There’s no other way i can define it, except that if we think of the mind as a ‘vehicle’, and that it is driving merrily along with every other aspect of mind part of it’s function. The consciousness and the subconscious are aspects of the ‘drive/motion’ of the vehicle, and not the ‘drive’ itself. Equally the instincts/force [in the Nietzschean sense] are also a ‘drive’, if we consider them as not including the entire set ‘subconscious drive. Either way we could envision them as if the mind is a sphere of air, and the drives are winds blowing forwards also pushing the vehicle.
That there are multiple ‘drives’, must mean that no one drive in particular is solely forcing us through the world - so to say. Then that the conglomerative effort of the drives would compose a singular force [ perhaps the impact of which upon another’s vehicle, denotes their impression?].
The conscious drive is the full extent and set of the experienced sphere [but also not the collective sphere [greater sphere]].
Where then is the ‘will’? There surely is no such thing, and equally no such thing as the ‘un-will’. Namely being a definition of the instinctual subconscious drive thought to be telling us what to think. There are conscious thoughts and they will be making effect in the mind, firing neurons as it searches for information. The parts of the brain not being used by the consciousness = the subconscious and has possibly 90% greater usage of the brain.
So how do we denote influence? Is it a daily battle with all the drives competing, or is it wrong to think of it as maths? There is no actual force/wind, so there are no mathematical values. Instead i think it far more realistic and relative to our actual experience, if we hold all the drives of the mind as equivalent, and that none usually have dominion over another. At least this is what we could call ‘the primary state of balance’; the Tao of mind!
Naturally if e.g. A lion jumps out at you, the instinctive drive will take precedence. Equally the experience of a thing or indeed the world is where the consciousness takes precedence. Both of these things are of equal value to the overall vehicle [as the combined sphere of all drives].
How was the word ‘will’ first used? Probably to indicate to another person that one was preparing to take (or not take) action of some kind; ‘I will go there’, ‘I will take it’, ‘I will not do this’, etc.
In such a use the word isn’t yet treated as a noun, as a thing.
A little later when man was in his animistic phase he began to imagine that his action was the result of an animating force. Here the word became a noun. The ‘will’ was the thing that caused man to act.
From that point forward the word took on a metaphysical meaning, and the majority of ways in which it is used philosophically thereby became very obscure.
What does the phrase ‘he has a strong will’ mean? That he has a tendency to act often and in a certain way? Or does it mean he has control over how and when he acts, as resolve? Both definitions are obscure. For the first, what constitutes an ‘act’? Is sitting in a chair an act? For the second, is the person who resolves to stay seated in the chair, strong willed?
Give me a definition of ‘will’ that is not embellished with philosophical metaphors. The same thing goes for the word ‘drive’. What is a drive… a recurring desire to act a certain way? If so, then a person with a strong drive can be both the person who desires to stay seated and the person who refuses to sit down.
You see what I mean? This is philosophy. And to think the only sense the word ‘will’ ever made was when it was used in its original way; to indicate to someone what you were going to do or not going to do. What that word meant was never in question. How it was used was what was important.
The philosophy of the ‘will’ has already been exhausted. Every possible way in which the word can be talked about has been done… and here we are today, using it like we did fifteen thousand years ago with nothing to show for all the philosophical theory about what the word means.
I agree that most of what humans experience in life as will, willpower, desire, etc. is misinterpreted.
Early Agnostic Christians, back in the ancient days, observed this phenomenon as “souls” and “spirits” underlying nature and “driving” things forward, including people. Spirituality is a form of metaphysics. Metaphysics is the analysis of base motivations, on the instinctive and reflexive level, and correlate those observations with intellectual insights. For example, can humans have “free will”? Is “choice” an illusion? These are questions that ultimately stem forth from metaphysics of the will.
Ultimately the Christians claimed that their “universal god” was the ultimate willpower, and that all forces, all motions, all drives, can be traced back to god.
Also refers to tough people in many ways. All of which are indeed relative things.
Good point, but perception is a quality of observation, and awareness is a quality of perception [where perception is the awareness being focussed]. Observation is an action!
In that sense, where there is a perpetuity of the perception and hence observation, there is a collective of actions projecting = drive/force!? Physically, large collections of particles are acting collaboratively [vie their cells etc] in forming an instrument of the brain. This action/perception is literally reading the info from the electrical signals derivative of the senses and the mind [conscious/subconscious], and in doing so is mass observing/acting,
Is not a mass of such actions thus equivalent to a force [mass of actions] in any other sense?
I do see what you mean though, that ‘the will’ is redundant philosophically. I expect the Nietzschean ‘force’ is much the same, except that i am still unsure in that there is/not a general driving force to reality itself ~ such to produce universes. Then that perhaps this force permeates everything and at it’s head is most pernicious ~ as if like clouds through to the jaws of lions. As if evolution and even fate are aspects of this?
You can do just about anything with those words in a philosophical language game.
However, the question of what causes action and motion in the physical world cannot be answered. Scientifically the question is appropriated for practical uses. We isolate a single event in a series of actions and motions and notice that it always (or so far) follows another particular event or motion. The scientific understanding of causality, while not philosophically sound, is as good as it can get.
Also remember that we never really experience a ‘force’. What we experiences is an event, and we then infer a cause or reason for the occurrence of that event. Gravity, for example. We see the rock fall back toward the earth, and we say that is caused by something called gravity.
Magnetic force is another example. We don’t experience the actual pull of oppositely charged metals… all we experience is the movement of the metals toward each other.
‘Events’ contain ‘actions’ such as observational ones. Perception involves events. Many events = a force.
I am also searching for an answer to the fundamental question, as to metaphysical ‘forces’ manifesting the universe and permeating it all e.g. in the Nietzschean/Prometheus sense.
I agree we don’t experience forces directly though.
So we ask; can there be motion/events without a force propagating that? That we need a force prior to the event and not with or after it? This gives the greater reality a global value as ‘the force’ prior to physical existence [i.e. Prior to universe].
That proposes a creation principle and effect. One which simply exists [forever] then at an undetermined point in time [even when there is no time prior to itexistence] manifests the universe. This can only be possible if there exists the means/potential of the created within the creation event, but such potentiality necessarily has to be an existential function [of the first state of existence].
We could say that God [or any creation factor] can do the impossible, but the universe cannot [because it is not God nor can create [it only transforms]]. Where equally, existence must contain the reason for it’s being [in it’s set].
That only leaves a ‘force’ which permeates universes in the plural [suggestive of a cyclic universe], and is outside [prior] of each universe, but not outside of existence. …and this disallows for a creator god!
Without such a metaphysical force, there is no mechanism for manifestation, but the universe exists, and so we can be sure that existence exists and there is a force outside of the universe/s.
I think Amorphos is asking something along the lines of: what causes the vehicle (in this case the mind as a means for accomplishing something) to arise in the first place. There is a part of the mind that is aware of itself, but that is still in the mind. Thought splits itself into the subject and the object but is still generally thought, still a mind as a single entity.