Ordo Ab Chao

the gay science eh? i thought i was supposed to have the monopoly on pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

I'm gay the nietzsche way, you're all gay the other way. ;-)

"
The greatest weight. -- 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; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your live will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence--even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!' 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.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change, you as you are or perhaps crush you.
"

Therein lies Nietzsche's fear. Subtly that there is no mechanistic governance or law with the universe and that "every power draws its ultimate consequence at every moment." This is philosophy at critical odds with current scientific understanding. It suggests that even postulating on scientific laws is a pointless act as in the grander scheme of things, and there will always be grander schemes, these laws have no meaning. Equilibria and predictions are illusory and life is generally what we make of it. It contrasts nicely with scientific theories such as Feynmann's sum over histories. One of the postulates that this theory builds upon states:

Events in nature are probabilistic with predictable probabilities (P).

This predictability has been experimentally proven and the sum over histories approach links classical Newtonian mechanistics with the quantum variety. While it is not at odds and even compliments Nietzsche assumption of discrete consequences, it also hints at formal universal governance. So, I guess the question is, why the hell does nature appear to have an order if it's entirely chaotic? Why does it flatter so much to deceive? The answer would appear to be that it doesn't. Much like Kant's inappropriate separation of space and time in his paralogism of pure reason, Nietzsche makes an inappropriate separation of the event from the time and space that it occupies. The uniqueness of the latter defines the uniqueness of the former and the eternal return becomes a moot point. The old Jehovah (as Einstein described himself) pointed out that heaviness in the gravitational sense was relative and so it is with eternal recurrence. So even if a rose would smell just as sweet if it wasn't a rose, is "being" heavier if eternal recurrence is confined to room 101? It's all relative I guess. Experience is what it is and it's weight is situational and generally retrospective.

One point: Nietzsche didn't care about metaphysics. this is just a thought experiment to point out how we're all denying our basic will to power, and his own characterisation of the existential feeling of abandonment when the world seems to say "state your place in things."
It's just a verbose rewording of the old question "if you knew you were going to die in the next few minutes would you do anything differently?" The undifferentiated social human,the one enslaved by the herd morality of meekness and inaction - Platonism, or Christianity - which Heidegger called Das Man; He is the figure on the ground, gnashing and cursing the demon. The "tremendous moment" is the one experienced by the Overman who recognises the possibility of the free creation of infinitely recurring pleasures and heroisms.

That "there is no mechanistic governance" in the universe is not Nietzsche's fear, it is his ultimate hope. The freedom that comes from this realisation is what is referred to when people speak about the "death of God."

That a philosophy of freedom is irreconcilable with a deterministic cosmogony is irrefutable. The question that we have to ask is, does it matter if we're not free, as long as we think we are? As Bertrand Russell said, "We can do as we please, but we can't please as we please." To this question I answer yes. Undeniably, it matters. Does it matter that Schopenhauer played the flute every day after dinner, and yet still called himself a pessimist? It mattered to Nietzsche.

Can we have a priori knowledge of a synthetic proposition such as "Every event in the universe has a cause or manifold causes and could not have happened independently." We think this is the way the universe works because we have generalised from experience. Inductive reasoning is always subject to niggling doubts. There is no reason to think that the next time you switch on your computer it will not turn into a giant trout EXCEPT that it hasn't happened already.

At time t proposition p is true

does not necessarily entail that proposition p is true at time t+1.

The principle of bivalence states that a proposition cannot be both true and false. So we cannot be both causally determined and free at the same time. But this is a principle of pure logic, not a natural law. We relate these general principles to experience via what Kant called our "axioms of intuition." I will not attempt an exhaustive list, but the general idea was that properties of items such as extension and causal connectedness were merely phenomenal, orders imposed on things by our mental processes. Of the world as it really is, the noumenal world, we can say nothing.

We posit causal connectedness in the external world because that is the way events announce themselves to us, as intertwined in a massive web of mathematical certainties into which doubt does not enter. But the mind announces itself as vacillating, indecisive and free. Is it not equally valid to induce from this clear and present experience that we are indeed free, or to at least agree on a policy of "reasonable certainty" on the matter?

a priori, adj

1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive. (GOT THAT?)
2. 1. Derived by or designating the process of reasoning without reference to particular facts or experience.
2. Knowable without appeal to particular experience.
3. Made before or without examination; not supported by factual study.

> One point: Nietzsche didn't care about metaphysics. this is just a
> thought experiment to point out how we're all denying our basic will
> to power, and his own characterisation of the existential feeling of
> abandonment when the world seems to say "state your place in things."
> It's just a verbose rewording of the old question "if you knew you
> were going to die in the next few minutes would you do anything
> differently?" The undifferentiated social human,the one enslaved by
> the herd morality of meekness and inaction - Platonism, or
> Christianity - which Heidegger called Das Man; He is the figure on the
> ground, gnashing and cursing the demon. The "tremendous moment" is the
> one experienced by the Overman who recognises the possibility of the
> free creation of infinitely recurring pleasures and heroisms.

I'd disagree with this point. It's more than a questioning of our inherent wills & wants. It's a genuine denial of a universal order and balance. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Heine (& I quote)

"For time is infinite, but the things in time, the concrete bodies are finite.... Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again.... And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me, and a woman will be born, just like Mary" Heinrich Heine

>
> That "there is no mechanistic governance" in the universe is not
> Nietzsche's fear, it is his ultimate hope. The freedom that comes from
> this realisation is what is referred to when people speak about the
> "death of God."
I don't believe that it is his ultimate hope.
I've a few quotes here from the Gay Science. The Eternal Return is not a mechanistic theory. Nietzsche writes, "The sole fundamental fact, however, is that it [the universe) does not aim at a final state; and every philosophy and scientific hypothesis (e.g. mechanistic theory) which necessitates such a final state is refuted by this fundamental fact." (Will to Power, p708) In The Gay Science Nietzsche writes, "Let us even beware of believing that the universe is a machine: it is certainly not constructed for one purpose, and calling it a ëmachine' does it far too much honor." (Gay Science, p109). So it therefore follows the the horrors of the eternal return are the direct result of a universe that doesn't aim at a final state. I'd refute this to but there's little point. Such concepts as purpose have no place in assessing a state. Purpose implies intent and probabilistic calculations do not rely on will or intent, merely likelihood. That's why I brought Feynmann into it. His sum over histories is a quantum mechanistic approach to explaining causality and likelihood in a system where observation interferes with event. Now here the rub. If observation interferes with event then an event is defined by the precise configuration in which it is observed . Chaos makes the eternal return a moot point. If time and space are truly a continuum and chaotic effects are evident then the chances of an exact configuration being repeated limit to 0/Zero/Nadda/Nuthin/ya get the idea!

>
> That a philosophy of freedom is irreconcilable with a deterministic
> cosmogony is irrefutable.
Exactly.

The question that we have to ask is, does it
> > matter if we're not free, as long as we think we are? As Bertrand
Yes, exactly.

> Russell said, "We can do as we please, but we can't please as we
> please." To this question I answer yes. Undeniably, it matters. Does
> it matter that Schopenhauer played the flute every day after dinner,
> and yet still called himself a pessimist? It mattered to Nietzsche.
Nope, it didn't. Nietzsche only believed that it mattered to him because the configuration of quantum vibrations in his body enabled it to matter. Post rationalisation of an event to attribute meaning or matter to it doesn't seem to imply much meaning to me. To reverse Descartes "I am therefore I think"

>
> Can we have a priori knowledge of a synthetic proposition such as
> "Every event in the universe has a cause or manifold causes and could
> not have happened independently." We think this is the way the
> universe works because we have generalised from experience.
A priori knowledge would imply deductive rather than inductive logic.
However, leaving this aside, the entire basis of reasoning in the first place is causality. Without causality, there can be no basis for any reasoning, inductive or deductive as causality implies governing laws that determine effect.

> Inductive
> reasoning is always subject to niggling doubts. There is no reason to
> think that the next time you switch on your computer it will not turn
> into a giant trout EXCEPT that it hasn't happened already.
>
> At time t proposition p is true
>
> does not necessarily entail that proposition p is true at time t+1.

That's true but you've missed the point. If proposition p is an axiom in time and space it will hold at all times, t. However, proposition p failing doesn't imply that causality has broken down. Just that the proposition was inappropriately isolated from a chain of possible causality that would cause it to fail.

>
> The principle of bivalence states that a proposition cannot be both
> true and false. So we cannot be both causally determined and free at
> the same time.
It's a question of perspective. What is freedom? Is it a state of mind and if this is so, then surely a deterministic mind is as capable of manifesting free thoughts as a non-deterministic one??????????

Anyway, I've had enough.

Sincerest regards,

...shane