Brief History of Materialism

From the very ancient times philosophy is divided into two main branches- idealism and materialism. The basic question, especially of modern philosophy, is which is primary thinking or being; spirit or nature. Those who assert the primacy of spirit to nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assume world creation in some form or other, comprise the camp of idealism. The others, who regard nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.
Hegel was the most famous philosopher of idealism who developed it to its summit. But with it, he developed the dialectical approach, which was later combined with scientific materialism by Marx and Engels to establish the basic foundations of dialectical materialism.
In true sense, materialism emerged as an irresistible force before idealism only from the 16th century. Early materialism developed in two different streams. One was the rationalist school of continental Europe. Descartes and later Spinoza were the main ideologues of this stream. The other school was that of empiricists of Britain. Bacon, Hobbes and Locke were the main figures of this stream. Both the schools accepted that there is no doubt in the existence of real material world. Rationalists argued that our knowledge of material world is mainly based on our perceptions and the only way of knowing the world beyond the range of this perceptual knowledge is logical reasoning. But according to empiricists logical analysis and simulation by human mind is unnecessary and they claimed that the source of our whole knowledge is only experience. Whatever is known by experience, only that makes the material world. There were also differences between the thoughts of Descartes and Spinoza as the former believed in the duality of spirit and nature, while the latter, in the unity of nature and material world with the God. According to Descartes, relation between spirit and matter exists only externally but in Spinoza's views matter and spirit are only the two aspects of the same object. Thus, the analytical activities of human mind are nothing but the act of logically understanding of nature or God. This argument would be considerable if it was raised from an atheistic viewpoint, but Spinoza gave the agency of ending dualism to God. Yet, at that time it was a great contribution. On the other hand, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke advanced the empirical materialism of Francis Bacon.
In 17th century, Berkely, a Christian Bishop and staunch enemy of materialism, dealt the fatal-blow to empiricism by putting the following question before it—He asked if the source of our whole knowledge is experience, and the source of experience is itself the perceptions reflected in our mind, what do we know except mind? Whatever we know is just because we have consciousness. Where perceptions will reside in the absence of consciousness? Thus, if our whole knowledge is only based on experience, it will be self-destructive for materialism! And from this loophole in empiricism Berkely again showed path to God. And, in fact, if we take the empiricism to its logical destination, matter itself becomes an "abstract idea" as empiricism can produce no evidence for the fact that matter is something more than mere perceived images in mind.
Here the contribution of Isaac Newton arrives on picture. Newton gave a reasonable explanation of nature, but had not refuted the existence of God. Newton represented the whole nature as a system following some fixed laws. In his famous laws of motion, he gave their infallible generalization and also proved them empirically. Nature emerged as a closed system, existing from eternity and will remain forever. Any changes in the system are completely determinable by laws, and these laws are predetermined and immutable in themselves. Newton did not end the reign of God but pushed him out of the boundary of universe. Thus, according to his views, after making the whole world inside the limits of universe, He just pressed the "start button" and the Game is continuing unabated since then! Completely bound by laws!! The system of Newton was so "full proof" that before the discovery of microscopic world no doubts could be raised on its universality. At that time the prevailing common view was that Newton has discovered everything and now the work of Scientists is only to calculate and explain his ideas. But the commencement of Quantum revolution in the early 20th century uncovered a new world where Newtonian laws were not valid and thus, a crisis originated in Newtonian physics.
Newton was a materialist as he believed in the existence of external world, although he was a positivist and objectivist. In his system there was no chance of co-incidence or uncertainty. Everything was determinable. And this is why his materialism was mechanical. The other important weakness of the materialism of this time was that materialists did not raise any serious questions on the existence of God.
The notion of God faced first grave danger by the thoughts of the French materialists of the period of Enlightenment, among whom Denis Diderot was the greatest. Meanwhile, in England, David Hume gave birth to agnostic materialism by adopting a compromising path in the materialism itself. According to his views, a material world does exist outside us, but on the basis of our experiences or reasoning we cannot know exactly how it looks or how will it become? But for Diderot everything was certain. He (Diderot) believed that organic matter originated from inorganic matter; both are part of material world, which exists undoubtedly, and on the basis of experience and reasoning it can be completely ascertained that how does it look or what will happen to it. Everything is determinable. There is nothing beyond this material world. Consciousness originated only in the most developed form of matter. But for Diderot the material world was as immutable as for Newton. Thus, his materialism was uncritical in which no one has the agency or instrument of change. Human agency was not present in it. This was because materialism has not met with dialectics till this time. Yet, Diderot was the greatest among the materialists of his time. He established the primacy and principality of matter beyond questions. In his views, consciousness is the characteristic property of the most advanced form of organic matter and material world existed before the birth of consciousness.
In the further development of materialism, Immunal Kant played a great role. The contribution of Kant was that he not only lessened the mechanicalness of materialism to a considerable extent but also inflicted on determinism. Kant questioned the validity of closed model of universe and proposed a new model that was later proved correct by Laplace. Kant proposed that Nature is not a static and immutable thing but an ever-changing and evolving process. It is a process in which everything constantly changes its form, constantly coming into being and passing away. He also established the power of reasoning and weakened its dogmatic understanding as well. Kant propounded that some pure and basic analytical concepts are the inherent characteristics of human mind. But in the process of attacking determinism Kant went to the other extreme. He claimed that material world exists, but by any sensible or mental process we cannot know exactly – what or how is it? We can only have perceptual knowledge of the physical world. Material world is unknowable. This was the famous agnosticism of Kant. This great puzzle was later solved by dialectical materialism which showed that process of making unknowable known passes through practice. Thus, till science remains confined to the task of only explaining nature, instead of involving in practice by assuming its transforming ability, world will either remain unknowable or the illusory view of knowing everything will originate.
After Kant, comes the very important contribution of Hegel. Although, he was an idealist, the method he developed proved of great significance for the further development of materialism. In his system the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual is for the first time represented as a process, i.e. as in constant motion, change, transformation, development and the attempt was made to show internal connections in this motion or development. In short, he developed the methodology of dialectics. Although, Hegel grasped some individual interconnections correctly and with genius, yet because of his idealist thinking there is much in his analysis that was artificially labored. Thus his whole system suffered from an internal and incurable contradiction.
And this incurable contradiction of Hegelian system gave birth to a school of philosophers who turned back to materialism. Ludwig Feuerbach was the first one who presented a criticized the Hegelian principles of divinity and eternal idea (Demi Urgos) and firmly established the notion of existence and primacy of material world. He mainly targeted the concept of God and in his book Essence of Christianity presented such a great criticism of theism that made it an imperative book for atheists of whole world. But, like previous materialists, his ideas, too, did not provide any agency or power of change to humans. Like other inorganic and organic matter, humans are also just a part of nature and its extension, society. Humans are different from other inorganic and organic matter only in the sense that it can think over physical world. For this reason, Marx classified his materialist views as contemplative materialism, in spite of learning many things from it. Many few people know that Marx said the following words not for an idealist but for him –
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is to change it."
This short line is an eternal criticism of mechanical and contemplative materialism, empiricism and agnosticism.
Right after this comes the period of Marx and Engels. By critically examining the views of the previous philosophers and also taking into account the recent developments in the field of natural science and social sciences, they created the most advanced world view—dialectical materialism and historical materialism. This explains the world around us most accurately. It neither falls into the pit of determinism nor in the well of agnosticism. It gives a dialectical and materialist explanation of world, according to which, material world is primary and principal; this material world is in the state of continuous motion, and because of this our knowledge of the material world too, is always in the process of constantly developing and always remain far from completion. There will always a horizon that has to be achieved, unfolded and understood, in turn, giving birth to another one. The principality of material world doesn't mean that it becomes predetermined and immutable, rather, its structure and appearance can be changed by human agency; this human agency is itself a part of material world; consciousness is also part of material world and not that of spirit or God.

