'"Nature is interconnected and cannot be understood in isolation;"

That is not scientific. Isolating a varying property is exactly what is done to test a hypothesis, which is the essence of falsifiability.'

piffle - reductionism is a tool of science, a technique for simplifying, because the simplest systems are the easiest to test/understand/tinker with. To claim that only this technique is scientific is blatantly wrong.

It is like claiming that science can only understand simple things. Understanding things in isolation is less useful than understanding them in the context of their surroundings.

The essence of falsifiability is in no way related to reductionism or holism.

"and contradictions are inherent in nature, a struggle of opposites."

Opposites are usually human attempts to understand and describe a system, and some systems ave both positive and negative feedback mechanisms. But even a basic understanding of complex systems doesn't lead to this conclusion.

Contradictions are merely failures of nature to correspond to what humans would like or assume to be true. It is an example of cognitive errors which we as human are bound to make.

Please, tendmote, for your own sake, stop.

You don't know what you are talking about, and every post you add to this thread just makes you look even more stupid.

@orathaic How is it possible to understand anything about nature *except* through isolation? Otherwise it is not possible to attribute causes to effects.

Tendmote, do you accept the theory of evolution via natural selection?

This demonstratives conclusively the fundamental interconnectedness of the entire natural world, as struggle for reproduction and survival. You cannot understand anything about the biological world without accepting natural selection as the primary mechanism by which the simple moves to the complex.

@Putin33 Yes I accept the theory of evolution with natural selection as the cause. I'm not denying "interconnectedness" I'm disagreeing with the statement "nature cannot be understood in isolation." Isolating variables is how we come to establish cause and effect relationships. The statement "nature cannot be understood in isolation" is contrary to how science establishes cause and effect relationships, i.e. what is true in nature.

So I still reckon the four statements you provided to describe "dialectical" include one anti-science, two "shit happens", and one anthropomorphization if natural phenomena.

*of, not if

I still reckon you're clueless and are concocting a strawman.

You never take anything you're criticizing honestly. You must turn it into an incomprehensible caricature first.

"Isolating variables is how we come to establish cause and effect relationships."

That's not the point. Talk to me when you're actually going to be serious instead of this stupid gotcha crap re: "Communism".

OK. Please tell which of these is wrong:

1) Communism assumes dialectical materialism is true and that this is fundamental to Communism
2) The belief that "Nature is interconnected and cannot be understood in isolation" is an assertion (the "cannot be understood" part, that is; "interconnected" is a fine observation), and in fact asserts that establishing cause-and-effect by isolating variables in experiment is somehow "wrong"
3) The statement "Nature is in a constant state of motion and change; quantitative change leads to qualitative change (meaning change is rapid & abrupt, from the simple to the complex)" is merely an observation that shit happens, and sometimes this produces a qualitative change,
4) The statement "contradictions are inherent in nature, a struggle of opposites" ascribes conflicting *human intent* to natural phenomena, which is pretty much the definition of anthropomorphization.

To make it clear I'm backing down from communism as a "religion", but it certainly is a faith-based system, if you can't refute what I've pointed out above.

@Putin

"you cannot be an activist unless you are a member of a party, otherwise the word is meaningless"

I think this says a lot about your (lack of) understanding of activist communities. A large number of people at grassroots level eschew electoral politics entirely, and to claim that they're not activists because they're not a member of a party is ridiculous.

At this point, I'm not even sure if you understand fully what communism is, though you undoubtedly come much closer than tendmote.

I think this says a lot about your lack of understanding of parties or political organization. I've been involved with 'activist communities' for my entire adult life. To be an activist does not mean participating in 'electoral politics', much of the activity involves organizing in the streets and in the labor movement. I simply mean that you must be part of a political organization of some kind to be a communist. Communists eschew petty bourgeois individualism.

All 4 of your caricatures are wrong, Tendmote. You have not said a single thing that is correct in this entire thread.

