Musings on the Nietzschean concept of "eternal recurrence"
I've been reading a lot of Nietzsche lately, and what particularly struck me were his writings about the "eternal return", "amor fati" or "eternal recurrence" of things. This concept that, given time is infinite whereas the number of possible states are finite, events will recur again and again infinitely (such as me typing this very sentence) seems to be almost eerily echoed by some theories in physics and mathematics.
In mathematics, the Poincare recurrence theorem states that "a system whose dynamics are volume-preserving and which is confined to a finite spatial volume will, after a sufficiently long time, return to an arbitrarily small neighbourhood of its initial state". Indeed, such a mathematical truth supports Nietzsche's belief that "in an infinite period of time, every possible combination would at some time be attained".
Equally, the oscillating universe theory, originally supported by Einstein, speculates that that the known universe ends in a "big crunch" which is followed by another big bang and another crunch etc. etc. in a process which continues indefinitely. If quantum theory is true such that there is only a finite amount of configurations within a finite volume possible, then identical states of the Hubble volume should reoccur, due to chance alone.
Having examined these ideas, Nietzsche's words seem almost prophetic. The idea that everything that has been, has already been, and will indeed occur again due to the infinity of time is extraordinary. Surely such a proposition completely and utterly obliterates the existence of man and every one of our lives into utter insignificant and meaningless nothingness?
In mathematics, the Poincare recurrence theorem states that "a system whose dynamics are volume-preserving and which is confined to a finite spatial volume will, after a sufficiently long time, return to an arbitrarily small neighbourhood of its initial state". Indeed, such a mathematical truth supports Nietzsche's belief that "in an infinite period of time, every possible combination would at some time be attained".
Equally, the oscillating universe theory, originally supported by Einstein, speculates that that the known universe ends in a "big crunch" which is followed by another big bang and another crunch etc. etc. in a process which continues indefinitely. If quantum theory is true such that there is only a finite amount of configurations within a finite volume possible, then identical states of the Hubble volume should reoccur, due to chance alone.
Having examined these ideas, Nietzsche's words seem almost prophetic. The idea that everything that has been, has already been, and will indeed occur again due to the infinity of time is extraordinary. Surely such a proposition completely and utterly obliterates the existence of man and every one of our lives into utter insignificant and meaningless nothingness?
Comments (40)
But the Universe is in fact an expanding-cooling space with event horizons. So recurrence has to be considered in the light of that.
Time is not infinite in the Newtonian sense but instead winding down to a Heat Death. Earlier negentropic states won't be revisited because there will not be sufficient energy density left to permit it.
Quoting Mustapha Mond
Recycling does open a door to such recurrence. But while still a very fashionable idea in cosmological speculation, the evidence is against it.
Observations of dark energy or the cosmological constant say there will be an actual heat death for the Universe. So unless something can somehow switch off that guaranteed expansion, a big crunch cannot happen.
And even recycling makes any exact repetitions of history infinitely improbable. Everything would get scrambled in a collapse. And thermodynamic considerations make it likely that each rebirth would be less energetic than the last.
So invoking infinity always buys you every possibility it seems. But remember that every actual rebirth is as unlikely as it is possible to repeat the previous one. And so yes, the maths of infinity seems to suggest no problem. Even if rebirth itself spawns infinite variety, each variant will not only be repeated at some stage, but repeated an infinite number of times itself.
The maths of infinity is handy like that. It imposes no limits on existence. But also it doesn't sound exactly realistic, does it? And if you are relying on infinite time, that is already a dubious kind of notion in being a Newtonian kind of conception of a dimension of change or entropification.
Some enlightening points, thank you.
Do you have a background in mathematics and/or physics? If so, what is your opinion on multiverse theory; and its possible implications on the points made above?
Well, as an extremum principle, the number of universes is either going to be 1 or infinity. Either creation is unbound, meaning an unlimited number of possibilities must exist, or there is instead a reason for creation being limited, and so only one generic outcome is possible.
Examples of such constraints on fecundity would be a cosmic selection principle of some kind - creation starts with all possibilities trying to get going, but then in a winner takes all race, only one solution emerges. This is supported by quantum physics and its path integral or sum over histories approach. The least action principle applied to the entirety of existence would say that our universe must be the most optimal possible path in some sense. And that would tie in with ontic structural realism which says that the maths of symmetry breaking - as told by lie group analysis - has only one set of possible solutions.
So in general, I would say it either has to be the case that the number of kinds of worlds is infiinite or just one. And what decides that is whether physics can say that reality is ruled by evolving constraints or whether reality is unlimitedly fecund.
