Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

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3017Metaphysician
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Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

Greetings Metaphysicians!

As the title implies, this thread is primarily for those interested in discussing the metaphysics of Kant and Schopenhauer. As it relates to primacy, it can be interpreted that such primacy (i.e., that information/meaning is the foundation of reality) translates to the how, what, where, when and why matter emerges from information/meaning (or the other way around if you prefer). For Kant its noumenon, for Schop its Will.

This video, posted by Value (In the Materialism VI thread-thank you Value!) albeit a bit long, is a wonderful synopsis of both Kant's and Schop's parsing of the nature of an existing thing (an object perceived by our senses) only that the specific narrative provides for a simple understanding of antinomy. Meaning, at the very least, when trying to figure out say, the quality of things-in-themselves (objects), we often have to examine its opposite to make sense out of a proposed explanation (both qualities and quantities of things).

For example, since no one knows where material singularity comes from, it would be analogous to engineering and constructing a structure with the instructions/specifications (mathematics) form the engineer/architect, along with the material specifications (matter) yet all the while not knowing the fundamental nature of where the building materials actually come from. In other words, we don't know where, why, how matter emerges. When we build a some-thing, we just manipulate raw materials or otherwise simply work with existing stuff. We just know it exists and that it's available to us, and we make use of it to serve our quality-of-life needs (Teleology), and as Value has argued, the 'meaning' of life purposes.

And so, please enjoy this very lucid discussion with Mr. Bryan Magee (which i happen to agree with 95% of his interpretation of Kant/Scop) as it is indeed a condensed 101 version of their respective metaphysics/philosophy.


As a result of such inquiry, Value posited the following questions for me, but I will offer them up to those metaphysicians (or other's) so inclined to answer (I will be answering them too):


Questions from Value,

What do you think of the idea that instead of 'Will' the foundation of the cosmos would be pure energy?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is equal to energy? If you agree, what would be the argumentation by which the concept energy provides a logical basis for intelligence and consciousness? Might it be that the denoted energy is of a different nature than for example energy from fire?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is fundamentally meaningless (and results in pessimism) and that love is merely functional for reproduction?

I noticed that you use the term 'Will' in many of your posts and arguments combined with the question "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?" (Stephen Hawking). Can you please provide a background story with regard your interest in Schopenhauer's Will?


You use a picture of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Can you please explain what his significance is with regard the topics that you are addressing? For example, how would his philosophy relate to Schopenhauer's Will?


I will start with a very succinct answer to the last question (more to come). The short answer is all three consider, in some form or another, the primacy of phenomenology, subjectivity, and metaphysics (i.e., the various forms of Idealism) as that being part of the information narrative that is essential in trying to understand anything, much less the nature of all reality/existence. Or if you prefer, the foundation to which reality comes into Being. The experience of living life provides for our ordinary method of understanding ideas which require an either/or parsing or distinction of opposites (antinomy). And these opposites result not in the repudiation of one or the other, but only an awareness of assigning primacy to each. In other words, not to dichotomize reality, hence, subject-object.

And the specific 'short' answer is that SK's subjectivity and Schop's Will come from the same source of Being (ontology). The subject person. A person who has thoughts and feelings about stuff. And that those thoughts and feelings drive the development and existence of certain things. The nature of Being and becoming. Actualizing something. Becoming something. Adding information to the blank slate of conscious existence through the experience of life. Adding knowledge to that database of info, where it is stored in the mind, along with some other innate properties (Kant)... .

Remember, in metaphysics, the relationships between mind and matter involve information processing.
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by JackDaydream »

3017Metaphysician wrote: December 12th, 2022, 3:09 pm Greetings Metaphysicians!

As the title implies, this thread is primarily for those interested in discussing the metaphysics of Kant and Schopenhauer. As it relates to primacy, it can be interpreted that such primacy (i.e., that information/meaning is the foundation of reality) translates to the how, what, where, when and why matter emerges from information/meaning (or the other way around if you prefer). For Kant its noumenon, for Schop its Will.

This video, posted by Value (In the Materialism VI thread-thank you Value!) albeit a bit long, is a wonderful synopsis of both Kant's and Schop's parsing of the nature of an existing thing (an object perceived by our senses) only that the specific narrative provides for a simple understanding of antinomy. Meaning, at the very least, when trying to figure out say, the quality of things-in-themselves (objects), we often have to examine its opposite to make sense out of a proposed explanation (both qualities and quantities of things).

For example, since no one knows where material singularity comes from, it would be analogous to engineering and constructing a structure with the instructions/specifications (mathematics) form the engineer/architect, along with the material specifications (matter) yet all the while not knowing the fundamental nature of where the building materials actually come from. In other words, we don't know where, why, how matter emerges. When we build a some-thing, we just manipulate raw materials or otherwise simply work with existing stuff. We just know it exists and that it's available to us, and we make use of it to serve our quality-of-life needs (Teleology), and as Value has argued, the 'meaning' of life purposes.

And so, please enjoy this very lucid discussion with Mr. Bryan Magee (which i happen to agree with 95% of his interpretation of Kant/Scop) as it is indeed a condensed 101 version of their respective metaphysics/philosophy.


As a result of such inquiry, Value posited the following questions for me, but I will offer them up to those metaphysicians (or other's) so inclined to answer (I will be answering them too):


Questions from Value,

What do you think of the idea that instead of 'Will' the foundation of the cosmos would be pure energy?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is equal to energy? If you agree, what would be the argumentation by which the concept energy provides a logical basis for intelligence and consciousness? Might it be that the denoted energy is of a different nature than for example energy from fire?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is fundamentally meaningless (and results in pessimism) and that love is merely functional for reproduction?

I noticed that you use the term 'Will' in many of your posts and arguments combined with the question "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?" (Stephen Hawking). Can you please provide a background story with regard your interest in Schopenhauer's Will?


You use a picture of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Can you please explain what his significance is with regard the topics that you are addressing? For example, how would his philosophy relate to Schopenhauer's Will?


I will start with a very succinct answer to the last question (more to come). The short answer is all three consider, in some form or another, the primacy of phenomenology, subjectivity, and metaphysics (i.e., the various forms of Idealism) as that being part of the information narrative that is essential in trying to understand anything, much less the nature of all reality/existence. Or if you prefer, the foundation to which reality comes into Being. The experience of living life provides for our ordinary method of understanding ideas which require an either/or parsing or distinction of opposites (antinomy). And these opposites result not in the repudiation of one or the other, but only an awareness of assigning primacy to each. In other words, not to dichotomize reality, hence, subject-object.

And the specific 'short' answer is that SK's subjectivity and Schop's Will come from the same source of Being (ontology). The subject person. A person who has thoughts and feelings about stuff. And that those thoughts and feelings drive the development and existence of certain things. The nature of Being and becoming. Actualizing something. Becoming something. Adding information to the blank slate of conscious existence through the experience of life. Adding knowledge to that database of info, where it is stored in the mind, along with some other innate properties (Kant)... .

Remember, in metaphysics, the relationships between mind and matter involve information processing.
The ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science. However, such writers probably are still read by many and I did find the way in which you showed how Schopenhauer developed the ideas of Kant, bringing the idea of the transcendent down to the level of human will.

It may have become so complicated with so many philosophy voices from the past and other disciplines competing for attention that some of the historical voices of the past get pushed aside, especially in the understanding of the mind. Phenomenology may have been a bridge between the abstract metaphysics and human experiences. Voluntatism drew on the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud. The philosophy of Freud incorporated the idea of the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos.

In the twentieth first century the understanding of mind may have become the focus of psychology more than philosophy, especially with neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Even the idea of the subconscious may be regarded as unscientific and abstract. So, it may be a question of what do the historical voices of Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkergaard have to offer? It may be that their ideas are useful still, and even complementary, for understanding human inner experience in a way which cannot be pinned down to the research methodology of evidence based science.
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by value »

Mr. Bryan Magee seems to have been dedicated to Arthur Schopenhauer as well, which might be interesting. Frederick Copleston wrote several books about Schopenhauer and became famous for a debate about God with Bertrand Russell.