A political organization does not need to be a party. For example, Food Not Bombs is a political organization, but it definitely isn't a party. If you meant to say that it's impossible to be a communist and work on an individualist level I'm inclined to agree, but when you talk about parties your meaning changes to a far more specific one.

Those "caricatures" are quotes from you. You haven't really said why I'm wrong... but that's a bit of obscurantism I should expect from someone who (am I wrong?) eschews establishing cause-effect relationships through experiment in isolation. As Marx said:

"It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens"

Right answer is: yes. Trust me, Im from former Yugoslavia, many of believers around me. :-)

"To be a radical doesn't mean you're a communist. And you don't have to be a jihadist fighter to be a Muslim."

I meant "radical" to mean "communist." Imprecise on my part. At any rate, I don't see how what you're saying isn't a No True Scotsman. Not every communist is Karl Liebknecht exhorting the masses on the reg.


As for jihadists, you may not have to be a jihadist to be a Muslim, but you do have to be a Muslim to be a jihadist. You say religious groups are "content with being windbags who do nothing but talk about their beliefs." Recent history shows that to be entirely untrue at least with regards to a significant section of Islam. Recent history also shows that many communist parties are content with handing out pamphlets. This set of criteria you're proposing looks to be entirely arbitrary and wrong.

'Isolating variables is how we come to establish cause and effect relationships.'

Look at any complex system - the weather for example, we can understand the cause and effect of weather, pressure, water, temperature... we have equations in physics which explain these relationships (about 4 eqns, if i recall) but that does not explain the complexity of weather.

You can't simply look at those 4 equations and then at the current weather (initial state) and through understanding tell me what the weather will be like tomorrow. Because we the underlying physics allows many possible effects. The cause will always be the same, but knowing those 4 equations will not grant some greater understanding.

The system is the classic example of a chaotic system (complex systems are a sub-set of chaotic ones) We can only model these systems - and predict what will happen. This is

'Isolating variables is how we come to establish cause and effect relationships.' - yes, isolating variables is a useful tool for understanding. But in the absence of anything else we can't have a complex system. In a simple 1 variable system (isolated) you can ONLY have linear relationships. In a complex system you can (and often do) have a completely different space of possible relationships. Understanding any complex system is very hard, i don't think modelling/prediction gives a complete understanding of the system - it gives a snapshot of the current and future state - you can paint a picture without understanding the meaning of the things in the picture - Now prediction is useful, because it is inherently falsifiable, but it is not understanding of the whole.

@orathaic I get your point now - I agree with that, there are things we can't know. The thing is, anything we *do* know about nature is *only* what we've learned in isolation. So I still have issue with "Nature cannot be understood in isolation."

Food Not Bombs is not a communist organization, so I don't get your point. Food Not Bombs is not aiming to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and install the dictatorship of the proletariat. Communist organizations or parties have discipline, dues, and a political programme. It's not a collection of individuals doing their own thing. Food Not Bombs is a collection of autonomous groups with no unified structure whatsoever.

@ Tendmote

"Communism assumes dialectical materialism is true and that this is fundamental to Communism"

It doesn't "assume" it to be true. So your first statement is false.

"and in fact asserts that establishing cause-and-effect by isolating variables in experiment is somehow "wrong""

It asserts nothing of the kind. You mischaracterized what I said and ran with it. What I meant by the isolation point was that you cannot take matter and treat it as unconnected from other matter, i.e. nature is not an accidental agglomeration of things. It's an elaboration of the inter-connectedness point which you already accepted as true. All phenomena must be understood in connection with surrounding conditions.

"3) The statement "Nature is in a constant state of motion and change; quantitative change leads to qualitative change (meaning change is rapid & abrupt, from the simple to the complex)" is merely an observation that shit happens, and sometimes this produces a qualitative change,"

No it is not "shit happens". It means that all of nature is in a constant state of flux, coming out of being and coming into being. Nature is never in a state of rest or immobility. This contradicts the metaphysical point of view which holds that nature is unchanging. In fact you yourself said human nature is unchanging.

