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)
“The longest day must have its close—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“We wished our two souls
might return like gulls
to the rock. In the end,
the water was too cold for us.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)