Full Title --
Part 4 of 4: The Heart and Soul of the Marxian Dialectic
--
A Fundamental Inquiry into the Nature
of Human Social Productive Force,
and of Its Marxian Conception. Operationalization --
Step-by-Step Construction
of an ‘Historically-Generic’, ‘Qualo-Quantitative’ Measure of Human-Social Productive Force that is Adequate
to its Concept.
Dear Reader,
This blog-entry contains my “improvement” of a text by the E.A.g. [Equitist Advocacy group], entitled “The Heart and Soul of Marxian Theory”.
I have provided my version of their text in the first two parts, and I planned to then add two new sections, as a third and fourth part, of which the present blog-entry forms the fourth and final part, so as to set forth some of the fruits of the latest research by the Foundation regarding the critical, immanent ‘extention’ of "the social forces of production", as the central concept of the Marxian dialectic, to that which we of F.E.D. term the ‘‘‘[human-]soci[et]al [self-]force(s) of [[human-]soci[et]al] [[self-]re-]production’’’, in part via an immanent critique of the ideology-compromised science of Darwinian biology, resulting in F.E.D.’s theory of ‘Dialectical Meta-Darwinism’ as a positive fruition of that immanent critique.
Here are links to my three earlier blog-entries here, corresponding to the three earlier parts --
Regards,
Miguel
Introduction to Part 4. As the upshot of
the three preceding Parts, we have seen the evidence, from across the entire
progression of Marx’s writings, of the centrality of the concept that he named
‘the social forces of production’, in the Marxian theory of human social
evolution/revolution.
Also, we have arrived, as of the conclusion of Part 3, at a
fundamental formulation of the nature of human social productive force -- that
it refers to sustained
accelerations in the rate
of human societal self-reproduction, to the sustained, self-accelerated self-expansion of ‘human socio-mass’,
which includes both living human biomass, and in-use human
artifacts-mass, since both may contribute to the ‘‘‘forcefulness’’’ / sustained accelerated growth rate
of ‘human socio-mass’.
The questions central to this Part are -- ¿How can we best quantify
the ‘self-productive force’ of any given human society, and of the planetary
human species as a whole?
-- and -- ¿How can we best qualify
this quantification
in terms of the best [qualitative]
unit of measure, the best ‘measuremental’ “dimension”, of this quantification, e.g., in terms of [one,
or of combinations of some to all of] the hour
unit, the ton unit,
the mile unit, the dollar unit, the percent [%] unit,
etc.?
¿In
terms of what [qualitative]
units-of-measure are
we to count the magnitude, to aggregate the ‘‘‘quantifiers’’’, of human societal productive
force?
The purpose of this fourth and final Part is to present a
step-by-step construction, starting from a simplest first approximation, of a
historically-generic way of
measuring, at any
time in human history, the magnitude
of that ‘force of human societal self-reproduction’, the magnitude of the
acceleration in each historically-specific society’s self-caused reproduction
of itself, as a ‘human genome/human phenome unity’, a way that applies equally
to each of the qualitatively different, ‘socio-ontologically distinct’ social
forms -- to the social formations, dominant social relations of production, and
‘‘‘modes of [human social re]production’’’ -- displayed in human
history on this planet, and one which applies equally also to the expected
future new forms of human society that we are capable of envisioning.
A review, by the reader, of the first three Parts would be
helpful to the reader, at this juncture, as, below, we build, step-by-step, layer-by-layer, toward
the most advanced form of such a way of measuring this ‘self-force’
of human society that we will present herein, based upon the steps in the
formation of our conception of this ‘self-force’ in those previous Parts, and,
especially, in Part three.
Step-by-Step
Construction of a Human-Society Self-Reproductive Self-Force ‘Quanto-Qualitative’ Metric. Let us begin with a first step that considers
ways to measure increases in the ‘‘‘velocity’’’ of human social production at
the ‘‘‘micro-scale’’’ as identified in Part 3, and then work our way up from
there, through the ‘‘‘meso-scale’’’ of human social production, all the way up
to the ‘‘‘macro-scale’’’ of the global human species, the scale of ‘planetized
humanity’ as a whole, critiquing each metric option we encounter and consider
in this progression of metric options in terms of the degree to which each such
metric option satisfies the concept of this ‘human society self-reproducing
self-force of human society’ to which we
arrived in Part 3.
a. Micro-scale. Metrics for
the ‘‘‘productive force’’’
of single, local instrumentalities of production. Consider the options for measuring the
acceleration of the output-rate of one single, particular kind of good by an
upgrade in (1) an individual
instrument, e.g., an individual, hand-held tool, wielded by an individual
worker, or in (2) an
individual machine, in its productive use, by a human worker, or by a team of
human workers, or by a factory-scale “automatic system of machinery” [Marx], or
in (3) an
individual worker, or in a team of workers, by incremental training, producing,
in them, incremental production skills, or in (4) combinations of the preceding cases -- of both upgraded instrumentalities and upgraded worker(s’) skill(s) -- of increases
in the “technical composition” of labor-power [Marx], of “living labor” [Marx],
combined with increases in the “technical composition” [Marx] of fixed capital
plant and equipment, of “dead labor” [Marx], e.g., as any of these scenarios
might take place in a local operating unit, e.g., in a single “plant”, or a
single “factory”, of in a single “individual capital”. In Part 3 we explicitly considered three options --
-
Such increases in the rate of production of an individual kind of good might be measured as the number of discrete units of that particular good that is being finished, and
"put-out", or "out-put", per unit of time -- say per the hour unit
of time-measurement, i.e., in “#/hr.” as a compound metrical unit qualifier;
-
Or, such increases in the rate of production of an individual kind of good
might be measured as the number of units of the physical mass of a particular good that is being
finished/output, say in ton units, e.g., per hour unit,
i.e., in “tons/hr.” as a compound
metrical unit qualifier;
- Or, such increases in the rate of production of an individual kind of good
might be measured as the number of units of money, e.g., in dollar units, of the unit sales price, or in the unit margin [profit], gross or net, of that particular
good, that is being output per hour unit, i.e., in “$s/hr.”
as a compound metrical unit qualifier.