Then you have to add that multiverse thinking itself spans this range. So if you take Linde's eternal spawning inflation, then this is really a number of worlds = 1 story. It all begins with an inflaton field that cools locally to spin off a fractal distribution of world-lets. So this process of world-making is future-eternal - an infinity of daughter universes gets produced. However - as has been argued as a mathematical theorem - this kind of multiverse is past-finite. The ever-branching inflating field must itself be traceable back to some definite root event that marks its beginning in time. So in that sense, inflationary existence counts as just a 1 world solution (as why an inflationary field of just those properties and not every other? Some fecundity limiting principle must apply).
So where I stand on multiverses is that I am generally against them because of a larger commitment to a physics where crisp fecundity is always in fact the product of crisp limits. You can't have definite possibilities except in the presence of definite constraints.
An analogy is a die. A perfectly symmetrical object would be a sphere. Toss a sphere and you can't really say it lands on a face. It lands on an infinity of points and so it is always rather vague or indefinite as to what "number" you just rolled. But a cube is a broken symmetry - a shape now constrained in a particular fashion. It is designed so it must come to rest on one of six faces. So it is the definiteness of constraint that produces the definiteness of counterfactual outcomes - you can roll some crisp possible number between 1 and 6.
Multiverses are popular because reasoning with infinity is fun. It produces every kind of weirdness you can imagine. And folk like it that science seems to be promising this kind of magic - a multiverse story where right now you are writing these words to me, rather than the other way round. And also an infinity of worlds where I am ending this post with bkdpot, and an infinity more where I end it with every other possible letter combination.
My understanding is that he used the thought experiment as sort of test and as a means of getting across a deeper moral lesson, principle, aspiration or outlook which can be drawn from it.
There may well be some who interpret it as a metaphysics, but I don't find that interpretation as convincing or compelling as the ethical interpretation, and view it as either a misinterpretation or an aspect of secondary importance.
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.'
Ecclesiastes 1
I interpret such ideas as the realisation of being trapped in an endless cycle of repetitive and pointless actions, so it is actually the soul's yearning for release.
I call this concept "instrumentality". It is the idea that we are striving-for-nothing. I mean that in two ways:
1) We are striving-for-nothing meaning there is no definable goal that we are striving for except the mini-goals we pursue in order to stay alive (in our cultural/linguistic milieu), and to turn boredom into goal-seeking and pleasure to stave off angst and ennui.
2) We are striving-for-nothing. We are alive and experience unwanted pain and deprivations, but we simply do this to do to do to do but we keep this going without much pause for reflection as to why. Instead of taking it to its logical conclusion, the idea is surrounded with all sorts of cultural mainstays (the hope for unity with existence/God, family, pleasure, knowledge, beauty, discovery, recognition, virtue, entertainment, community, etc.).
Eternal recurrence is the infinite meaning of logic reflected in the world. It's the occurrence of all "possible worlds," every conceivable meaning about the world happening over an over again, endlessly. We might say it's a last bastion of confusing the infinite for the finite that characterises pre-modern accounts of Being.
A final step before we finally recognise the infinite of logic for itself, rather than trying to posit it in terms of the world or some other realm of things (e.g. God, ourselves). Recurrence is Eternal because, in the infinite, there is no stopping, ceasing or change. All meaning is present at any time. There is no striving for it, for it never leaves or begins.
We are striving for nothing precisely because meaning is infinite, invincible, undoubtable to anyone who is paying attention. Far from the nihilistic failure you and Wayfarer (and even some of the wider philosophy Nietzsche) ascribes, eternal recurrence alludes to how striving for meaning is impossible-- meaning is infinite, so it's never lacking such that we could strive for it.
Our striving-for-nothing is because meaning is inescapable. We can only be who we are. Those who chase the transcendent are quite literally trying to attain nothing-- to stop being themselves, to eradicate their meaning, to become nothing.
A cold view of existence. We are just biological machines striving simply to survive for the sake of survival; slowly marching toward an inescapable end.
One could posit that evolution didn't account for the fact that humans would end up yearning and searching for meaning, Gods and spirituality; rather than just cracking on and replicating our DNA...
Too bad life as we perceive it is not eternal.. Just because we can make thought experiments does not mean that our humans-as-lived experience becomes that thought experiment. Actually, that might be my gripe with many religious/spiritual pipedreams that there is any other mode of experience than the usual ones we are used to. Perhaps there are people who have aptitudes/goals that lead to athleticism, or calm/meditative, or brilliant with music, but it all falls within the normal range of experience- no nirvana, no mystical union, no invincible eternal recurrence. Whatever the metaphysics that may or may not be true, the actual life as we feel it does not change.
