Eternal Return

Use this philosophy forum to discuss and debate general philosophy topics that don't fit into one of the other categories.

This forum is NOT for factual, informational or scientific questions about philosophy (e.g. "What year was Socrates born?"). Those kind of questions can be asked in the off-topic section.
User avatar
ktz
Posts: 169
Joined: November 9th, 2018, 12:21 am
Favorite Philosopher: Habermas

Eternal Return

Post by ktz »

The late continental philosophy professor and author Robert Solomon, seen speaking on existentialism in this short here: https://vimeo.com/35992277 -- once recounted in a lecture the story of how he became interested in philosophy. While a medical student at the University of Michigan, he once stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return asks the fundamental question:

"If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"

After this lecture, Solomon quit medical school and began studies in philosophy. I'd like to pose the same question to any topic participants here, and also wonder: is there anything in your life that you would change moving forward, if you knew that the decisions you make are to recur for all eternity?

Or, do you have a story to share of a synchronistic moment that changed the entire course of your life like Professor Solomon had in this lecture?
You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Hereandnow »

Eternal return, not unlike Kierkegaard's concept of repetition. The idea is that when one begins the next moment of lived life, one should not blindly fall in line with what simply presents itself. Rather, one can begin the moment anew, free of unreflected causes that make a claim on you , as if the act were produced freely with sovereign intent. What follows is a blissful production of what culture and language provide: blissful because the present moment is actually blissful, though we are unaware of this because we are so busy just following through on what came before.
So, the narrative one can construct is not important for what it about, but for how it is deployed. It should issue from the present, wherein lies one's freedom.

I thought Solomon's taped lectures were great. Alas, the good die young. I remember him on Nietzsche and ethics: for Nietzsche, it is not that I don't lie because I adhere to some principle about lying; it is rather, I don't lie, because I'm not a liar.
It rebuffs rationalism. Is this where true ethics lies? In my eternal return, I want to be the embodiment of what I believe, not bound to principle but free and here and now.
User avatar
h_k_s
Posts: 1243
Joined: November 25th, 2018, 12:09 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Aristotle
Location: Rocky Mountains

Re: Eternal Return

Post by h_k_s »

ktz wrote: December 10th, 2018, 3:00 pm The late continental philosophy professor and author Robert Solomon, seen speaking on existentialism in this short here: https://vimeo.com/35992277 -- once recounted in a lecture the story of how he became interested in philosophy. While a medical student at the University of Michigan, he once stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return asks the fundamental question:

"If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"

After this lecture, Solomon quit medical school and began studies in philosophy. I'd like to pose the same question to any topic participants here, and also wonder: is there anything in your life that you would change moving forward, if you knew that the decisions you make are to recur for all eternity?

Or, do you have a story to share of a synchronistic moment that changed the entire course of your life like Professor Solomon had in this lecture?
Nietzsche's hypothetical falls within metaphysics, that chapter in Aristotle's writings that follows physics.

As such it borders on the line drawn between philosophy and religion. According to Bertrand Russell there is a line drawn here and it should never be crossed.

Ok for the purposes of Nietzsche's question let's briefly dare to cross it.

The concept of such reincarnations is a fundamental principle of Hinduism. The only difference is that you come back as another animal.

Returning now to Philosophy and leaving Religion, let's look at Descartes instead of Nietzsche.

If we divert to Descartes and his view of the Evil Genius, such a circular stream of existence would be pure torture if it never ended. Ergo it cannot exist because there cannot be any Evil Genius.

With Descartes proof, we therefore need not trifle with this erroneous hypothetical.
User avatar
h_k_s
Posts: 1243
Joined: November 25th, 2018, 12:09 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Aristotle
Location: Rocky Mountains

Re: Eternal Return

Post by h_k_s »

I simply stumbled onto Philosophy as a part of my studies of History which I love.

I believe that everyone must know history or else be condemned to repeat it (Santayana). I believe this a priori.

I browsed through the Philosophy section at Barnes & Noble Booksellers Inc and found and read Bertrand Russell's book The History Of Western Philosophy as my starting point.

It opened up the world of Philosophy to me.

I decided that I both agreed and disagreed with many of Russell's notions, and I could make a priori arguments against his.

That's when I discovered I was already a philosopher, and more specifically a Romantic Philosopher like Aquinas.

