I had this question proposed to me recently, and thought I would give it my best shot. I would love any input you guys have on how I can refine this further, make it more clear, more accurate, more succinct, all that.
Also, this is specifically geared towards Marxist-Leninists and Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, and that understanding of dialectics, just to be clear. I'm not interested in the hyper-orthodox understanding of dialectical materialism.
I don't understand the ins and outs of gravity perfectly, but here goes.
Internal contradiction is what drives all things. This is true for gravity, as much as anything in the world. Gravity could then be analyzed in the framework of the contradictor forces within gravity. What would those forces be?
Well, Einstein's general relativity is probably the best place to start. I will outline the two contradictory forces below.
Again, I don't know a ton about the in's and out's of it, but the way I see it, there are two sets of contradictions at work in "gravity".
First, the contradiction of Mass and Spacetime Curvature. We have the force of attraction, where masses attract each other, but contradictory to that, we also have the resistance of compression, where the curvature of space resists this attraction.
Second, we have the contradiction of Inertia and Graviational Pull. Objects resist changes to their existing state of motion, but the force of attraction seeks to change the motion of objects
In the case of general relativity, I would say the first contradiction is the primary one, since that relationship is what defines the attraction between masses, and the resistances between each one. I would say the second contradiction is the secondary one, since it's still crucial for understanding how gravity works, but, it explains the result of gravitational attraction, rather than the fundamental cause of it.
In the case of the primary contradiction, I would say that the force of attraction is the primary aspect of the contradiction, over resistance to compression, since the attraction of mass to itself is the fundamental reason why spacetime is distorted in the first place. In the secondary contradiction, gravitational pull is of course, the primary aspect there.
Let me know what you think, and thank you.
Well gravity itself is not a dialectic since gravity itself remains unchanging.
But the concept of gravity, the understanding of gravity, is a dialectic.
You go from Newton where gravity is an attractive force, to relativistic physics where gravity is not a force at all.
For Newton, gravity was a force pulling us down.
For Einstein, the force we feel is actually the earth beneath us exploding as a result of electromagnetic repulsion, and we stay “in place” at the point where the acceleration of electromagnetic repulsion is balanced by the flow of space time.
Then the concept of space time is itself a dialectic with the dominant view of physics denying a fixed “now” and instead supposing some kind of block universe or perhaps some other understanding of time where there is no fixed now.
And this dominant view increasingly challenged as absurd and reliant on non-empirical assumptions about the 1-way speed of light derived from the 2-way speed of light which gives you a minority view of neo-etherists where a “now” is restored.
It’s an understanding in flux.
Gravity itself is what it is. A fact of nature. What we understand gravity to be, that’s a dialectic.
Engels wrote
It would go too far to credit Engels as a physicist because he wasn’t one but his insight into how the understanding of gravity must evolve was incredible.
I wouldn’t turn to Engels to understand gravity but it’s shocking how prescient he was in foreseeing the shifting understanding of gravity, a dialectic of the scientific revolution, well before Einstein was even born.
Does relativity involve repulsion like he describes?
You jump, fall down, you feet hit the ground.
You feel an impact.
Under the Newtonian understanding of gravity, the impact you felt was due to an attractive force.
Under the relativistic understanding, the force of impact was a repulsive one - electromagnetic repulsion of the earth. The earth is “exploding” constantly outwards due to electromagnetic repulsion, electromagnetic repulsion is accelerating every atom of the earth outwards from the center but this outward acceleration is in equilibrium with the flow of space time. Gravity is not understood to be a force at all under relativity, neither attractive or repulsive, but an apparent phenomenon due to the curvature of space time. The feeling of your feet against the ground is understood as electromagnetic repulsion.
Think about it this way: a body in free fall experiences weightlessness. When you’re falling you feel no force of gravity at all. It’s only when your feet are on the ground that you feel “gravity”.
Relativity doesn’t understand gravity to be a force at all but rather an apparent phenomenon. We can’t perceive the curvature of space time with our human senses and so our human senses misinterpret falling as being subject to an accelerative force due to an apparently attractive force of gravity when actually when you’re in free fall you are not being accelerated at all.
Doesn't that mean there is now a force of repulsion but not of attraction?
Specifically for the feeling of your feet against the ground being due to a repulsive electromagnetic force accelerating you outwards, that’s a repulsive force.
Gravity isn’t understood to be a force at all. Not attractive or repulsive.