On Sat, 02 Sep 2000 20:08:17 -0700 bill fancher <fancher at pacbell.net>
writes:
> on 9/1/00 5:28 AM, Carrol Cox at cbcox at ilstu.edu wrote:
>
> > Peter,
> >
> > If you have a fairly decent grasp of Edelmann's theorys, sketching
> them out
> > further for the list would be a valuable contribution. We (the
> marxist
> > tradition) have bungled too often by putting all our eggs into
> this or that
> > scientific theory which then dissolved, but still I feel "neural
> darwinism"
> > comes closer than any other psychological/neurological theory I
> know of to
> > lending support to Marx's critique not only of the 'old'
> materialism but also
> > of the bourgeois "abstract -- isolated -- individual." Someone
> quoted
> > Skinner's "Consciousness is a social product," but that is too
> mechanical --
> > i.e., it puts the machine (society) on one hand, the isolated
> invidual on the
> > other as the "product." As far as I can grasp them, Edelmann's
> conceptions
> > allow for consciousness existing only within social relations, but
> not
> > separating it as an isolated billiard ball.
> >
> > Carrol
> >
> Since Carrol has said that he will not defend the above, I'll just
> step up
> and take a few free potshots...
>
> I find this little slip both revealing and disturbing.
>
> The idea that we should espouse scientific theories based on whether
> they
> lend support to an ideology, rather than their conformity to facts,
> expanatory usefulness, and conceptual simplicity is one that I find
> repellant.
Sorry Bill but I would have to agree with Les that your reading of Carrol's query is way over the top. It seems to me that Carrol was posing a perfectly legitimate question in asking to what extent that Neural Darwinism is compatible with Marxist views of social relations. As I recall, you seemed to have no objections to my attempts (such as they are) to relate Skinner's radical behaviorism with Marxism. BTW from what I know of Neural Darwism (which is not much) it seems that it should be quite compatible with radical behaviorism in psychology. For one thing both theories rely upon a selectionist causal model. Actually from what I have seen of Carrol's posts to LBO-Talk, the Marxism List and other lists, he has always been a stickler for getting scientific statements right even if they contradict his and other progreessives' political prejudices. I don't think that he is about to reintroduce us to the joys of Lysenkoism.
>
> That the suggestion to push this theory on the list was to have been
> secret,
> so as to have it appear that "We (the marxist tradition)" was not
> behind the
> effort, illustrates the sort of political methods that I find
> reprehensible.
Aren't we getting just a little paranoid here.
>
> Finally, the above leads me to wonder just how much of this
> surreptitious
> manipulation the list is actually subject to, and toward what end.
>
> My recently declining respect for the left has slid down another big
> notch.
> It's getting harder and harder for me to "left identify".
There may well be other valid reasons for losing respect for the left but Carrol's query on Neural Darwinism isn't one of them.
Jim Farmelant - Leader of the Secret Marxist-Behaviorist Conspiracy to take over and manipulate LBO-Talk, the Marxism List, the CrashList and sundry other email lists.
>
> --
>
> bill
>
> "... a movement to realize the conceivable better state of the world
> must
> deny itself the advantages of secret methods and tactical
> insincerities. It
> must leave that to its adversaries. We must declare our end plainly
> from the
> outset and risk no misunderstandings of our procedure." H.G. Wells
>
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