The initiated interpretation of will to power

All organisms are nothing more and nothing less than the sum of their evolved functions for expressing will to power—they just are will to power. This is the case in their substance, their physiology, their psychology, and their behaviour. The exercise of these functions is experienced as desire which is directed towards activities that conserve, increase and express power, tending strongly towards the observable phenomenon of survival for reproduction.

Will to power is not just the sole constitutive dynamic within organic life however; it is fundamental in all existence.

Will to power is an irreducible, natural directedness which is as inexorable as gravity. Will to power cannot ever be absent; it is omnipresent; it is just how existence works. Will to power is evolution by natural selection in its most comprehensive interpretation. It is a dynamic whereby that variety of substance, state, or process that is so constituted with respect to its local environmental conditions that it endures and replicates itself, does so; continually accumulating attributes over time that further develop its enduring and replicating characteristics—it tends to expansion, it tends to incorporation, it tends to domination of its environment, it develops, but this development is entirely passive, being determined by its local environmental conditions (of which it is inescapably a component).

Why does Nietzsche use the word ‘will’ then in ‘will to power’?—because humans have come to believe that their directedness, (which has developed to such a degree that is has become complex and plastic*) is a matter of volition. It isn’t. Why does Nietzsche use the word ‘power’ in ‘will to power’?—the concept of power is an entirely anthropocentric value judgement which arises because humans have become partially conscious of their inherent directedness, which they experience as an insatiable and inescapable cyclical dynamic of desire and fulfilment. This dynamic we call overcoming. Overcoming, inasmuch as it is always overcoming something, is power in expression.

A new and uncorrupted hierarchy of needs:

1. Maintain the power you have e.g. rest, conform with the mores of the community to secure your place in it, make efforts to hang on to your beauty as you age, survive etc.

2. Accumulate power e.g. nourishment, education and physical training, make money, increase your social status, have children etc.

3. Express power e.g. create, exercise funktionslust, subordinate others etc.

This definition of will to power is posted here on 22nd December 2023 as a flag, a marker, and a claim.

*Complexity and plasticity are, at bottom, the same thing. Consider the radical implications of this.