Dialectics 101

divine focus · Post by **divine focus** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 6:32 am

Yes. I agree!

divine focus · Post by **divine focus** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:39 am

A Utopian society cannot be achieved by altering human nature through ideology, positive thinking, inspiration, religion, philosophy, or any other "abstract" factor such as these. Instead, Utopia is approached and attained primarily through technological advancement. Technology gradually changes human nature automatically and effectively, by making obsolete the factors which underlie a destructive psychology.

This is true. What defines technology is science, technology simply being it's application. Science will undergo a change, where people individually take back their scientific authority from the "experts." This individual science is what will lead to the technology of "Utopia." The technology will be highly personal and not easily encompassed by an ideology or philosophy. It is something developed individually, most likely with the help of material technology.

zarathustra · Post by **zarathustra** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:10 am

Do dialectics support the theory of evolution or creationism? Can one be a dialectition and believe in god? Do they compliment eachother? How? How not? I have a lot to learn...
z

Unidian · Post by **Unidian** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:14 am

Evolution, generally. Dialectical thought is in no way opposed to scientific findings. Within a dialectical framework, creationism and other such ideas can be seen as the antithesis of scientific thinking. Whether or not a dialectical thinker can believe in "God" depends on how one defines that term.

Pincho Paxton · Post by **Pincho Paxton** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:50 pm

Monism is the idea that everything in the world is made from a single undivided "substance." It doesn't matter what the substance is, the important thing is that it is a single substance that everything comes from, rather than two or more substances. This may seem like a strange thing to worry about, but it's really very important, because much of Western culture is based on the idea that there are two basic substances in the world, usually called "mind" and "body" or "spirit" and "matter." This view is called dualism, and it is the basis of most of the things modern Westerners believe.

But monism, which as always been much more popular in the Eastern world, says that there really aren't two substances, even though it might seem that way. Everything comes from and is always a part of a single undivided reality, which could be called Tao, Void, God, Nothingness, or any number of things. Some of these names for the "one substance" may seem to contradict each other, but they really don't. They are just different names for the same thing, or the same nothing. But that is a very complicated matter, and before we can make sense of it, we need to understand where dialectics fits into this picture.

I agree with all of it except monoism. Everything on Earth is in pairs of opposites. The most obvious one is a bar magnet. Two ends meet, two ends force apart. But basically, these opposites are matter, anti-matter, or positive/ negative energy. It's like blowing up a balloon, you can create things with a skin, and a force inside the skin. The most obvious argument against monoism however is that you can take pairs apart in nature, and when you do manage to take the pairs apart they become ghostlike in appearence. There is one last piece of energy that is totally invisible. It's nether matter/anti-matter/positive/negative. It's the alchemist of nature. A scientist examines a cup of tea. He finds the milk, the sugar, the tea leaves, the cup, the clay, the sand, the water, the electrons, the hydrogen. But the scientist will never find the spoon, the kettle, the milk carton, the plumbing. Nature has such a set of tools. The tools tend to mix two things together. So monoism just isn't quite right for me, even if the two things that are mixed are almost the same, they are not exactly the same. And the tools are at least two materials. The pipes, and the kettle.

Unidian · Post by **Unidian** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:45 am

That sort of thing is what dialectical monism resolves. It is a particular variety of monism that highlights complementary opposites.

Ataraxia · Post by **Ataraxia** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:03 pm

Yes,that is a nice and reasoned explaination of Dialetical Monism.I'm with naturyl all the way until he gets to 'future'

To me it seems a non sequitar from his previous logic.

Based on an examination of human history, a dialectical viewpoint suggests that the future, over long time scales, will be characterized primarily by increasing human freedom.

Where is his evidence that we are 'freer' as humans than we were in the past.We do less manual labour?-big deal.How does that constitute 'freedom'?

I would argue technology makes us less free,as would George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.By means of an example an Australian Aboriginal was 'freer' in the 50,000 years prior to Western 'technological' incursion,in my view.

Unidian · Post by **Unidian** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:00 pm

And how many years, on average, did he live? Of what disease or misfortune was he likely to die? How many teeth did he have? When he was in pain (which was often), what pain relievers were available to him? If he had an unusual problem not familiar to his tribe, what knowledge was available to him from the rest of the world? How many of his children lived to age 5? How many men could he be expected to have to kill in war, and in what ghastly manner? What was his religion? What did the bottoms of his feet look like, and more importantly, what did they feel like after a long day of running over rocks and thorns? What would happen to him if captured by a slave-taking tribe?

Pincho Paxton · Post by **Pincho Paxton** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:44 am

Unidian wrote:That sort of thing is what dialectical monism resolves. It is a particular variety of monism that highlights complementary opposites.

I don't see anything to resolve. I see confusion in making opposites merge together. It will complicate a scientific approach to understanding nature. I like two seperate taps for my water. Hot water, and cold water. I don't like those taps that combine both. They can grow moss in the central pipe, and the moss is an unexpected result of combining two opposites. To get rid of unexpected results it is best to keep things as seperated as possible.

Unidian · Post by **Unidian** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:08 am

The universe itself is an unexpected result. So is human life.

divine focus · Post by **divine focus** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:46 pm

Ataraxia wrote:Where is his evidence that we are 'freer' as humans than we were in the past.We do less manual labour?-big deal.How does that constitute 'freedom'?

Socially and economically we are more free. At least more free, globally, than any other time in recorded history. Technology does play a big factor in it. We can fly all over the place and talk to people miles and miles away. There are more options available for more people than ever before.

GENIUS FORUMS

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