""Nature is the test of dialectics. and it must be said for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature's process is dialectical and not metaphysical, that it does not move in an eternally uniform and constantly repeated circle. but passes through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception of nature by proving that the organic world of today, plants and animals, and consequently man too, is all a product of a process of development that has been in progress for millions of years." (Marx & Engels Collected Works, Vol 14, p. 23.)"

"In physics ... every change is a passing of quantity into quality, as a result of a quantitative change of some form of movement either inherent in a body or imparted to it. For example, the temperature of water has at first no effect on its liquid state; but as the temperature of liquid water rises or falls, a moment arrives when this state of cohesion changes and the water is converted in one case into steam and in the other into ice.... A definite minimum current is required to make a platinum wire glow; every metal has its melting temperature; every liquid has a definite freezing point and boiling point at a given pressure, as far as we are able with the means at our disposal to attain the required temperatures; finally, every gas has its critical point at which, by proper pressure and cooling, it can be converted into a liquid state.... What are known as the constants of physics (the point at which one state passes into another – J. St.) are in most cases nothing but designations for the nodal points at which a quantitative (change) increase or decrease of movement causes a qualitative change in the state of the given body, and at which, consequently, quantity is transformed into quality." (Ibid., pp. 527-28.)

"Chemistry may be called the science of the qualitative changes which take place in bodies as the effect of changes of quantitative composition. his was already known to Hegel.... Take oxygen: if the molecule contains three atoms instead of the customary two, we get ozone, a body definitely distinct in odor and reaction from ordinary oxygen. And what shall we say of the different proportions in which oxygen combines with nitrogen or sulphur, and each of which produces a body qualitatively different from all other bodies !" (Ibid., p. 528.)

"The statement "contradictions are inherent in nature, a struggle of opposites" ascribes conflicting *human intent* to natural phenomena, which is pretty much the definition of anthropomorphization."

No, it is not an anthropomorphization. It means that all natural phenomena have an aspect that is developing and an aspect that is dying away, and these two aspects counteract one another, hence struggle of opposites.

"Trust me, Im from former Yugoslavia, many of believers around me. :-)"

To nije tachno.

@Putin33

Ah! Now I just learned something. Now, I still consider the first three statements to be "shit happens" observations of nature; might as well be poetry. BUT the final one is interesting:

"all natural phenomena have an aspect that is developing and an aspect that is dying away, and these two aspects counteract one another, hence struggle of opposites."

Hey, a physics conservation law restated in a political context. That's a neat bit of theft of authority from an actual science to a political "science".

http://www.synthesisips.net/blog/chaos-versus-complexity/

here is a nice article about it, reminds me of the concept of emergence which i didn't mention...

I think you meant "To nije tačno."

Billions of Muslims are not jihadists and anyway, I already said that Islam is exceptional when it comes to activity. Which is why many of its critics say it is not a religion, but a political movement.

As for the No True Scotsman issue, I don't accept that. Practice is fundamental to being a communist. Handing out pamphlets is at least political activity, it at least involves participating in a structured organization with a line, change of command, and discipline. If you're content with the current ruling class, and do nothing about trying to change it, then you can't call yourself a communist. And you can't point me to a single theoretical document anywhere by any leading light of the communist movement that says it's acceptable to do nothing.

@Maric...

Care to elaborate on the various SFJ Republics GDP to debt ratio then and now?

And, if membership of the party reached religious proportions, could you please explain what part Catholic, Orthodox and Islamic vitriol played in the aftermath that followed?

Ajmo ča...

"č" = ch, genius.

Go away.

It's not just shit happens, it's a description of how shit happens which is specific. If you're not willing to read then what is the point of this exercise? It certainly isn't to persuade.

@orathaic I'm always very, very leery of "emergent properties" discussions. Unpredictable but characterizable outcomes don't really help us understand anything, though it cannot be denied that it's interesting. "Shit happens" is often the best we can do with that situation, I reckon.