My brother and sister philosophers are now my peers and anyone not familiar with philosophy seems very inferior because they cannot think straight and they are strangled by contradictions and fallacies.
User avatar
h_k_s
Posts: 1243
Joined: November 25th, 2018, 12:09 pm
Favorite Philosopher: Aristotle
Location: Rocky Mountains

Re: Eternal Return

Post by h_k_s »

Hereandnow wrote: December 10th, 2018, 10:30 pm Eternal return, not unlike Kierkegaard's concept of repetition. The idea is that when one begins the next moment of lived life, one should not blindly fall in line with what simply presents itself. Rather, one can begin the moment anew, free of unreflected causes that make a claim on you , as if the act were produced freely with sovereign intent. What follows is a blissful production of what culture and language provide: blissful because the present moment is actually blissful, though we are unaware of this because we are so busy just following through on what came before.
So, the narrative one can construct is not important for what it about, but for how it is deployed. It should issue from the present, wherein lies one's freedom.

I thought Solomon's taped lectures were great. Alas, the good die young. I remember him on Nietzsche and ethics: for Nietzsche, it is not that I don't lie because I adhere to some principle about lying; it is rather, I don't lie, because I'm not a liar.
It rebuffs rationalism. Is this where true ethics lies? In my eternal return, I want to be the embodiment of what I believe, not bound to principle but free and here and now.
To not lie because one does not want to be seen as a liar is a moral choice among many choices.

I myself also hate lying. Not only is it a despicable habit, it destroys one's credibility once it is discovered. I know because my niece lies constantly and she had no credibility with anyone in our family.

Besides lying, I also hate thieving, murder, polluting, wasting resources, wasting time, accepting unnecessary risk, causing unnecessary risk to others, and several other malevolent characteristics which are inconsistent with a saintly mortal human.

In Romantic Philosophy you try to be the kind of person that makes your Creator happy with you and not regretful that He/She/They created you.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Hereandnow »

Nietzsche would not really disagree with what you say, I mean, no doubt people think like this and are right to, but his point would be that these thoughts are not, to borrow, originary or primordial. He looked to the Greeks or the Romans in their gladiatorials, where one would spit on the shield of another,' or Odysseus who was a man of living virtue, not some paltry rationalist. Socrates would spend his time insulting men of honor and worth while all along he was in comparison, just an empty vessel. Not being a thief, a murderer, a polluter and the rest should issue from what is genuinely you, free of the excesses of moralizing. Out greatness lies not in what we believe, but what we are. He might say something like this.
Fooloso4
Posts: 3601
Joined: February 28th, 2014, 4:50 pm

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Fooloso4 »

ktz:
I'd like to pose the same question to any topic participants here, and also wonder: is there anything in your life that you would change moving forward, if you knew that the decisions you make are to recur for all eternity?
Nietzsche points out that each and every thing that has happened in his life contributes to who is he is now. He could not answer the question as he does if everything had not been as it was. How he thinks about it, how he evaluates it, is not at some remove from the life he has lived.

If one accepts the idea of an eternal return then the idea that one could change what had been is logically contradictory. If one decides to make changes moving forward then these are the same changes you have made before and are in that sense not changes at all. Moving forward is moving toward the unknown. The consequences of what we do cannot be foreseen. It is only in retrospect that know whether the decision is the one we would have chosen with foreknowledge. There is then a sense in which the eternal return is a return to the inescapable now.

There are things I might have done differently, but there is nothing I can do about it now and I wonder how I might be different and how my life would be different if I had. Moving forward I don’t see much value of trying to decide in terms of recurrence. It is only the life I live here and now that I am aware of. I am not aware of having done this before and will not be aware of doing it again. If I am to make a decision it will be one I make now and in terms of how it will affect my life and the lives of others now and in the future. Knowing that it will all happen again does not change that. I do not see how I might do things differently if I knew that what I do now will be repeated.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Hereandnow »

h_k_s

That's when I discovered I was already a philosopher, and more specifically a Romantic Philosopher like Aquinas.
A romantic? I don't know how this works; I always deemed him a rationalist, and really, he is just this. Also, keep in mind that Aquinas said that it would be an occasion of great joy for those in heaven to be able to watch those in hell writhe in agony as punishment for their sins. Never thought well of him after learning that.
User avatar
ktz
Posts: 169
Joined: November 9th, 2018, 12:21 am
Favorite Philosopher: Habermas

Re: Eternal Return

Post by ktz »

Hereandnow wrote: December 10th, 2018, 10:30 pm Eternal return, not unlike Kierkegaard's concept of repetition. The idea is that when one begins the next moment of lived life, one should not blindly fall in line with what simply presents itself. Rather, one can begin the moment anew, free of unreflected causes that make a claim on you , as if the act were produced freely with sovereign intent. What follows is a blissful production of what culture and language provide: blissful because the present moment is actually blissful, though we are unaware of this because we are so busy just following through on what came before.
So, the narrative one can construct is not important for what it about, but for how it is deployed. It should issue from the present, wherein lies one's freedom.

