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"...Materialism is in trouble, and we're all materialists now. Everything is matter. There is no science that says beauty is truth or truth beauty, but the gondolas are heaving with name-tagged materialists having their minds blown by Venice. What is to be done with the sublime if you're proud to be a materialist? To save the appearance of value, no theory is too unlikely, no idea too far-out to float so long as it sounds like science - elementary particles with teeny-weeny consciousness; or a cosmos with attitude; or the life of the mind as the software of a biological computer. These are desperate measures, Spike! What does materialism remind you of? It's a faith." --Hilary in Tom Stoppard's "The Hard Problem," currently on stage in London On Mar 11, 2015, at 8:56 AM, Jeff via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > I appreciate that Louis posts to this list interesting articles on > cosmology and the frontiers of physics (and other sciences) even though > they have nothing to do with marxism. Unfortunately this isn't one of > them: it has everything to do with Marxism, namely being diametrically > opposed to materialism, a basic tenet of Marxism, as it makes the absurd > (or meaningless) suggestion that "time is an illusion." > > You don't have to read the article too closely to see that it describes a > book in the popular press, from which the author surely receives > royalties, but it so happens that the issues mentioned are absent (with > good reason) from serious physics literature. This much is certain: time > is as much or as little an "illusion" as is space. That must be true > because time and space applying to different inertial reference frames > become folded into each other, as is well known (and accepted) according > the special theory of relativity. The four-dimensional space-time > continuum means very simply that there are four independent variables > specifying any event (or "interaction"), and this is the coordinate system > used in any physical description: an event's location (3 dimensions) and > time of occurance (1 dimension). What special relativity theory shows is > that the "time" dimension is not common to observers who are in different > inertial frames, that is, who are moving with respect to each other, and > this understanding defies intuition and opens the door to pseudoscientific > speculation and obfuscation. > > That modern view of the space-time continuum is so well established that > no serious physicist would be caught dead musing whether time is "an > illusion" unless they would question whether space is an "illusion" in the > same breath. And indeed there are many many physicists who believe > (perhaps because they were brought up with religion, for instance) that > ALL reality is an illusion. So they could be called "idealists", but the > work those physicists do does not suffer as a result because they are > still bound to the scientific method, and have to correctly describe the > relationships between all of the "illusory" quantities that concern > physics. It is only when non-intuitive scientific questions are addressed > by non-scientists (or pseudo-scientists) on the basis of one or another > "philosophy" that questions like time being an illusion (but not space) > come to the fore, and this can make good reading for people interested in > science who are not sufficiently informed to realize that these issues > (unlike issues raised in other physics articles Louis has posted) are not > meaningful or helpful in advancing physics. > > When the philosophy claimed to provide such an "understanding" is > "Marxism," I can only feel embarrassment. Shane Mage became noted on this > list for arriving at physics conclusions solely on the basis of "Marxist > philosophy." Such conclusions are at best meaningless statements, but > otherwise are propositions which can be, and usually have been, > contradicted by experimental or observational evidence. If something like > that were to be my first contact with "Marxism," then I would have > rejected it as idealism and never given it a fair hearing. So everyone > please, don't make a mockery of Marxism by applying it ignorantly or in > the service of pseudo-science. > > - Jeff > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
