The Philosophers

Mitra-Sauwelios

Why so many words here and what are you actually saying? I may be wrong but it seems as though nothing concrete has been said with the above. It is like a dog chasing his own tail.

Perhaps man valuing his own value directly, simply put, is having the confidence and the faith to know what is real and true to him and following that with, according to him, is right action.

There aren’t many words there, but precisely as many words as were needed. You are wrong: it was just too complicated for you to follow, even though I spelled it out (hence the “many words”). I’ll try again, though.

Suppose I value a certain food F–for instance the mackerel I just ate. Then we can speak of “my valuing F”. Now like “Saully’s mackerel” (F), we can also write “Saully’s valuing F” (G). My valuing F is itself something different from F, namely G. Now I can also value G, and we can give my valuing G the symbol H. Note that G = B and H = A; I just used different symbols so as not to confuse you.

Now in the previous paragraph, the only member of mankind I’ve spoken of is myself (I), but there are other members–Jakob, for example (J). I may value Jakob’s valuing (K), even if K is itself in turn Jakob’s valuing of my valuing (L) that valuing of his. Note that K = D and L = C.

Lastly, I may value M, where M is precisely my valuing of M. How? Well, VO teaches that all beings are self-valuings. I take this to mean they are other-valuings. I, for example, am a valuing of other beings. These latter beings include my mackerel (F) and Jakob (J). Now obviously, Jakob may in turn value me as well (so may my mackerel, but this is less obvious, as we’re talking about mackerel the food, not mackerel the fish, to adapt a distinction made in The Cleveland Show). When, not if, this is the case, I’m among other things a Jakob-valuing, and Jakob is among other things a Saully-valuing, so I’m also a Saully-valuing-valuing. More precisely, I’m a direct Jakob-valuing, Jakob’s a direct Saully-valuing, so I’m a direct Saully-valuing-valuing and thereby an indirect Saully-valuing myself, i.e., an indirect self-valuing (namely, by being a direct other-valuing).

Okay, you start with “something exists”, and then ask “what’s it about that something that makes it keep existing?” Right?

Can you be a bit more specific about that, so I may be able to dig it up?

The philosopher as the peak has to do with the eros for eros, yes, but especially with the will-to-power to will-to-power. As Strauss writes:

“The will to power takes the place which the eros–the striving for ‘the good in itself’–occupies in Plato’s thought. But the eros is not ‘the pure mind’ (der reine Geist). Whatever may be the relation between the eros and the pure mind according to Plato, in Nietzsche’s thought the will to power takes the place of both eros and the pure mind. Accordingly philosophizing becomes a mode or modification of the will to power: it is the most spiritual (der geistigste) will to power; it consists in prescribing to nature what or how it ought to be (aph. 9); it is not love of the true that is independent of will or decision. Whereas according to Plato, the pure mind grasps the truth, according to Nietzsche the impure mind, or a certain kind of pure mind, is the sole source of truth.” (Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy, “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil”.)

Now I have contended that the esoteric Plato did understand that there was (most probably) no pure mind. But this may be why Plato, like Nietzsche, taught the recurrence:

“If the will of an individual human being, say of Nietzsche, is to be the origin of meaning and value, and that will manifestly has a cause, the only way out in order to save his position is to say that this will is the cause of itself: eternal return.” (Strauss, lecture of May 18, 1959.)

This peak is far from being a direct self-valuing: it is the peak precisely because it values itself through ninety zillion years of other valuings:

“If Nietzsche had one teaching, it was his teaching of eternal recurrence. This was the notion that time be a circle, that all that happened had happened before and would happen again an endless amount of times. But this was precisely the teaching that Kylie found hardest to bear: Nietzsche would be born, live, and die again, then there would be ninety years of white noise, and then she herself would be born, live, and die again, followed by ninety zillion more years of white noise, after which Nietzsche would be born again… But wait, did that not give her an opportunity to communicate with him? Could she not speak to him across ninety zillion years, even as he spoke to her across ninety?” (The Cosmic Love of Kylie Springtime, Chapter 1.)

