Though I am by no means as in-depth in knowledge as you are when it comes to physics (QM, thermodynamics, etc. … to be slightly arrogant, I instead view my strongpoints to be biology and behavior, or at least to so once have been), I find our worldviews to in large part agree on the issues you’ve just mentioned.

Still, whereas you reduce metaphysics to a triadic system of relations, I’ve instead reduced metaphysics to a) a multiplicity of awareness-endowed agents (i.e., first person points of view), b) the entailed requisites of their presence (e.g., space and time as I’ve alluded to in some previous posts here) and c) a set of teloi, all being alternative means of attaining a state of being devoid of obstructions to intent … with only one such alternative being ontically real and all others being, in essence, illusions of will/sentience.

I don’t see why these two systems couldn’t integrate in principle. In practice, however, within the metaphysics I propose there are logical consequences that so far seem to be viewed in adverse ways by the metaphysics you propose. One such logical consequence is that the body is perishable while awareness is not—stated in terms of more spiritual folk, we are physically mortal but our core remains immortal (again, no homunculi here addressed). Another logical consequence is the metaphysically cogent allowance for the possibility of a multiplicity of incorporeal realms dwelling between our physical world and the pinnacle awareness of the final end. Also stated in terms of more spiritual folk, it is metaphysically possible that different incorporeal worlds exist, possibly worlds of angels, worlds of gods, worlds of chakras, etc. [although the clincher is that, while such worlds cannot be metaphysically disproven, by definition of not being universally applicable to all corporeal beings neither can they be evidenced to be real—else they would be as profane and physically objective as rocks or the laws of gravity … this gets a bit into epistemology, empirical evidence, and the principle of falsification, as well as the metaphysics of the physically real. Still, it is not intended as a joke—though one could well yet maintain atheism (lack of deities) in this metaphysics—and it ties into the logical necessity that the body (and ego) is mortal while awareness is not … something that is readily evident in the nature of the final end I’ve previously addressed.]

Do you see any possibility of these givens being incorporated into the model you endorse? These givens are some of the intrinsic aspect of the model I uphold. Again, we tend to agree far more when addressing issues of physicality.

Now, what about them questions regarding metaphysical identity?

I've been turning the theory over all day long, and am quite surprised that I have not been met by a rush of contradictions - not a single one. Not yet anyway. I should feel a little skeptical about it all, but it has slotted straight in as a deeper truth. It has clipped in like a bar magnet to a fridge. It's quite bizarre how it's bypassed so many rows of mental filters that should be able to trip it up. Nothing has ever done that before. My basic stance is to believe nothing and work backwards from there.

And because I see the creativity in things as I look around, in the twisting of the tree limbs and the arrangement of the items on people's desks, I actually feel quite a strange sense of happiness, that I can't quite account for. That also should not be happening because of a theory. I think you have a convert, not that I was a great lover of survival of the fittest. As I look around I am seeing the creativity and can distinguish the difference between that and base survival.

I learnt once that a study of drug addicts found that even when hooked to the drug, they didn't take it because of a need to restore their baseline equilibrium (which of course they need to do), but because they were still chasing the high. I don't know how valid that experiment was, I think it was one of the 70's hippy experiments. I think this theory kind of fits in there.

Survival of the fittest is a baseline, getting dragged across the gravel on your back while gripping with all your might the rope that might allow you to continue to survive so long as you don't let go, kind of theory. Your creative theory, allows for the superfluous, which could very well be the true key in this whole equation. I'm going to run with it for a while and see if it truly fits in with my own ideas.

Just to change topic a bit: Rich, did you read my post in this thread on seeing sound? How does that fit in with your holographic model of the real world? Is the mind reconstructing the world as it is, or only those aspects it chooses to see? (much like the theme of this OP).

Also, why reconstruct the world when it's already right in front of you? Plus, what you see is loaded with information from lots of senses, including memory. Does the hologram model allow that?

