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16-08-01 -- Summary Of Essay Eight Part One: Lenin Refutes Mechanics
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4) Super-Scientific 'Knowledge' Derived From A Few Words
Abbreviations Used At This Site
The Theory Of Change Through Internal Contradiction Implodes
In this Essay the claim that change is the result of "internal contradictions" is critically examined.
First, consider this question: Do objects move one another, themselves, or a bit of both?
Dialecticians have a revolutionary answer. But you might not like it.
Lenin depicted things this way:
"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961), pp.357-58. Bold emphasis alone added.]
This is a rather odd passage since it seems to suggest that things can move themselves. If so, much of modern mechanics will need to be re-written. On this view, presumably, when someone throws a ball, the action of throwing does not in fact move the ball. On the contrary, the ball moves itself, and it knows exactly where it is going and how to get there, traversing its path independently of gravity. Intelligent projectiles like this, it seems, need no guidance systems -- they happily 'self-develop' from A to B like unerring homing pigeons. It is to be wondered, therefore, why the US military do not invest in such smart projectiles, and save themselves billions of dollars.
Thank goodness those at the Pentagon do not "understand" dialectics!
[If the above seems unfair to Lenin, then please read this before proceeding -- or skip forward to here.]
Nevertheless, this probably explains the origin of the following 'joke':
Q: How many dialecticians does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None at all, the light bulb changes itself.
Well, as if to disappoint his fans, and provide no help at all for those who still think that dialectics has anything of worth to teach modern science, Lenin not only repeated this odd claim, he "demanded" that all DL-fans see things this way:
"Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it)…." [Lenin (1921), p.90. Bold emphases in the original. Italic emphasis added.]
Here, not only are objects said to be capable of moving themselves, but Lenin even says that DL "requires" us to view motion in no other way.
[DL = Dialectical Logic.]
Well, perhaps Lenin was merely referring to the development of certain systems, and not the movement of objects from place to place? If so, the impertinent 'counter-example' from earlier (i.e., the one about light bulbs) would neither be valid nor sensible.
But Lenin's words were pretty clear; he asserted that DL demands and/or requires that "objects" (not processes, nor yet systems, but objects) be taken in "development, in 'self-movement'", so he included both -- development and self-movement -- in this caveat.
All this is quite apart from the fact that Lenin counterposed this 'dialectical' view of reality to that of 'mechanical materialism', which holds that objects move because of the action of external forces:
"In the first conception of motion [i.e., 'mechanical materialism' -- RL], self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the second conception [i.e., the 'dialectical' view -- RL] the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of 'self-movement'.
"The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new." [Lenin (1961), p.358. Bold emphasis alone added.]
There would be no contrast here if objects did not move themselves in the DM-scheme-of-things, both developmentally and as they move from place to place. As we will see (in Essay Eight Part One), this is indeed how Lenin has since been interpreted by his epigones: they also hold the view that things self-develop and self-locomote.
Unfortunately, Lenin and his co-dialecticians failed to take any real note of the origin of these ancient ideas: Hermetic Philosophy is based on the belief that the universe is alive and self-moves since it is Mind; indeed it's a cosmic egg -- later transmogrified by Hegel into a Cosmic Ego.
Since eggs appear to develop all of their own, and because Hegel's 'Cosmic Ego' self-developed, it clearly seemed 'natural' for Lenin and his epigones to think this of nature, too (upside down or 'the right way up').
Nevertheless, not even eggs develop of their own; in fact, it is hard to think of a single thing in the entire universe (of which we have any knowledge) that develops of its own, or which moves itself. Not even Capitalism does. Switch off the Sun and watch American Imperialism fold a whole lot quicker than Enron.
And yet, if Lenin were correct, no object in the universe could possibly interact with any other (since that would amount to external causation, and objects would not be self-motivated). Self-motivated beings must, it seems, be causally isolated from their surroundings, or they would not be self-motivated. This in turn must mean that, despite appearances to the contrary, nothing in reality interacts with anything else.
That would, of course, make a mockery of the other DM-claim that everything in reality is interconnected.
So, based on the bird-brained doctrines of ancient mystics, and no evidence at all, we find Lenin once again propounding cosmic ideas that do not make sense even in DM-terms -- and which not even chickens observe.
The only way to avoid such a dialectically disastrous conclusion would be to argue that interconnection does not imply causation. However, as far as I am aware, no dialectician has been able to explain how every particle in nature can be interconnected with every other and yet be causally isolated from the lot. Are they telepathically linked (the atoms, not the dialecticians)?
