Laurence asked:

What is the practical effect of Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence? Whether life is a one time
performance in eternity or is re-run (that we don't know is a re-run) until the heat death of the universe
doesn't seem to make any difference to the conclusion that you had better live life large this time
around, because there isn't any rewind button. ER would thus appear to be a metaphysical
exclamation point rather than have any independent relevance.

============

This makes an interesting counterpoint to the previous question. First, what is Nietzsche's theory of
eternal recurrence? The theory was originally held by the Stoics. According to Nietzsche, given a
deterministic universe of matter in motion, and sufficient time, sooner or later the material particles
will fall into a pattern that has existed before. From that point onwards, determinism entails that the
very same events will occur that occurred the previous time around until that configuration is reached
again, and so on to infinity.

I seem to recall that there is a fatal flaw in that argument due to Nietzsche's failing to take into
account irrational numbers. But I've forgotten how it goes. Perhaps you can work it out for yourself.
The important thing is that, even if it is not necessarily the case that the same pattern will ever recur,
if it doesrecur then it will indeed, as Nietzsche says, recur an infinite number of times. — That rules
out a 'heat death' for the universe, incidentally.

For Nietzsche, the importance of the idea of eternal recurrence lies in the thought that it will indeed be
Ithat returns. Thistapping of the keys to produce theseworlds will occur an infinite number of times,
each time accompanied by these samethoughts. Would this thought crush you, asks Nietzsche? Or
would you affirm it with a joyous, Yes! — I just don't know.

The problem is I don't see any interesting sense in which the GK who will exist the next time around,
or the GK who existed the previous time around, or all the other past and future GK's can be me.As
you say, it is not as if we have been given a 're-wind' button. When you re-wind a music tape to listen
to it again, you are aware of hearing it as a re-run because you rememberhearing it before. By
hypothesis, none of the GK's have the slightest awareness of the experiences of any of the previous
GK's. If they did, they would not be realizing the sameconfiguration that existed before.

The philosopher Timothy Sprigge, who gives an appreciative account of Nietzsche's theory in his
excellent Penguin paperback Theories of Existence,takes the opposite view from the one I have just
expressed. It willbe me who will come back into existence when the universe turns around. However,
Sprigge doesn't make any attempt to provide an argument for that conclusion, and I seriously doubt
whether one could be given.

There is just a tiny seed of doubt in my mind that I may simply have failed to make the imaginative
leap required to appreciate the point Nietzsche is making. Really digging down, my only thought is
this: In certain moods, I do find something terrifying about the realization that every moment of time
as it passes by is gone, never to return. If Nietzsche felt that way too (I don't know of any place where
he owns up to this chronophobicthought) then I can see how the notion of eternal recurrence might
seem a kind of metaphysical comfort.

Geoffrey Klempner