Dialectical Materialism vs. "The New Physics"

by Mike Gimbel

There are two fundamental ideological ways of viewing reality: (1) Idealism; (2) materialism. Idealism encompasses a wide spectrum of ideologies, from extreme religious fundamentalism through agnosticism. The ultimate statement of idealist ideology is encapsulated in the following quote: “God created Man in his own image”. Materialists counter with: “Man created God in his own image”. The agnostic, in trying to find a middle road, can only come up with the pathetic and cowardly ideological position of “Perhaps there is a God. I just don’t know, one way or the other”. The agnostic, with this answer, is attacking materialism as much as the religious fundamentalist. It’s just a much subtler and dangerous attack on materialism. This cowardly ‘liberal’ firmly plants his/her feet in the quicksand of the idealism of agnosticism and skepticism in order to oppose dialectical materialism’s analysis of reality because dialectical materialism, when used to analyze human history, inevitably leads one to understand the class character of capitalist exploitation.

Materialism also has its own spectrum of viewpoints, from static to dialectical. Static materialism looks at objects isolated from other objects and from the evolutionary process. Thereby they destroy their ability to understand how the object they are trying to analyze fits into the constantly changing real world. Dialectical materialism looks at reality from the point of view of constant change. In other words, the static materialist’s reality is like viewing a single photograph in order to understand the world while the dialectical materialist reality is like viewing a motion picture in order to understand the world. Today, we live in a world that is being convulsed by the greatest economic crisis in the history of capitalist rule. One would think that this would cause tens of millions of youth and workers to be flocking into Marxist parties all over the world. But this has not happened. Not yet, at least.

Hawking and Kaku are simply another version of metaphysical “creationist”. Both sides in their debate over religion are believers in creation ex-nihilo (from nothing). It is irrelevant whether you call it “God” or the “Big Bang”.

Frederick Engels stated: “If the world had ever been in a state in which no change whatever was taking place, how could it pass from this state to alteration?...An initial impulse must therefore have come from the outside, from outside the universe…But as everyone knows, the “initial impulse” is only another expression for God.”

The problem for the bourgeoisie is that dialectical materialism is the highest form of scientific analysis in a world that is constantly changing. The bourgeoisie wants to deny that change is constant because it would then have to admit that their class rule is not permanent. It is a fight that the bourgeoisie, in the end, cannot win.

During the 19th century more and more evidence was piling up that the world “evolves”. During this period Karl Marx and Frederick Engels developed dialectical materialism as a tool to analyze how human history changes (historical materialism). The most important advance in science in the 19th century was Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The theory of evolution was hailed by Marx and Engels as a dialectical materialist explanation of how living things change from one species to another species over time.

Everything of value under capitalism is treated as a commodity. The worker must sell his or her labor power as a commodity priced below its actual value while being required, in the capitalist marketplace, to purchase commodities at their full actual value. Under capitalism, knowledge is a hugely prized commodity where the workers, lacking the necessary purchasing power, send their children to public schools and community colleges, while the bourgeoisie sends their progeny to fancy private schools and Ivy League colleges. In so doing, the ruling class, via their ownership of the means of production, is able to purchase a sufficient amount of the commodity called “knowledge” in order to maintain their dominance, just like when they purchase factories and o...

To the bourgeoisie it’s okay to design a new car or computer that can be sold by the bourgeoisie as a commodity, but trying to explain reality, be it infinity, time and space or be it evolution or how class society functions and changes inevitably becomes an attack on the bourgeois interpretation of the world.

The bourgeoisie, in its fear of a materialist interpretation of the world, have fought against a materialist interpretation of the concepts of infinity, time and space in physics. As a result, to this very day, the concepts of infinity, time and space are mysteries wrapped in an enigma for almost everyone.

That isn’t to say that quantum mechanics isn’t useful. I’m not familiar with the scientific work going on using quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Real world technology has been developed using it. That makes quantum mechanics a useful model for scientific work. It does not mean, however, that it accurately represents reality any more than Ptolemy’s “epicycles” accurately represented reality.

Physics is now being burdened with a quack theory that “space” is somehow “curved”. How can space be curved? Since space is just the domain where matter moves through and time is just the distance moved by matter in motion in relation to other matter in motion in the domain called space, then how could space be curved? Space would have to be some sort of a higher level material object, composed of matter at this lower level, and impinged upon by the matter outside of “space” which is forcing “space” into this “curved” form! Space, in that case, would itself be matter in motion and the curving of “space”, in that case, would be a purely surface effect. How would the “curving” of “space”, in that instance, cause the matter inside of that “space” to “curve”? If that internal “space” were some sort of vortex, what is the composition of that “vortex”. Would that be the hypothesized “ether”? For exactly the same reason that the surface of “space” could not be “curved” otherwise than by collisions with outside material objects, the same holds true for any hypothesized curvature inside this “space atom”.

