Well, if you believe in causality, everything that happens in a certain progression might seem as the consequence of a previous event
And that seems totally right and it’s a great model to understand our everyday life
Now imagine for a second, that the whole universe was a big cycle, and that you are going to be repeating this very same life in a “future” cycle, and maybe infinitely many times
Which one of those times is the first one? And what is happening first? Did you die first and then were born again, or were you born first before dying? If it’s a never ending cycle, would you know, or would you just be picking a point that seems convenient to you?
At another extreme, when you feel like you are hungry, what is the cause for being hungry? Is it a certain signal in your brain, is a special hormone, is it because you have a habit of eating at a certain time? When exactly do you get hungry and what is the cause? There are pretty much infinite many possible causes to choose, because there are an infinite way of understanding and modeling the meaning of the question and how to answer it
Usually we just take the fastest, “most reasonable” explanation as the reason, but it is arbitrary and subjective. Causes are agreements expressed in language and our models, they are not an absolute unbreakable order of reality
> Now imagine for a second, that the whole universe was a big cycle, and that you are going to be repeating this very same life in a “future” cycle, and maybe infinitely many times
I've heard this called 'Eternal recurrence of the same' in a past life (pun not intended). It fascinates and terrifies me at the same time.
Thank you. Hadn’t heard the name. Apparently it was a central part of Nietzche’s thought and similar to the concept of Eternal Return. Fascinating!
And yes, it’s a bit like the scene in Dune 2 when Paul’s mother, after taking the water of life, tells him he needs to drink it too, that his mind will open so he can see «the beauty and the horror»
Borrowing from signal processing, you could also call this “life aliasing”
And that seems totally right and it’s a great model to understand our everyday life
Now imagine for a second, that the whole universe was a big cycle, and that you are going to be repeating this very same life in a “future” cycle, and maybe infinitely many times
Which one of those times is the first one? And what is happening first? Did you die first and then were born again, or were you born first before dying? If it’s a never ending cycle, would you know, or would you just be picking a point that seems convenient to you?
At another extreme, when you feel like you are hungry, what is the cause for being hungry? Is it a certain signal in your brain, is a special hormone, is it because you have a habit of eating at a certain time? When exactly do you get hungry and what is the cause? There are pretty much infinite many possible causes to choose, because there are an infinite way of understanding and modeling the meaning of the question and how to answer it
Usually we just take the fastest, “most reasonable” explanation as the reason, but it is arbitrary and subjective. Causes are agreements expressed in language and our models, they are not an absolute unbreakable order of reality