“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”
This might also be applied to the theory. There is a reason why he wants it to be true, a why - so how it is true doesn’t really matter.
I don’t have the quote for you yet. I will keep looking, but I have no idea where it was. The strange thing is that I had never read it before. I hope I didn’t dream it.
If you really want to conceive of a mechanism by which the eternal recurrence might apply to especially that which one does do in this existence, you have to turn your epistemology on it’s head. Instead of thinking in objectivity, think from a purely subjective perspective. That means that all physics go out of the window, and the egocentric, solipsist psyche takes the role of prime mover, cause of causes.
No, the rejection of the recurrence does by no mean invalidate his philosophy of overcoming. Nietzsche is not a (supposedly) mathematical philosopher, not a Kant or a Plato, where everything (supposedly) fits together in one grand formula. In fact, the attempts he does make to such an overarching doctrine, such as this eternal recurrence, and to a lesser extent the will to power as well, produce the weakest links in his thinking. Except that they’re not really links, because he is not an IF - THEN thinker. The root of these doctrines is not his logic but more likely the drives of his christian heritage, atavisms, a desire for monism and eternity. Impressively, in most of his work he was able to overcome this instinct.
The only reason infinite time and finite matter produces the eternal recurrence of the same is that it produces the eternal recurrence of every single possible combination of particles.
Yes, you’re right, this is a finite number.
What difference does it make if we see time as a circle or a line?
so… the idea then is that time is a circle, going round and round for an eternity, and that every point on the circle corresponds to a specific configuration of energy (thought/decision/action/identity/etc), and that ONLY those points on the circle of time (i.e have already been done before) will recurr forever… and in addition, that our willing is capable of ADDING more ‘points’ on the circle, therefore whatever we do or will becomes eternal, but ONLY what we do or will?
this seems to paint a picture that the circle is getting larger all the time, without end. time is always repeating or coming back to a “point” in the cycle where it was before, but with vast new information than before… so this seems to spawn an infinite series of ever-expanding causality, given infinite time-- unending creation of multiple universes-- which, while never actualizing EVERY possibility, nonetheless manifesting as a branching tree to eternity, with infinite numbers of events and configurations exponentially respawning over and over, creating more and more, forever and into eternity…?
seems far-fetched, at best… but its the only comprehensive or coherent understanding of eternal recurrence that i can come up with, save the whole “whatever is possible, occurs” scenario, which i already demonstrated we can rule out as being counter-productive and self-annihilating to Nietzsche’s philosophy.
“and so we’re all deluding ourself in some way or another”, exactly my point. exactly.
if we KNOW that its a delusion, then why in the hell are we CHOOSING it??? how deluded, how irrational, how absurd must we creatures be, to see a falsehood and embrace it, because it “feels good”? if this is the case, with anyone, they are worse than the blind religious zealot, who actually BELIEVES what he preaches. your talk here of “If we are to delude ourself, we might as well do it good” is nothing less than the complete, utter and willful destruction of the human mind, the human intelligence and of human life itself.
and i refuse to believe that Nietzsche stooped to this level. yes, most, if not practically all people do stoop to this level. we think “if it all ends when i die, theres no point”, and therefore justify our beliefs in fairy-tales and imaginary fantasylands in the clouds with an old guy in a white robe and beard. BUT, if we are of the priviledged few with the intellectual fortitude and clear-headedness to see that its all an illusion, then we are PRIVILEDGED to be the only ones to see the truth… and why not embrace it, no matter how unsavory it at first seems? its TRUE. T R U E ! do you get it? dont you know what that word means??
here is the real truth, if you want it (and Nietzsche understood this as well): you dont need fantasies and made-up ideal fabricated beliefs or lies to have purpose or meaning in your life; its YOUR life, you are ALIVE, right now! you breathe, you think, you move, you desire, you enjoy, you love, you live! THIS IS ALL THE PURPOSE WE NEED!
our life NOW cannot be justified just because that life will exist sometime in the future, this is just self-defeating and self-contradictory, that we live NOW to live TOMORROW, and then tomorrow, we will live for the day AFTER tomorrow… meaningless.
at some point, everything comes to an end, all energy is recycled, every universe, every heaven, ends. nothing lasts forever, everything is dynamic, changes, there is no stable or static configuration, stasis is a lie… THIS IS TRUE. wishing it away wont do anything but transport you to a la-la-land of lies and meaninglessness, of self-defeating and life-destroying NIHILISM-- and worse, a willing nihilism.
you are your purpose in life! you live, you are alive, and that is the meaning of life; to live. enjoy it, thrive, grow, transcend, define yourself! what else can there be? nothing lasts forever… and indeed, even if it did, then THAT single fact would be the one true thing to undermine and destroy all meaning and purpose in life.
nothing other than a forever unending eternity could truly rob life of its meaning, purpose and joy.
yes. i am inclined to agree, and this is the reason why i initially reject eternal recurrence at all, because even if true, it is self-defeating in Nietzsche’s philosophical ideas (i.e. it creates no purpose, but only destroys it).
however, i did come up with the above (previous post) alternative explanation of eternal recurrence, which does not need to posit a “eternal recurrence of every single possible combination of particles”…
You should really read The Birth of Tragedy. In this, his first work, he explains how classical, Apollonian culture came to be as a deliberately artificial construct against what was true up to that point - the cruel savagery of nature and the surrounding barbaric customs.
