I had this question proposed to me recently, and thought I would give it my best shot. I would love any input you guys have on how I can refine this further, make it more clear, more accurate, more succinct, all that.
Also, this is specifically geared towards Marxist-Leninists and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, and that understanding of dialectics, just to be clear. I’m not interested in the hyper-orthodox understanding of dialectical materialism.
I don’t understand the ins and outs of gravity perfectly, but here goes.
Internal contradiction is what drives all things. This is true for gravity, as much as anything in the world. Gravity could then be analyzed in the framework of the contradictor forces within gravity. What would those forces be?
Well, Einstein’s general relativity is probably the best place to start. I will outline the two contradictory forces below.
Again, I don’t know a ton about the in’s and out’s of it, but the way I see it, there are two sets of contradictions at work in “gravity”.
First, the contradiction of Mass and Spacetime Curvature. We have the force of attraction, where masses attract each other, but contradictory to that, we also have the resistance of compression, where the curvature of space resists this attraction.
Second, we have the contradiction of Inertia and Graviational Pull. Objects resist changes to their existing state of motion, but the force of attraction seeks to change the motion of objects
In the case of general relativity, I would say the first contradiction is the primary one, since that relationship is what defines the attraction between masses, and the resistances between each one. I would say the second contradiction is the secondary one, since it’s still crucial for understanding how gravity works, but, it explains the result of gravitational attraction, rather than the fundamental cause of it.
In the case of the primary contradiction, I would say that the force of attraction is the primary aspect of the contradiction, over resistance to compression, since the attraction of mass to itself is the fundamental reason why spacetime is distorted in the first place. In the secondary contradiction, gravitational pull is of course, the primary aspect there.
Let me know what you think, and thank you.
Well gravity itself is not a dialectic since gravity itself remains unchanging.
But the concept of gravity, the understanding of gravity, is a dialectic.
You go from Newton where gravity is an attractive force, to relativistic physics where gravity is not a force at all.
For Newton, gravity was a force pulling us down.
For Einstein, the force we feel is actually the earth beneath us exploding as a result of electromagnetic repulsion, and we stay “in place” at the point where the acceleration of electromagnetic repulsion is balanced by the flow of space time.
Then the concept of space time is itself a dialectic with the dominant view of physics denying a fixed “now” and instead supposing some kind of block universe or perhaps some other understanding of time where there is no fixed now.
And this dominant view increasingly challenged as absurd and reliant on non-empirical assumptions about the 1-way speed of light derived from the 2-way speed of light which gives you a minority view of neo-etherists where a “now” is restored.
It’s an understanding in flux.
Gravity itself is what it is. A fact of nature. What we understand gravity to be, that’s a dialectic.
Engels wrote
It would go too far to credit Engels as a physicist because he wasn’t one but his insight into how the understanding of gravity must evolve was incredible.
I wouldn’t turn to Engels to understand gravity but it’s shocking how prescient he was in foreseeing the shifting understanding of gravity, a dialectic of the scientific revolution, well before Einstein was even born.
Does relativity involve repulsion like he describes?
You jump, fall down, you feet hit the ground.
You feel an impact.
Under the Newtonian understanding of gravity, the impact you felt was due to an attractive force.
Under the relativistic understanding, the force of impact was a repulsive one - electromagnetic repulsion of the earth. The earth is “exploding” constantly outwards due to electromagnetic repulsion, electromagnetic repulsion is accelerating every atom of the earth outwards from the center but this outward acceleration is in equilibrium with the flow of space time. Gravity is not understood to be a force at all under relativity, neither attractive or repulsive, but an apparent phenomenon due to the curvature of space time. The feeling of your feet against the ground is understood as electromagnetic repulsion.
If Newton were to measure the force of impact as the apple hit the ground, he would have understood himself to be measuring the force of gravity.
Think about it this way: a body in free fall experiences weightlessness. When you’re falling you feel no force of gravity at all. It’s only when your feet are on the ground that you feel “gravity”.
Doesn’t that mean there is now a force of repulsion but not of attraction?
Specifically for the feeling of your feet against the ground being due to a repulsive electromagnetic force accelerating you outwards, that’s a repulsive force.
Gravity isn’t understood to be a force at all. Not attractive or repulsive.
this is not true, the value of gravity is never constant. On earth its used as a constant because the changes are “insignificant” but there are differences.
the sum of insignificant quantitative changes leads to qualitative changes, if you approached to the moon 1 meter at a time and measured gravity, the difference would be minimal, but after 10km you would start noticing the changes.
I have some questions, which are not intended to be rhetorical or sarcastic. My questions stem from this assertion:
I’m struggling to see how you can say all that and begin with saying that gravity is ‘not a dialectic’. Doesn’t this framing imply that gravity can mean something/anything in the abstract, as an isolated thing that exists outside of relations. No one thing can be a dialectic because a dialectic is a relation.
The questions, which may be the same question worded in different ways:
Dialectics is the study of change. Does that presuppose (measurable) change in everything?
