Eternal Return. Cyclical Time Theory.

If everything eternally repeats themselves truely then nothing and everything doesn’t matter. :laughing:

I think the universe is infinite not definite.

If the universe was definite I don’t see how the cyclical outline would exist or operate but if it’s infinite then it would make all the more sense.

Still even the infinite must be enslaved to entropy which in some sense might make it limitedly definite. Kinda confusing.

If it were infinite there’d be no limitedness/universe/things in.

Why would there be entropy in an infinite universe [assuming there was one]? How can it degrade? …be less than entire.

isn’t infinity simply a dimension in which the universe is expanding, hence it’s a bit like saying the universe is in the vertical of the three spatial dimensions.

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Perhaps I will look into that.

I see. Has Nietzsche made this connection explicitly, or only implied it?
In the first case I would like to read the relevant passages. If you have sources that would help greatly.

You are right, of course. Multiplication by infinity is hardly nothing!

I have to ask, comparatively to what? I think I understand what you mean, but I do not believe that the totality of the universe exists. The universe exists only in our mind as a unity, as a thing. The idea “Totality of Mass” is a construct, it requires a human mind. Any supposed totality is a product of our will to understand, which one could interpret as our will to power. So the larger the totality that rolls out of our computers, the more reason we have to pat each other on the back and exchange compliments for our creative efforts.

Outside of our efforts to understand in this way, who knows if such a thing as te universe even exists at all? If it does, it certainly would exist in a as vastly different shape, or number of shapes than what we are able to imagine. Have we evolved to comprehend the whole we are part of? That would be a very fortunate circumstance, and very strange. But it’s possible. Still, such a whole would only be what we can conceive of. I see no possibility for any of our notions of totality to pertain to an objectively existing limit.

In terms of objective relation (size, quantity), it may be exiting to see the numbers we can come up with. But we cannot possibly so more than interpret limits into what our senses equip us to interpret. Since it is a matter of interpretation and nothing besides, the only way in which these notions we come up with are relevant to us, is in how they affect us.

That is why I’ve aways admire the space-program, and why I hope that man will attempt to set foot on Mars, and on the moons of the gas-giants beyond. It is such an inspired activity. Useless perhaps (although some interesting resources have been located on Mars) but only the miser cares first about utility.

Please allow me to translate your statement to logic: “Given that nothing matters to me, and everything including me repeats itself eternally, then still nothing will ever matter to me.” Is this not what you mean? I cannot disagree with that.

It is of course nonsense to impose a value (in your case, zero) on the world as if this value would then be anything besides a personal interpretation. I may express my idea that the world is of enormous value, but this idea only rises from my experience, and has no meaning to another when it comes in the form of an objective statement.

Perhaps this is confusing because in order for there to be entropy there must be structure, and wherever we interpret structure, it is not possible to speak of infinity. Only in some cases our logic permits us to project an unlimited progression in time of a particular form of change.

If you agree that the overman is or would be “[t]he most high-spirited, most alive, and most world-affirming man”, then BGE 56 (and cf. WP 1041). And that the overman is or would be a man (Mensch, “human being”) is quite explicit from EH “Destiny” 5 (and cf. AC 3-4).

Hm, no reply? I had hoped that someone would point out that though this establishes a connection from the overman to the eternal recurrence, it was the converse that without-music was talking about.

If the overman is the man who affirms the eternal recurrence, we can see how the eternal recurrence, in turn, leads to the overman. Thus in WP 1059 and 1060, Nietzsche basically says that the idea of the eternal recurrence forces men to either perish or adopt revalued values. This is the first selection. Only those who accept the revaluation of all values will endure the idea. But the overman is not the man who merely endures the idea, but who affirms it. Thus Nietzsche ends section 1060 by foretelling the “[g]reatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in man, as he creates the overman.” This is the second selection. These two selections are basically the following (I will underline the first and make the second bold):

“Ye lonesome ones of today, ye seceding ones, ye shall one day be a people: out of you who have chosen yourselves, shall a chosen people arise:—and out of it the Superman.”
(TSZ, “Bestowing Virtue”, 2, trans. Common.)

Compare also WP 55 to 1059: in 1059, the revaluation of all values is associated with the will to power; and in 55, a crisis in the ancient Greek sense of the word, a sifting, is described in which those who cannot endure the idea of the eternal recurrence, i.e., those who cannot affirm the will to power, are driven to self-destruction. I contend that the revaluation of all values is essentially the revaluation of the will to power. Thus the overman, the eternal recurrence, the revaluation of all values, and the will to power are inextricably connected:

  1. the overman is the man who affirms the eternal recurrence;
  2. the eternal recurrence enforces the revaluation of all values;
  3. the revaluation of all values is the revaluation of the will to power;
  4. the supreme affirmation of the will to power is the affirmation of the eternal recurrence.

Thank you Sauwelios for this penetrating little study.

What is most interesting to me are the two phases you discern.

“Ye lonesome ones of today, ye seceding ones, ye shall one day be a people: out of you who have chosen yourselves, shall a chosen people arise:and out of it the Superman.

While I was meditating on this, the idea occurred to me that a necessary requirement for the Superman would be an order of rank, a social/political structure, which arises naturally in this group of self-chosen people, by which the group may become a state / corpus / body, at the top of which is the Superman.

I have not understood why you have described the converse of without-musics interpretation. Do you mean that he ignored the selection-process, the sifting?

No, what I mean is this. In my second-last post, I basically argued that the overman necessitates the idea of the eternal recurrence (inasmuch as he is defined as the man who affirms that idea). But that was never your question. Your question was what the idea of the recurrence necessitated, if anything; and without-music’s answer was: “the overman”. That the overman necessitates the idea of the recurrence does not mean that the converse is also true. So my referring you to BGE 56 did not really support without-music’s answer.

