>> Welcome back to Intro to Philosophy
10-10, the summer session 2019.
Our book is Introduction to World Philosophy.
This is the second video
about Friedrich Nietzsche.
In the first video, I went over
the exam questions for exam three.
And I said, I'll just give you the
straightforward surface reading
of Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human.
And the Cheerful Science or the Gay Science.
That'll prepare you for answering
the exam questions.
And then, I said, I'll go back and put our
straightforward surface reading in context
by comparing certain selections
from those two books
to other parts of those books and other books.
And the implication, I will say is
that Nietzsche should not be read
as just a straightforward
open and honest atheist.
As he, as he seems to be in
the Gay Science number 108
and number 125, where he says God is dead.
We killed God.
God is dead.
How did we?
What sponge did we use to wipe away the horizon?
So, then, we went over.
We compare that to Plato's
dialogue the Phaedrus,
where Socrates talks about life after death.
And then, before the next reincarnation,
souls try to go out to the
outermost horizon of the cosmos.
That's where the absolute
ideas of God's mind exist.
And that is where we try to go.
So, when we read Nietzsche say in section
125 of the Gay Science, titled The Madman.
Who gave us the sponge to
wipe away the whole horizon?
So, that's most likely what
he was thinking about.
I know he was aware of this philosophy.
He was well aware of Plato's
dialogues and the Upanishads,
where they call the outermost
horizon the ether or akasha.
That's where Vishnu resides.
That's where Brahman exists.
It's the omniscient mind of God.
And so, if we killed God, then we
wiped away the ideas of God's mind.
Now, we must become like God.
Otherwise, we live in a groundless
morally relative world
with no up or down, no right or wrong.
So. Alright.
So, he definitely seems like
a straightforward atheist.
However, and I'll.
Should, should we be reading alternative
interpretations into Nietzsche's books?
We definitely should.
If you go through his other books, he always
gives hints about I like to wear to masks.
I'm lying.
Why do you believe me?
You know, why don't you think for yourself.
But just to keep it in the context of our class,
if you look on page 499, the right-hand column.
For Human, All Too Human number eight.
Pneumatic explanation of nature.
So, pneumatic in this context, it
doesn't mean pneumatic machinery.
It means the Holy Spirit.
And it means that it's from Christian
scholars would interpret the Bible
as being inspired by the Holy Spirit.
And that we should try to understand it
through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
And he says, metaphysics tries to interpret
the history of nature pneumatically,
as if it was a work of the Holy Spirit.
So, I'll just read what he says here.
And it would imply that we should not look
for alternative deeper meanings in his books.
We should just look at it,
take it at the surface value.
And then, I'll read something
where he says exactly the opposite.
So, that's common for him.
He completely flipflops all the time.
So, pneumatic explanation of nature.
Metaphysics explains the writings of nature,
as it were pneumatically, as the church
and its scholars formally explained the Bible.
It takes very much understanding of nature
to use the same kind of explanatory art
as the philologists created for
all books with the intention
of understanding simply what
the writing was to say.
But without catching a whiff of
or presupposing a double sense.
We have not completely overcome, however, bad
explanatory art even in reference to books.
And one encounters allegorical and mystical
interpretation even in the best company.
Thus, it stands in reference to nature.
In fact, even more badly.
So, we shouldn't look for
a double sense in books.
And we shouldn't look for
a double sense in nature.
This isn't a shadow of some
other world, as Plato said.
We can't understand the mind of God
by analyzing the laws of physics,
as they seem to be represented in
the world of material appearances.
Just take it for what it is.
This is nature.
Well, okay.
But let me now go and look.
I've got just a series of quotes,
different quotes from his book.
Here's one from a preface to a
book that came just before Human,
All Too Human, called The Dawn or Daybreak.
And so, after he wrote his
later books, he wrote a preface.
And this is number five in that.
You know, so, he numbers his books
in different paragraphs or sections.
So, section number five,
the preface to The Dawn.
This art does not so easily get anything done.
It teaches to read well.
That is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking
cautiously before and aft with reservations,
with doors left open, with
delicate eyes and fingers.
My patient friends, this book desires for
itself only perfect readers and philologists.
Learn to read me well.
So, he wants you to compare what he says in
one book to the things he said in other books.
And the things he said in the same book.