How do you propose that identity is established if not via awareness which, as awareness, identifies itself as same/identical to itself and different/non-identical to other? Now, if there’s agreement that this identity is established via awareness, then how is the primacy of awareness (an identity known experientially) abandoned for the sake of primacy of matter (an identity known theoretically)? I anticipate that this will reduce to what is the true metaphysical nature of identity. — javra

I agreed that in evolutionary theory, the global constraint of natural selection preserves identity. So the environment of a species acts to stabilise its identity. If the environment doesn't change, then neither will the species. The causality is contextual. The environment acts as information that regulates species identity. And it can do so because there is the genetic memory to capture that as actual information. The genes can remember the identity that the environment demands. In effect, the genes can take the environment's point of view of what some individual of the species ought to be.

Dissipative structure theory is about how identity persists due to environmental negentropy. A tornado is kept alive by the thermal gradient off which it feeds. Then life has the extra trick of being able to form a model of how it ought to look from a natural selection point of view. It has a self-identity now as it can milk dissipative gradients "at will" due to its control over its own negentropic structure.

I’ve instead reduced metaphysics to a) a multiplicity of awareness-endowed agents (i.e., first person points of view), b — javra

The infodynamic closest equivalent might be agreeing that every material event or degree of freedom is like an informational point of view.

If something happens, then that fixes a departure point for what may follow. In that sense, material reality is a pattern woven from the establishment of multiple points of view. If an atom decays, the event creates fresh information, an update on the physical context within which all possible points of view are determined.

But this is a metaphorical rather than literal description. The having of a point of view is not about awareness as such (awareness not being a substantial thing). It is just speaking to the particularity of being a dissipative event located at instant of spacetime.

Hi Apokrisis,
I quite agree that experiences throughout a lifetime must affect the germ line, although I think we both would be in the minority. For example, we may expect a animal to grow quite a thick coat of fur after living in a cold environment for a long time. It makes sense. That by random chance they start growing thick coats seems a bit far fetched, and we can trace human adaptation as it moved out of Africa and into the colder regions of Europe as case in point.

I just want you to clarify one thing for me. You say.

If the environment doesn't change, then neither will the species. — apokrisis

How does this account for divergent evolution? In Australia, for example, a marsupial found itself isolated from many predators and evolved into all sorts of weird creatures such as wombats and kangaroos and koalas. Are you arguing that the global constraint in this instance would be competition between the marsupials rather than the environment itself? How would you define 'environment'?

Creative evolution seems a better model.

First, I wasn't endorsing Lamarckian evolution.

Then on marsupials, you would get divergent evolution to fill all niches because of a lack of constraint. And convergent evolution due to constraints emerging. There are wolf-like and flying-squirrel like marsupials as ecosystems would be organised with similar niches to fill.

By environment, I meant everything that might impinge as information. So that would include competition and predation from other species.

It's the idea behind punctuated evolution. Whole ecosystems can maintain a collective stable balance for some time. Then there is a collective jump to another balance as the result of some perturbation.

The repetition of the same point in time, over and over again, as temporal order, is the existence of the self. This is the temporal continuity of existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

ego eimi (Greek present tense): continuous self existence.

The question at hand is how it comes to be that there are multiple points existing at the same time. The different points cannot be of a different universe because they exist at the same time. How does it come to be that the points may have spatial separation in the first place, that there may be numerous selves? — Metaphysician Undercover

Conscious agency (i.e., creative power)?

Creative evolution seems a better model. — MikeL

To biologists?

I like the idea of germ line transmission of experiences. It sounds so right. It would be the perfect way to adapt your progeny to a new world. If you're not in, then it guess it leaves just me.

You're right, the global constraint has been significantly loosened in a divergent system. I don't know your position on evolution, but it seems to me that by loosening the constraint there is no driver of change for the animals. The competition for resources in the vast continent was negligible. Adaptation into niches without a primary environmental driver to do so seems like a superfluous action. Do you agree with the idea that a creative evolution model and not survival of the fittest model fits best here?

Adaptation into niches without a primary environmental driver to do so seems like a superfluous action. Do you agree with the idea that a creative evolution model and not survival of the fittest model fits best here? — MikeL

But there is an environmental "driver" if there are resources sitting around needing consuming. So adaptive radiation is no big deal. Life would fill every available crevice even if that search is purely random.

