When you die, if you come back, it’s only through tricks of language. When you’re dead you’re dead. Who gives a shit if some part of you, that’s not really you comes back? It’s not you.
The ER is not concerned (at least not primarily) with the recurrence of a self. If you don’t care for what happens after your death, then philosophy must be an overwhelmingly useless way to spend your time.
Maybe to you. I put those kinds of thoughts in the realm of religion.
Smears: I think you misunderstand. I didn’t say “what happens to you after your death”, but rather: “what happens [at all] after your death”.
If there were only a single particle in the universe and it repeated infinitely X infinity [I.e. inc all +1’s etc] ~ to the aleph omega, there could be nothing else. Why then is there more than that?
Before we make more than a single particle then we should need to put that particle through the process of the ‘eternal return’ [whatever it is].
The only way I can see such an idea occurring ~ and I think the Egyptians saw it much like this [as a boat on the Nile], is if we don’t attempt to stretch the universe into infinity. Such that there is only a ‘fuzzy relativistic now moment’, much like our thoughts work in threes; the current observation/perception along with the ones fading in and out [past and future], time and the universe is like a ship on an infinite ocean [but not part of that infinity].
You have to get rid of all-time for that to be true though. ~ at least as expanded into infinity.
Because there is more than just a single particle. And this more perpetually, ceaselessly becomes. And this perpetual, ceaseless becoming recurs. Your question seems only to be a lazy reiteration of the “why something rather than nothing” problematic. I see no place for it here.
You have to arrive at why there is more, and what determines the amount etc, you cant just say ‘because there is more’ ~ what kind of science or philosophy is that? 
You also have to define how the cardinality of the universal set composed of limited things correlates to the infinity which by definition is unlimited.
Actually, I’ve found “because there is” to be the most acceptable answer to the age-old “why something rather than nothing”? It is the kind of philosophy that wishes to move beyond introductory thinking games and onto productive thought.
I’ve yet to mention infinity, limited, unlimited, universal sets, etc. I’m not sure that my reading necessitates such definitions.
For some theories you can say; well this is what there ‘is’, but here we are mapping a progression/expansion against and eternal, hence we have to get to what is first.
An eternal return necessitates such values, though a continuum does not have to ~ are you seeing cyclicity in this light [as with my position in my first post [or similar]?
Why do we need a ethic? 
There is always enough room for the mystical I think. We can’t explain everything.
Well I see it as the eternal reoccurence of the same so I can’t answer your question.
Makes sense to me. I appreciate your intelligent interpretation of this.
Yes and no, Smears.
If eternal return is true then what happens is you die causing your entire being and form to go into a sort of suspended animation in which once the finite circle comes around again the very individual pattern essence that is you becomes reborn where you are forever cursed to live the same life over and over again filled with the exact replica of all the expiriences having already expirienced prior from cradle to grave.
This is my interpretation of eternal return. Think of it as a exact copy within a repetition of a much greater copy that is the universe.
It’s like the sequence or events of earthly history eternally repeating in the same exact manner over and over again unchanging.
In the end we really do live forever as eternal echoes of cyclical time in the fabric that is the universe only in this dimension there is no heaven but only earthly pleasures and sufferings.
Who knows how many countless billions of times we have lived this same exact weary life? How many births and deaths we have already expirienced?
It sounds supernatural but it’s not. There is no “God” involved in this. There is only the cyclical nature of the universe in eternal repeating patterns.
If existence is a single eternal stream with time being the same that has no beginning or end then the chances of the same exact patterns reoccuring are increased infinitely.
The universe for sure eventually dies like everything else but in it’s death comes the creation of a multitude of infinite other universes. This is the eternal creation, destruction, and death that repeats itself. In death there is never static but only the transformation into somthing else.
What is the merit of this idea?
I am asking because, with science, the merit is always clear, it’s power.
But what has changed for us if we decide that all things return?
Nothing is affected. Only our valuation of our actions, since they are multiplied into infinity.
The literature is quite dense on this point. Laurence Lampert, as Sauwelios will never tire of recommending, does quite well in answering this question in his Nietzsche’s Teaching.
Indeed. And the short answer is: the overman.
On the contrary! Insofar as we now have an over-reaching interpretation of things, everything will be affected.
Strange I thought an infinite universe makes us even smaller comparatively nothing. Besides ^^ this would run into my earlier problem, an event/action reaching the aleph omega would deny all others.
If everything eternally repeats themselves truely then nothing and everything doesn’t matter.
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:
- the overman is the man who affirms the eternal recurrence;
- the eternal recurrence enforces the revaluation of all values;
- the revaluation of all values is the revaluation of the will to power;
- the supreme affirmation of the will to power is the affirmation of the eternal recurrence.