Nietzsche for Physicists

Nietzsche for physicists Juliano C. S. Neves∗ Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Instituto de Matemática, Estatística e Computação Científica, CEP. 13083-859, Campinas, SP, Brazil Abstract One of the most important philosophers in history, the German Friedrich Nietzsche, is almost ignored by physicists. This author who declared the death of God in the 19th century was a science enthusiast, especially in the second period of his work. With the aid of the physical concept of force, Nietzsche created his concept of will to power. After thinking about energy conservation, the German philosopher had some inspiration for creating his concept of eternal recurrence. In this article, some influences of physics on Nietzsche are pointed out, and the topicality of his epistemological position—the perspectivism—is discussed. Considering the concept of will to power, I propose that the perspectivism leads to an interpretation where physics and science in general are viewed as a game. Keywords: Perspectivism, Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence, Physics 1 Introduction: an obscure philosopher? The man who said “God is dead” (GS §108)1 is a popular philosopher well-regarded world- wide. Nietzsche is a strong reference in philosophy, psychology, sociology and the arts. But did Nietzsche have any influence on natural sciences, especially on physics? Among physicists and scientists in general, the thinker who created a philosophy that argues against the Platonism is known as an obscure or irrationalist philosopher. However, contrary to common arXiv:1611.08193v3 [physics.hist-ph] 15 May 2018 ideas, although Nietzsche was critical about absolute rationalism, he was not an irrationalist. Nietzsche criticized the hubris of reason (the Socratic rationalism2): the belief that mankind ∗[email protected] 1Nietzsche’s works are indicated by the initials, with the correspondent sections or aphorisms, established by the critical edition of the complete works edited by Colli and Montinari [Nietzsche, 1978]. The Birth of Tragedy is BT, Human, all too Human is HH, Gay Science is GS, Beyond Good and Evil is BGE, Ecce Homo is EH, Twilight of the Idols is TI, On the Genealogy of Morality is GM, On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense is TL, and the posthumous fragments (or notebooks) are PF, indicated by their numbers and years. 2Socrates, who according to Nietzsche, is “the archetype of the theoretical optimist”, had “the imper- turbable belief that thought, as it follows the thread of causality, reaches down into the deepest abysses of being, and that it is capable, not simply of understanding existence, but even of correcting it” (BT §15). 1 could be guided only by reason. That is, the German philosopher was a hard critic of the Enlightenment3 (or Aufklärung in German): to him, the idea of salvation and redemption by means of reason was an equivocated one. Nietzsche accused the hubris of reason,4 but the philosopher did not deny the use of reason itself. As we shall see, this is clear from Ni- etzsche’s education (Bildung). Among his references, there are several natural philosophers and/or scientists. Nietzsche was a reader of Charles Darwin (at least the Darwinian ideas), Hermann von Helmholtz, Roger Boscovich, and others. He tried to stay up-to-date on scientific debate during the 19th century. Therefore, this philosopher who is also considered a poet (Thus Spoke Zarathustra is poetry as well) never denied the importance of science. Of course, his scientific view was different, and Nietzsche thought about science from another point of view—by using his perspectivism.5 According to research in the Nietzschean philosophy, the author’s works are didactically divided into three periods. In the first one, there exists an approximation with Romanticism, Schopenhauer, and the German musician Richard Wagner. In the second one, Nietzsche breaks off his friendship with Wagner and stays away from Romanticism and Schopenhauer’s influence. The third part is the period where the Nietzschean philosophy acquires its “full identity” and originality. Science’s influence on Nietzsche is present in all of these periods. However, from the second period onward, this influence is more evident. In a book from this period, Human, all too Human, Nietzsche says: “Optimism, for the purpose of restoration” (HH II, Preface 5). That is, Nietzsche identifies science with optimism (an idea originally proposed in his very first book, The Birth of Tragedy, where Socratism is criticized) and emphasizes the beginning of a process of a cure. The philosopher recovered his health with the aid of science. His illness was blamed on Schopenhauer’s pessimism and Wagner. In On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche defines the purpose of science in our time, modernity: “All sciences must, from now on, prepare the way for the future work of the philosopher: this work being understood to mean that the