Against action.

Abstract wrote:

So perhaps you are suggesting that when we desire we need to fulfill that desire? When we no longer feel the need for it... we are no longer desireing it....?

No, our desire always changes, the need remains constant. Need dissipates, falls beneath our conscious awareness.
Desire alters. We desire that woman, then later we see another and we desire her. Even if we see the same women again she is not the same, so we desire a later manifestation of her.

Abstract wrote:

To say life IS need though seems like a suggestive of a verbal algorithm that might be apt to leave out particular considerations... but perhaps i am getting a feeling for your thoughts...to think, one might say "Life is x." wherein x can be replaced with anything... because so long as you are dead...(not aware, at the least) there is nothing...

There would seem to be need for some verbal division that can be applied for distinguishing between needs that are one's you can't get around so long as you are living... and needs that are such only so long as desired...?

Flow is unconscious. It simply flows, interacting.
Life in its rudimentary form is need without consciousness.
A single-cell organism does not think, it simply reacts to sensations governed by a continuous need to sustain itself.
When multi-celled organisms emerge, specialization ensues.
Now some cells can be dedicated towards this task while others are dedicated towards others.
Now some cells can be dedicated towards directing the activities of other cells - agencies.

Now the organism begins to be conscious. the first thing it becomes conscious of is its own need or its own reaction or resistance to entropy. It is an ordering in the disordering, and it feels it as need. It's primary need is self-sustenance. When it possesses enough energies to satisfy this need the excess energies can be directed towards procreation and later on towards creation.

Need is nothing more than the organism becoming aware of its own resistance to entropy, as it is a resistance to it.
When it can easily handle this it is comfortable. When it cannot it is in pain, it is suffering.

When this organism eventually evolves the agency to direct its consciousness, first outwardly and then inwardly (self-consciousness) it directs consciousness towards an object/objective: a simplified, generalized abstraction of a phenomenon it interprets as being a "thing", an object, a goal, an ideal, an idea...a god.

So, self-consciousness is the sensation, the awareness, of consciousness. Consciousness is the sensation, the awareness, of existing. What is existing?
It is activity.
When its without direction, simple interactivity, it is unconscious, it is in Flux: chaos.
When it gains direction with this focus of its energies upon an object/objective, though it might be simply to feed itself, it is animated, it is willful...it senses this as need.
Need's object/objective is the desired, that which it wants or wishes for.

Abstract wrote:

I just defined my use of the word differently then what you just suggested... I am not distraut by things...I don't know honestly most words to try to describe it end up meaning one has attained all with regards to a particular thing... I recognize i have not attained all... in fact I consider that really one cannot attain all that they might want... my point is that i am fine with that... if I do not get what i want... or if I have to face the rest of my life living out side and digging in dumpsters for a living... I don't hold anxiety in regard to such... it does not bother me...If I have to live fighting a war constantly fighting to survive... it would not make me feel in a way that i would not be able to be comfortable feeling... apparently this is a state that there are not simple words such as "contentment" that can be used to simply describe...

You are not distraught because you are well taken care of.
Your basic survival needs, your primary needs, your needs having to do with self-maintenance, are easily taken care of. You take them for granted having never experienced a situation where they were in question.
You now have excess energies, due to your leisure time, and you direct them towards objects/objectives which are merely abstractions with no direct relevance to your well-being.

This is how philosophy, thinking, becomes detached from reality.
Now thinking has little personal relevance. There is no fear involved because there is no personal cost. thinking can now indulge in play.
This is what I describe in another thread as power. In this case it is a power derived through sheltering and not due to personal efforts. One simply is born within a privileged situation, and in return he must pay with work, loyalty, morality towards the system which provides him with the leisure and the safety to play.
Most turn to sports, sex...others with more complicated minds use thinking like they would candy.

Abstract wrote:

I thought that is what i just said... and that nonetheless you seem to be thinking that in certain areas I am not an outlier to that pattern...surely you think I think this indicates a desire to be seen as or to think of the self as unique... yet outliers are not uique... at the least they are rare, there is a difference. And I would not claim such rarity in all aspects of my self... yet rather it seems you are expecting me to be of a pattern because I seem to be exibiting certain qualities that are suggestive of fitting it...yet I don't... part of it is though that you are misunderstanding a bit of what i say... because you have expectations of the way I mean with some of the words I use... Perhaps contentment is one... which is honestly reasonable considering what perhaps most mean by it yet again i find that many use that such as i do... Perhaps I expected you to understand what I meant by context... perhaps my context was not best formed either...