The 3rd option above fails, for our purposes, because,
even if detailed records of the prices of commodities were available for past
human social formations in which the money-form of value, and the [money-circulated]
commodity-form of value, were, in fact, already extant, productive force
metric quantifiers qualified by units of “Xs/hr.”
[using 'X' as a generic currency unit qualifier] would nonetheless be inapplicable
to the [typically] earlier human social formations in which the money-relation,
and the [money-circulated] commodity-relation, had yet to emerge.
The 1st option above is useful, for the micro-scale,
and for a single category of product.
But it cannot be extended to the larger scales, because they are also multi-product-category
scales: counting the product “apples”
and the product “oranges” in the same cardinal units -- e.g., counting a unit
of output of an airliner product as 1, and a unit of
microchip output also as 1, asserting, in effect, that producing 1
airliner per hour is equivalent to producing 1 microchip per hour,
that “1 airliner = 1 microchip”, would be,
well, “mixing up apples and oranges”, and would therefore yield highly
misleading aggregate results.
The 2nd option above is of use in our local,
one-product scenario, and also holds out some hope of being “extendable” to
multi-product contexts, and to large geographical scales. E.g., one airliner obviously “weighs in” at a
lot more -- with a lot larger quantifier for its physical mass unit -- than does one
microchip. However, the sustained
acceleration of human societal, and of global human species, self-reproduction
is far from perfectly correlated with the increasing mass of product
output. Moreover, measuring aggregate
product mass growth-rate leaves out a central component of what human societal
self-reproductive force must mean -- a growing growth-rate of human population: “increased productivity, the increase of needs
. . . what is fundamental to both of these, the increase of population” [Marx and Engels, The German Ideology,
Progress Publishers, p. 43]; “The
community itself appears as the first great force of production” [Marx, «Grundrisse», Nicolaus, p. 495].
So let us see how far we can get, toward a metric which does
justice to the concept of productive force at which we have arrived, and let us also, by, for
now, skipping the measurement of our products altogether -- whether by "census" count of discrete product units produced per hour, or by counting mass units of product produced per hour, or by
counting monetary units of product "value" produced per hour, alike -- instead focusing on what we expect our consumption
of these, our product[ion]s, to [re]produce -- to sustain, and to expand -- our population.
b. Meso-scales. Metrics for
the ‘‘‘productive force’’’
of large but sub-national geographical
areas. Consider a census population count, pt, a
representative value for the cardinal number of living human beings, alive
during discrete time-period t -- say during year
t -- as a
candidate “dimensionless” metric for a given human society’s self-reproductive
force, graphed, over successive values of t, in the space of pt _|_ t, wherein '_|_' stands for the phrase 'is perpendicular to'.
Clearly, as we can see from the quotes from Marx’s and Engels’s writings
presented at the end of sub-section a., this metric is getting at something of what
Marx and Engels had in mind for their phrase “force of production”.
However, it fails to deliver the metric that we need by our
criterion of fair comparability: it does
not provide an adequate evaluation of societal reproductive force for the unbiased comparison
of one society to another, for either two contemporaneous societies on the
planet, or for a later versus an older such society.
It delivers only an “absolute” number, not a number
relativized to past values in the population levels time-series for that society.
It also delivers merely a ‘statical’ count: it does not directly and explicitly measure the population change dynamics
of that society, only a succession of periodic population levels, in which the changes between those time periods is left in mere implicitude.
In answer to these criticisms of pt as productive force metric,
we can amend our metric to a more dynamical and more past-self-relative form,
as Dpt-1 = pt - pt-1 [in which we use 'D' to denote "Delta", standing for the "forward finite Difference operator"], which counts a one year change in
population, yielding the representative number of live human individuals added to the population of the
society in question from year t -1
to year t.
However, note that this metric is still biased, toward giving
the initially larger population-size society higher marks for population
reproductive rate, still failing our criterion of unbiased comparability.
This same bias remains in place, even if we amend our metric
further, by shifting to the yet more dynamical, full Newtonian, “divided
differences” form, measured in metrical units of “people gained per year [net]”, '# of people/yr.
--
.....Dpt-1.......=.....pt - pt-1.......=.........pt - pt-1..........=..........pt - pt-1......=.....Dpt-1.
_____..............._______ ................________
..........Dt............=....t - (t-1).........=..................1
Therefore, let us, instead, test, against our concept of
societal productive force, and its qualifying criteria, a metric that assesses
the rate of growth of a society’s representative population, not in terms of the elementary
arithmetical operation of the subtraction
of most-recent, consecutive past year’s representative population level from the most current
year’s representative population level, but using the more advanced elementary arithmetical
operation of division:
..........pt
..._____
........pt-1
-- which answers the question: ¿How
many "times" greater,
in rational numbers terms, is the most recent year’s representative population level, relative
to the representative population level of the immediately, consecutively previous year, for the society in
question?
