Limited Knowledge and Maya - Schopenhauer

World as Will

...Certainly, however, the world does not exhibit itself to the knowledge of the individual as such, developed for the service of the will, as it finally reveals itself to the inquirer as the objectivity of the one and only will to live, which he himself is.  But the sight of the uncultured individual is clouded*, as the Hindus say, by the veil of Maya.  He sees not the thing-in-itself but the phenomenon in time and space, the principle of individuation, and in the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason.  And in this form of his limited knowledge he sees not the inner nature of things, which is one, but its phenomena as separated, disunited, innumerable, very different, and indeed opposed.  For to him pleasure appears as one thing and pain as quite another thing: one man as a tormentor and a murderer, another as a martyr and a victim; wickedness as one thing and evil as another.  He sees one man live in joy, abundance and pleasure and even at his door another die miserably of want and cold.  Then he asks, Where is the retribution?  And he himself, in the vehement pressure of will which is his origin and his nature seizes upon the pleasures and enjoyments of life, firmly embraces them, and knows not that by this very act of his will he seizes and hugs all those pains and sorrows at the sight of which he shudders...




trns. by Martin Kaufman

*Here, the concept of aesthetics (the idea of taste and judgment affecting quality of knowledge and individual and social development) could be furthered but is conceded to Hinduism and the concept of Maya, and thus remains the unexplored core of Western Philosophy and Ontology that could providentially affect technology.