God Particle: A "fatal" crisis for Materialism?

The infinitely large universe, with all its peculiar and puzzling characteristics, has always attracted the imagination of humans. Humans, from the very ancient time, have tried to solve the mysteries of the universe. In earlier times this task was mainly done by priests and intellectuals who served the religious authorities of their respective societies. Thus we find that the earlier picture of universe was shaped in the frame of theology, as it was only possible theory and philosophy. Like most of the branches of modern science, systematic research in the field of cosmology too, corresponds to the period when the whole Europe was awakening from its dark feudal ages. As Papal Church was the strongest and the greatest feudal lord which was holding back the growth of rapidly growing productive forces, a conflict arose between the representatives of the two contradictory forces. We see the reflection of this conflict in the field of human thinking too. New inspired thoughts and germs of thought were everywhere precipitating out of their fantastic theological shell. The proposition of the concept of heliocentric universe against the church propagated common views of earth centric universe marks the beginning of emancipation of the natural science from theology, although, in many minds it is still far from completion. From the very beginning, the process of the emancipation of natural science from theology was not so smooth, and marked with the innumerous acts of suppression of scientific discoveries and inventions, and unforgettable sacrifices of the Heroes of modern science for their thoughts. In fact, the ancestors of the modern bourgeoisie, the Protestant rebels, were as against the free investigation of nature as their Catholic counter-parts. They supported these scientific investigations only if they proved beneficial for their economic development and turned against them as soon as they inflicted on their own religious beliefs, the different shades of Protestantism. Burning of Servetus by Protestant Calvin and of Bruno by Roman Inquisition is just two of the numerous such cases and shows the similarity between Protestants and Catholics in this regard. In process of its historical development in the past few centuries, bourgeois class had already seen how dangerous the loss in religious faith of toiling masses can be for the existence of their rule, for example, the French revolution of 1789 and Socialist revolutions of 20th century. Thus, this legacy has taught bourgeoisie the very importance of maintaining, and even strengthening, the religious faith of common populace for the continuance of their exploitative rule. Making common masses believe in some supernatural authority, God, for grieves and sorrows faced by them, plays the most efficient role in diverting their attention from the real causes of their problems, generated by this unjust system. Thus, the most far-sighted ideologues of ruling class try their best to distort and obscure the real anti-religious and materialistic nature of every important scientific discovery and, for the same reason, any important discovery in every sphere of knowledge. This is the reason that even in the 21st century, when the progress of the natural science have surpassed, probably, even the dreams of the most quixotic minds of the 19th century, scientific discoveries are still being marked with the stamp of God and scientific theories are twisted so as to prove the existence of God.
The act of branding the probable discovery of Higgs Boson in CERN’s LHC experiment as a proof for the creation of universe by God, propagated by the hacks, serving this decaying capitalist system, and also by its conscious protectors and unconscious supporters, once again proves this. The basis for this misleading and false interpretation, of the theory that predicts existence of Higgs Boson, was the naming of this particle as "God Particle" by the particle physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Leon Ledermann in his book The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? Though, he did not name it "God Particle" in the sense as it was later advertised by some theologians and a section of media. These philistines, who live not in a real material world but in the abstract world of ideas and in themselves are just a collection of ideas devoid of any bodily existence, have claimed that the discovery of "God Particle" will be a fatal blow for materialism as it proves the notion of creation of universe, at some point of time in the past, by an external agency or God. Hence, it becomes necessary to clear the smoke screen created around the probable discovery of Higgs Boson and have a materialist approach towards any such discovery.
Higgs Boson is a hypothetical fundamental particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. Today, Standard Model (SM) is one of the most successful models of particle physics and the existence of all the fundamental particles predicted by it, except Higgs Boson, has been established experimentally. According to this model, in the period of 10-43 seconds after the birth of universe (about which it says nothing) the whole universe was in the state of vacuum which was filled with a dense field of very high energy. This field, also known as Higgs Field, was distributed homogenously through out the universe and was sharply fluctuating. Higgs Boson is the constituent particle of Higgs field. According to SM, at that time all the fundamental particles were massless and gained their mass later through the interaction with this field. This process of generation of mass in particles is known as Higgs Mechanism. The more one interacts, the heavier it becomes. This is why we have massless photon but comparatively very heavy quarks. Thus, this model predicts birth of property of mass in fundamental particles, or in other words, the creation of massive matter from the vacuum filled with Higgs field.
This is a very simplistic, and somewhat rough, sketch of this very complex theory, yet sufficient for our present task. The origination of matter having mass from the Higgs field is interpreted by believers of supernatural power or God as the creation of matter from an external agency. And thus the discovery of Higgs Boson, according to them, will be a refutation of materialism as it claims the primacy of matter which has never been created by some external agency.
Now, there are two important problems in this whole issue that needs to be addressed. First point is that of interpreting vacuum in early phases of universe as the presence of some external agency i.e. some sort of consciousness or God. Second point is regarding the stand of materialism to the conception of matter.
As far as the argument of interpreting vacuum to presence of God is concerned, it is an absolute sophistry. One doesn't require great expertise in science to visualize that vacuum is a physical reality which represents just the absence of matter and not the presence of any sort of consciousness or God in that particular part of reality. Creation of vacuum is a general phenomenon in many of scientific areas. So, if vacuum represents any sort of spirit or divinely thing, it means that we create this divinely existence every time we create a vacuum. It can be easily understood that equating vacuum with God or presence of consciousness is sheer stupidity. Presence of vacuum in the early phases of universe and origination of property of mass in the particles from it does not prove the existence of consciousness before origination of matter. Vacuum is vacuum and consciousness is consciousness, and presence of vacuum does not imply the presence of consciousness. On the contrary, it should be said that only massive matter itself is not the whole material world but just a part of material world. Vacuum is also a part of material world, one of the forms in which objective reality expresses itself.
Second point needs little more attention. Materialism claims that material world is primary which has been never created by any kind of external agency or consciousness or God. The problem with which materialism deals with is what came first matter or consciousness; whether this material world is reflected approximately correctly and relatively truthfully in our consciousness or not; if yes, it should be accepted or not; our consciousness can know looking at the history of development of materialism (see Brief History of Materialism), it becomes clear that it (materialism) has never claimed that property of mass or any other specific property is a necessary criteria for anything to qualify as matter, except that of being an objective reality, existing outside our mind. For materialism "the concept of matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation" and "for the sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind" (Lenin—Materialism and Empirio-Criticism). It is not the task of materialism to find out that massive matter originated at some point of time or not; or to find out the different forms in which the objective reality expresses itself. It is a subject of natural science. Dialectical materialism, the most advanced and scientific form of materialism, just provides a correct scientific approach and methodology to solve any problem of natural science.
Thus, even, Fields theory proves to be correct and Higgs Boson is discovered, there will not be any crisis for materialism. The discovery of Higgs Boson will only uncover a new, previously unknown, aspect of matter. Thus, if Higgs Boson is discovered and notion of the birth of massive matter proves to be correct, no crisis is going to arise for materialism. In fact, whether Higgs Boson is discovered or not, CERN's LHC experiment will definitely deepen the profundity of our understanding of nature and universe, in other words of objective reality, and a new path will be shown for its further development, as Engels said—"with each epoch-making discovery even in the field of natural science ["not to speak of the history of mankind"], it (materialism) has to change its form", and so it will.

