>:O

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having. — Baden

ok good work, now it's time to tactically vote — JJJJS

@Baden

Isn't this a clear case of political evangelism?

Don't worry the cab driver's happy now! :P

as cynical and pointless as people like agustino — JJJJS

>:O >:O >:O

I would have voted for Trump, so what can you expect from me.

They do. If you click on the "4 hours ago" or whatever time it is, the link will appear in the URL, and you can copy it.

Something like: without the thing-in-itself, there would be no Will, without​ Will, there would be no phenomena. As such, any instance of phenomena and the Will may be considered of the thing-in-itself, as the thing-in-itself is ground of both (in the sense of "with"; neither Will nor phenomena can be given without the thing-in-itself). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, but in S's system this is non-sensical because it would imply that the thing-in-itself is the ground of the Will - this would suggest that the PSR applies to the thing-in-itself as well, which is totally contrary to the position S would hold. Since the thing-in-itself is beyond space, time, causality and the PSR, it cannot stand as ground for the Phenomenon (or for the Will) for that matter.

Why? Because X. Why? Because Y. Why? Because the Will. Why? There is no more why. PSR, time, space, and causality end with after the Will. Will is ground of the phenomenal world, and it has no reason for its existence. Will is one side - thing-in-itself is the other. That's how I'd see Schopenhauer's enterprise. Veil of Maya <-> Nirvana.

If the will is independent of cognition as the thing-in-itself, one cannot within the boundaries of the intellect confirm the existence of it, ergo it would be contradictory to state otherwise and hence why it is unknowable, an immanent metaphysic that defies an empirical answer just as much as one cannot claim freedom from the will. The result is that one is condemned to a paradox. There is a transcendence from this metaphysics, but that still remains an appearance that interprets the thing-in-itself. "I know my will not as a whole, not as a unity, not completely according to its nature, but only in its individual acts, and hence in time, which is the form of my body's appearing, as it is of every body. Therefore, the body is the condition of knowledge of my will." He is trying to strike down our cognitive limitations while at the same time acknowledge the essence of our nature, the key being conceptual knowledge hence Ideas. — TimeLine

Have you read this post (and the one quoted from Thorongil, and then followed the discussion)?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/52614#Post_52614

You're functioning under the wrong impression that the Will is thing-in-itself. If the Will is mediated through time (BUT not through space and causality), then the Will cannot be thing-in-itself. The Will is the ground of the Phenomenon, but there is something beyond this. That's the thing-in-itself.

I'm sorry, cupcake, but you haven't shown this at all. — Thorongil

>:O >:O >:O "Ms. Granger, put that hand down!"

He denies the illusory will, the representations that individuate. The will in-itself stands outside of this intellect or cognitive faculty and is the force behind everything. — TimeLine

Schopenhauer in the second Volume of WWR pulls back from the complete identification of thing-in-itself with Will. Therefore what is left after the complete abolition of the Will is nothing from the perspective of us - those still full of Will.

Intellect cannot guide the Will, that is define a direction of the Will, because intellect is already movement of the Will. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, intellect doesn't define direction, you're quite right about that. Intellect only tells the Will how to get to where it wants to get. I wouldn't say intellect is movement of the Will though. Intellect is separate from the activity of willing - at least in principle. It's similar to the distinction Hume made between reason and the passions.

However - if we are considering "normally" functioning individuals, then the intellect is subservient to the will, and ONLY works when the will works - so in that sense, yes, the intellect is already movement of the Will. But it doesn't have to be like that - hence Schopenhauer's denial of the will.

I understand what you are trying to say, but when you say "his will is still guided by that intellect" only it lacks 'power' that this grading of the objectification of the will (and I assume lower phenomenon) lacks this so-called power because it is unable to perceive Ideas and is thus subsumed. It becomes irrelevant; you either are, or you are not and when the latter, the intellect is subject to the will. — TimeLine

That the intellect guides the will presupposes that the intellect is subservient to the will already. The will wants X. The intellect tells the will how to get X. Will it take road A or B? That's the choice.

