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.

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    No defending the OP more generally, but here’s Mao in On Contradiction, emphasis mine:

    Changes do take place in the geography and climate of the earth as a whole and in every part of it, but they are insignificant when compared with changes in society; geographical and climatic changes manifest themselves in terms of tens of thousands of years, while social changes manifest themselves in thousands, hundreds or tens of years, and even in a few years or months in times of revolution. According to materialist dialectics, changes in nature are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society . . .

    • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      6 months ago

      This is correct, but it’s not like there is ever a contradiction between mathematical and dialectical methods. Natural scientists only prefer to work with mathematics because their subject is benign enough to admit mathematical descriptions yielding precise, quantitative results, while social scientists need dialectics because their mathematical models suffer from crippling vagueness and complexity and are quickly outdated. Where mathematics can describe a system to which dialectics happen to also apply, e.g. phase transitions, it naturally produces models that mirror the dialectic because they both describe the same thing.