No, not at all, absolutely not.

I ask how it can be that there is being in the first place. Meaning only: I ask what it is that being is precisely, that it is, that it has the power to be. But I realize I can not answer this question arguing from its hypothetical negation, but have to argue from its actual nature.
I found out that the very notion of “non-being” is only a side effect of the notion of being, thus far, having been rather porous and brittle.

With the notion of self-valuing, there is no longer a possibility to ask the question “why being and not non-being?” because being has taken on a much more comprehensive character in my mind. There is no possible “remainder”. I now see the notion of non-being as a simple mirrored image of the false notion of being that existed before Nietzsche.

Hmm, I had expected that this woud trigger an avalanche of references and memories in you. I think you were occupied with this in 2013 and 2014, and a lot. I think if you look back into your posts of these years you’ll run into it.

Well, exactly.

Exactly right. Moreover, all self-valuing is indirect, that is enclosed in its definition of being a circuitry. It goes through a world, time, and comes back to itself. All those talking about self-valuing as the isolating valuing of a self have simply misread. One absolute implication of self-valuing is plurality.

Self-valuing is namely a consistent outward valuing that happens to be of such a nature that the object of its valuing feeds back into the capacity to exist, i.e. to perpetuale tis specific valuing.
A philosopher who is able to value himself through valuing the entire world (all of what is known to and suspected by him), he is a pure self-valuing. And thus, the capacity to affirm the ER is indeed a criterium for purity of self-valuing.

Back to the first theme: the ground(ing) question, “why being and not rather non-being?”, I have finally interpreted as meaning only and precisely: “what is being, that we can speak of it?” or; “how to speak being accurately to being, so as not to end up in its negation?”

VO speaks being in as far as speech can pertain directly to its own ground.
Now I know this is all highly esoteric and may require multiple readings. I must probably keep repeating that VO truly requires a rewiring of the mind, an abandoning of all passive premises, abandoning the idea that truth can be comprehended without embodying it in action.

And this, in turn, is why it is a majestic, a royal theory. Either it will rule, or the humanity will perish, be reduced back to ape hood.

Ollie, lets say the logic is a way of thinking that disallows this questions emerging.
Being is so explained that it is self-evident.
Not obvious, though - evidences rarely are.

Ok so, being as evidence of itself. That’s what I’m talking about.
“A self-valuing” is self-evidencing being. Its terms are required to be consistent and predictive of its behaviour for it to categorically exist. It is what makes being predictable.

Seeking to establish the motive as the form of the crime against the path of the least resistance, the forensic work I tried to do on the mind using the WtP was gravely impeded by the doctrine not evidencing itself in categorizable terms, it did not allow comparing of one quantum WtP to another via categorical and exact paths of thought. It did not yet compute with the world of knowledge in a scientific way. It did not yet have human, only divine power. VO is, I guess, Zarathustras so manieth attempt at going down. Book Five. Makes sense, with the Pentad and all.

So the grounding question: why does being take the path of very great resistance, and not the path of least resistance, which would be not to be, so as for there to be no resistance at all?

Why does being resist its own undoing?
How was there resistance in the first place?

Because there is something more subtle, finer than the brutal fact of resistance; the possibility of the worth of a resistance, this is what Nietzsche identifies in Dionysos, who is none other than the WtP in the perfect conditions, like “c in vacuum” but at the very end of the spectrum of comprehension, in fullness rather than in void.

All this grounding to arrive finally at the building question; “How am I supposed to go about my day, armed with this knowledge?”

So you were at half-right, in your summary. The other half is intuitively accessible; perhaps for good reason, surely by reasonable cause.

How does a being resist not-being even before it exists? Only by its possibility, which is included in there being no forced impossibilities. Nor are there forced possibilities, nor forced possibilities, so out of all possible cases, existence is likely to be one.

Psychologically this suggests that we are being more led by the future than by the past.