In moving to this amended, ‘divided totalities’,
ratio-metric, we have moved from the "Newtonian tradition" of dynamics
measurements, to the ‘‘‘econometric tradition’’’ of dynamics measurements.
That is, the annual “percentage growth rate of
real GDP” [i.e., of “real”
[“deflated”] Gross Domestic Product] of nation-state
societies is measured, in current econometric practice, by the ratio --
...................rGDPt
______________ - 1
................rGDPt-1
-- which is a “net”
gain ratio for monetary-unit-aggregates-measured economic activity, i.e., one
which subtracts last year’s activity level from this year’s, in the numerator,
before comparing, using the division operation, the resulting, "net" rGDPt gain, as numerator, to last year’s
economic activity level, as the denominator, thus combining the ‘‘‘subtractive’’’, or ‘‘‘Difference’’’,
approach, with the ‘‘‘division’’’, '/', approach to change measurement, to the measurement of dynamics, a fact which is more obvious in the
equivalent expression --
.rGDPt - rGDPt-1..........................................DrGDPt-1
______________ .........=.........______________
................rGDPt-1..............................................................rGDPt-1
-- in which we see that the growth rate of a human social
economy, so measured, is greater than zero only if this year’s deflated GDP is greater than last year’s. Otherwise, if this year’s real GDP simply
matched last year’s, i.e., if rGDPt = rGDPt-1 -- a
zero real GDP growth
scenario -- then the “gross”
gain rate metric formula rGDPt/rGDPt-1 would yield a “growth”
rate of 100%,
instead of the 0%
growth rate that the “net”
gain rate formula above yields for the same scenario.
Note that, pt/pt-1, a “past-self-relativized”,
or ‘‘‘past-self-normalized’’’,
“gross”
gain rate metric of the population growth rate of a given human society, is measured in
compound units of cardinal count over cardinal count, of count ÷ count --
of count/count, of count+1 x count-1, of count+1-1, or of count0 --
#/# = # ÷ # = #+1 x #-1 = #+1-1 = #0
=
%
-- the “zero
degree”, or “dimensionless”, “percentage” unit of measurement.
Regardless of how much larger one human society is relative to
another, to start out with, this ratio-metric gives us a self-relative gain ratio, or gain rate, of the population level
of each society, in units of percents [% units], and is thus both dynamical, and more
comparable, across human societies on this planet.
Let us now follow suit even further with the ‘‘‘econometric
tradition’’’, and amend our “gross
gain ratio” metric to a “net
gain ratio” metric --
..pt - pt-1.......................................Dpt-1
________ ...........=..........._________.
...........pt-1.......................................................pt-1
The ratio above compares,
by division,
a time-period, annual value, for year t -1, placed in the denominator, to a “between periods” difference-comparison result, created by a subtraction, i.e., to a
value [possibly positive, zero, or negative] measuring the gain in population, from year t -1
to year t, placed in
the numerator.
¿Can we move
from the formula above, to one with a more numerator/denominator “symmetric” comparison, more numerator/denominator “apples-to-apples”
comparison, of most recent annual human population gains to consecutive-past,
immediate-past annual human population gains?
Yes.
And when we do so, we preserve the idea of comparing most
recent human population to immediately, consecutively previous human population
-- of comparing the present “self” of population to its just-past “self” -- in a
way which brings back aspects of the Newtonian, “divided differences”, ‘‘‘time-relative’’’ formula-form, and
reconciles it, in a special way, with the ‘‘‘econometric’’’, ‘past-self-relative’ formula-form
--
........pt - pt-1.........................................Dpt-1
__________ ..........=..........._________.
.....pt-1 - pt-2........................................Dpt-2
The form[ula] to which we have just arrived above can be characterized as one which compares, by division, a difference-measure of most-recent time-period's population gain, [relative] to a difference-measure of the immediately-previous time-period's population gain.
In what Karl Seldon calls ‘time-offset self-space’,
the ‘past-self-relative’,
period-population gain-rate formula, above, Dpt-1/Dpt-2, coincides, in form, with the Newtonian, “divided differences”, “time rate of
change”, population growth rate, or “population-difference divided by time-difference”
formula, Dpt-1/D(t-1), or Dpt/Dt, but not, entirely, in content.
The ‘self-space’ graphical construct is often
used, under other names, such as “graphical iteration”, to analyze, to present,
and to “solve” especially the nonlinear , “fractal”, often “chaotic” finite
difference equations, e.g., “quadratic maps” [see, for example, Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Harmut Jürgens,
and Dietmar Saupe, Chaos and Fractals: New Frontiers of Science,
Springer-Verlag, [NY: 1992],
p. 510 et passim].
Seldon’s ‘self-space’ names a graph-space in which the
vertical axis, say the Y axis, is assigned, in generic terms, to a time-series function, zt, or, in our specific examples, to pt, or to rGDPt, but in which the
horizontal axis, say the X axis,
is not assigned to t, but, instead, to, generically, that same time-series function, but offset one time-period to the past, zt-1, or, for our specific examples, to pt-1
or to rGDPt-1.
