Leo, is Eternal Recurrence true ?

[Someone here]

The best way to visualize this is to imagine a point travelling along a line. All of the points of the line actually exist, and always do, but from the point of view of the point itself, only the point it is on actually exists. The points already travelled are said to have existed in the past, but not anymore, while the points to be crossed are said to be that which will be, but is not yet. In this example the point represents our awareness, the points of the line already crossed represent our past, the points to be crossed represent our future, and all the other points on the plane on which the line is drawn represent possible pasts and futures --- possible paths the line could have taken but did not. And the idea here is that the entire plane actually exists, but that our present "reality" is limited to the particular point our awareness is on at the present moment.

[Reciprocality]

@Someone here Everything possible is defined after the fact, so far as our knowledge is concerned everything possible must therefore occur and has therefore already occurred. 

The reason this would make almost everyone confused is because they experience for example the impulse to drink water and then goes to the fridge as though the drinking of the water from the fridge thereafter were made possible by the impulse. Not at all aware of how the whole scenario is potentiated right now. And by extension that when they now consider whether to go for a sip of water they are already realising the full extent of their consideration of that sip. Their mistake is how they have made the future into a caricature of it, into the sensibility they have of its possibility.

But that the future is possible so far as they are sensible does not mean that they know what is possible within it, though they do know what is possible in their sensibility of it right now.

" infinite possibilities need not necessarily mean that all possibilities are realised." I claim it does, because imaginative speculation has no epistemic validity. And so far as knowledge is concerned we must define possibility after the fact as already having been realised, yet the possibilities themselves beyond this we know nothing about.

I would forgive anyone the confusion here. But right now I can't do any better explicating it.

[WokeBloke]

9 minutes ago, Someone here said:

From this, it appears to me that indeed you are referring to the so called "bang-crunch" model. If so, I see no reason to think that any "new" Universe would be an exact, or even necessarily a rough, replica of the current one. It may even be possible that a "new", or rather the "next", Universe may even have some fundamentally different laws than this one. So I would not base any idea of eternal recurrence on such a model, and, in fact, the original idea had nothing whatsoever to do with any contemporary cosmological models.

You suggest we live in a multiverse with eternal inflation. I don't understand how that corresponds to repeating this moment again in your mind. When I think of eternal inflation I think of infinitely increasing complexity as opposed to repetition. Please help me understand what you mean!

Edited March 2, 2022 by WokeBloke

[Someone here]

17 minutes ago, WokeBloke said:

You suggest we live in a multiverse with eternal inflation. I don't understand how that corresponds to repeating this moment again in your mind. When I think of eternal inflation I think of infinitely increasing complexity as opposed to repetition. Please help me understand what you mean!

 

The ancient argument runs something like this.

-The universe contains a finite amount of stuff

-spread out over a finite amount of space.

-This means that there’re only so many possible arrangements of that stuff.

-Time, on the other hand, is infinite.

-Therefore, identical arrangements of stuff must eventually recur, and

-will do so infinitely many times

Edited March 2, 2022 by Someone here

[Someone here]

The easiest way to grasp hold of the eternal return is simple.

Imagine today is the last day you will ever live and then live it accordingly.

Try and maximize each and every day as if it were your last.

This way you can not afford to say ‘oh you know that there is always another time’

When you grasp the eternal return you fully empower the present and thus maximize it and hopefully then live a full and flourishing life.

“I’m gonna live this day like it’s my last” is a popular saying.

But to actually live by this saying and put it unwaveringly into practice is I truly think the Eternal Recurrence.

One has to treat one’s day as if it was an eternity and once it ends everything stops. To be born again and die each day is something I think Nietzsche was making us aware of in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

[WokeBloke]

@Someone here 

12 minutes ago, Someone here said:

 

The ancient argument runs something like this.

-The universe contains a finite amount of stuff

-spread out over a finite amount of space.

-This means that there’re only so many possible arrangements of that stuff.

-Time, on the other hand, is infinite.

-Therefore, identical arrangements of stuff must eventually recur, and

-will do so infinitely many times

Is there any evidence for these claims?

-The universe contains a finite amount of stuff

-spread out over a finite amount of space.

[Someone here]

9 minutes ago, WokeBloke said:

@Someone here 

Is there any evidence for these claims?

-The universe contains a finite amount of stuff

-spread out over a finite amount of space.

