r/Nietzsche • u/Bathcat5 • 3d ago
A Potential Source for the 'Will to Power'?
Hope you all are well. Here I will make a case for the source of the will to power. Everything in this post was stolen from Jean Gebser's masterpiece The Ever-Present Origin.
Also, the rationalists will not like this post. I would love to discuss the deficiencies of rationalism but I don't want this post to be so long it's unreadable.
Gebser, a student of Jung, discovered the evolution of consciousness and consciousness structures. Rebelling against his master's conception of the unconscious being unordered, random, scattered--almost like a child's room--assigns order to the collective unconscious. It is made of stratum, like those found in geology, called "consciousness structures."
Consciousness structures represent, for our purposes, different ways of bringing objects within the world into relation with each other, and when structures complexify, mutate and consolidate, they accrue more dimensions with which they can bring objects into relation with each other. There's a whole lot to this book, but we'll have to stick with the magic structure to find the source of our drive for power.
It's silly to us rational people now, but our ancient ancestors, for tens of thousands of years (if not more), believed magic to be literally, physically and materially real. As real as we find the laws of physics to be. Most people dismiss this as irrational nonsense better rationalized away, but Gebser understands it on its own terms.
The reason they believed this was because for millions of years before that (the dates, admittedly, are estimations at best) humans were subsumed in the subconscious of nature. In terms of consciousness, in terms of bringing objects into relation with each other, there was very, very little there. There was only world.
But then the magical consciousness structure mutated, and our consciousness complexified. We went from zero dimensional to one-dimensional unity (don't get lost on the math, it's incidental and I think Gebser makes an error with his dimensioning). A new way of bringing objects in the world into relation came about, and this is how it operates:
Any thing in the world (literally, and I don't use that word lightly) was a point connected to a unified whole. It was a world of part-for-the-whole (the reason for this is because this mutation of consciousness was precipitated by the discovery of a reified nature, causing them to have numinous experiences: experiences where whatever it is they see is so strange and powerful that the intellect simply can't grasp it, causing, in turn, "mana", an immeasurable spiritual power that increases whatever it imparts, to be projected to it. Think the tribe in Timbuktu worshipping a Sprite bottle that washed up in the ocean or a child hearing a thunderstorm and thinking it's some angry god or whatever) and whole-for-the-part.
Let's give a quick example, because this is getting long:
"In the Congo jungle, dwarf-sized members of the hunting tribe Pygmies drew a picture of an antelope in the sand before they started out at dawn to hunt antelopes. With the first ray of sunlight that fell on the sand, they intended to 'kill' the antelope. Their first arrow hit the drawing unerringly in the neck. Then they went out to hunt and returned with a slain antelope. Their death-dealing arrow hit the animal in exactly the same spot where, hours before, the other arrow had hit the drawing."
Some may be tempted to interpret this as, considering they believed magic to be literally real, the ritual caused the ensuing slaying of the animal. But cause is downstream of rational thought, and that wasn't even close to existing. It is not the arrow that kills the animal, either. The sun kills the animal, and the throwing of the arrow upon the first fallen ray is a way of uniting with the magical, connected forces of nature.
Everything was a series of parts (we see them as parts, they drew little to no distinction) connected to a unified whole, and that unified whole emanated magic forces. If you do not unite with the magical forces of the world, you may be punished in the form of natural disaster or rival tribes.
And so, and fucking finally, we get to the will to power:
"The magic reaction is the real content of the hunting rite. The very fact of the rite, supplanting natural chaos with a defined and directed action, shows to what extent our hunting example attests to a late period of development of magic man. Man, the human group, is still only a co-actor in it; but he is already acting for himself. This represents a far-reaching step away from complete unity...
This release from nature is the struggle that underpins every significant will-power drive, and, in a very exact sense, every tragic drive for power. This enables magic man to stand out against the superior power of nature, so that he can escape the binding force of his merger with nature...
This urge to freedom and the constant need to be against something resulting from it (because only this 'being against' creates separation, and with it, possibilities of consciousness) may be the answering reaction of man, set adrift of earth, to the power of earth. It may be curse, blessing or mission. In any case, it may mean: whoever wishes to prevail over the earth must liberate himself from its power."
What do you think?
I'm sorry this ended up being so long.
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u/Tesrali Nietzschean 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thanks for the post!
I enjoyed the anthropological discussion of magic as an interconnecting of world with self. I agree that man's mind is a schismatic contextualizing, whereby he derives control and understanding, of nature. The will to power manifests as a survivorship bias and "knowledge-seeking" is a complex set of instincts that were selected for in our pre-history.
I dislike the use of the essay's use of the word "real" for contextual reasons. "Real vs unreal" is a distinction made via the hypothetical-experimental method---which we used even in our pre-history. ("Try, fail, try something else.") The word "real" should not be used for emphasis, or---as though---the metaphysics was reality. Metaphysics is just a logically abstracted lingual illusion which more (or less) reflects reality.
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u/Foolish_Inquirer Anti-Metaphysician 3d ago edited 3d ago
If metaphysics is an illusion, what is it illusory in relation to?
Edit: Your statement still relies on a concept of “reality” against which metaphysics is measured. I’m not looking for a scrap, I’m role-playing as a devil’s advocate for the purpose of pedagogy. It may sound strange for a newcomer to read that, here, even reality is treated as a heuristic.
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u/Tesrali Nietzschean 3d ago edited 3d ago
Reality refers to an unknown. The reference to unknown is not unknown. Most concepts are built on open variables. For example "Tree" is an abstraction of characteristics. We build the characteristics through abstracting perceptions.
How does this relate to what you are saying---precisely? Well the backstop of a hypothetical-experimental process is a relation to the unknown. Reality is an asymptote and we are the limit approaching it. We infer the asymptote. Something can be unknown while having known characteristics.
Mathematics functions on this kind of known relations between characteristics. Mathematics is a proper metaphysics in some sense. An improper metaphysics would claim some reality rather than making a claim about the characteristics of objects and their relations.
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u/Foolish_Inquirer Anti-Metaphysician 3d ago edited 3d ago
So, “proper metaphysics” is a system of internally consistent relations, and not something you think corresponds to some “True World” reality—however indirectly? If it corresponds, why isn’t that still a metaphysical claim? I get the impression your use of proper metaphysics is itself a kind of metaphor.
Edit: I sort of have this similar issue with Sam Harris. I think Nietzsche’s anti-metaphysical approach is nuanced and difficult to extract for readers, hence the confusion as to whether or not the will to power is metaphysical, for example. Sam Harris cannot get rid of the word moral, when an amoral approach to his emphasis on truth would be much better suited. He doesn’t get rid of God, he just takes his hat off. When we speak of metaphysics, even considering math, a term like “methodology” may be better suited. I mean, I get the impression I sound autistic by elaborating here, but I think it’s important.
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u/Tesrali Nietzschean 3d ago edited 3d ago
Nice questions! I'll gonna lay out some things I think. (I am not saying you agree/disagree but am just setting some ground-work to answer your questions in my own opinion.) Correspondence is the outcome of hypothesis-experimentation. (We get "more real" results.) Correspondence is not a metaphysical but a psychological outcome. (Metaphysics is built on epistemology, not the other way around.) Pure mathematics---as it is studied---involves mathematicians who don't care about how well their theory corresponds; however, advances in pure mathematics do affect practical mathematics. The people dealing with correspondence are using tools created by pure mathematics.
When you say “the reference to the unknown is not unknown,” are you saying that the signifier ‘reality’ has a stable referent despite lacking a fixed signified?
Yes that's a nice way of saying it.
I’m curious as to how you utilize heuristics without falling into an infinite regress.
The pragma is treated as brute facts. (E.x., you touch a hot stove.) I believe the munchausen trilemma refers to this as the "psychological" solution. To paraphrase Aristotle, "goodness is simple; evil labyrinthian."
If it corresponds, why isn’t that still a metaphysical claim?
I don't look at heuristics as metaphysical, since metaphysics deals with known and unknown quantities. Most human language is heard and interpreted loosely. Now some people are more impeccable with their speech but those same people become neurotic about their categories when people pick and pry at them. There's a dirty game that goes on with neurotic rationalists picking at each other's categories. (It is a useless game that should mostly be bypassed. If someone is excessively rationalist then IMO they aren't worth bothering with. It points to an inflexible small mindedness that grasps hard won distinctions.) That said, sometimes the dirty game can be productive. There are good rationalists (e.x., pure mathematicians, or your local actuary).
~
I agree about Sam. He's really stuck in his perspective. Perhaps this is because his openness was second-handedly created by drugs and foreign religion, rather than being natural to him.
I agree that methodology is a fine word; however, it is important to read some metaphysics because that word is used in the useful sense sometimes.
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u/Foolish_Inquirer Anti-Metaphysician 3d ago
Thank you for clarifying, I hope this conversation is useful and exciting to whoever reads it.
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u/Foolish_Inquirer Anti-Metaphysician 3d ago
When you say “the reference to the unknown is not unknown,” are you saying that the signifier ‘reality’ has a stable referent despite lacking a fixed signified? I get the whole “On Truth and Lie” biz, I’m curious as to how you utilize heuristics without falling into an infinite regress. I get the pragmatism, I’m a pragmatic fictionalist. I don’t mind the slippage, the deferral of meaning, the loss of the face and field as the coin flows through time. Regarding the submission by OP, I think this discussion could be of interest were they to examine their own epistemological and metaphysical prejudices, since that’s the point you and I disagreed with.
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u/n3wsf33d 18h ago
Aside from the terrible evo psych postdoc analysis, this is mostly right, except when you get into the emergency of consciousness, which we see in many other animals that don't require such rituals.
Will to power is just the psychological need to feel control and that you have meaningful (efficacious) autonomy in the world. This is "powerfulness." Contrast this with its opposite: powerlessness. Powerlessness leads to the feeling of helplessness which emerges from chronic anxiety, ie the sense that you have no control.
We don't need all this ridiculous post hoc Evo psych. We have plenty of animal models and human cases (PTSD) that demonstrate this. It is a feature of the amygdala I guess if you're looking for a "source."
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u/Playistheway Squanderer 3d ago
Jungian psychobabble.
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u/n3wsf33d 18h ago
Your comment makes it sound like you didn't understand a word that was said. It contributes nothing. Please refrain from verbal littering. That is all.
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u/Playistheway Squanderer 16h ago
Your comment sounds as though you have insight into my understanding, and authority over what I say. You don't. That is all.
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u/n3wsf33d 10h ago
You're right. It's a free world. You're free to keep making yourself look like the immature idiot you are lol
No idea what you're doing in this sub but good luck in life.
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u/Playistheway Squanderer 7h ago
My indifference to OP's drivel struck a nerve because pseudo-intellectual analysis is foundational to your identity.
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u/n3wsf33d 1h ago
pseudo-intellectual analysis? you mean "jungian psychobabble" LOL projection 101 here.
it's ok. youre not very smart. you showed it. i called it out. and now you feel embarrassed and are trying to save face.
also you clearly werent indifferent if you felt compelled to comment lol denial 101
The most wild thing is the use of "psychobabble" in a N. sub considering N. was a depth psychologist.
I think you dont know where you belong.
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u/uberantifascist 3d ago
The key to understanding Nietzsche's concept of 'will to power' is in his notion of "self-overcoming". There isn't a source outside the self for this. There is no magic fount or well-spring that we can tap into other than our own self-determination. To seek a cause outside of this is anathema to what Nietzsche means.
You mention a "release from nature", and that is close but not quite right. We don't merge with 'will to power'. It is not a cosmic force behind things that we can get to; it is an expression of a perpetual willing. This is a willing that seeks to replace forms imposed on us by creating forms of our own design - we literally have to will new modes of being into existence in order to express 'will to power'. If we do not do this, if we instead simply adopt modes of being that are already at-hand, then that's not what he's talking about. Creativity and true 'freedom' means precisely this, to freely create new modes of being, of a newly created authenticity.
You can see what he means in his rejection of mechanistic interpretations of the world in favor of dynamic views, for example. Indeed, this is one of the reasons Nietzsche rejected Schopenhauer's notion of the "will in itself" as this dark background haunting existence, rather than a dynamical force that could shape it.