Space would then be a form of matter, just like atoms and molecules and suns, planets and moons. If matter in motion is forced to move in a curved direction, then it must be doing so precisely under the impetus of collision with other material bodies. That is a basic law of physics. A body travelling in a certain direction cannot decide on its own to go in another direction. In order to change direction, other matter must collide with it. Not some imaginary “curved space” thought up by some “brilliant” physicist who sold lots of books, got lots of awards, and is bowed to, as an icon, by the eminent professors at the most prestigious bourgeois universities! When one looks at the usual visual examples given for “curved space”, wherein a ball rolls down a curve on a net-like surface, one needs to understand that there is no “down” in space. “Down” is a property of gravity on Earth. There is no “up” or “down” in space. A ball, in motion in space, must continue in the direction of its original motion in space. It can only change that direction of motion via collision with other matter. It cannot roll “down” a curved surface as postulated by those who think that space is somehow...

Frederick Engels stated: “In every natural science, even in mechanics, it is always an advance if the word force can somewhere be got rid

Saying that matter, as it moves faster and faster, gains energy, merely is stating that matter moving faster has a stronger impact on other matter when two material bodies meet.

Prior to the rocket reaching “escape velocity”, if no further motion is added, then the rocket would fall back to earth. “Escape velocity” is really another way of saying “quantity” turns into “quality” because it not only refers to the moment wherein the rocket’s velocity passes a certain speed, it also refers to the moment when water molecules reach the “escape velocity” of 212OF! In other words, the reason that quantity turns in quality in the material world is whenever the amount of motion contained in a system breaches the amount of pressure (gravity) holding that system in stability.

This “escape velocity” is also the likely the cause of radioactivity in the elements. Radioactive elements are at the high end of the element table where these elements contain huge numbers of protons and neutrons. The greater the number of protons and neutrons in an element, the more unstable they ought to become due to the added motion contained inside these massive elements.

As motion is added to human evolution, change takes place. What motion am I referring to? The fundamental cause of changes in human history, i.e., the addition of motion which causes change, is the development of the productive forces. The development of early farming technology led to the defeat of the primitive communism of early tribal societies by the introduction of the system of slavery which was able to produce more product than was needed for basic survival. Class society, slave owners and slave workers, was born out of this first surplus from the new technology of its day. Slavery was overthrown by the feudal mode of production and the feudal mode of production was overthrown by the capitalist mode of production. Each overthrown mode of production was superseded by a higher and more efficient, form of production. Today, in this current economic crisis, human society faces a similar “escape velocity” situation where the capitalist mode of production has “hit a wall” and cannot take human society forward.

The contradiction for capitalism lies precisely in this marketplace, simply because it is those very same workers that capitalism needs to buy the products these very same workers produce!

In effect, the capitalist class has done two things to bring down their class rule: (1) they have destroyed their own markets by inventing technology that is destroying the ability of the workers to buy their products and (2) the capitalist class is constantly drawing in more and more of the world’s human population into urban life and away from agricultural production. This crisis of overproduction creates massive poverty in the midst of fabulous plenty. This urbanized and pauperized working class, must for their own survival, overturn the capitalist system of wage slavery!

E=Mc2 simply implies that matter in motion is made up smaller pieces of matter also in motion, which in turn, is made up of even smaller pieces of matter in motion. E=Mc2 is a measure of the relative amount of matter in motion contained in a body that we can measure and/or utilize in some manner.

This brings on the question: What is matter? If matter is divided into infinite parts, all of which are in motion, then there is no such thing as solid matter. Matter, even though it is tangible as a finite “something”, such as an apple, the “matter ingredients” that makes up that apple, appear to exist in an almost completely “empty space”! All matter is, simultaneously, completely empty “space” and completely filled “space”

That is why some sub-atomic particles can be expected to be able to pass through the entire diameter of planet Earth without encountering a single particle in its way!

Then what is matter? In dialectical materialism, all phenomena are dualities. There cannot be “big” without “small”. There cannot be “hot” without “cold”. There cannot be “life” without “death”. In fact there cannot be something called “now” because that is a static concept, yet at the same time, “no...

We live in the “now”, yet “now” can never be pointed to. The moment that you refer to some moment as “now”, it has already become the past. “Now” is a forever moving reference point for matter in motion. The past is forever gone and the future can never arrive because it isn’t a thing. The future is where matter in motion is heading towards, but can never reach. Since the past, present and future can be placed on a calendar creates a false and static view of what is really a continuous process. Time, in our concepts, can be broken up into discrete “moments”, but reality cannot be broken into discrete moments because time flows constantly as a result...