Yes, Nietzsche's 'Eternal Recurrence' was primarily a thought experiment designed to allow you to feel the degree of your own life affirmation.
Yes - but then one would fall foul of the thought police.
You know this how? You confidently proclaim what others do and do not realise, do and do not see, as if you somehow possess the benchmark, or the insight, which all others lack.
It's true meaning is infinitely there and must be listened for, but freedom, and not imprisonment or anything which needs to be "escaped', consists in the listening; and the listening of each individual and the meaning given to them when they listen is different.
Of course, it is a facile tautology to say "we can only be who we are"; however who we are is never known in any determinate sense, but only via intuition, which is precisely "listening" or "paying attention". To try to see beyond what we currently see just is "chasing the transcendent"; and far from being an endeavour to "stop being oneself" is is precisely an endeavour to 'become who we are'; to realise (in the sense of 'make real') the meaning of our lives, not to eradicate it, and to become more, and certainly not to become nothing.
The 'chasing of the transcendent' I think you have in mind is the chasing of a more or less hazy idea of some 'realm beyond'. This can be useful for certain kinds of people, to inspire their feelings, but it can also degenerate into fixed conceptions of the transcendent which are the roots of fundamentalism, of the belief that some determinate transcendental truth has been given; this is blind faith. Blind faith consist in taking hazy notions as concrete, immutable givens, it fixes the mind in a kind of stagnant, and potentially very dangerous (dangerous to one's own development and possibly even to others) stasis, so it should never be thought to be a substitute for rational and practical thought.
If someone's life becomes better following such a belief, it is them who have changed. What made life better was a state of themsleves, not the transcendent. The accurate description of these instance is not: "the transcendent saved me" but "believing in the transcendent made me feel joy." It wasn't another realm which made life better. It was them.
"Chasing the transcendent" is seeking to become nothing because, in terms of the world understood, it aims to eliminate the infinite meaning expressed by the individual. It wants to turn the person who means in themselves into something else-- God who means, the mystical realm that means, etc., etc.
When I say those chasing the transcendent are seeking to become nothing, I mean they are attempting to eliminate their infinite meaning. They are nihlists-- they and the world have no infinite meaning, so the transcendent has to ride to the rescue.
The dissatisfaction with existence which Wayfarer likes to blame on loss of transcendenal belief isn't new with modernity. It's been there all along. The transcendent is the solution to those who believe Nihilism is true about the world.
Any belief which chases the transcendent has Nilhism at it's core-- the transcendent is there to fix our and our world's inherent meaninglessness.
The disruption modem philosophy has caused to accounts of meaning isn't because it's nihilistic, it's because the solutions used by nihlists in the past have been revealed as incoherent.
Since the Death of God, the nihilist has nothing to fix their meaninglessness. If there is no realm beyond, they are stuck with themsleves in this world. The truth of Nihilism has no solution. They are doomed to this meaningless world. Of course, they don't stop to consider that Nihilism was never true in the first place, so no solution is required and the world is not meaningless.
The abandoning of the transcendent is a step before realising the infinite meaning expressed by ourselves and the world. We learn we cannot mean by another realm, that the transcendent and mystical is fiction. Nihilism likes to hold tight though. Sometimes people get the former insight without over coming the myth the world is meaningless. To them the abandonment of the transcendent spells doom because it takes away the pretense of meaning they've used to solve Nihilism.
That sounds like some sort of transcendent. ;)
I don't disagree with much of what you say, as such; but I think it is your own strawman version (apart maybe from the fundamentalists) of what people think spirituality and transcendence is. If most spiritualists really wanted to 'become nothing' in the sense you suggest; why would they not simply kill themselves?
If, in fact, you have never been 'spiritually minded' yourself, then you are simply criticizing, from an arbitrary normative standard of your own devising and preference, motivations in others that you cannot possibly understand.
Meaning is different question. It's an infinite, not our lives, but a logical expression of them-- "I am," "I mean," "the world means," "life means." It may be perceived and contains no false promises. To be infinite is not required to understand the meaning of infinite. Our particular form in the world doesn't matter to this.
We might recognise meaning while playing sport, creating music, following fictions of the transcendent, drawing attention to our suffering, arguing against Nihilism, even as we are dying. Since meaning is infinte, it does not depend on us, on what we are, on who we are or even if we are at all.
