pheenon
King of Tampa Bay
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This passage comes from the gay science 341 titled “the greatest weight”
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'
"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. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life?"
To summarize the thought experiment a demon appears in your sleep telling you you must repeat your existence exactly how it has been, if your answer is to scorn the demon then your love of fate is not great enough, and your life not worth living, if your answer is to praise the demon then you have embraced life fully with all of its struggle and vitality.
Even if quantum physics prove the universe non deterministic humans almost certainly do not have free will, there is only one world this one, there is one fate and you must discover it and love it as long as you live, otherwise you might as well die now. To put stock in the past; or a false world is to die in this one. Remember this when ur fist shaking at nature
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'
"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. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life?"
To summarize the thought experiment a demon appears in your sleep telling you you must repeat your existence exactly how it has been, if your answer is to scorn the demon then your love of fate is not great enough, and your life not worth living, if your answer is to praise the demon then you have embraced life fully with all of its struggle and vitality.
Even if quantum physics prove the universe non deterministic humans almost certainly do not have free will, there is only one world this one, there is one fate and you must discover it and love it as long as you live, otherwise you might as well die now. To put stock in the past; or a false world is to die in this one. Remember this when ur fist shaking at nature