By a holy lie, the Greeks changed truth. In doing so, they created the most beautiful and lasting products of the human mind.
Though you’re relatively advanced, you still have much to learn.
A person who consciously embraces falsehood because it’s beautiful (feels good) to him is far superior to the zealot you describe.
Have you at all read The Will to Power?
[size=95]But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless ones and anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine… But what if this should become more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine any more unless it were error, blindness, the lie—if God himself should prove to be our most enduring lie?—
[GS 344—‘How we, too, are still pious’.][/size]
The truth found by Nietzsche is the will to power, and the will to power is the will to delusion:
[size=95]This ability itself, thanks to which he [man] violates reality by means of lies, this artistic ability par excellence—he has it in common with everything that is. He himself is after all a piece of reality, truth, nature: how should he not also be a piece of genius in lying! […] The will to appearance, to illusion, to delusion, to Becoming and Changing (to objectified delusion) here [in The Birth of Tragedy] counts as deeper, more original, more “metaphysical” than the will to truth, to reality, to Being:—the last is itself merely a form of the will to illusion.
[WP 853—‘Art in the “Birth of Tragedy”’.][/size]
well, you are claiming that beauty is more prized or desirable than truth. i disagree. a false beauty, once so recognized, serves no useful porpose other than happy, comforting delusions, distractions… yes, there are times for these distractions, and within the chaos of reality, they serve as media through which we can extract greater truths, but ultimately, we recognize that such ideas as god, heaven, eternal soul, eternal recurrence, etc are made-up human fictions, and therefore of a different class than the things which comprise reality itself, such as matter, energy, physical laws, EVEN WHEN we understand that we have limited or illusory knowledge of these other “objective facts of reality”.
using lies and “beautiful deceptions” for rest/recreation/inspiration through chaos, are all fine and good, and probably necessary, but that doesnt mean we EMBRACE these lies as truth, it doesnt mean we invert the meaning of truth in our minds and tell ourselves “all is real; all that is possible, is; lie is truth, and truth is lie”: THIS is exactly the sort of anti-life, nihilistic mind-destroying idiocy which someone like Nietzsche wrote so ardently against.
failing to see the distinction between his claims to the limitations of knowledge and his struggles to a rejection/exposure of falsehoods is merely a failure at the necessary subtlety of mind needed to grasp his ideas in their full meaning and applications.
i bought it actually 2 weeks ago, and have been jumping around at a whim; ill settle down to it when i finish a couple other things im into right now.
How we, too, are still pious.— In science convictions have no rights of citizenship, as one says with good reason: only when they decide to descend to the modesty of hypotheses, of a provisional experimental point of view, of a regulative fiction, they may be granted admission and even a certain value in the realm of knowledge—though always with the restriction that they remain under police supervision, under the police of mistrust.— But does this not mean, if you consider it more precisely, that a conviction may obtain admission to science only when it ceases to be a conviction? Would it not be the first step in the discipline of the scientific spirit that one would not permit oneself any more convictions? … Probably this is so: only we still have to ask, to make it possible for this discipline to begin, must there not be some prior conviction, even one that is so commanding and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself? We see that science also rests on a faith, there simply is no science “without presuppositions.” The question whether truth is needed must not only have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to such a degree that the principle, the faith, the conviction finds expression: “Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it everything else has only second-rate value.”— This unconditional will to truth: what is it? Is it the will not to allow oneself to be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? For the will to truth could be interpreted in the latter way, too: if only the special case “I do not want to deceive myself” is subsumed under the generalization “I do not want to deceive.” But why not deceive? But why not allow oneself to be deceived?— Note that the reasons for the former principle belong to an altogether different realm from those for the second: one does not want to allow oneself to be deceived because one assumes that it is harmful, dangerous, calamitous to be deceived,—in this sense, science would be a long-range prudence, a caution, a utility, but one could object in all fairness: how? is wanting not to allow oneself to be deceived really less harmful, less dangerous, less calamitous: what do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting? But if both should be required, much trust and much mistrust: from where would science then be permitted to take its unconditional faith or conviction on which it rests, that truth is more important than any other thing, including every other conviction. Precisely this conviction could never have come into being if both truth and untruth constantly proved to be useful: which is the case. Thus—the faith in science, which after all exists undeniably, cannot owe its origin to such a calculus of utility; it must have originated in spite of the fact that the disutility and dangerousness of “the will to truth,” of “truth at any price” is proved to it constantly. “At any price”: oh how well we understand these words once we have offered and slaughtered one faith after another on this altar!— Consequently, “will to truth” does not mean “I will not allow myself to be deceived” but—there is no alternative—“I will not deceive, not even myself”:—and with that we stand on moral ground. For you only have to ask yourself carefully: “Why do you not want to deceive?” especially if it should seem—and it does seem!—as if life aimed at semblance, meaning error, deception, simulation, delusion, self-delusion, and when the great sweep of life has actually always shown itself to be on the side of the most unscrupulous polytropoi [polytropoi: Greek word used in the first line of the Odyssey to describe Odysseus; meaning ranges from much turned to much traveled, versatile, wily, and manifold]. Charitably interpreted, such a resolve might perhaps be a quixotism [Don-Quixoterie], a minor slightly mad enthusiasm; but it might also be something more serious, namely, a principle that is hostile to life and destructive … “Will to truth”—that might be a concealed will to death.— Thus the question: “Why science?” leads back to the moral problem: Why have morality at all when life, nature, and history are “not moral”? No doubt, those who are truthful in that audacious and ultimate sense that is presupposed by the faith in science thus affirm another world than the world of life, nature, and history; and insofar as they affirm this “other world,” look, must they not by the same token negate its counterpart, this world—our world? … But you will have gathered what I am driving at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in science rests—that even we seekers after knowledge today, we godless ones and anti-metaphysicians still take our fire, too, from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is the truth, that truth is divine … But what if this should become more and more incredible, if nothing should prove to be divine any more unless it were error, blindness, the lie—if God himself should prove to be our most enduring lie? —
it is a vast difference between recognizing the ultimate limits and conditional nature of scientific beliefs, of any belief at all (that all beliefs are ultimately never known with COMPLETE CERTAINTY, which is of course the case), and recognizing a deliberate fiction created by the psychological need for purpose or meaning at any and all costs…
Nietzsche here is affirming that our beliefs never rest on 100% certain ground, and because of this, we need to understand that all science and all truth, those things which we call truths, is conditional, to the degree that these beliefs rest upon previous “presuppositions” and further conditionals-- nothing is unconditional.