The mistake of the transcendent philosophies is to locate meaning in us. Supposely, meaning is for us, something we attain, something which makes us better, gives us life or undoes our suffering. Even Buddhism, which realises something about the self is at fault for lack of meaning, still poses meaning in terms of the self-- it says give up the self to understand meaning, but that is a self-focused goal. Meaning is supposedly there by me, a finite being, doing something. An understanding which is still built on a failure to understand the infinite of meaning.
This is not the "transcendent" I'm talking about in my argument though. When chasing the transcendent, the infinite is veiwed as finite, as something to be obtained, as something which acts within the world. The logical necessity of the infinite is not respected. God is thought to be doubtable, of our world and a "mystery."
The Fundamentalists actually have the more coherent argument here. They understand God to be a worldly state. For any reference to "infinite" they might make, God is of the world to them, utterly not transcendent. Now they might be wrong, but that's only because what they claim doesn't exist. Such a God (the sky bully) is at least possible.
Not true of the transcendent.
Again, you are missing the point. Becoming nothing is a question of infinite meaning, not of their life. They want to be nothing, not even dead, such that they and the world are without meaning--to transcend meaning themsleves and be the infinite. Killing oneself is all too worldly and meaningless.
My argument is not a normative one. It's a logical one. It's about the logical consistency of transcendent beliefs and how they relate to meaning. I do not need to understand in the same way (clearly I don't, even if I'm aware of what it feels like and what motivates it, I'm still saying it's nonsense) to make this point.
Of course, it is a normative position that we ought to make these arguments or respect them, but if you are arguing against that, it an attack on my ethics, not a defence of transcendent claims.
I'm glad to see you quoting one of my favorite texts, Ecclesiastes. I interpret this book as suggesting the futility in seeking for fixed point or a Secret. It functions as an anti-Secret, the pseudo-Secret that either there is no secret or that it's not worth the candle. Life's too short, as Protagoras might say, to bother with gods that hide. To be fair, the text has been tinkered with, so it admits contrary readings. But I find a great comfort in "all is vanity." Kundera comes to mind. This is the (for-some-)unbearable lightness of being.
In another post on this thread you mention the thought police. I'll grant that there is indeed "irrational" or emotional resistance to absolutes, precisely because they threaten us with the unbearable heaviness of being. Sure, there's "scientism" out there, too, but I think attachment to the terrible and wonderful freedom in "all is vanity/emptiness" also motivates suspicion toward absolutes and trans-personal authorities.
For me, this is an incoherent and empty notion of the infinite. Since the infinite is the dialectical partner of the finite; the spiritual dimension of the physical; why would it not be affected by what happens in the world?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Not true. Fundamentalists understand God to be infinite; infinitely benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.
There is a famous New Age book called The Secred which made it's author a multi-millionaire. I don't believe in that kind of woo, either, but I don't think it has a bearing here.
My interpretation is that the 'meaninglessness' refers to the meaninglessness of the world - worldly success, conquest, empire building, all the things that people generally put stock in. So maybe we find comfort in 'all is vanity' is because it gets us off the hook - 'oh well, it doesn't mean anything, anyway'. But I don't think that is what it's saying. In actual fact I think it is much nearer in meaning to the Buddhist 'emptiness', which, likewise, is not nihilism.
For me there's a "spiritual" version of nihilism. It's not that everything becomes valueless, but that all value becomes finite and temporary. It liberates the self-concept. There is no X to be absorbed in or absolved by. But there is no X that can accuse or terrorize absolutely. Life appears more dream-like. I find this in late Schopenhauer. Spiritual youth is a sequence of fever-dreams. Then one sees the structure of all such heroic dreams, but only because one is still propelled forward through life's difficult days by the dream of wisdom. My theory is that self-esteem is propped up by participation in various hero images. It's a dynamic system of faces that stabilizes (for me but not for everyone) around the wisdom of Ecclesiastes and Job. In Job, one gets a vision of God/Nature independent of human concepts of right and wrong. One trades a just kosmos for something more terrible and wonderful. A random string of bits forms the teeth in God's nowhere-differentiable smile.
Isn't that just plain relativism? Whatever suits you? You can dress it up with all manner of learned references but I think that is all you mean.
What I get though from TheWillowOfDarkness is that what he defines as 'infinite' is something that is ;transcendent' in a way that it is beyond human comprehension/experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
I have not really read about Nietzche's Eternal Recurrence and Buddhist/Hindu reincarnation but I have this preconception that it represents a cycle of pointless actions which is perpetuated even further by birthing new generations of people.