Synthetic Cell and Ethics

Famous Marxist biologist J.B.S. Haldane said “There is no such great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god”. And the achievement by scientists of Craig Venter’s company has added qualitative insult to god’s reputation. Bourgeoisie media is furious over such insult of their hero and in anger have started defaming the experiment. They have declared it to be unethical and demand its immediate ban. But with advent of scientific and technological advance the materialist view of world has been justified and has deepened, shrinking the space for god in this material world to zero. This experiment also justifies the materialist conception that life is a quality of organic matter that arose in it in special conditions. Like were on earth billions of years ago. In this organic matter sustaining life consciousness arose. And the issue of human’s invasion in god’s territory is meaningless, as here man has shown through this experiment that life is no miracle or god’s matrix but is a special materialistic quality that is driven by chemical, biological, electrical, and various other materialistic processes. Here nothing is “unethical” but is just “materialistic”, it is just the spattering of bourgeoisie media to divert the attention from the actual implications this experiment brings.
In this experiment genome of bacteria M. mycoides was designed using computer. This requires the complete genetic mapping of genome of M. mycoides, which means knowledge of the every base sequence that genome has. Genome is the genetic material inside cell nucleus which has all the information for every function that a bacterial body or even a human body can perform. Blue heron company desiegned the genome using digital genome as model. This genome was assembled in four stages using 1078 bp long DNA cassettes that were synthesized using chemicals in stoichiometric amount under suitable conditions. A cassette is DNA’s small segment. Here cassettes of length 1078 bp were synthesized, bp is measure of length that is equivalent to 3.4 Å. (1 Å = .0000000001 metre). In first stage laboratory generated cassettes were inserted inside nucleus of yeast, where it weaves 1078bp long cassettes to 10,080 bp long. And in similar hierarchic fashion, in final stages, after various other processes of chemical purification and stabilization, the whole synthetic genome was generated inside the yeast. This synthetic genome was then transplanted into the restriction-minus nucleus of bacteria M. capricolum. The transplantation works. M. capricolum cell now functions to the dictates of genome of M. mycoides. The cell replicates self. This cell is similar to natural M. mycoides in almost all of its functions. Although scientists of Craig Venter’s company name it “synthetic cell” but here synthetic is only genome. But the experiment is a milestone in field of science. Scientists said that their aim is to create a synthetic cell that can do minimum functions of a natural cell. It has opened new horizons in field of biofuels and medical science, as the microorganisms can be created, with limitations, of desired function.
Synthetic Genomics, Craig Venter’s company, is said to have a contract with biofuel company Exxon to generate biofuels from algae. Exxon is even prepared to spend up to $600 million if all its milestones are met. Regarding this Dr. Venter said his group would try to build “an entire algae genome so we can vary the 50 to 60 different parameters for algae growth to make superproductive organisms”. The synthetic cell advancement could lead to the synthesis of algae cells that produce more plant oils than nature-made algae, boosting the per-acre biofuel yield of the feedstock. And this will result in cheaper oil. The ability to control the natural functions by varying genetic parameters in genome will lead into development of medicines which will be much effective and cheaper also. The reduction in cost of production will mean more profit by exploitng surplus from labour. This is the lifeblood of this experiment and many other experiment that are in operation today, profit, profit of few parasitic plunderers. But lately there has been a raise of voice against this experiment. So first let us have a look at these concerns.
First, there are some intellectuals who are asking for complete ban on this technology. Their logic is that the results of the experiment will fuel inventions of such dangerous weapons which will prove hazardous for our species. And they ask for ban on this technology to avoid its use in weapons. Their protest is parallel to the voices raised over the use of nuclear power. But this is like cutting head of Ravan. Ravan cannot be defeated this way. Every time you cut a head another grows. Only when hit in stomach can Ravan die. The question here is not of technology but the weapons that are being used. But the basic strength of this system is use of weapons. And every new technology is employed by it to develop weapons. Nuclear science, genome coding abolition is not the question here. It is romanticizing the past, to abolish every new technology in order to stop the development of weapons. Even if we impose the Stone Age technology, the system we live in will use that technology to develop weapons. In capitalism anarchic laws of capital are followed. Here relations between humans are not symbiotic but are polarized, are of exploitative kind. There is no chance of having relation between nature and humans to be symbiotic. It is also of exploitation. The mechanism of system uses every technology and natural forces to make profit and this profit is result of exploitation of large population. To stop the wars we will need to smash the machinery of this system. Abolishing technology is not solution. Humanity will move only towards future and in no way restoring the things of past can solve the problems we face today.
Another brand of N.G.O. groups and media groups are asking to stop the experiment immediately but to be started again only if it is regulated under government. They worry that some anti-social forces may equip this technique to make biological weapons and can cause mass scale massacre. They consider this experiment to be unethical at the present moment as anyone can access the technology. But this is not reality. All this worry and unethical concern in actual is loyalty of bourgeoisie media to its capitalist masters. Their ethics are limited to the boundaries of this system. To the boundaries of profit. However if we keep expectations from this unethical, unjustified and moribund system it will be sheer stupidity. Every year millions of innocent people die in imperialist wars. There is sufficient grain in stores but for sake of profit of private companies it is not distributed for free among the poor. This all is ethical. Here every ethic is in favour of this system. The very foundation of this system is plundering profit. The plundering bourgeois spiders trap and suck the common masses in the cut throat web created by capital. In this cut throat atmosphere these penny writers keep playing the flute of ethics in favor of their plundering bourgeois masters.
Leave alone the protests there are a lot of people who are counting benefits from the experiment. But even these claims do not hold water. To whatever extent science develops but it is still operated by laws of capital. And in this system, following these laws, the result is starvation, poverty and unemployment. Even if we develop efficient biofuels and better medicines, the mechanism of the system is such that large population remains bereft of these developments.
To sum up, this experiment is a big achievement in scientific area. Although like every new technology, it may also be installed on weapons and make wars more deadly, but this is the problem of this system and will solve when this system will be abolished.