That's why this has nothing to do with genius or sainthood, but with our natural way of functioning.

Let's go back to the problem I had initially, the notion that there is no free-will but there is free-choice and the latter purports an intellect or capacity to distinguish between the subject and an object, a person who can experience space and time superior to the independence of this will. As you say Intellect is what gives eyes to the will and makes it see - stops it from being blind, and hence makes it able to choose based on the material the intellect furnishes, but to reach that level of transcendence, to actually be capable of giving 'eyes to the will' manifests itself in what Schop. refers as 'genius' or in his aesthetic argument and corresponds to Platonic Ideas as being the instigator of this capacity to become independent of the principle of sufficient reason. — TimeLine

Schopenhauer's conception of genius seems different:

Mere men of talent always come at the right time; for, as they are roused by the spirit of their age and are called into being by its needs, they are only just capable of satisfying them. They therefore go hand in hand with the advancing culture of their contemporaries, or with the gradual advancement of a special science; for this they reap reward and approbation. But to the next generation their works are no longer enjoyable; they must be replaced by others; and these do not fail to appear.

The genius, on the other hand, lights on his age like a comet into the paths of the planets, to whose well-regulated and comprehensible arrangement its wholly eccentric course is foreign. Accordingly, he cannot go hand in hand with the regular course of the culture of the times as found; on the contrary, he casts his works far out on to the path in front (just as the emperor, giving himself up to death, flings his spear among the enemy), on which time has first to overtake them… Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people’s capacity to achieve, yet not what is beyond their capacity of apprehension; therefore it at once finds its appreciators. The achievement of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others’ capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehension; therefore they do not become immediately aware of it. Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target … which others cannot even see. — WWR Vol II Chapter XXXI

As you say Intellect is what gives eyes to the will and makes it see - stops it from being blind, and hence makes it able to choose based on the material the intellect furnishes, but to reach that level of transcendence, to actually be capable of giving 'eyes to the will' manifests itself in what Schop. refers as 'genius' or in his aesthetic argument and corresponds to Platonic Ideas as being the instigator of this capacity to become independent of the principle of sufficient reason. — TimeLine

No level of transcendence is required at all. Even a person with a weak intellect - his will is still guided by that intellect - only that the intellect isn't powerful enough to see all the choices that are available, to see the advantages/disadvantages they entail, etc. So the weak intellect is almost as if the will was blind.

Also the main trait of the genius isn't intellect, but perception/imagination. The genius SEES what others can't see.

To be a genius is the only the intellect can surpass the will, when for most it merely serves it. — TimeLine

No, the intellect surpasses the will in saints, where the will completely denies itself. In artistic geniuses this happens only momentarily, via glimpses obtained through Platonic Ideas.

I've read this:

As in Kant's aesthetics, genuine art on Schopenhauer's view is the product of a genius or someone who has been “momentarily inspired to the point of genius” (WWR I, 261). But he construes the creative process of the genius rather differently from Kant. For all of the fine arts save for music—which constitutes an important exception treated below—the genius produces art first by contemplating an Idea in nature or from human affairs. Sometimes the genius is aided by her imagination which allows her to perceive Ideas in possible as well as in actual experience. Then, with technical skill she embodies the Ideas she has perceived into a form (be it in marble, paint or words on the printed page) that enables the Ideas to be perceived by others. In this way, the genius lends her superlative ability to perceive Ideas in actual or imagined things to the ordinary person, who can less readily perceive Ideas from the phenomenal world.

