Is there an ideology of knowledge?

[vicdan]

victor,

I still don't see how the world isn't zero sum.

That's because you are a deluded, ignorant idiot.

You get your roads, the deer suffer. A virus acquires a valuable new protein that the immune system isn't prepared for, you suffer.

Again. Who suffered for the creation of Beethoven's 5th?

If we ascribed personal values to the deer, rocks, sun, etc, it may zero out again

it won't -- non-zero-sumness is pervasive in nature, because the relationship between the amount of stuff, and pretty much anything else, is non-linear.

Consider a very simple converse example. We nuke Earth into oblivion, and it becomes a floating dead rock. This is clearly a negative-sum event. There is no compensation for the destruction with someone else enjoying comparable benefit.

Creation is harder than destruction, but the entire fucking life on Earth is possible because of non-zero-sumness -- because evolution results in species which make more efficient use of available resources. Both negative-sum and positive-sum events exist.

The point of the Ubermensch is not to invent things that people value and hence raise the utility of human beings.

I never said it was. I just said that it's profoundly idiotic to see power and greatness as coming only at the expense of others, as you do. My point was that Ubermensch has many paths open to him, but you, in your moronic myopia, only see one.

Nietzsche basically excludes his idea of the Ubermensch from Christian-morality. Does this mean he is a bully? I guess if little people get in the way of his goals/values and need to be bullied it would.

Ah, now you are changing your tack! From "what else is "freedom" but lording it out over others? What else is "power" but controlling others?" you now segue to "if little people get in the way of his goals/values, they need to be bullied".

You should try thinking ever once in a while, kid. Had you done so, you would not be in this painfully embarrassing predicament.

The will to power is not necessarily a desire to directly control people. Power is control or influence though.

There is a huge difference between the two. Control of one's self is also power. Control of one's life is also power. Mastery of skills is also power. That was my whole fucking point -- that power can be expressed in many more ways than lording it out over, and controlling, others. Your problem from the beginning was the dunderhead belief that power on the backs of others -- gangsterism, basically -- is the only path open to Ubermensch, the only path possible.

Nietzsche is against morality and recognizes humans as just another animal. Helping others vs. harming them -- both are creation to him.

Good of you to finally recognize that one can authenticaly express their will-to-power by creating and by helping others, not just by destroying and enslaving.

This was far more convoluted a journey than was necessary, kiddo. I had to fucking drag you here by your nose ring.

When you create in a manner that reflects your values, you are destroying something that reflects conflicting values. I don't think you could give me an example where this isn't true.

Beethoven's 5th.

And if you say that in creating the 5th symphony, Ludwig destroyed the absence of it, you will be even greater an idiot than I thought.

Beethoven had a large influence over people. I'm sure it came at some costs though I can't pin them down at the moment.

hahaha. "I am sure i am right, even though i cannot even construct a plausible scenario of how i could be, much less actually prove that i am". Are you listening to yourself, child?

[Alex Jacob]

Neil wrote:

"Nietzsche's influence comes at the cost of harming Christianity and Christian morality by exposing it. This was his goal and thanks to his struggles there has been much advance in philosophy and downfall of Christianity and morality."

Yet I think this may be the point where Nietzsche was not fully in control of himself, or fully aware what was happening in him. That is the point where Nietzsche is the living emblem of a culture-wide problem, coming face to face with a conflict of values, giiving expression to them, and influencing many people, but where nothing is decided, I mean Nietzsche is not the final arbitor of these questions.

Yet, there is something in his presentation, almost in the color of it, a certain 'naughtiness' in fact, that strikes a cord---like a tuning fork causing other tuning forks to vibrate---in modern individuals. To describe those resisitng their Judeo-Christian values as kids who take up satanism for the effect of it, is not so bad an example. Huxley wrote a relevant essay touching on that in Do What You Will in which he critiqued Baudelaire rather scathingly. Jung described this upwelling of resistance and the rejection of these values as being an expression of a far darker psychological content than you seem aware, and all it really turned out to be was unbridled brutality, not a great deal more.

