Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's "Will to Live" as a "Will to Death". He argued that all life is a detour toward non-being; we strive to survive only so we can eventually reach the "redemption" of total extinction. Immanent Philosophy:
: God desired non-existence but could not simply vanish because his nature was absolute. To reach "Nothingness," God had to fragment himself into a world of plurality and time. The Universe as a Corpse philipp mainlander philosophy of redemption pdf
Mainländer famously describes the universe as the "rotting corpse" of God. All movement and life are merely the process of this divine disintegration toward a final state of "absolute rest". The Will to Die: Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's "Will to Live" as a
: Mainländer posited that this God desired non-existence but could not simply vanish into nothingness from a state of absolute unity. To achieve annihilation, God shattered His being into the multiplicity of the universe. To reach "Nothingness," God had to fragment himself
Unlike Schopenhauer, who offered aesthetic contemplation or asceticism as temporary escapes, Mainländer argued all existence is a ladder of increasing suffering. Minerals "suffer" least; plants suffer more; animals more; humans the most. The more complex and conscious an entity, the more acutely it feels the agony of its separation from the original nothingness.