But that was only the first step. If the overman is the man who affirms the recurrence, this places him, as you say, at the top of those who endure it. Affirmation is actually the superlative of endurance. So if the (en)joy(ment) mentioned in WP 1059 and 1060 would, after the initial selection, be selected further over time, at some point this would result in the overman.

But I did not ask what the idea of the recurrence necessitates; I asked what is the merit of this idea. That is the point where without-music answered: the overman.

I do not think that you and he are disagreeing.

I will quote from these passages, they contain the most enlightened thoughts in a nutshell.

“To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality: new means against the fact of pain (pain conceived as a tool, as the father of pleasure; there is no cumulative consciousness of displeasure): the enjoyment of all kinds of uncertainty, experimentalism, as a counterweight to this extreme fatalism; abolition of the concept of necessity: abolition of the “will”; abolition of the concept of “knowledge-in-itself”_
Greatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in man, as he creates the overman.” [size=85][WP 1060][/size]

No longer will to preservation but to power; no longer the humble expression, “everything is merely subjective,” but “it is also our work! - Let us be proud if it!”” [size=85][WP 1059][/size]

Striking that Nietzsche arrives at the abolition of the concept “will”. We must realize that “will to power” is something fundamentally different from the traditional will-concept.

Fixed Cross

Compared to the infinite any finite thing is virtually infinitesimal, we are largely finite.

What can we imagine apart from nature? How then can one person see a non nature? Hence we are all seeing the same thing just from differing perspectives.

To assume what many philosophers seam to think is > perspective based < reality, we need to;

  1. Assume the brain cannot read/understand anything beyond the subject.
  2. That mind is something other than the brain, and cannot read the brain beyond the subject.
  3. Or that the brain does not exist. …or mind is the only thing actually thinking.
  4. That there are no derivatives between subjects and objects.

…how then can we think anything at all, what can our thoughts be based upon. if illusion how can we correlate* them?

*requires derivatives.

Okay, maybe I should have said “facilitates”. Surely something can only have merit if it facilitates or necessitates something good?

Neither do I.

Indeed: see for instance WP 668 and 692.

Sauwwlios: Thank you for making the inverse connection. I’ve found it rather helpful in my own understanding of the recurrence and its monumental importance in Nietzsche’s corpus. More later.

This is, of course, the perfect way to go about rebutting The Joker’s take on the Return, his nihilism. To affirm the Return is not to affirm the absolute meaninglessness of existence. Again, on the contrary.

I could not find this thread back - only after 5 minutes it occurred to me that it was in the natural sciences section! Lol.

Yes, facilitates is better, but that still does not say that what is facilitated is a merit. It could also me a detriment.

Thanks again for a good reference. The logic seems so simple: we must propose an object to the will to postulate a will in the first place. What may we propose in general? Power.

It first of all means we have to accept them, as they can’t be seen as transient. It absolutizes the moment.

The Overman then as a person who exists absolutely in each moment - who is not capable of doubt in the sense that Socrates and Christianity substantiated as basically the western conscience.

Christianity is the method of non action.
This eventually led to such deep contemplation and suffering that it caused Nietzsche, who saw the limit of that approach and in that limit found a ground to a course of action.

He could not take that course because of historical and evolutionary reasons, so he took the course of asking people in the future to take it for him. And here we are.

Where the fuck are you anyway WM. I hope you’ve embarked on a successful path of writing. Do publish your works and notify us humble ones here.

Yes, of course. When our valuation increases, we are entirely changed because of it.

It correspondingly appears to be that case that the mindstate of Interest is the expression of the most complete progressive mobilization of monoamines, serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline. A maximized valuation of each moment would thus indeed literally mean optimized patterns of brain chemistry.

I wonder if we need to periodically run out of, or slack in distributing these monoamines. It seems there really isn’t much reason, teleologically, to have them diminish - is this simply a matter of regeneration? Perhaps simply a matter of nature having no real interest in herself, and leaving herself unfinished -

An opportunity she herself made use of in allowing the emerging of self awareness, which led to humanity, which can be summarized as the will to perfection, so far most comprehensively expressed through symbolic dichotomies like Apollo and Dionysos, around which great orderly structures emerge.

Einsteins frustration was simply this humanity, the will to unity, perfect and complete the world, the burden nature has placed on herself in our form - the burden being this will, not the actual task, as this task may be impossible except through allowing disunity as the foundation of unity, rather than an error that needs to be ironed out.

Cyclical time theory is a non-sensical concept. So is the concept of Eternal Return. It’s based on the non-sensical concept that is infinity.

Finitude in and on itself is conceivable (unlike infinitude which is non-sense.)
But finite universe isn’t because the concept of universe itself is non-sensical.
Everything that makes sense has boundaries i.e. it’s finite.
The concept of universe has no boundaries thus it’s non-sensical.
It makes more sense to say that the universe is infinite than to say that it is finite but this is only because saying the universe is infinite aligns with the fact that the concept is boundless.

Really? Try to conceive something finite. Picture it in your mind. Now tell me: what do you see around it?

For example, I see latters in your post. These are bounded by white space. And white space itself is bounded by other things. And so on.
I don’t know about you but I think that everything has a beginning and an end.
In other words, everything is transient.
Everything comes and everything goes.

What you’re looking for is absolute or infinite boundary.
That’s not finitude.
That’s infinitude masquerading as finitude.

Sure, the letters in my post are bounded by white (or light blue) space, and that space is bounded by other things, and so on. Those things are all finite. But is there a finite number of things? If so, how do you conceive of the outermost things? Are they bounded by “nothing” on one side?