From: Paul Cockshott (paul@cockshott.com)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 17:45:49 EST
> > > Yes but that is what is to be explained in materialist terms: how > despite the tendency towards thermodynamic equilibrium does matter > organize itself? > The point is that the tendancy to equilibrium is long term, very long term maybe 10^15 years or so. For all of its history the universe has been in a disequilibrium state. > > I am looking for materialist explanations which allows us to go from > the idea already implicit in the mechanical world view that matter > moves itself to the possibility of self organizing (if not self > complexifying) matter and wondering whether in making a materialist > explanation of said transition the doctrine of materialism itself > undergoes any substantial (dialectical?) modification. What do we > mean by dialectical materialism (Levins and Lewontin), materialist > dialectics (Ilynenkov), emergent materialism (Mario Bunge)? I suggest you read Stuart Kauffmans book The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, he is very good on how complex systems come into being by autocatalysis > > > You have already marked this change by introducing concepts such as > emergence and levels of organization and the equivalence of energy > and matter. At the very least, materialism has to be freed from > reductionism and physicalism. Why, the essential precept of matterialism ( excuse the pun ) is that there is nothing but matter. The success of the sciences these last few centuries has been on the reductionist program. >
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