Schopenhauer sees a relationship between genius and madness. He believes that “every increase in intellect beyond the ordinary measure is an abnormality that disposes one to madness” (WWR I, 215); since the genius is distinctive for her superfluity of intellect (WWR I, 211), which allows her to withdraw from mundane concerns more often and more sustainedly in order to perceive the Ideas in things and in the patterns of human life, she is thus disposed to madness. Also, geniuses resemble madmen insofar as they are often so engrossed in perceiving the essential in life that they pay little attention to particulars, and are generally terrible in practical affairs. But the real distinguishing factor between the “madman” and the genius has to do with memory. From his “frequent visits to madhouses” and his reflections on the symptoms of these real inmates as well as on those of characters in literature who have gone insane (e.g., Ophelia, King Lear, Ajax), Schopenhauer hypothesizes that the mad lack reliable interconnections between past and present events, and in many cases this is due to some traumatic event they have suffered in their past. By contrast, the genius has a memory that functions normally.

But I still don't see what this has to do with what we were talking about. We weren't discussing Platonic Ideas.

Especially this one, and the post I'm quoting from Thorongil there:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/52614#Post_52614

Are you unfamiliar with his aesthetics? I'll ignore your little cheap diversion for now. — TimeLine

Yes I am familiar with Book III of WWR, what about it? The point I was driving has nothing to do with it. Furthermore it has absolutely 0 to do with S's discussion of genius.

Why are you bringing the Platonic Ideas in discussion when we were talking about the Will, Representation and Thing-In-Itself? You do know that the Thing-In-Itself is revealed with the quietus of the Will, so how can Thing-In-Itself be Will, ultimately?

Familiarise yourself with this thread. Read all posts there: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1036/schopenhauers-transcendental-idealism/p1

Did you use a Pomo essay generator for that? :P I really don't understand what you're trying to say, and I'm quite familiar with Schopenhauer.

• Representations aren't the experience of the will in-itself. Will and Representation are two sides of the same reality.
• I don't see what anything I've written about has to do with genius.

No, your comment here is a salad of Schopenhauer's concepts, which is precisely why I've ignored it.

I think you may have confused what Schopenhauer meant here, that the will is independent, a thing in-itself. Our perception of the external world is merely a representation of this will, but what this representation may be perceived as does not necessarily represent reality as it is, as our instinctual drives can propel us to act independent of reason for instance. — TimeLine

Absolute nonsense. First, YOUR WILL isn't thing-in-itself. Second, Will (impersonal) can be thing-in-itself with reference to the phenomenon, but not absolutely. That's why S. leaves the thing-in-itself as unknown in Vol II.

Wait, will stops one from being blind? I think Schopenhauer just turned in his grave. — TimeLine

Do you have reading comprehension problems? :s

Not sure the correlation between sitting and standing to this (again, :-} ); our characters are shaped by this will and yes, there are limitations to free-will, but it is not entirely absent and suddenly replaced with 'choice' which basically contradicts what Schopenhauer was attempting to convey. The freedom we assume - the 'choice' - is actually illusory. — TimeLine

Then perhaps you should read more Schopenhauer. What one does is what one wills. Willing to move my hand to the left is moving my hand to the left. There is no willing in the absence of doing.

Choice is possible merely because it's will mediated by intellect. Intellect is what gives eyes to the will and makes it see - stops it from being blind, and hence makes it able to choose based on the material the intellect furnishes.

And, please, I have no time to waste on a series of superfluous straw-mans — TimeLine

Neither do I :-}

our characters are shaped by this will and yes, there are limitations to free-will, but it is not entirely absent and suddenly replaced with 'choice' which basically contradicts what Schopenhauer was attempting to convey. — TimeLine

The only freedom that the will has lies in the choices it makes.

There have been lottery wins and millionaire athletes who have squandered their wealth and ended up poor. — Marchesk

Yes but that's merely the result of complete lack of discipline. That's alike being an idiot in poker and squandering your money away, not putting any speck of intelligence in your play.

And then there are those who have invested and created businesses and ended up more wealthy. — Marchesk

That does involve a lot of luck to be able to make millions. Pure skill and aptitude only takes you so far in the absence of right opportunities.