Or is this just another contradiction that just has to be "grasped"?
On the other hand, if external causation is to be permitted, as part of a 'dialectical' fudge of some sort, there would seem to be no point in appealing to "internal contradictions" and "self-development" to account for change.
In Essay Eight Part One, several fall-back options are examined and all are shown either to collapse into CAR (i.e., Cartesian Reductionism), or inflate alarmingly into HEX (i.e., Hegelian Expansionism).
HEX itself implies that if the nature of each part is determined by the whole, and the interconnections enjoyed by whole and part are infinite (according to Engels and Lenin), then no part may be known as a part of the whole (indeed nothing could be known about anything) until everything was known about everything. Since that will never happen, the former cannot emerge either. And if the parts cannot be known, then the whole cannot, too -- since knowledge of the whole arises from knowledge of the parts.
In that case, on this view, human knowledge is going nowhere, having started from nothing, employing only empty guesswork along the way.
Of course, in Hegel's system this is all catered for with a few handy neologisms and some 'innovative reasoning'; but materialists cannot be quite so cavalier. We cannot 'intuit' the whole (nor let its concepts 'self-develop') since, without complete knowledge of the whole, it might not be the whole (or even a whole), it could just be a large part. Indeed, it might be the wrong whole, or there could be thousands of the beggars out there, or none at all. But, until we know that 'whole' (and know it absolutely), if there is one, we cannot know anything for sure about anything -- and that includes the nature of any of the parts. But, since we will never know that whole (or even anything remotely like it, should there be one), we will never know anything for sure -- not even this!
Furthermore, since the nature of any part is dependent on an infinite number of interconnections, no part could possess a nature (whether or not we knew what that was), since infinite totalities are uncompletable (by definition).
In addition, one of the widely touted advantages of DM-inspired internalist explanations of change is that it undercuts appeals to supernatural external causes to account for origins. Indeed, as TAR itself points out, other theorists who adopt various forms of externalism:
"…often find themselves courting semi-mystical explanations of original cause." [Rees (1998), p.78.]
Thus is because 'externalists' deny that:
"…the cause of change [lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model of linear cause and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a result of contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties of the system itself." [Ibid., p.7.]
[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution, i.e., Rees (1998); STD = Stalinist Dialectician.]
Countless other DM-theorists say the same sort of thing. [We saw Lenin do so above.]
It could be argued that change should be regarded as the result of a 'dialectical' interplay between internal and external causes -- an opinion which Bukharin, for one, certainly held; indeed, more recent STDs seem to be fond of this doctrine, too -- on that, see Essay Eight Part One. However, this response would surely allow room once more for an external (hence supernatural) cause of the universe, and dialecticians would not only have to ignore Lenin's "absolute" dialectical caveat, recorded above, they would have to join the externalists and admit to their own "bad infinity", which, according to Rees:
"…postulates an endless series of causes and effects regressing to 'who knows where?'" [Ibid., p.7.]
Thus, the motivating point of DM-Holism would seem to vanish, for change both to systems and individuals would be not be produced solely internally -- nor, it now seems, by an appeal to purely natural causes.
In the event, it is shown in Essay Eight Part One and Part Two (as well as Essay Five), that "internal contradictions" (even if they exist) cannot account for change anyway. Exactly why anything would change into its 'opposite', or how an 'opposite' can make anything change, is left entirely mysterious. Dialecticians seem to think that this verbal tangle will explain itself, assuming that just because we can depict things as turning into "what they are not", this "what they are not" must have caused it! [This example of dialectical licence is picked apart in Essay Seven.]
Of course, not only do things turn into "what they are not" they also turn into "what they are". Hence, whatever a cat turns into, it is what it is. [Anyone who does not agree with this verbal trick should now appreciate why us genuine materialists eschew all such linguistic chicanery, not just the bits we do not like. Why the one is given precedence over the other is left a complete mystery.]
Moreover, precisely what is it that justifies the turning of a neat verbal formula into yet another a priori Super-scientific thesis, true for all of time and space? Nothing, it seems -- or nothing dialecticians have so far shared with their readers. And no wonder; too many awkward questions asked here would unmask the Idealism implicit in DM a little too starkly.
With this, the alleged superiority of DM over its rivals disappears. About these, Rees concludes that:
"...[they offer a] mere description, not explanation; the what, but not the how or the why." [Ibid., p.7.]
Well, it now seems that DM cannot do this either.
