The Definition of Power

[Freudian Monkey]

Hello everyone,

I would like to discuss the concept of power and it's relation to how we should live.

A simple and yet still pretty accurate definition in my opinion is "The ability to cause or prevent change." What do you think about this definition?

However, I would like to go a bit further and propose that power is a pretty profound concept that is closely tied to the meaning of life. I will now proceed to express some ideas I have developed about the nature of power and how it's tied to a meaningful life.

To me the meaning of life is development. We should constantly develop ourselves, learn more, acquire more resources, so that we can influence your surroundings and gain control of your own mind and desires. Either a man determines his own fate or others will determine his fate for him. You have to have desire for life. In my view, this is exactly what Nietzsche calls POWER. Power is simply a being's ability to influence it's internal and external reality. Every living being has power since life itself is power - plants reach out to sun and drain water from the soil because they too have will to live, they too have will to power. They want to spread and fill the earth, just like we do. As long as your heart beats, you have the potential to influence the world, you have power, but when you draw your last breath, you no longer can affect your surroundings. Therefore life itself is power.

All relationships are based on power. There is no unconditional love. A mother loves her children because the child satisfies a need that is based on power. Acts of self-sacrifice and self-denial are not really selfless, because they're motivated by moral values or evolutionary motives that are also manifestations of power.

Once you understand the real nature of power and realize that it's a fundamental and unchanging force of nature, you will immediately understand how you should live:

1) You cannot be indifferent towards life. You either take control or your will be at the mercy of others more powerful than you. Or you will be corrupted and spoiled by desires that you cannot control.

2) You need to gain control of your inner reality. Transform your habits and your routines so that you're not wasting time but that your routines make you into a better person, step by step. Transform your thinking, gain control of your thoughts - don't be a slave of your thoughts, they're not who you really are. Step outside your thoughts and look at them critically. Then take control. Decide who you want to be and start thinking like the person who you want to become. Your thoughts will slowly transform you into this person. If you have bad habits, get rid of them. Otherwise they will always drag your down and prevent you from reaching your true potential.

3) You need to take control of your external reality. Train your body so that it will not fail you. Become more attentive and loving towards your loved ones, since your friendships and family ties are among your greatest sources of power. Develop good social skills and always try to find things that you have in common with other people and forget all the hundreds of things that separate you from one another. Learn to do your job better than anybody else. Become the person everybody relies on when they need something done - to do this, learn skills that people appreciate and require. Become involved in various social projects so that you develop strong social networks. Keep setting new goals for yourself and make sure you keep track of how far you've come for reaching them.

Power gives you everything you want in life. Other people like you more when you are powerful, since your social skills and ability to make people like you are also power - they're your ability to make changes to your external reality. You can be charitable and helpful since you have power to influence other people's lives. Knowledge is power, so you should always pursue knowledge and also to use the power of your knowledge to cause change you desire. When you have resources, you can make your dreams become reality. When you have control of your internal reality, you're not a slave to your desires, addictions and other weaknesses of the mind.


So what do you think about all this? Is this philosophy too heartless or too calculative? Is power not everything we all are after? If not, then what is?

[YesNo]

I don't see the connection with Nietzsche, but I think the three steps are good advice. Why do you think this is "heartless or too calculative"?

[Freudian Monkey]

Well I don't think it's heartless or calculative, but it might seem so to someone. Maybe some might feel that power somehow negates the importance of our love for others and humanitarian acts, which it of course doesn't. That power as a guiding principle of life is just a form of Social Darwinism, which I don't think it is. I think the word "power" in itself has so negative connotations these days that it would be better to invent another term to describe such an important concept. And I'm sure someone has invented another term for it and I'm just ignorant for not knowing it.

So what do you think about whether this power can indeed be the underlying driving force of men, animals, plants and all life? That we all have an inbuilt drive to control our internal and external realities? That death can be defined as the end of our ability to influence our surroundings?

[Dreamwoven]

I would agree with your view of power, FM and the way it determines so much in everybody's life.

[YesNo]

Well I don't think it's heartless or calculative, but it might seem so to someone. Maybe some might feel that power somehow negates the importance of our love for others and humanitarian acts, which it of course doesn't. That power as a guiding principle of life is just a form of Social Darwinism, which I don't think it is. I think the word "power" in itself has so negative connotations these days that it would be better to invent another term to describe such an important concept. And I'm sure someone has invented another term for it and I'm just ignorant for not knowing it.