Copleston-Russell debate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copleston ... ell_debate

Schopenhauers world vision is the basis for pessimism - the idea that the world is fundamentally meaningless. His vision on love for example is that it is merely functional for reproduction. Therefore, the concepts meaning and information (as you seem to intend to use it) do not apply in the world view of Schopenhauer.

Friedrich Nietzsche called Schopenhauer the first Atheist.

A quote from the video (16:50):

Coplestone: Schoppenauer uses the world Will, perhaps unfortunately. One might use energy.

... below conscious drive that Schopenhauer called Will and that perhaps some better name can be given to is force or energy.


Bryan Magee: Yes he thought that if we analyze this world of experience - the world of science if you like - the world of common sense, which does consist for the most part of matter in motion and most of it is matter in colossal amounts, I mean Galaxies and Solar systems and so on, travelling through the cosmos at gigantic speeds, so the whole material Universe consists of matter in motion to a degree that so to speak defies our imagination to really conceptualize it and he argued following on from Kant that all what is ultimate in all this must be energy.

Schopenhauer argued that matter is as it were instantiated energy and that a physical object is a space filled with force and that ultimately all matter must be transmutable into energy.

...

Schopenhauer argues that what is ultimate in this world of phenomena in this world of experience is energy.


Coplestone: Yes.

Another quote from the video (22:05):

Bryan Magee: I think it would have been better if Schopenhauer would have used the word energy because he decided to give the term the name Will to this metaphysical reality and I think that has misled people ever since.

There are very few philosophers who have addressed the subject love. Schopenhauer has been one of those few and for that reason has been named "The Philosopher of Love". His view on love is that of pessimism - that love is merely functional and not meaningful beyond that (i.e. love is a functional illusion).

The Philosopher of Love Who Lived and Died Alone
In his 1818 essay “Metaphysics of Love,” Schopenhauer writes that “one cannot doubt either the reality or importance of love,” only to name the primary purpose of love as the creation of offspring, an expression of the “will to live,” which was one of his central preoccupations.
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/th ... les/95895/

So as it appears there is no meaning in the world of Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer wrote the following:

The basis of all willing is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom comes over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself becomes an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

This seems to be a description of a (without fundamental understanding acknowledged potential of a) depression. He then goes on to use that 'experience' as a basis for reasoning that would underlay his pessimistic world view and his theory on the meaninglessness of love.

For Schopenhauer, boredom has three forms. The first is when the world shows itself to the bored as lifeless, “dead”, colorless, and “dreary”. Nothing is attractive or interesting and everything is indifferent, detached, and distant. The second form of boredom is when the world shows itself to the bored as valueless, meaningless, and pointless. Schopenhauer says that these feelings of pointlessness, valuelessness, and pointlessness render existence itself burdensome.

In my view this is wrong. It is only when one attempts to attach oneself to 'value' that one will be in danger for the described experience since the true nature that underlays the world cannot be grasped or clinged on to. Emotions serve to propel organisms into the right direction and hence depression has an infinite depth and from the perspective of the experiencer an infinite severity potential - as if it's worse than death. But there is also the opposite with the same infinite potential.

My view would be different and would argue that even the simplest patterns must originate from meaning. Love in my view is not an expression of but like the perception of beauty of which Plato wrote the following:

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but reality, and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God.

With love one perceives true beauty in my opinion which is not a (meaningless) inside-out expression but a perception into the infinite depth of the origin of existence - the trueness behind it all in which 'pure beauty' can be found.

French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas wrote the following about love which in my opinion touches the subject better although Levinas seems to have been focussed more the erotic part of love.

Love remains a relation with the Other that turns into need, transcendent exteriority of the other, of the beloved. But love goes beyond the beloved... The possibility of the Other appearing as an object of a need while retaining his alterity, or again, the possibility of enjoying the Other... this simultaneity of need and desire, or concupiscence and transcendence,... constitutes the originality of the erotic which, in this sense, is the equivocal par excellence.

Levinas has written in more depth about love because it is related to his primary philosophy (Ethics as First Philosophy). There is even a book dedicated to his vision on love:

Directly challenging the prevailing interpretation, Corey Beals explores the ideas of twentieth-century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's concept of love, love's relation to wisdom, and how love makes the Other visible to us. Distinguishing love from other types of wisdom, Beals argues that Levinas's "wisdom of love" is a real possibility, one which grants priority to ethics over ontology.

Levinas and the Wisdom of Love: The Question of Invisibility
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214 ... om_of_Love

Levinas said the following with regard the primacy question:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)

I share this vision. The cited 'goodness' would be 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued as origin of value - i.e. 'the cosmos' - with (moral) valuing being Levina's 'signification').

In a sense 'morality' would underlay the physical world and consciousness and thus Levinas moral philosophy "Ethics as First Philosophy" might be correct from a fundamental philosophy perspective, in my opinion.

The goodness that Levinas refers to can also be referred to as pure meaning in my opinion - a 'meaning' that must underlay any pattern for a pattern to be possible in the first place. A pattern would be value - assigned meaning (signified meaning).

So my view would contradict the view of Schopenhauer that Will or energy at the root of existence - and the world with it - is fundamentally meaningless.

It would have profound implications for morality. In my view, morality is always applicable and it is case that humans spur themselves into a mode of urgency to achieve optimal moral progress in the fastest way possible. Not just to prevent evil but for longer term prosperity and interests that lay outside the scope of direct self-interest, even on specie level.

The following video is also very interesting. It is a powerful insight into the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

value wrote: December 12th, 2022, 10:54 pm Mr. Bryan Magee seems to have been dedicated to Arthur Schopenhauer as well, which might be interesting. Frederick Copleston wrote several books about Schopenhauer and became famous for a debate about God with Bertrand Russell.

Copleston-Russell debate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copleston ... ell_debate

Schopenhauers world vision is the basis for pessimism - the idea that the world is fundamentally meaningless. His vision on love for example is that it is merely functional for reproduction. Therefore, the concepts meaning and information (as you seem to intend to use it) do not apply in the world view of Schopenhauer.

Friedrich Nietzsche called Schopenhauer the first Atheist.

A quote from the video (16:50):

Coplestone: Schoppenauer uses the world Will, perhaps unfortunately. One might use energy.

... below conscious drive that Schopenhauer called Will and that perhaps some better name can be given to is force or energy.


Bryan Magee: Yes he thought that if we analyze this world of experience - the world of science if you like - the world of common sense, which does consist for the most part of matter in motion and most of it is matter in colossal amounts, I mean Galaxies and Solar systems and so on, travelling through the cosmos at gigantic speeds, so the whole material Universe consists of matter in motion to a degree that so to speak defies our imagination to really conceptualize it and he argued following on from Kant that all what is ultimate in all this must be energy.

Schopenhauer argued that matter is as it were instantiated energy and that a physical object is a space filled with force and that ultimately all matter must be transmutable into energy.

...

Schopenhauer argues that what is ultimate in this world of phenomena in this world of experience is energy.


Coplestone: Yes.

Another quote from the video (22:05):

Bryan Magee: I think it would have been better if Schopenhauer would have used the word energy because he decided to give the term the name Will to this metaphysical reality and I think that has misled people ever since.

There are very few philosophers who have addressed the subject love. Schopenhauer has been one of those few and for that reason has been named "The Philosopher of Love". His view on love is that of pessimism - that love is merely functional and not meaningful beyond that (i.e. love is a functional illusion).

The Philosopher of Love Who Lived and Died Alone
In his 1818 essay “Metaphysics of Love,” Schopenhauer writes that “one cannot doubt either the reality or importance of love,” only to name the primary purpose of love as the creation of offspring, an expression of the “will to live,” which was one of his central preoccupations.
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/th ... les/95895/

So as it appears there is no meaning in the world of Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer wrote the following:

The basis of all willing is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom comes over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself becomes an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

This seems to be a description of a (without fundamental understanding acknowledged potential of a) depression. He then goes on to use that 'experience' as a basis for reasoning that would underlay his pessimistic world view and his theory on the meaninglessness of love.

