It is possible that the big bang was a cosmic equation.
It is possible that the universe did not start with the big bang but has been here for eternity, the possibility exists that the universe has always been here
Equations unfold, does history 'unfold'?
Is what is happening in Libya preordained?
Eternal Recursion
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PeterTurland
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Arshad Ali
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Re: Eternal Recursion
I think you mean "eternal recurrence," and unless I'm mistaken, it was Nietzsche who popularised it. Probably took it off the Indians (in the same way Schopenhauer did with some of his ideas). Recursion is when a function calls itself in a computer program.
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Brendan O'Gorman
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Re: Eternal Recursion
Wikipedia repeats the text book rebuttal of Nietzsche's proposal.Arshad Ali wrote:I think you mean "eternal recurrence," and unless I'm mistaken, it was Nietzsche who popularised it. Probably took it off the Indians (in the same way Schopenhauer did with some of his ideas). Recursion is when a function calls itself in a computer program.
What always puzzled me was how one would set a wheel rotating at a speed of 1 divided by pi.Even if there were exceedingly few things in a finite space in an infinite time, they would not have to repeat in the same configurations. Suppose there were three wheels of equal size, rotating on the same axis, one point marked on the circumference of each wheel, and these three points lined up in one straight line. If the second wheel rotated twice as fast as the first, and if the speed of the third wheel was 1/Ï€ of the speed of the first, the initial line-up would never recur.
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Arshad Ali
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Re: Eternal Recursion
I think an argument can be made that irrational numbers like pi, square root of 2, etc., exist only in the the mathematician's universe; not the physicist's. If so, then the example of the three wheels is not much of a rebuttal.Brendan O'Gorman wrote:What always puzzled me was how one would set a wheel rotating at a speed of 1 divided by pi.
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PeterTurland
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Re: Eternal Recursion
Nietzsche on eternal return.
"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."
From here
"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."
From here