Okay even better. Shoulda said this earlier. This ER process and reincarnation in general can’t be experienced as a culminating or accumulating of experience, if it is actually happening at all. For it to be significant, it would have to be something more than a simple repetition of physical events. There would have to be content that is accumulated over each procession, e.g., in my last life I stole that wallet and that’s why I’m a woodchuck in this life… or vice versa… I gave it all to charity last time and that’s why I’m rich in this one, etc.
Rather what’s happening here is, the person already has an aversion to stealing (doesn’t really think it’s right), and will interpret his present misfortune as a consequence of violating that code or more or whatever you wanna call it. If he happens to be a Hindu, he’ll think his recent car accident is karmically related to the cheeseburger he stole from his brother five days ago.
Most likely, these events are not related in any meaningful way.
With the ER, the same but different. You’re not accumulating or collecting victories and/or defeats as you recur. Each time produces in general the same balance of victory and defeat… that’s how you’re going to experience each recurrence.
Well, in the case of reincarnation/rebirth, that is actually the case (though I don’t believe in it). But the point of the ER is precisely that there is no escape, no improvement.
Well, a guy who steals cheeseburgers is probably not the best driver.
Not just in general, but in particular: the exact same balance. Anyway, yeah, I think we generally agree.
The way I interpret ER is a little different. The idea of it is literally immaterial. We are talking soul with a capital S.
That does make a slight difference here.
The amount of deflection I mean reflective consciousness, does have an absolute value, and that is the main difference.
One can hobble along in life and have a reflective brilliance stemming from IQ 40 and below, or aspire a higher grade. Then all hell can break loose, or as in Blake- heaven.
The reconstructed pan hellenism after the faint echoes of the accompaniying classical aftershocks fade away, there is a new day, the twilight of yesterday has been detained by only a few dreamers and crazies.
Those who can behold the minute brilliance of freshly rolling Dee from a leaf of grass, while is able to luxuriate in the deliciousness of a common house fly walking down his stomach toward his pubis, must forget the danger of realizing that he after all was a maggot in former life feeding on rotted meat .
It’ s all too beautiful. Blake, Proust, et al .knew that. And may be Kandinsky.
L’expérience esthétique de Proust et Kandinsky, une réfraction de la vie spirituelle
Alternate title: La experiencia estética de Proust y Kandinsky, una refracción de la vida espiritual; The aesthetic experience of Proust and Kandinsky, refraction to spiritual life
Yes, but they’re the same in my mind (permadeath and “eternal” life)… I guess there could be a life after death in the way that there is an ending that never ends, a never-ending cooling… A “life” that is perpetually fading away without actually “dying”… Which would be quite horrible… a life being ever deprived of all stimulants to life with ever diminishing memories of who you are (forgetting that you even forgot)…never being thrust back into a world of suffering, just a slipping away without being pulled back.
Could you say then that one can’t properly “stamp becoming with the character of Being” unless one affirms the ER as the highest value? It seems like its the exactness of each repetition which give the moment its clarity. And how could one even become light if he’s not affirming the ER? Reincarnation then (while being more demanding than Christian heaven) seems to lack the clarity of the moment as well as offering a “way out.”
Also, despite the ER being “probably” not a fact, doesn’t make the moment feel any less infinite?
"In what follows it is shown that the anthropological account of Nietzsche’s doctrine (White) lays the ground for the eternal recurrence to be considered as the return of singular moments (Ansell-Pearson) inaugurated by the will willing itself through the moment of joy and thus redeeming itself from the affliction of past time while laying in its present moment the foundation for its future. As such, the eternal recurrence is proven to be conceived of as neither a line nor a circle but to be of three types – the eternal return of meaninglessness, different meaning, and same meaning – and have the following life-evaluative function: affirmation of all life through the affirmation of one single moment.
In [i]Within Nietzsche’s Labyrinth[/i] (1990), Alan White interprets eternal recurrence [i]anthropologically [/i](meaning the doctrine serves to affirm one’s own human existence) and [i]phenomenologically [/i](i.e., the doctrine is not an argument, but it reveals a human type that affirms life – the Overhuman), not cosmologically, but as “the resurrection of the Nietzschean soul, a resurrection not elsewhere or else when or once and for all – not a single, decisive event in some hinterworld or distant future – but rather here and now and repeatedly, a re-creation of the soul and by the soul, on an earth that has regained the ‘innocence of becoming’” (White 73) – a resurrection or re-creation at every [i]moment [/i]within the span of this his life, his only life, his [i]eternal [/i]life, from the labyrinth of which there is no escape: the religious nihilist is convinced “that there must be a way out” (an afterlife) and the radical nihilist (one who denies truth) vilifies existence “from which there is no exit” (14). In this regard, one makes what one [i]wills [/i]of one’s soul on the basis of the material available from the past in the present (104). “In this my eternal life, I always return, and the structure of the moment (the present moment of two contradicting lanes – past and future) always returns, with its unknowable but singular future, as well as its inescapable past. To will the eternal return is to will this life” (101). What return(s), therefore, are/is the self and/in the moment, and the return of the moment as such is neither circular nor linear in character. In this vein, Ansell-Pearson, I believe, goes on to elaborate on the structure of the moment, the return of which White connects with the resurrection of the soul, i.e., eternal life, and finds that what returns is the [i]character [/i]of the moment. To this we now turn.