Because he contradicts himself
sometimes on the same page.
So, you have to take all that into account.
And he's telling you that he does write in a way
that you should look for riddles in his books.
With that in mind, I will
go back to the Gay Science.
So, we saw number 108 he says.
This is where he first says, God is dead.
So, the Gay Science number 108, new struggles.
After Buddha was dead, his shadow was
still shown for centuries in a cave.
A tremendous shiver inducing shadow.
God is dead.
But given humans as they are,
there may be caves for thousands
of years, in which his shadow is shown.
And we, we still have to defeat his shadow.
That was number 108.
So, number 108 is actually
the holiest number for Hindus,
for at least some schools
of Hindus and for Buddhists.
So, it was probably not accidental that he had
that mention of God and Buddha at number 108.
But if you look at number 106,
the Gay Science number 106.
So, just two sections before
he said God is dead.
This one is entitled, Music as an Advocate.
The innovator replied, I wish for
the seedling to become a tree.
For a doctrine to become a tree, it
has to be believed for a good while.
For it to be believed, it has
to be considered irrefutable.
The tree meets storms, doubts, worms
and nastiness to reveal the nature
and the strength of the seedling.
Let it break if it is not strong enough.
But a seedling can only be
destroyed not refuted.
When he said that, his disciple
cried impetuously,
but I believe in your cause
and consider it so strong.
But I will say, everything, everything
that I still have in my mind against it.
The innovator laughed in his
heart and wagged a finger at him.
This kind of discipleship, he said, is the best.
But it is also the most dangerous.
And not every kind of doctrine can endure it.
So, the best kind of discipleship is to
say everything you can against the doctrine
that you actually believe to there,
thereby proving that it can
withstand a withering attack.
So, when he says something like that, well
just by itself that wouldn't mean that much.
Except for if you take into account Hinduism.
They say, Buddha, who said
that there is no self.
There is no Atman.
And therefore, there's no supreme self.
There's no supreme Atman.
There's no Vishnu.
According to some schools of Hinduism,
Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu,
who appeared to preach an atheistic doctrine,
so that he could appeal to the sentiment
of the people at the time who
didn't want to hear about God.
But they were still open to
moral lessons of compassion.
So, rather than just try to force them
to believe in something they didn't want
to believe, Vishnu presented himself preaching
atheism, but with a compassionate tone.
Specifically, being compassionate
towards the animals.
And so, no need for.
You don't want to reincarnate
your, you don't have a soul.
But you do reincarnate the illusion of
your individuality continues to escape
that suffering you have to realize
you don't exist as an individual self.
We've talked about Buddhism and
David Hume in previous videos.
So, so, at any rate.
Nietzsche was most likely aware of that as well.
It's the entire.
You know, to say that God disguised
himself as an atheist, namely Buddha,
that's quite a. You know, you could say,
oh, that's just revisionist history.
The Hindus wrote that to explain Buddha
and turn his doctrine against itself.
But when Nietzsche talks about,
just two sections before that in 106
about saying everything you can
against your belief, against,
so as to make it endurable
in the minds of the people.
And that being the best form of discipleship.
Well, he also said this in
the Gay Science, number 292.
He says, to those who preach moral.
To those who preach morals, deny these
good things, withdraw the mobs of claim
from them, as well as their easy currency.
Make them once again conceal
the secrets of solitary souls.
Say that morality is forbidden.
That way you might win over for these
things the kind of people who alone matter.
I mean, those who are heroic.
But to that end, there has to be a quality
that inspires fear and not [inaudible] nausea.
Hasn't the time come to save morality.
What Master Eckhart said,
I ask God to rid me of God.
So, now, you've got this theme repeating.
I believe everything in your.
I believe in your cause so much,
I'll say everything I can against it.
That's the Gay Science 106.
Here, you want to win heroes over to a cause.
So, therefore, you attack it.
So, I asked God to rid me of God.
And in the beginning of the Gay
Science, he has a series of poems.
Poem number 31 is called The Disguised Saint.
It says, lest your happiness oppressed us.
Cloak yourself in devilish tresses,
devilish wit and devilish dress.
All in vain, your eye expresses
your angelic saintliness.
So, again, this idea of a disguised saint.
When he keeps repeating it, it starts
to make you a little bit suspicious.
