Shit happens and then you die, wtp, not remotely going to explain why as already said, and thus already dismissed, telos? I don’t think there is any philosophy that really explains what it means to exist or a reason you do. You do though, you will though.
The telos of existence is whatever YOUR telos is. Existence always means YOUR existence, or someone else in which case you speak about THEIR telos.
“Existence” itself has no purpose, how could it? Purpose is a function of entities constructed with aims, needs, consciousness, experience. Existence as such has no aims, no needs, no consciousness and no experience.
And every such being will have a somewhat different purpose and need than others, because once entities become complex enough where we may even speak of their having telos they also attain the ability and depth of experience, novel processing and memory to in effect constitute a universe unto themselves. Chaos theory is sufficient to demonstrate the impossibility of a universal telos.
Will to power is part of the structure of such beings, because all beings emerge from natural selection. But it is false to equate this with the telos of a being, because purpose lives above the level of derivatives of power, it is very much “self-contained”, self-justifying and Gestalt-like.
To correct the thesis, it would instead be correct to say: telos exists because beings for whom telos may be said to be possible exist; will to power is the behest of the history of a being’s necessity in terms of form, but not in terms of content.
MM, well said. Though you’d have no idea how many times PR, where he comes from, has read posts that are virtually the equivalent as the above. I recall Tyrannus’ criticism that you over complicate matters. I don’t think you necessarily do, but there is a time for simplicity as well as complexity. I don’t think it’s a strength of yours to know when to use what type of language.
So in the existence that does not have aims, needs, consciousness, etc., we have simple and complicated processes moving from one utterly determined state to Another. Of course this would also be true for entities where those nouns - needs, consciousness, experience, aims - have the kind of qualia so it seems like there are several paths to take, when in fact there is only one. The will to Power is not non-existent, it’s just like anyother inevitable physical domino effect, like water moving downhill. From the inside it seems like choices are made and might have beens had some quasi existence, when in fact it was just complicated water moving down hill. Unless one Believes in a non-compatibalist free will, but then one has one’s work cut out explaining what that is. But like water running downhill, some batches gather up leaves. Water has as much telos as any other matter, though it is less likely to brag about it.
I don’t write for people who need to have what they read match the narrow constraints of their effortless understanding.
Also I don’t know what “PR” means.
Free will and determinism mean the same thing.
And you missed what I said about purpose living above the derivations of “power”. Water has very little about it that may possibly constitute such a dimension, but not so for consciousness.
I meant ES.
Interesting. I had a thread similar to this (here) in which I questioned whether Niezsche’s WTP made him a panpsychic (or pantheist?). Questioning whether Nieztsche was a teleologist is an interesting twist on that very question, and I think it hits closer to home (Nietzsche’s home, that is).
I think you’re right. This Nietzschian teleology is (could we say?) midway between the extreme theist view of a detached, personal, objectively real God overseeing the world and a godless, purposeless, mechanical universe that somehow sustains its own existence. I think the fact that we have this duality, this schism between religion and science, is what blinds us to this midway view (or at least what prevents it from showing up on our radar period–I mean, if it isn’t obvious, it should at least have occurred to one or two of us at some point in our lives).
In a matter of speaking, it is–at least according to my crazy views. I believe in a concept I call “equivalence”. To use a metaphore, equivalence is like an equation: 1 = .5 + .5 (or .2 + .8, or .1 + .75 + .15, or 4 - 3, or whatever). 1 is the clump. How that clump is divided up–whether it’s .5 + .5, or .2 + .8, or .1 + .75 + .15, or 4 - 3, or whatever–is a matter of the configuration (or the quality, or the “type”) of consciousness perceiving it. But to be fair, I wouldn’t exactly call this clump the “will to power”–that title can only go to pieces of the whole, to particulars–rather I would call it the “will to existence” (the ultimate will in my opinion).
I think it’s a who. And I too would like to know who that is.
Oh… uh… I still don’t get it.
G, ES is PR, I thought MM knew that.
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Just kidding… Anyways, yeah, I got that ES = PR, but who is PR?
PR is an N at KTS who came here as ES.
Something that explains everything explains nothing.
To Gib ( The professional illogician ),
Nietzsche was a sort of pan-experientialist. To him, all systems have a subjective element which strives to accumulate more energy. Check out this well-done video on the topic:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVoCKLyt2uw[/youtube]
Ah, no wondering I don’t know him.
ES,
Excellent video.
Got any response to this, Moreno?
Which is a compatiblist version of free will.
