Truth be told, everytime Schopenhauer starts talking about the indivisible unity of the will, outside the principium individuationis, I get the sense he's not really sure himself what he's talking about. It's basically a somber and confused oscillation between negative theology and ontotheology. The diversity of the world, its conditioned multiplicity, must, its felt, rest on some unified unconditioned (Why? this is the ontotheological impulse accepted unquestioningly). But how's the unity of something inherently eristic supposed to work? What does that even mean? Well...(& then we get the negative theology) — csalisbury

Yeah, there are some assumptions where it might not be explained very completely, especially about unity of Will. As you stated, he uses a negative theology of sorts to get at the notion that if things are not individuated in space/time then they must be this unified whole I guess and apparently it strives and objectifies, but in some metaphysical sense that is not in space or time, so it is kind of like a sublime striving and objectifying.. which seems like a square circle or something.

So how would you tweak Schopenhauer? Is will individuated all the way through? Is there even will? How does evolution, entropy, the Big Bang, subjective experience, and all of science fall into this? Real easy stuff.

No, the will's grades clash with each other through their individuals in time.

Will is atemporal/ aspacial striving. The existence we are used to is that of representation — schopenhauer1

See, here I think you must not understand or agree with the intuition that Schopenhauer is trying to communicate about the will. The existence we are used to, or to be fair, the existence I am used to and find confirmed in Schopenhauer's philosophy, is that of a certain feeling, called willing, which is prior to and more basic than representing. The will is just a word abstracted from the feeling of the present moment, which is strictly incommunicable. I can only communicate and have knowledge of my will in time, in terms of distinct acts of will that I perceive after they have occurred, but as for sheer willing itself, this "occurs" in the timeless present, and this timeless feeling of willing or striving Schopenhauer simply calls the affirmation of the will to life, since what is known to be willed after the fact (i.e. in time) is life or representation.

The will is just a word abstracted from the feeling of the present moment, which is strictly incommunicable. I can only communicate and have knowledge of my will in time, in terms of distinct acts of will that I perceive after they have occurred, but as for sheer willing itself, this "occurs" in the timeless present, and this timeless feeling of willing or striving Schopenhauer simply calls the affirmation of the will to life, since what is known to be willed after the fact is life or representation. — Thorongil

No, I get it. That was a very good explanation of Schopenhauer's Will and its relationship to representation. Actually, I think I am going to quote you to answer @TheWillowOfDarkness in the "Mind is Illusion" thread as it is a very succinct but thorough summary.

Anyways, the part I am having trouble with is the dichotomy of the atemporality of Will and the presence of time/space in representation. Will is atemporal and representation at least has the appearance of time/space etc. The problem is when Schop talks about Will objectifying itself, as Will does not do "causality-like" things. To quote myself again:

Things arise in this side of things, things don't arise on the Will side of things. You can only maintain this if we lose the idea of "objectifying" because Will- being aspacial and atemporal does not do "causality-like" things. — schopenhauer1

In other words, time/space/the world as representation cannot come AFTER some originary period where all is Will. That makes no sense if Will is temporal and there is no before/after (and thus no causality). Rather, space/time/ the world as representation must "exist" (words do no justice here) right along side Will. It was there all along doing its time/space thing. However, that is a conundrum because time obviously has a beginning- which according to Schop happens with the first representing-making creature (something about "first eye opening" as a metaphor). Since time/space must have always been there (as there is no before/after as stated earlier), and since that occurs with first organism, there must have been an ever-present organism where time/space can always exist.

I know this might be muddled. If you need me to try to do a premise, conclusion thing, let me know.

I'll stick to this thread as you suggested.