Then Bergson was indeed right about the hole in early evolutionary theory - the fact that selection can only remove variety - but hardly correct about the answer for where that genetic variety might come from.

Of course Bergson was years before the machinery of DNA was discovered. We now know how the genetic deck gets shuffled.

Just to change topic a bit: Rich, did you read my post in this thread on seeing sound? How does that fit in with your holographic model of the real world? Is the mind reconstructing the world as it is, or only those aspects it chooses to see? (much like the theme of this OP). — MikeL

Sorry, I missed your post on sound. If you wish to copy it here, I'll read it and see if I have any comments to share with you.

The mind filters and constructs through the brain. Each person (the individual mind) filters and constructs differently. Ditto for each form of life. No one approach is superior or inferior, just different because if creative evolution. So what is "out there" is the result of all like creative evolution. What we perceive is our own evolution. I suspect the humans are far behind other species in its ability to perceive and communicate. What humans are good at are tools.

I am trying to reason this out with myself as much as with you, and I take your point that divergence can be accounted for in the Survival of the Fittest model, but under a Survival of the Fittest model I would be looking for where is the selection pressure to do so was when delicious leaves and grass were already in abundance. The ancestor possums weren't attacking each other so there was no need to seek out new niches to live in. There's no adaptive advantage here. There's only maintaining the status quo through risky reshuffling of the DNA.

I guess the Survival of the Fittest model would contend there is equal adaptive advantage for the kangaroo, wombat and koala, so they were all selected for. Normally the environmental forces would have wiped the variants out of existence, except in this case there is a lack of them (your global constraints). The mutant variants got lucky and be damned with thoughts of adaptive advantage.

When a species is well adapted to its environment though the Survival of the Fittest model would suggest that DNA should be trying to minimize the amount of variant alleles in the population to help ensure its continued survival. It should be increasing the conserved regions of DNA, constraining itself so that it sticks with a winning combination. Allele diversity in the population should fall, or at the least the increase should only be a gradual creep.

The Creative Evolution Model would contend also that a lack of global constraints enabled the survival of a diverse progeny. It would suggest though, that rather than being an aberration of nature that somehow got out of its intrinsic DNA constraints, it instead would have been almost impossible to stop the variance from arising because variance is the sole driver of life. The organism would have been looking to maximise its amount of variance. For this model to work there would need to be a highly conserved (constrained) portion of DNA and a highly recombinant area. We would expect the allele count in the population to rise rapidly until new species are born.

You might have answered it, but here's the post.
" In one of the examples the man's eyes and optic nerves were functioning fine, but the visual cortex had been damaged. As a result he was 'blind' but could see. He could not create a visual impression of the environment in his cortex, but he could dodge telegraph poles and garbage bins while walking down the street by 'sensing' they were there. Of course he could only move very slowly to do this. My contention at the time was that the difference was the difference between Windows and DOS operating systems. In a Windows based GUI you could see instantaneously and react appropriately without have to sought the code.

It also give a lot more surety about what you are perceiving. I used the example that there was a time when I was sleeping and I heard a noise - a bang. As I was in the netherworld between sleep and wakefulness my mind manifested the sound visually to me. I saw the sound expanding like a sphere. Several seconds later the bang was repeated. I saw it again. It expanded at exactly the same rate to exactly the same size and I woke up immediately and said "Double barrel shotgun." The visual representation of the image gave me certainty. I had no doubt what so ever that it was the same sound. I have no idea if that's what it was (I have been asked), but I am sure of what I saw...heard.

It also makes you wonder about other animals such as bats where the dominant sense is not vision. Do they actually visualise what they see, like I did with the sound? It might mean we need to redefine the idea of vision."

What are your thoughts on this in relation to the holographic theory?

The holographic-like universe is patterns of energy and our minds sense some of this energy via our senses. Sound has a vibrationally aspect to it that different minds will interpret in different ways. Ditto for light which the mind interprets with different qualia (intensity, color). Because in differences in our history (and I'm also referring to the transcendental memory of life that sounds multiple physical lives) we perceive differently but because there are species similarities, we will agree on many things, in an approximate sort of way. But nothing is universal. As a snowflake has similarities with differences with other snowflakes, and differences within similarities, so does all of life and life within species.