I thought Solomon's taped lectures were great. Alas, the good die young. I remember him on Nietzsche and ethics: for Nietzsche, it is not that I don't lie because I adhere to some principle about lying; it is rather, I don't lie, because I'm not a liar.
It rebuffs rationalism. Is this where true ethics lies? In my eternal return, I want to be the embodiment of what I believe, not bound to principle but free and here and now.
Thanks H&N for these additional insights. I agree about Professor Solomon, rest in peace. I really like Solomon's ability to hit you with an inspiring sort of call to action -- like, at the end of his lecture on amor fati, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J5gsgbw9s&t=29m05s -- summarizing Nietzsche's thinking on fulfilling one's destiny and accepting who you are... "rejecting freedom in the existentialist sense, but nevertheless emphasizing what the existentialists all emphasize, which is individual existence, and seeing to it that you take responsibility for who you are." I really appreciate the capacity of philosophy to inspire and guide decision making, and I wish I could find more teachers like Solomon that can kind of smack you in the face with his ideas, not to impress you with how clever or sophisticated these old big names were, but to genuinely explore how what they're talking about can help us make more thoughtful choices and live better lives.

Your conclusion really resonates with me, about trying to be the embodiment of what we believe. I think there's some interesting empirical stuff that's come out in the last decade or so that draws attention to just how much what we believe about who we are can affect our performance. One study of note is the "enclothed cognition" finding that came out of Northwestern in 2010 -- the researchers there found that literally just having students put on a lab coat before performing an intellectual task translated into higher performance. Another interesting finding is the whole slew of "stereotype threat" studies that came out, showing that even just mentioning a stereotype of female or black students performing worse at a mathematical task was enough to create a statistically significant loss of performance compared to a control group where the stereotype was not mentioned. So even beyond just what you are saying about being true to oneself -- I would add to that the ability to resist forces that would cause us to doubt our true selves, as even that which we believe about ourselves has the power to shape our outcomes. The ability of our expectations to affect reality for better and worse is something that I wish the most cynically-minded among us would try to be conscious of -- my younger self included.
You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.
User avatar
ktz
Posts: 169
Joined: November 9th, 2018, 12:21 am
Favorite Philosopher: Habermas

Re: Eternal Return

Post by ktz »

Fooloso4 wrote: December 11th, 2018, 12:41 pm ktz:

Nietzsche points out that each and every thing that has happened in his life contributes to who is he is now. He could not answer the question as he does if everything had not been as it was. How he thinks about it, how he evaluates it, is not at some remove from the life he has lived.

If one accepts the idea of an eternal return then the idea that one could change what had been is logically contradictory. If one decides to make changes moving forward then these are the same changes you have made before and are in that sense not changes at all. Moving forward is moving toward the unknown. The consequences of what we do cannot be foreseen. It is only in retrospect that know whether the decision is the one we would have chosen with foreknowledge. There is then a sense in which the eternal return is a return to the inescapable now.

There are things I might have done differently, but there is nothing I can do about it now and I wonder how I might be different and how my life would be different if I had. Moving forward I don’t see much value of trying to decide in terms of recurrence. It is only the life I live here and now that I am aware of. I am not aware of having done this before and will not be aware of doing it again. If I am to make a decision it will be one I make now and in terms of how it will affect my life and the lives of others now and in the future. Knowing that it will all happen again does not change that. I do not see how I might do things differently if I knew that what I do now will be repeated.
Fooloso, I feel inclined to push you in the direction of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I think what Nietzsche is trying to do with this Sisyphean idea is to weigh us down with the heaviest burden imaginable, so that we might try to avoid what Joseph Campbell describes as the greatest human transgression, “the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.”

The goal with this idea as I understand it is not to spend time wondering about what we could have changed in the past, but to create for ourselves a narrative of how our various struggles have shaped who we are for the better, having not killed us thus making us stronger, etc., so that we can accept who we are, develop our amor fati, and to consign to ourselves a picture of our destiny and who we truly want to become. As Camus concludes in The Myth of Sisyphus, "The struggle itself ... is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy"

From the opening paragraphs of Kundera's novel:
If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht).