Hmmm. Cosmologists today are by no means certain that the universe is infinite. It's uncertain. 

 Even if the present does recur in some way, there is no reason for our decisions right now or the next second to be identical.

There are three different theories

1. Big Bounce

2. Big freeze

3. Big rip

We don't know which is true.

[there are other variations e.g. the idea of baby universes forming inside of some black holes and then budding off to make their own space-time not connected to ours in any way]

In all these theories our universe continues into the future not just for centuries, for billions of years. For all except the Big Rip it continues for trillions of years.

With the Big Freeze then there isn’t any recurrence, as with each new moment, the universe is just a bit colder. Every second, the already very cold background radiation is slightly cooler throughout the universe due to the expansion of space.

With the big Rip, it may lead to a new universe after the big Rip as it looks very like the inflation stage of our universe so just possibly could start a new universe.

With the big Bounce, time continues through to the new universe. So - the new universe will have new stars and new planets and be altogether new.

With eternal recurrence, if there are infinitely many big bounces, then eventually two of the bounces will start identically.

That doesn't mean that our bounce ever happens again but one of the infinitely many bounces happens again.

NO REASON FOR THE NEXT SECOND TO BE THE SAME AS BEFORE - EVEN IF UNIVERSE HAS BEEN IDENTICAL BY CHANCE FOR BILLIONS OF YEARS

However that doesn't mean it has to continue the same way as before even if it started identical.

Because - for instance suppose we ended up like this in a future universe, identical situation, me typing the same words into a computer in an identical world.

I could then type a different word next from the one the person similar to me typed in a previous universe.

It would only be identical for all time if the universe was deterministic, that if you have the same situation the exact same things always happen including the exact same decisions of any living beings in that situation.

But we are pretty certain that our universe is not deterministic. For instance radioactive decay is not deterministic. The motion of air molecules is not deterministic, you can't predict exactly what will happen if one molecule hits another.

Weather seems to be not deterministic either.

So the decisions of humans are surely not deterministic.

So, if the same situation as this with people that look exactly like us ever repeated, even if the universe was the same as ours identically for the last 13 billion years, there is no reason for us to do the same things as them in the next second.

It is a similar idea with an infinitely large universe.

If the universe is big enough you expect to find identical patches in it. The larger the universe the larger those patches that are identical.

There is no reason why our patch particularly would repeat.

But if it did, then somewhere, trillions of light years away from us, there might be a patch exactly like ours.

But it would be the same, even if that patch was identical to ours for the last 14 billion years, there is no reason for it to continue to be the same for the next second.

[Someone here]

If eternity exists, and there is no beginning and no end (to everything even that’s outside the universe), does that mean there was still an eternity before our time our moment right now?

[Someone here]

@Leo Gura

would really appreciate your take on this ?

[Mulky]

You'll live this life again, but also an infinite number of other existences.  Also, you'll live as something that has a little of what you now consider you in it, to infinitely varying degrees.  IE Imagine wondering what it would be like to be your sister.  In order to experience that, you wouldn't be able to bring any of yourself there, because then it would not be the experience of being your sister, it would have some of you in there changing the experience, so all you could take was awareness, with nothing at all to it.  But  you will also experience a being experiencing another being, althought I guess that would just create another being.  You can be a drop of water, 2 drops of water, 8, 7 drops of water plus a piece of grass, etc.  We all know there isn't really a you for any of that stuff, but you can experience what it is like for there to be a you for any of that stuff.  You can be some soul kind of thing living in a bunch of bodies, but that soul is just another body.   I don't know how or why I think any of this, this is just how I see reality right now.  But most of it just is implicit from infinity.  Can the cycle of life end, I feel like it would start again.

Actually, looking back.  I saw it like this even as a young kid, it's not something I learned.  I'm not sure the exact approach to learning about this but it is not from gaining information and later in life learning about the whole Jnana thing I think that is how it works.  Those foundational what reality is types of understandings are gotten Jnanically and not through adding more information.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Mulky
cause

[Mulky]

11 hours ago, Someone here said:

If eternity exists, and there is no beginning and no end (to everything even that’s outside the universe), does that mean there was still an eternity before our time our moment right now?

