The Nietzschean Dream: Life for the Sake of Life



Was there a need for creation

the answer is hidden in a math equation

and that's this:



WHERE DO CIRCLES BEGIN?



THE GREATEST WEIGHT--What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your 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 crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
~Nietzsche, Gay Science, 341

a dream i never knew begins to fade with yo

ah the eternal recurrence. But what did Nietzsche mean by that exactly?

what did nietzche mean by anything he said?

was there a need for creation?

Life for the sake of life, circles: dont end, cant tell where they start. do they start? and would we think everything needs an end only because we question it? or because we need to feel an end to something, to move on, I dont know. its all one great big mind F**K.

Nietzche's point there, I think, is ethical: we should live our lives so that we would not object to their being repeated. This is somewhat similar to Kant's ethics: we should decide every action as if our decision should be worthy of being a basis of action for anyone.

There are an infinite number of fractions between zero and one. If we think of a line segment in space between zero and one (a portion of the classic number line), then each fraction represents one of an infinite number of points in that interval. The ancient Greeks were initially horrified to discover that there are an infinite number of holes in the line described by fractions, holes that are filled with irrational numbers. There is today an open problem in mathematics called the "continuum problem" that asks if the rationals and irrationals (the set of real numbers) fills all the holes in the interval. Is the line continuous?

Nietzche's doctrine of eternal recurrence of events in the universe was based on the fallacious assumption that the universe is finite. The continuum problem shows that infinity exists in every interval. Hence, Nietzche's philosophy is founded on a misconception: events can never repeat exactly.

Circles:

Projecting Concentricity!

Cyclations!

a circle cant help but to go

I loved watching the movie on Feynman where he showed the Mobius consstruct to his wife - it demonstrates the continuum.

I never saw that movie. Do you know the title and date? I read several of Dr. Feynman's books (e.g. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman) and found them very interesting.

RICHARD FEYNMAN:


I had the great pleasure of watching a movie called Infinity by Matthew Broderick and his wife. What a joy! To see a person whose father taught him to observe rather than codify or label in order to get marks or social acceptance. What a treat to see the ethics and honesty that made it difficult for him to lie to his lady even when all around them were pressuring him to do so when they thought she had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. What mastery of mind and reality to simply portray this exceptional couple as she thought first of how difficult it must have been for him to lie rather than what this terminal illness might do to her. But as usual the doctors were wrong and she had TB although it could have been discovered earlier and she might have lived if these doctors had not been trying to avoid saying what they thought.


When Feynman was at Los Alamos he danced spirit dances frequently; and he had been aware of the so-called paranormal all his life. In fact I believe I learned through the same methods he did – not in school. When he was at Princeton as a grad student the head of the Physics Department begged him to go with their government project as he said there are none like you anywhere. I loved hearing the care Robert Oppenheimer showed even though he had never met the young couple. I say that because his cousin John in London who offered to make me the head of his printing company showed that same kind of care for me.


Feynman died in 1988 before his partner John Wheeler met Peter Lynds who is now promoting an ancient Greek theory on Infinity. Wheeler supports Lynds who has no real formal education and that is to his credit. I must say there aren’t enough people like Dick Feynman and I wish there were a lot more. Thank you – the Brodericks.

· Philosophy moves outward in ascending and widening spirals. Inwardly, it has been going in narrowing and flattening circles.

Circle - [L. circulus] A plane figure, comprehended by a single curve line, called its circumference, every part of which is equally distant from a point within it called the centre; a line bounding or forming such a figure, or something in a similar form; a ring; a round body; compass; circuit; a series (as of actions) ending where it all begins (cyclations); an ending where one began; a number of particulars regarded as having a central point; a number of persons assosiated by some tie.

Circ - a prehistoric stone circle.
Circinate
Circle
Circled
Circlet
Circuit
Circuitous
Circuitously
Circuitousness
Cicuity
Circular
Circularity
Circulate
Circulation
Circulative
Circulator
Circulatory
Circulable
Circumambient
Circumambiency
Circumambulate
Circumambulation
Circumference
Cicumferential
Circumferentor
Circumflect
Circumflex
Circumfluence
Circumfluent
Circumfluous
Circumfuse
Cicumfusile
Circumfusion
Circumgyrate
Circumgyration
Circumjacent
Circumjacence
Circumjacency
Circumlittoral
Circumlocution
Circumlocutory
Circummure
Circumnavigate
Circumnavigable
Circumnavigation
Cicumnavigator
Circumpolar
Circumscissle
Circumscribe
Circumscribable
Circumscriber
Circumscription
Circumscriptive
Circumspect
Circumspection
Circumspective
Circumspectly
Circumspectness
Circumstance
Cicumstantial
Circumstantiality
Circumstantially
Circumstantiate
Circumvallate
Circumvalation
Circumvent
Circumvention
Circumventive
Circumventor
Circumvolve
Circumvolution
Cirque

