1. 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

2. 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

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

4. 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

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

6. 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)

7. 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.”