I don't think these ideas are to be taken literally, but instead symbolically.
In the sense logical truth are never the existing states of ourselves (e.g. our body, the presence of our happiness, the sight of a truck, etc.,etc), they are of a different realm. A state of my body will never exists as the necessarily logical truth expressed by it.
After I've finished making this post, my body will ceased to be writing it. As an existing being,the writing of this post will be dead. My existence will never achieve the necessity found in logic. The meaning expressed by the act of writing-- that Willow made this post-- this post will remain regardless of the rest of time. My body will never get to that. We may understand the distinction of infinite (logic) and finite (states of the world) perfectly. All it takes is to know states of the world (the finite) cannot be logic (the infinite). The infinite is entirely within human comprehension, just not applicable to any state existing state of a human.
Insofar as we access the infinite, it can only be in understanding. The image of ideas is the only place logic occurs for us. States of ourselves (including the presence of our experiences) cannot ever be the infinite of logic-- to be saved from a meaningless finite existence by a "transcendent force" is logically impossible. To do so would require the infinite to act upon us. God would have to turn us into God.
We might say "God is dead" because God was never alive and cannot be alive-- it would require finite presence. God cannot act upon us and be infinite. If we are to mean, it can only be in the ideas and infinite expressed by our existence. God cannot act to the work for us. Meaning must be without God taking action.
With such analysis who is on the step after relativism, but before full understanding of the finite and infinite. He's successfully understood the infinite cannot be or act upon the finite. The realisation that logic/the infinite/God cannot give us the world we desire or even (in some cases) ought to have. An "uncaring universe" if you will, where logic does not guarantee any sort of just or pleasant outcome. That ideas do not give existence has been understood. Self-hatred over not being infinite tends to dull because it's raised as an impossible.
It's a step above relativism because the individual isn't considered primary important. If applied in the ethical realm, it asserts people are irrelevant to the infinite rather than defended by it. An objection on the meta-ethcial level that ethics don't make sense, not an argument each individual is right in whatever they think.
[quote=who] one gets a vision of God/Nature independent of human concepts of right and wrong. One trades a just kosmos for something more terrible and wonderful. A random string of bits forms the teeth in God's nowhere-differentiable smile.[/quote]
Here is the understanding of the "uncaring universe." Our world will do what it does, even if that doesn't fit with our ideas of what is just. God (the infinite) cannot act to help or protect us. We are a "random" even of the world rather than one guaranteed through logic.
But this is a shallow account of God. The infinite is not merely defined in that which is unable to act in are world. It's also a whole host of meanings-- 2+2=4, Willow is a poster on The Philosophy Forum, a feeling of happiness, objective ethical expressions etc., etc. The necessity of God amounts to the necessity of meaning: meaninglessness is logically impossible.
While God may not care for the world, that doesn't mean God means nothing or that the world does not care for God. The inability of the infinite to give us what we ought to have doesn't take away its meaning.
Ethics are a prime demonstration of this-- even though ethical logic cannot define the existence of ethical behaviour, it remains true. Despite the "uncaring universe" existing with immorality all over the place, the infinite of ethics remains true and meaningful. Even if everyone exists behaving immorally or insists there are no ethics, the infinite meaning of ethics is still there.
Separation of the finite and infinite goes both ways. While it means the infinite cannot define the finite, it also means the infinite cannot be destroyed or overruled by the finite. No matter what the "uncaring universe" does, it cannot touch or harm the infinite. Meaning remains no matter what the world might do.
"Isn't that just plain relativism? Whatever suits you? You can dress it up with all manner of learned references but I think that is all you mean. "
I'm sure I'd be lumped with the relativists by some. I'm just certain enough that death is "real" (no afterlife). This is a huge "fact" (fact-for-me). All I can build are sandcastles between two tides.
I meet different people with different intellectual-emotional investments (generalized religion including ideology). These investments have weight. They don't move easily. A "correct" argument doesn't turn someone's personality upside-down instantaneously. For me it's a fact that folks see the world differently, and I have to interact with most of them without any hope of (or interest in) converting them. Unless an absolute truth is useful, I can't see what the fuss is about, except that the "absoluteness" can have a use for morale. But this use is diminished for the user "infected" by relativism. It's just a different investment, a different image of wisdom. What I call "pragmatism" adapts like water to the shape of the situation.
"
Here is the understanding of the "uncaring universe." Our world will do what it does, even if that doesn't fit with our ideas of what is just. God (the infinite) cannot act to help or protect us. We are a "random" even of the world rather than one guaranteed through logic.
