• macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

    too materialist where's your dialect

    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      9 months ago

      My dialectic is internal contradictions move all things. Nature is dialectical, that doesn’t contradict determinism. Men may make their own history, but did they have the free will whether to do so?

      • ingirumimus [none/use name]
        ·
        9 months ago

        the above quote is very clearly anti-determinist: we may act within a web of social-economic conditions, and may have our actions altered by said conditions, but we still actively choose within those conditions

        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
          hexagon
          ·
          9 months ago

          How does it disprove determinism? Where do choices come from beyond a vast array of material factors? You can’t just quote Marx and say “see he disagrees with you” you have to show I’m wrong.

          • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]
            ·
            9 months ago

            You can’t just quote Marx and say “see he disagrees with you”

            gigachad-hd

            that aside, for this conversation to make sense you need to say which conception of "free will" you think is illusory. Sometimes people mean something like a spirit or soul expressing itself through your brain. Sure, that's not real, Engels' arguments against agnosticism apply. Some ideas are better. I personally don't think that determinism is a useful tool to predict individual behavior since we can't go back in time to prove it.

            • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
              ·
              8 months ago

              for this conversation to make sense you need to say which conception of "free will" you think is illusory

              I’m sad OP never directly responded to this as far as I can tell… because it would clear things up a lot

              Personally I don’t believe in the idea that people just make decisions independent of context, or have ideas from divine inspiration or “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”. In this sense classic free will doesn’t exist but also choice and, yes, to an extent, what some people would call free will does exist, because we still make choices and make our own histories, just in shit tons of context

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
              ·
              8 months ago

              https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm

              • Awoo [she/her]
                ·
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                My favourite part of Oppose Book Worship is how people treat it with book worship too.

                Not saying you are. It's just funny and came to mind.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  It is funny, though unfortunately pretty inline with Mao's cultural reception, where the Little Red Book was basically a pocket bible.

            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
              hexagon
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              My understanding of how thoughts work is a bunch of contradictions working themselves out and considering outside factors spontaneously. Why does free will fit in. Just because it's complex it doesn't make it free. Choices are not freely chosen, but chosen through the workings of the mind.

              • ingirumimus [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                ok so where is the line between what's been pre-determined and what hasn't been? Or is everything that is to happen already guaranteed to happen, down to the smallest possible action?

                • ped_xing [he/him]
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  I don't think there's any interpretation of quantum physics that allows for it to be clockwork, but I think it's a big leap from non-deterministic quantum phenomena to anything that could meaningfully be called free will.

                  Take a great hitter in baseball and try to determine what makes them so great at deciding when to swing. We try to see, right up until the moment when the batter commits to a swing, whether we can predict their actions in advance.

                  Some pitches, anyone could tell you not to swing at. Some, anyone could tell you to swing at. So the greatness lies in-between. Say for the sake of argument that it's 1/3rd, 1/3rd, 1/3rd.

                  Then we have other great hitters, coaches, physiologists, etc. analyze the pitches instead, more confidently classifying them as swing or don't, narrowing the band where the great hitter had a difficult choice to make, bringing us to 40%/40%/20%.

                  Then we outfit the player with all sorts of monitoring devices and watch the pitches in super slo-mo, revealing that on what had been previously considered too close to call, by the time it became apparent that the pitch was going to break, the batter's muscles were tensed up in such a way that trying to adjust would have resulted in a ground-out to first. 45%/45%/10%

                  We install a theoretical non-melon-musk brain implant to pick apart that mythical 10% and reduce it to 1%; the other 99% of the time, the batter is effectively acting as a complex machine.

                  At some point, though, we reach a pitch that really could have gone either way no matter how good our measurements were; a pitch that came down to a quantum roll of the dice. Is this the decision? Made by what? Subatomic particles that the batter had for lunch a while back? Does food get a welcoming party in the gut, where it's informed that it's now part of a baseball player and to be sure to take the fork in the wavefunction collapse that leads to more homeruns?

                  So yeah, when you look at it too closely, the idea that there's an "I" who deserves credit for all "I"'ve done kinda falls apart and can't be salvaged at the quantum level, either. Still, it's a powerful illusion that we all basically buy into all of the time that we're not thinking about it or taking hallucinogens, so I'm going back to it now.

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  Nothing is pre-determined per se. Everything is a product of the myriad factors and interactions of matter in the universe. The world is absurd I don’t believe in a plan or fate. My point is that free will does not exist in any form except as a perception of the spontaneous workings of our brains. I don’t think too hard about how everything that happens is inevitable, but that is the logical conclusion. I don’t think too hard about it because the world’s too complicated to predict with precision and that’s the beauty of it. Scientific socialism is the most accurate worldview for understanding how the world works closest to the truth.

                  • ingirumimus [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Nothing is pre-determined per se

                    I don't think too hard about how everything that happens is inevitable, but that is the logical conclusion

                    These seem to be saying the exact opposite of each other - if everything is inevitable, it is therefore pre-determined.

