The eternal return, which Nietzsche used as the foundation for much of his philosophy, has been adapted, transformed and disseminated from high thought in academia to pop-culture bar room discussions and every faction in between. The notion, roughly, that a man lives the same life again and again is both troubling and perplexing to scholars and experts in the field. One of these experts, Arnold Zuboff, outlines a confidant but inaccurate supposition of eternal recurrence. Zuboff presents, what he believes to be accurate, certain notions about the eternal return which are true, as Nietzsche intended, or are a mere result of the few writings on the subject left in the wake. What I intend to present in this essay is that Zuboff’s reading of Nietzsche is amusing to consider but inaccurate, and the conclusion he gathers from his presented evidence is only self-serving and doesn’t in fact refute the eternal return or its properties.
Perhaps as a quick jab at Nietzsche, (since it holds no water) is the notion that Nietzsche’s eternal return mirrors certain aspects of Christianity. Zuboff makes the claim that the eternal return will be more powerful in trying to get men to change their present lives than will the judgment and afterlife Christianity suggests. Where Zuboff is wrong is there is no judgment in an eternal recurrence nor is there a reward in a different life after this one where man will compensated for the works performed in this life. For example: when a man is converted to Christianity and is told if he follows the laws of God, he will be saved in a glorious kingdom after this life, there is so sorrow or turmoil, the man tries to live a good Christian life and if at some point he falters he may pray for forgiveness and still receive salvation. If the same man were told by a demon that he were doomed to repeat this life infinitely, Nietzsche asks of a man, “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” (GS 341)[1]. And let us suppose this man does let this thought gain possession of him; for the rest of his days he must live under the greatest weight that all of his own shortcomings will be lived an infinite number of times, again and again. And when this man makes more mistakes along the way, Nietzsche is not a great redeemer, a sacrificed son of god, providing the comfort of repentance. The man is simply forced to relive the action ad infinitum.
Christianity and the eternal return may be similar in that if a man is to properly adhere to the teachings and principles proposed by the said ideals, a claim may be made that a man will change. But for Nietzsche, this is only a testament to the notion that all men already need a new set of values. If man were already in a position of moral fortitude there would be no great weight nor would there be a reason to gnash one’s teeth when the demon revealed the great truth. As it is applicable in Christianity, the news of being saved would come just as information rather than revelation. To apply this practically, if someone were to win the lottery and then lose the winning ticket, for a man of the eternal return he would lament over the action for the rest of his days. For another man to win and lose the ticket, in a Christian interpretation, as long as he remembered the number and promised he had it that would simply be enough for him to collect his fortune.
Perhaps Zuboff knows the triviality of this argument since he quickly moves to his next outline of the eternal return, the “insulating” treatment and the Leibnizian interpretation. The insulating treatment purports that the recurring man is not the same man but a series of men, and since these fates are not numerically the same, the second man is physically different in that he isn’t the first, he must then be held separate from all other creatures sharing the same difference numerically.
The problem with this notion, as Zuboff points out, is that to appropriate man into categories and by doing so man is understood through the representation of a list of adjectives. This separates the doing and the thing which Nietzsche argues there is no distance (GM 1:13)1.
As for the Leibnizian interpretation the idea that if a man is recurring in the exact same fashion and with the exact same events and occurrences, then the man is not repeating since the events are all numerically the same. This differs from the insulator theory in that the insulators theory suggests that other lives, other than the one being lived at the present, are separate from one another. Rather, the Leibnezian experience suggests that every action is exactly identical to the one lived in the previous life. If this is the case there is no need distinguishing the differences between one occurrence and the other since they are exactly the same, that they all occupy the same space and time.
Nietzsche clearly points out in Thus Spoke Zarathustra[2] that the recurrence has been happening for eternity, past and future (Z 2:2). The proposal is that this very life, this present moment and the sequence of events leading up to it and after it will all happen again in the same order and with the same result.
It is this very notion of the exact circumstance recurring again and again that Zuboff takes his greatest aim. Nietzsche bases the idea of the eternal recurrence on the notion that time is infinite and there is a finite amount of energy in the universe (Z 2:2). If this is the case, as in outlined in …Zarathustra, that said life will recur an infinite amount of times in this very order, “Must not whatever can happen have happened, have been done, have passed by before?” (Z 2:2). Zuboff suggests that Nietzsche is holding himself to a “sort of determinism”. He chooses his words carefully and before wandering with this idea manages to get out that since Nietzsche would argue that the only thing that can happen is that a man would make the same decision every time he is presented with the same options because that is the man he is, there is no difference between who the man is and what he does, he will be the same man every time. Zuboff still holds Nietzsche to a form of determinism; if man has an infinite amount of time and a finite amount of energy then there may still be almost an infinite amount of occurrences, differing in order from this life, which I will refute shortly.