All lie follows patterns.
Some rare.

Contentment is NOT an absence of need.
When you fill your stomach with food your need does not pass, it is constantly satiated, drawing from the sac of nutrients. Your mind becomes unconscious to this need, because it is no longer pressing. The mind is a tool for satisfying immediate needs. Later it evolves the capacity to project and prepare for the immediacy of certain needs, as they become a pattern it recognizes.

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

So perhaps you are suggesting that when we desire we need to fulfill that desire? When we no longer feel the need for it... we are no longer desireing it....?

No, our desire always changes, the need remains constant. Need dissipates, falls beneath our conscious awareness.
Desire alters. We desire that woman, then later we see another and we desire her. Even if we see the same women again she is not the same, so we desire a later manifestation of her.

But then we do not always desire life...so then how is anything needed if all those needs are hinged on the desire to live?

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

I just defined my use of the word differently then what you just suggested... I am not distraut by things...I don't know honestly most words to try to describe it end up meaning one has attained all with regards to a particular thing... I recognize i have not attained all... in fact I consider that really one cannot attain all that they might want... my point is that i am fine with that... if I do not get what i want... or if I have to face the rest of my life living out side and digging in dumpsters for a living... I don't hold anxiety in regard to such... it does not bother me...If I have to live fighting a war constantly fighting to survive... it would not make me feel in a way that i would not be able to be comfortable feeling... apparently this is a state that there are not simple words such as "contentment" that can be used to simply describe...

You are not distraught because you are well taken care of.
Your basic survival needs, your primary needs, your needs having to do with self-maintenance, are easily taken care of. You take them for granted having never experienced a situation where they were in question.
You now have excess energies, due to your leisure time, and you direct them towards objects/objectives which are merely abstractions with no direct relevance to your well-being.

This is how philosophy, thinking, becomes detached from reality.
Now thinking has little personal relevance. There is no fear involved because there is no personal cost. thinking can now indulge in play.
This is what I describe in another thread as power. In this case it is a power derived through sheltering and not due to personal efforts. One simply is born within a privileged situation, and in return he must pay with work, loyalty, morality towards the system which provides him with the leisure and the safety to play.
Most turn to sports, sex...others with more complicated minds use thinking like they would candy.

I don't know man... at this point I really don't know how to get across to you what I mean... your argument here is logical... however you are wrong about me if you think I have always been well taken care of and have not had my means of survival in question, at the moment i am doing good in that regard though...

I don't know...
how does one explain enjoying it when they are both crying because something fucked up just happened... and when they cry out of happiness?
basically what i mean in saying that things don't bother me is that they do not typically or to the degree as they do most effect me such as to prevent me from being able to continue living so long as I desire to...typically I don't associate with things such as to consider them negative or positive... rather I consider them experiences... and I consider experiences interesting...

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

I thought that is what i just said... and that nonetheless you seem to be thinking that in certain areas I am not an outlier to that pattern...surely you think I think this indicates a desire to be seen as or to think of the self as unique... yet outliers are not uique... at the least they are rare, there is a difference. And I would not claim such rarity in all aspects of my self... yet rather it seems you are expecting me to be of a pattern because I seem to be exibiting certain qualities that are suggestive of fitting it...yet I don't... part of it is though that you are misunderstanding a bit of what i say... because you have expectations of the way I mean with some of the words I use... Perhaps contentment is one... which is honestly reasonable considering what perhaps most mean by it yet again i find that many use that such as i do... Perhaps I expected you to understand what I meant by context... perhaps my context was not best formed either...

All lie follows patterns.
Some rare.

Contentment is NOT an absence of need.
When you fill your stomach with food your need does not pass, it is constantly satiated, drawing from the sac of nutrients. Your mind becomes unconscious to this need, because it is no longer pressing. The mind is a tool for satisfying immediate needs. Later it evolves the capacity to project and prepare for the immediacy of certain needs, as they become a pattern it recognizes.

it depends on how you think about it. When you are full you are not currently in need of food... but you will be in the future... time is relevant...