It is sort of like hearing the first few parts of some experimental sonata and then they come and ask you what it made you feel like, what sorts of things arose in your imagination, and your response is: 'Terrorizing armies bashing heads, terror camps and everything bestial'. You have to examine the facts, and the context of Europe when Nietzsche was living out these conflicts, and this is certainly one of the outcomes of this conflict of values, in its negative form. It is pretty obvious that we are still dealing with it and will for a long time yet.

So, according to you, 'Christian morality' is 'exposed', seen through, the clever intellect has exposed the trickery, and it can then be thrown out the window? That his purpose (Nietzsche's), or a good purpose, is the 'downfall' of the value-structure that Christianity expresses? Here, you are playing with some pretty dangerous fireworks, it seems to me. But you don't seem at all aware of it. Whenever I read you when you express these opinions, I always want to suggest that you proceed a great deal more slowly and linger over these questions, but you jump to conclusions. I feel I can almost absolutely indicate that it is not as you say, nor should it be. It helps to be able to say that Nietzsche suffered a huge conflict within his person, like someone who drinks a poison and convulses as his body deals with it, instead of seeing Nietzsche as a sort of prophet who heralds a New Way, like the QRS reading of Zarathustra, a sort of boyscout primer of psuedo-Buddhism. And again, scores of tremendous intellects drank these weird medicines and these poisonous medicine had all sorts of different effects, not just to cause crushing armies to sally forth and to destroy wantonly. You remain resistant to see the result of 'a bad reading of Nietzsche' and show little interest in looking at what better readings have produced.

"The point of the Ubermensch is not to invent things that people value and hence raise the utility of human beings. The point is to be a creator as in to create the future -- to take control and exert your power/influence in the world so that it reflects your values. To fight the good war towards your goals and ends, whether other humans like them or not. The Ubermensch embraces life. Everything taught by Christian-morality is denial of life: disinterest, freedom as doing nothing, strength as remaining passive, love as dispassionate and non-sensual, equality as ideal, etc. Nietzsche basically excludes his idea of the Ubermensch from Christian-morality."

First, you just have to accept and place it right on the board to start with that Nietzsche was exploring fantasies. Ubermench is an idea, an idealism, a protagonist in a creative, internal drama. Nietzsche was a dyspeptic weakling so sensitive that the wrong appetizer led to days of agony in bed. Why is it that people take certain ideas so very seriously? They read some doctrine, maybe half-baked, and from that the calvary advances onto the plains, flags snapping in the wind?

There is a reading of Judeo-Christianity where one might conclude it is all denial of life, but that is just one pole of view, an interpretation, for the sake of comparison to another. There are certainly other ways to look at it, and to see it as very creative, and active.

On the subject of the above, here in my city (I have been told) there is a Catholic priest who is also a professor of philosophy at the U de V and specializes in Nietzsche. One of these days I am going to pay him a visit and see what he has to say. One thing about those priests, they say, is that they are duty-bound to talk with you...

;-)

[Jason]

Who suffered for the creation of Beethoven's 5th?

Why his his brother Franz of course. Also a composer but nowhere near as accomplished as his brother, Franz lived most of his life in Ludwig's shadow. The fifth symphony was the breaking point, he hung himself soon after it was penned.






disclaimer: story may not be entirely factual

[vicdan]

Are you seriously proposing that the composition of the 5th, and the brother's voluntary hanging, constitute a zero-sum situation?..

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Are you seriously proposing that the composition of the 5th, and the brother's voluntary hanging, constitute a zero-sum situation?..

Even if landslides or earthquakes would produce angelical types of sounds, we never would dream of addressing the audio as part of a some game dynamic, being it zero or non-zero sum. Nor is it possible for the music produced by wind effects.

Our own culture and its music work just like that: it accompanies the comedy-tragedy of our species movements through the ages. Remove the suffering and you remove the passions. There's a good case to be made it's approaching zero-sum but seems impossible to prove.