Such an idea will have a profound impact on the way one views life and lives life. For example, every cell is living and intelligently communicating with other cells (and the bacteria and viruses that are ten times as many as cells in the body), and has the intelligence to heal (correct) if allowed to. Interference in such processes will harm not assist the body. Thus the Body adapts as a whole. The best way to have a healthy life is to nurture the health of your whole body, physically, mentally, spiritually.

So renunciation is completely off the radar for that kind of attitude, it makes no sense whatever in biological terms. To try and rationalise it in those terms would be to misunderstand its purpose. — Wayfarer

The behavior of the jewel beetle that Hoffman mentions in the TED Talk doesn't make sense in biological terms either. The "evolutionary hack," as Hoffman calls it, is so maladaptive that it could potentially lead to the extinction of the species, but we can easily see that the hack, though efficient, fails in the new circumstances because of its rigidity or narrowness of scope. We can see that the environment changed too abruptly for the beetle to adapt. The hack made perfect sense as long as the beetles environment remained relatively constant. It stoped making sense after the circumstances changed.

We also know that the goal of the beetle in this situation is simply to mate and that it's not trying to understand an existentially meaningful truth or anything like that. Assuming that the purpose of the renunciate is to understand an existentially meaningful truth, or to realize such a truth, what motivates them to do so? and might not that motivation be understood in biological terms? and if it can be reductively understood in biological terms, does that present a problem for the renunciate, or rather, have the effect of rendering their purpose less meaningful?

under a Survival of the Fittest model I would be looking for where is the selection pressure to do so was when delicious leaves and grass were already in abundance. The ancestor possums weren't attacking each other so there was no need to seek out new niches to live in. — MikeL

If a leaf eating possum suddenly appears, that creates a selective advantage for trees to have poisonous leaves. Then eucalypts having evolved toxins, that creates a niche for specialist eucalypts eaters like koalas.

For every move, there is a countermove. And eventually things settle into some mutual balance that is tolerable for both.

Assuming that the purpose of the renunciate is to understand an existentially meaningful truth, or to realize such a truth, what motivates them to do so? and might not that motivation be understood in biological terms? and if it can be reductively understood in biological terms, does that present a problem for the renunciate, or rather, have the effect of rendering their purpose less meaningful? — praxis

Well, if you want to understand religious renunciation in terms misguided biological impulses, I doubt that I will be able to say anything to that, apart from prescribing a large course of study, which you may not have any interest in.

I have a very high regard for it actually, and I don't believe that understanding the motivation for it in biological terms should make anyone think less of it. Now that I think about it, there are secular forms of renunciation, forms as old as Epicurus and as new as deep ecology.

I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is.

If anyone else finds the question interesting I'd like to know what you think.

I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is. — praxis

I had composed a long reply to your above question, and am willing to post it if you are interested. It's only that you gave the impression of not being particularly interested in the answer.

I didn't mean to give that impression. Please share.

I still wonder what you believe the motivation for seeking an existentially meaningful truth is.

If anyone else finds the question interesting I'd like to know what you think. — praxis

Existence.

Isn't it safe to say that we inherently (by virtue of our genes) value life?

To get back to the point where this particular dialogue began, several days back:

Indeed I could argue that part of the intuition of philosophy itself, is to transcend the purely biological, the instinctive side of the organism that is only concerned with survival and propagation. After all, it was ancient philosophy, first and foremost, which first preached renunciation and celibacy, and that certainly flies in the face of the presumed supremacy of the 'selfish gene'. — Wayfarer

to which the response came:

Don't we need to understand the motivations behind renunciation before concluding that it's inconsistent with biology? — praxis

Well, my point was, first, that the meaning of renunciation is not a meaningful question for biology, because 'renunciation and celibacy' means the end of you, as a gene machine! But such things are often depicted in biological terms nowadays - because everything is! Evolutionary biology has become a guide to values, to how educated folk ought to think. This is why, instinctively, people will look for an evolutionary rationale for this or that human trait, including such things as religious or philosophical goals and aims and even for altruism.; everything about us must be explicable in Darwinian terms.

