I'm not seeing the relevance of your quotes.

You have a unitary Will and the Representation of Will as represented by all the objectified manifestations individuated. — schopenhauer1

Oh, right....

That passage does not seem to explain anything in a coherent way. If you think it does, can you explain it to me?

Because there never is an observed without an observer. Notice this has even become manifest in atomic physics. And also please notice that I’ve acknowledged that we can treat ‘the world’ as if there were no observer for practical purposes. The mistake of naturalism is then to extend that to a metaphysical claim that we see the world as it really must be absent any observer. That is the point of The Blind Spot argument that I got a thorough bollocking over some years back but which you will be pleased to know has now morphed into a book. — Quixodian

It simply follows grammatically that if there is an observation, there must be something observed, and something observing. It would only complicate the sciences to attempt to include the observer; how would you include the observer in the theory of plate techtonics for example?

I don't claim that we see the world as it really must be absent any observer, and I don't think that is a necessary presumption of the sciences. We can treat science as investigating the world as it appears; no need to make any claim beyond that. All the evidence indicates that the world was around long before humanity came on the scene, but that doesn't tell us anything about what kind of existence it had independent of human observers. About that we can only guess, and not too coherently at that!

That there has to be an observer in order that there be an observation does not entail that what is observed is dependent on the observer, even though how it is observed to be obviously does depend on the observer. You seem to be confused on precisely this point.

You seem to be confused on precisely this point. — Janus

A point that you're not seeing the significance of, and which I can't explain further, other than to say that it's the subject of the book I mentioned, which seems an important book to me.

It presumptuous to claim that I'm not seeing a point that you cannot explain. If you think there is a point I'm not getting, then you should be able to say just what that point is.

It presumptuous to claim that I'm not seeing a point that you cannot explain — Janus

I linked to the original article The Blind Spot of Science about four years ago which you said, at the time, that you couldn't see the point of, so there's no point in my trying to explain it again. At the time I posted about that article, there was a complete pile-on by yourself and various others, saying what a crap article it was, belittles science, it's just click-bait. But, as I say, it's now being published in book form, so I'm more inclined to believe the authors than the PF contributors who belittled it.

I'm here to discuss philosophy with other people online, not to be referred to texts. If that book or article makes an argument that you think is significant you should be able to outline the argument and say why you think it is significant. You said you got a "bollocking" when you presented that article; do you really believe that most of us here have a blind spot that only you are not subject to?

I'm not seeing the relevance of your quotes. — Banno

Can you trust me that there is one, otherwise I wouldn’t have posted them?

You said you got a "bollocking" when you presented that article; do you really believe that most of us here have a blind spot that only you are not subject to? — Janus

Not at all, but I don't think the point of the article was really grasped. Some of the comments were highly vituperative. I've recently discovered there's a youtube lecture series from the workshop (at Dartmouth) that was held after that article was published, and now, as I mentioned, there's a book being published about it. The salient passage in the book abstract is this: 'Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, humanity has looked to science to tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going, but we’ve gotten stuck thinking we can know the universe from outside our position in it. When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system." That is a salient diagnosis of the modern 'problem of knowledge' in my opinion. But if you tell me you don't see the point, then I won't press it!

If there is one, it should be set before us clearly.

The Principle of Relativity urges that we look for explanations of such generality that they are consistent for all observers. That is not an unreasonable injunction, especially in combination with the Principle of Charity.

As I've said before, We're not looking for the view from nowhere, so much as the view from anywhere.

You can't get to the thing itself by way of empirical observation. You will never get at it that way. That is where the realists/materialists are missing subjectivity/inner aspect of being, etc.

Hence he says:

Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature of things from without. However much we investigate, we can never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that has been followed by all philosophers before me. — WWR

@Janus Then he goes on...

In fact, the meaning for which we seek of that world which is present to us only as our idea, or the transition from the world as mere idea of the knowing subject to whatever it may be besides this, would never be found if the investigator himself were nothing more than the pure knowing subject (a winged cherub without a body). But he is himself rooted in that world; he finds himself in it as an individual, that is to say, his knowledge, which is the necessary supporter of the whole world as idea, is yet always given through the medium of a body, whose affections are, as we have shown, the starting-point for the understanding in the perception of that world....

