My point exactly.
Fancy ways of agreeing with me don’t mean you form a challenge.
Up your game.
Don’t tell me what I “want” when all I can do is overflow.
I don’t have anything to prove.
I can just enjoy, like the Sun, those who bask in my glory.
Don’t you get it? Will and representation.
You just have to like it, unlike Schopie.
Hey Mitrapriest, do you think thats the case, that Shopenhauer basically understood the principle of will to power as the interpeter-usurper nature behind all appearances, but just dreaded it because he wasn’t sanguine enough?
I think thats very possible. Probably Nietzsche hid behind his contradiction to Wagner his real mirror-image. Schopenhauer needs perhaps to be appreciated to fully gain knowledge of VO. I must admit that reading Will and Imagination in 2003 was a feverish experience of power. Of a power too great to be health for me at that point. Perhaps it wasn’t even power, but the precise antithesis of it that Schopenhauer first built, as a context for the will to it to crystallize. I can’t truly be sure, as reading it was indeed a fever.
The transition from Kant to Schopenhauer is from the Thing to the Phenomenon.
In Kant, the Thing is Noumenal. In Schopenhauer the Noumenon is destroyed. But the thing survives, and, having shed its immortal coil, appears to Schopenhauer as a terribly flat screen of projection. Nietzsche realized the blissful eternal reality that exists in parallel to all thin appearances; the apparently existing will to such an image, which apparently possesses magical powers to pull off such a thing and have us live inside it.
This is how art mesmerizes, because it shows us the will of the artist. But that is for real art, Greek art, Roman art, and good films and cathedrals. Novels like the Lord of the Rings, too. It mesmerizes because it is superhuman to will something like that into existence. It defies all logic. Why would you need something like that? (War.) Only because the world is will and representation. But we can’t know that. So we opt to look at the story and disappear into it and drink in every aspect of life through its vessels. All of it is deep nothingness.
Our will for there not to be nothing mesmerizes us in the presence of artistic genius which is the power for there to be something.
Dionysos terrifies and shakes up the order of things but this chaos is only to distract us, intoxicate us so as to be able to endure the deeper presence, which is the non-being of identity, the fact that all belong to a giant consuming flame; the identity of experience is restored with Apollo.
But what I have deciphered through Apollo is what lies within Dionysos. What is the cause to the consuming flame. It is the very same hardness that Apollo manifests, to allow for the experience of the loss and gain of identity. Identity is nothing but a relatively stable flame. In stormy season, look for you identity in the flickering shadows on the wall. But at the core of identity is power, configuration, ability to demonstrate, to appear.
Phenomenon is the end goal. Theory traces the path toward it. Science tells its story. But the plot has thickened as of late.
Lets reroute this to the old philosophers too.
If Power is the Thing, then Power is the Good.
Power is will to power because being happens through time.
it needs to constantly establish what it is. Thus it perpetuates time, as it weaves a tapestry of it.
the future is power. Thus, the present is a tapestry of timelines begging for our attention. Wills to power are timelines.
Orlog is the war inside of genealogy. Different timelines colliding and birthing third ones, inside of which they compete. Nietzsche prescribes politics vis a vis such drives, he wishes for us to rank our drives, our ancestral gifts, all of them problems, and rank them so as for all problems together to form a solution. The solution is a unified will;
“Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live. ‘Neither by land nor by sea will you find the way to the Hyperboreans’—Pindar already knew this about us. Beyond the north, ice, and death—our life, our happiness. We have discovered happiness, we know the way, we have found the exit out of the labyrinth of thousands of years. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? ‘I have got lost; I am everything that has got lost,’ sighs modern man. This modernity was our sickness: lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No."
Ice is bark of rivers
and roof of the wave
and destruction of the doomed.
“Rather live in the ice than among modern virtues and other south winds! We were intrepid enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others; but for a long time we did not know where to turn with our intrepidity. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatum—abundance, tension, the damming of strength. We thirsted for lightning and deeds and were most remote from the happiness of the weakling, ‘resignation.’ In our atmosphere was a thunderstorm; the nature we are became dark—for we saw no way. Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.”
The entities are not semblances of something, something is the semblance of entities. What is? Well, logically it must be that from which that semblance springs, the abyss itself (e.g., the absolute flux).
Isn’t that just a phrase, though? Isn’t will to power a made-up thing, and if not, isn’t it a substance? I think the will to power is the abyss. Your question of “what makes it up” already suggests to me that you haven’t understood the notion of an abyss in the sense I mean. More below.
If so, then what explains the genesis of will to power?