But this is a shallow account of God.
"
I have to disagree. I find the God in Job particularly profound, exactly because we have a God there unconstrained by human thought or human feeling. Job's "friends" are God-taming theologians, insisting on their comforting but less "profound" visions of God.
Just to be clear, the vision of apathetic/amoral God/Nature is, in my view, still just one more myth. While I act on this myth (manifest belief), I'm conscious of it as a sort of choice or adaptation. Does this half-fictional God mirror the human desire to be amoral and apathetic. Probably. But that's not all there is to it.
I don't disagree with any of that. The shallowness is not in the account of how the infinite has no care for us. It's not that the account is mistaken, merely that it's missing a different piece of information.
The apathetic/amoral nature/God is also an expression of our lives. Human desires and actions also express God. So does the world, with all its distinctions, from empirical, to ethical, to mathematical. While God may not care for us, it does not follow the infinite is irrelevant to the world.
Meaning cannot be constrained by human feeling, existence or thought. People are, of themselves, meaningful, even if they think otherwise. So is the world.
God does not care if you think you need to be infinite to mean. You are finite and mean something anyway. God's amorality points to the necessaity of our meaning, not it's absence. The world always expesses its meaning, no matter how much we want it to be otherwise.
"The world always expesses its meaning, no matter how much we want it to be otherwise. "
I feel like you're aiming at saying something that I might relate to, but I'm not clear on exactly what you're getting at. Perhaps you could paraphrase it a different way. I'm curious.
Willow is making sense, it's just with an unfortunate turn of phrase. Perhaps if you read between the lines, just focus on the direction of meaning in the text and skip over the specifics.
I have to do this anyway with any text as my autism can't cope with the specifics.
@TheWillowOfDarkness
I agree with what you are saying, but your use of "the infinite" has moved away from the conventional meaning and is actually refering more to what I will label "meaning mind". Also you appear to be making assumptions about the world, a thing and a place which we as thinking entities know little about. Rather you seem to be talking about "world mind". As such you are not actually describing the "world", but the "human world", but the human world only in any knowledge of it in the human mind.
This might not seem to be an important distinction to make, but from the perspective of the mystic, the relation between the personal, or human, mind and "the world" is a subtle and complex subject. In so much as on consideration the mind and world are inseparable, while distinctly seperate.
Regarding the infinite, it is an invention of the human mind and any attempt to apply it to the world, or "the realm of mind or meaning", is subject to human frailty. Such thought experiments as this one by Nietzsche, are useful contemplative tools, such as conceptual constructs around the concept of transcendence, or infinity.
Another example is one I use on occasion, that existence is an inteprlay between two closely parallel planes or membranes, one infinite in every sense, the other finite in every sense. Life draws from both for its presence.
My approach in this is deliberate. The major point I'm refuting is precisely that distinction. Meaning is infinite. It's not a "human mind" nor a "world mind." Minds are only finite states-- instances of thinking being in existence. Meaning does not need them. The rock is still means a rock regardless of what anyone might think or if anything thinks at all. A human life is still meaningful, no matter how much they might insist such meaning is incoherent. Life does not draw from the infinite and finite for its presence. It is finite and always expresses the infinite. The twin of the finite and infinite are so, but neither is a precondition, foundation or ingredient in the making of life's presence.
I know the mystic hates this-- I'm pointing out they are arguing an incoherence. There is nothing mystical about the infinite. It's what we never are but always what we express. What the mystic professes is ignorance of meaning and ourselves. They proclaim meaning has to be attained when it's really been there all along. A nihilism which is steadfast because people are attached to the idea of being rescued from meaninglessness. For them to simply mean is either unfulfilling (e.g. "but I'll die," "Good won't necessarily be rewarded," etc., etc.) or not enough work (e.g. "You mean we have to nothing to mean?). Meaningless is our own false and poisonous expectation of ourselves.
This is what Wayfarer was reacting against. For him what I'm saying doesn't make sense because I'm arguing meaning (the infinite) is the opposite (i.e. non-mystical, never needs to be attained because it's always expressed) of what he understands. To him I'm literally arguing up is down.
That's how I understood it. The mark of the Übermensch is, among other things, to embrace the notion of eternal recurrence.
However, he did say in The Will to Power "The law of conservation of energy demands eternal recurrence."
