From: Andrew Brown (Andrew@lubs.leeds.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Dec 04 2002 - 11:09:55 EST
Hi Rakesh, Re your 8103: > > > >Perhaps we differ as regards our conception of the degree to which > >matter is passive or active. If, as you seem to suggest, we consider > >matter as somewhat analogous to the wood that constitutes a table > >then there seems nothing inherent within matter to develop specifc > >form. However, on my view, the totality of matter does have inherent > >propensities to develop specific forms. Such forms provide the > >objects of physics, chemistry, biology and also matter develops the > >forms of thinking and sociality, as studied by social science. > > I am puzzled here by the idea that there is something "inherent > within matter" that leads it to develop specific form. I shall just > share the questions which came to mind, again questions to which I > wish that I had reasonable answers. > > 1. Does this idea imply a kind of animism or what Kant would call > hylozoism (?; Michael, etymological help would be appreciated) which > would seem to violate both the law of intertia and the second law of > thermodynamics since matter seems to be arranging itself into complex > forms of its own accord in your interpretation? I don't know what you mean by animism or hylozism. You suggest that the notion that matter does things 'of its own accord' breaks the laws of physics. I would suggest the opposite: the notion that something other than matter does things to matter contradicts these laws. What 'other' could there be? 'God' or Cartesian 'Spirit' / 'mind', or what? What are the origins of the laws of physics, if not matter? Is there something external to matter which 'causes' these laws? I suggest that materialism consists in a negative answer to this question. Idealism, on my view, entails the answer that 'thought' constitutes this 'other'. How did Schelling > respond to Kant on this point in his Naturphilosophie? Was Marx > influenced by Schelling's answer to (or treatment of) the mind/matter > problem? John Bellamy Foster sees Schelling as a representative of > anti Epicurean idealism that Marx rejected, but I would like to know > more. > I'm afraid I am too ignorant to ask, let alone answer, these questions. > 2. Should the focus be here on matter or energy? There is for example > the idea that the stream of energy in the form of heat and radiation > as it's impinging upon our inorganic earth with its specific chemical > make up can or even must generate higher forms of molecular and > structural organization. The explanation here (though I cannot follow > the explanation) is that the flow of energy through a system organizes > that system because the build up of complexity promotes entropy > production and energy dissipation (a common example being the > honeycomb pattern of convection cells)? I wish I understood the new, > very ambitious attempts to show how the evolution of complex form can > be explained on the basis of thermodynamics. Haven't read Wicken or > Depew and Weber. I don't think that energy and matter are separate. Matter is inherently in motion; it doesn't need an external impulse to 'energise' it (i.e. to generate movement). I wish I wasn't so very ignorant about the science of self-organising systems and the like. Probably, something like the scientific developments to which you refer do indeed resonate with materialist dialectics. Many thanks, Andy > > Yours, Rakesh > >
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