Friedrich Nietzsche - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Eternal return
Main article: Eternal return
The concept of "eternal recurrence" is central to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The idea of eternal return occurs in a parable in Section 341 of The Gay Science, and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, among other places.[77] Nietzsche contemplates the idea as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("das schwerste Gewicht").[78] The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the will–to–live. To comprehend eternal recurrence in his thought, and to not merely come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires amor fati, "love of fate".[79]
From Nietzshe:
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' [The Gay Science, §341]
A late 1880s comment by Nietzsche, "In an infinite period of time, every possible combination would at some time be attained," has been cited to argue that Nietzsche dropped his plans to try to scientifically prove the theory because he realized that if he would have to eventually repeat life as it is, his presumption of infinite time means "he" would also have to "repeat" life differently, since every configuration of atoms and events will occur.[13] Instead, according to this interpretation of Nietzsche, he continued to propound the doctrine for its psychological and philosophical import.
Netlorn: A little nighttime reflection on afterlife, eternal return, and reincarnation: A little nighttime reflection on afterlife, eternal return, and reincarnation
Posted by Kyoun on Friday, 12 August 2011
Labels: afterlife, buddhism, death, nietzsche, reincarnation, zen
So what is there after this life?
Consider Nietzsche's idea of the "eternal return". He never considered it to be his theory of the universe, or of afterlife. But a "psychological test": that if one is able to endure it, the idea that everything will be recurring endlessly, then one is able to embrace life fully. It's the ultimate test to the strength of our will to life. Just waiting for death to end suffering won't help at all, because after death, everything will return again, and again, and again.
He considered the Judeo-Christian focus on the otherworldly afterlife to be decadent in its implications: a way of turning our backs on this life here. The positing of a perfect otherworldly Heaven makes this life here ugly and somehow impure, lacking. Contrary to that, the idea of the "eternal return" would enable us to either completely affirm this life now, or cancel ourselves, destroy ourselves, as he put it. It's a decision: either accept this life fully, or embrace destruction as soon as possible.
The idea of the life recurring somehow resembles reincarnation of the Indian religions: a permanent self transmigrating and eternally returning into various lifeforms.
......The problem with the "pure nothingness" hypothesis of many atheists is not that it's too pessimist or disbelieving, but that it believes too much, it assumes too much. It's still rooted in the belief in the Cartesian subject, the observer, and how everything ceases after that observer passes away.
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