The problem is when Schop talks about Will objectifying itself, as Will does not do "causality-like" things. — schopenhauer1

He does say that willing is causality seen from the inside, so to speak, though this is to speak metaphorically. As you know and have said, the only legitimate application of this concept is in relation to the world as representation, wherein physical bodies interact with one another in space and time. However, one of these bodies is my own. With all other objects, I know them superficially, but my own body I inhabit and know interiorly, which is to say, I know it as it is in itself, not merely as it appears. What is my body subjectively in itself? Not an object but a will, which then provides the key to understanding what all other objects are in themselves. The will, moreover, only wills one thing as a timeless act of will: life. The knowledge of distinct, individual objects and acts of will is, therefore, ultimately illusory.

In willing life, so too does the will simultaneously will knowledge of itself, the miracle par excellence as Schopenhauer calls it. Why is it a miracle? Because there is no reason the will should become aware of itself since the will has no reason for its existence to begin with. When you said that the PSR only applies to representations, not to the will itself, you were absolutely correct, but the will can still be and is the logical ground of representation. So we can ask: what grounds representation? The answer is the will. If we then ask what grounds the will, the answer is nothing. The will is groundless.

Being the reason or ground for something is not to be its cause. Reasons and causes are different things. Hence, the will did not and does not paradoxically cause representations to exist at some primordial point in time when a particular organism came on the scene and became self-conscious. It is rather the ground for the world as representation's existence. This is why what Schopenhauer is doing is called metaphysics and not physics. He's seeking a rational, philosophical explanation for the existence of the world, not a causal or physical one. This isn't to say the latter are not legitimate modes of explanation, however. The story we can tell about the evolution of inanimate matter, to simple celled organisms, and then to more complex forms of life is a perfectly legitimate explanation for our existence, but it's not the only one and is one-sided. So from this empirical perspective, it is true to say that the "first open eyed" organism is necessary in order to account for the world as representation, but only from this limited perspective.

The will, moreover, only wills one thing as a timeless act of will: life. The knowledge of distinct, individual objects and acts of will is, therefore, ultimately illusory. — Thorongil

This is why I made a separate thread about illusion. The "knowledge" part- the "illusion" has to be accounted for. It "exists" in some way. This illusion has been around since the first organisms according to Schopenhauer. Being that the illusion cannot come about at time "x", it has to have always been there (along with Will or as part of Will). Thus, the odd conclusion is there is an organism that was always there along or as part of Will. I know it is odd, but I am just taking the logic to its full conclusion.

No, the will's grades clash with each other through their individuals in time.

So the will is never at variance with itself, it's only the manifestations of the will that are at variance with one another? Is that right?

Thus, the odd conclusion is there is an organism that was always there along or as part of Will. I know it is odd, but I am just taking the logic to its full conclusion. — schopenhauer1

Yes, I quite agree that it's odd, or mind-bending as Wicks put it in that one comment about strange loops I made. It's really just a consequence of transcendental idealism. If you feel it's not merely odd but false or contradictory as well, then I don't know what else to say, as I don't find that it is for the above reasons.

Both statements are so general and vague that I don't initially have a problem with either of them.

In other words, time/space/the world as representation cannot come AFTER some originary period where all is Will. That makes no sense if Will is temporal and there is no before/after (and thus no causality). Rather, space/time/ the world as representation must "exist" (words do no justice here) right along side Will. It was there all along doing its time/space thing. However, that is a conundrum because time obviously has a beginning- which according to Schop happens with the first representing-making creature (something about "first eye opening" as a metaphor). Since time/space must have always been there (as there is no before/after as stated earlier), and since that occurs with first organism, there must have been an ever-present organism where time/space can always exist. — schopenhauer1

I am always myself. Where I do these begin or end? We can't really say where. One does not live to experience their conception. Nor does one experience there death. In the being of representation, there is no beginning or end. While existence may begin or cease, no instance of being does. I be and never do anything else. So does, from their own subjective point of view, anything else in the world. Even the rock, in terms of its own presence, never gets to experience its beginning or its end. It's either not yet there or ceased to be.