Frederick Engels stated “…so long as we consider things as at rest and lifeless, each one by itself, alongside and after each other, we do not run up against any contradictions in them…But the position is quite different as soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another. Then we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of position can only come about through a body being at one and the same time both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it…If simple mechanical change of place contains a contrad...

Three quotes from Leon Trotsky: “Dialectics is the logic of motion, development, evolution. Formal logic involves stationary and unchanging quantities: a = a. Dialectics retorts: a ≠ a. Both are correct. A = a at every given moment. A ≠ a at two different moments. Everything flows, everything is changing.”

“Cognizing thought begins with differentiation, with the instantaneous photograph, with the establishment of terms-conceptions, in which the separate moments of a process are placed but from which the process as a whole escapes. These terms-conceptions, created by cognizing thought, are then transformed into fetters. Dialectics removes these fetters, revealing the relativity of motionless concepts, their transition into each other.”[16] “Consciousness splits nature into fixed categories and in this way enters into contradiction with reality. Dialectics overcomes this contradiction – gradually and piecemeal – bringing consciousness nearer to the world’s reality.”

In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise

In Zeno’s paradox, above, there is a fundamental misconception about both infinity as well as motion. In this paradox, motion is broken down into parts, as if it were a piece of matter. In other words, Zeno is separating the motion of matter from matter and treating it as if it were matter. Motion, however, cannot be split up. Motion flows. Just as with the previous example where “Now” can never be pointed to, despite the fact that “Now” is our only reality, there is no point of motion that can be selected as representing its current location. The moment we photograph some activity, such as the motion of a particular piece of matter, it is no longer at that location. We can never point to a location, therefore, where matter in motion is located. Could this mean that “The Uncertainty Principle” applies to matter at all levels, not just to the atomic level?

Zeno’s paradox is a trick question set up to fool the gullible. What’s the trick? The trick is to require the faster traveler to always reduce its distance traveled by one-half in each segment. That way, by definition, the faster traveller can never catch the slower traveler. In other words, the trick involves limiting the distance travelled to less than the distance required for the faster traveller to catch the slower traveller. A car travelling at 60 MPH, vs. another car travelling at 30 MPH, with a lead of 30 miles, will catch the slower car in one hour, but cannot catch the slower car if the race is less than 60 miles long. Zeno’s trick is in limiting the distance travelled!

Zeno’s paradox is another example of mathematics being improperly used and has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of infinity. Why does a “solid” exist, if it isn’t actually “solid”? Well, it actually is “solid” in terms of our existence and experience. Take the floor on which you are standing, for instance. The atoms that make up that “solid” floor are almost entirely composed of “empty space’ as far as our technological instruments can discern. “Over 99% of the atom’s mass is contained in about one millionth of one billionth of its volume!”[18] Then, why don’t you simply fall through the floor? Each molecule present in that floor is contained in a lattice of other molecules. While each molecule is mostly empty space, the material ingredients inside each atom of those molecules is whizzing around at enormously high speed creating a shell through which it is hard to penetrate. The denser the lattice, the harder the “solid”. That is why you don’t fall though the floor.

If matter is infinitely divisible, then the duality of matter is that matter is both a substance and not a substance at the same time. This then implies that there is a 10th postulate to be added to the above list:  That matter is the “tangible” “property” of infinite space because, in dialectical materialism, the concept of space as a “void” is one-sided. A complete “void” is impossible to create simply because the “void” is merely the “opposite side of the coin” of matter that is both a substance and a non-substance at one and the sam...

Newton’s inverse square law described gravity’s effect, not its cause.

Even the supposed mathematical attempts to “solve infinity” fail to understand that infinity is not a number and cannot be represented by a number. The calculus developed by Newton is the best mathematical way of dealing with the question of infinity by allowing mathematics to closely approach infinity, but without ever actually getting there. Infinity isn’t “a thing” that can be counted. No amount of magical mathematical contortionism can “solve” infinity! Great mathematicians have literally had their spirits broken and have gone insane and become suicidal in the effort to mathematically “solve” the unsolvable infinity riddle.

A generation of scientists, after Newton’s discovery, made that effort to find a cause of gravity and failed to find the answer. Then they gave up and allowed for an explanation that violated causality, the basic law of physics. No explanation that violates causality is a legitimate scientific explanation! They had, inadvertently, “reintroduced the occult forces of the medieval scholastics”! As great as Newton’s discoveries were to the advancement of science, this issue represents a problem that continues to be with us today in theoretical physics.