Without-music. I do indeed recognize in the OP much of Zizek, especially what he writes in his book on violence, which happens to be one of the ones I have been reading (his best so far I find "The Fragile Absolute"). I agree with the notion of suspending action as long as one can only act out of incompetence, in a clumsy will to compensate for ones perceived moral deptb. I think that this is the main point Zizek makes, that we should only act when we know. And since we do not yet know, we have to think.

I have two additions to make here. First: to think is to act. But you already know this.
Second: it is good to act without knowledge, if one does so embracing the uncertainty that is to say, without hypocricy ot stupidity, without holding to incomplete ideas of certainty. One may act very well on strange intuitions and arrive into new worlds. The sense of the innocent, becoming, the archetype of the Fool.

But Zizek draws his conclusion in a political context. He criticises those who make use of what Z perceives, as a Marxist, as the worlds error (capitalism, corporatism), to attend to the damages this error has done. He argues against incomplete and self-contradictory conceptions as a basis for action, and argues that more thought instead of action is required where conceptions of what is wrong / lacking, what needs to be corrected are not yet satisfactory. In short, he says that we have not arrived at a philosophy, from which we may act in the confidence that our acts have the tyoe of consequences we aim for them to have.

I think that he is right. As you know I have done a lot of thinking, and I think that I have arrived at a theory from which, in fact, we may act.


____________I wrote on ILP__________


WHAT HAS BEEN OVERCOME BY THE INVENTION OF VALUE-THEORY:
Nietsche wrote:
594 (1883-1888)

Science--this has been hitherto a way of putting an end to the complete confusion in which things exist, by hypotheses that "explain" everything--so it has come from the intellect's dislike of chaos.--This same dislike seizes me when I consider myself: I should like to form an image of the inner world too, by means of some schema, and thus triumph over intellectual confusion. Morality has been a simplification of this kind: it taught that men were known, familiar.--Now we have destroyed morality--we have again become completely obscure to ourselves! I know that I know nothing of myself. Physics proves to be a boon for the heart: science (as the way to knowledge) acquires a new charm after morality has been eliminated--and because it is here alone that we find consistency, we have to construct our life so as to preserve it. This yields a sort of practical reflection on the conditions of our existence as men of knowledge.

This problem has been solved; by understanding the atom as self-valuing, physics has become accessible to the heart.

595 (1884)

Our presuppositions: no God: no purpose: finite force. Let us guard against thinking out and prescribing the mode of thought necessary to lesser men!!

The lesser man wants to believe in objectivity, in determinism, in God, anything besides his own, acute valuation of himself and the world in his terms. Only strong subjects are capable of working with this theory.

596 (1886-1887)

No "moral education" of the human race: but an enforced schooling in [scientific] errors is needed, because "truth" disgusts and makes one sick of life--unless man is already irrevocably launched upon his path and has taken his honest insight upon himself with a tragic pride.

Truth is seen to be less ugly as it was once assumed --
since every being self-values, there is no possibility for an initial ugliness, only for an initial aesthetics.

Nietzsche, while being co-responsible for this theory, has been overcome. At least his weaknesses have been overcome.

597 (1886-1887)

The presupposition of scientific work: belief in the unity and perpetuity of scientific work, so the individual may work at any part, however small, confident that his work will not be in vain.

There is one great paralysis: to work in vain, to struggle in vain.

Again, a fundamental problem that has been overcome. "In vain", what does that mean? It means: not pertaining to objectivity. Since objectivity is now understood as derived from subjective valuation, the act of valuing (also: vision) is seen as the ground of being, and can not be "in vain" -- existence is no longer arbitrary, "outside oneself" -- no, it is our work!

In vain to perhaps to God - but not to us!

The accumulative epochs, in which force and means of power are discovered that the future will one day make use of; science an intermediary station, at which the more intermediary, more multifarious, more complicated natures find their most natural discharge and satisfaction--all those who should avoid action.

Yes, yes, and with us, this stage has passed! A more direct, less ambiguous, self-simplified nature is being created -- a type to dominate, a type in which action is justified, a type which can only be justified by action -- a types whose actions justify the world to itself.