So yes, the suicide might not be directly related to the 5th but its contemporary causes are certainly deeply tied with what caused the 5th to be written. And while it's just one death, it's the same with all the insanity and suffering of that time. You'll have to reproduce that to reproduce the making of something like the 5th as well as its reception afterward which carried it through to our times. Our times has its own landslides echoing through time, to the future, but it might not be as melodic.

[maestro]

I agree with Victor, the notion of enlightenment itself tells that a person can increase his utility to unimaginable levels by becoming enlightened, while increasing everyone else's utility who comes in contact with him by his spontaneous, joyful and calm nature.

[Imadrongo]

Again. Who suffered for the creation of Beethoven's 5th?

His competitors?

it won't -- non-zero-sumness is pervasive in nature, because the relationship between the amount of stuff, and pretty much anything else, is non-linear.

Does the amount of stuff change?

Consider a very simple converse example. We nuke Earth into oblivion, and it becomes a floating dead rock. This is clearly a negative-sum event. There is no compensation for the destruction with someone else enjoying comparable benefit.

Basically you are showing an extreme bias towards cognizant "moral agents" here. There might be an alien species on a distant planet that got utility out of this destruction by our earth absorbing less energy from the sun (at any rate, the energy is going somewhere, something has changed, even if we aren't here to know about it). Is your bias bad? Not at all, since we are humans. However just because we don't care about some other group that is experiencing negative-sum (maybe they don't into our arbitrary definition of "persons" for example), and the groups we do care about are experiencing positive-sum, does not mean that it is a non-zero-sum event.

Creation is harder than destruction, but the entire fucking life on Earth is possible because of non-zero-sumness -- because evolution results in species which make more efficient use of available resources. Both negative-sum and positive-sum events exist.

The sun loses power, we gain it.

I just said that it's profoundly idiotic to see power and greatness as coming only at the expense of others, as you do. My point was that Ubermensch has many paths open to him, but you, in your moronic myopia, only see one.

I honestly see few paths where the Ubermensch doesn't have power (control or influence/direct or indirect) over other humans. What is he -- master of the anteaters? Pedagogue of the squirrels? Does he exert his will to power digging underground tunnels around the world?

> vicdan: You seem to think that will-to-power is the desire to control others, which is nowhere near being the case.
> neil: What else is "power"?

If you go around teaching the Bible you are to a varying extent controlling what someone thinks about, how they think, how they develop, how they act, etc. You are exerting your control over them. If you did not preach to them that day they may have turned out radically different.

Ah, now you are changing your tack! From "what else is "freedom" but lording it out over others? What else is "power" but controlling others?" you now segue to "if little people get in the way of his goals/values, they need to be bullied".

That is just a special case. You can't have power without exerting it in a way that effects others (humans, animals, trees, dirt, whatever).

Are you free to lord your freedom over others if you don't?

[Ataraxia]

It seems to me you're digging yourself ever deeper,Neil.

How about if one reads say "Beyond Good and Evil" or a chemistry book.If said book is understood,he has gained the knowledge contained within.

Where is the loss?

[Imadrongo]

Seems like regardless of his intent, Nietzsche's been used to justify some pretty awful stuff.

"Awful" as in counter to your desires of peace, equality, and universal weakness, yes. And I dare say his "nicer" interpretations are dreamy people trying to reconcile him with morality, though I haven't got around to read many of them yet.

"I have declared war on the anemic Christian ideal (together with what is closely related to it), not with the aim of destroying it but only of putting an end to its tyranny and clearing the way for new ideals, for more robust[/i[ ideals--
The continuance of the Christian ideal is one of the most desirable things there are--even for the sake of the ideals that want to stand beside it and perhaps above it--they must have opponents, strong opponents, if they are to become strong.--
Thus we immoralists requires the power of morality: our drive of self-preservation wants our opponents to retain their strength--it only wants to become master over them." - WTP 361

How about if one reads say "Beyond Good and Evil" or a chemistry book.If said book is understood,he has gained the knowledge contained within.