The Science of Religion

“Religion is the general theory of the world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form” Marx. And this statement explains the essence of religion, the general theory constructed by man of his world. The religion exists as the sum of all social relations constructed by man, his expression of social consciousness, although an inverted one. Inverted, because it is not the true expression but an unclear and subjugated consciousness of man who fails to understand his own society.
Today we live in profit motivated capitalist system. The era of capitalism converts everything into commodities, weighs everything, mind you here "thing" refers to human emotions and even humans also, in money. The religion thus is also forged through power of capital. The various godmen today compete each other in promising “sinners” to repent and give peace of mind. Everyone has his own technique; some do yoga, some develop way of living and some do not even wear clothes. Their growth in India has been astronomical both in numbers and their accounts. The long hands of law fall short as they fund various political parties. Although this is the “shining” face of religion but its other face, is its salability in politics. Religion exists as an instrument which political parties use to expand their vote bank; some use Hindu card, some Muslim and some use Dalit card and even many fundamentalist terrorists also find the support and justification through religion. Babri mosque demolition, Mumbai 1992 riots, Gujarat massacre all represent the violence and destruction which in the name of religion have been instigated on us. Religion justifies the violence and inhuman activities in favor of the governing power.
The religion has evolved with the evolution of economic relations among humans. What we see today is evolved product of history. Considering the length of our article we will try to see how it originated in order to discuss its current state and with some certainty its future.
“Religion exists as sum of human beliefs and actions, and beliefs held by the real individuals acting in a real society”- Caudwell. Thus its evolution and origin lies in evolution of man and his social relations. In the primitive society man with his understanding of external world constructed some common beliefs, rituals to express them and all this we define as magic. Ritual dance, gait or appearances of animals, imitations of sounds of rains, actions of sowing were performed; he projects his feelings into outer reality. Cause and effects were interpreted in reverse. But magic helped him gain some knowledge of nature like rains were asked for only in rainy season. This was the first attempt to understand and control the nature, although feeble and very unclear. It thus reflects the social consciousness of primitive man in relation to nature. Magic is thus parent of science. With development of science and the art it becomes unnecessary and dissolves from the picture to the background existing still in fairy tales with us. On the other hand the understanding of the social relations got further intricate. With division of labor which is caused by development of production forces, magic shows an organization, coherence, a tough visible structure as the economic production develops and evolves to take the form of religion. With division of labor, classes arise and thus arises exploitation of one by another. This division is hierarchic in nature. Chief, headman, director of labors, priests, warriors and godking arise with latter at the apex of the pyramid. The confused perception of these social relations, of hierarchy of classes, of individuals makes them external and divine. The “gods” either dwelled in through priest or had incarnation in the godking. The exact architecture of the pyramid depends on economic production level, which in turn depends on the topography of area, its history and most importantly on the internal forces of society. These factors decide society to be monotheist or polytheist in faith. This particular topic asks for another descriptive article and considering our subject of discussion we avoid going into further detail.
In the beginning of history it was the forces of nature that dominated man, and in course of further evolution they underwent most manifold and varied personifications among the various peoples. Even in the existing society man is dominated by means of production which he himself has produced, and then the production relations which stem from it, as if they are extraneous force. The economic system we live today in is capitalism. The profit motivated system. It lives on the wage labors. On their poverty, unemployment, and their starvation. Religion has its deepest roots in “…..social oppression of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blinding force of the capital, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events, sudden wars, earthquakes . “Fear created the gods”. Fear of blinding forces of capital….” Lenin explains. The fear is irrigated by the uncertain nature of capital, the fear is not only in labor class and peasants but even the middle man, big capitalists and landlords; all are under the danger of being displaced in this cut-throat competent market.
During fall of feudalism and victory of capitalism science propelled the struggle against religious authority of church and the moral justification given to the feudal system. The atheistic movement broke out in the Europe. Renaissance and Enlightenment cleared mists of religion from common masses, people rose up and called for every theory to be tested on litmus of reason and if a theory, through its propagators, failed to do so it was criticized and changed. In India never was there any Renaissance or Enlightenment and the extent of the dogmatism, religious, orthodox views have very deep roots in society. The society that came out of womb of colonization had lost its heritage of proud past. It was product of 200 years of slavery and the culture which it had was full of dogmas and orthodox views. Today everywhere religious shackles enslave the individual’s freedom. Superstitions, honor killings and infanticide exist in one of fastest growing economy of the world. The science we have today is what developed after capitalism got established in western countries. In Europe, Capital after defeat of feudalism forcefully dragged the religion and science out of the contradictions and fuelled them to strengthen self. Scientific attitude was sucked out of common man’s mind and was limited to classrooms, labs and books whereas the religion was again filled in to obscure the authority of the ruling class. In India never the science was common dose of a common man, the capital had to do no struggle in resolving cultural struggles against religion. Here it stood victorious, ready to serve capital.

The Science today only dwells into producing items of luxury for few plunders. Scientists today have excess to computers; have unprecedented facilities where all information is only a click away, whereas the 3/4th of population lives in poverty. On one side scientists are reaching out to find the basis of diseases by complete mapping of human gene, on the other side in Asia, Africa and Latin America every year millions of children die because of ordinary diseases whose cures were found a century ago. One side man is searching for signs of water on moon while on the other side in metros like Delhi and Mumbai millions of people are forced to drink polluted diseased water. Science which became harbinger of European revolution has now just become appendage to bourgeoisie (capitalist) economic political science and an instrument to install war toys for imperialist countries. In India it was appendage only. To take back again the science to people, to cut down the inverted consciousness of religion we need to revive the culture through social acts. “Mere knowledge, even if went much further and deeper than that of bourgeoisie economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under the control of society. What is above all necessary for this is a social act” Engels. The social act which Engels refers today will be through new series of cultural and political revolutions, of proletarian Renaissance and Enlightenment, revolutions of the working mass, of the majority of population. Religious mist will then be cleared as every social relation will be organized and then we will not need fetishisms to worship our fears.

