Duhring's problem is to show how something arises from nothing, and motion arises spontaneously from immobility. He says,
“The unity of matter and mechanical energy which we call the world medium is what might be termed a logical-real formula for indicating the self-identical state of matter as the presupposition of all enumerable stages of evolution” (p 72)
So, here, when this unity of matter and mechanical energy ceases, motion begins.
Engels notes,
“The logical-real formula is nothing but a lame attempt to make the Hegelian categories “in itself ” [Ansich] and "for itself" [Fürsich] usable in the philosophy of reality. With Hegel, “in itself ” covers the original identity of the hidden, undeveloped contradictions within a thing, a process or a concept; “for itself” contains the differentiation and separation of these hidden elements and their antagonism begins. We are therefore to think of the motionless primordial state as the unity of matter and mechanical energy, and of the transition to movement as their separation and opposition.” (p 73)
This is also set out in chaos theory, and seen in those unstable liquids that appear to spontaneously go from being clear to a bright colour, and, then, flip back again. Of course, what is happening, here, is precisely rapid and cumulative changes at an atomic level, in the liquid, that suddenly manifest at an observable level, and quantity changes to quality.
If we take the popular mass, as it exists prior to bourgeois society, it appears undifferentiated, because the actual differences within it, different degrees of productivity, are not significant. If one direct producer is more efficient than another, it only means that they have a marginally higher standard of living, and so on. It is only when there is a significant development of independent commodity production and exchange, within this popular mass, and so the development of competition, that these existing, and inherent, differences take on importance, leading to winners and losers, and so a differentiation into bourgeois and proletarians.
For Duhring, he wants to make the self-identical, primordial state of matter, the unity of matter and mechanical energy, the equivalent of Hegel's “in itself”, and their separation and opposition as the basis of its motion. But, the primordial mass was, also, not self-identical nor motionless. It was, within itself, a seething process of motion and interaction.
For Duhring, this primordial mass is one self-identical mass of matter and mechanical energy that is neither static nor dynamic. It only becomes dynamic when the mechanical energy is separated from the matter. A limitation of Duhring's theory is itself the equation of energy with mechanic energy, thereby, excluding all other forms of energy, such as heat energy, radiation, and so on.
“We still do not know where mechanical energy was in that state, and how we are to get from absolute immobility to motion without an impulse from outside, that is, without God.” (p 73)
By reducing energy to mechanical energy, he reduces motion to mechanical motion, and so omits from his theory the movement of particles, via radiation, or the movement of molecules, resulting from heat. That was also a failure of earlier materialists. But the question is simple enough, Engels says,
“Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be. Motion in cosmic space, mechanical motion of smaller masses on the various celestial bodies, the vibration of molecules as heat or as electrical or magnetic currents, chemical decomposition and combination, organic life — at each given moment each individual atom of matter in the world is in one or another of these forms of motion, or in several forms at once. All rest, all equilibrium, is only relative, only has meaning in relation to one or another definite form of motion. On the earth, for example, a body may be in mechanical equilibrium, may be mechanically at rest; but this in no way prevents it from participating in the motion of the earth and in that of the whole solar system, just as little as it prevents its most minute physical particles from carrying out the vibrations determined by its temperature, or its atoms of matter from passing through a chemical process. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter.” (p 74)
The classic example is Newton's Cradle.
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