Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2003 13:46:51 +0300
From: Ilan Shalif <gshalif-AT-netvision.net.il>
Subject: Re: AUT: Free Will???




chris wright wrote:

 > This is quite a sharp criticism of causality, which as always with Hegel is
 > hardly an outright rejection of it, but a recognition of its limited,
 > one-sided character.  IMO, Marx is much closer to Hegel on this than to your
 > conception, which is of a rather naturalistic causality.  Hence the reason
 > that gravity and light keep being brought into the matter, or other natural
 > phenomena (Ilan does the same thing.)
 >
Causality by itself is not materialist only, but materialism without
causality is not materialism.

Bringing gravity and light is not intended to claim that all
causality relations are that simple. It just to remind people
that materialism and causality are here.

For sure the causality in the physical domain is much less complicated
than that of living mater. and of course it is more and more complicated
when animals and humans are regarded. It is extremely complex when
we look into unique processes like the life of one person and more so
when we look on the development and history of the human spacious....

The fact that we cannot know all the chains of interacting processes
does not mean they are not there.

> Ilan:
> 
>>Consensus stinks.
>>So are most of the psychologists who are more "philosophers" than
> 
> scientists.
> 
>>And many of them involved with the academy are just apologetics
>>to the class society - not real scientists.
> 
> 
> Well, what is science in your opinion?  Empirical research?  "Hard facts"?
 >
Science is a methodology for acquiring knowledge.
What knowledge is people after it depends on many factors -
interests of elite of capitalist class are high on the list.

To my opinion, the pick of the scientific endeavor is the going
beyond information already given by previous research.

In a way, the theories scientists develop are both to for sifting
and organizing previous findings and a kind of torch that chart
the more promising roads for advancing our knowledge.

It is easier to understand things when they are in context
and it easier to find new things if you have some heuristic knowledge
in advance.
>
> Facts may be stubborn things, but no one grasps raw facts because no such
> thing exists.  Reality is not, as Tahir pointed out, unmediated.  So what is
> this authentic 'real' scientist? 
 >
As scientific project is not only organized body of fact, there is
room for different personal and trends to put forward reasonable
theories and not so reasonable which are not entirely wrong.

Only serious research can verify the difference between facts and fiction.
 >
> As I have said before, science to me is
> critique of the disjuncture between form and content (essence and appearance
> is another verbiage), not the production of positive knowledge for its own
> sake. 
 >
To me science is not critique - though it can be recruited for criticizing.
It is not about the "disjuncture between form and content" - it is just
a tool to discern processes that are not obvious to the common observer
who has no good tools to grasp the processes that create what we see.
Many times, when you already know something about these processes,
you can see in the observed facts pattern you have not been aware
of them before.
 >
> As such, i am not interested per se in "natural science", except in
> so far as such science operates as one medium of the disjuncture between
> humanity and nature (a separation itself which is worthy of critique.)
> 
The discerning between "natural science" and the science of living matter
or the human sciences... or the humanities...
For sure different domains need different methodology, but
the same materialistic approach and the same reasoning and humility are
applicable to all.

> 
>>No real scientist go far on the limb from hard facts found.
>>For sure any worthy scientific theory go a bit beyond information
>>already accumulated, but no real one mix between what was
>>already supported and hypotheses that need verification.
>>
>>There is a big difference between studying what is present reality
>>and assertion about possible evolving of reality in the future.
> 
> 
> And yet anarchism/communism are very much a projection of 'possible evolving
> reality in the future', unless of course none of that is scientific? 
 >
Well, most activists are not so scientifically oriented... not even
oriented toward applying previous scientific finding which are relevant
for the social struggle project.
> 
 > Then again, much of what is unscientific about science is its unawareness of its
> own social mediation and its own means of gaining knowledge.
> 
The sociology of science and the psychology of science are just
additional fields of study.

Most scientists and most those applying it are only with narrow
field of interest and knowledge.