Cause and Effect

An old star in a distant galaxy is dying, grown monstrously in size it has swallowed all its orbiting child planets, it will finally liberate them all with its death on the final blow of a mighty explosion. After travelling millions of light years of distance the photons of that explosion will reach to our home, to Milky Way galaxy, to our harmonious solar system, to our planet earth where human eyes will perceive the astronomical death, if they, humans, survive by then. Human survival is questionable although they have survived, evolved and ruled over planet earth for centuries, through their labour. With time humans have understood the conscious effect of labour on nature and have developed its production forces and terrestrially have won over mighty nature. Humans have cleared jungles, have constructed mighty and supernumerous buildings, pierced the earth’s chest and cultivated food grains, developed industries to manufacture on large scale the commodities for “connoisseur” consumers, devised means and methods to exchange the commodities, money and market. The social relations and human feelings all along also evolved with the development of production; marriage, parenthood, families and love friendship, human tenderness all along have evolved. The above picture of human development although clear is not complete, it doesn’t completely explain the real world we live in every day. Although the galaxy and earth remains the same, but it, above presented picture, it still misses the force that keeps the universe and this human society moving. The things presently the way they are contains the genes of past and the seeds of future to come; the contradiction within a thing develops it, and contradiction between things develop or inhibit them, stabilizing them relatively but overall in the universe change persists. From galaxies to plants older dies and new are created and in the same way human culture and society also evolve. The study of this human history and its development through contradictions is called historical materialism which is usually scrapped from general bourgeoisie education, alienated from it. Let us look the picture and human life a bit differently to grasp the essence of historical materialism from it.
The human labour which is source of all wealth has today bifurcated into mental and the physical labour. The physical labour is still the creator but mental labour abstracted from it has made it self-contradictory; in society today a man finds himself in severe competition of this physical and mental labour. He competes to be in 20% of population of management, bureaucrats, royals and their petty followers as against to 80% of large population of toiling working class, this makes them in antagonistic contradiction to each other. This antagonistic contradiction is controlled by the state and serves just 20% of population. The production is totally anarchic, with profit being its motive force, the surplus value looted officially from labour is used by profiteering plunderers to create minarets of luxury and wantonness and have left the large population only with “democracy”, “freedom” and “right to vote”. A man is free to buy or sell in market, but money is required and this market has left the 80% only with their labour to sell and 20% with almost everything to buy, this is capitalism. The economic relations have penetrated every relation, flowing in their veins; human social relations have become economic; morals, ethics, truth are left only for primary education. Prostitution, adultery, dowry deaths, rapes, malnutrition and unprecedented crimes have plagued the human society. New market morals have developed where backstabbing, selfishness, cowardice and all other new inventions of bourgeoisie are in “fashion”. The bourgeoisie philosophy tried every trick to suffice the toiling population, in forms of religion, caste, god’s wish, “your last birth’s sins” but all this hammering is failing to stabilize the collapsing frame. The mirage that promised water in the desert is breaking and people are boiling in anger over the sand in their mouths. Every cause has its effect, capitalism is the cause and the effect well is the curse on the whole human society, the 80% people living today in inhuman conditions are not inhuman, their unhappiness, their hungry children, addiction to alcohol, early age deaths, unstopping diseases are all effects of this capitalist money system. But as Engels said on the principle of causality that “…causes and effects are changing, so that what is effect here and now will become cause there and then, and vice verse”. All the suffering and appropriation of the working class is the cause now which will then result in effect of abolishing this anti-human system, only way is to smash this bourgeoisie state through a socialist revolution by the organized proletarians. They are learning to organize so to fight this exploitative organized state machinery and the student and intellectuals will become the vanguards of masses of proletarians, semi-proletarians and peasants. This is what Historical materialism teaches us; the inevitable defeat of capitalism and the dictatorship of proletarian.