Zuboff refers back the Leibnizian interpretation to support the claim that if man is the same in recurrence than man is the same in variation. If Nietzsche is to be held to the sort determinism Zuboff points out, then man could live an infinite number of lives and only repeat this life in small section or portions, yet still experience the same situations, feelings, aspirations, etc. just not in the same congruent order as the life being lived now. This would be to assume that the re-ionization of molecules needed to form the planet over and over again has happened an infinite number of times, just a different universe has been produced each time, different by only a few molecules. The problem with this notion is the narrow means by which life has managed to come to pass as of now is so slight, so drastically out of favor with odds and chance that for another existence to occur, even one similar to this one, would be foolishly hopeful.
Perhaps what Nietzsche is purporting is that this life is the only life that can come to pass an infinite number of times. The singularity of this life is so exceptional, that to imagine it otherwise is against even greater odds. In a universe of finite force and infinite time, this theory is the probable and likely hypothesis. With an infinite amount of time for the realignment of finite amounts of power comes the single inevitable occurrence of this life. If there is an infinite amount of power in the universe then this theory would be easily disproved, likewise with a finite amount of time; there simply wouldn’t be enough time for the power of elements to align. So with infinite time and finite amounts of power the only reasonable conclusion would be that there is one single existence that would then follow.
Also, this claim cannot be supported if a man’s actions are like a lightning flash; the flash is not an action but a representation of what lightning is, lightning is, simply, the flash. If this were the case for a recurring man of mere instances and short happenings, the recurred man becomes a flash of the original man, the one life of major importance where emphasis of recurring is placed (GM 1:13). Since man recurs infinitely, this notion Zuboff is proposing is absurd, despite the faulty odds he claims.
There is no reason to assume there is a causality or determinism linked to this idea of recurrence for this reason: if there is an infinite number of lives being recreated exactly as the first one, that infinity is only one life. Since one of these single lives has always been and will always be, the ever-connected circle changes with each action changed in this life now. If I am to speak to the demon and find out that this life is the same and has been for eternity, then do I weep? (GS 341). Perhaps I do when I consider the weaknesses I know of my present life, but I also rejoice for knowing that if I recognize those weaknesses I can then consider my perspectives, change my drives, and live a life from this point forward with an appropriated will to power.
Imagine if eternity was quantifiable and from beginning to end, in one great ring, as Zuboff refers to Nietzsche’s eternal return, and time were sped up to an incredible rate. Then imagine a drawing of a man’s life was made and examined closely and the man’s life could be viewed like a stick figure drawn on the edge of a large booklet and the pages being flipped, each flip a lifetime. In this immaculate flipbook would be the infinite number of recurrences being flashed one after another, revealing the same life and the same actions of the man occurring. There would be a distinct instance of the man when the demon came to him, so to speak, when he learned of the eternal return. At this moment the man’s awareness and behavior would change, he would be knowledgeable of the eternal return and feel the horror of a repeating life. Soon after would be a scene of great ecstasy when the man decided to change his drives and alter his shortcomings. In this imaginable flipbook there is an infinite number of lives recurring but also a man not limited to determinism.
Zuboff goes on to argue that if there was a finite amount of space, geometrically, in the universe, Nietzsche’s claims could be supported. But the universe is not geometrically challenged and as I have pointed out, given infinite time and finite amount of energy, Nietzsche’s proposal of eternal recurrence is not only possible but also probable. Zuboff concludes by stating, “This unimaginable expansion of my life swamps the significance of any repetitions that happen to come up of the life I live here and now. And so Nietzsche has lost” (Zuboff, 357). The personal vendetta Zuboff has for Nietzsche is amusing at times, but it appears his resentment for Nietzsche will continue again, and again, and again, and again.
[1] All quotes from The Gay Science, will be represented by (GS section number).
1 From Genealogy of Morals, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche. Represented in text as (GM essay;section number).
[2] All passages taken from this text will be referenced as (Z part: section number).
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