Yes, God is another example of such an abyss, and so is the singularity Arcturus cites. In that post I’ve quoted multiple times in this thread already, I listed pure flux (as Picht’s Nietzsche proffers), nothing (as Heidegger seems to proffer), and a circularity (as VO proffers) as examples. Another example would be an infinite regress, including “X has simply always existed” (turtles all the way down, or will to power all the way down, or whatever).
Mankind is more of a soil than a species; to all intents and purposes anyway. Perhaps even a primordial soup. From it in any case things can be tor, such as cultures, in which such pseudo-isolated beings as personalities can exist. But the schizophrenic is simply honest here, this is madness.
In reality we are part of a larger scope of beings, some of us are more like apes, others like tigers, there are many different types of man-kind. There is a richer tapestry than this pyramid of evolution. Not all men are more powerful than an Eagle. Very few in fact. Very few are able to determine their own course. Nietzsches final word is a pledge of brotherhood he is the first to make, inviting others to make it too, facing the earthly side of the horizon. No hypocrisy; where the chin goes up the jaw comes forward. And the rest follows from the curve in the back.
In genealogy is is matter of becoming animals, so as to reveal our godly powers.
Because man is only a bridge from ape to superman, the superman is really the Superanimal.
And thats exactly what it feels like to know the will to power inside out. And we all know this. There is hope at last; man will overcome his frugality at one point in time and become the god of all animals amidst a thriving jungle of truth, and the book will be the king of the animal kingdom.
This is chapter one of such book. The first bit after the introduction, which was nice and succinct was long and dreary. Heidegger is where Tolkien goes on about Tom Bombadil, The Pentad is the Council of Elrond. All narrative is metaphor. I wish to do the Brits the courtesy of recognizing their great storytellers. To connect all good things to each other, build a fellowship of good things.
[i]It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all, oh yeah
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The boy in the bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby[/i]
(Paul Simon, the Boy in the Bubble)
All solid threads are woven together in a basket of truth, in which the infant form of a real human culture is sent along they river of fate.
“The difference between fate and destiny is preparation.” IV
Give the Earth her leverage and she will share it with you.
- Lady of the Lake
Well, in WP 550, which I quoted in full a couple of pages back, Nietzsche seems to suggest the doctrine of the will to power in not so many words, using the word “intention” instead of the phrase “will to power”. And “intention” is Absicht in the German, which derives from the verb absehen in its use of es auf etwas abgesehen haben, “to be out for something” with the added sense of “to be on the lookout for something”.
However, elsewhere (can’t tell you where exactly, as I’m at work; I’m pretty sure it’s on several occasions), Nietzsche criticises Schopenhauer for musing about the will without a “to”. For Schopenhauer, it seems, it was just blind will. Nietzsche, on the other hand, seems to merge will and representation (as Martha Nussbaum points out, this can even be seen in the BT already, where Nietzsche characterises the Apollonian as well as the Dionysian as a drive): compare BGE 19 (which is one of the passages I was thinking of before, I realise now), where Nietzsche says that “in every willing, there is […] the feeling of the state towards which” and “the feeling of this […] ‘towards’ itself” (among other feelings); and not just feelings, but also thinking.
Other than that, yes.
I have a German edition lying around somewhere if you want. Also, Lampert’s new book has just come out, and it’s in large part about Nietzsche’s relation to Schopenhauer and Wagner.
“If so, then what explains the genesis of will to power?”
Nothing does, because nothing has to. There is nothing from which will to power comes. It is itself the begenning, where all begins.
Because, and here is what the key is, it is where anything begins to matter. And nothing is that doesn’t matter. Go ahead, tell me something that doesn’t matter. The very idea is laughable: even if magic and you said something that doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t care, you wouldn’t care, nobody would care. It would be as if you didn’t say it.
Now, if that’s the abyss you mean, where one attempts to will nothing, there is a reason it looks back. And this whole thing, the abyss, looking at it… is will to power. Created by will to power willing will to power.
Will to power has no need of it to be explained.
There is no absolute flux. There is no being without direction. And in the end, that is all will to power is: the directionality of existence. Or, to a poetic mind like Jakob’s, the existence of directionality.
Jakob, you say I am saying the same thing as you in fancy ways. It is VO that says the same thing as will to power, but with one addition. This addition already makes it a product of will to power rather than will to power. One of the unscrutable infinity of products (a good one, says I). It is the static moment where a thing already exists before it acts: that which values and/or is valued.