There was always an eternity.  the easiest way to think of it is to instead of trying to find a beginning of time, keep imagining the rewinding of time going on forever.  If there was ever a start to time, on some level there would have had to be some type of movement or change, that would have required time.  So that would not really have been the start to time.  It might be possible for time to pseudo start in an island universe or reality but not in all of reality, and there would be no way for that island universe or reality to be truly untouchable by the rest of reality, so it would still be in time. 

[Osaid]

Honestly the most puzzling thing to me is WTF happens after death. Yeah, death in the sense of non-existence isn't real, sure, I'm never gonna stop existing, but consciousness seems to be perfectly capable of wiping memories. If memories of myself are wiped, I'm basically dead aren't I. Like, think back to when you were in a dream and living the life of some dream character, you basically didn't even exist at that point anymore, you were just living life as dream character with no knowledge of your existence in the "waking state". Relatively speaking, what is gonna happen to your relative ego identity after death? God knows.

[Someone here]

Last night I was discussing deja vu with a friend. We were musing about how such a phenomenon could exist. Is it just a time delay between the memory and perception in the brain, as science says? Or is it something deeper than that? Is there something meaningful in the events we perceive as having happened before?

What if the universe does cycle back on itself as you suggest? What if your life repeats each time this cycle occurs? How would you ever know? If everything was exactly the same, there would be no way to tell. Nothing could distinguish one cycle from another.

Suppose the universe does cycle, but each cycle is slightly different. The Butterfly Effect demonstrates that the smallest actions can create huge differences in future events. So, maybe each cycle is different because of trivial events that happened long ago.

If that is the case, would some things still be the same? Is it possible to cross paths with yourself from a different cycle?

I've long believed that deja vu is a sign that you're living the life you're supposed to live. But what does that really mean? It could mean that we keep trying this thing, over and over until we get it “right”.

Maybe the universe does come back into existence each time it ends. Maybe it repeats itself each time, and we are destined to come back and do this all over again.

Maybe deja vu is recognizing the times we have done this before, in a different instance of the universe. Most of our lives we don't notice, because big differences come about from the smallest changes. Then every once in a while, you recognize a moment that you know has happened before.

There is way more to what is physically possible than we could ever understand. Maybe the universe keeps repeating over and over until we get it right.

What happens when we do get it right?

What if it is this time?

[Someone here]

Before Einstein came up with relativity, which entails a Big Bang beginning, scientists believed that the universe was largely unchanging, and of fixed size. In a universe of fixed size, Nietzsche theorized in his unpublished journals which became known as the Will to Power, everything will eventually return to its previous position, and re-enter into its previous relationships. Imagine, for instance, that the universe is a computer screen with the screen saver on. A ball bounces around this limited area and will eventually happen upon a path that it has already taken, given infinite time and no possibility of an expanding screen, the ball will eventually only take paths that it has taken before. In a universe of fixed size and infinite time where all is will to power and nothing else, things will settle into established patterns of existence.

[Someone here]

3 hours ago, Mulky said:

You'll live this life again, but also an infinite number of other existences.  Also, you'll live as something that has a little of what you now consider you in it, to infinitely varying degrees.  IE Imagine wondering what it would be like to be your sister.  In order to experience that, you wouldn't be able to bring any of yourself there, because then it would not be the experience of being your sister, it would have some of you in there changing the experience, so all you could take was awareness, with nothing at all to it.  But  you will also experience a being experiencing another being, althought I guess that would just create another being.  You can be a drop of water, 2 drops of water, 8, 7 drops of water plus a piece of grass, etc.  We all know there isn't really a you for any of that stuff, but you can experience what it is like for there to be a you for any of that stuff.  You can be some soul kind of thing living in a bunch of bodies, but that soul is just another body.   I don't know how or why I think any of this, this is just how I see reality right now.  But most of it just is implicit from infinity.  Can the cycle of life end, I feel like it would start again.

Actually, looking back.  I saw it like this even as a young kid, it's not something I learned.  I'm not sure the exact approach to learning about this but it is not from gaining information and later in life learning about the whole Jnana thing I think that is how it works.  Those foundational what reality is types of understandings are gotten Jnanically and not through adding more information.

Life and the universe is an unending cycle, you will keep coming a countless number of times and when the universe becomes too old, it self destructs and begins afresh! Everything will start all over again.

I read so.