                    As for the relation between the physical (chemical, biological, etc) processes of the brain and consciousness, you're absolutely right that the latter necessarily arises from the former, but that does not mean that our consciousness is reducible to just those processes. Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon and, even if we were able to trace all the physical processes of the brain, we would still not be able to entirely explain our subjective experience.

                    For scientific socialism, I think relying too much on a deterministic outlook creates a very sterile, complacent ideology. Look at the pre-WWII communist parties of Europe, who were positivistic determinists par excellence. They believed wholeheartedly in the inevitability of a socialist revolution, and look where that got them. I think a more productive view would be to embrace the inherent unpredictability of human action, our capacity to break out of a given historical moment. Nothing is guaranteed or pre-determined (however probable), and it is precisely because of that fact that our actions are meaningful, that praxis is a worthwhile endeavor.

                    I hope this doesn't come off as too critical, I appreciate you sharing your views comrade

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      Thanks for a good faith response.

                      These seem to be saying the exact opposite of each other - if everything is inevitable, it is therefore pre-determined.

                      It is a little weird phrasing. I just mean there is no plan, but maybe this is the inevitable outcome of all the complex physical processes of the universe.

                      Consciousness is a truly impressive thing to come about in the universe whatever it is.

                      For scientific socialism, I think relying too much on a deterministic outlook creates a very sterile, complacent ideology.

                      That's why I adopt ontological uncertainty. Regardless of if the future is inevitable, I do not know how it will turn out because the universe is to complex for me to comprehend.

                      • ingirumimus [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        Oh I see, thanks for clarifying, I think I misunderstood your point about ontological uncertainty, that makes a lot of sense

              • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                What, but, that would include what is materially a thing, because as far as we know things like half-lives are truly random, so those could subtly influence material conditions to the point that people make different decisions if time was rewound

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  That sounds highly unlikely, but maybe possible? It doesn't validate free will, but it's hard to come up with a good definition. The problem is secular "free will" believers will object to it being like a soul, which is the easiest way to describe it.

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

      Yeah this is definitely just a terminology argument, they’re arguing for dialectical materialism but phrased it as if they believed in supernatural determinism, probably because supernatural free will is the default hardline stance for most people and it’s satisfying to take the direct opposite take the way it’s satisfying to be Satanist and stuff

      Or maybe they think Communist Jesus defines all our actions idfk

  • RonPaulyShore [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Men will literally engage in the most insane metaphysical sophistry instead of going to therapy.

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Ah yes, telling fat/poor people to just go to therapy, a very leftist thing to do.

      Sometimes things are just outside of people’s control. I don’t like “determinism” but a naive “free will” often comes across as self-help bullshit

  • HexBroke
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    deleted by creator

  • Maoo [none/use name]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Dialectical materialism holds that both are at work but that material conditions are dominant. As a response to idealism, it's not simply materialism.

      • Maoo [none/use name]
        ·
        9 months ago

        Free will is a metaphysical question that science cannot address. It can rule out some false claims about it, like some historical religious claims, but not the basic metaphysical question. Over time science will only build more and more specific explanations that show minds to be contingent on biological, chemical, physical, mechanisms and a relatively straightforward framework of causal reality. It will seem to narrow down the possibility for free will because it makes the space occupied by a ghost in the machine smaller and more fringe, but this is drawing too much from the religious tradition of blurring metaphysical and scientifically investigable questions - it will address only those hypotheses that confuse the two the same way it addresses the falsehood of all animals being created in their current forms all at once.

        The kind of thinking you're referring to is called vulgar materialism by Marxists and Marx and Engels specifically criticized it; it's incompatible with the basic Marxist framing of political organization. Lenin famously derogatorily referenced the quote, "the brain secretes thought in the same way as the liver secretes bile" and spent a lot of time crapping on it.

        Vulgar materialism lends a helping hand to the ruling class as it gives a definitive answer to the question of whether you "should" decide to politically organize and foment revolution: "no and your question is invalid because you can't choose to do anything". Dialectical materialism is a direct response to both an idealistic dialectic (Hegel) and vulgar materialists (positivist-inclined liberals).

        • whogivesashit@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          9 months ago

          Humans have no issue with identifying cause and effect in everything but their own heads. To believe we are immune or that it is "unknown" is akin to believing in the soul imo. We aren't special. Just another part of the universe.

          • Maoo [none/use name]
            ·
            9 months ago

            Being part of the universe doesn't change the metaphysical question, it just rejects a historical religious framing of it. Souls, a ghost in the machine, etc. Most people believe in the latter and have for a very long time, so it's understandable that this is the usual object of the critique, but it doesn't exhaust the question.

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                Who said I had materialist free will?

                I'm just pointing out various inconsistencies and errors in thought. Whether I have a personal position that is super smart or the worst thing you've ever heard wouldn't change the fact that these analyses or claims have the faults I've pointed out.

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  So you're debating 19th century German philosophers on behalf of a 19th century german philosopher. All I mean by determinism is that free will doesn't exist.

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Marx is a 19th century German philosopher, though his philosophy was dead-set on building a framework for overthrowing capitalism. Diamat is weird German philosophy, it's about 80% of why it's so hard to understand in the first place.

