#+title: The Philosophy of Living Experience

- tags :: [[file:../20200720200955-philosophy.org][philosophy]] [[file:../20200720201313-alexander_bogdanov.org][Alexander Bogdanov]] [[file:../20200628213016-materialism.org][materialism]]
- type :: literature

* 1. What is Materialism?
- Bogdanov defines [[file:../20200720201422-nature.org][nature]] as the endlessly unfolding field of their
  labor-experience
- [[file:../20200716124833-labor.org][labor]], as a whole, is the activity of all of humanity in the historical
  interconnectedness of all its generations
- Human beings change the elements of nature by means of labor
- Labor organizes the world for humanity
- Labor requires conscious effort
- Matter, which we consider real, is the object of collective labor
- Bogdanov says that [[file:../20200611202011-marx.org][Marx]] used the term [[file:../20200628213016-materialism.org]["materialism"]] because he realized that
  matter is the object of production
- Labor must systemically organize to overcome nature
- Bogdanov uses the term "[[file:../20200720202354-ideology.org][ideology]]" to refer to the realm of ideal thought
- He says that things like human speech arose from labor
- Bogdanov asserts that [[file:../20200720200955-philosophy.org][philosophy]] arose in an era when to organize meant to
  rule over, and that the natural product of this was [[file:../20200628213059-idealism.org][idealism]]
- Bogdanov characterizes [[file:../20200628213016-materialism.org][materialism]] as the philosophy which arose out of seeing
  the world through laborious acts, whereas [[file:../20200628213059-idealism.org][idealism]] sees the other half of the
  picture
- [[file:../20200720203254-democrtius.org][Democrtius]] believed that the seemingly immaterial aspects of our lives; our
  wishes, desires, etc. were actually made of atoms
  + Sounds like discussion from [[file:20200720093851-marx_s_ecology_cosmopod.org][Marx's Ecology | Cosmopod]]. Did Democritus
    mystify the real social relations as matter?
- Bogdanov says that there is a method called /substitution/ by which things
  become almost mystified. The example he gives is a book: the physical
  properties of a book do not contain knowledge, it is the interpretation of the
  letters in the book that articulate its knowledge
  - This isn't a bad thing, he says, it's just a means of explanation
- [[file:../20200720203254-democrtius.org][Democrtius]]'s theory of atoms speaks to immaterial phenomena being material,
  and therefore able to be studied
- Bogdanov notes the distinction between symbol and meaning, and that this
  distinction itself is a form of substitution
- He seems to be making a distinction between an explanation of a thing being
  confused for a thing itself
- Bogdanov says that materialism unifies and explains the world of experience
  through "matter", whereas idealism substitutes ideal elements (spirit, etc.)
  for material processes
- Bogdanov says that "matter is matter and that is all!" doesn't actually say
  anything
- Bogdanov reiterates what Marx says in Capital regarding [[file:../20200716125213-commodity_fetishism.org][commodity fetishism]];
  that distribution of labor among members of society ("relationship between
  people") is conceived of as a relationship between things (commodities).
  Commodities are exchanged by virtue of something intrinsic to themselves, not
  something in society
- Bogdanov felt that [[file:../20200720221509-ernst_mach.org][Ernst Mach]] revealed a fetishistic attitude towards matter,
  but was unable to uncover the source of that fetishism
- Bogdanov describes matter as something that's /socially valid/ upon which
  labor can act upon
- Bogdanov says that matter that cannot be acted upon is "absolute" and
  therefore becomes fetishized
  - The example he gives is bacteria
- Bogdanov mentions that Marx criticizes [[file:../20200607222010-feuerbach.org][Feuerbach]] (in [[file:../20200720224009-theses_on_feuerbach.org][Theses on Feuerbach]]) that
  the main problem with materialism consisted of seeing the world as an object
  of contemplation, not as a form of concrete human activity
- Bogdanov observes that [[file:../20200720224232-aristotle.org][Aristotle]] noticed a connection between activity and
  matter, but externalized it, i.e. clay becomes bricks for a house, that clay
  takes the "form" of bricks with the intention of being a brick for a house.
