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.
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Famous quotes containing the words arguments, eternal and/or return:
“Yesterday the Electoral Commission decided not to go behind the papers filed with the Vice-President in the case of Florida.... I read the arguments in the Congressional Record and can’t see how lawyers can differ on the question. But the decision is by a strictly party vote—eight Republicans against seven Democrats! It shows the strength of party ties.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does “eternal life” matter, or life at all?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)