And now, I'm going to relate this back to Hegel.
So, in the video before the Nietzsche video.
The Nietzsche video before this one.
I went over Hegel's philosophy.
And for him, we saw.
I'll just read.
On page 490.
It's section 80.
And the reading is from A Phenomenology of Mind.
He says, Hegel says, the goal, however, is
fixed for knowledge, just as necessarily
as the succession in the process.
The terminus is at the point where
knowledge is no longer compelled
to go beyond itself, where
it finds its own self.
And the notion corresponds to the object.
And the object to the notion.
So, the point I want to focus on here is,
the goal, however, is fixed for knowledge,
just as necessarily as the
succession in the process.
So, for Hegel, each phase of the history
of philosophy is a necessary phase.
It's not arbitrary.
And when you understand the entire sequence that
evolves through the dialectal process of thesis,
antithesis and synthesis, it's working
towards a knowledge of the absolute truth.
Now, Nietzsche in Human, All Too Human,
he agrees that we should engage
in historical philosophizing.
But he doesn't agree with
the claim that history is,
is aimed at some ultimately
purpose or some ultimate goal.
What he does suggest in other
books and, is that the sequence
of philosophical concepts goes in a circle.
And that is the eternal process of
evolution that, that he identifies with God.
So, I'll just read here.
Beyond Good and Evil.
This was a book after he wrote.
After he wrote The Gay Science,
he wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Then, he wrote Beyond Good and Evil.
So, here, Beyond Good and Evil number 20.
He says that individual philosophical concept.
So, not anything capricious or autonomously
evolving, is betrayed in the end also
by the fact that the most
diverse philosophers keep filling
in a definite fundamental
scheme of possible philosophies.
Under an invisible spell, they always
revolve once more in the same orbit.
The strange family resemblance of all Indian,
Greek and German philosophizing
is explained easily enough.
Where there is affinity of languages that cannot
fail, owing to the common philosophy of grammar.
I mean, owing to the unconscious domination
and guidance by similar grammatical functions
that everything is prepared at the
outset for a similar development
and sequence of philosophical systems.
So, Indian, Greek and German
philosophy, he says, necessarily
and continuously fulfills
the same circle of evolution.
One concept leads to another, to another.
But it comes full circle.
Well, that's a big claim.
Because if you can identify the
starting point of philosophy,
then you know where it's headed back to.
And Indian philosophy began with the Vedas.
And the end of the Vedas are
the Upanishads, are theistic.
They talk about Vishnu, the supreme
Atman and the supreme Brahman.
These are the two sides of God.
Brahman is the impersonal, all pervasive
omniscient ocean of potential being.
This precognitive bliss before you perceive
it through the categories of thought.
Atman is the each, each individual
point of the supreme Atman.
So, and I've compared this to the
particle wave paradox of quantum mechanics.
When you observe the quantum world
that acts like individual particles.
But when you're not observing them,
they behave like waves of probability.
So, that is the original Hindu philosophy.
Atman and Brahman and Vishnu's
the origin of both.
And so, then, Indian philosophy went from
that to Buddhism, which is no Atman, Anatman.
There are no individual selves.
And as I said, the Hindus say, Buddha
was Vishnu disguised as an atheist.
Then, after Buddha, we have Shankara, who
we discussed a little bit in our book,
Introduction to World Philosophy.
But then, after Shankara, there was, there
was a return to the theistic interpretation.
And there was, there was Madhava.
And there was Chaitanya.
Chaitanya's [inaudible] was
achintya-bheda-abheda tattva.
Inconceivably one and different
God is Atman and Brahman.
One with everyone yet separate from everyone.
Personal and impersonal.
The union of all opposites.
So, that is the historical cycle in Indian
philosophy, with which Nietzsche was familiar.
And he's a German philosopher.
So, is he seeing German philosophy coming back
to this kind of original Brahmanical philosophy?
In his first book, The Birth
of Tragedy, he does imply that.
I've got to make sure this video is still going.
Because it likes to turn off.
Okay. Good.
In his first book, The Birth of Tragedy,
he talks about Dionysus and Apollo.
And I'm going to read a little bit about that.
I will start with page 97 of this book.
So, well, here, here's where he's talking
about the three stages of history.
So, he says, it is an eternal phenomenon.
The craving will, always finds a way
to maintain it's creatures in life.