....
But all this is not the case; indeed, the answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an individual, and the answer is will. This and this alone gives him the key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance, shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action, of his movements. The body is given in two entirely different ways to the subject of knowledge, who becomes an individual only through his identity with it. It is given as an idea in intelligent perception, as an object among objects and subject to the laws of objects. And it is also given in quite a different way as that which is immediately known to every one, and is signified by the word will. Every true act of his will is also at once and without exception a movement of his body. The act of will and the movement of the body are not two different things objectively known, which the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect; they are one and the same, but they are given in entirely different ways,—immediately, and again in perception for the understanding. The action of the body is nothing but the act of the will objectified, i.e., passed into perception. It will appear later that this is true of every movement of the body, not merely those which follow upon motives, but also involuntary movements which follow upon mere stimuli, and, indeed, that the whole body is nothing but objectified will, i.e., will become idea. All this will be proved and made quite clear in the course of this work. In one respect, therefore, I shall call the body the objectivity of will; as in the previous book, and in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, in accordance with the one-sided point of view intentionally adopted there (that of the idea), I called it the immediate object. Thus in a certain sense we may also say that will is the knowledge a priori of the body, and the body is the knowledge a posteriori of the will. Resolutions of the will which relate to the future are merely deliberations of the reason about what we shall will at a particular time, not real acts of will. Only the carrying out of the resolve stamps it as will, for till then it is never more than an intention that may be changed, and that exists only in the reason in abstracto. It is only in reflection that to will and to act are different; in reality they are one. Every true, genuine, immediate act of will is also, at once and immediately, a visible act of the body. And, corresponding to this, every impression upon the body is also, on the other hand, at once and immediately an impression upon the will. — WWR

it should be set before us clearly. — Banno

Ehhhh….only you says it wasn’t. At this point, it’s a tie, I think it was both clear and relevant and you apparently do not. Or at least question whether it is. For the sake of a mere tie, I see no reason to change anything.

Actually, Frank called one of the quotes an insight, which implies it was both clear and relevant to him, so it’s two to one.

Yeah, it's a puzzle. I mention the problem of other minds and you post in answer stuff about rules.

Regardless of Frank, I remain in the dark as to relevance.

My impression of Schopenhauer is that he was a brilliant writer with an unlucky hex over his head. He tried to split reason and will, as if they were separate things. Spinoza said all was mind with no will. Scopenhauer said all was will without mind. They both have a truth. All these idealist were talking about different aspects of the same thing. Like an elephant..

@Janus He goes on...

The will as a thing in itself is quite different from its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all idea, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it; still less the forms which are subordinate to this and which collectively have their common expression in the principle of sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong, and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and space the principium individuationis, borrowing an expression from the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw attention to this, once for all. For it is only through the medium of time and space that what is one and the same, both according to its nature and to its concept, yet appears as different, as a multiplicity of co-existent and successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the principium individuationis, the subject of so many subtle ties and disputes among the schoolmen, which may be found collected in Suarez (Disp. 5, Sect. 3). According to what has been said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. Further, it is free from all multiplicity, although its manifestations in time and space are innumerable. It is itself one, though not in the sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium individuationis, i.e., the possibility of multiplicity. Only when all this has became quite clear to us through the subsequent examination of the phenomena and different manifestations of the will, shall we fully understand the meaning of the Kantian doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but are only forms of knowing.

...

