Required Reading: Eternal Recurrence, Linear and Cyclical Time
Eternal recurrence is a concept derived from Nietzsche. It was unfortunately underdeveloped because the most complete description of it is found in a collection of notes titled The Will to Power, which was released (and liberally edited) posthumously by his sister. As such, followers of Nietzsche have attempted to interpret and disentangle the concept in a faithful way, based on prototypical appearances in earlier works and the fragments found in the notes – an effort made difficult by the vagueness and sometimes contradictory nature of those mentions.
The premise of the theory is that all events (and the objects and beings involved), recur in exactly the same way an infinite number of times. In eternal recurrence time is cyclical rather than linear. All bodies and events will occur again in exactly the same way an infinite number of times because the past and future are practically the same as the present, due to the uniformity of the cycle.
Because it is the most familiar analogue, many seek to liken eternal recurrence with reincarnation. This is not the case in any familiar way. In Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence, it is not a new life lived and there is no retention of prior consciousness (though, there is little information provided, with respect to that angle of approach).
Nietzsche used eternal recurrence as a way of showing that life-acceptance was important, in contrast with looking toward some future reward in a promised afterlife at the expense of putting any value into this life. He called this self-acceptance amor fati, or ‘love of fate.’ The problem, however, is that the frame of reference for what is past and what is future is always based in the present – which I have shown to be elusive and asymptotic.
While both Nietzsche and I assume infinite time, his cyclic time incorrectly assumes a finite number of events - an assumption that makes it difficult to reconcile eternal recurrence with the idea of the infinite thing. Despite the admission that all things are finite divisions within the infinite, forgetting that the number of finite divisions is infinite causes many problems.
Next Week: Eternal recurrence vs. Infinite events, in which I make a rather lengthy attempt to address the issues involved in reconciling the one with the other. (It may end up being a two-parter).
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Thank you for this post. You reminded me of Nietzshe's eternal return and inspired my post tonight, "Being Anne Boleyn" http://drlightness.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteI would argue that infinite recurrence is such a flawed concept as to be indefensible based on the following: the infinite is beyond enumeration. Within an infinite set it is impossible to have a definition of identity based upon an infinite set, the set itself is undefined and therefore any value taken to serve as identity must have been imposed from outside the infinite set, which by definition is impossible since any set to be called infinite includes all possible exteriors as well. I would therefore assert that to save Nietzsche's argument from utter collapse it must be shifted into the column marked "logical proofs of God."
ReplyDeleteCyranos:
ReplyDeleteWell, as I mentioned in the last paragraph of this post, eternal recurrence - while assuming infinite time - assumes finite events. Events depend on time, so there cannot be a finite number of events. My earlier post on events explains that more thoroughly.
The only problem with Nietzsche's argument is that while a finite number of events WOULD make recurrence possible (eternity is assumed), infinite events make recurrence impossible, as there are infinitely more events yet to come (thereby making recurrence unnecessary).
I'll be going over a bunch of holes in Eternal recurrence from an 'infinite events' perspective in the coming week's post, and some possible fixes for that as well.
"logical proofs of God?" What's that got to do with anything?
Only the presence of a supra if not super natural being would allow the definition of identity, and thereby allow recurance to be defined as being multiples of the same set of events as differing from multiple recreations of the same set of events. You got to have something bigger than reality to twist reality enough to make such an argument work.
ReplyDeleteCyranos:
ReplyDeleteOnce again, if you refer to 'On Events': http://human-tea.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-events.html
I established that there is only one event.
Recurrence is possible if there is only one event. There is only one time. There is only one space. There is only one event. All of them are infinite - but comprised of arbitrarily divided finite parts.
Now, as I said in my response: I acknowledge that there are problems with reconciling infinite events with eternal recurrence.
However, Nietzsche was not a believer in God, and I'm necessarily skeptical. Nothing about MY arguments entail the existence of a higher power, and like I said, there is ONE major flaw with eternal recurrence: assumed finite events.
Suggesting that reality can't be twisted assumes that you know a great deal about reality - I beg to differ.