HOWEVER, this is NOT and in no way a justification for deliberately believing or affirming that which we KNOW to be a lie, that which we have no evidence or reason for, and more so even understand that our NEED to the belief is also false as well, and drives us to embrace comforting falsehoods. using what Nietzsche says above to try and say “we should believe in things which we KNOW to be false, simply if they are comforting and beautiful to us” is most definately NOT what Nietzsche is saying. you are taking 344 out of context here when you apply it to the willful and joyous/informed affirmation of that which we know to be a lie.
nonetheless you are right that Nietzsche is claiming a “will to death” as the foundation for the will to truth; however, the “will to truth” is not what is needed to reject beliefs and ideas such as the eternal recurrence (any belief or idea we have good reason to know is a lie, i.e. it was DELIBERATELY created by us AS a lie and is “useful” only BECAUSE it is a lie). the “will to death” meaning here that those possessing the “will to truth” actually possess the will to lies, because as Nietzsche says we can never know truth completely, unconditionally-- and if this is so, then we cannot “will” truth anymore than we can will to fly to the moon. however, while he is rejecting the WILL to truth, this is not the same, not at all, as rejecting all truth at all. we can SEEK truth, understand that which we affirm to be true, practice conscious and rational thought and differentiation to select and withdraw truths from our environemnt, AS LONG AS we never TRY TO affirm these truths 100%, and as long as we never actually believe in them 100%; as he says, “though always with the restriction that they remain under police supervision, under the police of mistrust”.
here it seems he is speaking out against permanence; that nothing is certain or static, and that everything Changes and Becomes constantly, unceasingly-- this means that everything “lies” and deceives via appearance. that our fundamental faculty in thought/perception is not one of detecting completely 100% true and immutable facts, but rather one of observing “illusions”, i.e. reality that is illusory, in that our detached and ‘macro-level’ perception hides the ever-changing nature of reality from us. further, the “violates reality by means of lies” implies that something is being violated, i.e. reality. that he uses the word ‘artistic’ gives insight into his impression of this faculty as fundamentally chaotic and interpretive, representational and CREATIVE… that we are creators, inventors, and the truths we think we learn are at best creations… but once again, this isnt an admonishion against all seeking for truth and for reality.
reality IS illusory from us, to a certain degree, but nonetheless we CAN and DO know quite a bit about it. Nietzsche firmly seems to believe that willing truth is absurd, since we can never know truth, and all is conditioned upon previous presuppositions, they themselves conditional; but for you to take this “elimination of the upper-most extreme of certainty” as the willful affirmation of that which we KNOW to be a lie (or know with great certainly or strong evidence) is wrong. if Nietzsche knew that God was a fiction, he still didnt go around preaching belief in God because he knew it was wrong; quite the opposite, he exposes the belief as erroneous and false, FIRST, and then, only AFTER THIS, can we determine the “usefulness” or actual real grounding this belief has deep in the roots of our own unexamined convictions.
yes, no belief is certain 100%, and yes, fundamentally every truth and belief we possess rests on conditions and assumptions, but that we are still JUSTIFIED in these assumptions, by not only our senses and personally-direct experiences but also by our sense of logic/intuition and LIFE ITSELF (our ability to successfully deal with and survive in a harsh nature), in otherwords our efficacy in the face of brutal reality, these all come together to offer us plenty of reason and justification to believe the truths which we come to, AS LONG AS we are always ready and open to reexamine that truth and belief in light of new perspectives and evidence-- i.e. in light of the fact that we understand that NO truth is 100% certain, but that this DOES NOT MEAN we are not nonetheless JUSTIFIED in affirming it (and consequently NOT justified in affirming that which we have solid grounds for thinking a LIE).
i have seen this nihilistic or extreme skeptical viewpoint on Nietzsche before here, and i personally just dont buy it. Nietzsche exposed the limitations of human ideas, that all truths change and that reality flows from one becoming to another-- that clinging to our solid and comfortably unchanging paradigms and beliefs in reality is foolish and ungrounded. however, Nietzsche was also a strong advocate for digging INTO truth and exposing what was there, what gems lie hidden under the illusions… such as will to power, or the false/lying nature of moral and religious beliefs, such as metaphysics in general. that he seems to then GROUND this new understanding of the falseness of certain large parts of human knowledge IN THIS falseness itself, is read by many as extreme skepticism, or as “we can know what we know, but its all in the end not for certain at all”, but i have come to believe that this interpretation is the result of misapplying what he is saying…
the fact A) that we CAN and SHOULD seek after reality and true knowledge, and B) that true unchanging and absolute convictions about realty are unjustified, does not present a contradiction, nor a reason for extreme skepticism or nihilism-- and understanding this seems to me a very key part of grasping the subtlety and depth of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
3x, what I said here was not necessarily my point of view, it’s just how I think Nietzsche meant it, that was your question afterall… keep that in mind.
