Self-valuing

The purpose of values is to determine the direction of our development. Good and bad are words we use to speak of pathways of development and their rank.

There is an infinite number of possible ways to develop, therefore, there is an infinite number of possible ways to value.

There is no single direction of development.

There are multiple directions of development that cannot be reduced to a single direction of development.

There is no “original direction of development” from which subsequent directions of development deviated and to which they must return.

There is indeed such a thing as deviation, but there is no such a thing as “original direction of development”.

There is neither one original direction of development that applies to all beings nor multiple original directions of development that apply to their corresponding types of beings.

What there is can be loosely associated with one of the two, we can say, fundamental directions of development: the one toward self-overcoming (power, centripetal motion) and the one toward self-preservation (weakness, centrifugal motion.)

Power is the degree to which one can change (= stress oneself) without breaking.

Breaking here refers to loss of what Fixed calls “structural integrity”.

Power, then, can be defined as the degree of integrity-preserving flexibility. This is what people mean when they say that “power is choice” (I reject such a definition because it is not sufficiently precise.)

To pursue power, then, would mean to make an active effort to increase the degree of integrity-preserving flexibility. To do so, one would have to heal one’s wounds created by prior stress, or in the case that one has no wounds, one would have to expose oneself to stress in order to create new wounds that one can then heal.

Thus, in order to increase power, one must overcome one’s self by breaking structural integrity.

This makes it clear that he who pursues power treats structural integrity, not as end, but as a means.

Power seeks to maximize stress, not to minimize it.

It is weakness that seeks to minimize stress. And the most efficient manner to minimize stress is by positing structural integrity as an end.

We need to understand what structural integrity is, and to do so, we need to understand the kinaesthetic composition of human beings.

Let us say that human beings are made out of multiplicity of energy flows each one of which is vibrating at a certain rate.

What do these energy flows refer to in reality? They refer to any kind of movement within our bodies. Think of heartbeat, breathing, digestion, blood circulation, feelings, thoughts, drives in general, macro-movements such as changes from one body position to another, and so on and so forth.

Structural integrity refers to a state of energy flows vibrating in unison. This means they are vibrating at the same rate.

Loss of structural integrity, which is sensed as dissonance, and in extreme cases as horrible pain, refers to a state in which energy flows are not vibrating at the same rate. Some flows are vibrating too fast and other flows are vibrating too slow.

Note that in the universe of motion there is nothing that remains the same. Everything changes. Thus, there is no such a thing as equal rate of vibration. Each energy flow vibrates at its own rate. There is thus no true unison. What there is, instead, is an illusion of equality produced by creating a gradient of energy flows that vibrate at their own rate. The smoother this gradient is, the greater the sense of consistency, of being true to one’s self.

The gap between the two energy flows vibrating at a considerably different rate is what is known as wound.

A wound can be healed by lifting up the slower flow(s) towards the faster flow(s).

Or it can be numbed by dragging down the faster flow(s) towards the slower flow(s).

In both cases, structural integrity is restored.

What this means is that both living and dying men can achieve structural integrity.

This is because structural integrity merely indicates that energy flows are in unison. It does not indicate whether these energy flows are speeding up (= living) or slowing down (= dying.)

Thus, whoever posits structural integrity as an end, it can be said, is dying.

All of nature is machines, …but that’s another topic perhaps.

For sure, I meant that there is no soul which gets better or worse. You get causality x,y,z, and you then are that, you get instead say, causality k,p,f and you will be that. So ‘better’ is a measure of ones ‘causal effectiveness’, and people are just people. For example you can have all the choice in the world, but choose to be say an artisan, and become good/better at that. If you adapt, then your code has that adaptation in it, that ability. …but I know that sounds like I am saying we are machines, thats just my way of wrapping my head around all the functions. What I mean though, is that e.g. being a good carpenter doesn’t change what and who you are as an individual.

_

Amor wrote

Irony above. Would have been a welcomed personalized expression in my essence thread that is if you ever get the bottom of Amor.