It's not all luck. Some of it has to do with being smart with what you have. — Marchesk

Sure it's not. Luck gives you the breakthroughs, it's up to you to preserve & expand on them.

So A couldn't have a run of bad luck along with the combination of possible bad decision or two? — Harry Hindu

Of course it's possible, but he'd have to be very dumb and unlucky.

Yeah I just did it because I know JJJJS is a brainwashed Labor-lover who would be pissed off by UKIP support (just look at the thread title, and compare to the question asked inside at the poll - that justifies why Labor gets such high %s here).

How did A win that first hand? Couldn't you say that he had no control over the hand he was dealt? The same could happen in the next round for someone else, and there are always the tactics of cheating and bluffing. — Harry Hindu

It's a combination of circumstances that accounted for the first win. I sum that up to luck, because it didn't depend solely on the individual's skill.

"Cheating" is difficult in poker - the only possibility is to see other's cards, or control the cards that are dealt or that come up.

Bluffing is fine, but it's not very effective when the other guy towers over you to the extent that even if you go all-in and win, it doesn't affect him very much. He knows that, so the risk you pose by bluffing becomes more minimal from his POV.

Pfft, good luck. — TimeLine

What do I look like? — Heister Eggcart

Oh dear Heister... you should watch out man, you don't want to end up mashed potato do you? >:O

Hopefully I have a club and live under a bridge. — Heister Eggcart

He wants to make sure that he appears as a match for:

raging amazonian genius who screams and eats whole cooked chickens while slushing down a pot of ale. — TimeLine

(L)

>:O >:O >:O

Everybody. — Bitter Crank

Sure but the risks aren't the same. If I design and build an online shop + a marketing campaign to build traffic and get conversions for a client my risk is what? I get paid 50% upfront, 25% only when I give access, and the last 25% based on results I generate for them. It's almost 100% risk free for me. What can happen? At worst, I lose 25%, not a big deal. I'm already profiting even just from the upfront payment. So all I lose is some time. But my client on the other hand loses all their investment, including the time they spent sourcing products, negotiating with suppliers, paying for the website, paying for company incorporation, accounting fees, etc. So is it fair that they can gain 100x what I gain from my labour? I think so. They're risking a LOT more.

the employees who risk injury on the job — Bitter Crank

This depends on the job, not all jobs involve this.

But, the worker who depends on a job to exist in many ways has much more to lose than the investors and bankers who will not starve if the project falls apart. — Bitter Crank

I disagree. The worker can always look for another job - he never loses actual money - just a source of income. If the entrepreneur loses his money, he's finished pretty much (as an entrepreneur at least, until he gathers up sufficient capital again). Big investors and bankers will not starve by one project failing, but a small time investor will. As I said - the size asymmetry protects them. But the size asymmetry doesn't explain how they got the size asymmetry in the first place!

There is no fair and ethical way to make a billion dollars. — Sivad

I doubt this is true, simply because a lot of the "billion dollar" level fortunes are made with a big deal of luck. It's not impossible to make a billion dollars if you're sitting on an industry where the demand is meant to explode in the coming decades, and you're positioned such that you can capture most of it. Exploitation is really penny pinching at that level. If I make $1 billion in profit, does it really matter if I pay 50% tax or 20%? (the difference between $800 million and $500 million). Does it really matter if I pay my workers 50% more? Sure that will cut into my profits, but if I have a really strong operation it still doesn't matter. I would still be making a huge profit provided that my profit margin is big enough.

How many poor communities do you think Rockefeller screwed out of their land for pennies on the dollar? — Sivad

Only if it was this easy. It's very difficult to buy land for pennies on the dollar. What you'd need to be able to do that is find people who are desperate to sell - they need the money because someone died, for an accident, or an illness, etc. Sounds quite easy. But how will you actually find those people before anyone else does? The only way this will happen is if you're already quite a big (big is relative - you have to be big in comparison to your community) real estate agent or investor, and you have an entire network built up to source deals for you.

