Nietzsche As Biological Visionary?

[jaguar43]

I feel like I've argued with you before about Nietzsche? Anyways you haven't even discussed the topic of the thread which I wanted to discuss (Nietzsches quotes on biology). How do you feel about his quotes on metabolism, nutrition, etc that I posted?

This is the Ray Peat Forum, which is used to discuss all things Ray Peat. If there is a thread that isn't about Ray Peat then bridging the topic with Ray Peat may be a suitable way to keep with the spirit of the forum.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

When the organism is traumatized, it hardens, and stops developing, and wants to impose its moral hardness everywhere; assertiveness is the antithesis of perceptive life, and devises ways to negate it. - Ray Peat

RP's SCIENTIFIC articles are awesome, but when he starts getting all philosophical and flowery, its a big turnoff. WTF does that ^ even mean? Whether you agree with Nietzsche or not, at least nietzsche is offering something digestable.

 

[jaguar43]

Darling, I have dyslexia. Let me try to keep up with this. I don't know what is "OP".
I don't have some Nietzsche thing. I am a relatively recent member and thought simply to find the commonality in Peat and Nietzsche. As a riddle. It seemed to be thrown out there. Well yes, this in itself is something I might be prone to. You know, "Let's knit anything together," like a ludicrous quilt club. Is that a philosophy??
For me, Nietzsche became a pandora's box. He was so so hated. I just had to have a look. But like a detective. Let me go interview the prisoner. (my Dad was a detective).
Dad would say, "He's not a bad guy." and "ah geez, knucklehead."
Anyways, in my investigations into Nietzsche (i.e., not 3rd party heresay), I found many pearls and rubies filled each bin.
I consider him to be a transitional figure. He was pointing at something. Something important. It's nuanced. Not black and white. Not authoritarian. He was pointing at the heart of the problems of dualistic thinking. And he's pithy and funny about it.

I don't really have any stance? If that makes sense??

The OP means Original Post. Meaning the forum member Dopamine.

Well, it may be that he wasn't a proponent of Dualism. But that isn't really his fundamental idea. I don't know what to say. Sorry.

 

[Regina]

Right. It's just being connected to what's actually there.

 

[michael94]

So far nobody has discussed the quotes that I took time to compile... I guess arguing is more interesting.

On Abstinence:
"The reabsorption of semen by the blood is the strongest nourishment and, perhaps more than any other factor, it prompts the stimulus of power, the unrest of all forces toward the overcoming of resistances, the thirst for contradiction and resistance. The feeling of power has so far mounted highest in abstinent priests and hermits (for example, amoung the Brahmans)."

Indeed. Mithras slays the Bull and Sigfried slays the Dragon. That is the esoteric meaning behind those stories...the "sacrifice" of the animal component of sexuality. Which in reality is only a small part. Sigfried "bathes" in the blood of the Dragon...offering invulnerability.

 

[Regina]

OP means original poster.

I always appreciate when people are open minded and I agree with what you have to say about him. He is easily misunderstood and looked over- just like Peat.

Yes Dopamine.
I do want to take the time I need to go through your quotes and I will. Thank you.

 

[jaguar43]

When the organism is traumatized, it hardens, and stops developing, and wants to impose its moral hardness everywhere; assertiveness is the antithesis of perceptive life, and devises ways to negate it. - Ray Peat

RP's SCIENTIFIC articles are awesome, but when he starts getting all philosophical and flowery, its a big turnoff. WTF does that ^ even mean? Whether you agree with Nietzsche or not, at least nietzsche is offering something digestable.

Its hard to tell whether your being sarcastic or not. Since I will not try to guess. But will go down another road.

I think you may see Nietzsche as more "digestible" because you yourself ( and others like @Dopamine) are more in sync with his ideas. And what are his ideas, the glorification of war and violence, being inhumane and immoral. There is no secret that this philosophy is a centrality of Nietzschean ideology. So it may be that you are a immoral, inhumane, and violence loving person. You should be honest with your self and say that in the mirror.