In the resulting --
Y _|_ X =
zt _|_ zt-1
-- 'auto-space', or 'self-space', as distinct from the more conventional --
Y _|_ X = zt _|_ t
-- 'allo-space', or 'hetero-space', of [discretized] Newtonian
dynamics, the “ordered pairs” to be graphed in this graph-space are [if we indicate ordered pairs by means of their enclosure in "angle-brackets", e.g., by '< _, _ >] --
< x, y >
= < zt-1, zt >
-- and not --
< x, y >
= < t, zt >.
Thus, the Newtonian-dynamical “differences” ratio, generically Dy/Dx =
Dzt/Dt, or, in the cases of
our specific examples, Dpt/Dt or DrGDPt/Dt -- all precursors to the Newtonian dynamical “differential”, or “instantaneous
rate of change with respect to time”, that results from “taking the limit” as
Dx ---> 0 --
lim(Dx ---> 0)(DY(x)/Dx) = dz(t)/dt
-- become, instead, generically --
Dy/Dx = Dzt/Dzt-1
-- or, in the specific cases of our
examples --
Dy/Dx = Dpt/Dpt-1
-- or --
Dy/Dx = DrGDPt/DrGDPt-1.
In this sense, we have reconciled/combined our "Newtonian
dynamics metric" and/with our "econometric dynamics metric", both for human population growth
rate dynamics as a proxy for the growth of the human social forces of production.
A generic rendering of this systematic dialectic of dynamics-measuring formulas -- a presentational dialectic that we have just traversed for the specific case of our developing dynamics-metric for social reproductive force -- is portrayed in the following image --
However, this proxy for human societal self-reproductive
force still tracks only human population growth rates of this special,
‘past-self-relative’ kind.
It tracks
only the growth rate of human-Genomic
living biomass.
This proxy still lacks any assessment of the contribution of human
artifacts, of the objects which incarnate, materialize, and objectify the human Phenome, e.g., of the
human social means of social production.
Such a metric might be apt to measure the ‘species biomass
self-productivity’, or the Darwinian fitness, of a pre-human, nearly
'artifact-less', nearly ‘‘Phenome-less’ social-animal species, like,
say, dolphin.
But it will not do to
capture the ‘Meta-Darwinian fitness’ of an ‘artifactful’,
‘Phenome-centered’ species like humanity!
In moving on and up to the highest scale that we plan to
address here, the macro-scale of the/a planetary human species as a whole, let us
see if we can extend our population-growth-rate-only metrical construct, to a
metrical construct which embraces also the necessarily concomitant, though not
at all necessarily proportionate, growing growth rate of human-artifacts-mass, of the
“non-living” embodiments of the human Phenome,
as well as the growing growth rate of the living embodiments of the
human Genome, which we have already achieved above.
c. Macro-scale.
Metrics for the ‘‘‘societal self-reproductive
force’’’ of the global[ized]
human species.
Near the end of the previous Part of this text, Part 3, we
stated that: “The challenge is this: Our
‘productive force’/‘Meta-Darwinian fitness’ metric needs two
components -- one quantifying the contribution of ‘the human Phenome’, the
other quantifying the contribution of “the human Genome”. And both of these components need to be
measured with a common unit of measure, i.e., via a common “dimension”.”
We propose to meet that challenge by defining a concept that we call
‘human socio-mass’, St, as the sum of two
components for each time-period,
t, in which St
is measured -- as the sum of (1)
the human biomass for time-period
t, i.e., the
physical mass of living human beings, to be measured in grams
[gm.], and denoted
by Gt,
short for ‘human Genomic
[bio]mass for time-period t’,
and (2) the
physical mass of “live” human artifacts for time-period t, i.e., the mass of
human artifacts [that were] concurrently in working order, and [that were] currently in use in that time-period, also
to be measured in grams [gm.], and denoted by Pt, short for ‘human Phenomic mass for
time-period t’
--
St =
Gt + Pt
-- so that our ‘past-self-relative divided-differences self-space
finite-difference growth-rate ratio-metric’ for time-period t becomes --
............................................St - St-1.............................................DSt-1
ft..... ..........=.............__________ ..........=............_________.
.........................................St-1 - St-2............................................DSt-2
Note: The variables Gt and Pt are not defined for negative values.
We are thus measuring
the ‘self-reproductive
self-momentum’, or the ‘self-reproductive
self-velocity’, of a given social unit -- and, by comparing it, by division, against the past-self-relative rate of change of such ‘self-momenta’,
or self-velocities’, also measuring its ‘self-reproductive self-force’ -- by measuring the ‘past-self-relative’,
‘past-period-relative’ gain/growth of the numerator's ‘self-velocity’, or 'self-momentum', of ‘human socio-mass’ net self-expansion, as rendered in the image below, near the bottom of this blog-entry.
In that image, the ‘o’
‘‘‘headdresses’’’ of certain symbols identify 'quantifiable metrical qualifiers' operators, ‘qualo-quantitative’,
or ‘qualo-quantitative’, values
[after the "monadic" symbology of Diophantus, «Arithmetica»,
circa 250 C.E.], whereas mere bold-face algebraic letter-symbols, without such ‘‘‘headdresses’’’, identify merely quantitative values, e.g., "Real" number values, mere ‘‘‘quantifiers’’’.
