Philosophical Journals

Tony Gao First three are to be marked. Six pages, since its single spaced The Will to Power: All human motivation, therefore actions, are driven by ones desire to gain power, all is the manifestation of the will to power. Each one of us can feel a force compelling us to become the best; it is this intrinsic force that provides us with happiness during times of success and despair during times of failure. Kindness is often seen as a virtue, but the motivation behind these actions is quite pathetic. An act of kindness is a way of demonstrating ones superiority over the person one is kind to. Only if one is greater, or in a better position than someone, can one be kind to someone; acts of kindness reaffirm ones superiority. Yielding to a disabled citizen is a perfect example of this; one shows his power by allowing the disabled to cut in line in front of him. This action is not beneficial to the handicapped person, for it proves his inferiority. Acts of kindness should not be considered good, for it is merely a manifestation of the will to power. Socrates is interesting figure because he is not who we see him as. In text books he is regarded as a jolly old fellow who would catch people on the street and amuse them with his fantastic theories and humours ways. But, using will to power analysis; we can see him as a man who likes to argue and utterly destroy his enemies and act as if winning was insignificant to him by way of his humour. Oh the pleasure he must have felt by defeating all those adversaries, oh the power he must have felt course through him after each victory A philosophers search for ultimate truth is a clear example of the will to power; for one is elevated to a point of transcendence if one should find ultimate truth. The Pythagorean cult and the utterer of knowledge is power were quite aware of this. The utilitarian belief that the primary motivations of humans is to achieve happiness, cannot account for some common behaviours. Actions produced out of resentment do not bring happiness or pleasure to anyone. Suppose someone you love was killed, this would lead to feelings of hate towards the killer; therefore you take revenge and end the life of the killer. The last action in this chain of events does not benefit or bring happiness to anyone. The inability to protect the loved one resulted in feelings of helplessness and a loss of power; therefore, in order retake the powerful position, you must kill the killer. The Darwinian belief that all actions are done to maintain existence is flawed as well. No one has a life goal of just existing, or a goal of living to one hundred years of age (existing for a long period of time); each person wants to be the best at

something, each person wants to achieve greatness. There are instances where people risk their existence to gain power; the French revolution is an example. It is not the struggle for existence that drives us; rather, it is the struggle for dominance. Nietzsches philosophy was developed to be applied to life, he was an existentialist. This theory creates a dim world, for it dispels the illusion of human compassion, love and faith, because all is the emotionless will to power. Desire and Suffering: The Buddhist notion that the cessation of desire will lead to the cessation of suffering is correct, but extremely idealistic. Desire is the cause of all suffering, for in the process of desiring one must admit to oneself that one does not have what one desires. But one cannot truly stop desiring, for desire is part of our intrinsic nature, it is the omnipresent will to power. Desire will never relent. There exists a cycle: desire > frustration > desire; or desire > satisfaction > desire, the product of desire (frustration or satisfaction) is insignificant because all paths lead back to desire. It is not the frustration that creates unhappiness, rather it is this continual, meaningless cycle that produce unhappiness. Would we want to abandon desire? No, for desire is that which leads to human achievement and true happiness through the realization of our goals; to abandon desire is to become Nietzsches last man (der letzte Mensch). The last man is a loser that only values safety and pleasure, and is irrationally risk-averse. This type of man will corrupt humanity. The Buddhist ideal is comparable to the last man, therefore Schopenhauer came up with a fascinating solution to the problem of suffering: one must escape with aesthetics. Suffering will be ever-present and cannot be avoided; therefore one can spend his time with the fine arts, instead of interacting with this insolvable reality. All of the solutions to this problem are imperfect and should be disregarded; one should experience desire and suffering in order to experience satisfaction. Numbness is worse than suffering combined with happiness. As the saying goes: It is better to have loved and lost than not loved at all.