You didn’t get the whole point, I think, which is that all perspectives are delusions in a way, or half truths depending on the way you look at it. If we take a decisions to act, we do so on a point of view that is limited in scope. We don’t take all possible factors into account, we can’t, our awareness is limited. “We are born, we live and we die”, that’s it" is true obviously, but it doesn’t really come into play all that much when I take a decision. I don’t know when I’m going to die, maybe tomorrow, maybe in 200 years if technology finds a way to prolong life. I’m talking about day to day action, 3X, and how we can only take into account so much, and select facts here and there… It’s not about truth. I also don’t think it was meant to “feel good”, quite the opposite, it was meant to inspire a sense of urgency, which Nietzsche though was missing since the dead of God. Think couch patato’s, or just the mediocre life. It’s superflues maybe to you, and I don’t go arround thinking every moment will return eternally either… but maybe for 19th centurie people? But basicly, I agree with you, maybe the eternal return was a stretch .
Yes, yes . This is more akin to Camus vision of the absurd hero, who needs no justification for life, or the Algerian culture he described. I’m going in the same direction. But I think Nietzsche wanted more than this, it can be fairly basic, animalistic if people are raised this way. I get the sense that he wanted to cultivate the instincts more by applying pressure, the camel needs to be loaded, before the lion and the child can come into play.
yes, good points. i of course must interpret Nietzsche through my own lens of understanding, which is constantly changing and evolving. i will respond to your post fully later on.
Because it is in the seeing and the doing that the universe within and without becomes. There are no infinite possibilities living in stagnation. An echo can only resound through the fruition of one’s possibilities.
Desirable, not prized; it is prized because it is desirable (cf. “virtue is beloved to God because it is good”).
Is a false beauty still beautiful? Is it still true beauty?
What would a false beauty be from a Nietzschean point of view? And a true beauty? I will quote the exact same passage I’ve quoted in the ‘Why Nietzsche?’ thread:
[size=95]Nothing is more conditional—or, let us say, narrower—than our feeling for beauty. Whoever would think of it apart from man’s joy in man would immediately lose any foothold. “Beautiful in itself” is a mere phrase, not even a concept. In the beautiful, man posits himself as the measure of perfection; in special cases he worships himself in it. A species cannot do otherwise but thus affirm itself alone. Its lowest instinct, that of self-preservation and self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities. […]
Nothing is beautiful, only man: all aesthetics rests upon this naïveté, which is its first truth. Let us immediately add the second: nothing is ugly except the degenerating man—and with this the realm of aesthetic judgment is circumscribed. […] The ugly is understood as a suggestion and symptom of degeneration: whatever reminds us in the least of degeneration causes in us the judgment of “ugly.” [“hässlich”, lit. “hately”] […] A hatred is aroused—but whom does man hate then? But there is no doubt: the decline of his type.
[Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, ‘Skirmishes’, 19-20.][/size]
Suppose a person—a woman, in case you’re man (and a heterosexual)—truly represents an ascent of your type. Now suppose that your image of her (by the way: I’m pretty sure you’re a heterosexual male; I was speaking to the general reader)—suppose your image of her matches the reality, in this respect at least. Then you will find her beautiful. And she has true beauty, for you, because she really represents an ascent of your type.
From this it is easy to see that false beauty means the image does not correspond (in this respect) to the reality—in the sense that the reality is worse, from your point of view, than the image. But then as soon as you find this out, your image is adjusted (for the worse). So a false beauty is destroyed immediately it is revealed as such.
And yet, love is blind in the sense that if the object of one’s love is seen as a representation of the ascent of one’s type, imperfections tend to be disregarded. As Nietzsche says;
[size=95]Love is the state in which man sees things most decidedly as they are not. The power of illusion is at its peak here, as is the power to sweeten and transfigure.
[AC 23.][/size]
And we have no knowledge of the other things you mention (god, heaven, eternal soul, eternal recurrence), so these ideas could be true. Just an observation.
Some do, like the zealot you mentioned, and that is pathological, I agree. Genius consists in embracing these lies as lies…
“Lie is truth” in the sense, not that a specific lie is true, but that reality is a Lying (a Willing-to-power, which is a Willing-to-art, -to-Lie (noun), -to-flight-from-“truth”, -to-negation-of-“truth” (WP 853)).
All that is possible is, not in this moment, but in time as a whole. This is determinism for you. Nietzsche’s only real critique of determinism is this:
[size=95]Only because we have introduced subjects, “doers,” into things does it appear that all events are the consequences of a compulsion exerted upon subjects—exerted by whom? again by a “doer.”
[WP 552.][/size]
Thank you.
I thought so. Are you an adolescent?