  The materialist observes that clay only becomes bricks through labor, and that
  it's through conscious human activity that clay becomes a brick for a house
- Bogdanov says that Mach criticizes [[file:../20200720224446-isaac_newton.org][Isaac Newton]] for his definition of matter
  and mass, that it is meaningless, and that all that can be done is to measure
  the relationship of masses
- Bogdanov criticizes people for believing that "truth" has anything besides a
  social meaning. Mathematics has no meaning if there are no people around to
  give it meaning!
- Bogdanov gives a great definition of [[file:../20200716125213-commodity_fetishism.org][commodity fetishism]] (more like a
  generalization of fetishism) here:
  #+begin_quote
  The nature of fetishism is clear, and it is fetishism all the same, whether
  abstract or absolute. An idea which is objectively the result of past social
  activity and a tool for further activity is conceived of as something
  independent of and aloof from that activity, and this blocks the path to
  actual cognition of it. The correlation of an idea with the practice that it
  organizes turns out to be inaccessible to people's thinking.
  #+end_quote
- An idea is the product of abstraction to some degree
- [[file:../20200720225541-monism.org][monism]]: a unified worldview
* 2. Materialism of the Ancient World
- Bogdanov says that [[file:../20200720200955-philosophy.org][philosophy]] (presumably western philosophy) was born in
  Greek colonies in Asia minor
- Philosophy began here as the embracing of non-religious knowledge (what we
  would today call [[file:../20200721210255-science.org][science]])
- Bogdanov says that philosophy arising in Asia Minor was no accident: it was a
  nexus of trade between Europe and Asia broadly speaking
- Bogdanov says that the exchange of goods created the first "secular"
  knowledge. Things like geometry and astronomy were used for the purpose of
  guiding trade
- [[file:../20200721210619-thales.org][Thales]] was an early materialist of sorts, and posited that everything is made
  of water. This, as Bogdanov says, is a form of substitution: he replaced
  matter in general with a specific type of matter
- Water being significant was also no coincidence: the ancient world was
  surrounded by water
- Up next was [[file:../20200721210901-anaximander.org][Anaximander]], who, as Bogdanov says, provided an important next
  step in abstract thinking: endlessness is what allows things to exist,
  therefore heat and cold arose from endlessness, and then in turn water
- Next was [[file:../20200721211314-anaximenes.org][Anaximenes]], who believed the basis of things was air, not water
- Bogdanov would consider these three part of the tradition of materialism, as
  they first looked out into the world to understand it (i.e. understand it in
  terms of /matter/)
- These ancient philosophers had stumbled upon a "primordial dialectic", that
  the world was one of activity
- Enter [[file:../20200720203254-democrtius.org][Democrtius]], who was also born in an Ionic trading colony, like the
  Miletus philosophers
- Democritus sought to sum up the knowledge of natural science for his time.
  Bogdanov believes that he was an influence on [[file:../20200720224232-aristotle.org][Aristotle]]
- Materialism arose from a study of nature
- Two basic methods of human labor are *division* and *combination*
- [[file:../20200721212226-anaxagoras.org][Anaxagoras]] was yet another ancient philosopher who thought of the world in
  terms of elements, but he thought that objects could be divided up into an
  indefinite number of elements. He also believed that all of space was filled
  with elements, and that empty space didn't exist
- Bogdanov goes into a bit about how "atom" in Greek was translated into Latin
  as "individual", and that exchange society (i.e. capitalism) is atomistic
- Bogdanov tries to show that capitalist society attempts to atomize workers
  lives, but fails because these individuals have to inherently come together in
  the market to make society work
- [[file:../20200721212908-leibniz.org][Leibniz]] saw the world as a series of monads, or a completely self-isolated
  element. He believed that each monad-individual was, at the end of the day, a
  completely self-contained entity that didn't exist under the influence of
  others. Each of these monads operate under a sort of supreme will and only
  approach something that appears to be communication. This is [[file:../20200628213059-idealism.org][idealism]], for it
  substitutes the idea of "spirit" for everything
- Contrasting Leibniz, atomism and materialism aren't the same: atoms exist in
  relation to one another
- Matter, unlike monads, is /external/ to a person
- Atoms are individualistic but they must be brought together and united into a
  whole, organized world
- [[file:../20200720100044-epicurus.org][Epicurus]] believed that the first cause of atoms was falling. He correctly