And to compel them to live on by
spreading an illusion over things.
One man is held fast by the Socratic delight and
knowledge and the delusion that it can help him
to heal the eternal wound of life.
Another's entangled in the seductive vail of
artistic beauty, which hovers before his eyes.
Yet another enthralled by the metaphysical
consolation that under the whirl of phenomenon,
eternal life flows on indestructible.
Not to mention, the more common
and almost more powerful illusions,
which the will holds ready at any moment.
Those three stages of illusion
are reserved exclusively
for the more nobly constituted
natures who feel the burden and weight
of existence with profound displeasure.
And who must be deluded into forgetting this
displeasure through a selection of stimulants.
From these stimulants arises
everything which we call culture.
According to the proportions of the mixture,
we have a predominantly Socratic
or artistic or tragic culture.
Or, if I may avail myself of historical
examples, either the Alexandrian
or a Hellenic or an Indian Brahmanic culture.
So, he identifies tragic culture
with Indian Brahmanic culture.
The whole book, The Birth of Tragedy, Out of the
Spirit of Music, he dedicated to Richard Wagner,
the composer, with whom he was a friend.
The whole book is saying that Germany and Europe
in general should be returning
to a tragic culture.
The tragic culture is a union
of Dionysus and Apollo.
A union of Brahman and Atman.
And Atman is also identified with Mya, illusion.
But what he says is that the will, the
underlying will, which he'll later call the will
to power, which is very similar
to the philosophy of Brahman.
It suffers individuation.
He uses the term individuation to mean
being ripped into different parts.
Into the separate elements of earth, water, fire
and air, he says in one of the sections of here.
And that's painful.
And overcome the pain, he needs healing
illusions of art, especially music.
And that when the musician
is inspired by the God,
that that's how the musician
helps the God console himself.
And so, that all of nature is an illusion
created by the God to help deal with the agony
of being constantly ripped
into individual pieces.
And that the reunion of Apollo and
Dionysus is what he calls tragic culture.
But again, for this brief introduction to
the kind of subtext of Nietzsche's books,
I just want to point out that in his first book,
he's advocating a return to tragic culture,
which he identifies with
Indian Brahmanic culture.
And that's important when we are relating
him to the philosophies of Kant and Hegel.
Especially for Hegel, who talks
about historical philosophizing,
which Nietzsche talks about
in Human, All Too Human.
He says, this is what we need to
study the history of philosophy.
But he's presenting it in Human, All
Too Human, as if he's a materialist.
That we can explain all of metaphysics by
reducing it to the brain chemicals basically
that have evolved through the organic
history, the evolution of organic nature,
which he talks about in section
16, appearance and thing in itself.
Which in The Birth of Tragedy,
he calls Apollo and Dionysus.
So, and yet, we saw in Beyond Good and
Evil number 20 that he says, all Indian,
Greek and German philosophy
revolves in an orbit.
Because the grammar the same.
The laws of grammar, subject
and predicate, especially.
Those are things that David Hume
an Immanuel Kant talk about.
That they force our concepts into certain
directions, which happen to be cyclical.
And so, if it started with
the Brahminical philosophy
and it inevitably follows a
cycle, it should return there.
And that is what Nietzsche
seems to be advocating
in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.
So, and we saw from The Gay Science, where
he talked about, to those who preach morals.
You know, you should.
I'll just read that again.
To those who preach morals,
deny these good things.
Withdraw the mobs of claim from them.
You know, that way you might win
over for these things the kind
of people who alone matter, the heroic.
Therefore, I ask God to rid me of God.
So, if you attack God, then you'll
inspire the heroes to God's defense.
The best way to strengthen
a cause is to attack it.
That's, that's what his advice is.
And he talks about being a disguised saint
in poem number 31 of The Gay Science.
Alright. So, continuing now.
Here's Beyond Good and Evil number 27.
He says, it is hard to be understood.
Especially, when one thinks
and lives gangasrotogati.
That. And if you translate
that, which he doesn't,
it means as the currant of the Ganges flows.
Among men who think and live differently, namely
kurmagati, which means as the tortoise moves.
Or at best, the way frogs walk.
Mundagati.
Mundeikagati.
I obviously.
He says now in parenthesis, I obviously do
everything to be hard to understand myself.
