[Marxism] 42 [Was: The role of socialists {was; The Chinese Occupation...}]

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Shane Mage writes: "The laws of nature do not change even though material
nature always changes.  What's so 'anti-materialist' about that?"

I *think* what is anti-materialist about this is that it is a religious-type
statement; a belief. To make such a definitive MATERIALIST statement about
"the laws of nature," --or even to formulate it as a strong hypothesis based
on observation-- one would need to have somewhat more evidence than could be
gathered in the place and time we occupy with the instruments that we have.
Indeed, we do not know the true extent of "nature," and may well not be able
to know it, not for sure. We also do not know whether we live in a
fundamentally clockwork universe, or in a fundamentally chaotic one, where
an absurdly improbable collision of one insignificant stray particle with
another in some obscure and peculiar picosecond of the Big Bang led to a
cascade of changes that caused light to be radiated rather than simply to
flow upstream, repelled by gravity, as might be the case in just about every
other universe.

Which made our emergence on the skin of an insignificant little planet of a
rather vulgar star in an entirely unremarkable galaxy at a completely random
point in time inevitable. Or the product, as it were, of some other cosmic
joke -- and perhaps, when all is said and done, not a very funny one at
that.

The one thing we can say "absolutely," without fear of contradiction, is
this: We do not know what we do not know. But, of course, we can ONLY say it
with such categorical force because it is a tautology. 

At some point in the evolution of sentient species, ours or some other, one
may emerge that finally knows everything there is to be known about the
universe we inhabit and factors that could possibly affect it, yet the
*proof* that this is so would of necessity be beyond their reach, unless we
postulate an intelligence, individual or collective, so evolved as to be
infinite in space and time, so that it could be SURE there was nothing
beyond it, in other words, God, a hypothesis that is the very antithesis of
materialism. 

That is why "The laws of nature do not change" is of necessity a profoundly
religious statement. Without God, it cannot ever be known FOR SURE,  it
cannot ever be proved. Einstein understood this, which is why he expressed
his belief in what he understood as a lawful universe in religious terms:
"God does not play dice with the universe."

As for our lot in this vale of tears, "42" MAY WELL BE the ultimate answer
to the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything. But as the
poet said, "always the beautiful answer that asks the more beautiful
question." 

Joaquín