  predicted that in empty space, all objects would fall at the same rate, since
  there could be no resistance in empty space
- [[file:../20200721215556-empedocles.org][Empedocles]] is credited with being the person who came up with the idea that
  the four fundamental elements were earth, air, fire, and water
- He also believed in two fundamental forces through which matter interact:
  attraction and repulsion
- He believed that when things came together and were /purposeful/ and stable,
  they would survive, and the inverse would perish or be destroyed
  ("selection"). In this way he could have anticipated [[file:../20200720100600-darwin.org][Darwin]] and [[file:../20200720100806-natural_selection.org][natural
  selection]]
- Bogdanov criticizes [[file:../20200720100600-darwin.org][Darwin]] because he felt that he didn't quite grasp the
  social nature of biology, and instead grafted on the idealized capitalist
  ideology of [[file:../20200623223058-malthus.org][Malthus]]
- Competition is only a particular kind of selection
- Bogdanov criticizes [[file:../20200721223147-sensualism.org][sensualism]], the idea that all we know is sensuous
  experience, and that this can be universalized. E.g. "external objects are
  nothing more than /my/ mental images"
- Bogdanov says that [[file:../20200721223720-solipsism.org][solipsism]] is 1. a characteristic example of [[file:../20200721223746-abstract_fetishism.org][abstract
  fetishism]] and 2. could only come from thinkers who are cut off from the labor
  process
- For the sensualist [[file:../20200721224050-protagoras.org][Protagoras]], the sensory organ undergoes an action in
  perception, but is also acted upon. For example, a tree cannot be known in
  itself, but, once observed, you obtain a visual sensation and the tree
  suddenly exists in relation to you via its visual form in relation to you, but
  only for that moment

  #+begin_quote
Here we encounter an interesting peculiarity of Protagorean sensualism, which
distinguishes him from later sensualists such as Locke, Condillac, and many
moderate materialists. To be specific, for Protagoras the subject or the
subject’s sensory organ plays a much more active role. The sensory organ not
only undergoes an action from the object from which the sensation is actually
produced, but it also acts on the object, generating in it ‘what is sensed’. So,
a tree cannot be known in itself and has no optical image, but when you look at
it, not only do you obtain a visual sensation, but the tree itself attains a
visual form in relation to you – its optical appearance. Both fully correspond
to one another, therefore sensation is always true and always truly conveys what
is sensed. But what is sensed, itself, exists in the subject only in that moment
and only for that given subject; the object in itself is not accessible to a
person.
This is a transitional point of view, the result of a situation in which
theory is still not sufficiently removed from practice – not sufficiently
specialised – to be able to live a completely separate, independent life.
Practical people will always be ‘naïve realists’, i.e. they accept that objects
are precisely as they are seen, perceived, and, in general, apprehended. The
fetishism of naïve realism consists in that it considers the object to exist in
such a form completely inde- pendently of any human practice. The naïve realist
supposes that the object in itself is, for example, ‘quadrangular’, ‘two yards
long’, ‘weighing three pounds’, and does not understand that all these
‘properties’ can in no way belong to the object ‘in itself’. Humanity, in its
labour experience over millennia, had to work out methods of comparing and
defining forms, measurement, and weight, in order to make ‘quadrangles’,
‘yards’, ‘pounds’, etc. possible. In nature itself – in the instances of
elemental resistance which labouring effort comes up against – there are no such
things, nor can there be. They are the result of the activity of humanity in
overcoming, changing, forming, and organising these resistances. In the hands of
fetishists – theoreticians who lock themselves up in their studies and whose
narrow specialties have almost nothing to do with the resistance of material
objects – this distortion develops further. Their sense of isolation from
material objects and their sense of the ‘independence’ of material objects are
considerably deeper. They believe that such objects not only exist independently
from themselves but that they are so independent as to be completely
inaccessible to their minds; only their ‘outward appear- ance’ is accessible –
masks which they put on before the observer. And a feeling of their individual
powerlessness – their personal passivity in relation to the external world –
reinforces in them the conviction that this ‘outward appear- ance’ is entirely
the result of the object’s action on them, that they themselves only ‘apprehend’
that action.
