Perennial Questions What is really real Schopenhauer the

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Perennial Questions What is really real? Schopenhauer: the “Will” – striving, conflict, tumult, agitation

Perennial Questions What is really real? Schopenhauer: the “Will” – striving, conflict, tumult, agitation in biological terms: a struggle of all against all (e. g. , survival of the fittest) What is consciousness? Schopenhauer: an expression of this conflict mind (subject) vs. thing (object) to be conscious of anything requires a subject and an object

Logic/Rationality is based on two principles Principle of Individuation Principle of Sufficient Reason Logic/Rationality

Logic/Rationality is based on two principles Principle of Individuation Principle of Sufficient Reason Logic/Rationality is based on an illusion Problem of Causality (David Hume) Consciousness & Rationality expressions of the will (not God-given) The subject-object dichotomy: expression of conflict There is a reality prior to logic and rationality: the endless conflict of the will / endless desiring, etc. This is the source of pain in our lives. We should turn our backs on the world.

Nietzsche: NO! To turn your back on the world is to deny life. Asceticism,

Nietzsche: NO! To turn your back on the world is to deny life. Asceticism, Bourgeois Protestant (German/Christian) values are life-negating! Dionysus Apollo

Dionysian Apollonian mimics fundamental reality orders/masters/stabilizes fundamental reality Resists principium individuationis Embodies principium individuationis

Dionysian Apollonian mimics fundamental reality orders/masters/stabilizes fundamental reality Resists principium individuationis Embodies principium individuationis (restraints / limits) we are separate individuals, but we are also not separate (loss of unity gnaws at us) Intoxication: Mind/consciousness altering BUT we do not need drugs for this we can achieve this through art Dream (source of artistic inspiration for Greeks) we all dream - we all have artistic capacities apprehension of form / dream logic Illusion brings an understanding of wholeness that is lacking in waking life dreaming allows us to deal with life rooted in our nature Myth is Dionysian | Philosophy is Apollonian —> leads to Socratic/Alexandrian science/reason/conquest of the world

Dionysus and Myth Expression not Explanation etymology: “what people say” / non-logical Oedipus necessity

Dionysus and Myth Expression not Explanation etymology: “what people say” / non-logical Oedipus necessity and contingency Amor Fati

The Monolith A technology that simultaneously functions as myth — cp. Arthur C. Clarke:

The Monolith A technology that simultaneously functions as myth — cp. Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ” It is inscrutable, its parts are irreducible, it is more expressive than explanatory HAL 9000 “perfect” in reasoning/logic – impersonal, yet is perhaps the most expressive character in the film (tied with Moon-Watcher the ape) HAL is also more individual, differentiated from twin 9000 computer — his inability to process the unreason of this intruding Dionysian impulse causes him to meet a tragic end cp. Humans: Dave, Frank (expressionless, detached) Heywood Floyd (shallow, opportunistic)

Our relationship to art and technology The past as living memory | Aesthetic value

Our relationship to art and technology The past as living memory | Aesthetic value not the dead material of progress 2001: science FICTION / film: technological ART Homer’s Odyssey: Myth and Society 2001: towards a unity of the Apollonian / Dionysian the overman (Übermensch) The film invites us toward this unity as well: Monolith in Intro/Intermission Transgression -> Moon signal Silence Non-diegetic music fulfills this role, much like the Greek Chorus