In his article entitled “The Eternal Return of the Overhuman: The Weightiest Knowledge and the Abyss of Light” (2005), Ansell-Pearson claims that “[i]n [i]Thus Spoke Zarathustra[/i] Nietzsche presents the eternal return in terms of the event of the moment” (Ansell-Pearson 14). On his reading, the doctrine – the eternal recurrence of the same – that Zarathustra presents to the dwarf in “On the Vision and the Riddle” 2, means the eternal return of “the character of the moment” (ibid.). He writes that “...the innocence of becoming, of time as such, is to be restored.... where time qua transience is conceived as the moment that both gathers and splits up the past and future. This curious ‘moment’ ([i]Augenblick[/i]) is the event” (13, italics mine). When the moment splits up the past and future, change, becoming, suffering, and death set in. When the moment gathers the past and future, time disappears, happiness is enjoyed, and immortality is achieved through the eternal return of the same moment, the[i] same innocent character [/i] of the moment which desires itself, its own return (15). The moment “inaugurates itself”, it begins itself every moment(ibid.). The innocence of each [i]singular [/i]moment keeps coming back with every moment, hence no past, no present, no future. Eternity is one big same innocent moment now. Thus its will is liberated from the pastness of time. Zarathustra’s short sleep in “At Noon” becomes the symbol for timeless time gathered into one single moment, the moment of affirmation – so the whole world seems asleep. Such a sleepy state of consciousness allows for the redemption from the ordinary understanding of time as [i]linear[/i], as [i]affliction [/i](GS 314). Time is innocent, full of chance, exists without any purpose, and is eternal – time is eternity (Ansell-Pearson 16) through the affirmation of the whole. In this regard, Ansell-Pearson rightly notes that the dwarf, in responding that time itself is a circle, misunderstands Zarathustra’s doctrine because
“he [the dwarf] does not experience the weight of the thought that concerns the eternal return of the moment as the same. It does not matter how far one goes along the two lanes [of eternity], whether the lane that lies behind or the lane that lies ahead, the character of the moment will always be encountered as the same (14, italics mine).”
The evidence Ansell-Pearson offers in support of his argument, citing a section of the text to which we have already referred, is that “Zarathustra provides the decisive insight when he declares: ‘Are not all things bound fast together in such a way that this moment draws after it all future things? Therefore—draws itself too? […] all things that can run must also run once again forward along this lane’ ” (ibid.). What Ansell-Pearson means by the “character of the moment” is its singularity. “[T]he eternal return of the moment as a singularity” serves to dissolve the eternal contradiction between the past and the future(ibid.). Reading the eternal recurrence as the eternal recurrence of the character of the moment disproves both linear and circular conceptions of time.“ The image of the circle of time posited by the spirit of gravity is unable to grasp the deep well and abyss of time. Only this image can give us the moment as one of ‘eternity’, the duration of which is not to be thought in terms of our ordinary linear conception of time (as chronological succession, for example)” (15). Indeed, only “a moment that inaugurates itself and that, as such, desires itself and to the point of desiring its eternal return” can do justice to the interpretation of the doctrine(ibid.). “For Zarathustra it even has the appearance of the dis-appearance of time"
And I think that’s one theory of the experience of death (as distinct from near-death—although it is in fact a nearing death ever more closely but never fully reaching it). It’s certainly the individual equivalent of universal heat death!
It’s the exactness of each moment which gives each moment its clarity.
'If the highest will to power expresses itself as the closest possible approximation of a world of Becoming to a world of Being, then the will to power as such is the will to approximate Becoming to Being.
‘Thus the will to power is the will to affirm (make firm) Becoming.’ (Sauwelios, “The Will to Might”.)
::
Look, the will to power sublates itself in willing the ER. I’ve explained this several times in the past. After that sublation, there is no longer any need to stamp becoming with the character of being; being is what persists through all becoming, the emptiness that comprehends and penetrates everything.
Very interesting. White doesn’t do much for me, but I’m definitely impressed by Ansell-Pearson. Still, this completely changes the meaning of the ER: it’s really a recurring eternity (RE) or at best an eternally recurring eternity (ERE). The particular configurations do not recur; what recurs is only the general character of existence. I’m reminded of Heraclitus’ saying that “the nature [physis] of every day is one”: the particular days do not recur, what recurs is only the one nature of all days. Zeroth nature.
Like I said, when playing street fighter it was extremely useful.
Its a useful concept to affirm, no one is arguing that- but when we know that it is a metaphor, it changes - it doesn’t have to actually exist, but it also doesn’t exactly have to mean what it means.
But, let it mean what it means, for it is useful that way.
Ive got a bit of criticism on your approach to the concept of good vs evil, which does not extend to my take on your approach to Blake - as far as it works for me, I find the second more fortunate. It is the literalness of Nietzsche that betrays him. Heidegger was needed to resolve the problems he therein created. English is even worse, as the subtle sneaky hilarities in German cynicism are entirely lost and yet they are what most directly reveal the instinct out of which it was born, this whole immoralism of the embrace of eternity.
Your criticism may apply to (Mitra-)Sauwelios, but not to Zeroeth Nature. In any case, I think the will to be beyond good and evil involves a valuation of that position as good as opposed to bad, not as good as opposed to evil. Still, Leo Strauss says:
“Surely our probity must not be permitted to become the ground or object of our pride, for this would lead us back to moralism (and to theism).” (Strauss, “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil”.)
And indeed, for the longest time it was a matter of pride for me, i.e., of feeling morally superior.—
Adam and Eve were told not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In other words, they were told it was evil to eat from it. But, not having eaten from it yet, they did not know what this meant; they had to eat from it in order to know, i.e., to feel God’s wrath… It is only punishment which makes something evil! And likewise, it’s only reward which makes something good. And what greater reward than being beyond the Abyss? Although that cannot be the impetus for grappling with it…
Yes, the impetus is merely the superabundant strength which must set such tasks. This effort is then punished - as we have seen in ourselves and in certain friends - with forms of madness, meaning an exertion of an even greater amount of strength is demanded. Thus it is that ultimately one doesn’t cross the abyss except in the employment of all that one is.
Well, originally, and this also means in principle or primarily, it was a religious-artistic rapture (Rausch, “intoxication, frenzy”) that made me a Nietzschean. So it wasn’t about truth as such. Yet it also wasn’t about herd-moral superiority, but rather master-moral superiority: the idea of being strong enough for the deadly truth.
Now how did I get beyond this? Well, when I finally saw the truth, I mean the truth about myself and life in general, I found that it was also actually better to be aware than to be unaware of it! Consider the very important aphorism # 344 of The Gay Science:
“[L]et one just ask oneself thoroughly: ‘why do you not want to delude?’ especially if it should have the appearance—and it does have the appearance!—as if life were aimed at appearance, I mean at error, deception, dissimulation, blinding, self-blinding[.]”
No matter how rhetorical, it remains a fact that life’s being aimed at appearance (Anschein) is itself an appearance, according to Nietzsche—and not necessarily a reality, truth! And indeed, like I said, I’ve found that it’s better for me not to delude myself about myself and life in general.
As for your second question, which you edited away: my practice, as Zeroeth Nature, is to raise my awareness of the importance of the fact that it doesn’t matter… Because that means it might just as well be true!
This in itself is of course very interesting to pinpoint, phenomenologically as it were - as indeed beyond Nietzsche, metaphysics as such no longer exists, we can not think being without being the thought being. The Will to Power as an interpretation of its own conception - ‘self-birth’.
What was it that spurred on this Rausch and what was it that determined its direction?
Yet he says that truth itself is an appearance, an illusion - grounded in its being a condition to life – a value-estimation which serves the self-enhancement of life, which he says is the essence of life itself.
Within the conception of value estimation, Truth, Eidos and Appearance all are… ‘represented’.
The fact of the matter is that, regardless of its scientific in/correctness, its scientific efficiency is indisputable.
No matter who or what forged Thors hammer, you can damn well rely on its power.
The Logical Affirmation of the ER thus represents the reversal of science, the completion of the Machiavellian task, by the completion of western metaphysics and its subsuming into a new project, a new discipline. The power of truth finally harnessed as a tool; this shall be true, in order that life justifies itself.
And it can only be known when it is justified to itself - this is why the project is scientific, why it serves the knowledge of truth; because in order to be known, truth first has to be created. A truth hard enough to be known (as illusion) without being tarnished thereby. What is nature besides such a hardness? Only man, and (other) creatures which must shun the light, not having the hardness to produce their own appearance so as to be valued for ones valuing. Honour is the projection of ones own valuing as a value, and this is ‘created out of nothing’ in terms of the old metaphysics. meaning it ‘simply exists’ - but how abysmally much strength is required for such simplicity.