  #+end_quote
- The main characteristics of ancient materialism were "unconscious applications
  of models taken from social practice"
- All forms of ancient materialism had individualism (i.e. an individualized and
  atomistic perspective) and individualistic development of society at their
  core
* 3. Modern Materialism
- Bogdanov makes the claim that the collapse of the [[file:../20200727223821-roman_empire.org][Roman Empire]] was due to a
  lack of technological innovation due to the existence of [[file:../20200716141014-slavery.org][slavery]]
- [[file:../20200716141014-slavery.org][Slavery]] was ineffective as a [[file:../20200716142442-mode_of_production.org][mode of production]] in the end because it required
  constant wars to obtain new slaves, and therefore commercial activity could
  not really spring up in such circumstances. Slavery prevents there from being
  suitable workers
- The [[file:../20200727224212-renaissance.org][Renaissance]] was born hand-in-hand with the emergence of [[file:../capitalism.org][capitalism]]
- Ancient philosophy and law provided for means of individualistic thinking,
  which also goes hand-in-hand with the rise of capitalism
- New materialism was born out of this period as well, going along with the
  desire for a new rationality
- This new materialism concerned itself with /method/ rather than /systems/
- [[file:../20200727224630-francis_bacon.org][Francis Bacon]] believed that the goal of knowledge was its *practical value*.
  "Precise and accurate knowledge was a tool that could conquer the world...
  [ushering in a] dominion of humanity"
- There are "pure theoreticians" that Bogdanov criticizes, who believe the
  pursuit of knowledge should be done for its own sake, without regard for what
  the application of its discovery is

  #+begin_quote
The psychological truth is that if you search for truth you must concentrate
all your attention and energy of thought on it alone; you must not be distracted
at that moment by any collateral considerations – about what the truth is that
one is seeking, where it objectively comes from, the practical tasks that it
must help resolve, etc. But this applies generally to all intense and
complicated human activity. When turning any delicate part of a machine on a
lathe, a mechanic of course should not at that moment be thinking either about
the usefulness of this part in the machine or about the usefulness of the
machine in production; the mechanic should be thinking only about how to achieve
the necessary form. When performing a difficult operation, a surgeon should not
think about the benefit of that operation for the patient, one’s personal
reputation as a surgeon, or even about the scientific results which can be
obtained from findings connected with it; the surgeon should think solely about
the means of successfully accomplishing the operation. However, this is not a
reason why the tasks of the turner or the tasks of the surgeon must be
self-contained, ‘pure’ tasks. It is not harmful for either of them to know what
they are doing, i.e. to have an idea of those needs that are objectively served
by their work. The same can be said about cognition as a means of satisfying the
practical needs of society. --- p. 99 - 100
  #+end_quote
  #+begin_quote
  No one has ever proven that work is completed better and faster when the
worker does not understand its objective meaning.
  #+end_quote
- The value of truth is derived by crystallized social experience. Truth is
  /produced/, created out of humanity interacting with objects of nature. New
  truth replaces old truth
- [[file:../20200727225533-scholasticism.org][Scholasticism]] asserts several given truths, and new truths had to be derived
  from the truths that were there
  - Bogdanov mentions in a footnote that the term "scholasticism" refers to what
    was taught in European universities that was descended from the works of
    [[file:../20200720224232-aristotle.org][Aristotle]]
- [[file:../20200727225630-empiricism.org][Empiricism]] ("empirical methodology") asserted that new truths could be
  discovered without regard for what had already been known. It is the only
  avenue through which modern materialism could be possible
- "pure experience" is the idea that correct thinking will lead to truth
 
  #+begin_quote
   Everyday experience is full of contradictions; observations are entangled
 with many illusions. The scientific method must first of all liberate cognition
 from such elements; otherwise induction would not be able to lead to truth.