(For critiques of some of these points, have a read of The God Genome, Leon Wieseltier; It Ain't Necessarily So, Antony Gottlieb; Anything but Human, Richard Polt - none of whom are religious apologists by any stretch, I should add.)

Now to what renunciation actually meant in the context of the cultures that practiced it. In ancient India, where Buddhism originated, there had always been a 'culture of renunciation', whereby individuals leave home and village life for life in the forests as 'sanyasi', or renunciates. The Buddha was an example of the 'forest-dwelling recluse' and is often described as such in the early Buddhist scriptures. The aim of the renunciate life was to escape from endless re-birth in the 'wheel of birth and death' (samsara or maya) and realise the state known as mokṣa (Hinduism) or Nirvāṇa (Buddhism).

(I don't know if there are real equivalents to this conception in Christianity, although if you study the history and the literature deeply, some parallels can be drawn. But I think it can be argued that the goal of 'spiritual liberation' is represented in the Western religious imagination by the belief in 'heaven', albeit nowadays conceived as something you'll never know this side of death. Whereas there is a strong emphasis in Eastern spirituality, on attaining 'spiritual realisation' in this life.)

So to try and draw these points together - the Darwinian rationale for human existence is that everything is predicated on survival - on what contributes to it, or detracts from it. Typically, ethical systems that are built on that (like Sam Harris') amount to some form of utilitarianism, 'the greatest good for the greatest number', and so on.

But if you really think through the philosophical implications of evolutionary theory there is no over-arching raison d'être for human existence. We are, according to the many popular intellectuals who argue for this point of view, the products of selfish genes whose only real purpose is to dumbly enact the survival strategies which they are driving, unknown to us. Furthermore, the origin of life itself is something very near to a chemical reaction, albeit one complex enough to sustain the so-called 'Darwinian algorithm' towards ever-higher levels of complexity.

But why this has all happened, is never discussed or even considered. Indeed the very notion of 'why' in the sense of any kind of formal or final cause, is tacitly forbidden in secular philosophies of today; goals can ever only be personal or subjective, cultural or social, as there is no cosmological reason why humans ought to exist. We're in some sense accidents of nature, the outcome of chance and necessity.

Whereas, the religious vision implies also a religious anthropology; that humans have a particular role to play in the evolution of the cosmos. Now, as explained earlier, this way of thinking about the question may not have occurred to those engaged in it at the time; it is one of the consequences of modernity, that we are able to think about these questions in such an abstract way. But, for example, the Buddha's leaving home and family, and devotion to six years of life of arduous asceticism, then his final realisation of Nirvāṇa, which became the basis and over-arching goal of Buddhist culture, does not, I think, make sense or stack up from the point of view of biology. At this point, he's exited the whole show! He will have no genetic successors. And this is reinforced by the emphasis on celibacy amongst the members of the Sangha (for whom sexual congress meant automatic expulsion.)

There's a curious thing I noticed once. I found a Dawkins quote, where he says:

'We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

So Dawkins, here, actually grasps the futility and uselessness of his 'selfish gene' metaphor as a guiding philosophy, and seems to pine for something else - namely, 'pure and disinterested altruism'. But he has spent the whole latter part of his career bollocking religion, which is supposed to embody that very quality! So where he thinks the wellsprings of 'pure and disinterested altruism' might actually be sought, I have no idea - maybe through science, although he ought to know that science is primarily concerned with quantitative analysis and measurement, and not with compassion or altruism.