For Schopenhauer, boredom has three forms. The first is when the world shows itself to the bored as lifeless, “dead”, colorless, and “dreary”. Nothing is attractive or interesting and everything is indifferent, detached, and distant. The second form of boredom is when the world shows itself to the bored as valueless, meaningless, and pointless. Schopenhauer says that these feelings of pointlessness, valuelessness, and pointlessness render existence itself burdensome.

In my view this is wrong. It is only when one attempts to attach oneself to 'value' that one will be in danger for the described experience since the true nature that underlays the world cannot be grasped or clinged on to. Emotions serve to propel organisms into the right direction and hence depression has an infinite depth and from the perspective of the experiencer an infinite severity potential - as if it's worse than death. But there is also the opposite with the same infinite potential.

My view would be different and would argue that even the simplest patterns must originate from meaning. Love in my view is not an expression of but like the perception of beauty of which Plato wrote the following:

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but reality, and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God.

With love one perceives true beauty in my opinion which is not a (meaningless) inside-out expression but a perception into the infinite depth of the origin of existence - the trueness behind it all in which 'pure beauty' can be found.

French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas wrote the following about love which in my opinion touches the subject better although Levinas seems to have been focussed more the erotic part of love.

Love remains a relation with the Other that turns into need, transcendent exteriority of the other, of the beloved. But love goes beyond the beloved... The possibility of the Other appearing as an object of a need while retaining his alterity, or again, the possibility of enjoying the Other... this simultaneity of need and desire, or concupiscence and transcendence,... constitutes the originality of the erotic which, in this sense, is the equivocal par excellence.

Levinas has written in more depth about love because it is related to his primary philosophy (Ethics as First Philosophy). There is even a book dedicated to his vision on love:

Directly challenging the prevailing interpretation, Corey Beals explores the ideas of twentieth-century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's concept of love, love's relation to wisdom, and how love makes the Other visible to us. Distinguishing love from other types of wisdom, Beals argues that Levinas's "wisdom of love" is a real possibility, one which grants priority to ethics over ontology.

Levinas and the Wisdom of Love: The Question of Invisibility
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214 ... om_of_Love

Levinas said the following with regard the primacy question:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)

I share this vision. The cited 'goodness' would be 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued as origin of value - i.e. 'the cosmos' - with (moral) valuing being Levina's 'signification').

In a sense 'morality' would underlay the physical world and consciousness and thus Levinas moral philosophy "Ethics as First Philosophy" might be correct from a fundamental philosophy perspective, in my opinion.

The goodness that Levinas refers to can also be referred to as pure meaning in my opinion - a 'meaning' that must underlay any pattern for a pattern to be possible in the first place. A pattern would be value - assigned meaning (signified meaning).

So my view would contradict the view of Schopenhauer that Will or energy at the root of existence - and the world with it - is fundamentally meaningless.

It would have profound implications for morality. In my view, morality is always applicable and it is case that humans spur themselves into a mode of urgency to achieve optimal moral progress in the fastest way possible. Not just to prevent evil but for longer term prosperity and interests that lay outside the scope of direct self-interest, even on specie level.

The following video is also very interesting. It is a powerful insight into the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Value!

OMG, where do we begin!!! Certainly, a treasure trove of information, no pun intended!!

This may turn into some sort of mega thread...there are at least two highlights from the Magee's video (mark 13 and 20 I think that I want to run by you ...).

Anyway, let me quickly respond to Jack....I shall return.

Most importantly, thank you again Value for laying the groundwork here. I think this thread will go a long way in parsing the relationships not only between mind and matter, but both the matter and informational narratives as well.
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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3017Metaphysician
Posts: 1621
Joined: July 9th, 2021, 8:59 am

Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

JackDaydream wrote: December 12th, 2022, 7:09 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 12th, 2022, 3:09 pm Greetings Metaphysicians!

As the title implies, this thread is primarily for those interested in discussing the metaphysics of Kant and Schopenhauer. As it relates to primacy, it can be interpreted that such primacy (i.e., that information/meaning is the foundation of reality) translates to the how, what, where, when and why matter emerges from information/meaning (or the other way around if you prefer). For Kant its noumenon, for Schop its Will.

This video, posted by Value (In the Materialism VI thread-thank you Value!) albeit a bit long, is a wonderful synopsis of both Kant's and Schop's parsing of the nature of an existing thing (an object perceived by our senses) only that the specific narrative provides for a simple understanding of antinomy. Meaning, at the very least, when trying to figure out say, the quality of things-in-themselves (objects), we often have to examine its opposite to make sense out of a proposed explanation (both qualities and quantities of things).

For example, since no one knows where material singularity comes from, it would be analogous to engineering and constructing a structure with the instructions/specifications (mathematics) form the engineer/architect, along with the material specifications (matter) yet all the while not knowing the fundamental nature of where the building materials actually come from. In other words, we don't know where, why, how matter emerges. When we build a some-thing, we just manipulate raw materials or otherwise simply work with existing stuff. We just know it exists and that it's available to us, and we make use of it to serve our quality-of-life needs (Teleology), and as Value has argued, the 'meaning' of life purposes.

And so, please enjoy this very lucid discussion with Mr. Bryan Magee (which i happen to agree with 95% of his interpretation of Kant/Scop) as it is indeed a condensed 101 version of their respective metaphysics/philosophy.


As a result of such inquiry, Value posited the following questions for me, but I will offer them up to those metaphysicians (or other's) so inclined to answer (I will be answering them too):


Questions from Value,

What do you think of the idea that instead of 'Will' the foundation of the cosmos would be pure energy?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is equal to energy? If you agree, what would be the argumentation by which the concept energy provides a logical basis for intelligence and consciousness? Might it be that the denoted energy is of a different nature than for example energy from fire?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is fundamentally meaningless (and results in pessimism) and that love is merely functional for reproduction?

I noticed that you use the term 'Will' in many of your posts and arguments combined with the question "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?" (Stephen Hawking). Can you please provide a background story with regard your interest in Schopenhauer's Will?


You use a picture of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Can you please explain what his significance is with regard the topics that you are addressing? For example, how would his philosophy relate to Schopenhauer's Will?


I will start with a very succinct answer to the last question (more to come). The short answer is all three consider, in some form or another, the primacy of phenomenology, subjectivity, and metaphysics (i.e., the various forms of Idealism) as that being part of the information narrative that is essential in trying to understand anything, much less the nature of all reality/existence. Or if you prefer, the foundation to which reality comes into Being. The experience of living life provides for our ordinary method of understanding ideas which require an either/or parsing or distinction of opposites (antinomy). And these opposites result not in the repudiation of one or the other, but only an awareness of assigning primacy to each. In other words, not to dichotomize reality, hence, subject-object.

And the specific 'short' answer is that SK's subjectivity and Schop's Will come from the same source of Being (ontology). The subject person. A person who has thoughts and feelings about stuff. And that those thoughts and feelings drive the development and existence of certain things. The nature of Being and becoming. Actualizing something. Becoming something. Adding information to the blank slate of conscious existence through the experience of life. Adding knowledge to that database of info, where it is stored in the mind, along with some other innate properties (Kant)... .

Remember, in metaphysics, the relationships between mind and matter involve information processing.
The ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science.

In the video, Magee's comment about energy 'contextualizes' the basic theory of matter and energy, as energy and Will have been used interchangeably. As such, propagation, self-direction, self-organization, instruction, as all found in nature corresponds to energy in some form or another.


However, such writers probably are still read by many and I did find the way in which you showed how Schopenhauer developed the ideas of Kant, bringing the idea of the transcendent down to the level of human will.

Yes. In that context, as physicists would argue that the laws governing existence transcend existence itself (i.e., the laws explaining the existing conditions prior to the BB), we nevertheless are still left with the concept of transcending matter. Hence the question of whether information transcends matter (does matter emerge from information).


It may have become so complicated with so many philosophy voices from the past and other disciplines competing for attention that some of the historical voices of the past get pushed aside, especially in the understanding of the mind. Phenomenology may have been a bridge between the abstract metaphysics and human experiences. Voluntatism drew on the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud. The philosophy of Freud incorporated the idea of the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos.