We say that positive[-signed], ‘human
socio-mass’ increasing societal ‘[self-re]productive self-velocity’, or ‘self-re]productive self-momentum’, exists, for time-period t,
whenever --
((Pt + Gt)
- (Pt-1 + Gt-1)) =
D(Pt-1 + Gt-1) =
DSt-1 > 0
-- and that positive ‘societal
[self-re]productive [self-]acceleration’/‘societal [self-re]productive [self-]force’ exists, for time-period
t,
whenever there is a gain in
positive-signed ‘self-[reproductive] momentum’ in time-period t, relative to time-period t-1
--
((Pt + Gt)
- (Pt-1 + Gt-1)) >
((Pt-2 + Gt-2)
- (Pt-1 + Gt-1))
-- i.e., whenever --
D(Pt-1 + Gt-1) > D(Pt-2 + Gt-2))
-- or whenever --
DSt-1 > DSt-2.
In the image below, the
‘sgn((Pt-2 + Gt-2) - (Pt-1 + Gt-1))’
factor in the numerator serves to rectify
the sign of the whole expression, when either the sign of only the
((Pt-2 + Gt-2) - (Pt-1 + Gt-1))
denominator "goes minus", or when the signs of both the ((Pt + Gt) - (Pt-1 + Gt-1)) numerator-factor, & that denominator,
both “go minus” together.
We noted, above, that
“the variables Gt and Pt are not defined for negative values.”
¿But what happens if Gt, or Pt, or
both, become 0,
for any time-period t?
For the ‘human-societal
self-reproductive self-force’ to even exist -- indeed, for
the human species,
as such, to even exist, for long -- both Pt
and Gt must be greater than
zero.
Living representatives
of the human Genome, but stripped of all ‘Phenomic artifacts’, and so
remaining, do not constitute a viable, sustainable
human-societal unit, and therefore do not qualify as manifesting the
existence of human-societal
self-reproductive force.
An accumulation of
‘Phenomic artifacts’ alone, no matter how massive and how vast, if devoid of any
living human population, do not constitute a human-societal unit at all, and, likewise, qualify even
less as manifesting the existence of human-societal-reproductive self-force.
In either case, the value of this
‘self-force’
is not ‘0’, not the "purely" quantitative 'empty zero' value, but, rather, takes on the 'quanto-qualitative' ‘‘‘value’’’ ‘non-existent’,
connoted by the 'full-zero' symbol, ‘.’.
Therefore, the factor (Pt × Gt)/(Pt × Gt) in the image of the
productive-force
formula below is included, so that the formula will generate the 'quanto-qualitative' [e]valu[e][ation] ‘non-existent’, ‘.’, in any time-period for which the Gt quantifier by itself goes to the "purely" quantitative 'empty zero' value, 0, or in any time-period for which the Pt quantifier by itself goes to the "purely" quantitative 'empty zero' value, 0, or in which both the Pt quantifer and the Gt quantifier, together, go to the "purely" quantitative 'empty zero' value, 0.
The value of this (PtGt)/(PtGt) factor is 1, producing no impact at all on the overall value
of the metric, as long as both the Pt quantifier and Gt quantifier are greater than 0.
But if
either the quantifier Pt or the quantifier Gt,
or both, go the quantifier value ‘0’, which Seldon calls
‘empty zero’, then we have a ‘‘‘division-by-zero singularity’’’, although, in this case, it is
‘empty zero’ itself that is being divided by ‘empty zero’ itself, not, as more
typically for singularities, some non-0 quantifier value that is being divided by the 'empty zero' the quantifier, 0.
The value of the ‘quantifier’ part of
the whole metric thus becomes (0/0), which is an "indeterminate value", an inherently non-specific value -- an "unsolvable" numerical value syntax/symbol, an arithmetical symbol which cannot be "solved" as any specific value, or as any specific '''solution subset''' of values -- within the set of the so-called "Real" numbers", R.
Taking into account also the ‘qualifier’ part of
the whole metric, i.e., the ‘metrical qualifiers’ that represent the “grams” metrical unit, denoted by ‘gm.’, we have ‘full zero’, as the overall result, whenever PtGt = 0, for the entire metric expression [note, herein, by the term 'metrical', we mean 'measuremental'; we do not necessarily mean only the so-called "metric system" of dimensional units, i.e., we do not restrict the dimensional unit qualifiers so referenced to, e.g., ‘sec.’, ‘gm.’, ‘cm.’, etc.] --
(0)[gm.]/(0)[gm.] |- = . /. |- = .
-- wherein we have used the ideogramic relation symbol ‘|- =’ to stand for the phrase 'is equal to by definition' and 'is equal to by axiomatic assertion'.
The image immediately below
illustrates the result of our construction of this latest candidate metric for the Marxian, human ‘‘‘social
[re-]productive
force’’’
--
That is, when, in the seventh Seldonian dialectical
arithmetic/algebra, a
‘‘‘quantifier’’’ value of
‘empty zero’,
0, multiplies the
‘metrical qualifier’
in one of its
‘qualo-quantitative’ arithmetical /- algebraic expressions, the result is
axiomatically, but also intuitively, held to be what Seldon calls
‘full zero’,
which we denote by
‘.’ --
a symbol which stands for a
new kind of arithmetical value,
one which first takes
full shape in
this Seldonian seventh system of dialectical arithmetic.
This
‘full zero’ value, in the axioms-system
of that seventh Seldonian dialectical arithmetic, stands for
‘no longer exists’, i.e., for the
qualitative,
ontological ‘‘‘non-existence’’’
of the entity measured by the metric formula when that metric formula takes on this
‘.’ value,
signifying, in the metric formula of the image above, as in the logic of our argument,
above, that
human-social productive force can exist
only while
both Pt
and
Gt maintain above
0 values, i.e., while --
Pt > 0 < Gt.