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
You may have a heart of gold, but so does a hard-boiled egg.
Fooloso4
Posts: 3601
Joined: February 28th, 2014, 4:50 pm

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Fooloso4 »

Ktz:
Milan Kundera … Joseph Campbell … Camus
To each their own, but I attempt to interpret a philosopher on his or her own terms in his or her own words.
I think what Nietzsche is trying to do with this Sisyphean idea is to weigh us down with the heaviest burden imaginable …
Have you read the three metamorphoses from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra? The first metamorphoses is the camel who is burdened by the spirit of gravity, a burden that must be overcome:
This however is my teaching: he who wisheth one day to fly, must first learn standing and walking and running and climbing and dancing:—one doth not fly into flying! (Zarathustra, The Spirit of Gravity)
ktz:
The goal with this idea as I understand it is not to spend time wondering about what we could have changed in the past …
You seem to have missed my point. I said:
If one accepts the idea of an eternal return then the idea that one could change what had been is logically contradictory.
The reason is that:
... each and every thing that has happened in his life contributes to who is he is now.
It is not simply a matter of wondering about what we could have changed, but of what that means. We look at the past from the perspective of who we are now. Changing the past would change who I became, who I am, and thus would change the way I look at the past. To a greater or lesser extent, because of those changes, it would be a different self evaluating differently. How that self would evaluate what had happened, the choices I had made, is unknowable.
… but to create for ourselves a narrative of how our various struggles have shaped who we are for the better …
I do not think that Nietzsche concludes that what we have become is for the better or for the worse.
That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht).
That is from The Gay Science, Aphorism 341:
The greatest weight.--
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
The closing question is:
… how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
Becoming well disposed to yourself does not mean to simply accept yourself as you are. This is not facile pop psychology. Nietzsche says that we must become our own best enemies. This does not mean telling ourselves stories about how things have happened for the better. It is about being honest with ourselves and changing ourselves for the better.

Nietzsche's Zarathustra exhorts us to:
Become who you are.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Hereandnow »

ktz
stereotype threat" studies that came out, showing that even just mentioning a stereotype of female or black students performing worse at a mathematical task was enough to create a statistically significant loss of performance compared to a control group where the stereotype was not mentioned. So even beyond just what you are saying about being true to oneself -- I would add to that the ability to resist forces that would cause us to doubt our true selves, as even that which we believe about ourselves has the power to shape our outcomes. The ability of our expectations to affect reality for better and worse is something that I wish the most cynically-minded among us would try to be conscious of -- my younger self included.
Some call it a self fulfilling prophesy, and I think you're right to say that suggestive ideas have a powerful effect how we think and feel. It is when they are politically reinforced that they become especially pernicious. I remember when The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray came out: it was a genuinely vile thing to do, insult to injury, trying to put racism out there in the guise of objective thinking. So degrading for so many, I was furious.
Nietzsche was living testimony that one can overcome, though, spending his life managing physical suffering as he did, until it drove him insane. I don't abide by much of what he said, but he surely had some "will to power" at his back;in this he was a true ubermensch.
Fooloso4
Posts: 3601
Joined: February 28th, 2014, 4:50 pm

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Fooloso4 »

— As composer, riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance, did I teach them to create the future, and all that hath been— to redeem by creating. (Zarathustra, Old and New Tablets)
From the chapter in Zarathustra entitled “The Riddle and the Vision”:
Upwards:—in spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and arch-enemy.
Upwards:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralysed, paralysing; dripping lead in mine ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.


“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued, “it hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one yet gone to the end of.

This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward—that is another eternity.

They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:—and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’

But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, thinkest thou, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally antithetical?”—

“Everything straight lieth,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

“Thou spirit of gravity!” said I wrathfully, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where thou squattest, Haltfoot,—and I carried thee HIGH!”

“Observe,” continued I, “This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane BACKWARDS: behind us lieth an eternity.

Must not whatever CAN run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever CAN happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

And if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?

And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This Moment draweth all coming things after it? CONSEQUENTLY—itself also?

For whatever CAN run its course of all things, also in this long lane OUTWARD—MUST it once more run!—

And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things—must we not all have already existed?

—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane—must we not eternally return?”—



Where was now the dwarf? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Had I dreamt? Had I awakened? ‘Twixt rugged rocks did I suddenly stand alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.

BUT THERE LAY A MAN! And there! The dog leaping, bristling, whining—now did it see me coming—then did it howl again, then did it CRY:—had I ever heard a dog cry so for help?

And verily, what I saw, the like had I never seen. A young shepherd did I see, writhing, choking, quivering, with distorted countenance, and with a heavy black serpent hanging out of his mouth.