I agree that phenomenology is that bridge, well said. And I also appreciate how cognition itself (Freud's cognitive science contributions-cause and effect relative to the subconscious mind) impacts one having a sense of independent existence that happens to us, not by us (James's stream of consciousness). And that's not to mention all the other qualitative/causal properties and powers of same (i.e., the subconscious mind) and the Will that causes us to do things affecting meaning and purpose.

In the twentieth first century the understanding of mind may have become the focus of psychology more than philosophy, especially with neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Even the idea of the subconscious may be regarded as unscientific and abstract. So, it may be a question of what do the historical voices of Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkergaard have to offer? It may be that their ideas are useful still, and even complementary, for understanding human inner experience in a way which cannot be pinned down to the research methodology of evidence based science.
The development of Continental philosophy 'emerged' in part, as a result of the limitations of pure reason. Meaning rather than reality being described from an objective-unchanging world view, a subjective view (dynamic becoming v. static being) of the human condition needed to be considered as that qualitative property of an existing thing-in-itself (i.e., subject-object). Existentialism contributed that ontology by incorporating the phenomenon of human cognition, and those relationships between the observer and the observed, the subject-object. And, also, what can be known about the nature of reality. For instance, the infamous existence precedes essence ethos is that which we can understand from experiencing ourselves. From experiencing life, itself. A some-thing we know firsthand. The thoughts and feelings perceived from the subjective experience.
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

value wrote: December 12th, 2022, 10:54 pm Mr. Bryan Magee seems to have been dedicated to Arthur Schopenhauer as well, which might be interesting. Frederick Copleston wrote several books about Schopenhauer and became famous for a debate about God with Bertrand Russell.

Copleston-Russell debate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copleston ... ell_debate

Schopenhauers world vision is the basis for pessimism - the idea that the world is fundamentally meaningless. His vision on love for example is that it is merely functional for reproduction. Therefore, the concepts meaning and information (as you seem to intend to use it) do not apply in the world view of Schopenhauer.

Friedrich Nietzsche called Schopenhauer the first Atheist.

A quote from the video (16:50):

Coplestone: Schoppenauer uses the world Will, perhaps unfortunately. One might use energy.

... below conscious drive that Schopenhauer called Will and that perhaps some better name can be given to is force or energy.


Bryan Magee: Yes he thought that if we analyze this world of experience - the world of science if you like - the world of common sense, which does consist for the most part of matter in motion and most of it is matter in colossal amounts, I mean Galaxies and Solar systems and so on, travelling through the cosmos at gigantic speeds, so the whole material Universe consists of matter in motion to a degree that so to speak defies our imagination to really conceptualize it and he argued following on from Kant that all what is ultimate in all this must be energy.

Schopenhauer argued that matter is as it were instantiated energy and that a physical object is a space filled with force and that ultimately all matter must be transmutable into energy.

...

Schopenhauer argues that what is ultimate in this world of phenomena in this world of experience is energy.


Coplestone: Yes.

Another quote from the video (22:05):

Bryan Magee: I think it would have been better if Schopenhauer would have used the word energy because he decided to give the term the name Will to this metaphysical reality and I think that has misled people ever since.

There are very few philosophers who have addressed the subject love. Schopenhauer has been one of those few and for that reason has been named "The Philosopher of Love". His view on love is that of pessimism - that love is merely functional and not meaningful beyond that (i.e. love is a functional illusion).

The Philosopher of Love Who Lived and Died Alone
In his 1818 essay “Metaphysics of Love,” Schopenhauer writes that “one cannot doubt either the reality or importance of love,” only to name the primary purpose of love as the creation of offspring, an expression of the “will to live,” which was one of his central preoccupations.
https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/th ... les/95895/

So as it appears there is no meaning in the world of Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer wrote the following:

The basis of all willing is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom comes over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself becomes an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

This seems to be a description of a (without fundamental understanding acknowledged potential of a) depression. He then goes on to use that 'experience' as a basis for reasoning that would underlay his pessimistic world view and his theory on the meaninglessness of love.

For Schopenhauer, boredom has three forms. The first is when the world shows itself to the bored as lifeless, “dead”, colorless, and “dreary”. Nothing is attractive or interesting and everything is indifferent, detached, and distant. The second form of boredom is when the world shows itself to the bored as valueless, meaningless, and pointless. Schopenhauer says that these feelings of pointlessness, valuelessness, and pointlessness render existence itself burdensome.

In my view this is wrong. It is only when one attempts to attach oneself to 'value' that one will be in danger for the described experience since the true nature that underlays the world cannot be grasped or clinged on to. Emotions serve to propel organisms into the right direction and hence depression has an infinite depth and from the perspective of the experiencer an infinite severity potential - as if it's worse than death. But there is also the opposite with the same infinite potential.

My view would be different and would argue that even the simplest patterns must originate from meaning. Love in my view is not an expression of but like the perception of beauty of which Plato wrote the following:

Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but reality, and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God.

With love one perceives true beauty in my opinion which is not a (meaningless) inside-out expression but a perception into the infinite depth of the origin of existence - the trueness behind it all in which 'pure beauty' can be found.

French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas wrote the following about love which in my opinion touches the subject better although Levinas seems to have been focussed more the erotic part of love.

Love remains a relation with the Other that turns into need, transcendent exteriority of the other, of the beloved. But love goes beyond the beloved... The possibility of the Other appearing as an object of a need while retaining his alterity, or again, the possibility of enjoying the Other... this simultaneity of need and desire, or concupiscence and transcendence,... constitutes the originality of the erotic which, in this sense, is the equivocal par excellence.

Levinas has written in more depth about love because it is related to his primary philosophy (Ethics as First Philosophy). There is even a book dedicated to his vision on love:

Directly challenging the prevailing interpretation, Corey Beals explores the ideas of twentieth-century philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's concept of love, love's relation to wisdom, and how love makes the Other visible to us. Distinguishing love from other types of wisdom, Beals argues that Levinas's "wisdom of love" is a real possibility, one which grants priority to ethics over ontology.

Levinas and the Wisdom of Love: The Question of Invisibility
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214 ... om_of_Love

Levinas said the following with regard the primacy question:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness." (Levinas in film Absent God 1:06:22)

I share this vision. The cited 'goodness' would be 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued as origin of value - i.e. 'the cosmos' - with (moral) valuing being Levina's 'signification').

In a sense 'morality' would underlay the physical world and consciousness and thus Levinas moral philosophy "Ethics as First Philosophy" might be correct from a fundamental philosophy perspective, in my opinion.

The goodness that Levinas refers to can also be referred to as pure meaning in my opinion - a 'meaning' that must underlay any pattern for a pattern to be possible in the first place. A pattern would be value - assigned meaning (signified meaning).

So my view would contradict the view of Schopenhauer that Will or energy at the root of existence - and the world with it - is fundamentally meaningless.

It would have profound implications for morality. In my view, morality is always applicable and it is case that humans spur themselves into a mode of urgency to achieve optimal moral progress in the fastest way possible. Not just to prevent evil but for longer term prosperity and interests that lay outside the scope of direct self-interest, even on specie level.

The following video is also very interesting. It is a powerful insight into the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

There is so much information, I'd prefer to take one issue at a time. That said, the Copleston-Russel debate is an interesting one, yet is familiar to those who generally grasp logical necessity and contingency. The cosmological arguments take on various forms:

Every contingent fact has an explanation.
There is a contingent fact that includes all other contingent facts.
Therefore, there is an explanation of this fact.
This explanation must involve a necessary being.
This necessary being is God.[21]

Something can be produced.
It is produced by itself, by nothing, or by another.
Not by nothing, because nothing causes nothing.
Not by itself, because an effect never causes itself.
Therefore, by another A.
If A is first then we have reached the conclusion.
If A is not first, then we return to 2).
From 3) and 4), we produce another- B. The ascending series is either infinite or finite.
An infinite series is not possible.
Therefore, God exists.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

With respect to material matter (inanimate) interactions themselves (energy, gravity, molecules, quantum particles), we are still left with some notion of causality. With respect to animate matter (genetic codes, chemicals, propagation, agency), we also still have to grapple with causality in terms of what is causing what to exist, and/or come into being. Either way, because there is something and not nothing, we naturally think in terms of contingency or logical necessity. And that also leads to a few questions.

