The law of the transition of quantity into quality is associated with the dialectics of famous philosophers who opened up different concepts of being for society. The connection with nature and man is a truth that must be understood by converting quantity into a quality form of life. Dialectics is a method of thinking and interpreting the world, both nature and society. This is a way to look at the universe, which, from an axiom, indicates that everything is in a constant state of change and flow. But not only that. Dialectics explains that change and movement are connected with a contradiction and can take place only through contrasting interpretations of thoughts. Therefore, instead of a smooth continuous line of progress, we have a line that is interrupted by sudden periods when slow, accumulated changes (quantitative change) undergo rapid acceleration, in which quantity is transformed into quality. Dialectics is the logic of contradiction.
The law of the transition of quantity into quality: the philosophy of life and being
The laws of dialectics were analyzed in detail by Hegel, in whose writings they appear in a mystified, idealistic form. It was Marx and Engels who first introduced the scientific dialectic, that is, the materialistic basis. "Thanks to the powerful impulse given by the thought of the French revolution, Hegel anticipated the general movement of science, but since it was just an expectation, he received an idealistic character from Hegel."
Hegel acted with ideological shadows, since Marx demonstrated that the movement of these ideological shadows does not reflect anything but the movement of material bodies. In Hegel's writings there are many striking examples of the law of dialectics, taken from history and nature. But Hegel's idealism necessarily gave its dialectic a very abstract and arbitrary character. In order for dialectics to serve as the “Absolute Idea”, Hegel was forced to impose a scheme on nature and society in flat contradiction with the dialectical method itself, which requires us to derive the laws of this phenomenon from a scrupulously objective study of the subject.
Thus, speaking briefly about the law of the transition of quantity into quality, it is far from easy to smooth out Hegel's idealistic dialectics, arbitrarily imposed on history and society, as his critics often claim. Marx’s method itself was just the opposite.
The ABC of Philosophy as a Method of Artificial Knowledge
When we first think about the world around us, we see a huge and surprisingly complex series of phenomena, cobwebs, endless changes, causes and effects, actions and reactions. The driving force of scientific research is the desire to get a reasonable idea of this amazing maze, to understand it in order to win. We are looking for laws that can separate the necessary from the concrete, the random from the necessary, and allow us to understand the forces that generate the phenomena that oppose us. The law of the transition of quantity into quality, according to physicist and philosopher David Bohm, is a state of transformation. He thought:
In nature, nothing remains constant; everything is in a state of transformation and change. However, we find that nothing spills out of nothing without previous events that existed before. In the same way, nothing ever disappears without a trace. There is a feeling that in later times it does not give rise to absolutely nothing. This general characteristic of the world can be expressed in terms of a principle that summarizes a vast area of various types of experience and which so far has not contradicted any observation or experiment.
What is dialectical orientation based on?
The main proposal of dialectics is that everything is in a constant process of change, movement and development. Even when it seems to us that nothing is happening, in fact, matter always changes. Molecules, atoms and subatomic particles are constantly changing, always in motion.
Thus, dialectics is, in essence, a dynamic interpretation of phenomena and processes occurring at all levels of both organic and inorganic matter. This is not a mechanical concept of motion as something introduced by an inert mass by external “force”, but a completely different concept of matter as a self-moving force. For philosophers, matter and motion (energy) were one and the same, two ways of expressing the same idea. This idea was brilliantly confirmed by Einstein's theory of the equivalence of mass and energy.
Streams in the self-consciousness of being
Everything is in constant motion, from neutrinos to superclusters. The earth itself is constantly moving, revolving around the sun once a year and on its own axis once a day. The sun, in turn, rotates around its axis once every 26 days and, together with all the other stars of our galaxy, travels once around the galaxy in 230 million years. Probably even larger structures (clusters of galaxies) also have some common rotational motion. This, apparently, is characteristic of matter up to the atomic level, where the atoms that make up the molecules rotate relative to each other at different speeds. This is the law of the transition of quantity into quality, examples in the nature of which can be provided in total everywhere. Inside an atom, electrons revolve around the nucleus at tremendous speeds.
- An electron has a quality known as an internal spin.
- It seems to rotate around its own axis at a fixed speed and cannot be stopped or changed, except by destroying the electron as such.
- The philosophical law of the transition of quantity into quality can be interpreted differently as an accumulation of material, which forms a quantitative force. That is, to give a reverse understanding and action to the law.
- If the electron spin increases, it changes its properties so dramatically that it leads to a qualitative change, creating a completely different particle.
A quantity known as angular momentum, a combined measure of the mass, size, and speed of a rotating system, is used to measure the spin of elementary particles. The principle of spin quantization is fundamental at the subatomic level, but also exists in the macroscopic world. However, its effect is so infinitely small that it can be taken for granted. The world of subatomic particles is in a state of constant motion and fermentation, in which nothing coincides with itself.