Where is the loss?

A loss of ignorance?

[Ataraxia]

How about if one reads say "Beyond Good and Evil" or a chemistry book.If said book is understood,he has gained the knowledge contained within.

Where is the loss?

A loss of ignorance?

Yes.-A loss of a negative.Ie a net positive.

Presumably you'll argue that me defining ignorance as a 'negative' as a moral agent.

[vicdan]

Again. Who suffered for the creation of Beethoven's 5th?

His competitors?

Wow. your dishonesty knows no bounds.

it won't -- non-zero-sumness is pervasive in nature, because the relationship between the amount of stuff, and pretty much anything else, is non-linear.

Does the amount of stuff change?

No more than winning a chess game amounts to moving chess peices around the board.

Stuff the shit, dude. Accept reality. It will only hurt as little, and only at first.

Consider a very simple converse example. We nuke Earth into oblivion, and it becomes a floating dead rock. This is clearly a negative-sum event. There is no compensation for the destruction with someone else enjoying comparable benefit.

Basically you are showing an extreme bias towards cognizant "moral agents" here. There might be an alien species on a distant planet that got utility out of this destruction by our earth absorbing less energy from the sun

not only are you dishonest, you live in a fantasy -- and you don't even know the most basic physics!

(at any rate, the energy is going somewhere, something has changed, even if we aren't here to know about it). Is your bias bad? Not at all, since we are humans. However just because we don't care about some other group that is experiencing negative-sum (maybe they don't into our arbitrary definition of "persons" for example), and the groups we do care about are experiencing positive-sum, does not mean that it is a non-zero-sum event.

Yes, idiot, it does. No matter what your utility function is, as long as it's not linear in the amount of matter-energy, non-zero-sumness is possible.

You should really try to accept the facts, kiddo.

Creation is harder than destruction, but the entire fucking life on Earth is possible because of non-zero-sumness -- because evolution results in species which make more efficient use of available resources. Both negative-sum and positive-sum events exist.

The sun loses power, we gain it.

But it was losing power before life developed as well. This means that the balance changed once life developed. no matter which way you slice it, either the sumis zero (and then it used to be negative), or the sum used to be zero (and then it's positive now).

Anyway, it's amusing to see you claim valuation on behalf of inanimate objects, how much more dishonest can you fucking get, asshole?

I honestly see few paths where the Ubermensch doesn't have power (control or influence/direct or indirect) over other humans. What is he -- master of the anteaters? Pedagogue of the squirrels? Does he exert his will to power digging underground tunnels around the world?

According to you, all of those are authentic expressions of will to power... so yeah, blame your own stupidity for leading you into this bind.

[Jamesh]

Does the amount of stuff change?
No more than winning a chess game amounts to moving chess pieces around the board.

No the amount of stuff does not change, as new things are merely a reconfiguration of what already exists.

The intital creation of generic thingness however, is perhaps not a zero-sum game. I see creation as a permanent additive process. I see the creation of thingness as space being added to existing space. Could be wrong.

The creation of new forms, such as Beethovens 5th, is additive to humanity in a fashion, but is also non-additive in another fashion. In being additive to the range of forms that humans desire, it prevents them from desiring something else, that may have been even more beneficial in an evolutionary sense. eg, it is possible that without music we would have concentrated more on science for instance.

Addition comes from that which is outside being bought under the control of humans, and it is bought under control by forming a synergy with something that is already part of humanity, such as our love of music. Humans do not produce the sounds alone, only the interaction of humans with the physical realms brings forth the sounds. This interaction is a synergy, if it is felt to be of benefit to some part of humanity. The same unfortunately applies to Ackey Breakey Heart, which while being antagonistic to the existing patterns of more humans than not, there are still some who form a synergy with it, and in such people valuing it positively we would call it a negative addition to humanity.