If one were to think of Kant, does any of these conclusions correspond to the synthetic a priori judgment that all events must have a cause? Do synthetic judgements form the basis of scientific discovery (aside from imaginative leaps that are worked backwards like writing music)? The answers are yes and yes. As Mr. Coplestone suggests:

As regards the metaphysical argument, we are apparently in agreement that what we call the world consists simply of contingent beings. That is, of beings no one of which can account for its own existence.


Of course, the notion of a logically necessary Being is that which stops infinite regress, the regressive chain of causal events. But there are some challenges and paradox to overcome (we'll leave it there for now).

And so if any of the foregoing conclusions are false, one could attempt to explain an alternative version(s) using a similar form of logico-deductive reasoning, though I'm not sure what that would look like(?).

The concept of a God, a final cause, a prime mover, a thing-in-itself that controls both the matter narratives and information narratives can certainly be thought of as your notion of energy, Kant's notion of noumenon, and Schop's notion of Will. Afterall, one can easily identify with their own sense of causal phenomena relative to the causal properties or power from consciousness, the meta-physical Will. The will that causes us to do stuff.

There may also be some analogical references to your notion of Love (and Schop's) too, which as a thing-in-itself is considered a some-thing that has causal powers, and is considered quite universal like the metaphysical languages of math and music (Schop of course discusses music), and that there may be some inferences made... .

The concept of causality, its causal powers, is some-thing that is considered quite comprehensive in nature.
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by value »

3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 9:52 am
JackDaydream wrote: December 12th, 2022, 7:09 pmThe ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science.
In the video, Magee's comment about energy 'contextualizes' the basic theory of matter and energy, as energy and Will have been used interchangeably. As such, propagation, self-direction, self-organization, instruction, as all found in nature corresponds to energy in some form or another.
Can you please explain in detail how 'energy' would logically result in "self-direction, self-organization, instruction"?

William James mentioned the following about the mind in The Principles of Psychology:

"all that is able to be affirmed is that it [mind] is something that: perceives, reflects, remembers, imagines and wills but what it is that exerts these energies is unknown"

I am still wondering how the cited characteristics of mind are logically explained by the concept 'energy'.

What type of energy is being referred to? Is it the same type of energy as energy from fire or something of a different nature?
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

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3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 9:52 am
JackDaydream wrote: December 12th, 2022, 7:09 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 12th, 2022, 3:09 pm Greetings Metaphysicians!

As the title implies, this thread is primarily for those interested in discussing the metaphysics of Kant and Schopenhauer. As it relates to primacy, it can be interpreted that such primacy (i.e., that information/meaning is the foundation of reality) translates to the how, what, where, when and why matter emerges from information/meaning (or the other way around if you prefer). For Kant its noumenon, for Schop its Will.

This video, posted by Value (In the Materialism VI thread-thank you Value!) albeit a bit long, is a wonderful synopsis of both Kant's and Schop's parsing of the nature of an existing thing (an object perceived by our senses) only that the specific narrative provides for a simple understanding of antinomy. Meaning, at the very least, when trying to figure out say, the quality of things-in-themselves (objects), we often have to examine its opposite to make sense out of a proposed explanation (both qualities and quantities of things).

For example, since no one knows where material singularity comes from, it would be analogous to engineering and constructing a structure with the instructions/specifications (mathematics) form the engineer/architect, along with the material specifications (matter) yet all the while not knowing the fundamental nature of where the building materials actually come from. In other words, we don't know where, why, how matter emerges. When we build a some-thing, we just manipulate raw materials or otherwise simply work with existing stuff. We just know it exists and that it's available to us, and we make use of it to serve our quality-of-life needs (Teleology), and as Value has argued, the 'meaning' of life purposes.

And so, please enjoy this very lucid discussion with Mr. Bryan Magee (which i happen to agree with 95% of his interpretation of Kant/Scop) as it is indeed a condensed 101 version of their respective metaphysics/philosophy.


As a result of such inquiry, Value posited the following questions for me, but I will offer them up to those metaphysicians (or other's) so inclined to answer (I will be answering them too):


Questions from Value,

What do you think of the idea that instead of 'Will' the foundation of the cosmos would be pure energy?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is equal to energy? If you agree, what would be the argumentation by which the concept energy provides a logical basis for intelligence and consciousness? Might it be that the denoted energy is of a different nature than for example energy from fire?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is fundamentally meaningless (and results in pessimism) and that love is merely functional for reproduction?

I noticed that you use the term 'Will' in many of your posts and arguments combined with the question "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?" (Stephen Hawking). Can you please provide a background story with regard your interest in Schopenhauer's Will?


You use a picture of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Can you please explain what his significance is with regard the topics that you are addressing? For example, how would his philosophy relate to Schopenhauer's Will?


I will start with a very succinct answer to the last question (more to come). The short answer is all three consider, in some form or another, the primacy of phenomenology, subjectivity, and metaphysics (i.e., the various forms of Idealism) as that being part of the information narrative that is essential in trying to understand anything, much less the nature of all reality/existence. Or if you prefer, the foundation to which reality comes into Being. The experience of living life provides for our ordinary method of understanding ideas which require an either/or parsing or distinction of opposites (antinomy). And these opposites result not in the repudiation of one or the other, but only an awareness of assigning primacy to each. In other words, not to dichotomize reality, hence, subject-object.

And the specific 'short' answer is that SK's subjectivity and Schop's Will come from the same source of Being (ontology). The subject person. A person who has thoughts and feelings about stuff. And that those thoughts and feelings drive the development and existence of certain things. The nature of Being and becoming. Actualizing something. Becoming something. Adding information to the blank slate of conscious existence through the experience of life. Adding knowledge to that database of info, where it is stored in the mind, along with some other innate properties (Kant)... .

Remember, in metaphysics, the relationships between mind and matter involve information processing.
The ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science.

In the video, Magee's comment about energy 'contextualizes' the basic theory of matter and energy, as energy and Will have been used interchangeably. As such, propagation, self-direction, self-organization, instruction, as all found in nature corresponds to energy in some form or another.


However, such writers probably are still read by many and I did find the way in which you showed how Schopenhauer developed the ideas of Kant, bringing the idea of the transcendent down to the level of human will.

Yes. In that context, as physicists would argue that the laws governing existence transcend existence itself (i.e., the laws explaining the existing conditions prior to the BB), we nevertheless are still left with the concept of transcending matter. Hence the question of whether information transcends matter (does matter emerge from information).


It may have become so complicated with so many philosophy voices from the past and other disciplines competing for attention that some of the historical voices of the past get pushed aside, especially in the understanding of the mind. Phenomenology may have been a bridge between the abstract metaphysics and human experiences. Voluntatism drew on the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud. The philosophy of Freud incorporated the idea of the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos.

I agree that phenomenology is that bridge, well said. And I also appreciate how cognition itself (Freud's cognitive science contributions-cause and effect relative to the subconscious mind) impacts one having a sense of independent existence that happens to us, not by us (James's stream of consciousness). And that's not to mention all the other qualitative/causal properties and powers of same (i.e., the subconscious mind) and the Will that causes us to do things affecting meaning and purpose.

