A Non-Concise Treatise on Nietzschean Thought

We all read it in high school, the dwarf weighing down Zarathustra himself and muttering things in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" about eternal recurrence, the thought that we will live every choice we make indefinitely, since time (and perhaps space) has no beginning or end. I will hereby try to demonstrate why this childish idea fails even to be an allegory for mankind - or humanity I should say, to keep the gender neutrality.

If an event will occur an infinite number of times (in past and present), it means that this is not the first time I am writing this blog. Then, why do I not remember writing this before? The answer is, of course, that my clone is not the same thing as "me." Nietzsche's copies can live what I am living as many times as they want, but that does not mean anything in my life.

The second interesting point is that the things that I do not do will also occur an infinite number of times, according to eternal recurrence. The choices I did not make, the things that did not happen, will happen at some point in time, just like this, but with very little modifications. As one can see, the eternal recurrence of things has nothing to do with my actions or choices, it just happens according to the infinite number of permutations possible in space-time.

Knowing these, I do not feel that this idea is "horrifying", "terrible", and "wonderful" at the same time. It is more like "childish", "sophomoric", and "reckless." If Nietzsche has critiqued his own work, he would say this idea was a product of a "healthy soul, a non-Christian knight, a new-man on earth," which brings me to another important point.

The greatest mistake Nietzsche made was to base his philosophy on "intentions" of philosophers and schools of thought, rather than logic or truth. For him, Christianity is bad not because of the false logic it conveys, but because it "reflects slave morality." Be it as it may, does it matter what my motives are if I am talking about something that exists, or does not exist? Planck found Quantum Mechanics because his mother beat him (?), Christianity is bad since it is slave morality, Catholicism is nowadays good because it affirms life by letting its priests prey on children (A thought Nietzsche would perhaps approve), Eternal Recurrence is a good idea since it is born out of a pure, non-nihilistic soul. It never ends.

My point is that, people do or say things because of their self-interest, this is in and of itself a tautology. Philosophy, in my opinion, sorts out and seeks out questions and answers about life, not psychology alone. Examining facts or propositions by their face value will almost always yield better results in terms of logical thought, process, and clear philosophical concepts. If these take a back seat in one's thought, one is merely a motivational speaker - Merda taurorum animas conturbit!