 This is the idea of ‘pure experience’, which plays a very large role in all
 further development of philosophical ideas; we will meet it many times in our
 account. Bacon gave it form in his doctrine about ‘idols’ – a word that can be
 translated both as ‘fetish’ and ‘illusion’. Its meaning is so broad that it
 contains both of these connotations. Bacon’s classification of these ‘idols’ is
 interesting because it so clearly sets forth the revolutionary mood of the new
 thinking against the entire traditional and conventional system of ideas.
   #+end_quote
- /Idola tribus/: Idols of the tribe, "delusions associated with the general
  conditions of humankind." Anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism, tendency to
  understand phenomena of nature as having human characteristics
- /Idola specus/: Idols of the cave, individuals living within themselves and
  not being able to see outside of it. For example, specialists who believe
  their specialty is important and essential, while something unrelated isn't
- /Idola fori/: Idols of the marketplace. Commodity fetishism.
- /Idola theatric/: Idols of the theatre. Illusions that arise due to a
  disguise, "to which reality is subjected at the hands of historians and
  philosophers"
- Data of experience is organized through the method of generalization
- A group voting to do something is attempting to correlate statistical data
  with organizing experience
- Pages 104 - 106 (in PDF) sound like [[file:../20200708122521-cybernetics.org][cybernetics]]
- Abstract analysis is carried out through both observation and experimentation
- [[file:../20200728232815-thomas_hobbes.org][Thomas Hobbes]] is seen as the next modern materialist for Bogdanov
- The mathematics of Hobbes' time arose out of trying to find the relationship
  of magnitudes (calculus)
- For Hobbes, the only things that were real were the things that could be
  mathematically constructed
- [[file:../20200714093709-john_locke.org][John Locke]] is next. Bogdanov categorizes him as a sensualist, who thought the
  most important thing was /physical/ experience
- Locke developed a sort of proto-psychology as well
- Locke correctly disproved that there was no objective "idea", that all
  knowledge was learned to some degree, and that this could be shown by virtue
  of the fact that there was a multiplicity of ideas (some people had no concept
  of God, etc.)
- Locke categorized qualities as primary (form, size, position in space),
  secondary, and tertiary, and that experiencing these was completely subjective
- [[file:../20200728234350-david_hume.org][David Hume]] is a representative of English sensualism as well, and maybe not
  materialism
- Hume thought that all human experience essentially boils down to individual
  experience
- Hume considered causality to be a succession of perceptions
- Causation is a permanent interconnectedness of phenomena
- Hume was a proponent of [[file:../20200728234943-skepticism.org][skepticism]] which was only an influence on ideas to
  come later
- The early English bourgeoisie supported [[file:../20200729124219-absolute_monarchy.org][absolute monarchy]] because it led to
  political and civil stability
- The early bourgeoisie and the late aristocracy were often similar people and
  had similar interests
- The early French bourgeoisie originally aligned itself with the monarchy, but
  the monarchy didn't provide political freedom for the bourgeoisie and was
  unable to cope with the economic needs of the country. Thus the [[file:../20200720100506-french_revolution.org][French
  Revolution]] occurred
- French materialism, unlike English materialism, was more about /systematizing/
  more than individualizing
- The most relevant contribution of the French materialists is that human nature
  wasn't something immutable, but was something that depended on social context
- They also contributed the idea that the ideas of the time are subordinate to
  the social context in which they arise. Ideas in themselves do not transform
  society
- Individuals are not actively conscious of their interconnectedness through
  society, and therefore things only *appear* individualistic
* 4. [[file:../20200804204051-empiriocriticism.org][Empiriocriticism]]
- Bogdanov says that what distinguishes pre-modern and modern empiricism is
  experience
- Bogdanov cites [[file:../20200804203239-richard_avenarius.org][Richard Avenarius]] --- before we do philosophy we already have
  a common context. We have clothes, the sun, etc. we know what these things
  mean collectively
- Bogdanov mentions that trees have characteristics outside of our heads, but
  it's not until they enter our heads that they take on meaning
  - i.e. the greenness of the leaves of a tree are a social construct. Greenness
    is formed out of our collective experience but this characteristic is also
    intrinsic to the tree
- Bogdanov is playing up the interrelations between the physical world and the
  world in our heads
- Scientists and thinkers seek to explain facts. For empiriocriticism this is
  backwards: phenomena are only known when "their interconnectedness and
  dependence are found and accurately indicated"
- Functional dependence: when *A* is present, *B* occurs
  - sounds like f(A) => B
- Empiriocriticism doesn't seek to "explain" the world (in causal terms), it
  views the world as interconnectedness of phenomena
* 5. [[file:../20200810223639-dialectical_materialism.org][Dialectical Materialism]]
- "Dialectic" means "dialogue"
- [[file:../20200810223554-plato.org][Plato]] defined the dialectic as "a conversation of the soul with itself
  concerning any subject whatever"
- The dialectical process is a form of organizing character
- The dialectical process, broadly, is two opposite tendencies whose
  antagonistic relationship develops a new organizational model containing each
  part
  - Health / illness => immunity, two groups going to war and creating a treaty,
    etc.