The meaning of the value named "full zero". The 'meta-number' denoted by
‘.’ does
not signify contra-empirical states of affairs, such as '''actual infinity''', or '''absolute nothingness'''.
When a metric, or an equation, takes on the value
‘.’, this does
not signify
"abstract negation".
On the contrary, the value
‘.’ represents that state of affairs in which a given mathematical model has breached the limits of its descriptive capacity.
This state of affairs, denoted
‘.’, in a
dynamical system, is analogous to Godel incompleteness in an
axiomatic system of arithmetic, wherein the statement of an "unprovable theorem" of that system "deformalizes" into a system-specific ["diophantine"] equation whose specific solution cannot be expressed in terms of the '''arithmetical vocabulary''', or '''numerical vocabulary''', that is available in that axiomatic system of arithmetic.
The value
‘.’, represents a situation in which,
as predicted by the given dynamical equation or model, an older, concrete,
specific,
determinate state of affairs -- a state which
CAN be described within the limitations of the "language" of that model -- gives way to, or turns itself into, a new, concrete,
specific,
determinate state of affairs -- a state which can
NO LONGER be described within the limitations of the "language" of that model -- one which
CANNOT be expressed given the '''ontological commitments''' of the model specification, its '''vocabulary''' and '''terms of reference''',
BECAUSE some of the old ontology presupposed in that model specification has ceased to exist, has descended into non-existence, and/or in which some new, e.g., unprecedented ontology, not referenced in that model specification, has arisen into existence, e.g., for the first time.
[For the
'social reproductive force' metric presented herein, examples might include, for some future time-period,
t*, a period 'characterizeable' as one of
'metafinite singularity' for the given human-social unit, the
disappearance of the entire human-
Phenomic social infrastructure as such, as signified by
Pt* = 0,
coupled with the emergence, for the first time, from out of the most concentrated core of the given human civilization, of the unprecedented 'new ontology' of a
'''meta-human''' population of '"artificially-intelligent''', e.g., of '''android''',
robots, interconnected with a
disappearance, within that social unit, of the living human population, as signified by
Gt* = 0.
Alternatively, examples might include a future
total assimilation of the entire living,
Genomic human population of a given social unit, as signified by
Gt* = 0, and of its entire,
Phenomic social infrastructure, as signified by
Pt* = 0, into/by a
'''meta-human''' population of
'''cyborgs''', combining both human-
Genomic features, including a technologically-reengineered,
formerly-human,
Genome, as signified by
Gt* = 0, and robotic features, so that --
Pt ---> t* ---> 0 <--- Gt ---> t*].
The sign
‘.’ thus signifies the outcome of a
"determinate negation" of a former state of affairs,
not of an
"abstract negation" [e.g., the transition of that concrete state of affairs into "absolute nothingness"], but of a
"determinate negation" which cannot be described
"determinately" -- concretely and
specifically -- within the "mathematical language" limitations of the model specification, and which thus can only be described, within the limitations of that model specification,
generically, by the
generic
‘.’ value, because the
specific
"determinations" of the new state of affairs -- the result of the
"determinate [self-]negation" of the former state of affairs -- are beyond the expressive capabilities of the model which produced this
‘.’ value as its prediction for a time beyond it descriptive reach; a model which generated this
‘.’ value as a sign of its limited expressive/descriptive capabilities reaching, and breaching, their limits.
Of course, this
productive force
metric can momentaneously and transiently pass through the ‘full zero’ value, and state,
whenever the velocity of social
reproduction transiently crosses over, from negative to positive values, or
from positive to negative values, momentarily ‘demanifesting’ this force [e.g., during transitions into, or out of, those social states of famine, economic
depression, war, genocide, "dark ages", etc., which are characterized by negative-signed rates of human social reproduction, i.e., by states of contracting human social reproduction].
But
Gt = 0 and/or
Pt =
0 means
lasting ‘demanifestation’ of this
force for the
social locus so-measured.
For more about
this
seventh
of the Seldonian dialectical arithmetics, the “
Mu”
arithmetic,
Rmu = RqMU = RqMQN [----) q7,
and its new ‘meta-number’,
‘full zero’,
‘
.’, see pp.
A-9 to
A-14,
and pp.
A-18 to
A-21,
in
Supplement A
to the
F.E.D. Introductory Letter, composed by the
F.E.D.
General Council’s Secretary-General, Hermes de Nemores --
http://www.dialectics.info/dialectics/Primer_files/3_F.E.D.%20Intro.%20Letter,%20Supplement%20A-1_OCR.pdf
.
TO
BE CONTINUED.
Asimov wrote the original three-volume Foundation series, appearing first as smaller stories in science fiction magazines, in the 1930s, before the first computer successfully running a programme was built (at Manchester University, by a team including Alan Turing, after the Second World War). Hari Seldon’s work was clearly about building a sophisticated computer to model the past and present state of the galaxy to predict the future and determine what needs to be done to achieve a desired outcome. The role of the Second Foundation, at the opposite end of the galaxy, made up of people with powers to read minds and nudge people to do things that they would otherwise be less likely to do, was to make minor adjustments to the model as well as interact to ensure it was adhered to. That Foundation may appear to be entirely fictitious but hypnotists do exist (and I have been successfully hypnotised, fully conscious throughout, by a stage hypnotist so I know people aren’t always playing along). If there is a real world equivalent of The Mule, an individual with huge mind reading and mind control powers, then I would suggest that person is Derren Brown (who can control an entire theatre audience, with a cuddly toy thrown three times in succession to choose someone at random, for example).