Nietzsche is not just recognizing the limitations of knowledge here, let alone any ultimate limits. He is implying something here:
[size=95][W]hat do you know in advance of the character of existence to be able to decide whether the greater advantage is on the side of the unconditionally mistrustful or of the unconditionally trusting?[/size]
In fact, he’s saying, explicitly, that it is rather on the side of the latter:
[size=95]“Why do you not want to deceive[, not even yourself]?” especially if it should seem—and it does seem!—as if life aimed at semblance, meaning error, deception, simulation, delusion, self-delusion, and when the great sweep of life has actually always shown itself to be on the side of the most unscrupulous polytropoi [polytropoi: Greek word used in the first line of the Odyssey to describe Odysseus; meaning ranges from much turned to much traveled, versatile, wily, and manifold].[/size]
And did not Odysseus believe in Olympus? But even if this last argument is weak, one who does not want to deceive himself (even if he’s quite unscrupulous about deceiving others) must still acknowledge the following:
[size=95][T]here is only one world, and this is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, without meaning— A world thus constituted is the real world. We have need of lies in order to conquer this reality, this “truth,” that is, in order to live— That lies are necessary in order to live is part of the terrifying and questionable character of existence.
[WP 853.][/size]
Your imperative of “I want no lies, I want only truth, at least in regard to the most important things” breaks down here. For even a Superman, who would be an epitome of this world—i.e., of the “truth”—would be false (and cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without meaning).—
I also get the idea you have only skimmed the passage you quoted—like you have read The Will to Power perhaps; you seem to have only read the beginning. But the beginning is only an introduction; the actual matter begins here:
[size=95]Would it not be the first step in the discipline of the scientific spirit that one would not permit oneself any more convictions?.. Probably this is so: only we still have to ask, to make it possible for this discipline to begin, must there not be some prior conviction, even one that is so commanding and unconditional that it sacrifices all other convictions to itself?[/size]
This isn’t about convictions in science, but about the conviction underlying science (which I have quoted, and which you think I’ve taken out of context).
And what do we know to be a lie? All we—or, for accuracy’s sake, let me say “I”—know is that something dynamic exists. Period.
The lesson to be drawn from GS 344 is not that nothing is unconditional, but that the conviction underlying science is that the truth is divine. That is what this aphorism is about (hence the title, “How we, too, are still pious”).
What we have evidence or reason for need not be true, nor does what we don’t have evidence or reason for need to be untrue. Again, just an observation.
Nietzsche fundamentally deconstructs reason in The Will to Power, Book III. I will also remind you (or inform you) of the titles of the first and third volumes of Heidegger’s ‘Nietzsche’, “The Will to Power as Art” and “The Will to Power as Knowledge”. There is no absolute difference between knowledge and art; thus Heidegger says:
[size=95]Both art and truth are modes of perspectival shining [Scheinen, also “seeming”, “appearing”. Schein is usually translated as “appearance” (e.g., die scheinbare Welt, “the apparent world” as opposed to the “real world”)]. But the value of the real is measured according to how it satisfies the essence of reality, how it accompishes the shining and enhances reality. Art, as transfiguration, is more enhancing to life than truth, as fixation of an apparition.
[‘Nietzsche’, Vol. I, chapter 25.][/size]
Knowledge (sc. of the truth) is essentially a Fixating, according to Nietzsche, whereas art is an Urging. Thus art is “worth more” than truth, that is to say prior and deeper, because Fixating is itself an Urging—an Urging toward Being (as opposed to “Becoming”). Becoming is an Urging, a Creating, a Willing.
But what do we “know” to be true? Is it not: what our senses tell us? So perception must take precedence over imagination. What I mean is that one may rejoice in one’s power of imagination; but one should be aware that it is “only” imagination. Nietzsche’s mature philosophy, as I see it now, rests on the conviction that the apparent world—the physical world—is real. But this world is interpreted as Interpretation (will to power), which accounts for the “fact” that I cannot know the world-in-itself, but only my interpretation of it; nor can I know your interpretation of it, but only my own, or at best my interpretation of your interpretation. But because the world is regarded as Interpretation, I can know it from my own personal experience: I am part of this world, and I am interpretation (i.e., an Interpreting), and nothing besides.
That I only quote part of it does not mean I take it out of context; nor does the fact that you quote it in full mean you do interpret it correctly… A very bombastic maneuver. Very impetuous, too…
I did not say that (though Nietzsche is claiming that, nor do I disagree with it).
A lie? Why would it be a lie? I have good reason to believe Nietzsche actually believed in it (or at least be-lieved in it).
You are part of the collective called “Nietzsche” now? Nietzsche was one person, and he was not one of “us”.
Deliberately? As in, by free will?
You seem very cocksure for someone who has yet to read The Will to Power.
No; Nietzsche is saying the will to truth is a will to death because morality is unnatural (Nature is immoral, or amoral). Only the unconditional will to truth is a will to death. It is not about “willing” (in the sense of making-actual) truth, but about the desire for truth: like the desire to be able to fly to the moon, it is a desire for a fundamentally different world (not just “changing the world” in the sense of changing its present form, but of changing its nature, its essence, its constitution).
It is true that people who “find” such “truths” (e.g., through “revelation”), tend to submit to them 100%. And yet Nietzsche is not speaking of that here. If you were to submit 100% to a truth you find terrible (e.g., that life is amoral), Nietzsche would not despise you so much for your submission as for your terror. He would also despise you for your submission, but only due to his Conviction that convictions are signs of weakness. Nietzsche is basically saying this: existence is will to power. Interpretation is itself will to power, so the acknowledgement that the interpretation of the world as will to power is an interpretation is no argument against it. It is the ultimate hypothesis, from his point of view, though indeed still a hypothesis. One may affirm this 100%, not because one knows it to be true, but because as far as one knows, it is the most likely (we have evidence and reason for it, not in the least our evidence of reason, our experience of reason, our interpretation of reason as a faculty of interpretation).