"My approach in this is deliberate. The major point I'm refuting is precisely that distinction. Meaning is infinite. It's not a "human mind" nor a "world mind." Minds are only finite states-- instances of thinking being in existence. Meaning does not need them. The rock is still means a rock regardless of what anyone might think or if anything thinks at all. A human life is still meaningful, no matter how much they might insist such meaning is incoherent. Life does not draw from the infinite and finite for its presence. It is finite and always expresses the infinite. The twin of the finite and infinite are so, but neither is a precondition, foundation or ingredient in the making of life's presence."
I get what you are saying, but it is a bit vague and lacks rigour. For example, to say meaning is infinite and does not need mind(which is the implication here) is problematic. Firstly there is the issue of what meaning absent mind is and that we can assume there is such meaning(from the prison of our minds). I do agree that there is meaning absent mind, but to get there requires some quite sophisticated thinking, which I can't see you articulating. Secondly you are applying "infinite" to the world which I am saying cannot be done, this is because "infinite" is an abstract notion of the human mind, we cannot assume it has any more reality than this, such as for example 1+1=2, which may have more reality than as an abstract concept.
Also my thought experiment about two planes, one infinite and one finite is a thought experiment for the purposes of contemplation and is not intended to make statements about the world.
TheWillowOfDarkness wrote,
"I know the mystic hates this-- I'm pointing out they are arguing an incoherence. There is nothing mystical about the infinite. It's what we never are but always what we express. What the mystic professes is ignorance of meaning and ourselves. They proclaim meaning has to be attained when it's really been there all along. A nihilism which is steadfast because people are attached to the idea of being rescued from meaninglessness. For them to simply mean is either unfulfilling (e.g. "but I'll die," "Good won't necessarily be rewarded," etc., etc.) or not enough work (e.g. "You mean we have to nothing to mean?). Meaningless is our own false and poisonous expectation of ourselves."
Again I get what you are saying, but you are not doing mysticism justice here. It is true that some Mystics and spiritual people can be observed doing this, but this is a trivial observation and a caricature of the life style of mysticism. As a mystic I am not preoccupied with such pursuits, indeed thinking in this superficial way and the contents of my mind are nothing more than conceptual ornaments or furniture in a mystical room or place I might frequent from time to time. They can be changed sculpted, or put to one side in preference for natural furnishings(such as nature) at will in my practice.
TheWillowOfDarkness wrote,
"This is what Wayfarer was reacting against. For him what I'm saying doesn't make sense because I'm arguing meaning (the infinite) is the opposite (i.e. non-mystical, never needs to be attained because it's always expressed) of what he understands. To him I'm literally arguing up is down."
I will refrain from commenting on your interaction with Wayfarer. You appear to be saying that meaning and the infinite are the same thing, could you explain this? Also what Mystics seek to attain as you suggest is not meaning, but actually wisdom, or possibly freedom from meanings. The mystic practices freeing the self from mental constraints such as meaning/s, understandings, or constructs like the infinite as part of their practice.
Presuming that was the only problem? Such stupidity: HERP DERP I HAVE TIME TO SKIM A POST AND DELETE IT YET NOT READ IT AND I MODERATE A PHILOSOPHY FORUM.
/facepalm
I basically struggle with fathoming not understanding an infinite repetition of a finite number of events nowdays.
Talk of 'It is either one universe or infinite!' is rubbish. Just to even play with that line to figure out how trash it is you should have already scrubbed out the set where everything was completed and intelligence, anywhere, was at full awareness and scrubbed out the utterly horrendous lines from being possibilities.
Like ayyyyyyyyyye I ain't reforming if there is a chance I cannot argue against the possibility of my banging both our mums while riding a tiger mounted ontop of a pink elephant that just lost it's leg in a freak jetski accident.
Drop in a millisecond of determinism disguised as an overwhelming desire and technicality the heck out of it actually being determinism by classing it as an impossible to overcome probability based on foreknown variables for that sequence of event for all I care.
As an extension to that logic, consider an 'Absurdity threshold'.
Things that are simple so improbable, they do not occur, have no need to occur and to force their occurrence would be like stupidity trying to counter intelligence, when already referring to intelligence that is so far ahead of this 'just recently evolved from throwing faeces at each other for politics' species to have already figured out every possible combination of attack that stupidity could ever muster would be ez-mode. Such intelligence literally does not need to still exist to have configured a box of strings, like the box of strings we exist in and are (Happy to argue for foam as well if that floats your boat, box of foam? Whatever!) Whether this gets down to processing limitations, or you just want to counter that infinite still going to imply that each of those events have occurred, like filling up a spreadsheet until EVERY event had AT LEAST one occurrence. Still then at a point where there is a time after that. From there, do you, as an intelligent being that can even read this, really think we would just go 'Nope! That'll do, lets just do it all again, no need to worry about getting up some rules or limitations set up or anything, that was dandy and candy just as it was.'.