- The dialectical process has its origins in the Milesian school
- The formal originator of the dialectical means of thinking in the west was
  [[file:../20200810223959-heraclitus_the_obscure.org][Heraclitus the Obscure]]
- Heraclitus thought that fire was the basis of all things
- Heraclitus observed that "in the struggle of opposites, each thing necessarily
  transforms into its opposite"
- Some thinkers believe Heraclitus to have been influenced by [[file:../20200810225100-zarathustra.org][Zarathustra]]
- Heraclitus sounds like the Hegel of his day: no one read him and everyone was
  confused by him (this is unfair to Hegel)
- [[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]] is the next thinker to really popularize dialectical thinking, along
  with [[file:../20200810225409-fitche.org][Fitche]] and [[file:../20200810225417-schelling.org][Schelling]]
- [[file:../20200810225409-fitche.org][Fitche]] saw the "I" striving to be conscious of itself, but in this process
  encounters resistance. This resistance is found within one's self, called
  "not-I"
  - Bogdanov only really sees the process as being valuable
- [[file:../20200810225417-schelling.org][Schelling]] took existing scientific thoughts at the time and tried to shoe-horn
  them into philosophy (namely polarity)
  - Althusser, supposedly, considers this to be a mistake on the part of
    philosophers, who see one concept from science and base their whole thing
    around it. It's the inverse of STEM people
- [[file:../20200720100117-hegel.org][Hegel]], meanwhile, felt that the Absolute Idea (God) was a world-process
- For Hegel, an Idea was the sum total of a certain phenomena (Bogdanov says
  that this is a substitution: he substitutes Idea for a given sum of phenomena)
- Hegel believed that a dialectical contradiction was internal to a process. "In
  order to /be/, it is necessary to be /something/, and in order to possess
  /being/ and nothing more, it is impossible to be anything /concrete/"
- "Becoming" contains both "being" and "non-being", which is synthesized into a
  higher concept
- Bogdanov believes that philosophy is like a map of a theatre of war: it
  provides a useful orientation but no more
- [[file:../20200607222010-feuerbach.org][Feuerbach]] was the person who, as Bogdanov puts it, took philosophy from the
  misty abstractions into the real world. He's even quoted as saying "The old
  philosophy was abstract, the new philosophy is sensuous."