Given the premise that only conscious agents are metaphysically real—or, rather, that the whole of the phenomenal universe is derived in one way or another from conscious agents—I don’t find a means to substantiate block time. Again, I do find a requirement that before and after occur within the first-person point of view regarding apprehensions and creations relative to other and—in a more complex fashion—relative to any cohort of individual agents that can causally affect each other. But this would lead to a variant of presentism. — javra

Right, so that's why we need to dismiss block time, and the hypotheses which give rise to it, and start from scratch. Starting from scratch we have conscious agents who are creating a phenomenal universe. Everything from within the phenomenal experience indicates that time is passing, change occurs. So time passing is the number one premise or assumption of what is the case. The second premise is that there is something which is active, something which is changing. We do create spatial and temporal concepts to understand what is given by these two premises, but to validate past memories and future anticipations through referencing these spatial and temporal concepts is a different issue.

The point I was making is that if we assume the non-spatial point, and give the agent non-spatial, immaterial existence at this point, we can still conceive of the passing of time without any spatial change occurring, simply by assuming the continuous temporal existence of the immaterial agent. The "something which is active" then may be the agent itself. In this way we do not yet need to assume material existence. The next question then is what is the agent doing, and this is where we draw on the concept of creativity.

Conscious agency (i.e., creative power)? — Galuchat

Right, that's how I'm trying to represent conscious agency, as creative power. If we assume an active agent with no causal necessity to move in any particular way because it is immaterial, and no inclination toward any particular intent, then all we have is creative power. What moves the will of that agent other than the desire to create?

I'm not sure; you'd have to unpack that.

So Dawkins, here, actually grasps the futility and uselessness of his 'selfish gene' metaphor as a guiding philosophy, and seems to pine for something else - namely, 'pure and disinterested altruism'. — Wayfarer

Dawkins is not alone. Pretty much all the more cultured and intelligent atheists adopt a similar point of view. This is a very good book I read awhile ago about decision making and business. It's philosophical in its themes, so it's different than your run of the mill business book.

The idea is that the "selfish gene" marks our starting position. We start by being controlled by the "selfish gene" and we can only gain independence through sustained effort and education. This is similar to the doctrine often found in religions of the Fall of man. We are thrown into the world in a fallen state, and only recover and clean the surface of the mirror so to speak with time and intense effort.

So according to these atheists, we need to understand our chains - what binds us to the purposes of the selfish genes - in order to be able to free ourselves and find our own, true independence. The difference from this narrative, compared to the Platonic/Christian one is that the driving force is thymos (will) not eros (love).

And in this, the atheist is actually a spiritual person. It is a very Hegelian/Schopenhaurian spirituality, and I say that because I've started to read the two as essentially the same. Both Hegel and Schopenhauer develop a system that is driven by self-affirmation. For Schopenhauer, the will seeks to affirm itself. For Hegel, Spirit seeks its own self-affirmation in history through the negation of the other. It seeks to prove its own certainty - to make its certainty truth. Spirit never seeks the other out of love - it seeks the other to posit its own self - perhaps to find its own self in the other. It is very violent to the other.

The atheist becomes merely the - perhaps final - expression of the logos of modernity. The essence of modernity seems to be the will - and in this, our two last great metaphysicians agree. Love - altruism - is made subservient to the will. The will becomes fundamental. And this is a great inversion from the earlier Platonic thinkers where eros was the fundamental driving force, where desire was other-directed instead of self-directed. In modernity, desire is purely self-directed. Subjectivity becomes pure negativity - it is negation that is constitutive of the subject.

Indeed, the journey of the subject is fueled by this inner void that compels the subject to bring itself into being as it were. To make itself real. To transform itself - the void - into something substantial. Desire is pointed inward - desire itself is circular. Pure non-being becomes the active force. The end of desire or the will isn't the object anymore - but rather desire itself - its own self-affirmation. Obtaining the object desired is not the essential aspect anymore - rather it is the affirmation of the desire itself - which is exactly why desire is always frustrated in obtaining its object because self-affirmation knows no end.

That's why Schopenhauer decries the tragedy and cruelty of the Will. It is why Hegel states that Spirit develops only through intense suffering, and suffering is essential to its own development. It is why Marx states that capitalism devours itself. It is why we take suffering for granted in the modern world and dispense it without regard, especially to those closest to us. Even the noblest of modern thinkers can only go so far as the complete self-devouring of the Will - its quietus.