Fixed: I've also been experimenting with Heidegger lately, with the thought that there is something unimaginably distinct about human beings, that they can attend to this distinction only in thinking. It is in thinking, through language, that Being reveals itself for man, unconceals itself if only for the briefest moment. Language achieves this clearing for Being, it is "the house of being" in Heidegger's words. It is into this clearing that we are thrown, in the sense that we are thrown into the world -- it is this very thrownness that we must learn to embrace to properly realize our potential. Man as a rational animal, as a being among other beings? This conception is not high enough. Certainly, we share affinities, commonalities, we are a being among others -- but we're so much more! In this very real sense, thinking is acting, it is acting to set us apart, not only from non-humans, but also from those who are unable to draw Being forth from its concealment -- in a word: herd, rabble. In Heidegger's language, the attending to Being is "care" -- if we "care" for Being, then we must think, for thinking is always of Being, in the double-genitive sense. There are those not only unable to care, but also unworthy. To this extent, thought, the very act of thinking itself, draws in its wake the pathos of distance!

As a side-note: my OP was essentially a re-writing of a few excerpts from Zizek's Violence, a book that massively appealed to me at the time of my creating this thread. It's a shame the thread has gone where it has, however. I have no time for Schopenhauer's pessimistic metaphysics, for philosophy birthed forth out of lack, and so my eyes have glazed over the bulk of posts here.

On a more significant note: I think this 'acting without knowledge' lies at the core of what we are capable of, it is a call from outside the gates of rationality -- I sense in you great potential to answer this call, and I'm sure you've already done so successfully. But to make of this a philosophy, that is your task now. I also find rather compelling your theory of valuation and its ability to overcome (perhaps: sublate, in the Hegelian sense?) Nietzsche's 'weaknesses.' Anyway, I'm short on time this day. May our interactions on this forum be fruitful. I also want that you'll acquaint yourself with Satyr -- I'm interested in what will bear itself out from such engagements.

-w/m

Abstract wrote:

But then we do not always desire life...so then how is anything needed if all those needs are hinged on the desire to live?

No, the need is for the absent, life is a means towards it.
When you need you lack. It is this absence in you - you as a manifestation of existence - which you seek to fulfill.
Life is an product of the interactions, the Flux, gaining a more efficient method of resisting entropy and then seeking first its own preservation and then developing to a level where it seeks its own completion.
In essence the desire to fulfill one's self, to become a Being, to complete one's self exposes a deep dissatisfaction, a resentment, with fluidity.
Man resents an existence where his ephemeral and his continuation hinges on need/suffering. He projects ideals hoping to achieve one of them.

Coming to terms with life is coming to terms with the factors which make life possible.
This, in sexual terms, is the control of the masculine spirit on man over his feminine spirit.
A control, a dominance, not a rejection, or a hatred or a dismissal.

[quote="Abstract"I don't know man... at this point I really don't know how to get across to you what I mean... your argument here is logical... however you are wrong about me if you think I have always been well taken care of and have not had my means of survival in question, at the moment i am doing good in that regard though...[/quote]The comment was directed towards western, modern, man in general and not specifically only to you.

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

But then we do not always desire life...so then how is anything needed if all those needs are hinged on the desire to live?

No, the need is for the absent, life is a means towards it.
When you need you lack. It is this absence in you - you as a manifestation of existence - which you seek to fulfill.
Life is an product of the interactions, the Flux, gaining a more efficient method of resisting entropy and then seeking first its own preservation and then developing to a level where it seeks its own completion.
In essence the desire to fulfill one's self, to become a Being, to complete one's self exposes a deep dissatisfaction, a resentment, with fluidity.
Man resents an existence where his ephemeral and his continuation hinges on need/suffering. He projects ideals hoping to achieve one of them.

Coming to terms with life is coming to terms with the factors which make life possible.
This, in sexual terms, is the control of the masculine spirit on man over his feminine spirit.
A control, a dominance, not a rejection, or a hatred or a dismissal.

That is an interesting concept... do you mean to say you think that in that one desires to be complete they are desiring essentially to be non-existent? thus all life is driving towards being non-existent? Yet honestly I do not desire to be complete... rather I desire to be tortured by the journey... and yet it is not torture... yet it will become such eventually perhaps...do not all motives corrupt? it seems much of man's suffering is created by the complexity it causes with all its abstractions and creations...maybe we were better off as animals... when we didn't care so much...when we just lived...it wasn't pain because we were used to it maybe...

Satyr wrote:

[quote="Abstract"I don't know man... at this point I really don't know how to get across to you what I mean... your argument here is logical... however you are wrong about me if you think I have always been well taken care of and have not had my means of survival in question, at the moment i am doing good in that regard though...