In the end though everything thought to be non-zero additions to humanity at one time will without doubt become zero additions at a latter time. The nature of things is that nothing is permanent.

[Imadrongo]

Does the amount of stuff change?

No more than winning a chess game amounts to moving chess peices around the board.

When you move chess pieces around their amount is not changing, only their arrangement. Do the gods care what position their chess board is in?

Accept reality. It will only hurt as little, and only at first.

I will when you convince me I am wrong....

not only are you dishonest, you live in a fantasy -- and you don't even know the most basic physics!

Oh right... radiation not absorbed by the earth just disappears!

Yes, idiot, it does. No matter what your utility function is, as long as it's not linear in the amount of matter-energy, non-zero-sumness is possible.

This is ridiculous. Your "utility" is simply how much humans value something. That it increases with the number of humans alive and their happiness level says nothing other than that humans value things to varying degrees. I don't care if some utility function is non-linear, I am suggesting that there is some complementary negative-utility function somewhere that is equally as non-linear. If humans value 100 roads 1,000,000 times more than 1 road, deer probably negatively value them 1,000,000 times more.

Anyway, it's amusing to see you claim valuation on behalf of inanimate objects, how much more dishonest can you fucking get, asshole?

How would you peg the utility of air pollution to humans? To birds? To other animals? To fish? To bacteria? It harms all, and I would say this is [among] the negative utility that accompanies the positive utility that humans have for the plant and the products it makes.

[vicdan]

When you move chess pieces around their amount is not changing, only their arrangement.

Exactly, you bloody idiot. You simply re-arrange the pieces -- and you have a beautiful endgame instead of a random jumble. Which is exactly the fucking point.

I guess we can add the inability to see past the mere quantity of stuff to your long, and growing, list of intellectual shortcomings.

Accept reality. It will only hurt as little, and only at first.

I will when you convince me I am wrong....

Oh, it's quite obvious that nothing will convince you. Your view wasn't arrived at through reason, and it won't be undone by reason. you are delusional, kid. i cannot make you think. I cannot make you understand the concepts involved. You are simply sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling 'LALALA, I CAN"T HEAR YOU!'

not only are you dishonest, you live in a fantasy -- and you don't even know the most basic physics!

Oh right... radiation not absorbed by the earth just disappears!

No, moron -- but that radiation would be absorbed (or reflected) whether the Earth is a flowering Eden or a ball of molten rock. Furthermore, Earth absorbs about one-two-billionth of the radiation Sun puts out. Juxtapose that with the fact that Sun is a pretty wimpy star, a yellow dwarf, and the nearest any alien civilization could possibly be to us is 4 light-years, at which distance Sun would be barely visible with a naked eye; to say nothing of the more distant stars.

You are expressing monumental concern over an alien civilization losing one-two-billionth energy output of a tiny and weak distant star. Do you fucking realize how ridiculous you are being?

You segued here because you didn't even get my fucking point, which was that if we annihilate Earth, this would be a negative-sum act. your objection doesn't even have anything to do with my point -- it merely serves to showcase your ignorance, stupidity, and innumeracy. That the fuck do you study at college -- underwater basket weaving?!.

This is ridiculous. Your "utility" is simply how much humans value something.

No, moron, my utility in this context is anything we call 'utility' -- as long as it's not linear in the amount of stuff.

That it increases with the number of humans alive and their happiness level says nothing other than that humans value things to varying degrees. I don't care if some utility function is non-linear, I am suggesting that there is some complementary negative-utility function somewhere that is equally as non-linear.

You might also be 'suggesting' that you are Napoleon, and that you lay golden eggs, moron.

[Katy]

Similarly, if I take your queen for a pawn, this is a zero-sum equation because that pawn might have become valuable to me later in the game. You don't know what utility I had for that pawn!!!

[vicdan]

Yup. Neil is inventing new ethics, new game theory, new physics, new chess... anything but facing the intellectual bankruptcy of his delusion.