Had I ever seen so much loathing and pale horror on one countenance? He had perhaps gone to sleep? Then had the serpent crawled into his throat—there had it bitten itself fast.

My hand pulled at the serpent, and pulled:—in vain! I failed to pull the serpent out of his throat. Then there cried out of me: “Bite! Bite!

Its head off! Bite!”—so cried it out of me; my horror, my hatred, my loathing, my pity, all my good and my bad cried with one voice out of me.—

Ye daring ones around me! Ye venturers and adventurers, and whoever of you have embarked with cunning sails on unexplored seas! Ye enigma-enjoyers!

Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld, interpret unto me the vision of the lonesomest one!

For it was a vision and a foresight:—WHAT did I then behold in parable? And WHO is it that must come some day?

WHO is the shepherd into whose throat the serpent thus crawled? WHO is the man into whose throat all the heaviest and blackest will thus crawl?

—The shepherd however bit as my cry had admonished him; he bit with a strong bite! Far away did he spit the head of the serpent—: and sprang up.—

No longer shepherd, no longer man—a transfigured being, a light-surrounded being, that LAUGHED! Never on earth laughed a man as HE laughed!

O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter,—and now gnaweth a thirst at me, a longing that is never allayed.

My longing for that laughter gnaweth at me: oh, how can I still endure to live! And how could I endure to die at present!—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Zarathustra begins with a model of an eternal past and an eternal future running in opposite directions. The two roads come together in the moment but no one has yet gone to the end of them. He then asks if one could follow the road further and further would they still be antithetical. The spirit of gravity answers: all truth is crooked, time is a circle.

What are we to make of this crooked truth, this truth that is not true, that is, straight? If no one has “yet” followed further and further for an eternity and more then no one knows that the roads form a circle. The first problem with this is the “yet”. There can be no yet if all has occurred before, or if it can be then it is not true that whatever will happen has happened. The second problem is that if time is a circle does it only move in one direction?

When he hears the dog howl he asks whether he had ever heard a dog howl like this and answered that he had in his youth. But when he sees the shepherd he says he had never seen this before. If it is true that everything that happens has already happened then it would be false to say that he had never seen this before. After biting the head of the snake off, the transfigured being who was no longer a shepherd and no longer a man, laughed as no man on earth had ever laughed.

Zarathustra poses the problems this parable, this enigma: who is it that must come some day? Who is the shepherd? He does not ask about the snake. Is it the snake that bites its own tail, completing the circle? Having bit off its head is the circle broken? Is the laugh that no man has ever laughed something new? Has the one who must someday come come before or is it something that has yet to happen?

The eternal return is a riddle. One key to reading that riddle the problem of creation. If all is eternal return then there can be no creation, but above all Zarathustra wants to create are creators.

Will to power is for Nietzsche fundamental to the whole of nature. Nature is its own self-overcoming.
Jklint
Posts: 1719
Joined: February 23rd, 2012, 3:06 am

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Jklint »

There is too much woe and existential angst ascribed to the idea of Eternal Recurrence. Even if there were such a thing in this universe or better still a multiverse, it amounts to nothing more than a probability statistic which has nothing to do, completely independent of any life, regardless of how many times it repeats, to the current and personal one lived and experienced in the here and now. Any statistic which may enforce eternal repeatability has no connection with any specific instance of it. Every such life remains totally separate and self-contained.

The real power of Eternal Recurrence is on how the idea inflects upon the psyche challenging one's whole life and how it evaluates itself going forward. The idea becomes one of the great psychological challenges as a virtual examination of the unexamined life relative to having lived all of it and what such examination would provide for it's next instantiation all considered within the compass of a single life.
User avatar
Papus79
Posts: 1798
Joined: February 19th, 2017, 6:59 pm

Re: Eternal Return

Post by Papus79 »

If it were true in the fullest sense you'd be screwed. Try to think of any moment where you have knowledge that you don't have to make a choice that you wouldn't think to make. Intuition hits you at a given point in time, usually quite a bit like a eureka moment, but regardless if pushed to act a few minutes before said intuition was possible you would have acted on your best guess without it.

If it were eternal return I'd probably tell myself to watch more football and baseball and drink more beer. I tend to be a bit driven and if it's not only truly for nothing but that all of my efforts would go on loop as well - pretending I had free will not to do what I'd do anyway based on my environment, I have no clue. Perhaps just watch, listen, and follow your inner compass because your inner voice in that case will be your judge for all of eternity.
Humbly watching Youtube in Universe 25. - Me
Post Reply

Return to “General Philosophy”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021