Eternal return
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Eternal return or sometimes eternal recurrence is a concept originating from ancient Egypt and developed in the teachings of Pythagoras. The basic theory is that time is not infinite, but is occupied by the finite set of actions possible in the universe, with all of these actions and events recurring indefinitely, again and again. A large part of eternal recurrence is the idea that the universe has no final state, but rather merely cycles without destination through the same states of matter and time. Time is perceived as cyclical: This is in contrast to the Western notion of rectilinear time, such as was developed by Aristotle and by Judeo-Christian/Islamic ("Abrahamic") doctrine.
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Dharmic religions
The concept of cyclical patterns is very prominent in dharmic religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism among others. The spoked Dharma wheel (or Wheel of life) is an endless cycle of birth, life, and death from which one seeks liberation. In Tantric Buddhism, a wheel of time concept, known as the Kalachakra expresses the idea of an endless cycle of existence and knowledge.
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Classical antiquity
In ancient Egypt, the scarab (or dung beetle) was viewed as a sign of eternal renewal and reemergence of life, a reminder of the life to come. See also Atum and Maàt.
In ancient Greece, the concept of eternal return was more connected with Empedocles, Zeno of Citium, and Stoicism.
Renaissance
The symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake or dragon devouring its own tail, is the alchemical symbol par excellence of eternal recurrence. The alchemist-physicians of the Renaissance and Reformation were aware of the idea of eternal recurrence; an attempt to describe eternal recurrence was made by the physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici of 1643:
- And in this sense, I say, the world was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive, though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain. (R.M.Part 1:59)
Friedrich Nietzsche
The thought of eternal recurrence is central to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. As Heidegger pointed out, Nietzsche doesn't ever speak about the reality of "eternal recurrence" itself, but about the "thought of eternal recurrence". Nietzsche first encountered the idea in the works of Heinrich Heine, who speculated that there would one day be a person born with the same thought processes as himself, and that the same was true of every other person on the planet. Nietzsche expanded on this thought to form his theory, which he put forth in The Gay Science and developed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
On a few occasions in his notebooks, Nietzsche discusses the possibility of the Eternal Recurrence as cosmological truth, but in the works he prepared for publication, it is treated as the ultimate method of life affirmation. According to Nietzsche, it would require a sincere Amor Fati (Love of Fate), not simply to endure, but to wish for the eternal recurrence of all events exactly as they occurred---all of the pain and joy and the embarrassment and glory.
Nietzsche calls the idea "horrifying and paralyzing", and he also states that the burden of this idea is the "heaviest weight" imaginable (das schwerste Gewicht). The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life:
- 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' ... 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.' (The Gay Science)
As described by Nietzsche, the thought of the eternal return is more than merely an intellectual concept or challenge, it is akin to a koan, or a psychological device that occupies one's entire consciousness stimulating a transformation of consciousness known as metanoia.
In Nietzsche scholarship the stance on the cosmological hypothesis of the eternal recurrence is extremely interesting, being a crucial axiom of his philosophy. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra Part III, Ch. 2, #2, "Of the Vision and the Riddle" (German)), Nietzsche confronts his aforementioned inner demon and proves to him the eternal recurrence—this leads to a self-awakening in which the demon is exorcised. Much effort is still exerted in attempting to understand Nietzsche's notebooks' various fragmentary mentions of the eternal recurrence.
References in culture
- "All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake is based on the idea of eternal return. The novel begins in mid-sentence, with the continuation of the book's unfinished final sentence, creating a circle whereby the novel has no true beginning or end. [11]
- Joyce was influenced by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), an Italian philosopher who proposed a theory of cyclical history in his major work, New Science. Joyce puns on his name many times in Finnegans Wake, including the "first" sentence: "by a commodius vicus of recirculation". Vico's theory involves the recurrence of three stages of history: the age of gods, the age of heroes, and the age of humans—after which the cycle repeats itself. See also Ages of Man and Greek mythology.
- Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being frequently references the concept of eternal return. Even the title comes from the idea that if there is no afterlife or eternal return, and earthly existence is final, then existence, or being, is "terribly light" — it has no gravity or cosmic weight.
- The 2001 film K-PAX explains eternal return at the end.
- The film Groundhog Day is based upon the concept of eternal return. Its director Harold Ramis claimed of the novel The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, the exemplary work upon eternal return that:
- While not the original inspiration for our film Groundhog Day, was one of those confirming cosmic affirmations that we had indeed tapped into one of the great universal problems of being... P. D. Ouspensky suggests the antidote to the existential dilemma at the core of Groundhog Day: that trapped as we are on the karmic wheel of cause and effect, our only means of escape is to assume responsibility for our own destiny and find the personal meaning that imparts a purposeful vitality to life and frees us from the limitations of our contempt.
- The religious scholar Mircea Eliade has written of the theme of the eternal return as expressed in the world's religions.
- The philosopher Albert Camus discusses the plight of Sisyphus as an example of living the eternal return with a spirit of affirmation in his famous essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
- In modern times eternal recurrence was a major theme in the teachings of the Russian mystics Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky whose novel Strange tale of Ivan Osokin (first published St. Petersburg 1915) explores the idea that even given the free-will to alter events in one's life, the same events will occur regardless.
- Other notable films which debate the concept of eternal return include Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, Vanilla Sky, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
- The Rolling Stones reference the concept in their song "Sway" from the Sticky Fingers album: "Did you ever wake up to find / A day that broke up your mind / Destroyed your notion of circular time."
- From The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, 1913:
- Greeting! I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. In much that I came to do I have failed. Much that I have done I would undo; some little I have undone. Out of fire I came—the smoldering fire of a thing one day to be a consuming flame; in fire I go. Seek not my ashes. I am the lord of the fires! Farewell. —Fu-Manchu
- From the Anglican Book of Common Prayer's burial rite:
- In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother <name>; and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him peace. Amen.
- The Timefall novel trilogy incorporates the idea of time being cyclical, with people being reborn in each new era as the same person with different characteristics and in an altered history. In the modern cycle they discover that something has shifted the balance of the universe prompting them to save it from the end of time.
- Therion has a song named "Eternal Return" on their 2000 album "Deggial":
- The time is running (veil of time) / The flame will burn / When today vanish, / But all return.
- Time will come to an end but bring back the start again.
- Queen of time will rise again / And bring forth the future / Wheel of time will whirl around / And bring back the past.
- The PlayStation RPG Final Fantasy VIII deals with the idea of a time-loop repeating over and over again. The game's ending sets up the circumstances for the entire plot to repeat itself all over again as the main character observes powerless to stop it from happening.