[Katy]

Yup. Neil is inventing new ethics, new game theory, new physics, new chess... anything but facing the intellectual bankruptcy of his delusion.

Wait! No, I get it. The board gets the utility from you no longer having a queen because it no longer has to support her weight.

[Imadrongo]

Is a position of "checkmate" preferable to a random arrangement of chess pieces? What God has told you the "right" way to arrange the chess board of life? You arrange it however YOU like, whatever YOU value, but to claim that this is anything more than having it your way instead of someone elses', competition, is absurd. Maybe you are competing against "non-moral agents" and don't care at all about them, but that doesn't mean they have aren't fighting to change the board in a different way than you.

[Katy]

Is a position of "checkmate" preferable to a random arrangement of chess pieces? What God has told you the "right" way to arrange the chess board of life? You arrange it however YOU like, whatever YOU value, but to claim that this is anything more than having it your way instead of someone elses', competition, is absurd. Maybe you are competing against "non-moral agents" and don't care at all about them, but that doesn't mean they have aren't fighting to change the board in a different way than you.

But the point is that it doesn't have to be one good and one bad.

Say, for instance, that Vic and I decide to play chess. The end of this game is pretty much a foregone conclusion since I learned to play at the beginning of the semester. So in the end, the board is set up in a checkmate in Vic's favor, and a random configuration of pieces would be better for me... You want to read this as "Vic won Katy lost" - but why not "Vic and Katy enjoyed a game" god knows I've learned it's possible to lose at chess and still have fun...

Where is the harm that brings this back down to zero-sum?

[xerox]

...

[Alex Jacob]

It seems to me pretty simple: Victor is saying that Nietzsche could be talking about a use of life and power which is not necessarily parasitical, or a sort of hoodlumism, and has cited some examples of creativity, valid and important fields of activity for 'great men'. All well and good. But the part that he is not discussing is a more troubling area: the fact that a significant percentage of the activities of strong, the capable, and the advantaged in society are often involved in projects of exerting will, controlling and directing the sectors of society lacking self-determining power. One of the areas in which Nietzschean thought diversified (though not only Nietzschean thought), was into that of propaganda and 'public relations', or in any case it had a strong effect on these who theorized about it in those seminal years between 1880 and 1920 (approx.).

For example Eduard Bernays:

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

Walter Lippman:

"Early on, Lippmann was optimistic about American democracy. He embraced the Jeffersonian ideal and believed that the American people would become intellectually engaged in political and world issues and fulfill their democratic role as an educated electorate. In light of industrialization, the events leading to World War II and the concomitant scourge of totalitarianism however, he rejected this view. To his mind, democratic ideals had deteriorated, voters were largely ignorant about issues and policies, they lacked the competence to participate in public life and cared little for participating in the political process. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann noted that the stability the government achieved during the patronage era of the 1800s was threatened by modern realities. He wrote that a “governing class” must rise to face the new challenges. He saw the public as Plato did, a great beast or a bewildered herd – floundering in the “chaos of local opinions."

"Early on Lippmann said the herd of citizens must be governed by “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality." This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. The experts, who often are referred to as "elites," were to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the "omnicompetent citizen". Later, in The Phantom Public (1925), he recognized that the class of experts were also, in most respects, outsiders to particular problem, and hence, not capable of effective action. Modern critics of journalism and democracy say that history has borne out Lippmann's model. The power of the governing elites, they argue, stretches from the early days of the 20th century to the New Deal of the 1930s to today."
______________________________________

It is simply not enough to call forth the examples of great artists, composers, or scientists---no matter how selfless may be their projects---when the problem of power, down on the ground, daily power, and if you will the preditorial nature of powerful individuals and cliques within history and society, is left unaddressed.

There is a fascinating conversation possible here yet, based on what ordinarily happens 'round these parts, it is unlikely that it will take place...

*Hear the Moving Violin*
______________________________________

Robbed from another thread...