Nietzsche explicitly says somewhere that someone like he, someone disillusioned and hardened by truth-seeking, does not believe the repudiation of falsehood reveals truth, but knows from experience that it only causes one’s desert to grow. He says it in The Will to Power, though I forgot where.
No need for despair, though; for this desert is the will to power, a life-giving truth.
Maybe you are misapplying what I’m saying: my message is not nihilist.
“Should” why? Whence this imperative? Only a remnant of Christian morality? That is what Nietzsche says. But in order for this imperative to survive, to not follow the God who was its only ground to his grave, “reality and true knowledge” must be discovered to be life-giving. Enter the will to power.
in my personal opinion, it seems you are interpreting EVREYTHING Nietzsche is saying through the lens of ‘will to power’; i agree that will to power is essential, but it is still an idea, and the application of it as the STANDARD by which we evaluate EVERYTHING he writes, seems somewhat over-interpretive. although i agree that the idea is, more so than all of his others, a universal and uni-applicable one.
you understand about 3/4 of my intent, and misunderstand the remaining. this is ok, because i will admit that i tended in this previous post of mine to confuse my personal interpretations of Nietzsche with my objective (nonpersonal) understanding of HIS intent, what HE is saying. i believe that he was not a nihilist, and in that you also affirm that you are not a nihilist, i see that as well, and agree that my understanding of your initial reply to my OP was not an affirmation of nihilism. however, what i was responding to mainly was not your overt intention or meaning, but the meaning underlying what you said, as i saw it, the unstated inherent ASSUMPTIONS of your post. which, as i see it, are nihilistic (not FULLY, perhaps only of a limited nature, but still nihilist)…
however, i do now see what you are saying; i see through what you are saying, and understand the position you come from. and when i was speaking of the “lack of subtlety necessary” to properly interpret Nietzsche’s words, i was not in fact refering to YOU, i was speaking in general, just so you know… as i said, i know now that this is not what you succomb to.
as for beauty, i place high value on HONESTY in beauty, even so much that i see that which is DISHONEST cannot also be beautiful-- hence my rejection of the idea that ‘lies’ (as we know them) can also be beautiful to us. i disagree with this, and feel that only that which springs from intellectual and personal honesty can be beauty. of course i understand that “all is a lie” in the Nietzschean sense-- however, this overall, general metaphysical sense of the illusory nature of reality does not alter the fact that i only affirm as beautiful THAT WHICH IS HONEST WITH ITSELF. we can still see and affirm honesty in limited parts of our understanding, even when we also understand that everything is a “lying” will to power…
yes, i have not read through WP yet, i have finished GM, EC, BGE and TSZ, and in the process of finishing AC; i intend to start BT and WP as soon as im done reading AC. however, i will point out that just because i have not read completely through WP, does not mean that i cannot interpret some of the select passages that you quote, in light of my overall knowledge of Nietzsche.
i agree that there are things, many perspectives perhaps, that i still need to arrive at in Nietzsche’s philosophy. however, those interpretations which i HAVE arrived at, through my readings and thinkings, i still believe to be for the most part accurate and true, for myself… likely, some of what i believe now about his philosophy wil be rethought and rewritten in my mind after further readings and thoughts, but nonetheless i appreciate that you address WHAT I SAY, and (for the most part at least) do not resort to “well you just havent read it yet” rejections of my interpretations here. some of your insights here are informative and offer original perspectives for me, and some of them are not original and are ideas which i tend to reject as false interpretations (such as your “All that is possible is, not in this moment, but in time as a whole”); regardless, i am very appreciative that you write honest and thought-out responses here. for myself, i place the highest, most ultimate value and affirmation on HONESTY (as you or i might in other context call ‘truth’), being open and honest (not deceptive) with onesself… yes, this is probably impossible in an absolute sense, but nevertheless it is still a goal to strive for, just as the overman is a goal, even though we will (likely) never reach it.
and just for the sake of your question, i am not an adolescent, but 25 years old. and my quotation of the entirety of GS 344 is not a “trick” but was intended for my own sake, to read the entire passage in context, and intrepret it as such. i quoted it here for clarity sake, for myself as well as for others reading this post.
this is a good way of understanding becoming and knowledge (truth) itself. truth that is rigid and unchanging is necessarily false. i agree with this completely, and understand that reality itself, human reality, ‘objective’ reality, nature, the universe, the mind, etc, are all changing, an “urging” as you call it (for art), and i like this interpretation. even inanimate unliving matter is, at the atomic and molecular level, “urging” itself into the future, field energy and physicalism “striving” and ever-changing process of a new becoming every moment. that WE, as conscious living beings, can WILL this same process of realty to ourselves, in understanding and in our lives and goals, is perhaps what Nietzsche thought was the best hope and highest goal of man, the “bridge” to the overman (a bridge over human weakness and limitation, as we transmute these limitations to see the underlying process-nature and ever-changing structure of reality and the human psyche)… but once again, while this interpretation is VERY helpful in understanding Nietzsche and his view of reality and life/human nature, i think that interpreting EVERYTHING he says in this light, ALONE or even PRIMARILY, can lead to mistakes. will to power is important, yes, and yes, it is “everything” in the sense of “and nothing besides”, BUT nonetheless within this universal context, there are other levels of truth which we may reach that need not this affirmation of willing to be accurately understood.