In the twentieth first century the understanding of mind may have become the focus of psychology more than philosophy, especially with neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Even the idea of the subconscious may be regarded as unscientific and abstract. So, it may be a question of what do the historical voices of Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkergaard have to offer? It may be that their ideas are useful still, and even complementary, for understanding human inner experience in a way which cannot be pinned down to the research methodology of evidence based science.
The development of Continental philosophy 'emerged' in part, as a result of the limitations of pure reason. Meaning rather than reality being described from an objective-unchanging world view, a subjective view (dynamic becoming v. static being) of the human condition needed to be considered as that qualitative property of an existing thing-in-itself (i.e., subject-object). Existentialism contributed that ontology by incorporating the phenomenon of human cognition, and those relationships between the observer and the observed, the subject-object. And, also, what can be known about the nature of reality. For instance, the infamous existence precedes essence ethos is that which we can understand from experiencing ourselves. From experiencing life, itself. A some-thing we know firsthand. The thoughts and feelings perceived from the subjective experience.
What your reply leads me to think about is how all these different philosophers lived with different worldviews. Some disagreed with others in the past and the forerunners never had a chance to challenge the later ones. In the present, so many perspectives and contrasting metaphysics are possible, especially in relation to the past. Just as there can be a tendency to view ideas of other cultures negatively it is possible to look at the history of ideas as progress. Obviously, empiricism has thrown light on so much but it may be that some of the ideas still capture something of 'truth'.

Kant himself was fairly bold in his emphasis on the empirical. Some people seem to have disdain for Kant but I do find him worth reading as having a unique slant on the nature of judgment and rationality. It is possible that through reading Kant, Schopenhauer and many of the other historical thinkers of metaphysics that while aspects may be questionable they offer such interesting takes on reality, in opening up the philosophical imagination.
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by value »

3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 3:50 pmThere is so much information, I'd prefer to take one issue at a time. That said, the Copleston-Russel debate is an interesting one, yet is familiar to those who generally grasp logical necessity and contingency. The cosmological arguments take on various forms:
My apologies. I intended to address the idea that the Will and the world with it is fundamentally meaningless.

What did you think of my assertion that Schopenhauer might have used the potential of depression (as fundamental experience) as the foundation for his reasoning that resulted in pessimism?

Arthur Schopenhauer is known as 'The Philosopher of Pessimism'.

Philosophical Pessimism: A Study In The Philosophy Of Arthur Schopenhauer
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewco ... phy_theses
https://iep.utm.edu/schopenh/

A quote:

Schopenhauer’s pessimism resides in two related claims: that “all life is suffering”, and accordingly that the world and life itself “ought not to be”.

It is seen in my quote of Schopenhauer himself on the three forms of boredom that he has derived the concept "all life is suffering" from (personal) experience and feelings.

The basis of all willing is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom comes over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself becomes an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

For Schopenhauer, boredom has three forms. The first is when the world shows itself to the bored as lifeless, “dead”, colorless, and “dreary”. Nothing is attractive or interesting and everything is indifferent, detached, and distant. The second form of boredom is when the world shows itself to the bored as valueless, meaningless, and pointless. Schopenhauer says that these feelings of pointlessness, valuelessness, and pointlessness render existence itself burdensome.


What do you think of my assertion that his reasoning is based on the experience of (the potential of) depression? Schopenhauer describes something of a fearful nature which seems to relate to his personal experience.

In my view this (Schopenhauer's reasoning on boredom and fundamental meaninglessness) is wrong. It is only when one attempts to attach oneself to 'value' that one will be in danger for the described experience since the true nature that underlays the world cannot be clinged on to. Emotions serve to propel organisms into the right direction and hence depression has an infinite depth and from the perspective of the experiencer an infinite severity potential - as if it's worse than death. But there is also the opposite with the same infinite potential.

The Sisyphus ' rock theory might provide an insight.

Sisyphus ' rock
Sisyphus ' rock
rock-uphill.jpeg (29.14 KiB) Viewed 1185 times
Sisyphus ' rock represents mankind's absurd dilemma, which is ultimately impossible to resolve—that is, that mankind longs for reason and meaning in the world, but the world refuses to answer that longing. Sisyphus was a Greek mortal condemned by the gods for angering them.

In my view, the Sisyphus ' rock idea of representing life's eternal struggle that can be perceived as meaningless and pointless merely shows that it is not possible to 'cling on' to meaning (the origin of existence) but morality would open the door for the opposite side of the boulder falling off the mountain: a meaningful path forward of infinite potential.

(The result of) morality from the perspective of an experiencer (a human) can be seen as a 'North Star' and as a guide that provides access to 'meaning', which in my view is the origin of existence (good per se).

Schopenhauer's morality is based on compassion by again a 'feeling' of similarity with anything in the world because of the idea that his metaphysical Will is shared by all.

Schopenhauer – along with his philosophical hero David Hume – was one of the first Western philosophers to emphasize compassion as the basis of morality.

It is compassion, or fellow-feeling, which Schopenhauer claims is the basis of ethics. Moral behavior consists of an intuitive recognition that we are all manifestations of the will to live. All the great religions, he holds, were attempts to express this metaphysical reality, although they usually botched the job by fomenting doctrinal disputes of their own making:

Schopenhauer: “The conviction that the world, and therefore man too, is something which really ought not to exist is in fact calculated to instill in us indulgence towards one another: for what can be expected of beings placed in such a situation as we are? ... this ... reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes.” (Essays and Aphorisms, p.50)


While the idea of compassion might be practical I do not believe that perspective is valid. It seems like an attempt to escape a world devoid of morality.

But why the potential for compassion in the first place? That question has remained untouched and thus the same problem arises that resulted in Schopenhauers theory on pessimism: compassion (in practice) seems pointless. Being friendly and compassionate 'just because' another exists just like you is a feeble ground because when one tries to cling on to that idea it is seen that another doesn't 'just exist' (for no reason/meaning) so there would be nothing again to be compassionate about.

In my view morality and 'meaning' is where it all begins. It is Levinas' signification or the act of valuing (assigning of meaning) by which the world comes about from a fundamental perspective. Human morality is an extension of that fundamental morality that underlays the world. It is simply a "search for good" with good being the origin of existence with infinite potential.

Primary question of the above:

What do you think of my assertion that Schopenhauers reasoning is based on the experience of (the potential of) depression (feelings) as apparently evident from his reasoning on boredom?

Boredom, Schopenhauer says, is the sensation of the worthlessness of existence. Boredom may even be regarded as evidence or proof that existence is worthless.
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

value wrote: December 14th, 2022, 1:44 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 9:52 am
JackDaydream wrote: December 12th, 2022, 7:09 pmThe ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science.
In the video, Magee's comment about energy 'contextualizes' the basic theory of matter and energy, as energy and Will have been used interchangeably. As such, propagation, self-direction, self-organization, instruction, as all found in nature corresponds to energy in some form or another.
Can you please explain in detail how 'energy' would logically result in "self-direction, self-organization, instruction"?

William James mentioned the following about the mind in The Principles of Psychology:

"all that is able to be affirmed is that it [mind] is something that: perceives, reflects, remembers, imagines and wills but what it is that exerts these energies is unknown"

I am still wondering how the cited characteristics of mind are logically explained by the concept 'energy'.

What type of energy is being referred to? Is it the same type of energy as energy from fire or something of a different nature?
Value!

First, thank for the question(s). As I said, lots to unpack.

We've been talking about the distinctions between information and matter, self-organization, genetic coding, laws that govern existence, which of course are all part of the information narrative. As we know, matter and energy (even invisible energy) are closely linked to one another, and it is often times that the only clues to energy manifesting itself is through particles and matter. But energy itself, is that abstract 'metaphysical' force that, much like quantum phenomena, can pop in and out of existence in not only a random way but in an 'invisible energy' way (non-locality/spooky action at a distance). I think this mirror's your other question about Hawking's comment as to what breath's fire into matter/existence (the fine tuning of the universe that supports self-direction/self-organization). In other words, the instructions that caused Singularity to exist. Is that a form of energy? Is that all part of the information narrative? I think so.

As such, you rightfully including the notion or concept of 'meaning' (Teleology) as being part of that informational energy force, just like I am interpreting Will, I think. You might say there is that meta-physical abstract quality to both. As in, we can't see, feel, smell or taste or even sense the concepts of 'meaning' or the 'Will', yet we know it exists. Much like the concept of time, change, photons and so on there is an invisible veil where matter (as we imagine it) and energy intertwine, and we cannot clearly differentiate between the matter and the energy. And since energy is invisible (we only see the effects of energy), not the energy itself. In the same way we only see the effects of time, but we have never seen time itself, we have never seen energy. Just like we detect light on a screen then we know that energy can cause light, but we have no clue what the energy is that caused the light. Then we claim that the burst of light on the screen was caused by an electron. But the burst of light does not tell us what the electron looks like. Or the phenomena of Higgs/Boson.