[The claim that forces are the physical correlate of contradictions, and hence can cause change, is examined in detail in Essay Eight Part Two.]
In fact, it is pertinent to ask: how could DM-theorists possibly know that change is always and only the result of "internal contradictions"? Clearly, unless they were semi-divine beings, they could not possibly know this. The dogma itself certainly cannot have been derived from experience (since it is not possible to observe or confirm the existence of real contradictions -- the claim that these are physically "real", or have real correlates, is examined in detail in Essays Four, Five, Seven, Eight Part One and Part Two, and Eleven Part One), which means that they cannot have been obtained by 'abstraction' from experience, either.
In that case, despite protestations to the contrary, this DM-thesis (like all the others) must have been imposed on nature.
[In fact, this idea was lifted from Hegel, who derived it not from nature, but from some badly mangled sub-Aristotelian logic. On that, see here and here.]
The thesis that change is the result of "internal contradictions" is thus revealed for what it is: another piece of a priori Superscience, only this time it is one that has been based on a series of dubious metaphysical 'thought experiments', an array of anthropomorphic concepts, and no evidence at all.
Again, from a few words we get Super-Facts.
To begin afresh: the DM-Totality seems to be a Mega-system that contains many sub-systems. I say "seems" here because, as we will find out in Essay Eleven Parts One and Two, it's far from clear what dialecticians themselves think their 'Totality' is, or what it contains.
If so, and as we are about to see, DM-theorists face a serious dilemma: either everything in the universe is made of simple but eternally changeless objects, or it is composed of sub-systems that cannot interact.
However, before I substantiate the above allegations, a couple of preliminary points need making:
(1) I shall count as a system any object or process that is made of simpler interconnected parts. For example, an atom is made of a nucleus and 'orbiting' electrons; the solar system, is comprised of a centrally-placed sun and orbiting planets, and so on.
(2) A simple object is one that has no parts, and hence is not a system. Apparently, electrons and photons are elementary particles, but whether they are metaphysically simple is unclear. [On this, see Castellani (1998).]
This means that, examined this way, nature is composed of at most two sorts of 'entities': systems and/or simple objects (or, to use the jargon: complexes and simples). We need not assume that these are mutually exclusive categories, nor that there actually are any simple objects, only that there might be. [The reader should also note that I am not expressing my own opinions here, merely trying to make sense of DM.]
[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Now, the reasons for saying that (according to DM-theorists) either everything in the universe is made of simple but eternally changeless objects, or it is composed of sub-systems that cannot interact can be summarised in the following series of connected propositions (which list all the available (relevant) possibilities there with respect to systems, objects, change and interaction):
D1: Change is internal to a system. Objects and processes in each system mutually condition one another (as UOs).
D2: Change to objects and processes is internally-driven -- not externally-motivated.
D3: Objects within systems change because of their internal relations and/or contradictions.
D4: Objects in a particular system do not have external relations with one another. What appear to be external links are in fact misperceived or misidentified internal relations.
D5: Systems themselves cannot affect each other except by their own internal inter-systemic relations of the above (D4) sort.
D6: On the other hand, individual and separate systems cannot have such an effect on one another, otherwise change would not be wholly internal to a particular system.
D7: Hence, single objects and/or processes cannot be systems, otherwise they could not influence each other (by D6).
D8: On the other hand, once more, objects and processes must be sub-systems (and hence systems in their own right), since they are composed of an indefinite (possibly infinite) number of their own sub-units (molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles, etc.). But even then, as systems themselves, objects and processes could not influence one another (again, by D6).
D9: This means that at some point there must be simple units that are not themselves systems; otherwise, if everything were system-like (or if all that exists are sub-sub-sub-…sub-systems, to infinity) nothing could have any effect on anything else (by D6) -- that is, if all change is internally-motivated.
D10: But, if there were such simple units (i.e., if they had no 'parts', and were thus not systems themselves) they would be changeless. If that weren't the case, these simple units would be UOs themselves (and thus not simple, after all), subject to their own internally-driven development. Indeed, if they are changeless they can have no effect on one another (or they would not be changeless).
D11: Hence, reality is either composed of a (possibly) infinite hierarchy of systems that have no influence on each other, or it is made out of fundamental (non-system-like) particles that are changeless and have no influence on anything.
Clearly, both horns of this dilemma contradict all we know about nature. Is there any way to avoid this fatal conclusion? Could there be a 'dialectical' way out of this Hermetic Hole?
Perhaps we should start again with a consideration of the following propositions:
D12: Change is a result of "internal contradictions".
