Me too. It's not for sissies.

There's a jellyfish that's considered to be biologically immortal because it occasionally reverts to a younger stage and starts over. For the rest of us, it's Hayflick's limit.

As far as others' opinions, it may vary how much one can step outside of social expectations. However, part of who one is may be about choices of moving outside specific circles, including family or communities, such as those of a church. Often, to break with certain social ties can involve courage as most people rely on a certain amount of social support. — Jack Cummins

Absolutely. And breaking from family expectations may dredge up psychic drama you didn't even know was there. Suppose your family's religious identification demands an ongoing war with some other religious group. Dropping that might mean letting go of the ancestral continuum, or at least it may seem so.

All that said, I think there are people who just can't live inauthentically. If they don't find a way to survive without the social facade, they'll just die.

Once again, the type of society you're in plays into this. Some societies will become havens for those who need to be authentic. Some societies will just kill them.

Laing also looks at the idea of 'ontological security', and he argues that a 'basically ontological secure person will encounter all the hazards of life, social, ethical, spiritual, biological from a centrally firm sense of his own and other people's reality and identity. — Jack Cummins

People who are on shaky ground in terms of survival will find they have to morph into whatever they need to be to gain security.

Once one finds some measure of security, this tendency to live out society's expectations will probably continue out of habit. It takes some courage to step beyond what others want you to be into a form that expresses your own deeper imperatives. There are real risks involved in doing this, in some cultures more than others.

For instance, if you're in Portland, Oregon, you'll find others actually encouraging you to become who you really are. If you're in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, it will be made very clear to you that you need to conform, or you'll be punished.

So the whole issue can become moot depending on your circumstances.

Note: I changed the title for clarification.

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Power was always the wrong term for the universal thermodynamic imperative. — apokrisis

The word Schopenhauer used for it is "will.". As phenomenology, it works, though it may seem strange if you're not familiar with S.

Nietzsche's concern with will was driven by Schopenhauer's pessimism.

The dialectic is then that it must have negentropic structure to achieve that. So power becomes the ability to do that work - construct the engines of dissipation. — apokrisis

Do we need to do a deep dive on entropy? Because it's not the universal entity you seem to be suggesting it is.

As I said, the community is engaged in a conversation about what is right or moral. — Tom Storm

That's nice. The exports continue, though. Economic well-being overrides morality. Do you have an argument to the contrary?

For Nietzsche it is about self-transformation , not survival. If it is a thriving , it is not cumulative addition to a valuative theme, but a continual change of direction of value and meaning. — Joshs

I really disagree with this. For Nietzsche, value and meaning are always mythological, no matter where you are in terms of actualization.

The way you’re putting it turns it into a form of self-consistency or self-continuity. — Joshs

I don't even know what that means. My concern is about pesticide use in my neighborhood which has wiped out the local frogs. I like the sound of the frogs, so it distresses me.

I think my neighbors were simply driven by something like the will to power: a blind will live. In the same way a tree turns dirt and water into wood, we spray chemicals to eliminate annoying bugs: to transform the environment unto our own needs.

Is this not correctly called the will to power?

It’s not just Deleuze who reads will to power this way. Most postmodern interpretations of it emphasize that power is not under the control of the will , because the will want have any control over itself. It is splintered into competing drives.
The self-actualization of the will , which is tied to Hegelian dialectics, is a form of moralism that Nietzsche critiques.Creativity for Nietzsche is more about celebrating what thwarts our will than about willing what we want. — Joshs

I think the will he's referring to is Schopenhauerian. It's not a personal will. It's the animating force of the universe.

We might perceive it as instinct to survive and thrive.
Does this accord with postmodern interpretations?

You seem to lack the capacity to stay on your own topic. — Banno

Well, in your immortal words, bugger off if you don't like it.

Our exporting buttloads of coal seems mainly to be supporting dysfunctional and monomaniacal billionaires. — Banno

It supports the whole Australian economy, but nice try dodging responsibility.

If you’re referring to Nietzsche’s notion of Will to Power, it is not a will to dominate one’s environment. — Joshs

Nietzsche wasn't clear about what he meant. It's often taken to mean the will to dominate one's environment.

Will to power is the self-differentiating creative impetus of willing. Deleuze says:

Will to power does not mean that the will wants power. Will to power must be interpreted in a completely different way: power is the one that wills in the will. Power is the genetic and differential element in the will; it does not aspire, it does not seek, it does not desire, above all it does not desire power.” — Joshs

Oh god, Deleuze. That idiot. :razz:

What will you do now? — Banno

I already switched sides. See my answer to Tom.

I don't think of morality as limiting, more as supporting the formation of my community — Tom Storm

Exporting buttloads of coal, as your country does, supports the formation of your community in far reaching ways. So I guess that's moral?

So... you have no choice as to how you act?

Then there is no point in discussing your reasons, since they can make no nevermind... — Banno

True. There's no need to criticize people who use pesticides unnecessarily. They're driven by the will to power, and they have no choice.

Invincible argument, huh?

Deflection — Banno

No, I'm playing devil's advocate. I have no need to deflect. Determinism just appears to me to be my best argument.