Scientifically it implies that what we know is only the extent to which we are ignorant; the more science we have the less we are aware of knowing, the less we can conclude. Scientists are the most ocean-eyed persons because all they see is the vastness of what they do not know through the lens of what they perceive. Their neutral state is wonder, certainty is an exhilarating and unexpected event triggered by a collision of horizons which the soaring heart forever approaches, creating a point of focus that is equally wonderful, as wonder is neutral, but more consequential. Because the world is at heart nothing but bias, the consequence of neutrality is the greatest of all.

James once said that evolution can only work if it’s resisted. I thought that was profoundly insightful.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe there was no first place.

Not-being is the opposite state of being and therefore one implies the other. Not-being is not nothing, but is similar to “off” on a light switch. “Off” implies the potential to be “on”, so it’s not simply a state of nothingness, but a state of potential. There never could have been a state of nothing because there is nothing in nothing to make something.

The conundrum is this: there must be an All because clearly we can categorize all things as All, but there cannot be an All because there is nothing outside of the All to be what the All is not since the All contains all things; therefore the All is a container that has an inside, but no outside, which seems very much impossible.

Exactly, absolutely. yes.

Wonderful.

The world gently opens herself now.

Mitra-Sauwelios

Actually, it was not complicated for me to follow except in one area. I did, for the most part understand what you were saying. Perhaps I did speak too soon when I said “it seems as though nothing concrete has been said with the above.” Logic dictates that since I did understand most of it it had to be concrete enough.

The below is where the waters kind of became muddy for me. The words were, at least for me, convoluted and not clear. :chores-chopwood:

“even if valuing D is itself in turn the valuing (D) of other men’s valuing (C) of valuing D. But I took it to mean man’s valuing (E) of valuing E directly. This is what I call a direct self-valuing.”

You have your perception and I have mine. That is why I said “I may be wrong”. I like to remind myself that I am not infallible. That does not necessarily mean that one or the other of us is wrong.

I might suggest and of course you do not need to listen but sometimes listing things as a nice cascade…
A
B
C
D
E

works better than the way in which you did it but it is just my perception. It is more conducive to structure and clarity of thought especially when particular words (like “valuing” 13 times) are not over-emphasized and redundant.

The thought occurred to me that you might have been being facetious when you wrote the above.

It reminded me of this and please forgive me for saying it. I just imagined something like this as I read on and on… Of course, I realize that there is value within your words but…
the dribbling…
[tab][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIV8uL0pI_M[/youtube][/tab]

Would you actually say that there were also precisely as many words needed with the above as were needed in your original quote?

UrGod

Yeah sure he is invaluable. But I disappointed him. I wasn’t even able to take over Venezuela. To my defence, I figured I had more time.

Some writing from BTL on Europe and the Netherlands.

Thanks-giving is a very direct and effective consecration of valuing

The Philosophers must quite simply adopt Thanksgiving as a festival of philosophy. We’ll do like the Romans, make use of what ha already been built and become part of life.

Perhaps it is mere pride, but I take it for aesthetics and the will to resolve; whatever the case I come back here for a moment to say that my friend told me he had been satisfied that the answer here is positive. And I think that this honouring of my 7 years of teaching value ontology finally allows me to weave my work here on ILP into an ending. As I lean back to be stroked by the leaves of a plant of the ayahuasca compound in the shadow of an enormous dragonfly, and as the sun is beginning to cast deeper shadows and a chillness comes into the air amid the incessant but mild sounds of the rainforest, I know I have succeeded.

And the beauty of philosophy for so many here [on this thread] revolves precisely around the fact that if they know they have succeeded in accomplishing their task then the task is accomplished.

Not only that, but the demonstration of this lies in the knowledge of it itself.

Go ahead, see if you can take this knowledge they impart and make it applicable to the lives that you live from day to day.

Come back here and tell us how that is working out for you.

And, for folks like me, especially when the knowledge that you claim to know comes into conflict with the knowledge that others claim to know. And then this becomes all entangled in value judgments that are equally out of whack.

How was this resolved?

How do you know they are equally out of whack?

Well, for starters, if you don’t share their own values, the objectivists will tell you.