Even with regards to foreclosures. Many think "Ahh easy, let's buy a property at 50% value from the bank". The bank isn't dumb. Their own people are evaluating that property when the 50% value is calculated, and of course they'll overvalue it. Just like when you see shops putting up 80% discounts, while the items are still at their regular prices. To actually get the good foreclosure deals you have to be a big investor. Then the bank calls you up, before anyone else, to offer you the deal.

As I said, these are competitive advantages that form barriers to entry for everyone else. They're not easy to overcome. It's like the size advantage in poker, once the asymmetry is established, it's almost impossible to break through it, except by fortunate circumstances.

So how did Rockefeller actually become rich? Luck + Discipline. He was there at the beginning of the oil industry, when it was so easy to make money in oil that people became millionaires overnight from it! It was like a gold rush. Everyone was making money, and LOTS of it. Rockefeller was simply the most disciplined out of all of them. When everyone else was busy enjoying the quick money they were making, and feeling no pressure to make their operations more efficient because the money was good, Rockefeller did just that. But what enabled him to do all that was the huge pent-up demand for oil - big earnings meant power, and power, used with discipline, could be consolidated into an unbreakable advantage.

If it wasn't for the oil industry, Rockefeller would've been just a regular, but wealthy man, who saved and took care of his money.

>:O I'm fucking joking. I'd never vote UKIP. If I was honest, I'd have gone for Lib Dems.

What if I spill the beans about the moderator forum? :-O >:O

Au contraire! If this was a forum just for casual chitchat, then you should have simplified things as much as possible - like now. For simple chitchat people wouldn't need additional features (think Facebook). But because this isn't such a forum, you should give users more possibilities.

It did happen though before that I won a really big first hand, and then proceeded to dominate the game really easily, which is what inspired me to think about it. How much easier that was compared to when I was on the losing end, trying to climb back up. That latter one was almost impossible. — Agustino

It's funny that people think they were lucky - but the truth is that they were just exploiting an asymmetry generated by pure luck. They say "Oh I kept getting great cards!" - but the truth is they just kept winning. Why? Because they were risking nothing while forcing everyone else to risk big time.

The hard work that is generally not rewarded so handsomely is the hard work of people hired to turn the ideas into profits. Like the employees at Walmart that VagabondSpectre was talking about. Or the employees of lots of companies who are not well paid. Apple is not the norm. — Bitter Crank

Yes, but they're not risking their own capital are they? I mean you could say some of my clients exploit me too, but I wouldn't put it like that. They're risking their capital to get returns. I'm doing a service for them - I'm risking no capital, just giving them my time. I can't lose. They stand to lose if things go wrong.

It was the manufacturing workers who produced the profits. — Bitter Crank

But who was taking the risks?

The person who plays does not always have to bet, they can fold, sit and wait for a high margin hand, and then they can challenge whomever is playing, in fact many do not bet unless they are the dealer, because they want to bet in the last position where they can see what others have bet. — Cavacava

Yes, I am aware, I am a poker player myself. I simplified the example on purpose to illustrate the point. It did happen though before that I won a really big first hand, and then proceeded to dominate the game really easily, which is what inspired me to think about it. How much easier that was compared to when I was on the losing end, trying to climb back up. That latter one was almost impossible.

But either way. If I had the 3200 I would be asking 100 every round at the beginning before the flop. So just to join the game, you'd have to risk 17% of your wealth. Even if you were landed [A, A], and I was landed just decent cards, say [7, 10] I'm still +EV on that because my risk is 4 times smaller than yours. And the probability of winning, even if granted [A, A] isn't that great - it's about 33%. That means more often than not, even with [A, A] - the best cards possible - you'll lose. I have no problem playing you - I lose very little if I do, just 100.