anyways, thanks again for the insights… back to the eternal recurrence, which was the main intent of the OP here, if we could return there that would be nice, but of course i also value long tangents into Nietzsche’s other philosophical areas… eternal recurrence seems to me very uncharacteristic of Nietzsche, and since you seem very well-read in him and well versed in his works, i am wondering what your insight is into the MEANING and INTENT of his affirmation of this idea of eternal recurrence. i agree with other posters here than it is not a LITERAL truth, but it seems that maybe you believe it to be (or rather, maybe that you believe Nietzsche thought it a literal truth)— i am open to the idea that Nietzsche literally thought eternal recurrence was an aspect of reality itself, i just still cannot understand it in light of the contradictions it presents, and also in light of the underlying and unavoidably obvious pathological/psychological NEED for a sort of “certainty of purpose”, which otherwise Nietzsche seems to reject completely…
that he saw that A purpose was necessary, i agree; and that he thought that lies could certainly be useful, i agree as well, as you stated, that we understand lies as useful not as truth, but understand lies as lies… anyways, if we could put aside the further and tangent discussions of Nietzsche here, i would like to return to the idea of eternal recurrence, and i am wondering just how you justify it in light of Nietzsche’s views: was he believing it literally (and thus, why)?, or is it (to be understood by us now) more of a “willing to life” in that we NEED some sort of higher or transcendent will (even to a lie, “rather will nothingness than to not will”?) in order to live?
i can accept the idea that Nietzsche thought that life NEEDS lies, more easily than i can accept that Nietzsche literally believed that reality is so structred as the eternal recurrence states, objectively and without reference (in creating the idea) to our human needs… of course, recognizing the psychological/pathological level of the need itself, it seems more to me that we should perhaps reject eternal recurrence and search for further, GREATER meanings in human life, than affirm eternal recurrence merely because it is a COMFORTING LIE that life “needs” to live in a chaotic, ever-changing universe… surely, we can find truths or aspects OF REALITY, which can justify our existence and willing, without resorting to deliberate fabrications and lies…?
Hermes, you seem to overlook a fundamental idea underlying Nietzsche’s conception of truth and lie; the idea that there is no reality outside of perception and interpretation. That is why every truth is a construct, and why constructs, or lies, can be the most profound and life affirming ideas.
To seek truth outside of perception, objective truth, is inhuman, therefore life negating, hence, will to death.
The one thing you would have to get clear about when you want to properly criticize the value of the Eternal Recurrence is whether you believe that natural science is objective, independent of interpretation (for example, does gravity exist without man to perceive it?) or that it is a construct of human interpretation, like Picasso interprets a face.
Yes, I have indeed been doing that lately. Lampert’s interpretation of Strauss’s interpretation of Nietzsche has had quite an impact on me, in that respect at least. Last night, I read the introduction to the book in question, which apparently I’d skipped before. There it says:
[size=95]Strauss’s essay [on BGE] is the most comprehensive and profound study ever published on Nietzsche. It attains this rank because
[…]
—it demonstrates that the two essential issues in Nietzsche’s thought are the will to power and eternal return, and shows how these two issues are logically related as the fundamental fact and the highest value;
[…]
[Lampert, ‘Leo Strauss and Nietzsche’.][/size]
The eternal return is essentially the supreme affirmation of the world-as-will-to-power:
[size=95]Eternal return is philosophy’s [note: not just Nietzsche’s philosophy’s!] natural edifying teaching; it does not comfort itself or others with the next world ostensibly more perfect than our own; it says of the only world there is, or rather it “shouts insatiably” (aph. 56) to the world as it is: Be what you are, be eternally what you are.
[ibid., chapter two.][/size]
Cf. WP 55.
I would like to know what you think those assumptions are.
But why is this? Are these not inherited valuations? Is love of honesty not in your blood, after many generations of devout Christians (not necessarily your parents and grandparents, but before them)? It is your prejudice that what is dishonest cannot also be beautiful. Compare:
[size=95][T]o stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors [“Discordant concord of things”: Horace, Epistles, I.12.19.] and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity of existence without questioning, without trembling with the craving and the rapture of such questioning, without at least hating the person who questions, perhaps even finding him faintly amusing—that is what I feel to be contemptible, and this is the feeling for which I look first in everybody:—some folly keeps persuading me that every human being has this feeling, simply because he is human. This is my sense [Art, “kind”] of injustice.
[GS 2.][/size]
That is to say, Nietzsche is unjust in that persuasion. But as he implies by the next section, this injustice is a form of “the eternal injustice of the noble [Edlen]”. You are a noble descendant of a long line of pious obeyers; in you, their obedience has become a command, a demand.
Certainly.
Well, I didn’t think you were a teenager. In my view, in the modern West, 25 is about the lowest age at which men cease to be adolescents. And that’s always a more or less gradual process. I will think of you as on the brink. I’m 30, by the way.
Alright.
What’s still more: Nietzsche projects the will to power into the atomic and the subatomic level (he did not believe in “a-toms”; he believed in quanta of force, and ascribed the will to power to this force as its “inner will”. Force is a vector, and to Nietzsche this vector was the “outward” expression of the will to power; cf. WP III.II.1).