D13: Objects within the Totality change only because of this internal dynamic.
D14: Reality is a mediated Totality; change is a consequence of a 'struggle' between opposites.
D15: No element of reality can be considered in isolation; all mutually condition one another.
However, D12 is ambiguous, The word "change" could mean:
(1) "Systematic change" (that is, it could mean "change internal to a particular system"); or it could mean:
(2) "Change internal to an object" -- as it does in D13 -– leaving it unclear whether or not this sort of change is much wider-ranging, involving inter-objective or trans-systematic change.
Nevertheless, D13 seems clear enough, though:
D13: Objects within Totality change only because of this internal dynamic.
This states that change arises only as a result of a dynamic internal to objects.
But if that were so, it would once again be difficult to see what influence objects could have on each other. If change is internal to an object, then the relations it supposedly enjoyed with other objects would be irrelevant in this respect -- ex hypothesi, they could have no impact on the changes the latter underwent. This seems to imply that objects must be self-caused/motivated beings (as indeed Lenin "demanded").
Once more however, whatever changes an object actually undergoes -- since these are exclusively internally-generated -- they can't be a function of the relations which that object enjoys with other objects, otherwise the cause of change would not be internal to the said object, but external, after all -- and thus not the least bit 'rational' (since this would imply a "bad infinity").
On the other hand, if change is internal to a system of mediated objects or processes, it wouldn't be the sole result of a dynamic internal to the objects in that system, but would be a function both of the intra-systematic relations between systems and bodies and of the 'internal contradictions' within those systems or bodies themselves.
Furthermore, if change is system-specific (that is, if it is internal, and solely confined to systems), then the relations between those systems would become problematic, once more. Clearly, change cannot be exclusively system-specific if different systems have an actual effect on one another.
The question is, which of these is the correct account? Is change (a) the result of a dynamic internal to systems, or (b) is it internal to objects, or is it a result of (c) the external effects bodies have on each other? [Option (c) in fact allows change to be internal to systems even while it remains external to the bodies forming that system.]
Is therefore change body-specific, system-specific, or is it inter-systematic? Or, is it (d) a complex combination of all three?
But, yet again: if (d) were the case, what would be the point of saying that change is motivated internally (to bodies, processes or systems).
On the other hand, why say that everything is interconnected if change is exclusively internally-generated, and the alleged interconnections between systems or bodies have no part to play in the action?
Up until now, DM-theorists appear not to have noticed these serious difficulties implied by their 'theory' of change. Since DM is supposed to be the philosophy of change, clearly this is not a minor flaw that can easily be ignored.
The question raised earlier (whether or not DM-theorists are right to claim that contradictions find their material analogue in material forces) does not in fact affect the point at issue here, which is whether change is internal to each system, whatever causes it. Even if forces could be represented in the way dialecticians suppose, the very same difficulties would still afflict DM.
In that case, if change is indeed internal to each system then one of the following options would, it seems, have to be true (take your pick):
(A) There is only one system -- the Totality --, the contents of which are all interconnected. All the objects internal to the Totality are subject to the operation of external causes only. This is because the entire nature of the part is determined by its relation to the whole and to other parts, but not by a relation that any part has with itself, and hence not by processes internal to each object.
Or:
(B) There is only one system -- the Totality. Change is exclusively internal to each object or process in this Totality (because everything in the Totality is a UO). In that case, nothing in the Totality is interconnected with anything else.
Or:
(C) Change is internal to all systems, and nature forms an infinite 'ascending' and/or 'descending' hierarchy of systems and sub-systems ('all the way up' or all the way 'down', as it were). Ultimately, in such a set-up there is nothing that could be or could become the opposite of anything else. This is because, either:
(1) The fundamental parts of reality are extensionless 'points' -- which, because they can be mapped onto or modelled by the real numbers, have no 'size' at all. This means that such objects can have no internal connection with anything else (other than theoretically as part of that model). They are therefore eternal and changeless. If not and they were subject to change then they would be systems and not extensionless points, contrary to the assumption. As extensionless points they can thus have no effect on each other, or on anything else, or they would change. Hence, if systems are infinitely divisible change cannot be internally-motivated -- or rather, the only change possible here would be that which merely arises from the rearrangement of these eternally changeless points.
Or
(2) The fundamental parts of reality are systems. But, they cannot have opposites that cause change. This is because those opposites would have to be external to each system, and that would mean that change would not be internally-driven, after all. Moreover, these opposites cannot be internal to that system either. If they were, that system could not change into that opposite, since that opposite would already exist.
