Andrew L. wrote:Jlamour, what are you talking about? In what sense was Nietzsche a Platonist?

Nietzsche wrote:The Will to Power:

"Consciousness"--to what extent the idea of an idea, the idea of will, the idea of a feeling (known to ourselves alone) are totally superficial! Our inner world, too, "appearance"!

This quote is in regards to epistemology but it still reveals a Platonist view of metaphysics. A dichotomy between a noumenal and phenomenal realities. I know this is Kantian and Nietzsche does reject this to some extent but consider the context of German philosophy of the 19th century, it was steeped in Kant. Nietzsche can say he hated Plato and rejected his ideas, but to what extent? Nietzche was so unorganized in his philosphy, there are many contradictions. Another point is that he does say that causality ultimately eludes human understanding:

Nietzsche wrote:I maintain the phenomenality of the inner world, too: everything of which we become conscious is arranged, simplified, schematized, interpreted through and through--the actual process of inner "perception," the causal connection between thoughts, feelings, desires, between subject and object, are absolutely hidden from us--and are perhaps purely imaginary. The "apparent inner world" is governed by just the same forms and procedures as the "outer" world. We never encounter "facts": pleasure and displeasure are subsequent and derivative intellectual phenomena--

I threw in Marx because he applied his materialism to Hegel's idea of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis metaphysics. Reality is in a constant state of becoming. My point is these ideas all contradict an idea that the universe is all-inclusive in its identity.

jlamour, if you want to insist that Nietzsche's a Platonist and Kantian, I've got no vested interest in stopping you. But no one I know of in the 19th century produced a more radical (and vitriolic) critique of both Plato and Kant than he.

So your position is a peculiar one, and it seems totally off base to me.

Does Nietzsche ever appeal to a noumenal reality? Ever? Or is his skepticism more about articulating a proto-social constructivism, suggesting that habits of thought and feeling are bred in culture?

Nietzsche was critiquing the innate idealism of liberal bourgeois understandings of subjectivity. This does anything but evidence residual Kantianism.

And, as for Marx, he tended to talk about social reality, no? Does this really contradict the autopoietic nature of the universe? No, no it does not.

And again, few folks in the 19th century were more stridently atheistic than old Karl.

Careful jlamour, I'm the board's Marx-Nazi. Say anything about the swarthy old turdburgler and I'm bound to show up to defend, rebuke, or "problematize."

Did you know:

Marx loathed Malthus but was in correspondence with Darwin (the two becoming mutual admirers). Marx went so far as to ask Darwin if he could dedicate the first volume of Capital to him.

Here is part of Darwin's response (1873):

Dear Sir:

. . . I am a strong advocate for three thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds, which follow from the advance of science. I may, however, have been unduly biased by the pain which it would give some members of my family, if I aided in any way your attacks on religion--I am sorry to refuse your request, but I am old & have very little strength, & looking over proof-sheets (as I know by present experience) fatigues me much.--

I remain Dear Sir
Your faithfully,
Ch. Darwin

Shit. Hit "quote" rather than edit.

A "Marx-Nazi", Andrew?

That is an interesting concept right there!

kerble wrote:mmmmmm....delicious Entropy.........

It's good you mention entropy here, Kerble, because in an entropic universe biological macroevolution cannot occur. Entropy entails the winding down of matter/energy, thus how would it be possibly for great, complex things such as organisms to evolve if matter/energy were burning themselves out?

johnnyshape wrote:
By the way, you can download the whole of the book I read this in from hereat the moment, why/how legal I don't know. It's a great, great popular science read.

I'm reading this now and it's great.

I just learned that I'm not actually sitting in this chair but levitating a hundred millionth of a centimetre above it and the only thing stopping me from falling through it is the electrons in my body and the electrons in the chair having a negative effect on each other.

Science is cool!

jlamour wrote:

matthew wrote:

jlamour wrote:They can't.
The idea of a supernatural universe, utopia, god, heaven is simply something that Plato brought to a conceptual level thousands of years ago and has been rehashed via ANY religion

This is cheap Nietzsche.

Of course but Plato believed this obviously long before Nietzsche. Nietzsche was a Platonist.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Andrew L. wrote:

Nietzsche wrote:. . . that Christian belief, which was also Plato's belief, that God is the truth, that the truth is divine. . . But what if this self-same idea is becoming increasingly incredible, what if nothing any longer reveals itself as divine, apart from errors, blindness, lies--what if God himself proves to be our oldest lie?

Right.

Andrew L. wrote:jlamour, if you want to insist that Nietzsche's a Platonist and Kantian, I've got no vested interest in stopping you. But no one I know of in the 19th century produced a more radical (and vitriolic) critique of both Plato and Kant than he.

So your position is a peculiar one, and it seems totally off base to me.

Does Nietzsche ever appeal to a noumenal reality? Ever? Or is his skepticism more about articulating a proto-social constructivism, suggesting that habits of thought and feeling are bred in culture?

Nietzsche was critiquing the innate idealism of liberal bourgeois understandings of subjectivity. This does anything but evidence residual Kantianism.

Right. Though using "bourgeois" to characterize anything that Nietzsche himself is critiquing is misleading.

Andrew L. wrote:So your position is a peculiar one, and it seems totally off base to me.

Does Nietzsche ever appeal to a noumenal reality? Ever? Or is his skepticism more about articulating a proto-social constructivism, suggesting that habits of thought and feeling are bred in culture?

And, as for Marx, he tended to talk about social reality, no? Does this really contradict the autopoietic nature of the universe? No, no it does not.

And again, few folks in the 19th century were more stridently atheistic than old Karl.

Careful jlamour, I'm the board's Marx-Nazi. Say anything about the swarthy old turdburgler and I'm bound to show up to defend, rebuke, or "problematize."

There's too much of Kant's transcendental idealism permeating Nietzche's philosophy. Nietzsche's works are all about how to transcend this shitty nihilist reality into a better reality but this is only acheived "on pain of death". Sounds like metaphysical dualism to me. I'm sorry I can't express this in a simpler way. I did like the Marx-Nazi comment. You said it not me. Please explain autopoietic(sp?) nature of the universe. Cheers.

matthew wrote:

kerble wrote:mmmmmm....delicious Entropy.........

It's good you mention entropy here, Kerble, because in an entropic universe biological macroevolution cannot occur. Entropy entails the winding down of matter/energy, thus how would it be possibly for great, complex things such as organisms to evolve if matter/energy were burning themselves out?

Matthew,

You won't be happy until God is proven, will you? And I thought it was all about FAITH.

Organizational complexity is on the boundary of current scientific thinking, so the basis of how information came to be ordered, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics, is only beginning to be theorized about. Informational macromolecules possibly came about through quantum organizational processes at a particle level (Alternately, the origins of RNA/DNA replication could be biochemical). These processes of elementary organization are only just coming within our understanding, but there are some well-reasoned theories out there.

What this gap in our knowledge doesn't posit is the existence of God. However, our own existence is proof of that information can be organized and that our environment does strive towards thermodynamic equilibrium--indeed, early examples (living fossils and extremophiles) of organizational complexity exist on this planet in the form of meso/thermophilic bacteria.

You state that this ordering cannot occur, but we are surrounded by evidence to the contrary--it can and is occurring. Unfortunately, God has yet to make an appearance.

I just read this whole thread in one long sitting. Halfway through I had to get up and reconfirm that I'm real. Now I'm going to go crawl in bed and touch someone else's boob and not worry if the cat in the box in the corner needs me to check on it for it to exist or if it is actually God (the unknown thing) inside the box until the moment I open it when he becomes a cat. Boobs.