I assume you refer to VO.
VO posits self-valuing as a de facto end. “Self” does not figure into VO. There is no such thing really, so it couldn’t be valued.
The "self-+ in te compound word refers to the valuing. The valuing is what, through valuing the world in a certain way, ends up sustaining itself, thus implicitly valuing itself.

Very few here have ever gotten anywhere near to absorbing the composite term in its entirity.
I dont want to slander you, but I have a vague feeling you’ve been reading either Satyrs or Lyssa’s post on VO.
They are enslaved to it, resent this, and do everything in their power (and it is all they now do in their life) to make people like you approach it in their stunted ways.

Regardless, the idiotic interpretations all over the place have gotten me thinking about picking another term.
Actually, Ive already decided a year or so ago that I wasn’t going to explain any o this to people who dont pay for it, but then some one got me to respond to Kenny and I said somethings.
At least Kenny did read what I recommended, and seemed to actually have done some thinking. He wasnt close to getting the full scope, but he began to get njoticeably dizzy from the implications of what he was beginning to grasp, and ran off to transfigure in private. That betrays a trace of something, a strain of profundity of some sort.

It is – value to whom or what?

Valuing however precedes ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

‘good’ is a (human) value judgment.
Did Sordur talk to you about ‘the inherent value of a self-valuing’?
The guy is OBSCENELY STUPID.
get that in your heads, kids.
Dont get his intellectual HIV.

And this is not what VO does.

Hence, valuing.
Valuing is an ascending process.

Please read my posts on VO, not Snottirs.

Ok - you do no understand your own ends as values?

That would be a problem standing in the way of a logical mindframe.

That would explain a lot.

Ends, friends, are values. Even: final values.
A being is entirely conditional to its ends.

The future carries what a man is, as much as the past.

Responding further beyond this point would sick, I first need you to cure yourself of the truly stupid elements you’re close to.
Understanding VO will require hard years of wielding the hammer on yourself. First of all to wreck that hard but porous, itchy pasty layer that you’ve acquired from bathing in Satyrs droppings.

Overcome your puny, puny addiction to that place where you can feel superior.
Your IQ is likely above 100. VO requires at least 130/140 IQ.
(Mine is off the charts)

The term self-valuing implies that one is valuing one’s self. If you are claiming that this isn’t so, then you need to find a better term.

Now, you are saying that what one values is valuing itself. That would make it something like valuing-valuing, no?

Very strange.

• What do you value, sir?
• Why, I value valuing!

You are saying that valuing is an ascending process. Strange. Valuing is neither ascending nor descending. To value simply means to determine what one considers to be good and what one considers to be bad. What one considers to be good need not be ascent.

To say that one is valuing valuing is to say that one has no other purpose in life than to value i.e. to determine worth.

What kind of person spends his entire life doing nothing but pondering what is good and what is bad?

You should choose better terms, I agree with that, but the reason you should be choosing better terms should not be because people are criticizing your terms, nor because people are failing, or supposedly failing, to understand what you’re trying to say, but because you want to reflect reality as accurately as possible.

The rest of your post is comedy. I am not going to touch that.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyEE0qpfeig[/youtube]

You mentioned hammer, didn’t you?

I would prefer if you could actually tackle my points.

Beings are not fundamentally valuing. Valuing is a later development.

Before Fixed Cross himself responded, I wrote this:

::

Self-valuing does not just mean valuing oneself or “being yourself”. It also literally means the valuing of valuing. Not of any valuing, but of the valuing of valuing, etc. In other words, not of valuing in general but of that specific valuing of valuing, which is then the valuing (1) of valuing # 1.

Now not only is this a circularity and thereby absurd, but it would indeed be mere self-preservation (even if that self-preservation is at the same time a self-creating out of nothing) if it weren’t at the same time the valuing of an ideal self. The valuing (1) of valuing # 1 is the real self of the self-valuing in question, but this real self implies an ideal self which it approaches or from which it strays.

Real selves imply ideal selves paradoxically inasmuch as they haven’t realized themselves as valuing-valuings as expounded above. They have a self-image that is not the image of a valuing, but merely of a “self”, a “being”.