Pi

· In what would appear to be at first a simple mathematical function, the division of a circle’s circumference by its diameter, has fascinated scientists, mathematicians and laymen for thousands of years. Derived from the ratio of a circles diameter to its circumference (d divided by c = pi).
· This number, 3.1415 and of to infinity, has served as something of a Mount Everest for computer programmers and mathematicians.
· What is the attraction to this number? Perhaps the fact that a circle is probably the most perfect and simple form known to man. And lying at the heart of it is a specific, unchanging number that also manages to appear in functions of geometry, statistics, and biology, everywhere. It keeps popping its head up, reminding us that it is there and defying us to understand why.
· Very much like the universe itself, the more technologically advanced we become and as our picture of pi grows larger, the more its mysteries grow.

Circadian Rythms - the 24-hour biological cycles found in humans and many other species.

Cyclone - a storm spirally revolving in a counter clockwise direction from an area of higher pressure toward an area of lower pressure. Extra-tropical cyclones are constantly travelling over the surface of the earth, usually accompanied by cloudiness, precipitation, and changes in temperature. Tropical cyclones have their origin in the doldrums, on the western sides of the oceans, and are much more violent. The tornadoes of the Mississippi watershed, which are locally known as cyclones, are similar to tropical cyclones but are even smaller and more violent. The center of a tornado may be no more than a few feet in diameter; the wind velocity in the surrounding area of the centre may be as great as 1000 km/h.

Cycle - in astronomy, time required to bring about recurrence of same relative positions or aspects of heavenly bodies. Important cycles include revolution of the earth about the sun (365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds); revoltion of the moon about the earth (c. 29 1/2 days); solar cycle (c. 28 years), marking same relative position of earth and sun; solar eclipse cycle (18 or 19 years); precession of the equinoxes.

Classification in History: The disappearance of the wheel.

To overcome problems of organization and argumentation, historians often turn to sytems of classification to make knowledge appear systematic. The use of such systems is itself the product of assumptions about evolution, progress, orderliness, science.

Classification leads some scholars to conclude certain types represents certain phases, and that phases are evolutionary, and that evolution represents progress toward some improved state. Immediately a bias towards an earlier state and the society is seen as one, three, or seven stages removed from the end of the process, that is, from modernity.

Yet we know that societies once possessed knowledge that was later lost: Greek science, Muslim scholarship, the wheel and the cart which disappeared from the region of its invention, the Middle East. Thus phases do not always represent a steady progression from a lower to a higher complexity, for complex knowledge and practice can be forgotten. This awareness may lead into the trap of a cyclical theory that assumes that history repeats itself. Such an assumption is most often used by those who wish to be able to predict the future, rather than by those who are studying the past for its own sake.

People have been concerned with certain questions virtually from the beginning of organized societies - questions about God, nature, human beings, society itself, and history. In contemplating these questions, philosophers sought a form of security; in acting upon their responses to these questions, rulers brought change, evan as they attempted to assure continuity. Theologians who attempted to explain death, disease, sexuality, the need for labour, were contributing to the world as we know it today, for they were providing yet another set of answers to questions about God, nature, society, human beings, and the way these answers bear upon the past.

Thus all history is ultimately related to all other history, and any narrative, chronological, or classifactory system ultimately breaks down. All questions give rise to other questions. Consider the effort to explain the disappearance of the wheel and the cart from the Middle East for a thousand years, despite their diffusion around the world. To provide even a partial answer, the scholar must investigate the domestication of the camel, the invention of harness and saddles, the development of trade, the integration of the Arab nomads into imperial antiquity, the differing effectiveness of one-humped vs. two-humped camels, breeding, competing systems of commerce as discovered by the nomads, and a hundred other questions.

Even then scholars are dependent upon the sources, and if these are contemporary with the problem being investigated, they must also inquire into how the sources have been corrupted, used, abused, and manipulated over the centuries. The ultimate answer to the question about the wheel and the cart will be general at best and may contain much undoubted though sophisticated guesswork.

Drawn from a reading of Richard W. Bulliet "The Camel and the Wheel" (1975).

arc: a curved line that is part of the circumference of a circle
chord: a line segment within a circle that touches 2 points on the circle.
circumference: the distance around the circle.
diameter: the longest distance from one end of a circle to the other.
origin: the center of the circle
pi (): A number, 3.141592..., equal to (the circumference) / (the diameter) of any circle.
radius: distance from center of circle to any point on it.
sector: is like a slice of pie (a circle wedge).
tangent of circle: a line perpendicular to the radius that touches ONLY one point on the circle.

diameter = 2 x radius of circle
Circumference of Circle = PI x diameter = 2 PI x radius
where PI = = 3.141592...