- Feuerbach pointed out that a deity is a representation of the essence of
  humanity
  - Marx criticizes this point in [[file:../20200720224009-theses_on_feuerbach.org][Theses on Feuerbach]] by saying that he didn't
    consider religion to be a social construct
- [[file:../20200611204104-engels.org][Engels]] was overly mechanistic in his understanding of dialectics in
  [[file:../20200817220931-anti_duhring.org][Anti-Dühring]]
  + A seed which grows, according to Bogdanov, doesn't "negate" itself
  + Bogdanov criticizes Engels' understanding of motion, as it's not
    contradictory. An object's location is not intrinsic to itself
- Bogdanov says that [[file:../20200817221335-joseph_dietzgen.org][Joseph Dietzgen]] is similar in philosophy to Marx and Engels
  + Dietzgen tried to synthesize dialectics with [[file:../20200723210039-spinoza.org][Spinoza]]
  + Dietzgen says that if a human being can conceive of infinity it must mean
    that they are part of an infinity
- Bogdanov sums up the problems with dialectical materialism well: that it can
  be seen everywhere, but that's not all there is to life
* 6. Empiriomonism
** Labor Causality
:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       2d43d3b5-4e45-4cc9-b54a-56012f3b7aa6
:END:
- Bogdanov believes that what transforms our relationship to the world is labor
- Bogdanov asserts that labor is almost a mathematical transformation of the
  world. A water turbine generating electricity is the transformation of a
  natural process for a human end. It's like =f(x, y) => z= where =x=, =y=, and
  =z= are natural phenomena
- For Bogdanov, labor, and the fundamental activity of humanity, is the
  transformation of energy (see: machines)
- Labor for Bogdanov is a derivation of energy in the real world
- Labor causality is, in summary, a view of causation wherein labor actively
  transforms nature
** Elements of Experience
- Elements in the real world are the result of a particular labor process.
  Hydrogen was found in water by means of performing labor upon it to break it
  down.
- Understanding elements in the real world via labor always correlate to a task
  at hand, and allow for a clearer understanding
** Objectivity
- We know there's a real world out there because we agree there is through our
  collective being
- The objective world is the subject of social experience, in the same way that
  dreams are the subject of individual experience
- Bogdanov gives an example: an astronomer sees a comet, but only the astronomer
  has seen it. Is it objective? The astronomer can publish the position of the
  comet, etc. but once the astronomer classified it, it became the subject of
  /collective/ experience because it can be described using the tools made by
  collective effort
- Bogdanov criticizes Plekhanov for his take on wood demons: Plekhanov says that
  wood demons don't exist, but Bogdanov feels that this isn't precisely correct:
  The wood demons did not exist but their social existence served a purpose in
  ancient Russian society
** Sociomorphism
:PROPERTIES:
:ID:       3d4b1770-2b0c-42f2-b6e1-0706c00a608c
:END:
- Bogdanov asserts that all worldviews are predicated on a view of causailty,
  fundamentally
- *Sociomorphism* can be defined as:
  #+begin_quote
  Thought takes its forms from social practice.

  or

  The interconnectedness of the elements of experience in cognition has as its
  basis the correlation of the elements of social activity in the labor process.
  #+end_quote

  This sounds like [[file:../20200824222403-sartre.org][Sartre]]'s "existence precedes essence."
** Substitution
- Bogdanov gives a more complete picture of substitution: substitution is a
  simpler explanation of more complex phenomena. There's only so much we can
  understand about the sun, for example. We cannot fathom its every facet, so we
  must /substitute/ in an understanding.
- Bogdanov reveals himself here to be a monist: for him, there is no separation
  between thought and matter.
- /Universal substitution/ is the goal for Bogdanov, where the signifier and
  signified are one in the same
** A Picture of the World
- Science for Bogdanov should be wider and have richer content, rather than
  complexity. This allows for a certain amount of modularity in explanations.
* Conclusion
- Bogdanov outlines what he calls "the science of the future", what we now know
  is [[file:../20200708122521-cybernetics.org][cybernetics]]
- Bogdanov's "science of the future" has no specialization and is a science of
  science, essentially
- The science of the future will be an organizational force above all: once
  which studies the organizational structures of existence and organize
  humanity's creative powers
* Supplemental
#+begin_quote
The problem, says Bogdanov, is that we make a fetish of the part of the total
labor process that we happen to do ourselves, taking it to be the key part. We
compound this error by imagining the rest of the process, the social whole, even
the whole universe, according to metaphors drawn from our own particular labors.
He called this substitution. Philosophy, says Bogdanov, is any system of thought
that takes an image from a concrete labor process and explains the rest of the
world by via substituting metaphors from what is known toward what is unknown.
We image the rest on the pattern of the part we know. Thus: “The Lord is my
shepherd” is a way of understanding heaven and earth – if one happens to be a
shepherd. --- [[https://publicseminar.org/2013/12/against-social-determinism/][Against Social Determinism - Public Seminar]]
#+end_quote