                    So, philosophy nerds tend to separate determinism from free will for the purpose of asking whether they are compatible. When I see people saying free will doesn't exist, that determinism is instead what's up, and that science is saying things about the matter, I interpret you're an incompatibilist that believes in a materialist determinism and an absence of free will. I see other folks in the comments making similar statements, including fatalistic ones.

                    So where am I going wrong?

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      You're wrong in assuming free will does exist. I'm agnostic about hard line determinism, I just use it as a stand in for the antithesis of assuming there is free will. I've said this before, but "free will" assumes a human above nature and a soul like entity. I refer you to the Lemmygrad side for what does exist if there's no free will.

                      • Maoo [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        When I said, "where am I going wrong?" I was obviously referring to the summary I had just given, none of which included "I assume free will exists".

                        So, were am I going wrong in that summary?

                        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                          hexagon
                          ·
                          8 months ago

                          The summary is pretty much correct, but I can not tell if you have held on to your initial position that compatibilism is correct. One of the first comments science cannot prove the existence of free will, but I have yet to see even a coherent philosophical argument for it.

                          • Maoo [none/use name]
                            ·
                            8 months ago

                            You are incorrect about what things I've said but it's become redundant with the other threads so I'm going to stop replying to this particular chain.

          • Maoo [none/use name]
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            The vulgar materialism criticized by Marx, Lenin, etc is a passive one that will happily include social relations in its purview. It is primarily called vulgar in contrast to being dialectical. Where Marx, Lenin, etc see a capacity to drive revolution through class consciousness and revolutionary consciousness, emphasizing that this is a necessary piece of revolution that interplays with material conditions, their predecessors (and contemporaries, and subsequent critics) would more often stand back and say that the events unfolded due to, simply, the material conditions.

            Here's a Lenin quote among many: "The new Iskra-ist method of expressing its views reminds one of Marx’s opinion (in his famous) of the old materialism, which was alien to the ideas of dialectics. The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways, said Marx, the point, however, is to change it"

            Lenin's analysis is simple, possibly even simplistic compared to what he was referencing, but he played a big part in defining what the term means.

            Althusser is also a good read on this: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1953/onmarx/on-marxism.htm .

            • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              emphasizing that this is a necessary piece of revolution that interplays with material conditions, their predecessors (and contemporaries, and subsequent critics) would more often stand back and say that the events unfolded due to, simply, the material conditions.

              Here we are, this is the quote that reveals the argument.

              WE ARE NOT SAYING THERE IS A DETERMINED SET OF EVENTS THAT ARE DESIGNED TO PLAY OUT- our decisions, our goals, our beliefs ALL MATTER. We MAKE OUR OWN HISTORY and decide what WE DO AND WHAT WE SAY.

              BUT.

              THE THINGS PROVIDED TO US are, to an extent, out of our control- Eventually, we will find a variable we cannot directly influence, and eventually those variables reach beyond our “sphere of control” and those variables outside of our control as individuals still affect us (consider systemic discrimination, telling a random individual to simply act as if it does not exist is absurd, and the supernatural “free will” position basically asks everyone to do that about everything, but working together we can change a lot, and not in an unrealistic or absurd way involving anime power ups and screaming)

              We can change the power we have and gain the ability to influence more things, even topple systems, but this does not happen in a vacuum- We gain the ability to do so because we gain the thought to do so because we observe reality or read a book or think about something- We do not spontaneously gain urges and desires from supernatural inspiration (probably).

              So, I don’t really consider myself a determinist, because determinism implies a one true path everything follows that’s set out for us. I just think the original conception of “free will”- the very specific idea that every individual is some sort of anime-level entity capable of determining everything about their life through sheer willpower, which is used to justify hating the poor, the unhealthy, or the infirm- is complete bourgoisie bullshit.

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                I offered a framing like that - that choice exists constrained by material conditions (historically contingent, etc) - and OP rejected it and started talking about 2 or 3 other things. You may want to reconsider who the "we" is referring to and if you really agree with each other. As a reminder, they also said free will was disproven by science lol.

                I think several folks here are just starting to learn about these things and are making mistakes. That's not a problem in itself unless there's a resistance to seeking understanding, of adopting defensive behavior rather than accepting and contending with criticism, etc. Then it becomes difficult to share understanding and mutually arrive at correct thinking.

                If you read what I've said elsewhere in this thread, you'll find several quotations, references, and reframings that all say the same basic thing about the nature of choice, will, etc in diamat as characterized by Marx and Marxists. A lot of it overlaps with what you're saying, but none of it seemed to resonate with any of those rm disagreeing with me. What do you think that says about the positions here and the nature of the disagreement?

                PS this statement is... not correct: "I just think the original conception of “free will”- the very specific idea that every individual is some sort of anime-level entity capable of determining everything about their life through sheer willpower, which is used to justify hating the poor, the unhealthy, or the infirm- is complete bourgoisie bullshit." I doubt anyone knows the first conception but even the old ones were more sophisticated than this. Even the organized religious ones were. And they all predate capitalism and the bourgeois class.