I didn’t miss it but I could have been clearer. These aims, needs etc, that ‘live above the derivations of power’ are utterly determined. We do not have forks in the road, though we will experience them as such. (And note, I am not saying we do not choose, just that that is utterly determined- even in compatiblist free will conceptions. There is a possibilities quale. We are riding our own wave.
But in case we are or are about to be talking past each other, could you rephrase ‘living above the derivations of power’.
In a sense I am saying that will to Power is being argued as an emergent property of matter, since you do not Think the rest of existence has it. I don’t know on what grounds we can justify that. We’ve still got Chemicals bouncing off each other and interacting. We can certainly label some of the complicated processes that humans, for example, are as will to Power, but these are simply parts of the same kinds of causal chains going on in the rest of existence. It’s a fancy label for an equally determined process that is not even separate from existence. We are not isolated from the rest we are part of its multitude of causal chains. We are simply ‘falling forward’ in time, like Everything else, pressed forward by the previous nanoseconds state of existence, the whole of it.
No. I’m not saying free will and determinism are compatible with each other. I am saying they are the same thing. Separating the issue with labels like “free will” and “determinism” is unnecessary, and causes confusion.
We don’t need some made-up idea of “freedom from determination”, that has never been anything but a falsehood anyway. OF COURSE things are “utterly determined”, it would make literally zero sense to say otherwise.
There ARE forks in the road, however. Just as “randomness” still exists even in this causal universe. That which emerges as “new” (fork in the road) or “random” (beyond ability to predict/understand within one’s own sphere of meaning-causality) does so at the behest of VERY subtle and self-responsive iterations of causalities moving through highly complex structures that may be understood through Chaos Theory. If you have never looked up Chaos Theory I suggest you do so, it has much value to understanding consciousness.
“Living above the derivations of power” just means: there are tiers of material structures, the continuum being constituted by complexity and ability to self-respond toward increasingly subtle, unpredictable and “chaotic” outcomes.
All correct except for the ‘tone’ of it, which is easily indicated by the “equally determined” you use. Two determinations need not be equal in HOW they are determined, in what and why they are what they are. As I said, there is a continuum. Also the “like everything else” you say… that is also not the case. Not all things that “fall forward in time” (nicely said, by the way, I like that expression) do so in the same way.
In addition to Chaos Theory I recommend you read Deleuze and Guattari’s book A Thousand Plateaus, if you have not.
I Believe that is compatibilism, but if your idea is different from compatibilisms let me know.
Fine, I assumed this, but wanted to make sure.
I am not sure how random factors helps make these forks in any way under our Control.
No more unpredictable than the quantum foam in any given portion of space.
Thanks, it seemed to capture my polemics well.
How is will to Power different?
It seems like a bunch of forces (which manifest as one force) that lead to an effect. It may have all kinds of details that billiard ball effects do not, but not more than how a wave forms and breaks against a shore.
I suppose I could put my position like this. We are, yes, very complicated phenomena, but the Word ‘will’ and other telos-laden Words, seem to imply that we are on a different order from the rest of nature. I Think, given current scientific models, our consciousness follows the process of inevitably going in this direction or that one - if randomness is tossed in via QM, fine, but this would not be our doing - and experiences a quale of willing this rather than that. LIke a surfboard rider thinking he is choosing to head towards the shore when he rides a wave. In this case the wave is him, of course.
It is possible we are talking past eachother, and the truth is I am trying to see if you have a break from current scientific thought, and a nice take on this break would be great. In a sense I am playing devil’s advocate.
I have read works in the former and the latter, though I have to say I started to glaze in the latter - I Went directly from anti-oedipus, perhaps I should have bumped it up a year or two. All I can remember is rhizomes. What is it I need to know about these works, in summary, as applicable here.
Oh boy. You just can’t. You just cannot use WTP as a “purpose of existence”.
How shall I begin? Firstly, “existence” is a mushy-wushy word that no one, not even Hiedegger, has ever defined. And “purpose” implies that something or someone “has” the purpose.
Nietzsche would never say such a thing.
The WTP is a description - of the universe, in Nietzsche’s more hyperbolic moments, but really of living things in a literal sense and the rest in a metaphorical sense. It’s meant as a foil to “will to truth” or “God’s will”. It’s not the purpose of anything. It is just a more accurate (read: less bullshit metaphysical") description of motive, which is not the same as volition. Nor is it subject to volition, so it’s really not a candidate for “purpose”.
I’ll leave it there, for now.