The self-valuing logic applies to all beings, also the ignoble ones -
From it branch different ‘methods of being’ - among them the method of absolute valuing, which acts on the mundane world as the idea of gold acts on the minds of the poor - it is unrestrained in its meaning and its effect. It forms an axis to the graph of actions and interactions of lesser substances. The best (strongest) substances are the ultimate standards, limits of time ; the rule of Kronos as the golden age. Now the Affirmation of the ER is to consciousness what gold is to matter.
To be clear, I mean this in the sense of a mindstate. Not the mere conviction that it should and must be so that each moment recurs indefinitely, but to in the moment know this. Such a state of concentration is proper to the Earth, something closer to the spirit one might expect to find in a cat or a falcon, than what is normally considered human.
Let us not deceive ourselves, the transition from man to superman is also one from shell to living animal.
By the way, I just rediscovered an important influence from my childhood (compare Burton’s black Batman and my transforming into Cornholio, I mean Jesus…):
‘Becoming can be conscious of itself, understand itself, as a Being in the process of being destroyed or created (depending on its perspective). So even if it is shattering illusion, it can only understand itself as an illusion being shattered: for there is only consciousness of Being, not of Becoming. Thus Becoming stamps the character of Being on itself even in the very destruction of (the illusion of) this Being. This is its transfiguration.’ https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?p=1913979#p1913979
Consciousness requires an object, a being (entity)—but those don’t really exist!
Gold is not a hard metal, though—I suppose it’s so “soft” because it can afford to be, being so “hard” on the atomic level.
In any case, I totally agree with you on the mindstate.
Yes, of course – I just failed to make the connection. It was good to reread this story though. Indeed it is no wonder that this revolution led to a depression, as absolute as its philosophy was and as puny the object of its rage (the girl in question, just some quite vain teenage dame of no special spiritual virtues); what else but a crater could be left?
In this exercise, you did crash through the value of truth, that is to say through truth insofar as it was a value to life, insofar as it was ‘true’ —
truth for its own sake vanquished truth for life’s sake - thus this truth had to take on a cloak, a form, a being - a manner - it became essentially a god, under which you then, spent for the moment of poesis, continued to live, piously.
Heh. (Yod Vau)
This reminds me of my favorite Disney movie, the Black Cauldron.
Ah but when Being has stamped its character Becoming the road hasn’t come to an end. I think VO serves here to go beyond what was hitherto knowable; as within a being, there can still be a river of flux, which flows like an Ouroboros.
As indeed Being is no more than a limitation placed upon becoming, it does not annihilate becoming!
Rather, if being were to perceive itself, it would still see a flowing. But the river goes around, perhaps in spirals, perhaps it flows upwards, perhaps it is lava, and hail pours into it from above (or from it, upwards), it may take on many different forms but it will always flow. Being, too, is flux, but it is flux contained within -
within what?
A formula, an exercise, a magic, a truth, a philosophy.
I had figured that we are now in agreement. I have of course ‘conceded’ finally to this point which you have been pressing forever.
On gold; it is indeed soft to handle yet as you well say, atomically hard - I refer to it foremost as the best, and the strongest substance.
Hardness requires a focal point; gold has no such point, it is just lustre, at whatever it looks.
(as the highest being looks only away from itself, shapes thew world by its vision)
The focus of hardness is in the diamond, which is a much simpler atom, though a splendid one as well.
The diamond does not however represent the bestowing virtue, precisely because it is too hard! God is the soft lustre which comes from being both incorruptible (thus fearless) and much - rich.
Diamonds always still make for a rather harsh lustre. Like when it rains diamonds inside of Neptune and Uranus, as is apparently the case. We may gather to what rune the diamond belongs.
Interesting to consider the different forms of pressure under which the diamonds and gold are formed;
Gold has to be produced in the furnace of a star, a diamond is formed by the ‘mere’ pressures of a planet.
For the sake of like, honor and such things -
My concession was possible after you conceded to the fact that the ER is not literally the case -
when we were thereby “licensed” to treat the ER as a holy lie, I could affirm it as such.
In as far as truth tends to be a convenience to praxis, a holy lie may be even more noble than a truth, at least this particular holy lie. Also since the experience of affirming it enforces a greater truthfulness.
All this serves the study of truth, as in the truth about truth; which is the underlying meaning to the Will to Power.
Truth, too, is in the end a mere ‘instrument’ - not the highest value. What then is the highest value? There is no name for this, because it is not a commodity.
Why then discuss it in philosophy? Why not keep it secret?
But we do, inadvertently, keep it secret from those who simply do not have the power to grasp it.
In so many words; it cant be given, it must be taken. But in truth, it cant be taken, it must be already possessed.