So if you play me, and the flop comes, and I have nothing, I'll ask for another 100 (if it's my turn, or if I speak at the end - or towards the end - I'll watch what others do. If I sense someone has winning cards, then I'll fold). If you go all-in at that point, you might make me feel nervous, and I probably won't risk playing you. But you've gained just 200 - nothing. How many times would you need to do that to ruin my wealth?

It is a rare game where the person who wins the first pot ends up winning the entire game, probably because most bettors are more prudent. — Cavacava

Yes, but I've had games where I won a very big first hand and then won the rest afterwards. It does happen.

You can have the biggest kitty on the table, but if you keep getting dealt [7,2] or similar under, you will not have the biggest position for long. — Cavacava

Be realistic, what are the odds of that happening? I know 7 2 is the worst combo, but when you're rich, even that one isn't so bad that you don't play it.

Walmart doesn't just destroy the competition, they are very hard on their suppliers -- forcing down prices until the companies are forced to take their manufacturing to the lowest paid workforce overseas or go broke. — Bitter Crank

To be honest, I've yet to see a supermarket - even in my own country - that doesn't do (or try to do) EXACTLY the same. It's just controlling the distribution channel. If people absolutely need you to distribute their products, you dictate the terms.

Eye roll. — Sapientia

Right, and this isn't melodramatic?

The cards are the cards, you are just as likely to get a good hand and you can still go all-in. — Cavacava

Yes but if someone having 600 goes all-in and loses, he's finished. If someone having 3200 goes all-in (meaning he puts just 600 because that's all the others can pay) he merely loses 19% of his wealth. Not a big disaster, he can recover. That's the asymmetry.

The original accumulation generally involves the exploited labor of others — Bitter Crank

I'm not so sure. I tend to think that exploitation always requires power, and just like in the poker example, the bullying only begins once that power is already obtained.

But it would depend how you define exploitation, so how would you define that? Because for example I have clients earning 100x what I earn from websites/advertising that I've done for them. One could consider that exploitation too, because they get disproportionately large incomes from my labour, compared to what I'm paid.

Sure, Andrew Carnegie or Rockefeller did exploit - but only after they were already big organisations. Both Standard Oil and Carnegie Steel started as small operations. When they were small companies they simply didn't have the strength to oppress. Same for Wal-Mart now. When it first started, there must have been other supermarkets out there. So exploitation doesn't tell us why Wal-Mart got big in the first place, it tells us why it stays big now.

The highly paid help at Apple Corporation doesn't make phones, computers, or music. Other people do that -- generally not at much profit to themselves. Apple employees design and manage. A lot of "original accumulation" has happened there (and at other corporations, of course). — Bitter Crank

Or take this example. Apple can exploit now - and it could exploit because even when Steve Jobs had just returned, Apple was still a billion dollar company - it had a lot of resources available.

So I think this "original accumulation" is often the product of either (1) chance, (2) hard work, (3) catching the right opportunities. For example. Mark Zuckerberg. I don't actually think Mark Zuckerberg is a great businessman. I think if he had just been born in a different place, he probably would have been a psychologist (what he was initially studying at Harvard) or a small time businessman, but certainly not a great business success. He was lucky - he landed on a pot of gold. Sure, he's a smart guy, but there's many smarter guys out there, including businessmen that are a lot more savvy.

Same for Bill Gates. I mean look at him. Does that figure inspire business confidence in you?! No, but he was one of the few people to get really early in the computer industry, made a lot of money really quickly, and then just used that to get richer and richer - hence why he's still worth like what, $80-90 billion despite claiming to be giving so much of his wealth away.

There are some skilled businessmen too though - Michael Dell comes to mind, or Elon Musk. But there's definitely a high degree of luck in going from small to big - a lucky break. Going from big to HUGE quite possibly (in many cases) does involve "exploitation" but I'm waiting to see how you define it!

What's your issue with UKIP though? Their policies are exactly what Britain needs.