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:
“There is no assurance of the great fact in question [namely, immortality]. All the arguments are mere probabilities, analogies, fancies, whims. We believe, or disbelieve, or are in doubt according to our own make-up—to accidents, to education, to environment. For myself, I do not reach either faith or belief ... that I—the conscious person talking to you—will meet you in the world beyond—you being yourself a conscious person—the same person now reading what I say.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The scientific mind is atrophied, and suffers under inherited cerebral weakness, when it comes in contact with the eternal woman—Astarte, Isis, Demeter, Aphrodite, and the last and greatest deity of all, the Virgin.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“A tree may grow a thousand feet tall, but its leaves will return to its roots.”
—Chinese proverb.