Only those changes which have no other ground than a motive, i.e., an idea, have hitherto been regarded as manifestations of will. Therefore in nature a will has only been attributed to man, or at the most to animals; for knowledge, the idea, is of course, as I have said elsewhere, the true and exclusive characteristic of animal life. But that the will is also active whore no knowledge guides it, we see at once in the instinct and the mechanical skill of animals.[5] That they have ideas and knowledge is here not to the point, for the end towards which they strive as definitely as if it were a known motive, is yet entirely unknown to them. Therefore in such cases their action takes place without motive, is not guided by the idea, and shows us first and most distinctly how the will may be active entirely without knowledge. The bird of a year old has no idea of the eirgs for which it builds a nest; the young spider has no idea of the prey for which it spins a web; nor has the ant-lion any idea of the ants for which he digs a trench for the first time. The larva of the stag-beetle makes the hole in the wood, in which it is to await its metamorphosis, twice as big if it is going to be a male beetle as if it is going to be a female, so that if it is a male there may be room for the horns, of which, however, it has no idea. In such actions of these creatures the will is clearly operative as in their other actions, but it is in blind activity, which is indeed accompanied by knowledge but not guided by it. If now we have once gained insight into the fact, that idea as motive is not a necessary and essential condition of the activity of the will, we shall more easily recognise the activity of will where it is less apparent. For example, we shall see that the house of the snail is no more made by a will which is foreign to the snail itself, than the house which we build is produced through another will than our own; but we shall recognise in both houses the work of a will which objectifies itself in both the phenomena—a will which works in us according to motives, but in the snail still blindly as formative impulse directed outwards. In us also the same will is in many ways only blindly active: in all the functions of our body which are not guided by knowledge, in all its vital and vegetative processes, digestion, circulation, secretion, growth, reproduction. Not only the actions of the body, but the whole body itself is, as we have shown above, phenomenon of the will, objectified will, concrete will. All that goes on in it must therefore proceed through will, although here this will is not guided by knowledge, but acts blindly according to causes, which in this case are called stimuli.

I call a cause, in the narrowest sense of the word, that state of matter, which, while it introduces another state with necessity, yet suffers just as great a change itself as that which it causes; which is expressed in the rule, "action and reaction are equal". Further, in the case of what is properly speaking a cause, the effect increases directly in proportion to the cause, and therefore also the reaction. So that, if once the mode of operation be known, the degree of the effect may be measured arid calculated from the degree of the intensity of the cause; and conversely the degree of the intensity of the cause may be calculated from the degree of the effect. Such causes, properly so called, operate in all the phenomena of mechanics, chemistry, and so forth; in short, in all the changes of unorganised bodies. — WWR

So he is saying, any sort of movement or behavior is actually Will from humans to animals to forces in space and time. He starts with the "immediate object" which is our own will and then analogizes to animals and forces.

This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system." That is a salient diagnosis of the modern 'problem of knowledge' in my opinion. But if you tell me you don't see the point, then I won't press it! — Quixodian

It seems a reasonable point - and no doubt there are numerous complexities and implications involved, but isn't this notion ultimately similar to the basis of phenomenology? And even Nietzsche's view that truth/reality is perspectival. I would have thought overall a relatively common philosophical presupposition, even if it is antithetical to some accounts of science, say, as understanding reality as it really is.

So when an individual will is properly denied (i.e. reaches a nirvana-like state), does that mean the whole Will is nullified or simply that manifestation?

@Quixodian do you have an answer (without smuggling in external philosophers)? — schopenhauer1

As I understand it, the individual is detached from the will - liberated, in the Eastern sense - through what S. understands as asceticism. That's why he praises St Francis of Assisi and Jesus as role models (paradoxical in light of his atheism).

When the ascetic transcends human nature, the ascetic resolves the problem of evil: by removing the individuated and individuating human consciousness from the scene, the entire spatio-temporal situation within which daily violence occurs is removed.

In a way, then, the ascetic consciousness can be said symbolically to return Adam and Eve to Paradise, for it is the very quest for knowledge (i.e., the will to apply the principle of individuation to experience) that the ascetic overcomes. — SEP

The Principle of Relativity urges that we look for explanations of such generality that they are consistent for all observers. That is not an unreasonable injunction, especially in combination with the Principle of Charity.

As I've said before, We're not looking for the view from nowhere, so much as the view from anywhere. — Banno

The point, as I see it, is really rather simple. The reductionist view is that the objects of fundamental physics are the only ultimately real things. Life and mind supervene on them, or emerge from them, but the only fundamental laws are the laws which govern those objects. Laws in any other sense are simply conventions or descriptions. You may not hold that view, and many others will disavow it, but nevertheless it remains the operative paradigm for many in today's culture, and it is that paradigm which is the target of criticism by idealists, phenomenologists, enactivists, and others.