But it’s really more about a particular set of values generating a particular set of behaviors said to be either more or less in sync with an optimal set of values/behaviors. The optimal values/behaviors then said to be in sync with that which all rational men and women are obligated to embody.

Then it’s just a matter [from my frame of mind] of bringing this “general description” of human interactions down out of the scholastic clouds and situating it in a particular context in which values are clearly in conflict.

How “in fact” is it demonstrated that one set of values/behaviors is out of sync with the optimal set?

In other words, is all of this situated historically, culturally and experientially [in a world teeming with contingency, chance and change], or are “serious philosophers” able to reconfigure all of this into a deontological analysis/assessment able to ascribe some measure of objectively to human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments?

Or take a discussion here regarding Nietzsche’s “will to power”. There are folks who argue endlessly about what he actually meant by this. What, as a matter of fact, the “will to power” is.

On the other hand, I’m far more intrigued regarding the manner in which those who claim they do know what he meant by it, attempt to situate this meaning out in the world of actual moral/political conflagrations.

How are their arguments able to effectively challenge the components of my own moral narrative: dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

The same with such intellectual contraptions as VO or RM/AO or the Generic Problem Solving Technique or Framework and System of Morality and Ethics or Satyr’s Genes/Memes dogma.

What on earth do they mean substantively when folks “out in a particular world” come to value opposite means and ends?

How do the objectivists come to illustrate their texts existentially?

Optimal for what? A pro-lifer may say: “For Life.” A pro-choicer may say: “For Liberty.” You will see that these are themselves values. The question is then: what, if any, is the ultimate value?

Taken as ultimate, Life is a slave value. A foetus is alive but not at liberty. The pro-life movement is prepared to sacrifice the liberty of the mother for the life of the foetus, whereas the pro-choice movement is prepared to sacrifice the life of the foetus for the liberty of the mother. We see the same thing if we look at euthanasia instead.

Though it’s a higher value than Life, Liberty cannot be the ultimate value. Logically, the ultimate value is Happiness in some sense or another. Yet isn’t happiness ultimately the feeling of freedom, and isn’t this what we mean by “feeling truly alive”?

Okay, you are outside an abortion clinic where there is a gathering folks engaged in a heated debate regarding what is the “ultimate value” at stake here.

Bingo: fiercely entangled conflicting goods.

Indeed, try to imagine their reaction to this “philosophical” contraption of yours.

My point then is this:

To what extent are individual narratives here rooted in dasein or, instead, rooted in one or another “philosophy of life” said to reflect the optimal obligation of all rational human beings.

And once you introduce “happiness”, you are broaching a first person subjunctive frame of mind. That’s the part where reason intertwines with emotion intertwines with instinct intertwines with subconscious/unconscious awareness embedded existentially in any number of combinations of genes and memes.

Out in any particular world understood from any particular point of view.

Are “serious philosophers” then able to pin down the definition/meaning of such things as Values or Liberty or Justice or Happiness here?

All I can do is to invite those who claim to have accomplished this to integrate their technical/theoretical/conceptual assumptions into a context that most here are likely to be familiar with.

Can they impart an epistemologically sound argument true for all of us or, instead, as you do above, impart a “general description” of human interactions encompassed in Capital Letter Words defining and defending other words to impart what I would construe to be a particual political prejudice.

In other words, if you were charged with reconfiguring your “analysis/assessment” above into an actual set of laws in which certain behaviors are prescribed and certain behaviors are proscribed what would that consist of?

Go ahead, try it.

We can then take that to the fiercely entangled folks outside the abortion clinic.

You don’t sound like you relate to Nietzsche.
Freedom from anything is a slave value. The mere wish of a bitch in chains.
Freedom to accomplish certain noble feats can be a master-value.

To be free from ones own progeny is the ugliest slavish value I can think of.

Happiness taken as a value is another slave-value.
Happiness is to be taken as a mere residual side product – of the exertion of strength, which is a masters-value regardless of any results.

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And now for something completely different.
This made me laugh so hard it hurt my ribs.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8_fRO3uGU0[/youtube]

Ah fucking olden days. I love Montreal.