> As for Hegel, he is no 'mere' philosopher (and neither were many other
> philosophers, like Kant, Aristotle, Descartes) as he was very well-versed in
> the physics of the day and friends with people like Goethe, who not only
> wrote Faust, but also serious work on Optical Physics which is still in use
> today for some matters (a photographer friend of mine is required to read
> this for her Masters.)
> 
The supervisor of my Ph.D. dissertation was a creative scientist
who already had a good opinion on me during first year of under graduate..
He even helped me overcome objection of bureaucrats of the Psychology
department to my study...

But, he was a religious and nationalist of the extreme naZionist bastards...
> 
>> > In that respect, the hard science world has no better set of answers to
>> > these questions than philosophy and often suffers from a refusal to
> >> take the so-called philosophical questions seriously.
>> >
>>Hard science have answers only to what was already verified.
>>Philosophy have usually just speculations often with out
>>any justification - that scientists not yet verified hypotheses
>>are supposed to have.
> 
> 
> See above.  This is simply a way of writing off what one does not care to
> take seriously.
> 
Speculations are nice. I like science fiction. Read many books of this
janer.

My problem with philosophers is their wrong or absurd claims.
around 50 years ago I regarded the philosophical subjects very serious.
After my initiation to the scientific approach I lost interest in them.
Several times along the years I had to return to study them, but
I never returned to respect them.
> 
>> > I am not writing off psychology and science, but I am rather more
>> > cautious towards its claims to positive knowledge.
>> >
>>The claims for positive knowledge are in the realm of scientific
>>psychology only as much as they are based on hard findings with
>>clear discerning between facts and hypotheses still need verification.
> 
> 
> Once again, whose facts? 
 >
Facts are observations recorded in rigorous studies every one can
replicate.

One of my studies that got lot of praise for was mainly just reanalyzing
of data collected by other scientists.

> It takes more than facts and one of the better
> aspects of academic science is the degree to which things are subject to
> peer review and verification, but that often does little to challenge
> assumptions underlying "facts".  As such, while I have problems with Kuhn's
> paradigm thesis, it has the merit of pointing out that much advancement in
> science is less grounded in new research than in a new reading of the old
> "facts".
> 
I read some of Kuhn's and think it helped me to refine my opinions on
the subject matter.

Any way, there is significant difference between "science" and
the specific scientific milieu.
>
> Also, when we look at such human beings, we are not looking merely at facts,
> but at interrelations between human beings.  Science as such gives us no
> direct guidelines for how to approach human beings and their social
> relations.
 >
Science can give only what it have, and usually much less.
Some good guide lines derived from his studies which were told us 43 years
ago by Professor Antonovsky in an activists seminar promoted my
effectively and enlightened my regarding the effects activists
can have.

For sure only scientists who studied interrelations between human beings
can contribute real wisdom about it. Some scientists gives us some direct
guidelines for how to approach human beings and their social relations.

The problem is that the wisdom is not organized in a popularized way
that may enable every activist to implement.
>
> It is not enough to condemn bourgeois social theory for starting
> with the isolated individual; we need to explain why this happens and how it
> reltes to human society.
> 
Must is an authoritarian word.... The main problem with pro capitalist
social theorists is it being mostly pseudo science - apologetics for the
present social order disregarding contradicting findings. There was nothing wrong
in the development of science from the more simple - individuals
to the more complicated family small groups and larger sections of society.

There are lot of subjects one can study for fun. There are lot of subjects
that though marginal, can contribute to the revolutionary project.
However, I think that there are more fruitful areas to invest efforts in
than the finding the main sociologo-political ropes of present
scientific community.
> 
<snip>

>>the water will boil....
>>
>>The simplistic causality claim is so outdated approach that no one in
>>the psychology domain will endorse. The scientific concept is "interaction".
> 
> And this is often an impoverished form of dialectic, impoverished because it
> remains undeveloped and implicit.  Then again, I would say that dialectic
> has little to do with the movement of an object in space than it has to do
> with understanding our relation.  
 >
Dialectics is an impoverished and reductionist way to abstract the complex
interwoven processes at work in any human domain.
 >
> Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is
> rather more closely linked to dialectic than Engelsian Dialectics of Nature.
> 
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is entirely beyond the point
when you deal with interpersonal relations in society.