The comment was directed towards western, modern, man in general and not specifically only to you. [/quote] That is definitely true concerning modern man... they are weak... and they will die when they run out of their sources for electricity... many of them... unless they get to space in time... but seems to me shit is going to start running our before then...unless maybe they can sufficiently maintain their consumptive current, maybe solar power can actually do it...personally I think it will not provide as much... especially concerning the limitations on capacity for solar panels to be made given low non-renewable resources... but who knows maybe they will figure to solarize more quickly...maybe that will work... honestly I tend to think we would be better off sitting in trees eating bananas...I almost hope...

sorry I am stoned...
do you smoke satyr...
or do you feel it weakens you?

I never took satyr to be an advocate for the denial of the flesh
Somebody, quickly, give this man a drrink.

Abstract wrote:

That is an interesting concept... do you mean to say you think that in that one desires to be complete they are desiring essentially to be non-existent?

I mean to say that when a consciousness first awakens to reality, to the reality of its own condition, nihilism is the first response.
The world is essentially inhospitable to life, and this is a shock to the awakening mind.

Abstract wrote:

thus all life is driving towards being non-existent?

First thing you should do is separate the concept of life from the concept of existence.
Life is a manifestation of existence, a rare one...but not all existence is alive.

If you study Nirvana, Paradise, the notion of the end of rebirth, the concept of a God, a final end, it is all quintessentially a declaration against the world as it is.

Abstract wrote:

Yet honestly I do not desire to be complete... rather I desire to be tortured by the journey... and yet it is not torture... yet it will become such eventually perhaps...do not all motives corrupt?

The goal is to habituate one's self with need/suffering to a degree where one can enjoy existence for a short while.

Abstract wrote:

it seems much of man's suffering is created by the complexity it causes with all its abstractions and creations...maybe we were better off as animals... when we didn't care so much...when we just lived...it wasn't pain because we were used to it maybe...

Desires, wants, can be manufactured.
First because the absence can be projected to be just about anything. The desired can merely be what is marketed as that which promises to end need/suffering once and for all.
Second, because man's primary needs can be attached to any abstraction, due to the previous, and they can be connected to an ideal and idea.

For instance the desire for a house can be founded on the promise of satiating one or more primary needs.

Sex is a later development and so this need is not primary. It's power is dependent on the paroxysms hormonal inebriation produces.
Reason goes out the door when the mind is taken over by the sexual drive.
Females being sexual creatures are, for this reason, very irrational...or more irrational than an average male.

This is why the sexual need can usurp all other needs, turning the organism suicidal or making the organism do things it would not normally do if its own survival and well-being were considered rationally.

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

That is an interesting concept... do you mean to say you think that in that one desires to be complete they are desiring essentially to be non-existent?

I mean to say that when a consciousness first awakens to reality, to the reality of its own condition, nihilism is the first response.
The world is essentially inhospitable to life, and this is a shock to the awakening mind.

Yes. nihilism seems to result in a destruction of sensitivity resulting in a prolonged numbness that results in a craving for what ever there is...

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

thus all life is driving towards being non-existent?

First thing you should do is separate the concept of life from the concept of existence.
Life is a manifestation of existence, a rare one...but not all existence is alive.

If you study Nirvana, Paradise, the notion of the end of rebirth, the concept of a God, a final end, it is all quintessentially a declaration against the world as it is.

perhaps...

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

Yet honestly I do not desire to be complete... rather I desire to be tortured by the journey... and yet it is not torture... yet it will become such eventually perhaps...do not all motives corrupt?

The goal is to habituate one's self with need/suffering to a degree where one can enjoy existence for a short while.

I don't know that it is necessary to consider it short...

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

it seems much of man's suffering is created by the complexity it causes with all its abstractions and creations...maybe we were better off as animals... when we didn't care so much...when we just lived...it wasn't pain because we were used to it maybe...

Desires, wants, can be manufactured.
First because the absence can be projected to be just about anything. The desired can merely be what is marketed as that which promises to end need/suffering once and for all.
Second, because man's primary needs can be attached to any abstraction, due to the previous, and they can be connected to an ideal and idea.

For instance the desire for a house can be founded on the promise of satiating one or more primary needs.