[vicdan]

It is simply not enough to call forth the examples of great artists, composers, or scientists---no matter how selfless may be their projects---when the problem of power, down on the ground, daily power, and if you will the preditorial nature of powerful individuals and cliques within history and society, is left unaddressed.

Why should I address it? That was never the point.

The topic is not Nietzcsche's philosophy per se, but Neil's utter misunderstanding of it. As I had said already, I am not a nietzschean; nor is Neil, though he thinks he is.

Now if you want to talk about Nietzsche's philosophy in general, and the nature of power, that would be a somewhat different topic. However, I don't think Nietzsche had much to say here which would be relevant to your concern.

[Alex Jacob]

It is a fault of mine, I'm sure, but topics tend to blend together for me. I have been in and out of a conversation with Neil about Nietzsche since I came here, so whenever it comes up I try to engage in that conversation.

It seems to me there are just as many interpretations of Nietzsche as there are readers, so I am not sure why Neil isn't or shouldn't be considered a 'Nietzschean'. I have no idea whatever what a true Nietzschean does or thinks...

It seems to me that Nietzsche does have a great deal to say about power. It may indeed be as a result of some defect in my spirit (I have asked myself the question many times) but it seemed to me that Nietzsche very correctly focussed on the issue of 'power' and the problem of power, and the problems he brings up always were very challenging to my own 'morality'.

And so, yes, I am interested in what you and anyone else has to say on the matter. Do you think that the various citations I have included in this thread are irrelevant to Nietzsche and to the 'problem of power'? (I see them as being very relevant, obviously.)

[Imadrongo]

This is interesting.

Without losers there can't be winners. However the losers can rationalize the situation such that they are actually the winners or such that there are no winners: "my enemies will be sent to hell", "nothing matters", etc. If you truly enjoyed losing at life I would slot you in with the "nothing matters, might as well enjoy it", and yet still there is no such thing as enjoying without despising.

[Boyan]

And so, yes, I am interested in what you and anyone else has to say on the matter. Do you think that the various citations I have included in this thread are irrelevant to Nietzsche and to the 'problem of power'? (I see them as being very relevant, obviously.)

On the issue of power, for what is worth I'll chip in something that I just looked into... Nietzsche tells us quite clearly the world is will to power and nothing more. However this idea can not be separated of the very important idea of playing, like playing a game, child's play basically which he took from Heraclitus but enriched and subscribed to it much more than what Heraclitus had in mind obviously.

In his later works Nietzsche completely links these two ideas together when he says that the world is just different forces exerting their power, powers that compete; and all of this, these powers that are like waves, are playing a game, nothing more. A pointless game of powers which goes on and on infinitely, which links the idea of game to eternal return.

So the game is pointless, the powers are playing the game and have no goal they serve to and are therefore without purpose. This means that the exertion of power is innocent, beyond good and evil, because games are essentially without purpose - that is their definition in a way, so the world and the human situation are absurd, like games are absurd but through game Nietzsche arrives to the justification of the world as an aesthetic phenomenon, because it serves to nothing outside of it (this is how he defines great music in Daybreak, as the music that is innocent, that doesn't care about pleasing anyone, has no purpose outside of itself).

This was about Nietzsche's view of game in the non human realm mostly. Nietzsche sees human life as a game too. He says something very interesting which allows little doubts over what he 'really' meant -

(I'm paraphrasing this, because I'm translating it to english because I don't want to go searching it in english on the net)

- Always a child: We think that fairytale and game belong to childhood: We the shortsighted ones! As if we could live in any age of our lives without fairytale and game! Though, we call it and feel it differently, but that precisely is what shows it's the same - for the child too feels it's game like work, and fairytale like it's truth. The shortness of life ought to keep us away from pedantically separating life's stages - as if though every one of them brings something new.


To add to this, it is clear that we are very concentrated when playing games, just look at children when they are playing.

In BGE Nietzsche said - The maturity of a man: that means again having the seriousness the man had when he was a child, in play.

Also, Nietzsche speaks of the play of the urges in Daybreak.