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  You and EB have a similar compatibilist viewpoint. I am skeptical of compatibilism because I have yet to hear a coherent argument for any sort free will that is not agnostic. I never said it was disproved by science, just that I can find no scientific arguments for it. Maybe I should check out Dennet.

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    I haven't actually stated my viewpoint and I've reminded you of this several times.

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      Your position is not compatiblism, but that neither free will nor determinism are correct, and science can not prove either. Basically the same as EB. Is that correct?

                      If so, I suppose I’ll have to agree with you. I still think it’s interesting to ponder whether everything as it exists is simply the inevitable result of the universe’s conditions as far back as possible, but that is not a useful question.

                      • Maoo [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        Think of it this way: criticism can be valid without a positive alternative being provided. An outcome of attenuation is itself valuable.

                        If you are in a planning meeting with comrades and someone suggests your org fights for a liberal politician to raise the minimum wage, a good org will listen to the (hopefully) many criticisms of this without expecting the critics to immediately provide their own alternative projects. Of course it would be good and healthy to develop alternatives, but imagine if the response to criticism of bourgeois electoralism was saying, "but you thought we should do rallies and that's stupid" or, "so you think we should just do nothing!?" This is incorrect thinking both rationally and in terms of being productive and extracting value from criticism.

                        IRL organizing you'll be able to navigate these things and achieve better outcomes by choosing other types of responses and thinking! Positive examples (lol) include open-ended questions, accepting critique and synthesizing new framings, and leading people to shared positions by going, "yes and...", that sort of thing.

                        PS to contradict myself I don't follow these recommendations all the time. Sometimes it feels inauthentic to be in "organizer mode". But it could be something good to try out a few times.

                • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  Bourgoisie in that it is used to justify bourgoisie ideology in present day

                  And I do think people are rejecting your explanations because the conversation just sort of started hostily and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was enough to stop people from trying to reconcile

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    The old concepts of free will aren't used to justify bourgeois ideology... bourgeois ideology created new versions and normalized them, leading people to believe it was always so. For example, if you used an etymological definition of original you'd be referring to the one of the Roman Catholic Church whose religious framing is entirely replaced within capitalist ideology.

                    I can't imagine what you think is hostile in how the conversation started.

                    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      I can't imagine what you think is hostile in how the conversation started.

                      The nature of communist theory sort of leads to a “You are a fake Marxist” accusation that you’ve been saying, not just because you intend it but because discussing communist theory is just like that

            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
              hexagon
              ·
              8 months ago

              Exactly, but where does dialectics debunk determinism. It's very easy to have a dialectical view of nature and still not believe in free will.

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                That's not generally how philosophy works. I'm just pointing out the basis of diamat as framed by Marx et al. You are free to hold whatever position you want, I don't really care, but holding hard and fast to determinism and no free will is a rejection of diamat.

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  How? I am no mechanical materialist, I just didn't realize I need to write an essay on dialectics to show such. Believing in "free" will is a rejection of diamat because it implies an entity beyond material reality with the power to control one's body.

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      Mechanical materialist determinism is a rejection of dialectical materialism. I am not that, and thus you are debated what you assume is my position rather than what actually is. As another user pointed out it is foolish to be so arrogant to think humans are above the rest of the universe to be blessed with a "free will." It is true we have wills, but they are not "free."

                      • Maoo [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        In the "free will is incompatible with science" thread you linked early on, the only arguments for that case were overtly deterministic, as in the mechanical materialist determinism you're referring to.

                        But okay let's say it was a miscommunication. Marxism is very much focused on agency to foment revolution but grounding it a material analysis (and the interplay between both). What is your point? Just that agency exists within the confines of material conditions? I don't think that was communicated at all lol

                        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                          hexagon
                          ·
                          8 months ago

                          My point is that if we are materialists there is no reason for us to believe in free will. Some hard determinist arguments make total sense they are just far too optimistic about how easily the world is known. Dialectics complicates things and brings us closer to the truth of how the universe works.

                          • Maoo [none/use name]
                            ·
                            8 months ago

                            So... not the thing I said? I honestly can't tell. The relevance of this conversation to Marxism is in our part, and agency within, the dialectic.

                            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                              hexagon
                              ·
                              8 months ago

                              I agree, the question is whether the word "agency" implies free will or not. I recognize "wills" with agency, but "free" implies it is beyond the material world in part.

                              • Maoo [none/use name]
                                ·
                                8 months ago

                                Don't get tripped up by etymology! It's of questionable value to semantics.

                                There have been arguments for free will that depended on the supernatural and I think that's what the critics here are focusing on. To contradict myself, the origins of the term are with the Catholic Church and intended to justify very specific supernatural positions.

                                But it's not an inherent aspect of the claim, philosophically. Nerds have been arguing about this for millennia and have enumerated a very long list of framings that make their position (pro or con sliced ten different ways) possible (the lowest of philosophical claims). This includes, but is not limited to, hardline atheistic materialists like Daniel Dennett, a compatibilist.