The distinct act of description (often termed "third person," though "first person descriptions are the same) is always accompanied by being which has no beginning nor end. Every moment of existence is "timeless" so to speak. A moment which is never captured by any other, no matter how much is known about it.

Schop almost understands this in Will. It a much better handling of the infinite expression of finite states than found in some other philosophy, such as that which suggest that humans have power over such expression. He's still doesn't quite grasp it though, for he views it as a consequence of representational experience (a state of space-time) rather than understanding it as a thing-in-itself. He's still thinking of the infinite in terms of space-time. Supposedly, it needs us (or the ever present organism) to be. He's given it a beginning (life) and an ending (death) when it doesn't have one. Not even in us, for we don't be at conception (we are yet to be made) or in death (we have ceased to be).

So from this empirical perspective, it is true to say that the "first open eyed" organism is necessary in order to account for the world as representation, but only from this limited perspective. — Thorongil

How can this empirical perspective (causality) be brought in if Schop is only interested in logical expression (reasons)? Moreover, how can there be an account of the world as representation (empirical) without making this category error? In either case, it is to be suppose Will must be given by space-time, by a state of the "first open eyed" organism.

Schop almost understands this in Will. It a much better handling of the infinite expression of finite states than found in some other philosophy, such as that which suggest that humans have power over such expression. He's still doesn't quite grasp it though, for he views it as a consequence of representational experience (a state of space-time) rather than understanding it as a thing-in-itself. He's still thinking of the infinite in terms of space-time. Supposedly, it needs us (or the ever present organism) to be. He's given it a beginning (life) and an ending (death) when it doesn't have one. Not even in us, for we don't be at conception (we are yet to be made) or in death (we have ceased to be). — TheWillowOfDarkness

I sort of see where your going, but you are going to have to lay down a more explicit explanation for your own point of view in contrast to Schopenhauer and in the simplest terms possible.

It seems very strange to me to say that its not the will that clashes with itself; that, instead, it's the manifestations which clash. Is the will not present in its objectifications? If not, how are they manifestations of the will?

Sure it's present.

Then why did you claim it's incorrect to say the will clashes with itself?

It's incorrect in one sense but not in another. The will clashes with itself in time, as the verb "clashes" implies. In itself, the will doesn't clash with anything, since there is nothing besides the will that exists or can be said to exist.

eh, sure - think we lost the plot for tepid niceties but this thread's toast anyway

eh, sure - think we lost the plot for tepid niceties but this thread's toast anyway — csalisbury

I didn't! Your claim is that Will cannot "do" things in causal like-fashion. If the world of appearances are an illusion, then the illusion must be accounted for. The appearance of it exists, and therefore something outside of Will exists (but how can this be if everything is "actually" Will!!). One way around this is that both the world of will and appearance are flipsides of each other- one did not "arise" out of the other (or otherwise fall into the fallacy of attributing causality to Will). Schopenhauer1's nuance was that the odd conclusion that comes from appearance being the flipside of Will, would be that an ever-present organism would have to exist in order for the world of appearances to not just "arise" from nowhere but always persist (as it cannot just come on the scene at any point in time "x"). Maybe that will set the gears going again!

I think, to be honest, I'm happy to just leave Schopenhauer altogether. An atemporal, unified, will doesn't make any sense at all. What is will-like about such a thing? There are many beautiful passages and insights in WWR, but as a system, it's hard to take seriously.

An atemporal, unified, will doesn't make any sense at all. What is will-like about such a thing? — csalisbury

With respect, I don't think you've shown how it doesn't make any sense, at least to me.

Yeah, idk man, one can only take so many 'language itself is metaphorical' type responses before it stops seeming worth it.

Complaining about the metaphoric nature of metaphors is silly.

Yeah, so this is exactly the kind of response I'm talking about.

I'm fine with ending this conversation if you want. I've tried to respond to you in good faith, despite the admittedly sarcastic nature of some of my replies.