In the real world, it is not enough to construct general Marxist theories about problems in the world, or even to use such theories practically in political parties and campaigns. The strength of the forces of the state, particularly with relation to big data and AI algorithms (as I related in the blog post above), especially when combined with infiltration, means that socialists must use similar methods too. As soon as I came to the conclusion that there were a large number of infiltrators in my Trotskyist international organisation, I thought of setting up a counter-network, and it doesn’t take much imagination to come to the conclusion that the same thought will have occurred to others decades earlier! On numerous occasions since, I have come across circumstantial evidence that such a counter-network (or multiple counter-networks) already exist. However, it is only with your Foundation that one has revealed itself to me publicly.
This all seems much grander than the project you are involved with, but perhaps you don’t want to reveal too much! Or perhaps there is some sort of inner conspiracy and you are more of a link-person to the outside world. There is a free “Primer” download, that I am about half way through reading, and a book available cheaply on a DVD, from the F.E.D. Press page on the dialectics.info website that I will order soon; I will review both for this blog.
There is a danger that some people become over-concerned with the powers of the state and think it’s all doom and gloom, and an opposite danger that others may think conspiratorial organisations on our side (specifically this Foundation) will do all that needs doing and just leave it up to them. I read once that Asimov eventually saw the end of the galaxy controlled by the Second Foundation as fascistic, which was the motive for the later novels “Foundation’s Edge” and “Foundation and Earth” (he contradicted this by saying his motive was a sizeable amount of money in a preface to the latter book but I think he said that to outwit censors and get these novels widely read).
Whether or not the different ending for the galaxy suggested in the latter two books is desirable and/or comes to pass in the world, we do have the free will to affect what happens. Well, I know I do anyway! I could never properly reconcile that with the Marxist concepts of (dialectical and historical) materialism even when in a Trotskyist organisation (which I was until 1998), but if successful computer modelling is being done based on dialectical materialism, this obviously adds considerable weight to its validity as a theory!"
[F.E.D. response to blogger's response]: "Thank you for your rich and astute response!
We agree with you that “socialists must use similar methods too”, to the computerized mathematical modeling methods already in use by the ruling plutocracy, but, yes also, to opposite ends to those of the plutocracy — to liberatory, not totalitarian and genocidal, ends — and, yes again, based upon Marx’s and Engels’ dialectical, [psycho]historical materialism, in our cases, applied via the new systems of dialectical mathematics discovered by Karl Seldon.
So, you guessed right, again: that is what Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica is all about.
[And all this, notwithstanding the fact that the financial resources of anti-plutocracy organizations will always be less than those of the ruling plutocracy].
Published portions of F.E.D.’s research in this direction are accessible via a new step-by-step introduction by Karl Seldon, here —
http://www.dialectics.info/dialectics/Briefs_files/E._D._Brief_%238,The%20%27A-Brief-iated%27,%20Redacted%20Intellectual%20Autobiography%20of%20Karl%20Seldon,07MAR2014.pdf
– and via the blog-entry by Aoristos Dyosphainthos entitled “The F.E.D. Psychohistorical-Dialectical Meta-Equations”, which I keep updated here –
http://feddialectics-miguel.blogspot.com/2012/05/fed-psychohistorical-equations.html .
These “psychohistorical-dialectical [meta-]equations” include –
1. The Meta-Equation of Human Ideology/Knowledge Meta-Evolution.
2. The Meta-Equation of Human-Social Forces of Production Meta-Evolution.
3. The Meta-Equation of Human-Social Relations of Production Meta-Evolution.
4. The Meta-Equation of Human-Social Formation(s) Meta-Evolution.
5. The Equation of the Human Genome / Human ‘Phenome’ Systematic Dialectic.
6. The Meta-Equation of the Meta-Evolution of Planetary Human[oid]ities.
7. The Meta-Equation of The Psychohistorical Dialectic of the Dialectic Itself.
FYI: We of the Foundation make no claims to hypnotic powers, or, indeed, to “psychic powers” of any kind.
But, yes, Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica is, indeed, a conspiracy — a conspiracy to conduct, to disseminate, and to promote, what Marx called “universal labor” — in a time during which the ruling plutocracy is actively suppressing scientific and technological developments that could actually grow “the social forces of production” [e.g., fusion power], while accelerating the development of their forces of destruction [weapons technology, proto-totalitarian surveillance technology, etc.].
We are a cloistered, co-educational monastic sisterhood-brotherhood, “fractally” similar, for modern, capitalist times, to the ancient [i.e., B.C.E.], Pythagorean brotherhood-sisterhood, to the Platonian Academy, and to some of the post-B.C.E. — C.E. — Egyptian scholarly organizations of 'the Alexandrian proto-Renaissance', just prior to the plunge into the last Mediterranean/European Dark Ages.
But you are right, no one should depend upon this Foundation, or, in our opinions, upon any sequestered group, to make the revolution for them — that is a danger, as you noted, and a risk that, if realized, would be a disaster for humanity.
The revolutionary transition to the political-economic democracy that looms, in possibility, beyond today’s plutocratically-degenerated and increasingly totalitarian capitalist “representative democracy”, must be created by the majority of humanity itself, if it is to be created at all.