So what do you think about whether this power can indeed be the underlying driving force of men, animals, plants and all life? That we all have an inbuilt drive to control our internal and external realities? That death can be defined as the end of our ability to influence our surroundings?

I've been looking at "socionomics" recently. These people study what they call "social mood" in humans especially as measured in market behavior. For them a chart of the Dow Industrials is a "sociometer" measuring this "social mood". This social mood would be like an "underlying driving force". It is not the social mood that we normally think of. It flips causality on its head. A market drop does not cause people to have negative social mood. People with negative social mood cause the market to drop. They describe it as "unconscious", but something an individual can recognize and get of out of the way of or participate in very much like you are suggesting various ways to "control" or exercise "power". It also moves in a spiral form rather than cyclically which helps explain evolutionary progress.

The big question is: Does social mood exist? Does the underlying driving force you refer to exist? Those who don't want social mood to exist say that a market chart is a "random walk" or that evolutionary change is a random mutation of genes not something caused by the existence of a "species". Or everything is determined by something or other and there is no point in you trying to get any power in the first place. Why would someone introduce randomness (or determinism)? With randomness (and its pair, determinism) they do not have to assume the existence of social mood or your driving force.

So, I agree with you that such driving forces exist. They are "overlying" rather than "underlying", top-down rather than bottom-up, holistic rather than mechanistic, and that is why some people don't want them to exist. Their existence reminds them too much of angels, demons, muses or gods. It is a step in the direction of theism.

I am looking for ways to get this "power" as well and they are similar to the ones you mention. You mention "train your body". I think habitual good posture, that is, back straight, shoulders back, sitting or walking tall, is the first step toward that physical or somatic training. You mention "gain control of your thoughts". I think habitual use of short sayings or mantras keep the mind in line as well as paying attention to what is going on right now rather than getting lost in one's mind. Some call this mindfulness and it grounds your suggestion to "Become more attentive and loving towards your loved ones".

[Freudian Monkey]

I've been looking at "socionomics" recently. These people study what they call "social mood" in humans especially as measured in market behavior. For them a chart of the Dow Industrials is a "sociometer" measuring this "social mood". This social mood would be like an "underlying driving force". It is not the social mood that we normally think of. It flips causality on its head. A market drop does not cause people to have negative social mood. People with negative social mood cause the market to drop. They describe it as "unconscious", but something an individual can recognize and get of out of the way of or participate in very much like you are suggesting various ways to "control" or exercise "power". It also moves in a spiral form rather than cyclically which helps explain evolutionary progress.

The big question is: Does social mood exist? Does the underlying driving force you refer to exist? Those who don't want social mood to exist say that a market chart is a "random walk" or that evolutionary change is a random mutation of genes not something caused by the existence of a "species". Or everything is determined by something or other and there is no point in you trying to get any power in the first place. Why would someone introduce randomness (or determinism)? With randomness (and its pair, determinism) they do not have to assume the existence of social mood or your driving force.

So, I agree with you that such driving forces exist. They are "overlying" rather than "underlying", top-down rather than bottom-up, holistic rather than mechanistic, and that is why some people don't want them to exist. Their existence reminds them too much of angels, demons, muses or gods. It is a step in the direction of theism.

I am looking for ways to get this "power" as well and they are similar to the ones you mention. You mention "train your body". I think habitual good posture, that is, back straight, shoulders back, sitting or walking tall, is the first step toward that physical or somatic training. You mention "gain control of your thoughts". I think habitual use of short sayings or mantras keep the mind in line as well as paying attention to what is going on right now rather than getting lost in one's mind. Some call this mindfulness and it grounds your suggestion to "Become more attentive and loving towards your loved ones".

Social mood is indeed a very interesting concept and maybe it could in some way relate to the concept of power as well. I need to study social mood a bit more before I can really fully grasp the concept. But as you said, it's a overlying force that is something very profound, almost like a force of nature.

I'm not sure whether or not the concept of power is compatible with the view that everything in nature is the result of randomness. To me this question seems inconsequential, since as long as there is life, the life will always try to gain control of it's internal and external reality, or else it will perish. So even if life is a result of fully random mutations, it doesn't negate the fact that life will try to flourish in any environment. So the will to live is still there. I don't think determinism contradicts the concept of power either - as long as a being has the means to make changes to it's internal and external reality, it will continue to do so under the law of causality. I'm not entirely sure if you meant something entirely different with your fine remarks and I apologize if I misunderstood you completely.