May be "dialectics" are really on a similar level of the Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle and thus irrelevant to applied science of revolution.
> 
>> > Dialectic starts from the
>> > notion that the relations are internal, that what appear as, say, two
>> > objects are in fact objectified moments of the same internal movement
>> > linked through contradiction, in a dynamic totality.
>>  >
>>The "dialectic" verbiage was the expression to the intuitive
>>sense and superficial observations about the interacting processes
>>at the base of observed process.
> 
> 
> Well, this is exactly where I see it the opposite.  As I said above,
> "interaction" is just intuitive, superficial dialectic. 
 >
Interactions are not a philosophical claim like dialectics - they are
an observation found in any no trivial study.

The comprehensive Chaos approach to whole systems advance us
much more than the observations of the dynamics in parts or
aspects of the system as a whole.
 >
> So what does that
> get us?  My assertion on this is no less valid than yours, and in the realm
> of the critique of capital the interactionists have little of value to say
> compare to Marx or Debord or Adorno or Marcuse, etc., etc.
> 
If it is really impossible to accretion which assertion is more valid than the other
it means both are irrelevant...

> 
>>The evading of the complicated processes of reality in favor of
>>"narratives" is common. Most often it is the result of rebelling
>>against the truth instead of rebelling against the present order
>>of class society.
> 
> 
> Which narrative are we talking about?  The Trad Rev narratives, which have
> nothing in common with either the best of anarchism of of Marx and certain
> Marxists?
> 
I regard the obsessive returning to the old scripts instead of
examining the old question taking into account all the new findings
as on the side of "narratives" that do not have to stand the test
of objective reality.
> 
>>The food can be used as a commodity in the capitalist system.
>>It can also be part of a picnic of Anarchists to celebrate
>>significant get together.
> 
> 
> Your point?  If the anarchists bought the food, regardless of its use, they
> engaged in commodity society.  This posing of little acts of "alternative"
> consumption as significant is neither profound nor germain.  Some anarchists
> here pose dumpster diving as a new mode of production, sadly predicated on
> capitalist production oriented towards wasteful middle classes who can throw
> away perfectly useful items.
> 
In my opinion the dumpster diving is reminiscence to the citation
from the old scripts.

It seems very anti capitalist... but have nothing to contribute to
the real class struggle of these days.

>> >
>>The whole concept of free will was on the background on primitive
>>base of knowledge.
>>The religious tended to delegate the source of it to a supra natural
>>powers. They just had a problem with their need to deter individuals
>>from doing things and punishment by human beings.
>>Simplistic materialists developed into fatalists with their primitive
>>determinism.
>>
>>The people who advocate change involving behavior intended to achieve it
>>are pushed about the role of the subjective feeling of freedom of
> 
> advancing
> 
>>what one is willing to.
>>
>>The most complicated of all is the question about where from come the
>>will for revolution, and why it is not shared by all people who
>>suffer from the wrongs of class society.
>>
>>Will is intimately related to the complicated system of opinions every one
>>have. Most people, and even most revolutionaries know very little about
>>the system of opinions of people and what we can do to promote the
> 
> revolutionary
> 
>>aspects of it to the level that people consciously are willing to
> 
> struggle.
> 
> Is this even the point?  Are we supposed to make people willing to struggle?
 >
Anti authoritarian revolutionaries usually see the promotion of
revolutionary opinions in society. We go for direct and non direct actions
without the illusion that by these acts we will over through the system.

The authoritarians promoted the idea that they will develop the correct
theory and program, and than they will lead the revolution.

Anti authoritarian think the the uprising of the people will be
organized by them and will carry the revolution to a class less society.

The psychological and social process involved were studied a lot...
just the relevant finding were not widely distributed.