Area of Circle:
area = PI r2

Length of a Circular Arc: (with central angle )
if the angle is in degrees, then length = x (PI/180) x r
if the angle is in radians, then length = r x

Area of Circle Sector: (with central angle )
if the angle is in degrees, then area = (/360) PI r2
if the angle is in radians, then area = (/2) r2

Equation of Circle: (cartesian coordinates)

for a circle with center (j, k) and radius ®:
(x-j)2 + (y-k)2 = r2

Equation of Circle: (polar coordinates)
for a circle with center (0, 0): r() = radius

for a circle with center with polar coordinates: (c, ) and radius a:
r2 - 2cr cos( - ) + c2 = a2

Equation of a Circle: (parametric coordinates)
for a circle with origin (j, k) and radius r:
x(t) = r cos(t) + j y(t) = r sin(t) + k

The Sphere

Starting with what may be the simplest and most perfect of forms, the sphere is an ultimate expression of unity, completeness, and integrity. There is no point of view given greater or lesser importance, and all points on the surface are equally accessible and regarded by the center from which all originate. Atoms, cells, seeds, planets, and globular star systems all echo the spherical paradigm of total inclusion, acceptance, simultaneous potential and fruition, the macrocosm and microcosm.

The Circle
The circle is a two-dimensional shadow of the sphere which is regarded throughout cultural history as an icon of the ineffable oneness; the indivisible fulfillment of the Universe. All other symbols and geometries reflect various aspects of the profound and consummate perfection of the circle, sphere and other higher dimensional forms of these we might imagine.

The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, Pi, is the original transcendental and irrational number. (Pi equals about 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937511...)

It cannot be expressed in terms of the ratio of two whole numbers, or in the language of sacred symbolism, the essence of the circle exists in a dimension that transcends the linear rationality that it contains. Our holistic perspectives, feelings and intuitions encompass the finite elements of the ideas that are within them, yet have a greater wisdom than can be expressed by those ideas alone.

The Point

At the center of a circle or a sphere is always an infinitesimal point. The point needs no dimension, yet embraces all dimension. Transcendence of the illusions of time & space result in the point of here and now, our most primal light of consciousness. The proverbial "light at the end of the tunnel" is being validated by the ever-increasing literature on so-called "near-death experiences". If our essence is truly spiritual omnipresence, then perhaps the "point" of our being "here" is to recognize the oneness we share, validating all "individuals" as equally precious and sacred aspects of that one.

Life itself as we know it is inextricably interwoven with geometric forms, from the angles of atomic bonds in the molecules of the amino acids, to the helical spirals of DNA, to the spherical prototype of the cell, to the first few cells of an organism which assume vesical, tetrahedral, and star (double) tetrahedral forms prior to the diversification of tissues for different physiological functions. Our human bodies on this planet all developed with a common geometric progression from one to two to four to eight primal cells and beyond.

Almost everywhere we look, the mineral intelligence embodied within crystalline structures follows a geometry unfaltering in its exactitude. The lattice patterns of crystals all express the principles of mathematical perfection and repetition of a fundamental essence, each with a characteristic spectrum of resonances defined by the angles, lengths and relational orientations of its atomic components.

To quote that old song, "To everything turn, turn/there is a season turn, turn, turn." We are bound by the cyclical nature of this planet, the universe and the laws of physics. Our planet revolves, our seasons change, our lives are dependent on these realities. We have cycles of our lives, from birth to death we are on a curve that many believe comes back around again and again in new lives and new bodies.

The change is unstoppable and often unknowable. We cannot always see what is ahead because it truly is "around the bend". Could you have predicted the course of events that lead you to where you are today? Consider the farmer, he plants his crops but cannot know for sure whether it will be a good year when he first sows the corn. Only later on reflection can he see the cycles of years and say, "we're in El Nino now". We are living on the treadmill, the course changes but we are always moving.
Take a look at the cycles in your life, the friends come and gone, the times of learning and the times of leading. We should mourn but mourn briefly the passing of phases in our lives, as all things they do return to us again. In this new millennium, I have witnessed friends leaving and old friends once thought lost suddenly appearing in my life with new joy and new lessons to share. I have mourned the passing of my college years but rejoiced in the new teachers I find who have more to tell me than school ever could. I recognize my own transformation into maturity (of some sort ) these past few years and acknowledge the transition with hope.

Acknowledge life phases with honor and reverence. Too often we scold the young, belittle the old and glorify those in between. Each cycle in our lives has a purpose, to learn. Be your age, experience the good and bad of it. Mark the changes from youth to adult, adult to sage.