                                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                                  hexagon
                                  ·
                                  8 months ago

                                  I am skeptical of the possibility of a true materialist free will argument but I will look into it. I’ll look into Dennett. I think we understand each other’s positions better now. Thanks for the interesting, at times annoying, but ultimately relatively fun discussion. Is there anyone else I should look into?

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    It's not hard to find folks here using this as a form of fatalism, including vulgar materialism. It pops up both in the form of saying proletarian revolution and socialism are inevitable and in those who take hard determinism (often without even knowing that's what it is) to its logical conclusion of the idea of trying to do anything to build revolution being a category error. I would like people to organize, not paralyze themselves with their first foray into philosophy.

                      • Maoo [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        Yeah I think we are more in agreement than maybe both of us thought originally. Maybe just imprecise communication on my part. I try to avoid getting overly jargony but sometimes that can be an overcorrection that swings back into miscommunication territory.

        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
          hexagon
          ·
          9 months ago

          I am a dialectical materialist. The material world is a lot more complicated than some determinists make it seem. Just because there are contradictions in everything doesn’t mean determinism is disproven.

          • Maoo [none/use name]
            ·
            9 months ago

            One of Marx's main things was in picking fights with Feuerbach on this exact issue, though, and Dialectical Materialism is strictly incompatible with vulgar materialism.

            This is an interesting reading on the topic: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/

            I'm not saying you can't personally be a determinist but it is a contradiction to say someone is both diamat and a materialist determinist.

            From that reading: "The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated"

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]
              ·
              9 months ago

              it is a contradiction to say someone is both diamat and a materialist determinist.

              Unless "materialist determinist" means something incongruous with the words used to name it here, you're being silly. The material dialectic is one of matter with matter. There can be no coherent Marxism that isn't one of compatibilism on the basis that humans are materially reducible but what they can be reduced to is still much more complex than just receptacles of their experiences.

              In essence, there are crass materialists who use determinism to try to smuggle absurdly abstracted fatalism in the garb of science (and the lazy meme in the OP comes off as this), but that has nothing to do with a proper materialist assessment.

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                9 months ago

                Unless "materialist determinist" means something incongruous with the words used to name it here, you're being silly.

                ???

                OP is clearly referring to determinism in a materialist sense and one that leads to a poverty of action. Early on, Marx struggled with this in critiques of Feuerbach et al and eventually settled on a more coherent conceptualization of dialectical materialism that centered social forces. A rigid subscription to determinism and a rejection of free will implies a poverty of action and a resignation. Anyone can feel free to adopt that, just don't call it compatible with dialectical materialism or Marxist thought more generally.

                The material dialectic is one of matter with matter. There can be no coherent Marxism that isn't one of compatibilism on the basis that humans are materially reducible but what they can be reduced to is still much more complex than just receptacles of their experiences.

                OP has rejected free will and appealed to a materialist determinism, citing science. This is not exactly a compatibilist framing lol.

                In essence, there are crass materialists who use determinism to try to smuggle absurdly abstracted fatalism in the garb of science (and the lazy meme in the OP comes off as this), but that has nothing to do with a proper materialist assessment.

                I would say that vulgar materialism is still proper materialist, it's just not Marxist.

                I'm not invested in the philosophical debate itself because it's pretty clear basically nobody actually reads 19th century German philosophy, and rarely carefully, and that's what would be needed to go back and forth on a level deeper than where I'm trying to keep it: "Marx said X" and not "Marx was right because [nerd terms]". I also don't think it really matters other than to push back against, as you mention, fatalistic thinking. This tends to paralyze in either extreme: that revolution is inevitable so you can observe the world without dedicating yourself to revolution or that you lack agency and the future is simply out of your hands, good or bad. I'd like to see folks joining and creating orgs and gaining the skills of getting people to engage in collective action.

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  A rigid subscription to determinism and a rejection of free will implies a poverty of action and a resignation. Anyone can feel free to adopt that, just don't call it compatible with dialectical materialism or Marxist thought more generally.

                  There are different kinds of determinism that get called materialist, and my argument hinges on separating them. As an example, there is economic determinism (here is someone arguing Marx is not that), which though metaphysically materialist is idealist in the Marxist sense of relying on abstraction that rejects some aspects of causality in the material world. In The German Ideology, for example, he refers to Hegelians as idealist in this special sense because they considered only, to put it crassly, their intellectual circlejerking over Consciousness and so on as though all of humanity was causally downstream from this when that is plainly not the case. Likewise, though it appears more materialist than whatever the Hegelians were doing, economic determinism is still discounting the causality of non-economic factors in the world and therefore meets this particular definition of idealist. Among these non-economic factors, of course, are things like the person's own psychology, or those aspects which cannot be credited to their economic position (we can start with their perception of space if it must be proved that such aspects exist).

