How low? Or high can you go?
Sorgner (2009, 29) has argued that Bostrom (2005, 4) was wrong to maintain that there are only surface-level similarities between Nietzsche’s vision of the overman, or overhuman, and the transhumanist conception of the posthuman. Rather, he claims, the similarities are “significant” and can be found “on a fundamental level”. However, I think that Bostrom was in fact quite right to dismiss Nietzsche as a major inspiration for transhumanism. There may be some common ground, but there are also essential differences.
Jacob wrote:
A slightly less general, more specific description of what occurs because of this formula, was already devised by Nietzsche, as the will to power. This was up until now not a workable doctrine, because its ground was missing. It describes accurately what happens between subjects or forces, but it does not prescribe itself upon the void, that is to say, it needs something to operate, and this something has been left to explain itself, to the unfortunate Nietzschean, to be explained by the will to power, which as you have noted reduces the subject to chaos, noise. Paradoxically, the will to power explains, but does not help us to understand what we should do in order to effectively will to power. Value ontology explains what we need to do to strengthen our power/willing, or at least, it gives us the ground on which to stand in such attempts. But I have not progressed significantly beyond this point yet. The only truly significant step I have set is described in my post on consistency as prime mover.
Basically what I am saying is: have patience! You have a rather apocalyptic way of seeing homo sapiens and his fate. I do not see things quite so dreadfully, although I am fully aware of the totalitarian grip of entropic dissolution on our society, I also see, always, by the very nature of nature herself, movements in the opposite direction, such as our own. We must guard of course, to not slip, to not become self-satisfied – but we must also not overreach, try to say something without having fully understood.
Some of the next practical steps I intend to take along these lines:
-interpreting/formulating the will to power as fundamentally ethical by explaining value ontology as its ground
-drawing the consequences of such ethics in an intersubjective world
-constructing a law-system based on these consequences
-explaining the western constitutions and the American one in particular as such a construction, imperfect but having been for good time sufficient
-attempting to explicate how the ‘socialist virtues’ of attempting to value otherness-as-itself can be made to fit in with a basic doctrine of valuing otherness in terms of oneself, which at first glance is contradictory
-explaining the role of the state as a minimally sufficient mediator between different self-valuings; ‘law and order’ explained in philosophically / ethically necessary terms
What is left unaddressed here is the directly individual, the truly subjective explorations of experience. This is the sort of material Parodites has specialized himself in. I am very interested in this field but I am not as talented as he is in forging it into a philosophy – my fields of poetic-emotive-conceptualization lie elsewhere than in philosophy. My task may indeed be to formulate such laws as you are pressing for, but to use a metaphor to make my point; value ontology is a multi-stage rocket, in order for it to cross the void it must burn all of its potential to finally arrive as its most necessary and useful form. Right now I am in the process of shedding the first fuel can and shifting to the second, which means a general specification from ontology (what is given the non-impossibility of being) to necessity (what must be given what is). From this, an operational ethics may be approached, as which a ‘metods of successful conduct’ may be formulated.
Before the self has been explicated, that is to say, before the act of self-valuing is brought to light in concrete terms, I can not formulate is a “what is of value” - value-ontology defines value as indirectly established, and explicated only by the clarification of the subject to himself as an activity of constantly enabling valuation. Yes, the (pursuit of the science/methods of) enabling of valuation is the first ethical activity I can prescribe to mans philosophical self-rulership , if philosophy is to take the shape of value ontology, as it once took on Plato’s ideational paradigm.
" The strong do what they can do and the weak accept what they have to accept. "
- Thucydides
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James S Saint
rational metaphysicist
rational metaphysicist
Posts : 244
Join date : 2011-12-26
Post Idea World Empty
PostSubject: Re: Post Idea World Post Idea World Icon_minitimeFri Jan 13, 2012 1:03 am Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post View IP address of poster
Fixed Cross wrote:
I think that value ontology itself, as a theory of what is, of what it is that is, regardless of its further conditions, is complete.
I think that statement alone makes you a “Rationalist” (welcome to My world affraid )
Fixed Cross wrote:
But this does not yet form any kind of modus operandi for us, humans, at least not beyond what we are already, instinctively and axiomatically, doing in each of your acts. In other words, it does not prescribe our actions beyond what already takes place. It does however give us the confidence that, understanding why and as what we do what we do, we may learn to do this with more direction.
Exactly.
Fixed Cross wrote:
You have already drawn the conclusion that it is not only possible, but even necessary to do this, and moreover, that a law should be established prescribing all of human activity. I am only coming to terms with the realization that man is indeed understandable to himself. As I have told some of my friends here already, I see a trajectory before us of roughly a decade, in which value ontology must be developed into a working model for politics and perhaps for ‘self-help’, a means to ‘know thyself’, a guide to successful action leading to desirable and lasting results. But I see such a project as developing across different phases.
I don’t really think that you have 10 years. I’m pretty certain that I don’t.
But the basics of your aim seems to be proper.
Fixed Cross wrote:
We now have the general formula of how we may understand being in conceptual language. It appears to me to be very comprehensive not only in specifying what exists, but also how/why it is possible that it exists. This alone gives me a lot of peace of mind, as I have searched for this my whole actively cognitive life, so an objective is already attained.
We do? I’m not sure to what you are referring. Suspect
Fixed Cross wrote:
The only truly significant step I have set is described in my post on consistency as prime mover.
Hmm… seemed a lot of words to say, “Value and Ontology needs to be based upon the incentive to maintain ones existence.”
“Self-Harmony”.
Fixed Cross wrote:
You have a rather apocalyptic way of seeing homo sapiens and his fate. I do not see things quite so dreadfully, although I am fully aware of the totalitarian grip of entropic dissolution on our society, I also see, always, by the very nature of nature herself, movements in the opposite direction, such as our own. We must guard of course, to not slip, to not become self-satisfied – but we must also not overreach, try to say something without having fully understood.
They came up with a phrase for it in the U.S., “Clear and present danger.”
Fixed Cross wrote:
Some of the next practical steps I intend to take along these lines:
-interpreting/formulating the will to power as fundamentally ethical by explaining value ontology as its ground
-drawing the consequences of such ethics in an intersubjective world
-constructing a law-system based on these consequences
-explaining the western constitutions and the American one in particular as such a construction, imperfect but having been for good time sufficient
-attempting to explicate how the ‘socialist virtues’ of attempting to value otherness-as-itself can be made to fit in with a basic doctrine of valuing otherness in terms of oneself, which at first glance is contradictory
-explaining the role of the state as a minimally sufficient mediator between different self-valuings; ‘law and order’ explained in philosophically / ethically necessary terms
Sounds a bit like what you get when you ask Congress for the key to the men’s room.
Fixed Cross wrote:
What is left unaddressed here is the directly individual, the truly subjective explorations of experience. This is the sort of material Parodites has specialized himself in.
Not sure to what you are referring. Suspect
Fixed Cross wrote:
Before the self has been explicated, that is to say, before the act of self-valuing is brought to light in concrete terms, I can not formulate is a “what is of value” - value-ontology defines value as indirectly established, and explicated only by the clarification of the subject to himself as an activity of constantly enabling valuation. Yes, the (pursuit of the science/methods of) enabling of valuation is the first ethical activity I can prescribe to mans philosophical self-rulership , if philosophy is to take the shape of value ontology, as it once took on Plato’s ideational paradigm.
So you need a definition of “Life”?
( in search of a guide ing principle)