Though this seems to be a point on which Fixed Cross and I disagree, I think it follows from this self-valuing logic that there is a peak that cannot be overcome: the mode of being that realizes itself as a self-valuing in the full sense expounded above. Then there is no difference between the real self and the ideal self.

::

I wonder what Fixed Cross thinks of this.

I think what Fixed means by the word “self-valuing” is like the word “rear” and “rear”, two words spelled the same but with different meanings.

From what I interpret, he means it along the lines of “auto-valuing”, like some kind of inherent automatic valuing process in the organism, a “self-valuing”.

I never really dug much deeper in the ontology, from the surface description of the word, it doesn’t seem possible for it to explain any secrets or mysteries of consciousness and the universe, so I kind of just let the ontology sit and simmer and do it’s own thing. I don’t bother it, it doesn’t bother me.

It’s important to try to understand the meaning of the concept of “valuing”. To do so, we have to make a difference between what “valuing” means in reality and what “valuing” means in VO.

TRUE VALUING

In reality, valuing refers to a conscious activity of going through possible pathways of becoming in order to determine their worth. This means assigning them value in terms of good/bad indicating whether we should seek or avoid them. (It’s a much more complicated mechanism in reality, but for the purposes of this post, this simplified version would suffice.)

There is an infinite number of ways to determine value. There is no necessary method of judgment. (There is, in fact, nothing that is necessary.)

Thus one and the same method of judgment can be shared among people, or not. And even when it is not shared, there is no “metaphysical obligation” that can motivate beings to strive to return to some “original method of judgment”.

Valuing, defined in this manner, is a later evolutionary development. Many beings do not have the capacity to determine what is good and what is bad.

FALSE VALUING

You, on the other hand, define valuing as an unconscious activity that is fundamental to the universe in the sense that every living, i.e. persisting, being is operated and kept alive by this underlying mechanism.

Valuing, defined in this manner, is pure fiction, as there are no necessary mechanisms in the universe of flux (= every rule has a counter-rule.)

It might be a pattern shared among some beings, that much I can admit, but I doubt that there is a single being behaving according to it in the present day. It’s pure fiction. Moreover, I believe it is a fiction invented in order to cover reality. Instead of perceiving your pattern of behavior realistically, you are misperceiving it by attributing it to some mechanism that is fundamental to the universe. In this manner, you hide behind a proxy in order to avoid taking responsibility for your actions.

Growth is a change from one state to another in which what was in the previos state is translated into the next state as the same thing but bigger. Though the thing that grows remains the same in most aspects, it nonetheless changes in at least one aspect, such as, for example, volume.

Apparently, if one values one’s self, which means, if one strives to preserve one’s self in its original state, then growth is not desirable. It might be accepted as a necessity, but it is not, and will never be, a preference.

This is, of course, if we understand self as some sort of previous, or original, state.

But there is another way to understand self, and this is the way which interests us the most. Indeed, it is the way in which I understood it when I started this topic.

Self understood, not as some kind of state, but as pattern of change.

If we understand self in this way, then growth and any other kind of change would not necessarily be opposed to self-valuing. They would be, but only in the case that such a change is not part of the pattern that defines the self.

Thus, in this sense, to value one’s self means to change one’s self in accordance with one’s natural (= internal = inherited) pattern of change.

This appears to show that self-valuing, understood in this manner, as natural-pattern-of-change-valuing, is not the same thing as self-preservation. But it is, and I am going to show why it is.

WTP is not the same as self-valuing because WTP values growth unconditionally. Self-valuing only values it conditionally, naturally of course, since its supreme value is not growth, but self (in the sense of natural pattern of change.)

What does it mean that growth is a conditional value?

It means that whether one values growth or not depends on whether it supprots one’s supreme, which is to say unconditional, value.

In the case of VO, this supreme value is SELF, or ONE’S OWN NATURAL PATTERN OF CHANGE.

This means that one will grow only under the condition that growth is part of one’s natural pattern of change.

In the case that it isn’t, one won’t grow.

Similarly, the pattern of growth is wholy determined by one’s natural pattern of change. One won’t grow when one’s body does not tell one to grow. One will only grow when one’s body tells one to grow.