That is, if gravity is a relation, if it (partly) explains why matter is in constant motion, is it true that gravity is not dialectical just because it appears (and may be) unchanging in the abstract?
How can you/we be sure that gravity is unchanging?
How can gravity not be dialectical and yet only be explained as a relation/process?
Does “Well gravity itself is not a dialectic since gravity itself remains unchanging” treat ‘gravity’ as a thing in itself? I.e. rather than a part/property of certain material relations?
The understanding of gravity is dialectical but the natural phenomenon of gravity isn’t.
Our explanations of it, understandings of it, our experience of it, those are dialectical.
Nature has only necessity and contingency obedient to unchanging laws and externalities but our idea of nature is what changes.
-Lenin
I see. I don’t know, though. That seems to externalise gravity as something beyond, as universal. As if gravity and the rest of physical matter are not internally related. It seems to assume (a) an epistemology that puts some knowledge beyond human comprehension just because we can’t know for sure that our models are correct – like an epistemological scepticism – and (b) that something is unchanging just because we can’t (yet or necessarily) perceive it’s changes.
It seems incorrect to (i) need dialectics to explain a phenomena but (ii) deny that dialectics governs that phenomena on the basis that humans might one day transcend dialectics to arrive at a more accurate or deeper understanding of matter.
The notion that our understanding of nature is only an idea rather than our best approximation of the material seems anti-materialist. Dialectics doesn’t necessarily exclude unchanging laws; it posits that development happens according to such laws, which are dialectical.
I don’t think we conceive of ‘changes’ or of dialectics in the same way. But maybe we’re saying the same thing in different words or talking past one another. That or I’m misunderstanding you.
It does not imply that gravity and physical matter are unrelated. Not at all.
It does separate the idea of gravity from the fact of gravity, but those things are absolutely and very clearly separate.
“Understanding” and “idea” are synonyms here so yes they are equated.
Our idea of gravity, our concept of gravity, our understanding of gravity, our model of gravity, whatever… all these are directly synonyms here meaning exactly the same thing. Our idea of gravity is our understanding of gravity.
Sure and if the laws themselves are unchanging then the laws themselves are precluded from being a dialectic.
Even if gravity is a fixed law, it is still dialectical. All things must change doesn’t mean that the fact that all things change changes. Idk.
There’s the inner dialog of concept in mathematics and science, and even formal logic mathematics and science are part of the ideological superstructure. Anti-Dühring was a great work.
And materialist dialectics obviously applies to motion and movement in the world. So you can have a dialect of erosion or a dialect of planetary motion, which are subject to gravity, although it’s some fine line drawing to separate the reality of nature from the idea of nature, it quickly becomes recursive but yeah sure any idea of nature is clearly dialectical and changes, natural processes, in nature can be have their idea expressed as a dialect. To hop from that to insisting the process of natural change is a dialect seems to be insisting that dialectics itself has physical reality as opposed to being an idea which becomes an entirely recursive navel gazing exercise as well as pointless. Expressing a dialect of nature is expressing an idea of nature which is expressing an ideal, not the reality itself even if the dialect is a materialist dialect. Or to put that another way, ideals are not reals and dialectics are an ideal even when they are dialectics of the real.
But if a law of nature is, in material fact, unchanging then how can it be a dialect? How can an unchanged and unchanging thing be a dialect? Virtually nothing is unchanged and unchanging, except for the law of gravity. I mean shit, even other fundamental forces are changeable with the breaking of certain symmetries in the extremely early universe so hell even the weak nuclear force can, at least for a few picoseconds, be considered a dialect but gravity?
You could have a dialect of physics. You could have a dialect of erosion. You could have a dialect of science. Of course. But to say the law of gravity itself is a dialect, the physical reality of it and not the idea of it, well for one what is the point of that when you could fruitfully have a dialect of the idea of gravity or dialects of the effects of gravity, and two; no it’s not.
The interactions of gravity can be expressed and understood within a dialectical framework but dialectics describe processes of change but are not the processes of change themselves.
An unchanging law of nature is an input into dialectics, a dialect of erosion for example which must consider the web of relationships between things and gravity being a rule that determines certain interactions, but to talk about a dialect of gravity itself… what is that a dialect of? What is interacting with what to change the law of gravity? It’s not a dialect.
A person climbing a tower, carrying a ball, dropping it, the ball falling due to gravity, and then bouncing. Yes this is a dialect. So is water evaporating from heat, forming a cloud, then raining. Yes.
It’s not that the universe has the idea of dialectics built in, it’s that things are processes with contradictions. Dialectics is the view that recognizes this truth.
I think you are interpreting me as saying gravity is itself a process. I do not mean that, just that gravity describes the contradictions that effect the way movement occurs.
Ok then I did misunderstand you.
Yes I agree that processes of change in nature, such as erosion or rain or motion or whatever, any process is a dialect.
Sorry for strongly disagreeing with you when we meant the same thing.
I got caught up in the idea of the law itself as a dialect but yes you’re right and I was going into a knot.