Despite Newton’s warning, gravity became accepted by scientists as a mysterious “action at a distance”, which pulled on material bodies without any intervening material basis, rather than as a product of actual matter pushing on a body just like any other product of motion. Gravity is a form of mechanically created change of motion, just like all the other physical forces that cause changes. In order for a body to experience a change in motion, some other body must be the cause of that change in motion. That motion can only be produced by a pushing force. Even pulling actions turn out to be pushing forces. If someone pulls you with a rope, the actual force pulling you in that direction is a pushing force exerted at the point where the rope is pushing against some part of you or your body or clothing. The rope will have no pulling effect without being tied to you in some manner to transfer the pulling force into a pushing force.

The current assumption by scientists, without any proof, that gravity is an effect that has the ability to instantaneously impact bodies across the entire universe, by calling it some sort of mysterious “attraction”, is to believe in magic. Gravity, like any other effect which causes a change in motion, must be local. In other words, there must be a material basis for gravitation. That material basis for the effect of gravity cannot be “universal”. There cannot be a “universal” law of gravity.

There must be a “speed of gravity” based upon the speed of the impacting particles which causes the effect we see as gravity. Since there must be a “speed of gravity”, there must be a delay in its effect, caused by the distance between the body causing the effect and the body being affected. In addition, since there must be a measureable distance between a body that is the source of...

The gravitational effect created by the mass of the Earth must extend only so far. The distance between the Earth and the material bodies that its mass affects can be vast, but not unlimited. To deny gravity being a local effect is to deny causality. Without causality there cannot be scie...

“Causality. The first thing that strikes us in considering matter in motion is the inter-connection of the individual motions of separate bodies, their being determined by one another.”[21] “…and that a theory of matter based on mere attraction is false, inadequate, and one sided…The whole theory of gravitation rests on saying that attraction is the essence of matter. This is necessarily false. Where there is attraction, it must be complemented by repulsion.”[22] “Newtonian attraction and centrifugal force – an example of metaphysical thinking: the problem not solved but only posed, and this preached as the solution. Newtonian gravitation: The best that can be said of it is that it does not explain but pictures the present state of planetary motion. The motion is given. Ditto the force of attraction of the sun. With these data, how is the motion to be explained?...That is to say, assuming the eternal character of the existing state, we need a first impulse, God.”

The remarkable part of this “strange story” is the fact that the material cause for the force of gravity was discovered in 1747, shortly after Newton and his followers gave up the search! A young Swiss Scientist, George-Louis Le Sage (1724-1803), mathematically worked out how the inverse square law is explained in a material world where the motion of bodies determined how the force of gravity acted on those material bodies. Unfortunately, Le Sage’ explanation of the cause of gravity is, even today, still trying to get a hearing!

Part of the problem for Le Sage was in his own solution to the problem. Physical science, in Newton and Le Sage’s day, was static, not dynamic. Planets and stars, as well as atoms, were viewed as changing in place but not in substance.

The greater amount of matter in a body, the greater the shielding created by that body in relation to another body. That shielding would create lower gravitational pressure on the side facing the other body, thereby creating the attraction we call Newton’s inverse square law.

Fluid motion, as I believe any “graviton sea” would be, implies all the types of flow in any liquid or gas: vortexes, swirls, waves, rivers, bubbles, etc…We need a 21st century re-investigation of Le Sage’s solution to the inverse square law simply because it remains the one and only sensible solution in existence!

Le Sage’s solution to the inverse square law makes too much “common sense” to be ignored. Is Le Sage’s solution to Newton’s inverse square law a “complete explanation”? Of course not! The question of how Le Sage’s “gravitons” would interact with matter that it encounters would need to be resolved. Could some of the “gravitons” be captured by that encountered matter, rather than being a purely collision event? If so, would that mean that matter itself, at the atomic or sub-atomic level, slowly gains mass over time? What would be the implications? Of course, this is only one question of many, but the investigation of these questions needs to begin somewhere.

We cannot, as Marxists, allow science to proceed on the basis of the mysterious “action at a distance” implied in Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation, which is nothing but the reintroduction into physical science of “the occult forces of the medieval scholastics”. “Action at a distance” means that an effect is described (the “pull” of gravity) for a particular body (say the Earth) having an effect on bodies (planets & stars for instance) that are at small or huge dista...

When I jump up, does the “hand of God” push me back down –or- does a big hand from inside the Earth grab me and pull me back down? How do either of those ridiculous explanations differ from Newton’s “action at a distance” explanation of gravity? Gravity is an effect that must have a material cause. Without understanding the material cause, or...