I think the fine tuning of both matter and energy, time and space as well and the forgoing information and matter narratives both somehow giving rise to conscious Beings is somewhat of a miraculous event, in the way that it has emerged from just atoms and molecules floating around, much less chemicals and genes somehow encoded or instantiated in matter. And with respect to the exclusivity of just material interactions, quantum physics (non-locality), operates from this same sense of self-organization between particles of matter. That spooky action at a distance corresponds to that invisible energy or force... . Whether its biology or physics, we still have the mystery associated with information calling the shots.

But back to your question of energy, more often than not we just see 'effects' of energy. Like one's Will that causes people to do stuff, the causes of self-direction, self-organized fine tuning which in-turn also causes the emergence of life can be thought of as both the invisible or metaphysical energy like that which breath's fire into the Hawking equations. In this sense, matter behaves and interacts from an emergence of information. Information and energy again, seems to be calling the shots. It has some sort of abstract metaphysical property or causal property and power giving it primacy to material interactions. Like gravity, it only manifests itself through particles/matter, our Will only manifests itself through our body and its actions. Sentient creatures will themselves such a quality of life to effect meaning and purpose.

Please feel free to poke holes in any of that. Anyway, speaking of the qualities of something existing in an abstract 'conscious' kind of way, I thought of you, and your notion/concept of 'meaning' in the universe where physicist Davies uses those concepts (around the 2-min. mark):

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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3017Metaphysician
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

value wrote: December 14th, 2022, 9:50 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 3:50 pmThere is so much information, I'd prefer to take one issue at a time. That said, the Copleston-Russel debate is an interesting one, yet is familiar to those who generally grasp logical necessity and contingency. The cosmological arguments take on various forms:
My apologies. I intended to address the idea that the Will and the world with it is fundamentally meaningless.

What did you think of my assertion that Schopenhauer might have used the potential of depression (as fundamental experience) as the foundation for his reasoning that resulted in pessimism?

Arthur Schopenhauer is known as 'The Philosopher of Pessimism'.

Philosophical Pessimism: A Study In The Philosophy Of Arthur Schopenhauer
https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewco ... phy_theses
https://iep.utm.edu/schopenh/

A quote:

Schopenhauer’s pessimism resides in two related claims: that “all life is suffering”, and accordingly that the world and life itself “ought not to be”.

It is seen in my quote of Schopenhauer himself on the three forms of boredom that he has derived the concept "all life is suffering" from (personal) experience and feelings.

The basis of all willing is need, lack, and hence pain, and by its very nature and origin it is therefore destined to pain. If, on the other hand, it lacks objects of willing, because it is at once deprived of them again by too easy a satisfaction, a fearful emptiness and boredom comes over it; in other words, its being and its existence itself becomes an intolerable burden for it. Hence its life swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain and boredom, and these two are in fact its ultimate constituents.

For Schopenhauer, boredom has three forms. The first is when the world shows itself to the bored as lifeless, “dead”, colorless, and “dreary”. Nothing is attractive or interesting and everything is indifferent, detached, and distant. The second form of boredom is when the world shows itself to the bored as valueless, meaningless, and pointless. Schopenhauer says that these feelings of pointlessness, valuelessness, and pointlessness render existence itself burdensome.


What do you think of my assertion that his reasoning is based on the experience of (the potential of) depression? Schopenhauer describes something of a fearful nature which seems to relate to his personal experience.

In my view this (Schopenhauer's reasoning on boredom and fundamental meaninglessness) is wrong. It is only when one attempts to attach oneself to 'value' that one will be in danger for the described experience since the true nature that underlays the world cannot be clinged on to. Emotions serve to propel organisms into the right direction and hence depression has an infinite depth and from the perspective of the experiencer an infinite severity potential - as if it's worse than death. But there is also the opposite with the same infinite potential.

The Sisyphus ' rock theory might provide an insight.


rock-uphill.jpeg

Sisyphus ' rock represents mankind's absurd dilemma, which is ultimately impossible to resolve—that is, that mankind longs for reason and meaning in the world, but the world refuses to answer that longing. Sisyphus was a Greek mortal condemned by the gods for angering them.

In my view, the Sisyphus ' rock idea of representing life's eternal struggle that can be perceived as meaningless and pointless merely shows that it is not possible to 'cling on' to meaning (the origin of existence) but morality would open the door for the opposite side of the boulder falling off the mountain: a meaningful path forward of infinite potential.

(The result of) morality from the perspective of an experiencer (a human) can be seen as a 'North Star' and as a guide that provides access to 'meaning', which in my view is the origin of existence (good per se).

Schopenhauer's morality is based on compassion by again a 'feeling' of similarity with anything in the world because of the idea that his metaphysical Will is shared by all.

Schopenhauer – along with his philosophical hero David Hume – was one of the first Western philosophers to emphasize compassion as the basis of morality.

It is compassion, or fellow-feeling, which Schopenhauer claims is the basis of ethics. Moral behavior consists of an intuitive recognition that we are all manifestations of the will to live. All the great religions, he holds, were attempts to express this metaphysical reality, although they usually botched the job by fomenting doctrinal disputes of their own making:

Schopenhauer: “The conviction that the world, and therefore man too, is something which really ought not to exist is in fact calculated to instill in us indulgence towards one another: for what can be expected of beings placed in such a situation as we are? ... this ... reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things: tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes.” (Essays and Aphorisms, p.50)


While the idea of compassion might be practical I do not believe that perspective is valid. It seems like an attempt to escape a world devoid of morality.

But why the potential for compassion in the first place? That question has remained untouched and thus the same problem arises that resulted in Schopenhauers theory on pessimism: compassion (in practice) seems pointless. Being friendly and compassionate 'just because' another exists just like you is a feeble ground because when one tries to cling on to that idea it is seen that another doesn't 'just exist' (for no reason/meaning) so there would be nothing again to be compassionate about.

In my view morality and 'meaning' is where it all begins. It is Levinas' signification or the act of valuing (assigning of meaning) by which the world comes about from a fundamental perspective. Human morality is an extension of that fundamental morality that underlays the world. It is simply a "search for good" with good being the origin of existence with infinite potential.

Primary question of the above:

What do you think of my assertion that Schopenhauers reasoning is based on the experience of (the potential of) depression (feelings) as apparently evident from his reasoning on boredom?

Boredom, Schopenhauer says, is the sensation of the worthlessness of existence. Boredom may even be regarded as evidence or proof that existence is worthless.
Value!

To your first point, no apologies necessary. When it comes to human affairs, existential angst often rears its ugly head as all part of the information narrative. One could interpret that the Will to pursue meaning, purpose and ultimately a sense of happiness is just a means to avoid Schop's existential angst of boredom, loneliness, or otherwise an insatiable need to fulfill goals (unfulfillment of same). As Maslow would say, living an ordinary life of striving is indeed natural. Pessimism can be interpreted as the effects of unfulfilled goals.

Perhaps that corresponds with the interminable unending process of apperceiving thoughts and feelings occurring naturally in one's own stream of consciousness. An unending parade of thoughts and feelings, or objects of thought which we in-turn often times Will ourselves to pick and choose from. In short, I'm not really convinced that pessimism itself resolves any human existential dilemma. I think it's an effect or consequence of unfulfillment.

I think we should focus on ethics (what makes one happy) rather than morality. The pursuit of passions, doing what you love to do, does not seem to result in pure pessimism. Afterall, pessimism is simply a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future It sems a bit self-refuting... .

Nevertheless, feelings, passions, and otherwise human sentience (quality of life stuff, not material quantities of stuff) can be thought of as a driving force behind volition and logic. Much like Voluntarism, the Will to have value, purpose and meaning (as you mentioned) seems to correspond. Since you mentioned Hume (known as a skeptic), I've always liked his quote:

An opponent of philosophical rationalists, Hume held that passions rather than reason govern human behaviour, famously proclaiming that "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."[12][14] Hume was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on emotion or sentiment rather than abstract moral principle.