If by some accident one’s instinct for growth – instincts being how this natural pattern of change is encoded – disappear then one will cease to grow.

Indeed, unless it is within one’s genetic code, one won’t bother trying to animate the dead instinct for growth. (The instinct must animate itself, otherwise it is not part of one’s true self . . .)

In VO, body decides what to do and what not to do.

In WTP, one’s own mind decides what to do and what not to do, whereas body merely SETS LIMITS.

Thus, self-valuing is another word for self-preservation.

Note that in the universe of flux there is no such a thing as self-preservation. Nothing is ever preserved. However, what there is self-retardation, and that’s what is meant when people say self-preservation.

Valuing → ‘auto-evaluating’, is literally the subconscious calibrating function of intellect/brain. It is not like a mystical will-to-power or something, it just is what it is and nothing more. All of the senses have their corresponding instrumentation, all of which has to be calibrated such for the brain to build a single signal, such to build an experience of a ‘rolling’ [continual] world.

Pretty much spot on. But you still emphasize the ideal self more than I would. Perhaps that is necessary because people massally believe in it.

Indeed the term is intended to mean only the valuing of valuing. It has the dash, “-”. Magnus doesnt see the dash. He is bizarrely incapable of reading or using the term “self-” in a grammatically correct way.

It is too tedious. This is my last post in response to Magnus for this year… giving them something invariably results in them getting all entitled.

All these people on that forum have been writing about my logos for over 3 years straight and none of them has come close to cracking it.

It is a zoo.
But that is the best illustration of what all of them are trying to twist and make easier and less hard, they are now all functions of me.

This is what pisses me off: they fucking falter all the time. Magnus is nothing more than a bolt in some machine that tries to become my servant.

It now dawns on me how the notion may have been interpreted by these people… as an imperative.

Oh… dear me.

They thought I meant to say “value thyself”.

I just realized they think this is what philosophy is: life mottos.

When we say that someone has self-respect, what we mean to say is that he has respect for himself. What we do not mean to say is that he has respect for respect.

When we say that someone has self-confidence, what we mean to say is that he has confidence in himself. What we do not mean to say is that he has confidence in confidence.

It is only natural that we interpret self-valuing as that which values self.

You went from “valuing in terms of oneself” which makes some sense to “valuing valuing” which makes no sense.

How can you so much as suggest that you have clarified anything?

You are doing nothing but evading.

Actually, I think that you have no imperatives. You are a lazybum and your philosophy reflects that.

This is reflected in the fact that you think that there is no such a thing as “ideal self”.

Sure, but that’s when we’re talking about a being (for example, “someone”, as you say). But what Fixed Cross says is that beings are self-valuings. This is like Heidegger’s calling human beings daseinen (there-Beings). In fact, it’s probably better to write “self-Valuings”, with a capital. This has to do with what Heidegger called “the ontological difference” between Being and being(s): he did not write “Daseienden”, after all…

Don’t worry, I’ll explain. In English, the difference is between the gerund and the nominalized present active participle. If we de-nominalize the noun “being” (as in “a human being”), we can speak of “being ones” or “being things”. The latter means “things that are”. But when Fixed Cross says that beings are self-valuings, he does not mean that beings are things that value, but (rather) that they are processes of Valuing. Compare:

“If the innermost essence of Being [Sein] is will to power, if pleasure is every increase of power, displeasure every feeling of not being able to resist or dominate: may we not then posit pleasure and displeasure as cardinal facts? Is will possible without these two oscillations of Yes and No? But who feels pleasure?.. But who wants power?.. Absurd question: if the essence itself is power-will and consequently feelings of pleasure and displeasure. Nonetheless: opposites, obstacles are needed, therefore, relatively, encroaching units… Locally—
if A has an effect on B, then A is first locally separate from B” (Nietzsche, Nachlass Spring 1888 14 [80], entire.)