Mindfulness is a way to power, yes. It's a very good way to gain control, becoming aware of the superficiality of thoughts and that underlying silent watcher that is your true essence. Gaining control of one's thoughts is thus a way of living in the now, which is the most powerful state of mind. Being able to silence the distracting voices in your head let's you work and socialize more efficiently, and thus become more powerful.

I personally stress the importance of habit creation. Most things we do in our everyday lives are habitual activities. Therefore, but transforming our habits, we transform our whole lives. We need to become aware of our habits and make conscious effort to gain control over them. Habits can be changed, so why not change them on purpose? Want to become more productive? Create a habit of planning your daily schedule before hand by writing a to-do lists every day. Develop a habit of starting your most important tasks first thing in the morning. Start going jogging every morning before going to work until it becomes a habit. If you want to get rid of a bad habit, simply replace it with a good habit that uses the same cues - if you usually went for a smoke during a lunch break, develop a habit of sending a message to your wife during your break. Good habits are a tremendous source of power, bad habits drain your power like sponges.

[YesNo]

I don't understand social mood either, but it is the word socionomists use. I am reading some of their works now. I finished Robert Prechter's "Prechter's Perspective" a couple weeks ago. It is mainly about trading, but the underlying justification for Elliott Waves is what interests me. These waves are not random walks which implies something, call it social mood or whatever, is behind the non-randomness.

I think we agree with how to get power and why one should get it. It makes our communities stronger.

[Freudian Monkey]

I would go as far to suggest that power is also through which we achieve happiness. Here I think many people will disagree with me, since power is completely against religious and spiritual virtues like modesty, self-denial and the tendency to look for rewards in the afterlife. The belief in miracles and other magicks is a way to trick oneself to believe that one is in control, that one has power, even though this is not the case. This is why children are so keen to magicks and super heroes, because through such concepts they can imagine being powerful before they're developmentally ready enough to acquire real power. Even children grave for power, even though they mostly understand that great power is too much for them to handle. But it's their end goal, to become powerful one day.

Spiritual practice can be either a way to acquire more power or a way to turn away from power. So it can be either something that embraces life or a life-denying practice. As long as spiritual practice is aimed towards gaining control over one's internal and external reality, it's a life-affirming practice, however if the practice ceases to pursue to maintain or increase control, it becomes merely a waste of time.

If we look at something like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, we see immediately, that all of these desires can be acquired through power. Physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem and respect as well as self-actualization are all things that require power to acquire and that can be easily acquired by achieving greater control over one's internal and external reality. Something like need for spirituality and altruistic values are a bit more complex to relate directly to power, but they're not contrary to people's drive to acquire power either - as long as an altruistic act can increase one's social influence or any other form of power, it can be a life-affirming act. But to sacrifice one's life for others? A miscalculation, at least from power acquisition perspective. Although sacrificing oneself for one's children or a pregnant wife could be seem as a way to guarantee the continuation of your family line, which could also be a way to preserve one's power over generations - your seed fills the earth, which is in the end what life is all about. This need to preserve one's power over generations is also seen in people's desire to built monuments and great tombs for themselves, or to have their names carved into the pages of history, so that their name will be remembered and that their influence and control doesn't completely disappear after their death.

But what is the true nature of power transference? Is it in our nature to let go of power in our old age? Is it "meant to be" that way? Does it really matter whether my power survives after my death?

I don't claim to know the answer. I need to keep on working on it.

[YesNo]

I agree that through power we achieve happiness. Anything I do affects a community, even if it is a single monk meditating in an Himalayan hideaway. We are not individuals. We are in social contexts. What we discuss here does not just affect us. It goes another level and affects those we know who have not read what we posted. I think it has been verified to go even another level. (See Nicholas A. Christakis: "Connected: the surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives") This is some evidence for "social mood" and our responsibility in how we handle it.

The one thing I don't like about meditation or mindfulness practices at least as I have heard them explained is they seem too individualistic providing an individualistic solution for the goal of avoiding reincarnation. The goal should be to make our communities stronger and more powerful and happier.

As far as survival after death goes, we have enough examples of near-death experiences to not have to worry about that. I am not worried about hells any more than I am worried about reincarnating. I just want to make the present incarnation a heaven.