In that sense, human Agency is that which naturally effects animate matter, not unthinking inanimate matter or objects. And while feelings themselves are abstract, we know from personal experience (say Voluntarism) that 'abstract moral principles' do not seem to hold primacy, but rather a secondary by-product of causal power. Our Will seems to hold such properties of causality or primacy. The question then for Schopenhauer could have been, is it natural for humans to pursue happiness or pessimism(?).
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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Re: Kant/Schopenhauer Metaphysics

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

JackDaydream wrote: December 14th, 2022, 2:25 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 13th, 2022, 9:52 am
JackDaydream wrote: December 12th, 2022, 7:09 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: December 12th, 2022, 3:09 pm Greetings Metaphysicians!

As the title implies, this thread is primarily for those interested in discussing the metaphysics of Kant and Schopenhauer. As it relates to primacy, it can be interpreted that such primacy (i.e., that information/meaning is the foundation of reality) translates to the how, what, where, when and why matter emerges from information/meaning (or the other way around if you prefer). For Kant its noumenon, for Schop its Will.

This video, posted by Value (In the Materialism VI thread-thank you Value!) albeit a bit long, is a wonderful synopsis of both Kant's and Schop's parsing of the nature of an existing thing (an object perceived by our senses) only that the specific narrative provides for a simple understanding of antinomy. Meaning, at the very least, when trying to figure out say, the quality of things-in-themselves (objects), we often have to examine its opposite to make sense out of a proposed explanation (both qualities and quantities of things).

For example, since no one knows where material singularity comes from, it would be analogous to engineering and constructing a structure with the instructions/specifications (mathematics) form the engineer/architect, along with the material specifications (matter) yet all the while not knowing the fundamental nature of where the building materials actually come from. In other words, we don't know where, why, how matter emerges. When we build a some-thing, we just manipulate raw materials or otherwise simply work with existing stuff. We just know it exists and that it's available to us, and we make use of it to serve our quality-of-life needs (Teleology), and as Value has argued, the 'meaning' of life purposes.

And so, please enjoy this very lucid discussion with Mr. Bryan Magee (which i happen to agree with 95% of his interpretation of Kant/Scop) as it is indeed a condensed 101 version of their respective metaphysics/philosophy.


As a result of such inquiry, Value posited the following questions for me, but I will offer them up to those metaphysicians (or other's) so inclined to answer (I will be answering them too):


Questions from Value,

What do you think of the idea that instead of 'Will' the foundation of the cosmos would be pure energy?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is equal to energy? If you agree, what would be the argumentation by which the concept energy provides a logical basis for intelligence and consciousness? Might it be that the denoted energy is of a different nature than for example energy from fire?

What do you think of the idea that Schopenhauer's Will is fundamentally meaningless (and results in pessimism) and that love is merely functional for reproduction?

I noticed that you use the term 'Will' in many of your posts and arguments combined with the question "What is it that breathes fire into the equations?" (Stephen Hawking). Can you please provide a background story with regard your interest in Schopenhauer's Will?


You use a picture of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Can you please explain what his significance is with regard the topics that you are addressing? For example, how would his philosophy relate to Schopenhauer's Will?


I will start with a very succinct answer to the last question (more to come). The short answer is all three consider, in some form or another, the primacy of phenomenology, subjectivity, and metaphysics (i.e., the various forms of Idealism) as that being part of the information narrative that is essential in trying to understand anything, much less the nature of all reality/existence. Or if you prefer, the foundation to which reality comes into Being. The experience of living life provides for our ordinary method of understanding ideas which require an either/or parsing or distinction of opposites (antinomy). And these opposites result not in the repudiation of one or the other, but only an awareness of assigning primacy to each. In other words, not to dichotomize reality, hence, subject-object.

And the specific 'short' answer is that SK's subjectivity and Schop's Will come from the same source of Being (ontology). The subject person. A person who has thoughts and feelings about stuff. And that those thoughts and feelings drive the development and existence of certain things. The nature of Being and becoming. Actualizing something. Becoming something. Adding information to the blank slate of conscious existence through the experience of life. Adding knowledge to that database of info, where it is stored in the mind, along with some other innate properties (Kant)... .

Remember, in metaphysics, the relationships between mind and matter involve information processing.
The ideas of Schopenhauer and Kant are so influential although it may be hard to contextualize them in the way philosophy is so influenced by science.

In the video, Magee's comment about energy 'contextualizes' the basic theory of matter and energy, as energy and Will have been used interchangeably. As such, propagation, self-direction, self-organization, instruction, as all found in nature corresponds to energy in some form or another.


However, such writers probably are still read by many and I did find the way in which you showed how Schopenhauer developed the ideas of Kant, bringing the idea of the transcendent down to the level of human will.

Yes. In that context, as physicists would argue that the laws governing existence transcend existence itself (i.e., the laws explaining the existing conditions prior to the BB), we nevertheless are still left with the concept of transcending matter. Hence the question of whether information transcends matter (does matter emerge from information).


It may have become so complicated with so many philosophy voices from the past and other disciplines competing for attention that some of the historical voices of the past get pushed aside, especially in the understanding of the mind. Phenomenology may have been a bridge between the abstract metaphysics and human experiences. Voluntatism drew on the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud. The philosophy of Freud incorporated the idea of the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos.

I agree that phenomenology is that bridge, well said. And I also appreciate how cognition itself (Freud's cognitive science contributions-cause and effect relative to the subconscious mind) impacts one having a sense of independent existence that happens to us, not by us (James's stream of consciousness). And that's not to mention all the other qualitative/causal properties and powers of same (i.e., the subconscious mind) and the Will that causes us to do things affecting meaning and purpose.

In the twentieth first century the understanding of mind may have become the focus of psychology more than philosophy, especially with neuroscience and cognitive psychology. Even the idea of the subconscious may be regarded as unscientific and abstract. So, it may be a question of what do the historical voices of Kant, Schopenhauer and Kierkergaard have to offer? It may be that their ideas are useful still, and even complementary, for understanding human inner experience in a way which cannot be pinned down to the research methodology of evidence based science.
The development of Continental philosophy 'emerged' in part, as a result of the limitations of pure reason. Meaning rather than reality being described from an objective-unchanging world view, a subjective view (dynamic becoming v. static being) of the human condition needed to be considered as that qualitative property of an existing thing-in-itself (i.e., subject-object). Existentialism contributed that ontology by incorporating the phenomenon of human cognition, and those relationships between the observer and the observed, the subject-object. And, also, what can be known about the nature of reality. For instance, the infamous existence precedes essence ethos is that which we can understand from experiencing ourselves. From experiencing life, itself. A some-thing we know firsthand. The thoughts and feelings perceived from the subjective experience.
What your reply leads me to think about is how all these different philosophers lived with different worldviews. Some disagreed with others in the past and the forerunners never had a chance to challenge the later ones. In the present, so many perspectives and contrasting metaphysics are possible, especially in relation to the past. Just as there can be a tendency to view ideas of other cultures negatively it is possible to look at the history of ideas as progress. Obviously, empiricism has thrown light on so much but it may be that some of the ideas still capture something of 'truth'.

Kant himself was fairly bold in his emphasis on the empirical. Some people seem to have disdain for Kant but I do find him worth reading as having a unique slant on the nature of judgment and rationality. It is possible that through reading Kant, Schopenhauer and many of the other historical thinkers of metaphysics that while aspects may be questionable they offer such interesting takes on reality, in opening up the philosophical imagination.
I think some of the consternation with Kant relates to his metaphysic's corresponding with the a priori, innate qualities or properties of things-in-themselves. I generally don't take issue with that mainly because it's common sense. For instance, Value has introduced the concept of 'meaning' in the universe or as a universal property of things. And as we know healthy or normal human beings seek to have meaning in their lives. Intrinsically, we get what meaning means. Kind of an innate, a priori qualitative property of a thinking thing, yes?
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
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