A wise woman (who I know will not mind me repeating this here) said, "I'm happy to be older, I'm proud I'm an old b*tch; there is nothing as reassuring as a life lived well." Do not hide your wrinkles or put on lipstick to make you "mature". Be who you are.

Note the changes in friends, places and experiences. As the Pagans like to say, "Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again." Friends appear and disappear out of our lives. There are here to learn or to teach, when that time ends, so does the time together. Houses change, jobs move, new opportunities arise. Let new things happen knowing that stagnation only leads to disease and corruption. Jobs end, school lets out and vacations get put in photo albums. Carry what you know with you and don't let the memory be baggage.

Many times I have heard women say," Mr. X wronged me and now I'll never trust men again." Life is a cycle, and love is too. Living on the side of the road because of baggage stops the journey prematurely. We never reach the destination because we want to know how safe it will be before we get into the car. There are always bumps, crashes and flat tires. Repair them, be cautious and keep going. People hurt us. Lovers betray us. Acknowledge the hurt, learn the lesson, move on. The same cycle that brought you to this pain will also bring new love when you're ready for it. This is the hardest for me to say: Lovers leave. We may think we have a lifetime commitment with someone but the divorce rate should tell you otherwise. It is rare that two people can grow and change over a lifetime and still grow together. Before you point out how your great grandma was married for X number of years consider this: We have the longest life expectancy of any or our ancestors. We live twice as long as people did two hundred years ago. So, if it happens that your marriage does not last twice as long as your great, great so and so, do not berate yourself. It may be that it is time for someone else to appear (you can't see around the bend, remember?).

So if there is one thing to remember here is this: Cycles change, Life rearranges but you are always on the path -- make your choices conscious ones.

Circles/Cycles:

Everything is cyclic.

What goes around comes around.

Which also means that things have a way of repeating themselves. We often find ourselves reliving past events. The generalities of the past are alive with the specifics of today.

The future is not clandestine after all. The future is what happened yesterday, last week, and two years ago.

All we have to do is look for it; it’s all around us. When we look closely we see it. It is in our attitudes, our relationships, and the situations we are subjected to. Something like déjà vu. Some things are under our control, others we just like to think are controlled by us.

It seems we always question ourselves about our choices, wondering if things could have ever turned out differently. They could have and the only way to ensure this is to learn from every situation that occurs in our lives. We must learn from the wrong choices we had made, identify them recurring in our lives, and then make the right choice when given the opportunity.

Life is like a large figure eight, lying vertically. We, as individuals, are a dot moving along the path of the figure eight as a days pace. When we are on the upper half of the eight, the positive hold, everything is going our way. Nothing could be better; we are “on top of the world.” Yet, when we are on the bottom half of the eight, the negative half, nothing seems to be going right, everything is bad. We may become depressed or sad, angry.

We have to be able to persist through the negative half of the circle. Be able to exist and function within the negative and positive circles is a skill. Being able to transition form one emotion and feeling to the next is important. It’s important to always keep looking to the future yes, but it’s also important to relate to the past whenever possible. Because history often times is a great handbook on how to/not to handle contemporary situations. Use past mistakes and triumphs as a guide for success for today.

Revenge is pointless. Possibly, someone succeeding over you just means they are in the positive circle and you are in the negative. It may be useful to consider past actions they might have caused for negativity to exist in one’s life; negativity is the result of negativity. The way revenge make us feel is only temporary. When we gratify ourselves from some one else’s misfortune we are only causing negativity to stay with us longer.

It is up to us to make positivity last longer in our lives. Or simply break the cycle before it takes your life! If you can recognize a pattern occurring within you perhaps you always feel the same way at the same during the day, or every week something happens that makes you feel a certain way, then break the damn cycle. Smash the eight into a million pieces and rearrange it in a more flattering way for you. Everything is cyclic, but don’t let yourself be affected by the same stuff over and over. Rise about adversities that constantly reappear.

Today is another day closer to changing the world. What does that mean? Well if you are reading this, than you aren't dead, and there's still hope.
The hope is in you.

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, and head and hands"
Robert M. Pirsig

CIRCLES.

The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.

St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere.

We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action.

Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.

This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, the flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at once the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every department.

There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws after it this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise into another idea: they will disappear.

The Greek sculpture is all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice; here and there a solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the genius that created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek letters last a little longer, but are already passing under the same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation of new thought opens for all that is old. The new continents are built out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed out of the decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old. See the investment of capital in aqueducts made useless by hydraulics; fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by steam; steam by electricity.

Teilhard De Chardin

"The recognition and isolation of a new era in evolution, the era of noogenesis, obliges us to distinguish...yet another membrane in the telluric layers. A glow ripples outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever widening circles till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence. Only one interpretation, only one name can be found worthy of this grand phenomenon...In other words, outside and above the biosphere there is the noosphere. "