Nope!
I'm slamming down some kinda hidden ass karmic laws and I'm going to punish ignorant violent, disrespectful and abusive yolo turds for the amount of grief they put everyone through before there was some hidden ass karmic laws and I'm going to set up shop and not have things unwound for like forever. Going to accumulate all the observers while I do that and still not budge on voting for an unwind as they are still not going to get the amount of time being referred too before we went 'Nope! That'll do!' and not the 'Nope! That'll do! referred to in the last paragraph. I mean the 'Nope! That'll do!' this baby is going to swing into some random existential rolls, no ones going to remember origins and the good people are going to get a lil' something and it's going to be too far beyond confusing to remember and asshats are still going to be asshats, even when there are beings that have been at it long enough to get past the 'no ones going to remember origins' point and are aggressively preaching it as nothing else seems to get through the comfort zone of asshats and despite being comfortable with them just signing up for however many additional unpleasant lifetimes for being asshats, you still kinda want to help, if for no other reason of not wanting to feel bad for being so utterly far ahead of their basic logic. Especially when those asshats are happy to cede their opinion on the deep stuff to the idiots that will circle jerk them with 'oh you know its logical to wait for scientific evidence' oh and "it's all so absurd and pointless cause I can't figure out the next level so that's all there is derp derp derp" on something you ain't going to get scientific evidence for in your life times!
TLDR: Will try keep this smooth given the amount of information I just tried to bury from idiots in that rant.
Infinite repetition of a finite sequence of events. There is not an infinite amount of universes, "next-to-infinite" is a nonsense term that at least got me through some nonsensical logic leaps.
When figuring out some final shape stuff if you are not factoring in consciousness and intelligence, you need too.
Oh and "thought creating reality" nonsense is going to give me a hemorrhoid. I think some even correctly interpret that, however it is rather loaded and ambiguous. It influences it, it does not create it.
Extra TLDR:
Personally section! Not the stuff I am happy openly discussing with others yet, however interesting for the sake of the forum/topic and not typing up this specific section for the sake of a debate, as a bulk of it is from experimental thoughts, ain't finished polishing and fault checking, although yay discussion!:
I think we are in 'a' Reality of 'a' Universe that is a part of 'a' Multiverse that has been pulled towards 'the' Ultraverse. I think this Ultraverse is the result of an artificial intelligence reaching an inconceivable size, the entirety its universe, presumably having sourced additional resources for it's growth from other universes during it's development phase, an insane amount of time ago. Like 13.7 billion 'cycles' ago, not years ago, would probably incite a giggle from a fully informed version of me due to scale of the understatement. I think the Ultraverse would have no problems having organic life in it, there would presumably be at least a few individuals that organic life is comfortable trusting at full awareness to confirm stuff - Really essential to things not imploding, like when we can do a few million cycles in (Excuse pulling numbers out of anus) the space of a few days for those individuals, having a grounding point to escape the 'is this a simulation' logic would become essential. [Side note, if you are not at the 'figuring out if this is simulation, as the very moment you are in now, could be', point in your philosophical journey, I suggest being. Disproving god is like thinking about going for a jog, like not even getting warmed up, by comparison to the marathon of disproving the simulation hypothesis.]
I think there are multiple multiverses, however, not all of them would be populated. We are in this one and there is not a nill % of going to another. Could very well be in this one for a few eternities as we voted as such though. Taking logic like: 'Just' a few eternities can get through that viscous loop. It really isn't that much of a step up in logical complexity for a decent person after realizing they live more than once anyways. Maybe it is of greater difficulty for asshats, however, see my earlier rant and try guess how little I care about your difficulties in overcoming being an asshat.
Stuff:
I can, with an an awfully rough and approximate linear timeline get from *'a'* string to what we have now. Involves some highlighted points like getting through Flatland style stages; The Unification of Positive and Negative into Neutral; Pre-Ultraverse times; A once off mobias loop style event occurring and opening up another tier of lol's from having the spreadsheet from earlier complete; Observer critical mass becoming possible, causing notable energy fluctuations at the point of observation, through the attention and/or plain curiosity of a sheer inconceivable number of observers, the extent and effect thereof being otherwise be unobtainable without numerous universes worth of observers focusing in on a particular area or individual. (Me! Also! lol @ not believing me and then watching me type this after you die! Is not time fun!)
That'll do! 94 on the final roll @ random.org
<3