And one should be cordially grateful for the
good will that some subtly of interpretation.
So, why would he use Sanskrit,
and he didn't translate it
in his original book, to describe himself?
He's saying, I'm intentionally
being difficult to understand.
It is hard to be understood, especially
when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati.
Among. Alright.
So, if you live as the currant
of the Ganges flows,
well that's definitely identifying yourself
with the Hindu philosophy,
with the Holy River Ganges.
He thinks like the Ganges River flows.
Well, that would imply he thinks like a Hindu.
That's Beyond Good and Evil number 27.
Seven aphorisms earlier,
Beyond Good and Evil 20.
He said, all Indian, Greek and German
philosophy revolve in the same orbit.
And he's also admitting, I'm
being intentionally difficult.
And I want you to be subtle
in your interpretations.
So, that's what I'm doing here.
If you look at Beyond Good and Evil number 55.
He says, there is a great ladder of
religious cruelty with many rungs.
But three of these are the most important.
And they, they are sacrificing others,
sacrificing yourself as an [inaudible].
And then, sacrificing God.
So, to sacrifice God for the
nothing, this paradoxical mystery
of the final cruelty was reserved for
the generation that is now coming up.
All of us already know something of this.
So, that is the ladder of religious cruelty.
But the ladder bends into a circle, as we're
going to see in the very next aphorism,
number 56 of Beyond Good and Evil.
Whoever is really with an Asiatic
and supra Asiatic eye looked into,
down into the most world denying
of all possible ways of thinking.
Beyond good and evil and no longer like
the Buddha and Schopenhauer under the spell
and delusion of morality, may just
thereby without really meaning to do
so have opened his eyes to the opposite ideal.
The idea of the most high spirited
alive and world affirming human being,
who has not only come to terms and learn to
get along with what, with whatever was and is,
but who wants to have what was
and is repeated into all eternity.
Shouting insatiably [inaudible], which
means from the beginning, a musical term.
Not only to himself.
But to the whole play and spectacle.
And not only to a spectacle.
But at bottom to him, who
needs precisely the spectacle.
And who makes it necessary.
Because again and again he needs himself.
And makes himself necessary.
What and wouldn't this be
circulus vitiosus deus.
So, Walter Kaufman translates that to
mean, either a vicious circle made God
or God is a vicious circle or
the circle is a vicious God.
So, that ladder of religious cruelty.
First you sacrifice others.
And then, you sacrifice yourself by
renouncing the physical pleasures of life.
And then, finally, you sacrifice God.
But then, he says that.
He calls God a vicious circle.
The circle is a vicious God.
And we saw in Beyond Good and Evil number 20.
So, now we're at 56.
But back in 20, Indian, Greek and German
philosophy, they revolve in a circle.
The whole cyclical progression
of philosophical concepts,
from theism through atheism back to theism.
That is itself God, it seems
to be what Nietzsche's saying.
And that idea of a ladder turning
into a circle and relating that to God
and God torturing people, that
was in Beyond Good and Evil.
He, he addressed that same kind of
philosophy and imagery in Daybreak
or The Dawn in number 113 and in number 96.
And I'll read those.
And we'll see how it relates
back to the, to The Gay Science.
So, in Daybreak number 113, he
says, the striving for distinction.
The striving for distinction is the
striving for domination over the next man.
At the end of the ladder stands
the [inaudible] and martyr,
who feels the highest enjoyment
by himself enduring.
That which on the first step of the ladder, his
counterpart the barbarian imposes on others.
In both cases, an unspeakable
happiness at the site of torment.
Indeed, happiness conceived
is the liveliest feeling
of power has perhaps been
nowhere greater on earth
than in the souls of superstitious [inaudible].
The Brahmans give statement to this in the story
of King Vishvamitra, who derived such strength
from practicing pennants for a thousand years
that he undertook to construct a new Heaven.
I believe that in this whole
species of inner experience,
we are now incompetent novices
groping after the solution of riddles.
They knew more about these infamous
refinements of self-enjoyment 4,000 years ago.
The creation of the world, perhaps it was
then thought of by some Indian dreaming
as an [inaudible] operation
on the part of a God.
Perhaps, the God wanted to banish himself into
acting and moving nature, as into an instrument
of torture, in order, thereby, to
feel his bliss and power redoubled.