Sex is a later development and so this need is not primary. It's power is dependent on the paroxysms hormonal inebriation produces.
Reason goes out the door when the mind is taken over by the sexual drive.
Females being sexual creatures are, for this reason, very irrational...or more irrational than an average male.

I don't think women are any more sexual then men... the irrational control that sexual drive can have does not have to extend as deep into one's life as they typically let it...

without-music wrote:

Fixed: I've also been experimenting with Heidegger lately, with the thought that there is something unimaginably distinct about human beings, that they can attend to this distinction only in thinking. It is in thinking, through language, that Being reveals itself for man, unconceals itself if only for the briefest moment. Language achieves this clearing for Being, it is "the house of being" in Heidegger's words. It is into this clearing that we are thrown, in the sense that we are thrown into the world -- it is this very thrownness that we must learn to embrace to properly realize our potential.

Pan -- incantations, spells, poetry -- language can be used to attain clarity of sense, and to the contrary, consistency of logic. I am not sure to which, if any of the two, you are referring. Please elaborate on this "house of being", it is intriguing but not yet clear.

Quote :

Man as a rational animal, as a being among other beings? This conception is not high enough. Certainly, we share affinities, commonalities, we are a being among others -- but we're so much more! In this very real sense, thinking is acting, it is acting to set us apart, not only from non-humans, but also from those who are unable to draw Being forth from its concealment -- in a word: herd, rabble.

I like this. But what sets us apart is a certain type of thinking. "We have not yet begun to think" - Heidegger was aware that thought carries more potential than logic, reason, rational conception -- it is a direct experience of the world. I might disagree with him that language is the key here -- except if he means symbolism and incantation, the sensual facet of language on which poetry and occultism rely.

I have discovered that to learn, by tongue, throat, heart and gut, a noble old language, does more to increase the awareness of this "thrownness" than any other thing. It is as being reborn into the world, re-thrown, but consciously.

Quote :

In Heidegger's language, the attending to Being is "care" -- if we "care" for Being, then we must think, for thinking is always of Being, in the double-genitive sense. There are those not only unable to care, but also unworthy. To this extent, thought, the very act of thinking itself, draws in its wake the pathos of distance!

And this goes both ways -- when we begin to think as Heidegger intends, no person "in his right mind" will follow. Indeed, thinking as being, being as thinking, we have to leave the faith in derivative logic behind for this. For me this has never been difficult. I see it seems impossible, frightening, crazy, unimaginable to most.

Quote :

As a side-note: my OP was essentially a re-writing of a few excerpts from Zizek's Violence, a book that massively appealed to me at the time of my creating this thread. It's a shame the thread has gone where it has, however. I have no time for Schopenhauer's pessimistic metaphysics, for philosophy birthed forth out of lack, and so my eyes have glazed over the bulk of posts here.

Some people I admire admire Schopenhauer. That is as close I come to admiring him. I see little of worth in his philosophy.

Quote :

On a more significant note: I think this 'acting without knowledge' lies at the core of what we are capable of, it is a call from outside the gates of rationality -- I sense in you great potential to answer this call, and I'm sure you've already done so successfully. But to make of this a philosophy, that is your task now.

I have to think about this. Rather, it seems to me that what I have discovered / uncovered in this way contributes to science. But it has disrobed my soul to myself, and with that enabled the unobstructed vision of valuing. --

Quote :

I also find rather compelling your theory of valuation and its ability to overcome (perhaps: sublate, in the Hegelian sense?) Nietzsche's 'weaknesses.'

It simply renders his pessimism -- unnecessary. It makes pessimistic philosophy very difficult to justify. One would have to make an effort to be pessimistic. But I have yet to produce a full treatise on this thought.

Quote :

Anyway, I'm short on time this day. May our interactions on this forum be fruitful. I also want that you'll acquaint yourself with Satyr -- I'm interested in what will bear itself out from such engagements.

It seems that this board was recently considered to be dead. It is alive now.

Abstract wrote:

Yes. nihilism seems to result in a destruction of sensitivity resulting in a prolonged numbness that results in a craving for what ever there is...

Nihilism is the first shock of awakening to an indifferent and meaningless existence.
A child waking up to a cold world.

Abstract wrote:

I don't think women are any more sexual then men... the irrational control that sexual drive can have does not have to extend as deep into one's life as they typically let it...

