ILP thread on value-ontology (starting with Nietzsche, WTP)

I think, and I hope, that FC here is obeying Parmenides (with whose philosophy value-ontology shares much), or at least concurring with him, that nothingness is inaccesible “even to the gods.”

I-rrelevant.

And what is energy?

How?

By it being selected - in first instance, by itself, by its particular activity, namely, selecting.
The tendency to maintain structural integrity is selected (as traits are in evolution).
Selecting means no active ‘picking’ of course - but that all that does not have/fit this tendency dies off.

That is essentially only another way of putting it, as in chaos / no-thingness there is no time.
This mechanism describes a bit more of "the origin of (being and) time " – it makes this into a less nonsensical phrase.

It is at least as fundamental to its own foundation, certainly. I do not make the claim that nothingness must exist – that would be illogical, what would exist? I only aim to describe how somethingness can be understood exist in the context of the the notion of nothingness.

“why being, and not rather nothing?”
because of its possibility through the existence of a standard.
What enables this standard, logically ? This is what I am answering to.

I have rejected the idea that such a fundamental thing can be explained in terms of physics, or in terms of any mere subject of understanding – rather in terms of understanding itself.

In all other cases, were are merely interpreting an interpretation. By positing valuing (which we understrand because we do it, not because we have defined it) as fundamental, we can interpret the interpreting.

Yes. But it is not ‘God’, something alien, prior or superior to what we are as humans. What enables the smallest entity to self-cause (the particular way of its self-causation), can be understood as the same activity that we continue as complex organisms.

The problem is that in all its irrelevance to what exists, as it obviously does not exist itself, the notion of it still needs to be explained (away). We can only do this by approaching the limit of existence, and this must be done by approaching existence, equally, as a notion.

The usefulness of the formulation I’ve found lies in its way of identifying the notion of existence in similar terms as the notions we have of thought, consciousness; – the notions of the means by which we understand being are made equal to the notions of being following from these means.

The metaphysics / physics dichotomy can no longer exist under this terminology, equally the difference between ontology and epistemology is eliminated - so may the immunity of science to philosophy be broken.

A couple of questions, arising from my desperate attempts to make sense of this passage.

  1. Does the word “by” in the first sentence mean the same thing in all cases? Or does it mean “by means of” in the last case?
  2. Does the word “selecting” in the last sentence refer only to the being-selected from the first two sentences, or also to the selecting from the first sentence?

But we’re talking about what, according to you, erupted from chaos/no-thingness…

Actually, it must mean “by means of” in the first case, because of the word “it[s]”.

I don’t know FC… I mean I really dig this explanation, but I don’t think that nothing lies at the limits of existence as understood by understanding conciousness and thought. Beyond that, there is, as opposed to is not.

Otherwise solipcism, which is as fallacious a concept as the omnipotent, creator god, and for perhaps for the same reason.

How does [being] maintain its structural integrity?

I understand the difficulty. It is confusing as we now move beyond what I have proposed as logically fundamental, i.e. the fundamental term of language. I think that pezemeregild is has reason, and the confusion arises by positing an originating out of nothingness.

The best I can explain it is that there no difference between the fundamental thing, its activity, and the object of this activity. Whether I make of it a subject, object of a subject or verb objectifying the subject to itself, it describes the same.

I mean that it is being selected (survives as form) by its selecting (continuing, ‘building’ on what survives).
This may seem like reverse logic, but I think that this actually does describe being as becoming, also life as evolution.

Yes, this presents logical difficulties (I must note that to relate being to nothingness is unnecessary for my theory to pertain to being) but sill I want to pursue it to see where it leads. Let me phrase it in a couple of ways. What has erupted is time. Since there is logically nothing before time (nothing is what is before time), this eruption is the first existing thing, and I think it is fair to say that it is the only thing, that it persists. There is only an erupting. The eruption is time and being itself.

Self-valuing must then be seen as being the root/seed of this erupting, and valuing in terms of self-value as it’s ‘body’, its growth / becoming / substantiating. The self-valuing is it’s not-nothingness, the ‘mechanism’ whereby it is rooted in its existence. The thereby enabled valuing-acquiring, the will to power, is what grows from this root.

This much I’m cool with. But you are right that I am having a lot of trouble with the “something out of nothing.”