We of the Foundation seek to discourage any such attitude of “substitution” of ourselves for the majority of the people themselves, by the following public pledges –
• We accept no contributions of money from non-members;
• No Foundation publications are authored in our “real names”, but only “pseudonymously”, lest the pursuit of power in the form of personal fame pervert and corrupt our motivations, and the very content of our work;
• The fruits of our research are typically offered free of any monetary charge, to every person in the global community of the world wide web, lest pursuit of power in the form of monetary wealth pervert and corrupt our motivations, and the very content of our work;
• We advise our www public as to how they might move, in socio-political and economic ways, to bring about a Global Renaissance, and to avert a New/Final Dark Age, with the pledge that no member of the Foundation will ever seek, or accept, election or appointment to political power / political office, lest the pursuit of political power pervert and corrupt our motivations, and the very content of our work;
• If, as we fully intend, a regime of comprehensive, political-economic democracy, should “come to power”, all members of the Foundation pledge to remain outside of any elected or appointed positions within that regime, and, instead, to serve that regime in the greatest way we possibly could: by exposing, and opposing, any tendencies to the abuse of its new found power that emerge in its birth pangs;
The Foundation has allied, and is allied, with activist groups.
But we ally only with activist groups that themselves adhere publicly to at least the last two of the five pledges stated above.
We look forward to continued dialogue with you . . . and are glad to have made your acquaintance.
. . .
P.S. Regarding the “four” volumes of Marx’s “Das Kapital” –
It is true that we believe that there are important extant manuscripts of Marx’s that have yet to be published, e.g., in the English versions of the collected works of Marx and Engels.
One example is the manuscript entitled “The Money System as a Whole” [“Das vollendete Geldsystem”, written by Marx circa March-April 1851, and which is mentioned in the forward [p. 12], by Martin Nicolaus, to his English translation of Marx’s “Grundrisse” [“Foundations”].
We believe that this manuscript might provide further insights into Marx’s theory of capitalist crises, which is incomplete in Marx’s published writings, and which could not be more timely than now, with global humanity suffering through the most devastating global capitalist crisis since the 1930s.
However, such are not what I had in mind in my reference to “the four volumes of Capital”.
The “fourth volume” of Marx’s “Das Kapital” — indeed, from the longest, by far, of the final manuscripts for the four volumes of “Das Kapital” — has in fact, been published, long since, in many languages, from manuscripts [from 11+ notebooks] written by Marx circa 1861-1863, and was indeed written before he wrote the final manuscripts for volumes I-III.
Volume IV was published, in English — itself alone in three separate, thick volumes — by Progress Publishers, Moscow, in 1963, 1968, and 1971, respectively, under the title given it by Marx: “Theories of Surplus-Value”.
Volume IV is the “historico-critical” part of Marx’s critique of capitalist political economy — “The History of the Theory” of surplus-value — a critical history of capitalist “economics” from the 1600s [“mercantilism”] to the ~1860, and immanently critiques the political-economic views of each of the key capitalist political-economists individually, one-by-one.
Although this IVth volume is not as well-ordered, or as polished, as the final manuscripts which became volumes I-III of “Capital” — especially volume I — it is chocked full of gems of world-historical insight, and of dazzling theoretical passages.
Marx himself stated repeatedly, in his correspondence, his intention to publish this manuscript as the separate and final volume of “Das Kapital” [Marx to Engels, 31 July 1865; Marx to Siegfried Meyer, 30 April 1867]."
[blogger's response]: "Thanks for your extensive reply. I promise I will try to plough through the Foundation’s published material in due course; in fact it will probably be worth me taking a bit of a step back from my considerable amount of political activism, including on the internet as well as the streets and in meetings, soon in order to digest the material and improve my strategies for helping change the world.
Having thought about the issue of mind reading/control, there is a way it can be achieved without the need for supernatural powers. [Indeed, the humaniform robot R Daneel Olivaw was taught such powers by the robot R Giskard Reventlov in Asimov's writings, and R Giskard himself was programmed with such powers by a very talented girl. This indicates that Asimov himself didn't regard it as supernatural, and since he was an atheist that is unsurprising!].
Basically, to read someone’s mind, you need to produce a very sophisticated model of a particular person, other people, animals and inanimate objects (including computers) that the person interacts with (which is part of an extremely sophisticated model of the entire world – precisely what Hari Seldon in conjunction with a team of programmers developed in the Foundation series). Once you have that model, it is possible to nudge that person into making a decision slightly different from the one he/she would otherwise make, by interacting with him/her in a particular way.
In the real world, there is not just one computer taking on that responsibility, there are many interacting programs (with PRISM taking the lead on the side of the 1% and the one at http://www.dialectics.info on the side of the 99%), developed by huge numbers of programmers across the world – and there is also the combined intelligence of many different brains cooperating or competing around particular goals, with most people’s being neutral as far as agendas for changing the world is concerned. Animals’ minds must be taken into account too, but I don’t think they can really have sophisticated agendas…
I have a particular agenda myself, of a socialist world with a government elected by proportional representation – see About Steve Wallis, the Maggie Thatcher of the Left for more information. This may conflict with the Foundation’s aim, probably of “communism” as conceived by Marx and Engels, after the state “withers away” with people’s prejudices ending over a period of years after a socialist revolution (possibly peacefully although Marxists usually regard an armed uprising as necessary). I suspect and hope that with sufficiently complex and accurate modelling, the world can be changed without need for much (if any) bloodshed."