Subject: RE: Nietzsche and Chaos
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 11:13:17 +0100



Hi Julio,

This list has been very quiet for a while I'm afraid, which is a shame 'cos
there are quite a few very knowledgable Nietzsche enthusiasts subcribed
(sorry, I'm not one of them!!). Maybe your  question will stimulate some
discussion....

Personally, the line I immediately thought of is a favourite for many
people, and it's N's claim early in Zarathustra that "One must have chaos
inside oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star" (or words to that
effect).  

And I think you may find in N some support for the view of structures that
emerges from chaos theory, as being fleeting & inherently vague and
arbitrary, in Sartre's words 'metastable'. 

But this support could just be superficial. In terms of metaphysics, to my
mind at least, chaos theory amounts to little more than a demonstration of
how unpredictability emerges in a deterministic universe. The state of a
chaotic system still depends (however sensitively) on its initial state. And
this is very much against the flavour of N and existentialism in general -
Existence preceeds Essence and all that.

But maybe you'll find more similarities in looking at attractor points and
so forth, and the way in which order is arrived at through chaos in the
first place. I don't know... anyone else got any thoughts? 

Either way, it sounds like a very interesting dissertation - I'd love to
read it when you've finished, or hear some of the ideas you've got now. 

Best wishes,

Sam


-----Original Message-----
From: Julio Varela [mailto:jav65-AT-bellsouth.net]
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 2:13 AM
To: nietzsche-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Nietzsche and Chaos


Hello Nietzsche list,

        I am new to the list and would appreciate some help from you
all. Part of my dissertation work involves the analysis of how certain
philosophers and theorists (Nietzsche, Deleuze and Guattari, Serres)
approach the issue of chaos. I know that Nietzsche pre-dates the
emergence of chaos theory, but I suspect that in his body of work there
are intimations that address the ideas of chaos, disorder, randomness,
the
aleatory, etc. Could you recommend primary source material as well as
Nietzsche scholarship that deals with these themes? Thanks in advance.

All the best,

Julio Varela
jav65-AT-bellsouth.net



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