Revolution in Science

“Natural scientist may adopt whatever attitude they please, they are still under the domination of philosophy”. To grab the essence of Engels’ this statement we must answer what is natural science and what is natural scientist, through a historical analysis of development of science and philosophy.
Any natural phenomenon has a complex picture due to complicated interrelations among its individual constituent parts and their connections with other processes that has occurred or occurring side by side with it in nature, making the whole phenomenon of dynamic nature, constantly changing. In order to understand the details of individual constituent parts of this complex picture we must detach them from their natural connection and examine each one separately according to its nature, special causes and effects, etc. and then combine them to get a more complete insight of the whole complex picture. This is the primary task of natural science. And a natural scientist is that real and most advanced form of conscious living organic matter that becomes a medium of addressing this knowledge of nature to the society. But before a man could function as a natural scientist, he has to live as a man and, not as an abstract man but as a real man in a certain kind of society and had to participate in all the myriad functions of a real man in that society. Thus, in doing so, a whole superstructure of theory generates. To be a natural scientist is to apply this most general theory to a particular domain of quality in reality, physics, chemistry, biology etcetera, but this superstructure is the product of economic conditions of the society which creates different philosophies that control the content and form of any theory.
The modern natural science that dates from the period of ‘Renaissance’ showed the revolutionary character at the outset as it had developed among revolutions, revolutions that destroyed the old retrogressive feudal system and established the comparatively much more progressive system based on capital, capitalism. The period was of struggle of philosophy of theology, perpetuated by church, against materialism the philosophy of science which grew in its shadow and then become larger than it. The scientist of that time didn’t deal only in science but were also masters in philosophy and in various other fields, it was the characteristic of that period, as Engels said-, “called for giants and produced giants”. Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Durer, Luther and many more were product of that society. It was period of Copernicus, Bruno and Servetus who died to let science live, their death proved to be harbinger of new ere, era of revolution of science. The development, defeating theology, thenceforth proceeded with great strides and as Engels puts it “gained in force in proportion to the square of distance (in time) from the point of departure.” New evolutionary sciences developed, like biology, geology, cosmogony, anthropology, archeology, etc., that torn apart the theories of creation by God and unchanging nature of universe, earth, humans, and other living beings. New theories, based on the large amount of scientific evidence present at that time, established the view of evolution not only of universe, earth and life on it but also that of humans and even human society, and that their present condition is just a passing phase in time. The other branches of science that were of primary necessity to industries, e.g. physics, chemistry, etc. also achieved the new heights.
But every action has equal and opposite reaction, the science which helped economics to develop now became appendage to it, economic relations now decided the course of development of science. With the increasing penetration of capital into the society, the increasing polarization of society into idle capitalist class and toiling proletariat class gave birth to acute problems of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, etc. on a large scale of common masses and study of arts, sciences, philosophies, politics, law, etc. remained accessible mainly to rich classes. This dominance of non-working classes over the whole society gave rise to a general tendency of strong disrespect and reluctance to any kind of physical work. With this isolation of manual work from mental work the link between science and society; thought or idea and matter; subjective reality and objective reality; theory and practice got broken and procreated a narrow metaphysical mode of thought in the field of natural science that limits its development, sooner or later, as beyond this limit it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract and lost in insoluble contradictions. The highly anarchic and unproductive capitalist production, the dying bourgeois culture and degrading social relations directed, and could only be, this realization of untenability of metaphysics into the more retrogressive, reactionary philosophical channels—empiricism and positivism, agnosticism, violent reductionism and the thought of eclectic mish-mash of all the various specializations with no attempt to resolve their contradiction. The famous problem of physics in the early 20th century, the inability of contemporary physicists in combining the Maxwell’s electromagnetism, Planck’s quantum and Einstein’s relativity theory into one synthetic theory, that was the call of time and becoming even more difficult with the further integrations achieved by these theories in their respective domains resulting because of the increasing specifications in each domain and their uncoordinated growth, reflecting the general characteristic of capitalist production, its anarchy, presents an instance of the realization of the maximum limit to which metaphysics and its daughters can advance natural science. As a consequent of the effect of these reactionary philosophies on natural science theories became highly abstract, uncoordinated and diffused, and practice became specialized, restricted and empirical, each theory and practice devoid of one another and it became very difficult to have a world-view touching on all the fronts of practice, science regressed to the forms left behind by it showing the revolutionary crisis in natural science and in general, in the capitalist society.
The solution to all this chaos is not in another “absolute” philosophy of world view but in changing this world, as Marx showed us, this is the philosophy of science, the dialectical materialism. We will have to break the fetters science is enslaved in, capital, by the sword of dialectical materialism. This way although goes through the path of revolution, not only scientific but also economic, political and philosophical also, through the socialist revolution.

