires, my way of manipulating the world: the elementality is brought under my categories of desire, converted into my hammer, my house, in which there is always a horizon, or, rather, an exteriority. But an exteriority is always exterior, and never brought under my grasp.

For Levinas I think it was clear that this lead to God. But I'm an atheist, and so what I see is the absurd: depending upon which project a person is pursuing, how they grasp the world, so the world appears. And if you take the time oftentimes you can sort of see where a person is coming from, yet you would never have thought the things you're thinking without the human relationship with a person who told you a new perspective.

So in the place of the absurd, I'd say there is still a face-to-face, and it is this which forms a materiality beyond our own self. It's the social which creates our ability to even speak of the physical, and so it is more fundamental, and yet due to the face-to-face, the Other's exteriority, we will also never know the totality of this materiality.

We would start with chemistry and bridge up to the biological function as a category of processes required for the endurance of the system. All chemistry has to do is explain cell respiration, digestion, metabolism, etc. We enter the bridge when we collect those explanations and serve them up as to how the organism endures? — frank

I'm wondering if @apokrisis has an opinion on this they'd be willing to share.

My intent in using the metabolism example is to say, hey, yes, we can already map the chemical pathways of these things. But that chemical map doesn't explain why the animal eats. Why does an animal make decisions at all? In what way are even single-celled organism's decisions to respond to sugar gradients predicated upon any physical law? (or is the observation that they respond to sugar gradients a physical law? are all observations observations of physical laws?)

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One of the things I want to mention, though it could throw us too far off course so I'm separating it off -- something that threw me off of thinking reductionism could take place is the fact that we cannot analytically solve any Schrödinger equation other than the one which represents the system of one proton and one electron -- the hydrogen system.

But the physical systems which comprise life are much more complicated than that system. We don't have analytic, logical access to that at this point in time in terms of scientific knowledge. So I think this thought is also causing some of my doubts.

I tend to think of functionality as a result of happy accidents, and then natural history. And there's nothing wrong with cherrypicked examples, because this is philosophy -- we're not doing statistical analysis to determine the likely best guess! :D

Mitochondria have a number of functions, including producing ATP. — frank

Right! So this is a statement which seems to link a name and two biological concepts (Name,concept,concept: Mitochondria,functions,producing) with one chemical name (which, sure, I'll count that as a concept).

Is this now a bridge law? Is it enough to find a harmonious example between two disciplines?

It's true that once we start explaining function in this way (that it's stuff that happens accidently), the line between life and non-life fades. But I think that's the point of reduction? — frank

I'm not so sure that the distinction fades, at least not for me. But I hasten to add I don't mind it fading. And I'm not sure what the point of reduction is :D -- maybe, as @Fooloso4 mentioned, I'm getting stuck on "reduction" too much.

Perhaps the belief is just that, someday, the sciences will form a coherent whole of some kind?


What I've always felt about science is that it provides several ways of looking that enrich understanding rather than limit it. We could restate everything in terms of some physical laws, especially once we allow logical functions and fiat such that any set of sentences can count as bridge laws as long as their extensions are the same and they are true (so I imagine at least, it wasn't exactly spelled out I'm just giving an interpretation). But that restatement wouldn't be as rich as knowing both it and what it is a restatement of -- propositions which utilize the locution "function" stated by scientists writing textbooks, at least (this is a valid avenue of attack, I'd say -- textbooks are pedagogic, rather than literal. They are written to catch people up rather than state, here is the true scientific analysis).

I would say the sciences are independent of one another, and their harmony is something sought after by us because we like it. And sometimes we find it, which is nice! But that's not the same thing as to say everything will, or could be, reduced to physics. But I'm questioning "reduced" now...

I'm thinking that my mechanics example is a good one to work through, along with the mechanics to biology contrast.

So let us define a theory, first. I would say theory is understood by coming to understand particular theories, which we find in science textbooks and learn through training. By coming to learn particular theories we can get a sense of what we generally mean by "theory". It is this usage of "theory" that I intend.


Physics textbook
Biology textbook

Mostly providing the links to coordinate our conversation, not to delimit the set of possible examples. Just "here's a ballpark estimate of the sorts of theories I believe we're talking about"

It seems to me, from reading your article, that as long as the terms being used by scientists have the same extensions then they are considered reduced to one another, while also admitting in bridge principles.

Nagel’s major (and perhaps most controversial) contribution was the introduction of bridge principles. The notion of bridge principles, (also: ‘bridge laws’ and ‘coordinating definitions’) can be spelled out in several different ways. The most common way in accord with Nagel (1961: chap. 11, Sec. II.3) is to describe them syntactically as bi-conditionals linking terms in the vocabularies of the two theories. In the same context, however, Nagel describes them in terms of the ‘nature of the linkages postulated’ (Nagel 1961: 354). He distinguishes three such linkages:

The links mimicked by the bridge laws are ‘logical connections’ (1961: 354), which are understood as meaning connections.
The links postulated by bridge laws are conventions or stipulations (‘deliberate fiat’; 1961: 354).
The links postulated by bridge laws are ‘factual or material’ (1961: 354); that is, bridge laws state empirical facts (these truths are then described as empirical hypotheses).

So, one thing I'd like to note here is that insofar that we are able to introduce auxiliary propositions to a theory then, naturally, we can always save the belief that the sciences reduce to physics. If we find something inconvenient, we can use link type 2 in the above -- I'm guessing "fiat" is any consistent set of logical functions which are chosen to ensure the extensions between terms being compared are the same -- and bridge two principles together.