                  So what I'm complaining about are determinist framings that claim the idea of materialism while discounting factors that exist within material reality. Whether you choose to act or not is itself a material factor, and the fact that Laplace's Demon could have predicted it is beside the point. There is no overarching I-Swear-This-Is-Materialist-Guys Destiny that operates independently from your choices, those choices are part of the causal chain as they are both caused and causing. Anyone who uses a phrase like OP of "free will is an illusion" is surely deluding themselves into quietism with a belief in some kind of destiny that is absolutely at odds with sincere materialism. Such people are just renaming Fate to Science and misappropriating scientific anecdotes and rhetoric to clumsily defend this sleight-of-hand.

                  OP has rejected free will and appealed to a materialist determinism, citing science. This is not exactly a compatibilist framing lol.

                  OP is being silly, but my point is that a compatibilist framing is one that endorses the idea of free will as an element of a nonetheless-deterministic system, which I think is the only way one can do Marxism coherently. Then again, I suppose this position comes from the fact that I think you need compatibilism to do anything coherently, so this isn't nearly as focused an argument as I thought it was (and I didn't think it was very focused to begin with).

                  I'm not invested in the philosophical debate itself because it's pretty clear basically nobody actually reads 19th century German philosophy, and rarely carefully,

                  In my defense, I do read Schopenhauer sometimes, but what you really mean I assume are the more popular authors like the Hegelians and so on. I do make some effort to read Engels carefully, but he has the merit of not being as interested in Hegel as Marx.

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    8 months ago

                    It sounds like we have basically the same opinion but just expressed it in ways that lead to miscommunication, lol.

                    If I were to tweak something to match my approach more closely, it's that I consider diamat to be closer to a framework of investigation, one epistemology (that I'm a fan of) among several, just like "the" scientific method or the accumulated knowledge of communities that doesn't fit cleanly into a Eurocentric framing. I don't really need it to be more than that, so I'm okay with the idea that it also has its limitations. What matters is that we can become more determined and better at building revolution - and diamat definitely helps in one's thinking about it.

                    Re: 19th century German philosophers I have regrettably read many. It's only useful for exactly this topic, which is to say, not very. Wiederholen sie auf Deutsch. Okay it's also useful for one other thing: I can make toxic Trots and DSA libs shut up sometimes irl.

                    Fun fact: Freud used plain German words for id, ego, etc. Academics that love to get up their own asses decided to make them Latin in translation.

                    • GarbageShoot [he/him]
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      It sounds like we have basically the same opinion but just expressed it in ways that lead to miscommunication, lol.

                      Fair enough, that's what most of these things end up being

                      If I were to tweak something to match my approach more closely, it's that I consider diamat to be closer to a framework of investigation, one epistemology (that I'm a fan of) among several, just like "the" scientific method or the accumulated knowledge of communities that doesn't fit cleanly into a Eurocentric framing. I don't really need it to be more than that, so I'm okay with the idea that it also has its limitations. What matters is that we can become more determined and better at building revolution - and diamat definitely helps in one's thinking about it.

                      I dislike the idea of reducing diamat to "merely" a lens to view things rather than a scientific method that can and should be developed to overcome whatever limitations it has. You might like this essay, which unfortunately I can only find in audio form now. I don't like show-and-tell philosophy where everything is a toy to be played with and then put away, it feels nihilistic.

                      Okay it's also useful for one other thing: I can make toxic Trots and DSA libs shut up sometimes irl.

                      rat-salute

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  OP is clearly referring to determinism in a materialist sense and one that leads to a poverty of action.W

                  Where did I imply this, allow me to quote myself on my previous post.

                  in recognizing determinism one can resign themselves to the supposed inevitable - that would be stupid, or one could go on living as if they had free will even though it’s probably determined or at least random. Remember that even if it is determined your determined actions still matter. Being convinced whether or not you have free will may be out of your control, but the following actions will still affect the world.

                  There's my dialectics.

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Where did I imply this

                    The title of this post, the content of this post, and your first response to me.

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      Sorry for making my meme simplified without a long caveat explaining what I mean exactly philosophically.

                        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                          hexagon
                          ·
                          8 months ago

                          So what is it? This whole argument seems to have started because you didn't like that I used "determinism" positively in the title, as you assumed it implied I thought the universe worked in simple mechanics as Marx's opponents did.

                          • Maoo [none/use name]
                            ·
                            8 months ago

                            What is what? I think my criticism is pretty plain and I've had to repeat it many times.

                            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                              hexagon
                              ·
                              8 months ago

                              Your position from the first comment is free will and determinism both exist. I have never seen a reason to believe in free will. That is why we are at odds. I don't know if I believe in determinism, but free will as most people use it is incompatible with dialectical materialism.

                              • Maoo [none/use name]
                                ·
                                8 months ago

                                Your position from the first comment is free will and determinism both exist.

                                Are you sure about that?

                                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                                  hexagon
                                  ·
                                  edit-2
                                  8 months ago

                                  Dialectical materialism holds that both are at work but that material conditions are dominant.

                                  Am I supposed to take "both" to not include "free will?"