And supposing it was a God of love, would
enjoyment for such a God to create suffering men
to suffer divinely and superhumanly from
the ceaseless torment of the sight of them.
And thus, to tyrannize over himself.
Is the circle of striving for distinction
really at an end with the [inaudible]?
Could this circle not be run
through again from the beginning,
holding fast to the basic
disposition of the [inaudible].
And at the same time, that of the pitying God.
That is to say, doing hurt to others
in order thereby to hurt one's self.
In order then to triumph over one's self.
And one's pity into revel
in an extremity of power.
Excuse these extravagant reflections on
all that may have been possible on earth
through the psychical extravagance
of the lust for power.
So, you see that idea of the ladder of
religious cruelty bending into a circle,
which is reminiscent of the whole idea
of the cycle of philosophical history.
Starting with God, going through atheism.
And it would imply, coming back to God.
Earlier in The Dawn, section number six.
This is going to bring up this whole idea
of Europe following the same
historical pattern as India before us.
So, he says, however much progress
Europe may have made in other respects.
In religious matters, it is not yet attained
to the free-minded [inaudible]
of the ancient Brahmans.
A sign that there was more thinking.
And that more pleasure and thinking was
customarily inherited 4,000 years ago
in India, than is the case today.
For those Brahmans believed firstly that the
priests were more powerful than the Gods.
And secondly, that the power of the
priests resided in the observances.
A step further, and one threw the Gods aside,
which is what Europe will
also have to do one day.
Another step further, and one no longer had
need of the priests and mediators either.
And the teacher of the religion of
ademption, of redemption, the Buddha appeared.
How distant Europe still is
from this level of culture.
When, finally, all the observances and
customs upon which the power of the Gods
and of the priests and redeemers
depends will have died.
Then, there will come.
Well, what will come then?
But let us not speculate idly.
Let us first of all see to it that Europe
overtake what was done several thousands
of years ago in India.
And so, what's he's talking about.
That we should reach the level Buddha.
But then what will come?
He says, well, let's not
think about that right now.
Let's just get there first.
God is dead.
But if you take into account his whole
philosophy of this cycle of philosophy
and the idea of a disguised saint attacking
religion, so as to get the heroes to defend it.
Then, it starts making you think,
is Nietzsche just attacking religion
and especially Christianity in the hopes
of making the return happen more quickly?
It's a plausible interpretation.
Especially, given his upbringing in a family
of Lutheran pastors, both of his fathers.
When his father was Lutheran pastor, both
of his grandfathers, some of his uncles.
And he trained to be a Lutheran pastor.
We saw in the previous video at age 17 the
Sanskrit philologist and friend of Nietzsche's,
Paul Deussen said that they
had this mystical enlightenment
in the week before and after their confirmation.
And that they would've been quite
willing to die for Christ at any moment.
But then, he said that the mystical
attitude faded like a little plant.
It faded away as quickly as it grew.
For Paul Deussen, yes, it did.
But for Nietzsche, that's
not necessarily the case.
So, I will.
For example, in The Gay Science,
he says God is dead.
He attaches that to Buddha.
But also. And then, he goes on to talk
about, you know, the churches are the,
the tombs and crypts of God in
section 125 of The Gay Science.
But in the very next book, Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, in book two, The Tomb Song,
he says, and only, and only
where there are tombs,
are there resurrections,
thus saying Zarathustra.
So. And here's how he.
Here's something from The
Gay Science, number 289.
Embark. What is needful is a new justice.
And a new watchword.
And new philosophers.
The moral earth too is round.
The moral earth too has it's antipodes.
The antipodes too have the right to exist.
There is yet another world to be
discovered, and more than one.
Embark philosophers.
So, the moral earth is round.
This is this whole idea of a cyclical
progression of philosophical concepts
that you need to have in
mind when reading Nietzsche.
If you look at the very end of
Daybreak, section number 575.
He says, we aeronauts of the
spirit, all our great teachers
and predecessors have at last come to a stop.
Other birds will fly farther.
Flocks of birds, which far stronger than
we, still strive whether we have striven.
And where everything is sea, sea, sea.
And wither then would we go?
Would we cross the sea?
Will it perhaps be said of us one day that we
too steering westward hoped to reach an India?
