The influence of the atom in the economic and social behavior of human groups (II)

Index

1.  Presentation

2.  Extract

3.  Two conceptual clarifications

4. Dialectic and atom

5.  What is the cause of economic and social behavior of human beings?

6.  Hypothesis

7. What is the link or analogy that can be made between the dialectic and behavior of the atom?

8.  Conclusion

1. Presentation

This work is the second part of the essay entitled Is the atomic composition of matter which determines the economic and social behavior of human groups? , published on June 19, 2013.

2.  Extract

The economic and social behavior of human beings and all the changes that occur in nature can be explained by how atoms behave.

3.  Two conceptual clarifications

For a better understanding of the subject must be distinguished two concepts and two moments: a) the discovery of the atom by pre-Socratic philosophers Leucippus and Democritus and b) The discovery of the dialectic (contradiction) at two opposite places of the world, China (Confucius) and Greece (Heraclitus) in parallel times, V and IV centuries BC as it is explained in the next section.

4.  Dialectic and atom

A fact that draws attention and is worth noting is that while Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) in China and Heraclitus (535 BC-484-AC), in Greece, gave the first steps towards the discovery of the dialectic (contradiction) as the cause of all existence, at that time, in Greece, philosophers Leucippus and Democritus (V-IV centuries BC) also gave the first steps towards the discovery of the atom.

a. Dialectics

Confucius, the most influential philosopher of the Eastern world, clearly understood the principle of dialectics and synthesized it in two opposing elements, the yin and yang,  that according to  his philosophy give rise to everything in the universe.  The yin and yang represent the earth and the sky, the female and the male, day and night, the addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, health and illness, war and peace, that is to say all pairs of opposites existing in the Nature.

In the Western world, the philosophers of Antiquity, Heraclitus, Socrates (469 BC-399 BC), Plato (427 BC-347 BC) and Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) also knew the principle of the dialectic, i.e. the principle of contradiction, the principle of opposites.

The intellectual and material progress achieved in Antiquity, stopped during the long period obscurantist of the thousand years of the Middle Ages (V to XV centuries) in Europe and just started a new cycle of progress in the Modern Age (XV and XVI centuries), which begins with the discovery of America in 1492, a period which brings The Renaissance of the arts and sciences. In the Contemporary Age, which begins after the French Revolution in 1789, the Western world continued the process of change in science and in the economic field; it is the time of the Industrial Revolution, which first stage begun in 1750, a fact that will have a profound impact on the development of politics, economics and applied sciences in the following centuries. New studies on dialectical (Hegel) appear from that historical period.

At that time, it was the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) who made the most progress in the study of dialectics (contradiction), creating the concepts of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But it was the philosophers Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) and Karl Marx (1818-1883) who studied with great interest the dialectical issue and found a practical application to explain the change in nature, economy and society.

b. Atom

René Descartes (1596-1650) was interested in the work initiated by the pre-Socratic Leucippus and Democritus and later Plato and Aristotle on the atom, that Plato and Aristotle called monads. Descartes’ work in this field was continued by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), who used the same word, monads, which essentially was the atom and then by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). But it was in the 20^th century when science was able to decipher the mystery of the atom and develop their practical applications. Scientists discovered that the atom is not only the least amount of matter in all forms of life and the universe but that it has an immeasurable energy power which is integrated by contradictory forces: positive, negative and neutral.

c. Actual implementation

From the consideration of the historical facts presented above, we think that dialectic and atom are two ideas that have advanced in parallel over time. Both ideas found in the 20^th century a field for practice experimentation; on the one hand, all the development achieved by atomic science and, on the other, the application of dialectical concepts in the field of politics, with no favorable results where was experienced: the communist nations. The dialectic was used as intellectual argument to justify the imposition of communism in a part of the world.

5.  What is the cause of economic and social behavior of human beings?

The link between the behavior of the atom and the causes of economic and social behavior of human beings was never established.

Three thinkers, Charles Darwin (1809-1882), Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) developed the three most influential theories to explain the economic and social behavior of human beings; they are the theory of natural selection, the theory of class struggle and the theory of survival of the fittest, respectively.

The three theories have one thing in common: it is the survival instinct and selfishness the main motivation of the human beings behavior. That is to say that human feeling is determinant of the individual and collective behavior of human beings.

But the most important question is, what, in turn, determines the survival instinct and human selfishness?

6.  Hypothesis

Human beings are made up of atoms and their economic and social attitude repeat a behavior similar to that of the atoms. That explains the constant struggle for survival, which develops in a contradictory manner.

7.  What is the link or analogy can be made between the dialectic (contradiction) and the behavior of the atom?

In the atom act three forces, two contradictory and one neutral:  protons (+) electrons (-)   and neutrons (0). The dialectic is neither more nor less than a representation of how the atom acts, because the dialectic discover the contradictory elements to reach a synthesis that then, in turn, gives rise to a new infinite dialectical process.

Selfishness and the struggle for existence are rooted not in the feelings that arise from the need and ambition.  Selfishness and the struggle for existence come from the basic structure of life, the atom, which is a contradictory structure, as was shown in the previous section.

8.  Conclusion

In its economic and social attitude humans beings repeat the same contradictory behavior of the atom and that explains the process of constant struggle in society.

If human beings are made up of atoms and atoms have a determined behavior, we can suppose that the behavior of human beings is influenced or determined by the behavior of the atoms.