But then later the SEP article notes an informal distinction between arbitrary and non-arbitrary reductions.

Finally, it is worth noticing that Nagel introduces a distinction between arbitrary and non-arbitrary reductions: These criteria are “non-formal” (1961: chap. 11, Sec. III). The first criterion Nagel mentions is that the premises of a reduction—the bridge laws and the reducing theory—should be well established rather than arbitrarily chosen (1961: 358). Second, Nagel alludes to the fact that the reducing theory should be better established than the reduced one. The third criterion states that reduction is concerned with unification. The fourth criterion states that the reducing theory corrects and augments the reduced theory.

Which is good because it blocks against the argument I was thinking of making :D

So as the biology textbook highlights, chemistry could serve as a non-arbitrary set of bridge laws between biology and physics.

But then the second condition of non-arbitrary reduction "the reducing theory should be better established than the reduced one" -- that is an odd notion. But just going along with the words and seeing where it takes me: I tend to think biology is better established than chemistry! :D

But we can overlook that. The biology textbook utilizes chemical concepts to talk about how cells and life work. But what I do not see is a reduction of the functions of the cell to the physical level. The functions of the cell are still an important part of understanding the phenomena of life, even if understanding the molecular interpretation of life further elucidates and deepens our understanding of why life is behaving in accord with such and such a function.

But the way biologists use "function" -- you won't find an extension for that in the physics textbook, nor will you find anything but metaphoric talk in the chemistry textbooks about function. So on page 109 of the above pdf biology book: "Organelles are cell structures with specialized functions that will be discussed in section 4.4" -- this is my intended meaning of "function".

Now if we can ignore the intension then that would take away the argument from meaning that I'm making. Though that'd also strike out one of the kinds of links proposed as bridge laws, leaving fiat, and empirical fact. Fiat is ruled out by arbitrary/non-arbitrary distinction, but that's how I got here in the first place. Which leaves link 3, an empirical fact, and that much we can say is true of chemistry. However, it's also true that Mars is the 4 planet from the sun. Why not propose that as a bridge law, if all we need is an empirical fact? (comes back to arbitrary/non-arbitrary...)

... I'm not sure. I'm coming back to "what's the point of these bridge laws again?" It seems to me that, sure, we'll be able to come up with sentences that fill in the gaps to make up a totality, but then as science changes we'll have to continue to update that picture.

Happy to hear that Harvey thought this section was definitely one with gems buried in a lot of muck that needs historical explanation to be of interest, because that was definitely how I was feeling.

Glad to hear Harvey confirm my implementation of "use-value" in the above. :D

"electronic monies are even more superior" -- yes! I'm glad to hear Harvey say this, because one of the things I've always thought about Marx's theory of what makes a commodity a good commodity for money actually are consistent with electronic balance sheets, and makes sense of a transition from gold-based to fiat money (even though I know Marx doesn't believe in fiat money, but that gold must back paper money)

"We always have to ask the question: who is the master behind these ideas?"

"ideas are the vehicles which change the world" -- Theses on Feuerbach

Ahhh "free time is a measure of socialism" -- nice. Reminds me of the best theory of communism: "Communism is free time and nothing else"

"Capital does not like a world in which there is free time. It colonizes it. And capital does not like a world in which people have time to think. They want people to be able to act on information, not think"

"we get mixed up on money as a form of price, and money as a form of value"

"we are actually producing experiences"

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Ooo this is interesting. The conflict between Marx's nihilism and Marx's clear and obvious moral commitments. Nice question.

"they are not thinking about morality as a political question -- as far as they are concerned, how much morality is there on wall street?" -- yup. You get this even from the manifesto.

"will you actually change capital by changing people's ideas and changing their morality? i think that the evidence of that is very very negative" -- I like that he's taking the hard line against belief as an agent of change. Not that it's unimportant! And he's emphasizing that, with Marx. But "activity" is a category distinct from belief.

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Interesting that he took a question from the youtube chat while they were streaming. I'll keep that in mind while reading. I might come up with one.

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I like that Harvey is pointing out the centrality of the military to our situation. And, in general, I like how Harvey is tying this old text to our current world throughout his lecture and Q&A. I agree that the military is our economic center.

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"both merchants and industrialists are subservient in the United States to the financiers"

"one of the most important thing about money is how mobile it can be and so many of the innovations in block-chain technology are about reducing the cost of exchanges"

Interesting that he's bringing in the idea of the velocity of transaction which Marx keeps mentioning. And then qualifying why monetary policy is still not the vector of revolutionary change.

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I'm impressed that Harvey committed to central planning. It's something I'm still "eh" on. But he puts to words some of the things I think -- like, can you say that central planning failed in the Soviet Union?

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Why was marx convinced money would not go off the gold standard? because it seems...

ahh! this question is great. It's the exact sort of thought I was having that his theory actually supports fiat currency.

"first, I don't know. i just think at that time there was no reason for it. and as marx is a person of his time it was irrelevant"

definitely a different answer than I thought. More or less Harvey points to the passage which is a hypothetical to make a reductio of Proudhon as a good description of what we actually did; whereas what I think is that if labor-time is the basis of value then fiat currency makes sense as a development of money. Eventually, exchange-value rules. Money as measure and medium and goal becomes a concrete social which is alien to any individual (individual, worthwhile to remind ourselves, coming about as a reality only because of the economic relations which allow individual rights to property).

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Yup, just posting my notes while listening. I'm glad to have you along @fdrake -- I hope you get to feeling better soon.

I was not, I just went back to the youtube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkeaMEUxWrc&ab_channel=ThePeople%27sForumNYC Listening now.