 

[Regina]

OP means original poster.

I always appreciate when people are open minded and I agree with what you have to say about him. He is easily misunderstood and looked over- just like Peat.

3rd mV of Beethoven's Hammerklavier helps. Starts around 13.30 minutes in:

 

[jaguar43]

Right. It's just being connected to what's actually there.

I think you are overthinking the whole situation. To think that he was using language as a metaphor or something seems kinda over the top. I think he was pretty explicit in what he meant. There is no point in being that serious and not meaning what you say. His writings speak for themselves.

 

[Regina]

The OP means Original Post. Meaning the forum member Dopamine.

Well, it may be that he wasn't a proponent of Dualism. But that isn't really his fundamental idea. I don't know what to say. Sorry.

Especially when you put words in my mouth.
I just lay here as an Epicurean, my friend. With grapes and cheese.

 

[CarbAppreciator]

What does that even mean? Have you even read any of his books? He is very easy to misunderstand when his quotes are taken out of context. The context of my post was addressing some of his statements relating to biology... did you even look at them?

This secondary literature is terrible by the way and is obviously the product of a butthurt christian that found Nietzsches work too offensive for his sensitive ears... I have read both Freud and Nietzsche pretty extensively and they are both brilliant and complementary intellects.

I know Rays views on Nietzsche and I disagree with him. He is too heavily influenced by Russian socialist/communist bullcrap in my opinion.

What you may look at as the worst aspects of man and society... the ugliest parts... Nietzsche would look at as the tension necessary for greatness, striving, and growth. If people were perfect there would be no reason to change and the world would become boring and stagnant. This is why Nietzsche loves the dark and ugly parts of man. The parts with the greatest capacity to stimulate change and development in the world. Every heroic story needs a villain to stir up trouble otherwise the story would not be worth listening to. Every man needs his dark side. Some people just can't bear to look at it. Nietzsche didn't just look at the dark and chaotic parts of man though- he also looked at the compassionate/social parts and saw value in both.

Agree agree agree, minus liking freud. RP has crap philosophy imo, not that i even know concretely what it is because he basically doesn't take any stance, but everything in his general area of stance is crap.

 

[Amazoniac]

Dopamine, many thanks for sharing this!

"It is improbable that our "knowledge" should extend further than is strictly necessary for the preservation of life. Morphology shows us how the senses and the nerves, as well as the brain, develop in proportion to the difficulty of finding nourishment."
This is something that happens in a society that doesn't encourage competition (healthy or not), as in the utopic collectivism. That's why William Blake wrote zyzz: "Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence."
Nietzsche's writings tend to expose that part that we rather deny that exists.
An example:
"The danger in happiness - "Now everything is turning out right for me; from now on I'll love every turn of fate - Who wants to be my fate?”"
If you're a kid (the epitome of openness and creativity), you are receptive and explore everything, you hug everyone, you trust everything; however, you are in serious trouble if your parents are not around, even for a brief period. It's all about balancing those opposites (if someone knows how to do it, let me know ).

"What, after all, is "useful"? One must ask "useful in relation to what?"
I highly doubt that you can achieve the fullest expression of yourself in an utopic collectivistic society, because in order for a society like that to work, everyone in conjuction for a main purpose, you must supress some parts of yourself in favor of the whole.
"On the other hand, a deficiency, a degeneration, can be of the highest utility in so far as it acts as a stimulant to other organs."

"Put briefly: perhaps the entire evolution of the spirit is a question of the body; it ·is the history of the development of a higher body that emerges into our sensibility. The organic is rising to yet higher levels. Our lust for knowledge of nature is a means through which the body desires to perfect itself. Or rather: hundreds of thousands of experiments are made to change the nourishment, the mode of living and of dwelling of the body; consciousness and evaluations in the body, all kinds of pleasure and displeasure, are signs of these changes and experiments. In the long run, it is not a question of man at all: he is to be overcome."
The problem in using supercentenarians as models..