Ought one be driven to dominate the environment? — Banno

Good question. Humans are the only creatures you'd ask that of, correct? What's so special about us that we have to answer that?

How does determinism come into it from your point of view? — apokrisis

As soon as we think of ourselves as natural elements of the environment, we're no longer limited by morality, but just by whatever constraints are in the system. Our selfishness is an evolved trait. We don't really have any choice.

So constraints create freedoms, in the systems view. Determinism produces the indeterminism that is necessary to keep it youthful, creative and evolving.

Morality only arises in human history as part of taking that basic system principle to its next level of hierarchical complexity. — apokrisis

So morality also evolved. We don't have any choice about that either?

How do constraints give rise to freedom? I probably need the dummed down version.

Seems as you are setting up a grammar in which will to power is doing what you want and morality is doing what others want. — Banno

Will to power is a drive to dominate the environment. Morality is about transgression of transcendent rules. One assumes they transcend all of us.

I think you guys just shot yourselves in the foot. — god must be atheist

If you look at the historic cycle, you're seeing the temperature leading the CO2 change. When the oceans cool, they absorb more CO2, and same thing for warming.

The last lead up to the present is showing the opposite: CO2 rise first, and then temperature will follow. There's a delay between CO2 emission and temperature rise.

The way we know we've already altered the climate isn't from looking at that kind of graph. It's from computer modeling that predicts what the temperature would be now without the CO2 we've put up. Still, some scientists argue there could have been other causes, but they're in the minority at this point.

It is thus “moral” to be competively selfish - as that creates the free variety that any evolving system requires. — apokrisis

I thought of this, thanks for articulating it. When we condemn ourselves, we're acting as though we aren't earthlings like everything else.

The issue of determinism enters. What are your thoughts on that?

True of "Christian" morality, but not e.g. virtue ethics or negative utilitarianism. — 180 Proof

I guess I'll go with what you're calling "Christian" because it just is morality as I know it.

Is your post here driven by morality. It seems to me that I agree with the gist of what you are saying but any public agreement is necessarily ‘immoral’ as it is tied up in the whole ‘morality’.

Morality is essentially immoral. — I like sushi

It's driven by a concern for the use of pesticides. We could say they're used because of the will to power. I'm basically arguing the side I don't like.

Morality would dictate that we have an obligation as stewards of the environment, but isn't this view doomed because it limits us? Doesn't it run afoul of the primacy of the will to power?

I guess the question would be: why do we need a theory of truth? Why do we need to have a definition? We can't teach someone what truth is.

Is there a truth theory that is less tricky? — Yohan

I don't think so.

I'm not sure what you're saying there

So then what exactly is an 'idea', 'thought' or 'belief'. Its something of the mind? What is mind? Something to do with subjectivity, with "my" being, or perspective, or perception. What is being. What am I? What is perception?
Can what these are, if they are more than imaginary constructs of the "mind", be put down in writing? How could they? — Yohan

The two parts that "correspond" in correspondence theory are called the truthbearer and the truthmaker.

As you see, the philosophical ground becomes boggy when we go to try to explain what each of those are, and we haven't even gotten to the nature of the correspondence relation yet.

Though it's fun to wade through that bog searching for iron age witches, there are bigger problems with correspondence theory, probably the biggest being that according to plain logic laid out by Frege, truth can't be defined.

The truth claim and the truth criteria. — Yohan

What exactly is a truth claim? Is it sounds and marks? Is it a sentence? Or is it something else?

Hostility, snark, misrepresentation. What’s with you guys? Your bigotry knows no bounds. — NOS4A2

They're not exactly the brain trust of internet.

Consistent with, in accord, corresponding, cohering with, matching. — Yohan

What two things correspond? There's an SEP article on correspondence theory .

Look at the "objections" section. Also, there's an SEP article on truthmakers, which is one of the most fascinating topics in philosophy.

Can you give an example of a truth claim that is true despite not corresponding with reality? — Yohan

Let's take the claim that it's going to rain tomorrow.

Can you explain what two things we're supposed to see corresponding?

If they reject correspondence theory they would be doing that on the basis that they think correspondence theory doesn't correspond with the way truth works. — Yohan

No. A truth skeptic would say correspondence theory lacks analytical clarity. The truth predicate just has a certain role in language use.

A trap in philosophy and is getting so tangled up in theory and language that all we have is an infinite regress of maps referring to other maps, and reality attaining the status of myth and legend. — Yohan

True. Per Frege, infinite regress is the reason to abandon attempts to define truth.

But the point I was making previously was that your power to make existential claims based on true statements depends on whether your audience accepts correspondence theory. There's no reason they have to do that. They can be truth skeptics if they want.

@baker

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I'm supposed to believe that this is what grandfather fought for? — baker

Damn straight.

Ghost forests are appearing along the North American coast as former pine forests change to wetlands due to sea level rise.

Never heard of him and neither has Google apparently. Unless he's that Rocky Horror show actor? — Baden

He created the Rocky Horror Picture Show. :meh:

Social reality shall do its thing regardless — Baden

True. Richard O'Brien says trans women aren't real women. His cultural standing in the US is such that if he indicates that it's an open question, it's an open question.

Are you sure you aren't a self-hating behaviorist ? — Pie

:razz: