Will to power and the criticism of materialism and cosmological mechanism
Criticism of Object and Subject ontology
This criticism begins with the effects of language. In the beginning of western culture, a clear ontology of object and subject was adopted. Nietzsche actually relates this ontology back to evolution, it made our lives possible in a world which we mostly see, as in sensual data coming from our eyes, which makes it much more successful in terms of survival. Nietzsche also doubts a possible ontology which is not object and subject based, which leaves us in a problematic situation : What we call truth or reality is just an illusion, fake or something that is not even accessible to us. It might remind some of us the Kantian ‘Ding an sich’, although it’s quite far from it in the end.
If this sounds weird : there is an opposite ontology, one which we can refer to as a ‘contingent ontology‘, the contingent element is one which is not limited by anything, meaning completely casual. This principle we can find in modern literature and also in modern logic and science.
Let’s start with objects: in which way a wooden table is no longer a tree ? If you take cuttings of a plant, duplicate it, which one in the original one (referring to Chomsky) ? If we cut off one of our organs, in what way it is no longer part of us ? And then what can be considered myself ?
There is a psychological effect, which comes from the fact that we have ‘absolute physical control’ over our bodies, that defines our bodies as ourselves, ours is what we can control. Secondly, at the same time our thought are something’s non-controllable. Imagine distractions when trying to study for an exam (Referring to Peterson). The way we have thoughts, already imposes a certain structure, a pattern or form within them. The fact that we are humans, with strong relation to our brain and senses, makes us see the world in a very specific manner.
Implication on space, time, causality and determinism
There is a view of the world which also modern physics recognizes in which all matter is just levels of energy. This world view is close to the one of Heraclitus and the one of Nietzsche. From Nietzsche’s point of view the materialist interpretation of the world, for example : the sun is just a big ball of hydrogen and helium is just a poor perspective and interpretation of human experience, which does not allow us to develop. Although misleading, this is without relating to a mystical point of view as well.
To say it very simply, Nietzsche sees the universe as a constant flow, which nothing is still, there are no absolute rules governing this universe in the way we think about it scientifically, deriving from our physics and science, but rather something else. Because of that there is also no sense of talking about determinism and mechanism in an absolute way: meaning why are not bound by it. We are bounded by other things, such as our senses and our expression as existing, it takes form in the world.
Language and the picture of the world
Language creates the illusion of a picture, it freezes time (flow of the universe/growth/expression) in order to provide with analysis, to use thinking and rationality as a tool, the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox illustrates the problematic difference between common sense (reality) and rational thinking (the picture of the mind).
If the world, can be somehow imagined, not through language which creates identifiable objects like trees, animals, people, then we have a world which is like an ocean of sensual experience, all made of the same thing in restlessness, and try to imagine such world which is not filtered by senses such as sight, or touch, without form.
In this world, there are no cause and effect. Cause and effect are Object and Subject dependent : one defined body acts upon another. No definition means no mechanism. No mechanism means only no (imaginary) purpose behind (imaginary) objects. Which purpose does a planet in the solar system has ? for how long would keep it ?
Every object can have a solid form and be a part of a scheme only at a certain range of time, the things we think about as ‘transcendent’ or ‘fixed’ or ‘absolute’ are just a big stretch in time, but that does not make them categorically different as to conclude the have purpose. This is what David Hume concluded : our sensory data together with our thought are the world for us rather than objects in space and time.
Action at a distance (actio in distans) is a physical term which is used to explain the interaction between two bodies through space, with no apparent physical interaction, like gravity. Is it the 4th dimension ? Time ? We will have to imagine another world which is superimposed on ours to understand this. Is here, but we can’t see it, just experience it, science is telling.
Nietzsche was maybe the first one in the context of the west to doubt all the answers to our metaphysical questions, since Aristotle, in such a fundamental way, which led to huge changes in the 19th century, in terms of our definition of logic and rationality.
What is then Object, Subject and causality ?
In one word : Anthropomorphism. It’s we, projecting how we think on what we concept as the world. We can only give form to things, in the image of what can be known to us (Wittgenstein : We cannot think the unthinkable). The only form we know, is language. Since language is syntactically object and subject driven, we are caught up in it. How does this express ?
Since the dawn of civilization we put purpose and intention in ‘things’ that were not human, the stars, the cosmos, God. Until Darwinism there was simply no better explanation. Darwinism takes out intention and purpose from the equations and replaces it with fitness and variation. Something similar to growth, a term often used by Goethe and Nietzsche. In the context that they use it, it is the internal drive of an organism to impose its own form over his environment, Nietzsche calls it the will to power. A life force expressed in will and form, internally externally.
What Nietzsche would say about a mechanistic point of view of the world ? About physics which has the ability to calculate the movement of the cosmos, of organisms, maybe creating singularity ? Do we have the ultimate ability to calculate everything ? Some modern TV series like Deus / Devs try to visualize such a scenario, involving technology and quantum physics science.
Nietzsche would call such a vision – religious, the symbology and the narrative anyway is all there. The human sacrifice, the after world, the question of freedom of choice and determinism, for Nietzsche not relevant.
“Determinism is only a manner of allowing ourselves to conjure our valuations away, once they have lost their place in a world interpreted mechanistically. ”
Friedrich Nietzsche, WM : 786
Science in the context of two different paradigms
Now the most tricky part comes : According to Nietzsche’s interpretation of our cognition and the world, ontologically we should learn to separate science as working in two different contexts :
First model : which is still mystical and religious and does explain forces, actio in distans, as a result of a belief in Subject/Object ontology. Which still required a belief and faith in metaphysical worlds, multiple universes. This view of the world still imposes determinism, which is only a necessity in a world which a all-knowing all-seeing consciousness (God) exists. That view still exists in the mind of scientists who think everything can be known or that a perspective, from which everything can be seen, exists. In Nietzsche’s point of view freedom of choice and multiple worlds do not contradict each other since both simply are ontological paradigms, in other words – beliefs.
Nietzsche calls this limitation of the human cognition perspectivism, which is worth expanding in a different article.
Second model : This model haven’t been remodeled fully using conclusion of thinkers like Wittgenstein, because they are quite radical. Physical laws relates to co-operation and communication between humans, agreements, conventions not to the world. Description relates to sensual data, not to objects. Math does not relate to the world, but rather it is a perfect ontological language that speaks in terms of being. The foundation of it is based on object (ontological definition) – 1, and subject (ontological identity / similarity) 1+1=2.
““Because something is calculable, is it therefore on that account necessary?”, the difference is there between the calculable and the necessary, the Ancient Greek faith in Moria (μοῖρα, fate), the difference it makes concerning the human condition and our strives.
We can only describe better what we experience to agree upon, but never get closer to something ‘external’. All members in the same group should speak the same language and agree about the same things or argue about them, only then communication is possible in terms of succeeding, obtaining goals. The goals that Nietzsche would diagnose and identify in the world of organisms is usually expression of form, power as expression of form.
The main generator of the world is change, change is possible through variation of form, therefore it is dialectical in its nature. In the dialectics of power the strong strives for variation and the weak for unification, as a growth principle of natural organisms, expression of form.
Conclusion
I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar
What Nietzsche would say is that language creates the illusion of Subject and Object, those exist for us as long as we believe them to be true, and therefor limiting us, or more positively they only bring us until a certain point of development in history or time – as an example : religion. It is a process of growth through changes of phases, something like Thomas Kuhn’s theory of science (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
Although what is expressed here can be seen as somewhat mystical, it does not necessarily stand in contradiction to how we think, if we think it long enough, also not taking my article for it, but just reading the source.
As for Nietzsche, a belief in mechanical determinism as part of materialism is an expression of the weakness of the human spirit, the lack of possibility to grow and most importantly the lack of possibility to gain power, and by power he means the ability to shape our future in a way that is empowering to everyone, only to extend the boundaries of what we can call human.