We are the universe's self-reflecting strivers. Pursuing due to the unrecognized underlying principle of entropy. We must work, work, work.. — schopenhauer1

Reminds me of:

"Misery's the river of the world
Everybody row! " Tom Waits

The point that life involves a sort of striving is well-made.

There remains a logical issue here. The more @schopenhauer1 shows that the Will is like entropy, the less the Will involves intent.

And yet, intent would appear to be intrinsic to will.

So the more @schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about.

How are the Schopenhauerean conclusions overwrought though? — schopenhauer1

I was not discussing Schopenhauer.

So the more schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about. — Banno

Yes, but Schopenhauer never really conceived of Will in the way you are using it, what I'll call the "common usage". He thought of Will (with a capital W to show its primacy) as noumenal character of reality. It is not just the appearance of things, but the thing-in-itself. Will is a striving principle, a force (but not in any scientific way) that has for itself a sort of an illusory aspect that we might call "mind". This illusory aspect is the world as appearance (hence the name of his book, The World as Will and Representation). This appearance of things has a structure to it. It seems to have qualities of space/time/causality, for example. Within these parameters, there seems to be the flow and emergence of matter/energy. This is the world of the phenomena. This is the world that we can empirically see through experience and observation. This is the world of science that we all seem to think is real.

So, Schopenhauer starts with the self, as your own body is in a way a gateway point to the thing-in-itself. It is both a physical body, yet we perceive an internal aspect to this physical body. When he gets to the root of it, he sees the body and the internal aspect of mind behind it, as a striving something. It must be then, but a manifestation of the general noumenal principle behind everything, which is the general principle of Will. So our own wills is in a way a case in point of the more general Will. The appearance of a self that is a subject for an object, with an identity, that is perceives objects in space and time, is just that, an appearance. The underlying reality is Will. A good quote about this is from the Wikipedia page about Will as seen in this quote:

Schopenhauer disagreed with Kant's critics and stated that it is absurd to assume that phenomena have no basis. Schopenhauer proposed that we cannot know the thing in itself as though it is a cause of phenomena. Instead, he said that we can know it by knowing our own body, which is the only thing that we can know at the same time as both a phenomenon and a thing in itself.

When we become conscious of ourself, we realize that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. These are characteristics of that which we call our will. Schopenhauer affirmed that we can legitimately think that all other phenomena are also essentially and basically will. According to him, will "is the innermost essence, the kernel, of every particular thing and also of the whole. It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man…."[8] Schopenhauer said that his predecessors mistakenly thought that the will depends on knowledge. According to him, though, the will is primary and uses knowledge in order to find an object that will satisfy its craving. That which, in us, we call will is Kant's "thing in itself", according to Schopenhauer.

Now a main conclusion from Schopenhauer's Will is the part in the quote where it says that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. This is where his pessimism comes in. It is a constant lack or dissatisfaction that is rarely satisfied and rarely satisfied for long. The point was not that the metaphysics of entropy and the metaphysics of Will should be equated, but that entropy's proscription to organize energy into work, creates its own striving, craving, wanting, and desiring- that is to say working humans. And just like Schopenhauer's Will, which has no intent, no goal, no aim, but just to strive, entropy has no goal, no aim, no intent, but just to carry out its principle which consequently leads to the work of the negentropic organism. Just like Will is a ceaseless task master for the illusory self caught in its grip, entropy is a ceaseless task master for the individual organisms that must strive under the work and striving of surviving, maintaining, and entertaining. Just as we can see the restless character of Will in our internal view of the world, so too can we see the restless character of the organism, experiencing the work of entropy from a first person point of view- striving, surviving, trying to deal with the physical and social environment, to keep moving. Entropy and Will don't care about the individual, they simply do what they do, which is carry out their principle. We simply are manifestations of this and must deal with this principle working itself through us as individuals- carrying forth our goals.

The point that life involves a sort of striving is well-made.

There remains a logical issue here. The more schopenhauer1 shows that the Will is like entropy, the less the Will involves intent.

And yet, intent would appear to be intrinsic to will.

So the more @schopenhauer1 shows the Will to be like entropy, the less the Will is like the sort of will we usually talk about. — Banno

I disagree with almost everything Schopenhauer1 says, usually, but I don't agree with this criticism. You can even translate this easily into the OLP atmosphere. We're all familiar with wanting something we try not to want, I imagine. Something deeper than us works through us. "the best-laid plans of mice and men.' I'm skeptical of anyone claims that their life has worked like: intended something with full conscious awareness of intending it- and then the rest followed

I think maybe the conversation is foundering on 'will' which has been nicely domesticated in one quarter, has been assigned another function by others

We work from fundamentally different pictures.

Kant's invention of the being-in-itself led to all sorts of philosophical garden paths; Schopenhauer being only one, particularly sad, case.

Kant first noted that there were things about which we cannot make statements; a worthy claim. But those that followed him in the phenomenological tradition took delight in making statements concerning the stuff about which we cannot speak. Effing the ineffable...

But that's not to say there is nothing in Schopenhauer worthy of consideration. It's just that other analyses of our relationship to the world lead to happier alternatives.

When he uses 'Will', Schopenhauer is talking about something similar to will, but also distinct from it. SO it is important to set forth the distinction. That's what I am after, if you like. I remain confused as to what the Will is, despite your valiant attempts to help me out.

...a main conclusion from Schopenhauer's Will is the part in the quote where it says that our essential qualities are endless urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. — schopenhauer1

Now urging, craving, striving, wanting, and desiring are for something... they have an objective, and reaching that objective becomes a purpose. I understand from what you said that Schopenhauer wants to, in a fashion, universalise this; so it make no difference what the object of striving is, it will always be there. In removing the object of desire, he derives a type of striving that has no object, and hence no intent.

So he goes from willing (a) and willing (b) and willing (c) and so on to Willing ( ), where there is no object.

Then he goes from Willing ( ) back to willing (a), so that what (a) is, is the willing of (a).

Doubtless this is oversimplified, so finesse it if you must; but remember that I have to understand what he is saying from my own Stoa. In the end I am not interested in an exegesis of Schopenhauer but in what there is in his thought that can be useful.

This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.

The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality.

Folk tried to leave it behind by calling it being-in-itself, but it has a nasty stubbornness.

So Schopenhauer's story is fun, but ultimately misguided.

If you are saying that there is a play on will ad Will going on, then I agree. Otherwise, I'm not sure of your point.

are you saying we live to work, but must work to live? sounds like we are a bunch of oxymorons.

So he goes from willing (a) and willing (b) and willing (c) and so on to Willing ( ), where there is no object.

Then he goes from Willing ( ) back to willing (a), so that what (a) is, is the willing of (a).

Doubtless this is oversimplified, so finesse it if you must; but remember that I have to understand what he is saying from my own Stoa. In the end I am not interested in an exegesis of Schopenhauer but in what there is in his thought that can be useful. — Banno

Ok, this isn't a bad little summary.

This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.

The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality. — Banno

The whole point of the thread was to show that it was not Schopenhauer's Will that I am proposing, but rather that the scientific principle of entropy does just fine bringing about the "willing" and "striving" that Will does, and though not in the same category of metaphysics (one a noumenal "beyond science" and one empirically concluded through observation and mathematics), the conclusions of a being that is striving is what is relevant here between the two. So I guess I am perplexed at your wanting to denigrate Schop's idea of Will, when it is not what I am even trying to focus on, but rather the parallels between how Will negatively affects humans and its parallels with entropy and how it negatively affects humans. In other words, I'm looking at the similarities in the pessimistic outcomes of both. The very point is, one doesn't even need to believe in the claim of Schop's Will, only look at the principle of entropy, and the pessimistic conclusion for humans operates the same. That is the matter I am trying to discuss. That is what @csalisbury meant when he said

I think maybe the conversation is foundering on 'will' which has been nicely domesticated in one quarter, has been assigned another function by others — csalisbury

You also said:

This tale of Willing appears to have a very large problem. It's just that the world is not what is willed. There is stuff that stays as it is, with no regard to will. Stuff that stays as it is without regard to what we might think.

The stuff that stays the same regardless of what you think of it is reality.

Folk tried to leave it behind by calling it being-in-itself, but it has a nasty stubbornness.

So Schopenhauer's story is fun, but ultimately misguided. — Banno

Yes, I am not an expert on Schop, but I will say that I think Schop waffled between being a proto-panpsychist and a straight-up idealist. At first, he discusses that appearances are illusions of individuals- just the will striving for an object, but then the question is, are there a multiplicity of POVs or just my POV? It seems he does allow for a multiplicity of POVs, as he believes there are Platonic ideas that mediate the Will, and even that each individual human has a Platonic essential character, etc. But then, it also seems like forces nature themselves can have aspects of Will, like gravity, and complex objects like rocks, etc. So that would indicate more of a panpsychist stance- there is a dual aspect of internal will and external object to every phenomena at every level perhaps. But then, where do the Platonic ideas fit into this scheme? So yeah, I can see where one would be confused if I were to be completely objectively critical.

However, I will defend that Schop is more wiley and sophisticated than you let on, though I know you don't want a complete exegesis. The main idea is that the phenomenal would be at its most primal, an illusion of a Will that entraps itself in some way. Anyways, we don't have to go down this fun rabbit hole if you don't want to. We can take the very well-trodden Main Street of entropy, which functions similarly to Will in what it is for the individual human (not in its metaphysics).

People (some?) bring up the notion of entropy to describe some fatalistic notions of the futility of the human will contra Nature's Will. I find that as a gross overgeneralization due to the fact that humans can adapt at a rate faster than what Nature imposes through superfluous notions of 'entropy'.

I find that idiotic to say the least. I hope that's not happening here.

People (some?) bring up the notion of entropy to describe some fatalistic notions of the futility of the human will contra Nature's Will. I find that as a gross overgeneralization due to the fact that humans can adapt at a rate faster than what Nature imposes through superfluous notions of 'entropy'.

I find that idiotic to say the least. I hope that's not happening here. — Posty McPostface

Yes, I would agree as well. No, if you have paid attention to my thread, my main point was this:
The whole point of the thread was to show that it was not Schopenhauer's Will that I am proposing, but rather that the scientific principle of entropy does just fine bringing about the "willing" and "striving" that Will does, and though not in the same category of metaphysics (one a noumenal "beyond science" and one empirically concluded through observation and mathematics), the conclusions of a being that is striving is what is relevant here between the two.

Of course, then you may ask, what is the utility we get from this conclusion. Antinatalism would be one thing that comes to mind. If entropy creates a condition of negentropic organisms striving, and working to survive, then of course not creating new individuals that experience this would be an ethic that would spring forth. Do you want to participate in the imperative for more anxious, striving organisms that on a universal level, are a result of dissipating the transfer of energy?

On a further note, people who do not understand the negative character of Schopenhauer's conception of striving, might not see fully why this is a negative. There is a dissatisfaction, a lack, at the heart of our very existence as a normally-evolved, enculturated, surviving human being.