Empiricism:

There is a significant difference between sensation and perception. Sensation occurs when a stimulus excites nerves and causes chemical and electric signals to form within the brain. Perception is the interpretation of those signals based on personal experience, expectations, knowledge, etc. For example, as a man moves closer to an observer, the observer senses that the man is becoming larger, but we perceive that he is moving closer, based on expectations derived from past experience. Thus empiricism cannot be trusted because knowledge from observation is, to a certain extent, based on the knowledge of the observer. Our reality is merely a fabricated image of the real reality, for we do not simply sense, we perceive. How can we study the real world, if all we have access to is the perceived world? All of our knowledge derived from science is based on the perceived world, thus we have no knowledge about the real world. Suppose everyone from now onwards takes deliriants (a type of drug that causes hallucinations) for the rest of their lives; our reality would literally change. Our sensation of stimulus will be different from our original sensation to the same stimulus; therefore another reality would be created. Who is to say that this drug induced reality is not closer to the real reality than our original reality? There exists knowledge that cannot be acquired through experience; seemingly innate knowledge. For example, we know that a largest number cannot, therefore does not exist, for the number line stretches to infinity. Did we come to know this by counting and always coming up with a larger number? No, we arrived at this conclusion through reason, or maybe an unspeakable, impossible foreknowledge. Empiricism, to say the least, has its limits.

Eternal Recurrence:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. A thought experiment or even a way of live, suggested by Nietzsche This idea is so powerful that is could destroy a man with ease. The past may have been extremely evil; therefore one must make the future glorious in order to be able to live on. The weighting of each action is multiplied by infinity, if we trust this decree. For, the single action you take now will be repeated indefinitely, meaning you would suffer the consequences or enjoy the outcome of this action for an indefinite number of times. Endurance of hated events is not advised. For example, a student hates studying math in high school, but he endures it in order to have a chance to have a good life later on. Enduring these four years of math, doing something you hate for these four years is equated with doing something you hate for eternity, since this process will be repeated indefinitely. Suffering for eternity for a chance of a good life is an unbalanced equation. Nietzsches rather weak proof for this: Time is infinite; the law of conservation of mass and energy states that there is a finite number of atoms and a finite amount of energy, therefore there is a finite permutation of these atoms and pockets of energy. A finite number of permutations of energy and atoms in an infinite amount of time will lead to history must repeating itself.

Knowledge:

Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. experience festival Knowledge is based on ones environment and when we enter an unknown environment, do we not become infants? Ones knowledge is purely gathered from what Ive seen, ignoring all that I havent seen, thus I do not have a clear understanding of the world, only my immediate environment. Suppose an extraterrestrial world exists, what of my knowledge then? Ones existence in a limited environment is a major obstruction to the value of empiricism, even rationalism. The lack of knowledge can lead to mistaken perceptions. For example a wrist watch, may not be perceived as a wrist watch in a rural village in the Amazon. Villagers may see the wrist watch as a bracelet, or a legion growing out of my skin. Therefore knowledge is entirely based on foreknowledge. There is no point in studying epistemology since we cannot act against a result. Suppose all that we know are lies, so what? What can we do about it? Suppose all that we know are true, so what? Do we not act as if this is the case already? Superior knowledge increases ones power since to know something someone else does not gives you power over them. Teachers are especially power craving since they hold knowledge over everyone else, and demonstrates their power through teaching. Faith is peculiar since it is knowledge without reason or evidence. It is quite puzzling how people can have pure undoubting faith, is it a mental illness? Since our rational selves cannot account for this.

Plato, Descartes, Aristotle, Aquinas and God

The platonic of the world of being is similar to the concept of the transcendent mind; the world of becoming is similar to the concept of the material matter. The relatively recent debate is reminiscent of the aged debate between Plato and Aristotle. The problems are the same. Aristotle has pointed out that two objects cannot affect each other if they do not interact with each other; the world of being does not touch the world of being, the mind cannot interact with the material world. This was one of the reasons why he rejected Platos philosophy, but we cannot reject Descartes philosophy because the mind does affect the body, even though it is impossible. Thomas Aquinas is peculiar because he was an empiricist and a theologian, these tow things cannot mix. Experience tells us that we rot when we die, but holy doctrine tells us that we go to heaven when we die. A medieval king famously conducted an experiment where he killed a man who was sealed in a barrel, and came back some days later, opened the barrel to see if there is a soul; nothing flew out. Aquinass belief that this world is Gods creating, therefore we should study it is flawed. Why would God create a world that would dissuade us of his existence? Do people have a desire to believe in a mind/God? Yes, for with the mind there is a hope of immortality, of a transcendent world, of an eternity of glory. People do not want to believe in what experience tells us, because it limits us to this one chance, this one life. Does not the concept of God attract the weak? The Catholic way of worshipping god is very prideful, because they try to change Gods opinion of them be building cathedrals, for example. They believe that they can determine Gods decision, buy building temples and the like. The Calvinist belief that each persons path has already been chosen is much more reasonable, for this does not challenge god and goes hand in had with His omniscience.