We Want Like Rocks Want

2026-04-10

In STEM fields, there is a supposed metaphor which is begrudgingly used all the time. Perhaps calling it a metaphor is incorrect, maybe it would be better labelled as a "turn of phrase" or "linguistic short-hand". It also seems more prevalent in public-facing communications. It is not a technical term, it is casual speech. That turn of phrase is the notion of Will. Scientists use phrases like "gravity wants to pull things together", "an object wants to stay at rest", "a species wants to pass on it's genes". You might also call this personification, or anthropomorphism. Often, a use of this phrase is followed by a predictable, "of course, that's just a metaphor, a computer doesn't really want anything". This is why usage of this kind of phrase are controversial, they rarely go uncommented upon. Scientists want to make very clear that the dead, physical world doesn't have subjectivity like we do, that it's "wants" are nothing like our "wants". It's just a metaphor.

The core discovery of Schopenhaur is that these people are wrong, that this metaphor is so often employed even in spite of our "knowing better", our "of course, as subjects, as people, don't will in the same way nature wills", because it really does get at something about our world. Not because nature is actually alive, thinking, with it's own subjectivity, some divine intellect willing like we will. Precisely the opposite. It's not that rocks want like we want, it's that we want like rocks want. These scientists who are always using this turn of phrase begrudgingly and making sure we know it's only a turn of phrase and not a claim about reality, seem to have forgotten that we are made of matter too. That our will is a product of the exact same set of dynamics as all other matter in the universe. Of course scientists by virtue of their mode of study enjoy pretending that they can really inhabit the position of a truly outside observer on the universe, in turn they forget their situatedness. Despite being ostensibly materialists, they're prone to vulgar dualism. No, we do will like rocks will, it is not a metaphor. We are puppeted along just like everything else. The only difference is, we're around to look at it, and we have some drive to ignore or justify this fact. It's very hard to viscerally know that you are a puppet, even if we are aware intellectually. Which is not surprising, why would we expect evolution to have given us such a useless tool in the first place.

We will like rocks will, which is to say according to external forces beyond our control and beyond our awareness. Gravity really does want to pull things together in the same way that I want to eat carbohydrates, or write poetry, or whatever else, no matter how human it might feel. Will is what it's like to be a thing-in-itself. And frankly, I'm not too pleased with it!