I'd prefer to hear your well-informed & succinct opinion on the question of Schopenhauer's substitution of "Will" in place of "Soul". — Gnomon

I don't know if he does that, really. Still navigating the section on Will, I find it overall a lot harder to grasp than his 'representation' (vorstellung).

isn't this notion ultimately similar to the basis of phenomenology? — Tom Storm

Indeed, the essay I mentioned from which the book was developed includes discussion of Husserl (and Whitehead.) Neitszche, not so much - I think his relativism collapses into nihilism. But those three, Marcello Gleiser, Adam Frank and Evan Thompson, are the kinds of philosophers that I most appreciate in the current scene. (Check out the Gleiser and Frank's Big Think homepage and Adam Frank's essay Minding Matter.)

it is that paradigm which is the target of criticism by idealists, phenomenologists, enactivists, and others. — Quixodian

Sure, and many an analytic philosopher, too. Apart from the favourites of the retired engineers hereabouts, few folk would advocate that sort of reductionism.

And there are problems with naively supposing that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Using poor arguments to defend a position that has otherwise powerful arguments is ill advised.

There are better ways to deal with intentionality, as seen in Anscombe and Midgley and Nagel and so many others. I still think you've thrown out the babe.

I think Schopenhauer works best as a man who saw the godless [ Darwinian ] deathfuck wheel. I open Dawkins and find Schopenhauer naturalized. In case it's obscure, I mean the loop of breeding and dying, and the generations that come and go like leaves on the tree. Lust leadeth to the horrors of aging, but the young and lusty have not seen this part of the wheel yet, not from the inside, not in the mirror.

Sages of old saw it too, the deathfuck wheel which was just there, shining and dripping. At his best, Schopenhauer was this old school kind of sage, seeing through the illusion of time to the form of the circle, the ancient indestructible Wheel. He believed in The Loop, thought reading Herodotus was enough. He took the world as spectacle, grasped its essence.

He did not need to descend from his balcony for the glory of the revolution. There would be no revolution, not a real one. Just the bloodflower sinwheel forever. He left graffiti for others who might be able to get there sometimes, maybe to help others get there.

few folk would advocate that sort of reductionism. — Banno

So do you think human beings are purely or only physical in nature? And, if not, how to conceive of what about us is not physical?

Why are we going over this again? I think your question is muddled.

Seems a perfectly clear question. You say that hardly anyone holds to physicalist reductionism, so what do you say is an alternative to that?

But then I suppose it’s much easier to take pot-shots at others than to actually come up with a real alternative.

Again, not the approach I would adopt. There are good reasons to think physical reductionism wrong - to say the least - without having an alternative readily to hand.

As we've discussed elsewhere, different aspects of the world entail different narratives. In particular, physical explanations are distinct from intentional explanations.

Fair enough, but I’m interested in a bit more detail, and it seems to me that both current idealism and phenomenology can provide it.

I mention the problem of other minds…. — Banno

And I commented to the contrary, with consistent generality, the highlighted relevance not on rules. Your originating mention, as stated, is, ipso facto, false.

I've nothing to say here that I haven't said previously. Idealism has been moribund since the end of the century before last, and of little more than historical interest. That it is so popular in this forum is a peculiarity of the forum.

Ok.

It's worth noting that by Schopenhauer, and even more so after, people began to take Kant's noumena in a very weird direction. In the world of theophany, psychoanalysis, Jung, seances, elan vital, etc. trances and mystical experiences, like those induced by hypnosis, the techniques of Franz Mesmer, became gateways to access the pure noumena of the "spirit realm." The noumenous became coidentical with the numinous and pneumenous for many.

Before the current New Age tradition there was a weird epoch where German idealism, particularly Kant and Hegel, got transformed into a sort of older New Age religion. A lot of this centered around life, spirit, etc. being suis generis forces, something that was allowed by contemporary conceptions of physics, with its mysterious forces that acted at a distance. QM and relativity killed off this whole line of thought, but it's come back in modified forms.

I wouldn't put Schopenhauer into the same "New Age" box, but I think his philosophy helps the move in that direction.