A hint in the (in my view) “right” direction:
[size=95]A spirit who wants great things, who also wants the means to them, is necessarily a skeptic. Freedom from all kinds of convictions, to be able to see freely, is part of strength… Great passion, the ground and the power of his existence [seines Seins, “of his Being”], even more enlightened, even more despotic than he is himself, employs his whole intellect; it makes him unhesitating; it gives him courage even for unholy means; under certain circumstances it does not begrudge him convictions. Conviction as a means: many things are attained only by means of a conviction. Great passion uses and uses up convictions, it does not succumb to them—it knows itself sovereign.
[AC 54.][/size]
Is this “passion” not also a conviction? In the sense of a being-(passively!-)convinced? But this passion is the will to power (the will to power is a pathos, as Nietzsche says somewhere in the WP), it is a Willing, i.e., this conviction, contrary to the convictions of the weak, is a(n active) Convincing.
[size=95]Whoever does not know how to lay his will into things, at least lays some meaning into them: that means, he has the faith that they already obey a will (principle of “faith”).
[Twilight, Maxims, 18, entire.][/size]
The weak obey a (real or imagined) will different from their own; their con-viction is a being-vanquished (both from vincere—vici—victum, “to win, to conquer”), whereas the passion of the strong is a Willing, a Commanding, a Subjecting-to-their-own-rule.
As Lampert says, in TSZ, Eternity is the name for transfigured Life (my formulation). Transfigured, glorified, deified—in German this would be verklärt, lit. “made to shine”. The complete ad-firmation of life makes life eternity: it says “yes” or “yea” to it (German bejahen or jasagen, resp. “to beyea” and “to say yea”). The English “yes” is, etymologically, especially expressive, as it contains a form of the s-root of “to be”, which meant “existence”, a remaining, Being as opposed to Becoming. Now Nietzsche says:
[size=95]To impose upon Becoming the character of Being—that is the supreme will to power.
Twofold falsification, on the part of the senses and of the spirit, to preserve a world of that which is, which abides, which is equivalent, etc.
That everything recurs is the closest approximation of a world of Becoming to a world of Being:—high point of the meditation.
[WP 617.][/size]
Though Nietzsche may have needed the ER at times as a comforting lie (e.g., in the passage Jakob has mentioned, which I will quote next), I do not; I see it now as a transfiguration of existence. Yes…
[size=95]A certain emperor always bore in mind the transitoriness of all things so as not to take them too seriously and to live at peace among them. To me, on the contrary, everything seems far too valuable to be so fleeting: I seek an eternity for everything: ought one to pour the most precious salves and wines into the sea?—My consolation is that everything that has been is eternal: the sea will cast it up again.
[WP 1065, entire.][/size]
This should also satisfy Faust; as you can see, Nietzsche says “everything that has been is eternal: the sea will cast it up again.”
A consolation? That does not sound very Nietzschean. There are two forms of eternalisation, even as there are two forms of conviction. To believe that the world as will to power recurs eternally is a sign of weakness: e.g., of a need for consolation. To will that the world recurs eternally is a sign of strength: of a need to give thanks to it. But can these two forms be really distinguished here? Is it not a sign of strength that Nietzsche wanted this world and this life to recur eternally? It is not the same as an afterworld:
Suppose the world is the will to power, and nothing besides, but does not recur eternally. Then a world-as-will-to-power that does recur eternally is an afterworld, right? Another, imaginary world. But this is still essentially different from a “Heaven”. For a Heaven is a different kind of world to this one: a fundamentally different world. What the ER is is the idea of an afterlife that is an endless repetition of this life—not everlasting, but ever-repeating (including birth and death). It is fundamentally the same world, the same life. It is therefore no sign of weakness, to the contrary: not only does one endure life as it is, contrary to those who need to believe in Christian or Islamic promises of a “Heaven”, one does not just endure it, as something that will end and then be forever over, but one enjoys it so much that one ardently desires its eternal recurrence.
In Strauss’s interpretation of Nietzsche, interpretation is also the reality outside of interpretation… That is to say, all you can interpret are other interpretations (not just made by other people, but even by the smallest quanta of force—quanta of will. All there is is will to power, that is, wills to power over wills to power).
Deleuze put it pretty much the same way, for what it’s worth:
[size=95]The cyclical hypothesis is incapable of accounting for two things - the diversity of co-existing cycles and, above all, the existence of diversity within the cycle. This is why we can only understand the eternal return as the expression of a principle which serves as an explanation of diversity and its reproduction, of difference and its repetition. Nietzsche presents this principle as one of his most important philosophical discoveries. He calls it will to power. By will to power ‘I express the characteristic that cannot be thought out of the mechanistic order without thinking away this order itself’ (WP 634).
Nietzsche & Philosophy, ch. 2.5[/size]
This may be a little to dense. I will try to explain it, if not for you, then perhaps for others.
You may have missed the fact that my first mention of “yes” includes a link to the etymology of that word.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the ‘s’ in “yes” is probably short for “si”, the Old English imperative of (the s-root of) “to be”; so it probably literally means “so be it”, and “be” is here not the optative (conjunctive) of “to be”, but the imperative!—“Be so!”, “Thou shalt be so!”; not “May it be so”, “God, let it please be so”… It’s imperious, it expresses a Willing.
Likewise, “to affirm” means “to make firm”, “to cause to be firm”.
The ring of recurrence (see, e.g., the last section of the WP) is, to use an expression I coined years ago, a solid ring of flux.
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