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 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. Principle of sufficient reason – every thing/event has a cause logic is not self-grounding  

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 Resists principium individuationis 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 Apollonian orders/masters/stabilizes fundamental reality Embodies principium individuationis (restraints / limits) 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 Dionysian Apollonian aspects in Attic tragedy (Pre-Socratic)   We have lost sight of the Dionysian impulse. The key is to unite A and D Humans in 2001 are great example of Alexandrian 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 and contingency Amor Fati

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 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 (sirens/old magic, don’t listen -> manager || do listen -> impotence) 2001 Dave becomes one with magic/technology —> this allows him to start becoming the Übermensch Zarathustra: “The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth!” "I love him who works and invents to build a house for the overman and to prepare earth, animal, and plant for him: for thus he wants to go under.”