Particles constantly change into their opposites, so it is impossible even to assert one’s identity at any given time. Neutrons turn into protons, and protons - into neutrons in a continuous exchange of identities. This is the law of the mutual transition of quantity into quality.
Philosophy according to Engels as a law on the general movement of material values
Engels defines dialectics as "the science of the general laws of motion and the development of nature, human society and thought." Previously, he also conducted experiments on natural phenomena, but then decided to engage in observation in order to learn the truth. He talks about the laws of dialectics, starting with three main ones:
- The law of the transition of quantity into quality and back to its original form.
- The law of interpenetration of opposites.
- The law of negation of negation.
At first glance, such a requirement may seem overly ambitious. Is it really possible to develop laws that have such general application? Could there be a basic picture, which is repeated in the work of not only society and thought, but also of nature itself? Despite all such objections, it is becoming increasingly apparent that such models do exist and are constantly appearing at all levels in various ways. And there are a growing number of examples taken from areas as diverse as subatomic particles for population studies, which add more weight to the theory of dialectical materialism.
Dialectical thought and its role in life
The essential point of dialectical thought is not that it is based on the idea of change and movement, but that it considers movement and changes as phenomena based on contradiction. While traditional formal logic seeks to drive out contradiction, dialectical thought embraces it. Contradiction is an important feature of all being, as stated in Hegel’s law on the transition of quantity into quality at a substantial level. It lies at the base of matter itself. It is the source of all movements, changes, life and development. The dialectical law expressing this idea:
- This is the law of unity and interpenetration of opposites.
- The third law of dialectics, the negation of negation, expresses the concept of development.
- Instead of a vicious circle where processes are constantly repeating, this law indicates that movement through successive contradictions actually leads to development, from simple to complex, from lower to higher.
- Processes do not repeat in exactly the same way, despite the appearance of the opposite.
- These, in a very schematic sense, are the three most fundamental dialectical laws.
- Of these, a whole series of additional proposals arises related to the relationship between the whole and the part, the form and the content, finite and infinite, attraction and repulsion.
This we will try to solve. Let's start with quantity and quality. The law of the dialectic of the transition of quantity into quality and its conversion has an extremely wide range of applications - from the smallest particles of matter at the subatomic level to the most famous phenomena known to man. This can be seen in all kinds of manifestations and at many levels. But this very important law has not yet received the recognition that it deserves.
Ancient Philosophy - Instinctively Used in Nature
The transformation of quantity into quality was already known to the Megaran Greeks, who used it to demonstrate certain paradoxes, sometimes in the form of jokes. For example: “The straw that broke the camel’s back”, “Many hands do light work”, “Constant dripping wears out the stone” (water sharpens the stone), etc.
In many laws of philosophy, the transition of quantity into quality penetrated the national consciousness, as Trotsky wittily remarked:
Each person is to some extent a dialectic, in most cases, unconsciously. The housewife knows that a certain amount of salt flavor for the soup is nice, but this added salt makes the soup unattractive. Therefore, an illiterate peasant woman behaves in cooking soup according to the Hegelian law of converting quantity into quality. Similar examples from everyday life could be cited endlessly.
Therefore, we can safely say that in the world everything happens like self-consciousness, in a natural way. If someone gets tired, the body, as an element of obtaining quantitative fatigue, is going to rest. On the next biological day, the quality of work will be better, otherwise the quantity will have the opposite effect on quality matters. The same will happen in the reverse scenario - nature is involved here as a mechanism of influence from the outside.
Instincts or a dialectic of survival?
Even animals come to their practical conclusions, not only on the basis of the Aristotelian syllogism, but also on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus, the fox realizes that tetrapods and birds are nutritious and tasty. When a hare, rabbit or chicken is discovered, the fox thinks: "This particular creature belongs to the tasty and nutritious type." We have a complete syllogism here, although the fox never read Aristotle. However, when one and the same fox meets the first animal, which is larger than her, for example, a wolf, she quickly finds that the quantity goes into quality and goes on the run. It is clear that the paws of the fox are equipped with “Hegelian tendencies, ” even if the latter are not fully conscious.
Based on this, we can conclude that the law of the transition of quantity into quality is the internal relations of nature with a living being, which were transformed into the language of consciousness, and then man was able to generalize these forms of consciousness and turn them into logical (dialectic) categories, thereby creating the opportunity to penetrate deeper into the world of flora and fauna.
The Edge of Chaos of Per Bak - Self-Organization of Criticality
Despite the seemingly trivial nature of these examples, they reveal the deep truth about how the world works. Take an example of a pile of corn. Some of the latest research related to chaos theory focuses on a critical point where a number of small variations lead to a massive change of state (in modern terminology it is called the “edge of chaos.”) The work of Danish physicist Per Bak and others on “self-organized criticality” used it is just an example of a sand pile to illustrate the deep processes that occur at many levels of nature and correspond exactly to the law of the transition of quantity into quality. Sometimes these matters are simply invisible, and a person does not notice a simple quantitative change.