R&D in Capitalist Society

In earlier post of “The Spark”,titled "Science in service of capital", we explained how capital has become the governing factor in the development of science and this article is a continuation in that series; here we will try to explore the motive forces and laws of development of Research and Development(R & D).
R & D in general of any kind and in particular industrial has major role in determining the state of scientific, technological, economic and social development of any society. It is one of the basic foundations of the economy of that society. Thus, it is of great importance to understand the motive forces and laws of development of R & D in any society.
The most basic fact is that R & D, in any society, is a sector of social production and like any other sector, it is always pursued in the same framework of socio-economic conditions of the society and, consequently, overall the same laws and motive forces govern the development of R & D that governs the dynamics of whole socio-economic conditions of the society, although intrinsic contradictions specific to R & D field also affect its development.
In a capitalist society the socio-economic-political conditions are controlled by the motion of capital and thus, the laws of motion of capital enforce themselves as the basic laws of development of all sectors of social production including R & D as well.
A capitalist society progresses with the progress of competition among individual capitals and with changes in the form of this competition. It is basic characteristic of every capital that it functions to increase its profits and to add volume rather than develop production. But in “free market competition” the compulsory forces of market compels each individual to increase its labor productivity for extracting more profit in order to survive in the market. Thus, every capital is forced to innovate and advance the technology of production and they invest in R & D, which is of primary necessity in developing new technologies and their use in the process of production.
The growth of R & D, other things being equal, is undoubtedly dependent on the mass of capital allocated to it. Big capitals, which extract huge profits and have access to banks and government credit on privileged terms, have wide possibility to earmark larger funds to R & D. Thus, development of R & D is directly related to production concentration (which is proportional to scale of production) and as Lenin said-“With highly concentrated production, the development of technology accelerated immeasurably.” And this development in technology gave huge impetus to the advancement of R & D by fulfilling the basic technical requirements necessary for R & D.
But in capitalism production concentration naturally leads to monopolization of market by a few big capitals. It should be noted that in the present state of globalization of world markets, the market competition takes the form of competition between monopolies and gives birth to even bigger monopolies, either by dissolution of one into another or by combination of two or more.
Like every other capital, monopoly develops production as long as it brings monopoly profits. The incentive to develop production can be understood clearly by understanding the relation between changes in the rate and mass of profit. As Marx emphasized-“the rate of profit is the motive power to capitalist production.” Between two capitals the one which secures the higher rate of profit will, thus, have larger mass of profit. With gigantic capitals, however, the mass of production is so large that even with a low rate of profit, compared to small and middle capitals; they enjoy incomparably more favorable material conditions for retaining the positions they have gained in production and on market.
“….and as soon as formation of capital was to fall into the hands of a few established big capitals, for which the mass of profit compensates for the falling rate of profit, the vital flame of production altogether extinguished. It would die out.”(Marx)
Thus a decline in the importance of change in the rate of profit inevitably weakens the incentive to develop R & D and other kind of social production. And as Lenin pointed out, this capitalist monopoly, “inevitably engenders a tendency to stagnation and decay. Since monopoly prices are established, even temporarily, the motive cause of technical and, consequently, of all progress disappears to a certain extent and, further, the economic possibilities arises of deliberately retarding technical progress.”
Thus it becomes clear that, although, capitalism organized and advanced R & D to much greater extent than ever before, but after a certain limit the same capitalism has become shackles in the further development of R & D. This system cannot provide economic and technical assistance to the R & D related to those fields which do not provide immediate profit, viz. environment and its preservation, development of renewable sources of energy, infrastructural development to uplift the living status of common people, etc. and government of each capitalist state waste a huge amount of money by investing in R & D devoted to war preparations for their control on world markets and protecting the profits of its capitalist class.
This antagonistic system inhibits the free flow of scientific knowledge in the society by applying economic, political and social bondages, while it can be well proved with appropriate facts and figures that development of R & D depends on the depth of scientific knowledge in the society. This system creates strata in society with different level of scientific and technical knowledge, leaving majority of people to level zero. This exactly matches the need of this system from professionals in science to workmen with little or no scientific knowledge. The huge number of unemployed people with different level of scientific and technical knowledge fulfills the need of industrial reserved army who are ready to work on any wages and in any condition to get meal even for once in a day and the parasitic capitalist class extracts profit from the last drop of blood of working population by decreasing the wages to minimum level of subsistence.
Thus, today it is primary responsibility of every sensitive, logical and justice loving person to struggle for the abolition of this anti-human system based on profit and replace it by a system based on humanity, brotherhood and equality, which can be done only by socialist revolution in the leadership of proletariat. Only that system can ensure the unrestricted development of R & D and of whole society.