It was a trick question, being secretly rhetorical. Will to power comes from nothing; will to power comes from itself…
Isn’t that just another way of saying it isn’t of value to anyone?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/matter
Apparently.
I’d say, following Picht, that a “direction” (and compare “directive”!) is a telos-eidos, an Absicht. Aren’t such “ideals” themselves, too, phenomena though? And thereby in an eternal flux, so that the direction of the flux is itself also in flux?
What you’re say is more or less “You can actually use a sword to smear peanut butter on toast and so many other cool things, not just to fight.”
VO is the meaning of the WtP. There is no other meaning.
You see Nietzsche stands in a chain of thinkers. There is a genealogy to my idea that extends all the way back to Thales. In terms of pure intellectual might=right, one should see Nietzsche as leading up to this here philosophy.
If you wish to have some sort of alternative history, then go for it. But you won’t succeed.
I rather suggest you read the works of your philosopher that you havent read yet.
No dude. Your cleverness doesn’t cut it. You also need heart.
There is no directionally without an objective.
AND NOT EVERY OBJECTIVE WILL DO.
Hence, valuing, and not just “moving”.
Western philosophy is a monolithic effort. There are no side-branches that become their own thing. They either die off or become expressions of the main stem.
The main stem is the power to identify nature. The balls to do that.
You can say “a man is also a man because of his gold’n locks, not just his balls” all you want.
And allow me to make up more funny metaphors.
But Im right, might, so this fucking plight is mine.
The poetic mind, the mathematical-logical mind and the comedic mind are akin. They are all actual mind. The rest is just banal faith in grammar and the arrogance of thinking that has anything do with logic.
If you want it poetic
“valuing”
“Aren’t such ‘ideals’ themselves, too, phenomena though? And thereby in an eternal flux, so that the direction of the flux is itself also in flux?”
We can talk about phenomena. Though phenomena, too, is a product of will to power. Once again, as there isn’t anything that isn’t will to power, the problem is not whether you are right that there is a flux of phenomena, but that this flux doesn’t incorporate will to power. The reverse is true.
As I said when I joined the conversation, it is a highly elevated philosophical concept and not easy to grasp.
“Isn’t that just another way of saying it isn’t of value to anyone?”
Like I have been writing about here, value lacks immediacy. To find something valuable there must be enough time for a recognition of a thing that already exists. One can ask “is this thing valuable?” and consider it. But as soon as a thing is, it already matters.
What I’m pointing out, Jakob, is that VO doesn’t go far enough.
Will to power wills will to power. VO only wills power. If you truly don’t see the distinction, then I live in a much bigger world than you do. You may not care. That’s fine. But, like you, many others for many millenia have been convincing people that there is only one power standard, one objective, one birth and death. An actual end.
This has made the world boring for people like me.
Mitra-Sawelius,
So in other words it just appeared somewhere in existence from no effect whatsoevef?
People like Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, et cetera, just grabbed hold of it from the ether?
Of course, will to power can have its positive effects.
At the very least, might we say that will to power had its genesis at some point as a result of the evolution of the conscious mind and human pscyhe (or unconscious mind depending on who is experiencing it).
You see no cause and effect where WTP is concerned, no human psychological influences, like narcissism, existential angst, the cowardice and lack of power of the rapist, the need to achieve and excel, inspiration which motivates one to move?
I may be wrong but I do not see will to power coming from itself – it must have some kind of an agent, human or otherwise.
How good is a vacuum cleaner if it is NOT plugged in and turned on? lol Perhaps not a very good analogy.
Consider the will to power which is seen in this philosophy forum. Where does IT come from?
My point however is that on this side of the grave there are clearly folks who are more aware of this than others. The struggle to sustain basic needs obviates discussions of all the things we dwell on here.
Genes from the evolution of life on earth, memes from the manner in which historically and culturally our own species is able to become self-aware of this. And then to grapple with the extent to which our interactions [in the is/ought world] are more or less determined by them. The less they are the more we can discuss possible limitations built into our autonomy.
From my point of view, these limitations revolve around dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. That’s why I ever and always come back to this:
[b]…pick a particular context in which moral and political values come into conflict and let’s explore the implications of it “out in the world”. A world in which actual social, political and economic interactions unfold.
Existentially as it were.[/b]
The objectivists either will or [as often as not] will not.
For example, what on earth does this mean:
Will to power wills will to power. VO only wills power. If you truly don’t see the distinction, then I live in a much bigger world than you do. You may not care. That’s fine. But, like you, many others for many millenia have been convincing people that there is only one power standard, one objective, one birth and death. An actual end.