On this point you should read Weininger.
The female is nature personified. She is reproduction without purpose.
Pure sexuality.

In a feminized world eros takes over, all becomes sex.
See Bonobos.
All stresses resolved in copulation.

A woman body and soul is all sex. She talks of relationships, is only interested in what relates to procreation and social networking.
She can have sex any time she wants,e experiencing multiple orgasms. Her entire body is a sex organ, with her vagina being the access point.

A man's sexuality, by comparison, is limited and centered around one, or a few others, erogenous zones. Despite his bragging he is not as sexually potent as a female is.
Once done, he must rest. He is satiated.

Poetry, in every sense of the term. For me, at least. I think Heidegger meant something more general -- but I have never hesitated to revise what I think needs revision.

A full treatise would be nice, but that might just be the academic in me speaking. As for your question in another thread concerning influence, I still have to side with academia. There is much room for ideas to gain momentum in the academy, and we currently find ourselves in a time pregnant with potential for this. From the academy to the wider public, is my road.

On a side-note: I would very much like to learn some German. Is there any advise you can offer me, any recommended place I start?

Satyr wrote:

Abstract wrote:

I don't think women are any more sexual then men... the irrational control that sexual drive can have does not have to extend as deep into one's life as they typically let it...

On this point you should read Weininger.
The female is nature personified. She is reproduction without purpose.
Pure sexuality.

In a feminized world eros takes over, all becomes sex.
See Bonobos.
All stresses resolved in copulation.

A woman body and soul is all sex. She talks of relationships, is only interested in what relates to procreation and social networking.
She can have sex any time she wants,e experiencing multiple orgasms. Her entire body is a sex organ, with her vagina being the access point.

A man's sexuality, by comparison, is limited and centered around one, or a few others, erogenous zones. Despite his bragging he is not as sexually potent as a female is.
Once done, he must rest. He is satiated.

I still think the primary goal is survival and sex is a means to that end... women do and have provided other means of aid to our survival other then those centered around the sexual.

without-music wrote:

Poetry, in every sense of the term. For me, at least. I think Heidegger meant something more general -- but I have never hesitated to revise what I think needs revision.

A full treatise would be nice, but that might just be the academic in me speaking. As for your question in another thread concerning influence, I still have to side with academia. There is much room for ideas to gain momentum in the academy, and we currently find ourselves in a time pregnant with potential for this. From the academy to the wider public, is my road.

I was expecting nothing less. This is good if we are to cooperate successfully. It is of no use to share all context and skills.

Quote :

On a side-note: I would very much like to learn some German. Is there any advise you can offer me, any recommended place I start?

I would advise picking up different sources simultaneously, ranging from the complicated to the simple, but all speaking to your taste. I advise choosing a book by Nietzsche in German and read an aphorism aloud in German, then read it in English and then aloud again in German. And listen to German music with english subtitles, such as here:
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At the same time you should of course keep a grammar page open, anything factual and contextless, "unbiased" there, to avoid the "what is your name?" and "where do you live?" thread of learning. It results in debility, it obscures, disables the spirit of that tongue. Use art. Make it as hard and beautiful as you can in the beginning.

I appreciate the advice, FC. I was actually considering a trip to Germany this year, to work some sort of pre-arranged job there for a couple months, and familiarize myself with the language before coming back home to grad school applications. I want to immerse myself in the world of a new language, rather than sit disconnected from it in a study hall, with its meaningless phrases drawn out of some dusty book for me.

without-music wrote:

I appreciate the advice, FC. I was actually considering a trip to Germany this year, to work some sort of pre-arranged job there for a couple months, and familiarize myself with the language before coming back home to grad school applications. I want to immerse myself in the world of a new language, rather than sit disconnected from it in a study hall, with its meaningless phrases drawn out of some dusty book for me.

My experience with learning a language (Japanese) is to visit a private tutor. This way you end up with a good friend who speaks the language and has contacts in the country itself should you ever go there.

Also, one-to-one teaching is advantageous when it comes to any questions you might have with what your studying. If there's some part of the grammar or something you don't get having someone to explain it to you, personally, is much better. With a book or tapes you won't have that and in a class you might struggle to get the attention you need.

Use the language at every oppurtunity, especially with native speakers. They will correct you more readily and the practice will help.

I second the use of music. It really helps you make the words flow. Music was essential to me when learning English.