No, we are not supposed to make people willing to struggle!!
We are supposed to make the revolutionary opinions more popular.
We are supposed to inform people about these opinions.
We are supposed to enhance the assimilation of these opinion
in people memories so when they rebel - they will already have
some thing to start from and not in need to start from tabula raza.
>
> The point, as I see it, is to help people to clarify and sharpen their
> struggles, both in form and content, to help them circulate, to promote
> those apsects that increase the collective self-reliance and
> self-determination.
> 
I do not think you can help people to clarify and sharpen their
struggles. It is too similar to the elitist approach. We can of course
clarify and sharpen OUR struggles, and thus contribute to the promotion
of pro revolution and anti capitalist ideas.
> 
>> > Certainly, none of us is free of fetishization or from alienated labor,
>> > so how free can our will be in such a situation?  How self-determining
>> > can we really be?  And yet, in struggle, is our will not more free?  Is
>> > our will any more or less free than our ability to assert it freely, to
>> > be self-determining?  And then it leads us back to "determining of what
>> > social relations?"  A capitalist freely asserts his will, but is it a
>> > free will since it is only free as long as it is actually the willing
> 
> of
> 
>> > capital as an automatic subject (in which the capitalist is really only
>> > a cipher, a personification, but not a person per se)?
>>  >
>>The subjective experience of freedom is a dynamic balance of contradicting
>>processes and powers in which the main one is the willing to do things
>>and the social processes that frustrate it.
>>
>>Our dream of flying like birds is frustrated by gravity... but we do not
>>blame so much gravity for our lack of freedom.
> 
> 
> Again with the naturalistic stuff.  What the hell does gravity have to do
> with social revolution?  Confusing these matters in this way helps no one.
> 
It was just an effort to pull you back from abstract rumination to the
real life of of the freedom as subjective experience in concrete social
and psychological situations.

Freedom is multifaceted concept. Mixing between the subjective
feeling of will and freedom and the objective arena they are,
confound the subject.

> 
>> > Anyway, I mostly wish to assert that this is not a simple matter nor an
>> > inconsequential one.  Contrary to the current fashion of refering to
>> > consciousness as meaningless to revolutionary politics, Marx did not
> 
> see
> 
>> > the matter that way since he placed quite a bit on the formation of a
>> > class which would become conscious of itself as the subject of human
>> > liberation.  What Subject is ever really a Subject while it remains
>> > unconscious of itself?  What self-determination is possible?
>> >
>>Some people have a different conception of the subject and claim that
>>most of the revolutionary consciousness will surface in most of the people
>>in time of rebellion and revolution.
> 
> 
> Indeed.  I am not claiming that the proletariat as revolutionary subject is
> always-already 'existant', but that the proletariat as revolutionary subject
> only forms in and through struggle.
 >
As the wageslaves are always in struggle with the owners of means of
production the above claim is not contributing.

The relations between the various struggles and expressions of dissent
to the development of the proletariat as revolutionary subject is too
complicated to sum in such abstract claim.


Some time the accepting an reading of a leaflet distributed
by revolutionaries is more contributing than a long strike for rising wages.

Some time the strike of the long stick of a policeman in banal
settings is even more contributing.
 >
> Consciousness and activity go hand in
> hand, interacting and reacting in which it is not evident from moment to
> moment which could be called cause and which effect, only that it is part of
> the self-development of the subject (but that would be too much like Hegel's
> critique of causality.)
>
Practical people who want to influence better learn where the efforts
be best invested. Some time elevation of conscious in specific way enhance
activity. Some time participating in specific activity elevate consciousness..

Averaging and over generalization do not contribute to strategy and tactics.

> Cheers,
> Chris
> 
> ps - Ilan, i suspect that neither of us is likely to agree on this anytime
> soon, if ever, but thanks for always being willing to bump heads.
> 
Some discussions even if do not contribute to the change of opinions
of the other - can contribute to the development of one's opinions.
Cheers,
Ilan



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