If one conceives these encroaching units as power-Willings, as distinct from power-willings, that does not explain how they are even relative units. The old (soul-)atom is let go of in making that distinction (the unit is no longer thought of as a power-willing thing), but thereby the who or what, the essence, is absolutely lost. In order to rescue Nietzsche’s relatively encroaching units from being reduced to nothing (as they are in Satyr’s “philosophy” of “flux”), Fixed Cross has complemented Nietzsche by thinking through power-Willings as self-Valuings.

A self-Valuing values all other “things” it encounters insofar as they enable it to continue being a self-Valuing (though not the same self-Valuing–unchanged from what it was before. In fact, encountering other “things” necessitates it to change if it is to remain a self-Valuing). It first and foremost values itself, as a self-Valuing, and consequently values all other “things” it encounters in terms of itself–that is, in terms of the self-Valuing which it is.

I did not read Heidegger, nor do I have interest to ever read him. His jargon is enough to tell me that he’s yet another pretentious philosopher.

I hate it when I use unnecessary complicated terms in a forum post. What do you think, how much would I hate it if I, or someone else, did the same in a book?

The thing is that the transition from particulars to universals must be gradual. You must make sure that you know your specifics very well before you move onto observing general patterns.

I understand very well what you mean by the term “valuing”. I know very well that what you mean is not conscious activity of valuing. I know very well that what you mean is some sort of unconscious activity of valuing. I know that your beings do not value. I know that they are valuings, which is to say, processes of valuing. I know of all this, and if you bothered to read my recent posts, you would know that I do know what you think I don’t know.

I am not going to repeat my points. Instead, I am going to ask you to go back and (re-)read what I wrote, then try to make a meaningful response.

Why self-valuing and not self-ordering (or quite simply ordering)?

I’ve previously said that order should not be an end, but that may be because nothing should be an end.

Rather than thinking in terms of linear (= one-way) development perhaps we should be thinking in terms of non-linear (= two-way, or multi-way) development.

Order in this sense would be an anti-end. This does not mean that there should be no ends, since that in itself would be an end, but rather, that every end should merely be a temporary end to be eventually replaced by, not upgraded to, another end.

Think of vibratory motion. Vibratory motion is two-way motion around an equilibrium point. Every motion in one direction is balanced by corresponding motion in the opposite direction. The two directions are two different, not equal, ends. Unless, of course, we can interpret the two ends as being centri-petal motion that never stops at, but always goes beyond, the equilibrium point.

This would be the philosophy of lack (which I know you reject.)

Instead of focusing on some fixed point, you are focusing on your inner sense of right/wrong (= consonant/dissonant) which is supposed to help you locate the direction toward the center in the universe of infinite dimensions.

In this sense, whatever is dissonant is whatever moves you away from the center, and whatever is consonant is whatever moves you towards the center.

(This is different from one-way motion suggested by the philosophy of excess where dissonance is understood as “obstructed energy flow” and consonance as “unobstructed energy flow”.)

Nonetheless, this is still not the same as self-valuing, since not every being makes an active effort to order reality.

It’s also not about self, since self is interpreted to be incomplete, but about completion.

Haha! So true.

“Dasein”, “Thrown into the world”, “Throwness”.

Lots of verbal masturbation.

Same reason why I will never read Kant.

I can relate to that sentiment.

Well, philosophy often demands that one transcend one’s other loves and hates. Consider this quick translation of a tutorial I wrote last year:

“(I)n a guilt culture, too, there are always people for whom shame and the feeling of honour are more important than the feeling of guilt and a good conscience. Plato flatters these people with the idea that they’re philosophical because they love what they know and hate what they do not know. For, seeing as such loyal and watchful dogs are the pivot around which society turns, and are therefore held in high regard by the people, philosophy gets a better name if they call themselves philosophers.” (“A Tutorial in Platonic Political Philosophy”.)

If you understand what we mean by the term “valuing” so well, then why did you draw silly parallels like the ones I quoted? Like everyone else, we say someone has self-respect or self-confidence, but do we say someone has self-valuation or self-valence or anything like that? No, we say that everyone is a self-Valuing. And if a self-Valuing values itself, then what it values is Valuing rather than self. In fact, as I said, the Valuing is its real self. (To be sure, though, it’s usually subconscious of its real self, so that it consciously values only an illusory, ideal self.)