The spiritual practices that I find most valuable are mindfulness, mantra recitation and good posture.

[Freudian Monkey]

I agree that the mindfulness movement is way too focused on individuals. I have only read a couple of books dealing with the matter and at least someone like Echart Tolle does not put much emphasis on reincarnation, which I think is the right approach. Living in the now means that we don't have to put any thought to life after death or reincarnation, since those things are only "byproducts" of personal growth, which is the true goal. A person who tries to improve himself to avoid reincarnation has completely missed the point.

I'm not yet sure how power relates to the mindfulness teachings. Ultimately I don't think they're entirely compatible, since mindfulness mainly emphasizes the importance to control one's internal reality and does not emphasize the importance of working towards gaining more power to take control over the external reality. In fact it often emphasizes the importance of letting go of worldly pursuits and sees them as something irrelevant to a person's growth.

I also believe in existence after death, but at the moment I'm mainly interested whether power can be transferred over generations and whether it's actually meaningful or desirable to try to transfer power to one's offspring, for instance. Of course you can offer your children good education, teach them everything you know, give them a lot of resources to get started with their own pursuit of power etc. But does this process of preparing your offspring for their future journey have a deeper, metaphysical meaning? For the sake of argument let's assume that there is a God - does he/she/it care how we use our power?

[Dreamwoven]

Only for those who believe in God.

[YesNo]

I don't think one has to believe in God for any of this to make sense. A belief in God is already too specific because the word "God" implies some theology which is sometimes accompanied by an imperialistic political movement. Rejecting that theology and politics is a natural correction. However, we can all acknowledge that we are conscious because our awareness gives us empirical evidence of that. Acknowledging our subjectivity is all that is needed. Our subjectivity is the door to mindfulness. God can take him or herself.

I remember liking Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now", but not liking Stephen Bachelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs" http://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Budd...ut-Beliefs.pdf however it has been a while since I looked at them.

As I see it how we live in our now is important for the present and the future of those around us. We can mess it up. That implies we have the ability to choose and there is some flexible value system on which we can assess how much we messed it up or got it right. To ask whether God cares opens up the question of whether there is some subjectivity outside of our own that might care what our participation in subjectivity does. Well, these subjectivities do exist. There are other humans. There are species around us. There may even be more non-material "forces" that have subjectivity, species in general come to mind. The subjective other-than-us, subjectivities that are capable of caring, may include everything.

[Freudian Monkey]

You're right, using term like God is counterproductive since it carries a lot of baggage that taints the discussion. I was merely referring to the meaning of life and whether it could be connected to some definite purpose or "plan" that might be tied to the concept of power.

If other people are our only source of moral compass, increasing power can almost always be seen as a moral act - at least as long as we don't use our power directly against other people within our society. Mostly the moral dilemma that we encounter with power is related to the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility". When people perceive you as someone powerful, they expect you to use your power in a "fair" way - which mostly means that you should help people like them as much as you can. In other words, people always want to benefit from the power of others. I don't think this is a controversial statement, we all have experiences of others wanting to take advantage of our power - someone asking for help, wanting to borrow money, wanting a ride home etc. The more power an individual has, the more people expect them to share their power.

I would put The Power of Now into the same category with Freud's writings - most of it is complete garbage, but there are nuggets of truly profound insights there as well. The core concept, that we're not our thoughts but silent watchers of our thoughts, is a very important realization and makes a lot of sense.

[Freudian Monkey]

A little update: I think Adam Smith might have a lot to teach us about the nature of power. I will start to go through The Wealth of Nations today, I will write about whether I discovered something significant afterwards.

Smith seems to suggest that acquisition of power doesn't have to happen at the expense of others. He uses the language of economics, but I think most of his concepts can be transferred to a broader context.

[YesNo]

I like panentheism as a view of reality, so I don't mind the use of the word God. I don't want to alienate others such as Dreamwoven who might have problems with the concept.

I haven't read Adam Smith but Prechter's discussion of Elliott Waves is rooted in his earlier trading of markets. He doesn't think economists are able to predict anything of value and by predicting value he means identifying when something will likely change. Predicting a trend is looking only at the past and expecting it to continue. However, economics would be a good way to view how people, by exercising their choices in how to make a living, ultimately help their larger communities. From a non-economic perspective, sometimes power is just contagious happiness that mindfulness facilitates.