            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
              hexagon
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              How am I a vulgar materialist? You can't just say "my idea is in this category, and yours is in that category, therefore you are wrong." For your quote, where does that contradict my ideas. Yes, things are more complicated than acting like a person is a billiard ball or a pure subject. In dialectical materialism all things are subjects and objects, but where does the choice come in. All you're saying is things are more complicated than certain determinists make out and I'm not denying that. P.S. Breht from Revolutionary Left Radio is a determinist and he's as marxist as you can get.

              • Maoo [none/use name]
                ·
                8 months ago

                Dialectical Materialism is not a sterile philosophical framework, it's a cart being driven by the horse of stoking revolutionary action. Marx's writings were about how to be a revolutionary, why be a revolutionary, what is fundamentally at issue with capitalism that requires revolution, and how can we address revolution via the "right" epistemological framework. Its most basic statement is to reject (1) the (pejorative of) idealism, of placing a framework of understanding in the driver's seat and conforming material reality to fit within in, and (2) vulgar materialism, which is to say a sterile materialism that says material forces caused X to happen and there ya go, end of story. In rejecting the latter there is a call to action, of recognizing the ability to self-shape and foment revolution through developed class consciousness, through revolutionary class consciousness. One of the reasons Marx spends so much time clarifying proletarians from lumpens and personally pushing to organize and radicalize. Diamat is a philosophy of activism.

                Holding hard to this kind of deterministic thinking is a vulgarization that strips the entirety of the activist struggle. You seem to call something diamat if it recognizes mutual shaping of material conditions and society, but if that society and you and your org have no agency then the point is entirely moot. You have merely created a framework of describing a clockwork, not at all what Marx was getting at. The subjectivity addressed, for example, is not just being the subject of an object. As an epistemological endeavor, the whole point of diamat is to use it to explore how to build revolution. What you choose to build, how you advocate, who you fight and argue with, etc.

                I'm not surprised that a Western self-labeled Marxist podcaster may be incoherent lol. The thing that characterizes the Western left more than anything is a deep urge to have and share strong opinions, to do insufficient self-criticism, and then call it a day, failing to actually organize anything. But I dunno I don't follow or really care about that one dude.

                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                  hexagon
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  I know what Marxism is and I know people affect society. I just don't know where you think free will comes from. At this point it just seems like you're mad I used the word "determinism." I'll have you know Breht is not a hot takes kind of guy except when he shows his raw emotions around palestine. He is a nuanced dialectician and the podcast where he mentioned determinism wasn't meant to be widely seen or make anyone mad.

                  • Maoo [none/use name]
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Why do I need to know where free will comes from? This line of pushback makes no sense to me. I do not need to provide a positive alternative for your claims to be contradictory. Contradictory claims are not good and true by default, waiting for a pure and good alternative until they can really properly be contradicted. What would be so bad about saying, "oh I guess this doesn't make sense" and just... leaving it there and probing deeper later?

                    The hard line incompatibilist determinism you and others are mentioning is basically what liberals hold up as a straw man to criticize Marx's strong emphasis on material conditions (including historical contingency on past human action) shaping all the context in which we operate, including the shape of our thoughts. Something something "like a nightmare".

                    Re: podcast guy, maybe he's fine who knows but I cannot recommend, "a podcast guy said it" as a supporting argument for why a philosophical position isn't contradictory. Cold takes can also be incoherent and this one is about 150 years old.

                    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                      hexagon
                      ·
                      8 months ago

                      Contradictions are within all things including ideas, I'm sure there are contradictions in mine and I try to work through them. However, I don't know what you're pointing to that invalidates my argument. Free will can't exist in a material world. Consciousness arises from the world and acts within it as a part of it. It is not an outside actor as anyone who proposes free will assumes, and it is not simply being acted upon as a non-dialectical determinist would assume. Determinism doesn't mean the world is simple, it means it is knowable and free will doesn't exist. No one individual or society has the capacity to be laplace's demon, so we might as well act like we have free will. I only appealed to authority because you weren't listening to my rational argumentation and I hoped you'd know one of the most principled online figures.

                      • Maoo [none/use name]
                        ·
                        8 months ago

                        I don't mean contradictions in the dialectical sense. I mean truly incompatible ideas being called compatible. A=B but also A!=B. I am a hippopotamus and also a hummingbird. Category errors. That kind of thing.

                        I'm not hearing anything in the other statements that clarifies how your position is not a materialist determinism, which was implied by earlier references. Everything said there is consistent with materialist determinism as are the fairly basic criticisms of free will (they are actually the usual arguments for materialist determinant as well lol).

                        I didn't call referencing a podcast guy an appeal to authority.

                        If you review our interaction I think you'll see that I've tried very hard to listen to you and explain what I'm talking about in a way that addresses what you are saying, including with references and trying to use both academic and non-academic language. When people take their time to do these things it is a comradely exercise.

                        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                          hexagon
                          ·
                          8 months ago

                          OK then, I think I understand your perspective on the argument. My language use may have contradictions, but I have articulated the ideas I subscribe to the best I can.

                          I know I am using arguments in common with mechanical materialists. My position is they are wrong because they failed to see the complexity of the world as seen through dialectics.

