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Cake day: June 17th, 2022

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  • 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.





  • I have some questions, which are not intended to be rhetorical or sarcastic. My questions stem from this assertion:

    Well gravity itself is not a dialectic since gravity itself remains unchanging.

    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:

    1. Dialectics is the study of change. Does that presuppose (measurable) change in everything?

    2. 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?

    3. How can you/we be sure that gravity is unchanging?

    4. How can gravity not be dialectical and yet only be explained as a relation/process?

    5. 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?