Or:
(D) Everything is a sub-system of some sort no matter how much it is subject to sub-division. In that case, there are no point masses, since all sub-systems are infinitely divisible. Given this arrangement, while change is internal to the Totality it is not internal to its sub-systems, but external to them. This is because if change were exclusively internal to such sub-systems they could have no effect on each other. But, if no sub-system had any effect on any other, there would be no change in the Totality over and above, perhaps, the rearrangement of these non-interacting sub-systems. Hence, if the Totality changes, its sub-systems cannot. And this would be so all the way down, since these sub-system are infinitely divisible. This scenario would be different from (C) above in name only.
In that case, given this option, change would be internal to the Totality but external to each of its sub-systems. Moreover, even if the latter are UOs, that fact would have no influence on whether they changed or not. If it did, change would be internal to each sub-system, contrary to the supposition. So, if (D) is to be a viable option, change would not be the result of instability internal to such sub-systems because the latter are, on this supposition, externally-motivated.
However, a moment's thought will show that this option cannot work: If change is merely the result of re-arranging these sub-systems, then any larger system that contained these sub-systems would in fact change because of internal factors, contrary to the hypothesis.
Or:
(E) Change is not only internal to the Totality, but it is also internal and external to its sub-systems (as they 'mediate' one another, or they 'dialectically' interact). In that case, change to these sub-systems would not be the sole result of their own internal instabilities or 'inner contradictions', as dialecticians maintain.
Unfortunately, this would have profound implications for HM and the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism, for example. The contradictions inside the latter would now be insufficient to lead to its demise. External causes, over and above the class struggle and the falling rate of profit (etc.), would be required --, including, perhaps, bad weather, meteorite impact, or alien intervention (etc.).
Naturally, no one believes the class struggle is hermetically sealed against the rest of nature, but since these influences stretch off into infinity this would present HM with its own "bad infinity", which would end "who knows where?"
Not only that, if change is also external to each system, then the Totality (as a system itself) must be susceptible to just such external influences, allowing 'God' back in.
Any attempt to forestall that untoward implication would prompt the same sort of objection that stumps naive supporters of the Cosmological Argument [henceforth, COMA] for the existence of God: if everything has a cause, then what caused God?
Hence, if every system is subject to external causation, the question naturally becomes: What caused the Totality?
Clearly, this challenge can only be neutralised in one of two ways: (a) By an appeal to the alleged 'definition' of the Totality, in the way that theists respond to similar objections to the COMA, which would not be surprising given the mystical origin of DM; or (b) By an appeal to an infinite set of causes, which stretch off to "who knows where?", rendering the Totality irrational (in the way that Hegel tried to avoid by inventing his own system).
However, as Kant noted, the COMA had to be buttressed by a surreptitious appeal to the Ontological Argument [henceforth, ONAN]. So, from the supposed definition of the word "God" (as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived"), 'His' necessary and actual existence are 'derivable'. In that way, questions about 'His' origin are supposedly rendered meaningless.
In like manner, but in this case based on the meaning of "Totality" (i.e., "all that there is" or, maybe, "that than which there is nothing else", or "that outwith which nothing else can be conceived"), it could be argued that there is nothing outside the Totality that could cause it to exist.
So, the only way that dialecticians could defend this fall-back position (should they chose to adopt it) would be to use an atheist's version of the ONAN, on the lines that the Totality is "that than which there is nothing else".
Of course, such a defence would make plain the Linguistic Idealism implicit DM, for from the meaning of a few words once again substantive truths about reality will have been derived.
But, more importantly, if change is caused by the interplay of opposites, and objects and systems turn into these opposites, then, whether or not it is internally- or externally-induced, change would be impossible. As we saw here, if the opposite of a body or system exists, it cannot change into it, for it already exists!
On the other hand, if it doesn't already exist it can play no part in helping to change that object or system!
In view of their unwise commitment to 'inverted' Hegelian 'logic', there seem to be no other options open to DM-fans.
Moreover, if the last of these options is correct then (as we will also see here) the similarities between DM and Mystical Christianity would become even more apparent. For if there is a force external to the Universe that conditions it, then the Totality will have an external cause after all, and the DM-search for the "how" and the "why" will have run into the Ground Of All Being -- which ends "we all know where...".
The choice of title for such an ultimate cause does not affect any of the above points -- nor does it resolve the problems they expose -- since a Deity by any other name is still a Deity.
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Latest Update: 24/01/11
© Rosa Lichtenstein 2011
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