Philosophy in science

Change is the only constant; constant development and transformation, explosiveness and changeability, all based on the struggle of opposites, drives forward the entire world.
This change or advancement in different forms of matter is through contradictions within them; whether it is contradiction of hydrogen nuclei in sun, contradiction of adaptability and heredity or contradiction of human thoughts. The latter contradiction is not itself of matter but of consciousness; particular quality of matter which developed as the life originated in organic matter. This contradiction is source for knowledge; clash between opposite ideas and struggle to resolve the contradiction is lifeblood of knowledge. The struggle of contending theories advances the level of human understanding; with one theory negating other and finally subsuming it. Einstein’s theory, for example, first overthrew and then subsumed the accepted view of universe developed by Isaac Newton.
To explain a phenomenon one must recognize the contradictory, mutually exclusive, and opposite tendencies; this is the way of science and the way of Marxism: dialectical materialism. One has his own methodology to approach all phenomena around him; this methodology is developed by philosophy.
Today when all around the world, there is a dominance of non-dialectical philosophies, and Scientists also; being a part of this world ; lack the philosophy of dialectical materialism in their approach and this has hindered the further development of science. They lack to identify the contradictions and their interdependence, and generally come to wrong conclusions. One such wrong interpretation was the theory of thermal death of universe.
PARADOX OF THERMAL DEATH
In 1854 Helmholtz pointed out in a lecture that second law of thermodynamics implies that the whole universe will eventually reach in a state of uniform temperature and “from this point onwards, universe will be in the state of eternal rest”. Thus was born the thesis of thermal death of universe.
Its theoretical basis is thermodynamics. According to second law of thermodynamics, in nature, the direction of flow of heat is spontaneous from a hot body to a cold body. By spontaneity we mean processes occurring in nature. When Helmholtz applied this law to universe, he assumed universe to be isolated and concluded that the whole universe would eventually evolve spontaneously from a state of thermal non equilibrium to one of thermal equilibrium. But today we know that no such thermal death of universe will occur and it was just a paradox.
The reason for this paradox was the wrong methodological approach to the problem. This methodology has its philosophical origin in metaphysics, which is unable to identify the actual contradictions and views the phenomenon in isolation.
The right way to view it is given by Marxism, the view of dialectical materialism. As Engels said, “in motion of heavenly bodies there is motion in equilibrium and equilibrium in motion”. No equilibrium is permanent only temporary equilibrium exists which is in motion itself. “All equilibrium is only relative and temporary”, Engels wrote. Until the end of 19th century, no explanation of the paradox of thermal death was given.
The solution to the paradox was solved considering the universal gravitational effect, which showed that the whole universe will never come to equilibrium; and all equilibria are temporary.
“In sun there is no equilibrium of various substances, only of mass as whole, or at any rate only a very restricted one determined by considerable differences of density; on the surface there is eternal motion and unrest, dissociation. On the moon, equilibrium appears to prevail exclusively, without any relative motion-death (moon = negativity). On earth motion has become differentiated into interchange of motion and equilibrium, the individual motion strives towards equilibrium, the motion as a whole once again destroys the individual equilibrium”- Engels
Scientists were not able to interpret the result when they applied second law of thermodynamics to universe and paradox of thermal death arose, this is not only one example list is quite long, what we need today is to understand the importance of correct philosophy, philosophy of dialectical materialism.
Today it is our responsibility to equip ourselves with the philosophy of dialectical materialism and apply it to our society, which is the basis of our life, to change the existing corroded, anti-people system and hence shed all barriers in the path of advancement of science.