But I should be more concerned with the current life I have and not care about my next life, example, i have one beautiful gift now and I begin to worry about another gift which was planned to be presented to me soon, hence making me unable to enjoy my current gift. Whenever you find yourself alive, this world or the next or a thousandth, live it and make the best out of it, don't care about the one you don't have now!

[Someone here]

2 hours ago, Osaid said:

Honestly the most puzzling thing to me is WTF happens after death. Yeah, death in the sense of non-existence isn't real, sure, I'm never gonna stop existing, but consciousness seems to be perfectly capable of wiping memories. If memories of myself are wiped, I'm basically dead aren't I. Like, think back to when you were in a dream and living the life of some dream character, you basically didn't even exist at that point anymore, you were just living life as dream character with no knowledge of your existence in the "waking state". Relatively speaking, what is gonna happen to your relative ego identity after death? God knows.

I share the same worry as you.  Its giving me existential crisis 

[Someone here]

 

The reason why Nietzsche's concept and theory of “eternal recurrence” can be depressing is because that it assumes that at some point in time (whether in either a decade or millennia, or even regardless of if the universe “lives forever” or “had gone through multiple life cycles”) any past event or experience (like one’s birthday or a natural disaster) were to eventually repeat in a “perfect” manner - if it was to happen, every “minute detail” (like the positioning of the candles on one’s birthday, or the minute events that define the natural disaster in question) of the experience must be exactly the same; no deviations, no variations, not even a single change.

“Eternal recurrence” can be possible IF the current understanding of the laws of physics explicitly states that the “underlying elements” of the universe are discrete (and by discrete as per mathematical context, I MEAN FINITE, NOT INFINITE). Essentially, for the “observer” who is depressed because of that said concept and theory, this means that the universe has “finite possibilities or experiences”, and that the “observer” will assume that at some point in the near or far future (even considering the above timescale at the beginning of this post), the universe is “about to run out of new things to experience”. To sum this paragraph up - NO MORE NEW THINGS TO EVEN OCCUR ANYMORE; EVERYTHING WILL EVENTUALLY REPEAT. Also, many “observers” will assume that SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN if this eventuality were to ever occur; for them, in an artist’s words, to experience the same event atom for atom can be TANTAMOUNT to plagiarism whether intentional or accidental.

In order for “eternal recurrence” to be non-existent (and in turn, cure the “dread” and angst” of the observer), there must be at least scientific or mathematical proof that any event, under any circumstances, must never repeat, exactly atom for atom - in plain English, there is always something new for the universe to occur, regardless of time (whether it’s either a decade, a century, a millennium, a civilization reset, a universal life cycle, or even multiple universal life cycles away). To date, there is STILL no credible scientific or mathematical proof that will put this theory (and in extension, the observer’s existential dread/angst/crisis) to rest.

This concept and theory actually gave me an existential crisis

[Mason Riggle]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

I share the same worry as you.  Its giving me existential crisis 

"If I am, then death is not. If death is, then I am not. Why should I worry about that which can never be while I am?" 

-Epicuris (paraphrased)

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Mason Riggle said:

"If I am, then death is not. If death is, then I am not. Why should I worry about that which can never be while I am?" 

-Epicuris (paraphrased)

Lol.if only it was that simple.  What if there is an afterlife?  .bottom line is no one knows what happens after death .we could ascend to a different dimension with a different timeline. 

At some point or other, all of us will be faced with fears about death. After all, what happens when the light’s go out remains one of life’s biggest mysteries. 

Not only is it normal to fear the unknown but in these current uncertain times, we’re probably going to find our thoughts turning to our own mortality even more.

And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, contemplating death can spur us on to make important changes in our lives. It can make us question whether we’re living a life that’s based on our values – the things that are important to us. 

[Inliytened1]

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Lol.if only it was that simple.  What if there is an afterlife?  .bottom line is no one knows what happens after death .we could ascend to a different dimension with a different timeline. 

At some point or other, all of us will be faced with fears about death. After all, what happens when the light’s go out remains one of life’s biggest mysteries. 

Not only is it normal to fear the unknown but in these current uncertain times, we’re probably going to find our thoughts turning to our own mortality even more.

And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, contemplating death can spur us on to make important changes in our lives. It can make us question whether we’re living a life that’s based on our values – the things that are important to us. 

If you have had a pure ego death and become God you have died.  You become Infinite Divine Consciousness.   So the fear is alleviated.  It is only the ego that comes back and Injects fear.