"A little health now and again is the ailing person’s best remedy."
Funny that Such_ posted something in that regard some time ago. That all that's needed is a glance to give you a clear objective to what's attainable. #prophet

"If he represents the ascending course of mankind, then his value is in fact extraordinary; and extreme care may be taken over the preservation and promotion of his development. (It is concern for the future promised him that gives the well-constituted individual such an extraordinary right to egoism.) If he represents the descending course, decay, chronic sickening, then he has little value: and the first demand of fairness is for him to take as little space, force, and sunshine as possible away from the well constituted."
This is a question that I always asked myself and I'm curious, what would you do if you had to choose between providing abundance to a healthy person, to reinforce his health, or to a sick person, in attempt to rescue him but risking the healthy person?

I don't enjoy discussing as much as I enjoy reading this type of thing..

 

[Such_Saturation]

When the organism is traumatized, it hardens, and stops developing, and wants to impose its moral hardness everywhere; assertiveness is the antithesis of perceptive life, and devises ways to negate it. - Ray Peat

RP's SCIENTIFIC articles are awesome, but when he starts getting all philosophical and flowery, its a big turnoff. WTF does that ^ even mean? Whether you agree with Nietzsche or not, at least nietzsche is offering something digestable.

inb4 "what do you guys think in an average day? can you make me a list of typical thoughts? How many books should I eat?"

 

[Pointless]

One thing you have to understand about Nietzsche is that he didn't believe in an absolute Truth. When he says something like "peace is a means to more war," he is not trying to posit a universal truth, but he is wearing a hat so to speak. His intention is to provoke thought. The peace/war quote is not a great example, but often this process has a way of making the reader realize that he/she thinks like this deep down or is inseparably embedded in a society that operates like this.

His real goal was transcendence of "master and slave morality" or dualistic thinking imposed on human life. Being "being good and evil" didn't mean just being evil.

 

[Pointless]

there is a study in which Ray Peat cites in Mind and Tissue, which describes Nietzsche very well in my opinion.

The attempt on the part of the psychoanalysts to demonstrate that human impulses are bestial in nature cannot claim originality. The father of these man-hating views is Nietzsche. In thus Spake Zarathustra, the immoral essence of man is proclaimed. (18) We cite several characteristic aphorisms: "The earth has a skin, and the skin has sores. One of these sores is called man" (p. 181). "To him who is ridden by a devil, I will whisper this in his ear: you will do better if you make your devil grow bigger" (p.120). One must ignore the "rabble" who "babble in your ear about the folk and the peoples" (p,293); one must love peace "as a means to new wars" (p, 61). It is affirmed, by Zarathustra's words, that everything is permitted to the chosen, that it is necessary to overcome "the luck of the majority" (pp. 365, 367), and that compassion is shameful (pp. 365, 120).
- Freudianism, Microsociology, and Existentialism page 49

The difference between the Nietzschean apology for the devil principle in man and similar assertions by the Freudians and their fellow-travelerslies in the fact that Nietzsche seeks to liberate the bestial in man and lauds this in the name of enslavement of the weak by the strong (p. 293). He glorifies wars, cruelty, and affirms the right to trample on moral principles and to drive out the voice of conscience. - Freudianism, Microsociology, and Existentialism page 50

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/RPO1061-0405040145


I agree with this statement. Nietzsche was no biological visionary. He was a psychopath who glorified the worst parts of society.

You can glorify or condemn whatever part of society you want, but the fact remains that the "devil principle" is alive and well all around us. We let it operate under the auspices of "morality" and "order" and give it our tacit approval. We live and feed and grow off of the enslavement of others. This is not the kind of world that Nietzsche glorifies, however. He envisioned a world where people have moved beyond domination of others because we are whole and complete in ourselves. Good and evil become unnecessary. The main thrust of Nietzsche was to overcome the limitations of the self.

