(Nov 2, 2020 06:45 PM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]And you weigh in where, exactly? Again, you quoting others is pseudo-intellectual, at best. Can you make any specific arguments yourself? Or perhaps you can at least point out a few that you feel are especially compelling, so others can respond to them.
IOW, if you can't have a discussion on the subject, yourself, why should anyone discuss it with you?
It should be obvious that I wasn't trying to make an argument. I was trying to share the bits that were compelling and disturbing to me. I quoted and linked Coyne's refutation.
This is exactly why no one wants to enter a discussion with you. You only see and hear what you want to.
Notes to self (word games): In regards to Nietzsche, what I was struggling with was his perspectivism (optics of knowledge) and the love of fate.
I think, therefore I am.
"It is … a falsification of the facts to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think". It thinks: but to say the "it" is just the famous old "I" — well that is just an assumption or opinion, to put it mildly, and by no means an "immediate certainty." In fact, there is already too much packed into the "it thinks": even the "it" contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself."—Nietzsche
His point is that our thoughts appear in our consciousness without our having willed them.
"Behold, I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment."—Nietzsche
Self-overcoming: Nietzsche’s Übermensch is not a product of freewill. It’s an interplay of internal struggles of certain drives. How they play out determines what one will believe, value, and become. When we look at things in greater detail, we obviously expand our awareness. If we look at the past, and understand how we became what we are through chains of events, one might think that we must continue to be what we have been, but with greater awareness, we notice the external forces, such as culture, environmental, evolution, physical laws, etc., and we are more cautious. We notice more options and other ways to live, which increases our freedom, but with greater freedom, comes more responsibility for that which is, and which was, and which is to come.
I would call this an acquired freedom, which is altogether different from circumstantial freedom. It’s to live as one believes one ought to live. Freewill on the other hand, would be a natural freedom, regardless of circumstances or state of mind, which Nietzsche obviously doesn’t believe in and argued against.
"Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?
To create new values- that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating- that can the might of the lion do.
To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion."
"The child", Nietzsche says, "is innocence and forgetting—a new beginning—a Sacred "Yes".
Life is no longer a reactive struggle to defeat other external forces. Life is a celebration of one's own powers.
"Then, however, was Life dearer unto me than all my Wisdom had ever been."
Anthropomorphism at its finest, eh?
I used to think that the love of life was and would always remain an unrequited love…
But I no longer do. Life is everything. Nothing exists for us outside of it. "The living cannot know death and the dead know nothing."
It’s more likely that his whisper was simply…but thou knowest it also...that you will inevitably leave me?
—When thou hearest this clock strike the hours at midnight, then thinkest thou between one and twelve thereon—
—Thou thinkest thereon, O Zarathustra, I know it—of soon leaving me!"—
"Yea," answered I, hesitatingly, "but thou knowest it also"—And I said something into her ear, in amongst her confused, yellow, foolish tresses.
"Thou knowest that, O Zarathustra? That knoweth no one—"
Most people believed and still believe in some form of an afterlife.
And we gazed at each other, and looked at the green meadow o'er which the cool evening was just passing, and we wept together. Then, however, was Life dearer unto me than all my Wisdom had ever been.
Joy—deeper still than grief can be...
Woe saith: Hence! Go!...
But joys all want eternity…
Deep profound eternity…
Acceptance? I think so.
No need to pipe in, Syne. I highly doubt that you'd have anything meaningful to contribute.
Peace out.