                          I did not mean to suggest you were calling me fallacious. I was simply admitting it was an attempt at Ethos because my Logos was failing to reach you.

                          • Maoo [none/use name]
                            ·
                            8 months ago

                            I don't understand what you mean by mechanical materialists being wrong due to the complexity of the world. Mechanical materialism is entirely compatible with an arbitrarily complex world so long as it follows certain ideas of causality.

                            The key issue is that fatalism is incompatible with Marxism and I see all of the ingredients of fatalism in this post and interaction (though the conclusion is unclear). Will the world work out how it's going to no matter what, or do you have the agency to try and shape it? Or, most importantly, are you spreading a consciousness of inevitability? Diamat is antithetical to that.

                            • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                              hexagon
                              ·
                              8 months ago

                              My position is whether or not the universe is fatalist it doesn’t have rhyme or reason and we are part of the universe’s movement, not on the sidelines. We don’t know whether there is inevitability or what is inevitable. If the fatalists are right that shouldn’t lead to inaction.

                              • Maoo [none/use name]
                                ·
                                8 months ago

                                I'm even more confused now as the universe having no rhyme or reason is also incompatible with diamat. Discovering patterns, tendencies, conclusions from the material is core to it and those patterns are rhyme or reason. Capital is a work that is entirely about how the capitalist system follows clear material forces, that it subjugates all classes to its mechanisms, and that its class dynamics prime its downfall at the hands of the working class.

                                • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
                                  hexagon
                                  ·
                                  8 months ago

                                  Maybe I phrased that poorly. The universe has no ultimate purpose or intention. The way things worked out seems relatively random, but it is a result of material laws. It is possible to study the world and find patterns.

          • Wheaties [she/her]
            ·
            9 months ago

            That doesn't mean its proven, either. The quantum mechanical world does not appear to fit our deterministic models. It suggests those models are only approximations of reality, that they only have a useful predictive capacity within a cosmically narrow set of conditions.

              • Wheaties [she/her]
                ·
                8 months ago

                it's unknown, the bit of the map that says "here be dragons". Maybe there is some quantum component to the phenomenon we're calling free will. Maybe it's just a hallucination of meat. To say one or the other definitively isn't happening, that it does not exist, would be a crude misrepresentation of the research.

  • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    People immediately jumping to the Marx quote is so sad and funny because literally no one is saying you can’t choose things, we’re saying free will has not and could not ever exist, it is a made up concept, you would have to be a supernatural being completely independent from all material context to exist with free will. You can certainly make your own history and decisions, but the decisions presented to you and the reasons you make those decisions are all shaped by other things! Without the influence of outside things, you would be nothing, a form without content making no decisions and with no purpose! Decision and control are intertwined- Both free will and determinism are nonsensical concepts!

    You are given a hand of cards and it’s your choice what to do with them, but it’s important to keep in mind that what thoughts you have about choosing the cards is also part of your hand and so are the prompts for those thoughts or the skill you have in poker or… so it’s kind of recursive using this metaphor but hopefully you get the point, I’m not saying people are set to a specific path or can’t make choices

    Also I am hardline against determinism too because it’s a meaningless concept without being able to actually predict the future Oracle style

  • tactical_trans_karen [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I'm not reading through this whole thread to see where this might fit in, I'mma drop it right here.

    I saw some chatter about free will being a historically religious driven ideology, essentially boiling it all down to a spirit or soul housed inside our bodies. And this invalidates it because it is not scientific or materialist.

    There's points that I could argue about that, but that's a different rabbit hole. The thing I want to touch on is the fact that determinism has also been historically driven by religion, and in a very official capacity. The Christian reformation had a notable figure by the name of John Calvin, who preached the doctrine of predestination. In this view, God's elect will go to heaven and nerds go to hell. This wasn't some deviation from a lot of traditional Catholic teachings, but he had a weird fixation on it. It's also present in many other conservative interpretations of different faiths.

    This belief has been used as an excuse to shit on marginalized people in the same way that the meme depicts, except it's framed in terms of 'God made you less than, and I will treat your as such because that is your lot. Don't you dare argue with it, it's ordained by God!'.

    • theturtlemoves [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      John Calvin preached the doctrine of predestination. In this view, God's elect will go to heaven and nerds go to hell. This wasn't some deviation from a lot of traditional Catholic teachings, but he had a weird fixation on it.

      Huh? Catholic and Orthodox churches do not believe in predestination.

    • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      It is true opposing ideologies can make use of many of the same ideas. Also, one ideology can have supporters with diametrically opposed ideas. Dialectics, I suppose.

  • SirKlingoftheDrains [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    DECIDE, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

    A leaf was riven from a tree,
    "I mean to fall to earth," said he.

    The west wind, rising, made him veer.
    "Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."

    The east wind rose with greater force.
    Said he: "'Twere wise to change my course."

    With equal power they contend.
    He said: "My judgment I suspend. "

    Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
    Cried: "I've decided to fall straight."

    "First thoughts are best?" That's not the moral;
    Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.

    Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
    You'll have no hand in it at all. —G.J.

    Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary