Eternal Return - Arguments Against Eternal Return

Arguments Against Eternal Return

Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann has described an argument originally put forward by Georg Simmel, which rebuts the claim that a finite number of states must repeat within an infinite amount of time:

Even if there were exceedingly few things in a finite space in an infinite time, they would not have to repeat in the same configurations. Suppose there were three wheels of equal size, rotating on the same axis, one point marked on the circumference of each wheel, and these three points lined up in one straight line. If the second wheel rotated twice as fast as the first, and if the speed of the third wheel was 1/π of the speed of the first, the initial line-up would never recur.

Read more about this topic:  Eternal Return

Famous quotes containing the words arguments, eternal and/or return:

    Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.
    Milan Kundera (b. 1929)

    I loved, but woman fell away;
    I hid me from her faded fame.
    I snatched the sun’s eternal ray
    And wrote till earth was but a name.
    John Clare (1793–1864)

    O God of our flesh, return us to Your wrath,
    Let us be evil could we enter in
    Your grace, and falter on the stony path!
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)