Can someone, succinctly(!), explain the reasoning behind Nietszche's eternal recurrence assertion?

Question

or was it a mystical or intuitive concept?...i'm not looking for a 'history of science' answer here, though that might be interesting, i really want to know the inspiration, the initial conditions for the argument and its logical steps to conclusion...o yes, and the moon on the stick would ALSO be gratefully received!

=P

Answer 1

The basic premise of eternal recurrence is to evaluate your perspective and attitude towards life, Nietzsche opting for a positive, affirming view on life. I'll elucidate it a bit below.

In the Gay Science section 341 Nietzsche gives a parable of a demon:

>What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life that 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. . .<

What would your response to this be? Nietzsche offers essentially two possible responses:

>If this thought [eternal recurrence] gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you.<

The thought of having to live your life, this life, over and over again with everything being the same for some people would "crush" them. This life is a "miserable" existence and to have to live it over again with every pain and every difficulty is just unbearable. But Nietzsche thinks the question can have the alternative affect as "changing you":

>The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight.<

The positive, affirming answer would be "yes, let's do it again." There's a passage in Zarathustra where he says [paraphrased from memory], "Was that life? Well, once more!" It's the sort of idea that you have when you just finished riding an exciting amusement park ride: let's do that again! This is the sort of attitude towards life Nietzsche is advocating and that's the basic premise of eternal recurrence.

Answer 2

It helps me, and might help you, to think of Nietzsche's point in mathematical terms.

Take two positive integers: m and a. They'll represent two objects in the world. Use the expression "a mod m" to refer to the remainder left over when a is divided by m. For example, if a is 7 and m is 3, then "a mod m" is 1.

This mathematical operation represents the interaction of those two objects -- crashing into one another and producing a change, let us say.

Next, we can define a number sequence thus: xn = (axn-1 + c) mod m. (We're using n and n-1 to indicate the place of a particular generated number within a sequence.) This is suppose to represent the history of our simple algorithmically-generated world.

Thirdly, to get the sequence started, we'll have to define an x that will serve as the "seed" of this sequence. This is called X0. Let X0 be 3.

Finally, define the constants. We'll let c equal 3, a equal 5 and m equal 8.

Now we can let 'er rip. Our equation tells us that x1 = (5x3 + 3) mod 8. Eight goes into 18 twice with a remainder of 2. So x1 = 2. We then use this result to discover x2 = (5x2 + 3) mod 8, = 5.

So we end up with a sequence of numbers that each represents the state of the world at a given moment in time.

x0 -- moment of "creation" -- 3
x1 -- first event -- 2
x2 -- second event -- 5

Our pseudo-random sequence, which begins thus with 2, 5, will continue with 4, 7, 6, 1, 0, 3.

After using this formula just eight times, then, we're back at number 3. Which was our "seed" -- our ceation. We've returned, because of the simplicity of the operation and the deterministic nature of it, to the origin, to what we stipulated as the creation. Of course, if you keep this up you'll keep getting the same results, so you'll have a universe in states indicated by these numbers:

32547610
32547610
32547610

and so on forever. Which is Nietzsche's point. Although the real world is far more complex, IF it is made up of a finite number of elements, and IF they succeed each other deterministically, THEN eventually they'll circle around again.

And the same creation will lead to the same world again.

Answer 3

Nietzsche does not believe in progress (at least not in the way the idea is generally accepted). The idea of progress states that as knowledge increases, the human species becomes "better", or reaches more dominance over its world.
Nietzsche was not particularly impressed with technical achievements and thought of advancement and regressions more in terms of cultures. He states some cultures are life-affirming while others are life-denying. Thus, humanity undergoes long periods of ascension and descent. To Nietzsche, this is an inevitable aspect of history, thus the idea of continuous recurrence.

Answer 4

Seeing that Nietzsche is referring neither to reincarnation nor to 'other-wordly' realms, his 'ruling idea' in this context is: live your life in such a way that you would want to 'live it again and again, times without number'.

No mysticism here, just the injunction to strive to live up to your highest self, your highest ideal, here in this life. For that, you must HAVE a high ideal; most have no ideal whatsoever, they just follow the crowd..Nietzsche's philosophy is a philosophy for the few. And this point, at the very core of Nietzsche's philosophy, is most often not appreciated..........hence it has been possible for some (politicians mostly) to contrive a twisted adaptation of it for consumption by the many, using words like 'super race' and 'master race', when the Higher Men are, in fact, instructed to 'depart from the market-place', not turn it into an utopia.

Answer 5

The basic idea is that if you imagine living each moment of your life over and over forever, it should be a glorious rather than a depressing or frightening thought, so that is the best way to live one's life. It isn't really a logical argument because Nietzsche isn't really that kind of philosopher, but more a romantic. For him, it isn't important if it's true or not, but the consequences of living as if it is are.

Answer 6

Socrates: Athenian decadence :: European decadence: Nietszche

Underlying conditions: Eros. Logical progression is from barbarism to ahistorical, natural, unconventional, refinement of the individual human being. Ad infinitum. Coterminus defeat and elevation in nobly binding the self to inherent contradiction.

Mnemosyne...