sunlore wrote:I think Nietzsche is pretty great, until he starts talking about eternal recurrence.

I ask, Friedrich Nietzsche, what the fuck?

I know what you're saying. Here's my response. I think the "eternal return" is very deceptive at first or even multiple blushes (in a similar way that Nietzsche's anti-nihilism passes casual readers by (not saying you're such a reader, Sunlore)). The eternal return is not about a repetition of the same that becomes self-referential. It's an ethical principle of affirmation and becoming (against ressentiment). It's about embracing chance and rather than getting tied up in a particular investment in the past or future, embracing the transformative potential of whatever outcome. The "eternal return" elevates the refusal of resignation and ressentiment to an ontological status. Zarusthustra invokes an image of a tangled web of forces within which particularities cannot be abstracted from the web of life. As an ethics the eternal return sets about transmuting a negative, reactionary will to power into an affirmative embrace of singularities that are 'beyond good and evil.'

Sidenote: IMO, Silkworm's "Don't Look Back" beautifully demonstrates this ethical impulse.

This reading owes a lot to Gilles Deleuze's Nietzsche & Philosophy though. And it may depart slightly from the masochism of Nietzsche's original migraine-induced ravings. This would be in keeping with Deleuze's non-representative way of doing philosophy.

Deleuze wrote:I think of the history of philosophy as a kind of ass-fuck. . . I imagined myself approaching an author from behind and giving him a child that would indeed be his but would nonetheless be monstrous.

You beat me to it, Andrew. Deleuzian assfuck notwithstanding, it is right there on the page:

Nietzsche wrote:What if one day or one night a demon slinked after you into your lonliest loneliness and said to you: "This life, as you live it now and as you have lived it, you will have to live once more and countless times more. And there will be nothing new about it, but every pain and ever pleasure, and every thought and sigh, and everything unspeakable small and great in your life must come back to you, and all in the same series and sequence--and likewise this spider and moonlight between the trees, and likewise this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and agin--and you with it, you mote of dust!"

Wouldn't you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and damn the demon who spoke this way? Or have you ever experienced a prodigious moment in which you would answer him: "You are a god and I have never heard anything more godlike!" If that thought took control of you, it would change you as you are, and maybe shatter you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you will this once more and countless times more?" would lie as the heaviest weight upon your acts! Or how benevolent would you have to become toward yourself and toward life in order to long for nothing more ardently than for this eternal sanction and seal? (The Gay Science, "The Heaviest Weight," para. 341)

That's eternal recurrence.

Okay, Nietzsche attempted to negate Plato's ideas but that doesn't mean he completely succeeded in doing this. No doubt he attacked his ideas and tried to counterpoint them, but when you still hold the same FUNDEMENTAL position on metaphysics you will only do so superficially. I'm really looking at Nietzsche's ideas based on his metaphysics which is still metaphysically dualistic, fundamentally in step with Plato and Kant. You have metaphysical duality or you don't and Nietzsche has it. The idea of "becoming"? From what to what? Where to where? Blank out. Nothing. Nihilism.

Same thing with his take on Nihilism. You can hate it, refute it, but if you have a hint of it in your view of reality, you will ultimately yield to some sort of a nihilist philosophy. You cannot, CANNOT isolate Kant from the philosophical atmosphere of Germany in the 1800's. No philosopher in Northern Europe stood a chance against this mental juggernaut(whom I reject). I do not want to even get into the devlopment of realism and nominalism which is where I think our(Andrew) portion of this thread is headed. Save that for another topic. But whatever. I will make a personal attack on a few posts that quoted myself and other people which won't be a simple insult, I promise. But I find it is typical of philosophical discussions I encounter. A lot of statements(myself, others and especially, Nietzsche) are easy to take OUT OF CONTEXT and simply say they are wrong with no explanation whatsoever. Check out how I was quoted in the last few postings:

jlamour wrote:Blah, bullshit, taco, etc.

jlamour, wrong. With no reasons why.

or

jlamour wrote:Crap, stab, shoot, spit

jlamour, right. With no reasons why.

Come on. And proclaiming your self to be the EA high and mighty expert on Marx or whatever doesn't have me shaking in my spike-heeled boots. Give me something to chew on. I'm going to continue with this forum because I'm a huge fan of the music culture that surrounds this studio. Notice how innocently this thread started and how it's developed. The title itself is a contradiction: "Science is crazy." But it had to lead into a discussion on philosophy since science is merely an extension of philosphy. Nihilism has no place in science, lord the human race would be extinct already.

Are you guys talking about the movie Groundhog's Day or something?

This is weird, how this thread about science has somehow shifted gears into religion and now philosophy.

Science is awfully sexy.

Sorry about misquoting the title, but my point stands regardless.

jlamour wrote:I will make a personal attack on a few posts that quoted myself and other people which won't be a simple insult, I promise.

jlamour, with respect, I don't understand what that means.

I honestly don't understand your complaint at all, in fact. Tipcat and I disagreed with your reading of Nietzsche. And in an obviously irreverent and self-mocking way, I professed my own interest in Marx (and disagreed with your characterization of his thought, too).

I asked for clarification and cited evidence to counter your position on N. You replied with citations that don't present any evidence of metaphysical dualism in Nietzsche's body of work or demonstrate N's purported Kantian idealism (as Tipcat has asked you to do).

Your argument is that Kant was too powerful not to have overdetermined or underwritten N's thought. Simply repeating this does little to bolster your case.

We disagree about Nietzsche. But I don't understand the accusation of things being taken out of context. Who? What statement? Where?

And how and why is this personal?

Your reading of Nietzsche is extremely heterodox. The onus is on you to demonstrate your case. You're going to be fighting an uphill battle claiming Nietzsche is a Kantian idealist, at least among people who read him with care.

Andrew L. wrote:Your reading of Nietzsche is extremely heterodox. The onus is on you to demonstrate your case. You're going to be fighting an uphill battle claiming Nietzsche is a Kantian idealist, at least among people who read him with care.

I love heterodox readings. That's what the Deleuzian assfuck is all about.

Bring on the argument, jlamour! We can't wait.

Andrew L. wrote:

sunlore wrote:I think Nietzsche is pretty great, until he starts talking about eternal recurrence.

I ask, Friedrich Nietzsche, what the fuck?

I know what you're saying. Here's my response.

I like how you made that sound like you're Nietzsche.

So basically the eternal recurrence is an attempt to deconstruct the supposed linearity of life, as in a thought experiment? This makes sense, especially in relation to the christian construct of the afterlife, through which all present action is seen as an investment in future redemption. Right?

I'd have to admit I'm a fairly casual reader of Nietzsche, and that I have enjoyed him primarely for stylistic reasons, though he has a tendency to go over the top with it. The "Untimely Meditations" (?) are probably his best works, IMO.

I gotta get me to read some Deleuze, I guess (I'll gladly take recommendations).

sunlore wrote:
I gotta get me to read some Deleuze, I guess (I'll gladly take recommendations).

Deleuze is a commitment. You could take a look at A Thousand Plateaus or What is Philosophy? (both co-written with Felix Guattari). The latter is probably the most approachable work, but it's a little drier than the other stuff.

My honest advice is not to read any Deleuze though. Better to go for a walk or have sex. It's pretty much the same thing.

matthew wrote:It's good you mention entropy here, Kerble, because in an entropic universe biological macroevolution cannot occur. Entropy entails the winding down of matter/energy, thus how would it be possibly for great, complex things such as organisms to evolve if matter/energy were burning themselves out?

Man, that's just plain stupid. Let me lay it out in simple terms.

A) If the earth was a closed system with no inputs, it would use up its energy damn fast.

B) BUT

C) The earth is not a closed system. It has a great big motherfucking energy input that it circles around... which provides energy that powers wind, waves, plant life, and the basic cellular organisms that all life evolved from.

You don't know thermodynamics, you passed it in the hall while it was talking with its more popular friends.