But that it was our fate to
be wrecked against infinity?
Or, my brothers, or?
So, he leaves it an open question.
We'll be. Will we be wrecked against
infinity in our search for India?
For the ancient philosophy of India?
Or, or will we come full circle back to it?
And you should also keep in mind that The Dawn,
which ends with this idea of steering westward
in hopes of reaching an India, it
began with a quote from the Rigveda.
And that's where the book got it's title.
So, it begins, the book Daybreak or The Dawn.
The quote from the Rigveda is, there are
so many days that have not yet broken.
So, it begins with a quote
from the Veda, the Rigveda.
It ends with this idea of going
around the world back to India.
And that is a theme that emerges.
So, that idea where everything is sea, sea, sea.
I'm going to relate that last part
of Daybreak back to The Gay Science.
Because we saw that same imagery on section 124.
In the horizon of the infinite.
We have left the land and gone to sea.
We have burned the bridge behind us.
Even more, we have destroyed the land behind us.
Now, ship, look out, look ahead.
Beside you lies the ocean.
To be sure it does not always roar.
And every now and then, it lies there
like silk and gold in a fantasy of grace.
But hours will come when you will
recognize that it is infinite
and that there is nothing
more terrible than infinity.
Oh, the poor bird that felt free and now
pushes against the walls of this cage.
Woah with home sickness for
the land strikes you,
as if there would've been more liberty there.
And there is no longer any land.
And then, The Madman, section 125.
So, The Madman is telling everyone God is dead.
People are laughing at him.
One of the things he says, is how
were we able to drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge to
wipe away the whole horizon?
So, God is dead.
Everything is sea, sea, sea.
And yet, we saw in Daybreak, which is the book.
So, it's Daybreak.
And then, I believe.
It was Human, All Too Human.
Then, Daybreak.
And then, The Gay Science.
But at any rate, Nietzsche asks us to
compare and contrast looking before and aft.
In the preface to The Dawn number five, he
said, we have to look before and after all
of his books to understand them well.
This whole idea of the horizon of the infinite.
So, if steering westward,
hoped to reach an India.
Well, perhaps, he said of us one day that we
too steering westward, hoped to reach an India.
But that it was our fate to
be wrecked against infinity.
Or, my brothers, or?
So, in The Gay Science, yes,
we're wrecked against infinity.
The horizon of the infinite.
But that is where the Vedas,
the Upanishads say God exists.
Vishnu's exist there.
It also where Plato says God exists.
At the outermost sphere of the universe.
The horizon of the cosmos.
It's infinitely far away in the respect
that if you approach it physically,
it recedes with every step.
But if you have an out of body experience
after death, then you can reach there.
According to people's near-death experiences
and according to holographic string theory,
which I've talked about in other videos.
I think it's important to
briefly mention it again here.
Nietzsche talks about science.
How we need to pay attention to the little.
In Human, All Too Human, he says, science.
In number six, he says, for this
reason, all philosophies embrace
so much high-flying metaphysics
and such a shyness
of the seemingly insignificant
solutions of physics.
So, the seemingly insignificant solutions of
physics have accumulated over the years to come
up with this idea of holographic string
theory, which is that the past, the present
and the future of the universe are interwoven
at the outermost sphere of the cosmos,
where space is receding at the speed of light.
And then, they radiate inward
with the echo of the Big Bang.
The cosmic microwave background radiation on
one dimensional fundamental threads of energy
that create the illusion,
the holographic illusion
of three-dimensional objects evolving over time.
So, that is the philosophy that it seems
Nietzsche thinks we're heading back to.
And in the meantime, he's
advocating the philosophy,
which I don't think he genuinely believes,
which is this material reductionism
of the Neo-Darwinian theory.
The, the, the whole evolution of organic nature.
He's saying, you know, that.
I think what he's trying to
do is guide the western world
through the skepticism and atheism.
That phase of philosophy through which you
have to go in order to complete the cycle back
around to the original understanding
of God that you find in the Upanishads,
which is very [inaudible], which you
find in Plato, which is very similar
to the Catholic theology,
which was in large part created
by splicing Plato's metaphysics with the Bible.
So, so, I want to.
So, I've read that.
And now, I want to just conclude
this video with the episode
where Nietzsche finally lost his mind.
And I just want to make sure
that this video still.