If you told me that the “nothing” doesn’t really matter much anyway, I would be cool there too.

Fair enough. I am pursuing this to test/establish the limits of logic, with its division into yes and no, as it pertains to being. To formulate the yes in such a way that the no is demonstrated, not just calculated, to be excluded.

I suppose different minds have different approaches to the question “why being and not rather nothing?” Some minds will think it nonsensical to even propose nothing. Others will ponder a lifetime over the horrible absurdity.

The concept ‘objectively not existing’ is a strange one.

Indeed!

I think we see eye to eye, or at least, within a reasonable logical gap, we have agreed to disagree (on this issue, which I still think has no great import on your overall theory)

If you will read back the discussion, you will see that it is what his “overall theory” rests on…

I don’t think you get the theory enough (by your own admission) to really say much about it. Saying that it computes and explains away nothingness is hardly resting the theory on it. Unless I am very wrong.

Let me try to rephrase it:

“A being maintains its particular structural nature by being selected. In the first place, it is selected by itself, or rather, by its particular activity, which is the selecting of other beings.”

But if the particular activity of beings is the selecting of other beings, then “selecting” does mean an active picking.

And if we relate this back to what you said before, we get this:

“A being posits a value system, in which a relation may take place, in which otherness is to be dominated/subjected to as (in terms of) self. This positing of a value system it does by maintaining its particular structural nature. And this in turn it does by being selected. In the first place, it is selected by itself, or rather, by its particular activity, which is the selecting of other beings.”

It strongly appears that the domination of/subjection to otherness is the selection of other beings. This would make your “explanation” wholly circular. And indeed, after the first sentence of the last paraphrase, you originally said:

“Relating without disintegrating requires firm value-positing. Willing to power demands firmness of self-value.”

So value-positing requires not disintegrating (“maintaining its structural nature”), and not disintegrating requires value-positing!

So Being is Erupting, i.e., a Breaking-forth, but not a Breaking-forth from anything, but a Breaking-forth that has not begun and will not end—i.e., that has no root or fruit.

What I’ve been doing here is trying to “get” the theory, if possible, by getting to the bottom of it, if any. Nobody else has done anything of the sort in this thread! So if you “get” the theory, please explain it clearly. I asked the same of aletheia, but haven’t heard from her since.

Value Ontology, as I have come to understand it, is a description of what the existence we inhabit is; or more accurately, how it is. Since it is a description of a current, observable state of affairs, it gives little importance to its genesis (nothingness, Jehova, some unknowable or as yet unknown something, whatever).

It describes the existence of individual entities, each defined by the act of valuing and self-valuing. An important thing to grasp here (which I think you are having trouble with) is that self-valuing is subordinate to valuing. Entities self-value as a result of valuing. First, there is a need to value, a valuing principle. Out of that need springs self-valuing, as the entity needs to be a coherent whole, or a distinct something, to efficiently value and gain profit from that act of valuing.

This is why existene has shape, why things are things instead of a confused mass of whatever. It is because we value it, and value each self-valuing thing as a thing. We value them as self-valuing because what we observe is the concentrated efforts, or valuing, of a single thing. An atom values the energy around it in a way that translates into our valuing it as an atom, so with the electrons, the molecules and a chainsaw.

A description of shape/s, how the shape/s is/are, and how the shape/s come/s to be.

But what FC claims is that it’s not just a description, but an explanation

Okay. So first, there is a need to value—no valuing yet. But in order to value, an entity has to value itself. So in order to value, it has to value… How is this not circular?

So we value it as valuing, not as self-valuing…

I really think you are splitting hairs here. Plus, this is my interpretation, not straight from FC. I think what’s important here is that there is no great need to understand the genesis, only the how is the focus.

As I said, if you look at it as a description of a current state of affairs instead of a description of where the world started/starts, this will become more acceptable. The first thing is the need, which we know about because we know that we(humans), as entities, value out of need. And that is really the genious of this ontology, that it incorporates human perception into existance itself without requiring humans to be the only existing things.

We value it as valuing, and therefore self-valuing.

*Pending approval by the developpers of the original theory.

A little more about the relationship between self-valuing and valuing:

Self-valuing is subordinate to valuing. Almost a sub-category of valuing.