And all this ends in Nietzsche's will-to-power and Spinoza's conatus. Will turned inwards on itself. Desire is no longer conceived in terms of being caused by the external object, as it is for Platonists, where the Agathon pulls a being out of itself into the external world. But rather desire becomes the in-itself, self-sustaining and driving force of everything. It has to - for otherwise self-consciousness, which is desire, can never make itself all by itself. This is but the necessary result of the denial of transcendence (God), and the effect of spiritual pride. Desire is perverted and becomes demonic, and hence spiritual.

The self is no longer drawn out by the object through desire. Rather the self doesn't exist - it is anatta, a void. A process, not a being, constituted by desire itself. Objects become merely the opportunity for desire to objectify itself, and hence they're seen only as techne, as tools. Being - as Heidegger would say - is forgotten.

For all these thinkers, love is self-affirmation. Altruism is finding one's SELF in the other.
This is a lethe of the Platonic eros, where thymos - or will - takes its place entirely.

Indeed, the journey of the subject is fueled by this inner void that compels the subject to bring itself into being as it were. To make itself real. To transform itself - the void - into something substantial. Desire is pointed inward - desire itself is circular. Pure non-being becomes the active force. The end of desire or the will isn't the object anymore - but rather desire itself - its own self-affirmation. Obtaining the object desired is not the essential aspect anymore - rather it is the affirmation of the desire itself - which is exactly why desire is always frustrated in obtaining its object because self-affirmation knows no end. — Agustino

There appears to be something incorrect in this description. If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because there is nothing there to be desired. Desire is always point toward what is desired. So you have put together two opposing, or contradictory premises, to create a desire which is circular.

Either the subject has an inner void and desire is necessarily directed outward from this void, perhaps in an attempt to fill the void, or, if desire is directed inward then there must be a perceived object there which is desired. We could say that one or the other is an illusion, either that the void is an illusion, or that the inner thing desired is an illusion, but we cannot suppose the reality of both. Therefore you cannot propose such a circular desire without involving contradiction in your proposition. So your conclusion of frustration and "no end", is just a product of contradictory premises.

There appears to be something incorrect in this description. If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because there is nothing there to be desired. Desire is always point toward what is desired. So you have put together two opposing, or contradictory premises, to create a desire which is circular.

Either the subject has an inner void and desire is necessarily directed outward from this void, perhaps in an attempt to fill the void, or, if desire is directed inward then there must be a perceived object there which is desired. We could say that one or the other is an illusion, either that the void is an illusion, or that the inner thing desired is an illusion, but we cannot suppose the reality of both. Therefore you cannot propose such a circular desire without involving contradiction in your proposition. So your conclusion of frustration and "no end", is just a product of contradictory premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not my conclusion, I was drawing and spelling out a difference that is present in the thinking of modernity as opposed to more Ancient thinking.

Modernity does conceive subjectivity to be self-affirming desire, which is turned inwards on itself. I have explained how they have arrived at this conception, whether it is right or wrong I haven't much addressed, but I do think, same as you, that it isn't right. My post should have suggested that.

If there is an inner void, then it is impossible that desire is pointed inward, because there is nothing there to be desired. Desire is always point toward what is desired. So you have put together two opposing, or contradictory premises, to create a desire which is circular. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now to address your remarks on your own terms. Here's how the argument would go.

The inner void is constitutive of desire - it is desire. Desire just is the inner void trying to affirm itself - make itself actual - and failing to do so. Desire in this conception is not conceived with reference to any external or internal OBJECT. Rather it is conceived only with reference to itself. That is why, according to Spinoza for example, or Nietzsche, will-to-power or the conatus is the essence of man. This vain striving to no end - striving for its own sake.

Either the subject has an inner void and desire is necessarily directed outward from this void, perhaps in an attempt to fill the void, or, if desire is directed inward then there must be a perceived object there which is desired. We could say that one or the other is an illusion, either that the void is an illusion, or that the inner thing desired is an illusion, but we cannot suppose the reality of both. Therefore you cannot propose such a circular desire without involving contradiction in your proposition. So your conclusion of frustration and "no end", is just a product of contradictory premises. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here you illustrate that you're using a different conception of desire.