Dopamine does a good job of showing how the transcendence of the self and the next step in human evolution is through nutrition. This will go farther to cure the evils of society than a billion Bibles and church lectures. It's a radical statement, but I agree with it.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Castro wanted a cow in every household...

 

[CarbAppreciator]

Its hard to tell whether your being sarcastic or not. Since I will not try to guess. But will go down another road.

I think you may see Nietzsche as more "digestible" because you yourself ( and others like @Dopamine) are more in sync with his ideas. And what are his ideas, the glorification of war and violence, being inhumane and immoral. There is no secret that this philosophy is a centrality of Nietzschean ideology. So it may be that you are a immoral, inhumane, and violence loving person. You should be honest with your self and say that in the mirror.

I enjoyed reading that, thank you

 

[CarbAppreciator]

inb4 "what do you guys think in an average day? can you make me a list of typical thoughts? How many books should I eat?"

Yeah i got no clue...

You can glorify or condemn whatever part of society you want, but the fact remains that the "devil principle" is alive and well all around us. We let it operate under the auspices of "morality" and "order" and give it our tacit approval. We live and feed and grow off of the enslavement of others. This is not the kind of world that Nietzsche glorifies, however. He envisioned a world where people have moved beyond domination of others because we are whole and complete in ourselves. Good and evil become unnecessary. The main thrust of Nietzsche was to overcome the limitations of the self.

Dopamine does a good job of showing how the transcendence of the self and the next step in human evolution is through nutrition. This will go farther to cure the evils of society than a billion Bibles and church lectures. It's a radical statement, but I agree with it.

+1

 

[Dopamine]

Nietzsche's writings tend to expose that part that we rather deny that exists.

Definitely

I highly doubt that you can achieve the fullest expression of yourself in an utopic collectivistic society, because in order for a society like that to work, everyone in conjuction for a main purpose, you must supress some parts of yourself in favor of the whole.

Yep this is one of the main problems with communism and one of the benefits of capitalism.

"A little health now and again is the ailing person’s best remedy."
Funny that Such_ posted something in that regard some time ago. That all that's needed is a glance to give you a clear objective to what's attainable. #prophet

"If he represents the ascending course of mankind, then his value is in fact extraordinary; and extreme care may be taken over the preservation and promotion of his development. (It is concern for the future promised him that gives the well-constituted individual such an extraordinary right to egoism.) If he represents the descending course, decay, chronic sickening, then he has little value: and the first demand of fairness is for him to take as little space, force, and sunshine as possible away from the well constituted."
This is a question that I always asked myself and I'm curious, what would you do if you had to choose between providing abundance to a healthy person, to reinforce his health, or to a sick person, in attempt to rescue him but risking the healthy person?

That is a difficult question.

This reminds me of a quote by Heraclitus who Nietzsche was a big fan of: “To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is outstanding.”

I don't think Nietzsche was a very healthy person physically but I would consider him outstanding. I think it can be hard to define between healthy and sick people... Some sick people have no desire to improve and have given up or just don't recognize their own sickness (descending course of mankind) these people tend to bring others down. Some sick people are well aware how sick they are and have massive desire to get better (ascending course of mankind) they will bring others up with them.

I don't think providing abundance to a healthy person would reinforce their health it would make them lazy and passive and they would deteriorate. Same thing with a sick person maybe. I guess it is a question of an abundance of what? This goes into Hans Selyes concept of stress vs distress maybe. How much stress is stimulating for someone- how much is too much? And then how much should people be helped based on this?

 

[lvysaur]

Nietzsche's philosophy was a breaking respone to the lies of religion; a structure where the weak try to subdue the strong through codified servitude.

Religion (and politics) is mostly a system of the very strong policing the somewhat less strong through the use of the weak. Very darwinist and meritocratic under an amoral viewpoint.

If you're going to go the way of "might is right", there's no need for mental masturbation about it; you already know your philosophy, which is that you have the moral right to do whatever you are physically capable of doing.