philosopher has to solve the problem of values and that he has to decide on the rank order of values” (GM I §17). Therefore, as we can see, the importance of science in Nietzschean philosophy transcends the scientific realm. As we have already seen, among Nietzsche’s influences is the multifaceted Roger Boscovich. In the next section, we shall see how important the concept of force from physics (due to Boscovich) was in developing Nietzsche’s concept of will to power (Wille zur Macht). From that concept, will to power, Nietzsche builds his cosmological view: the eternal recurrence of the same, as we shall see in Section 3. His epistemological position, the perspectivism, is presented in Section 4 with an application to two problems in modern physics: wave-particle duality and the gravitational phenomenon. In Section 5, I use the concepts of will to power and perspectivism to interpret physics—and science in general—as a game. 3The philosopher suggests a new Enlightenment in several texts. See, for example, the fragments 25 [296], 26 [298], 27 [79] and 27 [80] of 1884. 4In On the Genealogy of Morality one reads: “Hubris today characterizes our whole attitude towards nature, our rape of nature with the help of machines and the completely unscrupulous inventiveness of technicians and engineers” (GM III §9). 5I will discuss this cardinal concept in Nietzschean philosophy in Section 4. 2 2 Physics in Nietzsche’s main concepts The Croatian thinker Roger Boscovich (physicist, mathematician, philosopher, etc.) was a decisive reference for Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche’s reading of Boscovich’s concept of force was an essential ingredient to construct his famous concept of will to power. In the 18th century, Boscovich studied body collisions. From his research, the Croatian concluded that matter is a manifestation of forces. According to the physicist and physics historian Max Jammer [Jammer, 1999, p. 178], for Boscovich “impenetrability and extension [...] are merely spatial expressions of forces, ‘force’ is consequently more fundamental than ‘matter’ [...]”. Nietzsche confirms that idea and writes in Beyond Good and Evil: “Boscovich taught us to renounce belief in the last bit of earth that did ‘stand still,’ the belief in ‘matter,’ in the ‘material,’ [...]” (BGE §12). As well as Boscovich, Nietzsche emphasizes the concept of force (Kraft) to the detriment of matter (Materie). The material world is a manifestation of forces, which, in the Nietzschean case, as we shall see, are translated into wills to power. For Nietzsche, the physical concept of force was important but such a concept was an empty word. In a posthumous fragment, with a bit of irony, this is clear: “The triumphant concept of ‘force’, with which our physicists have excluded God from the world, needs sup- plementing: it must be ascribed an inner world which I call ‘will to power’ [...]” (PF 36 [31] of 1885).6 In another fragment the idea is stressed: “A force we cannot imagine (like the allegedly purely mechanical force of attraction and repulsion) is an empty phrase and must be refused rights of citizenship in science” (PF 2 [88] of 1885). The will to power, according to Nietzsche’s thought, completes the concept of force. A will to power is a quantum of power, it is “characterized by the effect it exerts and the effect it resists [...]. The quantum of power is essentially a will to violate and to defend one- self against being violated. Not self-preservation” (PF 14 [79] of 1888), said the philosopher. In this sense, becoming is considered to be a result of the intention to increase power; it is not considered a result of intentions of “self-preservation”.7 Above all, Nietzsche writes, “everything that happens out of intentions can be reduced to the intention of increasing power” (PF 2 [88] of 1885). Therefore, will to power means that everything, whether organic or inorganic, “wants” to increase its power. Such a quantum of power is neither a metaphysical concept nor a substance, it cannot be confused with a being: “the will to power not a being, not a becoming, but a pathos, is the most elementary fact, and becoming, effecting, is only a result of this...”8 (PF 14 [79] of 1888). By using the concept of force, in a famous fragment, Nietzsche says what the world is: And do you know what “the world” is to me? [...]. This world: a monster of force, without beginning, without end, a fixed, iron quantity of force which grows neither larger nor smaller, [...] a play of forces and force-waves simultaneously one and “many” [...]—This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! (PF 38 [12] of 1885). The world as will to power can be viewed as forces struggling for more power. A fragment similar to 2 [88] of 1885 has been found, but in this case it indicates the concept of force: “All 6According to Nietzsche Source (http://www.nietzschesource.org), the passage translated in Nietzsche [2003, p.

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