Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Issue 30, 2005Copyright ©2005 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society.

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Nietzsche’s Overhuman:Creating on the Crest of the Timepoint

CLAUDIA CRAWFORD

“Settling on the Threshold of the Moment”“Standing on a Point Like a Goddess of Victory”

Since the translation and publication of Nietzsche’s fragment from 1873called the Zeitatomenlehre, Time-Atom Theory, we find that the funda-

mental interpretations “for life” that Nietzsche reveals lie at a level removedfrom social and political readings per se and belong more fairly to the specula-tions of the sciences of physics and bodily perception. I will argue that Nietzschedevelops, throughout his philosophy, time-conceptions that urge us to live moreunhistorically and superhistorically.

Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre first came to light in Alwin Mittasch, Nietzsche alsNaturphilosoph (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1952). Mittasch was familiar withthis aspect of Nietzsche’s work as editor of volume 10 of the Grossoktavausgabeedition of Nietzsche’s works. Then in 1962 the Zeitatomenlehre was given (along-side Nietzsche’s original handwriting) in Karl Schlechta and Anni Anders,Friedrich Nietzsche: Von den verborgenen Anfangen seines Philosophierens(Stuttgart-ad Bal, Cannstatt: Friedrich Fromman Verlag). It was then made avail-able in volume 7 of the Colli-Montinari Kritische Studienausgabe, Band 7 (Berlinand New York, 1988) (KSA 7: 26[12]). An English translation is available in vol-ume 11 of Stanford’s Complete Works (1995). Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre had notbeen seriously considered until about 1990. For the reader’s convenience, I givemy own translation here.1

I would like to interpret the major points in the Zeitatomenlehre and offer aninterpretation that can help with lacunae others have found in Nietzsche’s theoryof time and the eternal recurrence of the same. This discussion is essential to under-standing an interpretation of Nietzsche’s mature ideas of will to power, eternalrecurrence of the same, and especially Nietzsche’s conception of the overhuman.2

Translation of Nietzsche’s Time Atom Theory (Zeitatomenlehre) Early 1873

Movement in timeA B. .

Spacepoint A effects spacepoint B and vice versa.For that a time is necessary, because each effect has a distance to cover.Consecutive timepoints would fall into one another.

A would no longer encounter the B of the first moment with its effect.What does that mean, then? B still exists and Astill exists, if they encounter?That would mean above all that A is unchanged and exactly the same inthat and in this timepoint. Then, however, A is not an effective force,because it can no longer be the same; because that would mean it hadnot created an effect.Suppose we posit effective being in time, it would be a different one ineach tiniest effective time moment.That means, time proves the absolute noncontinuance of a force.All laws of space are then to be thought of as timeless, that means, theymust be simultaneous and immediate.The whole world at a stroke. Then, however, there is no movement.Movement labors under the contradiction, that it is constructed accord-ing to laws of space and through the acceptance of time makes these lawsimpossible again; that means, it simultaneously is and is not.Here it is helpful to accept that either time or space = 0.If I take space as infinitely small, all spaces in between the atoms wouldbe infinitely small; that means all atom points fall together into one [andthe same space] point.

Since, however, time is infinitely divisible, the whole world is possible as purelytime phenomena, because each timepoint can be occupied by the one space point[my emphasis] and can be so posited an infinite number of times. One wouldhave to think the essence of a body as distinct timepoints, that means, the one[space] point placed in specific intervals. Between each time-interval, more infi-nite timepoints can be placed: then it is possible to think a whole material world,with the one [space] point supplying the means [my emphasis], but in such away that we can resolve matter into discontinuous timelines.

. .

. .Now it is only . .necessary to have

. .

. .

. .a reproducing being, that holds earlier time moments alongside the present one.In this way our bodies are imagined.

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 23

There is then no [sequential] juxtaposition [of time moments], except in repre-sentation.

All juxtaposition would be inferred and represented. The laws of space wouldall be constructed and would not guarantee the existence of space.

Number of type of succession of that repeatedly posited [space] point wouldthen constitute matter.The reality of the world would then consist in one persisting [space] point.Multiplicity would come about if there were representing beings, who couldrepeatedly think this [space] point in the smallest moments: beings who take the[space] point in different timepoints as not being identical and now take these[time] points simultaneously.

Translation of all laws of movement into time-proportions.

The essence of sensation would consist in gradually perceiving and measuringsuch time configurations more and more keenly; representation constructs themin terms of [sequential] juxtaposition and explains the progress of the world inlight of this juxtaposition: pure translation into another language, into that ofbecoming. The order of the world would be the regularity of time-configura-tions: one would have to think, in that case, of time as working with a constanteffective force, following laws, which we can only explain out of juxtaposition.Action at a distance temporus punctum.3In itself we have absolutely no means of positing a law of time. We would havethen a pointual force [the spacepoint], which would have a relation to each sub-sequent moment of its existence, that means, whose forces exist in those con-figurations and relations. In each smallest moment the force would have to bedifferent: but the sequence would be in whatever proportions, and the presentworld would consist in the becoming visible of these force-proportions, whichmeans, translation into the spatial.

Usually in atomistic physics one accepts unchanging atom-force in time, that isovτα in the Parmenidean sense. These, however, cannot work. Rather onlyabsolutely changeable forces can work, such which are not in any instant the same.All forces are only a function of time.

1. An effect out of successive time moments is impossible: because two suchtimepoints would collapse into each other. Thus every effect is action ata distance, that means through leaping.

2. How an effect of this kind in distance is possible, we simply do not know.

3. Fast, slow, and so on is the whole type of this effect. That means, the forcesas function of time express themselves in the relations of close or distant

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timepoints, namely, quickly or slowly. The force lies in the degree of acceleration.

The highest acceleration would lie in the effect of one time moment on thenext, that means, it would be then = infinitely great.The greater the slowness, the greater the interval of time, the greater the dis-tance would be . . .Thus, the relation between more distant timepoints is slowness: all slowness is,naturally, relative.

Timeline

Real: one spacepoint We measure time by some-thing spatially grounded

Relations of its and because of that wedifferent time positions presuppose that between

timepoint A and timepointB there is a continuous time.

Where do the Time is, however, not atrelations exist? all a continuum; rather,

there are only totallyNo movement in time different timepoints, nois constant line. Action at a distance.

We can only talk of timepoints, no longer of time. The timepoint effects anothertimepoint, thus dynamic qualities are presupposed. Time-atom model.

1. It is possible to trace the present world back to pointual space atomism.

2. This, in turn, is traceable to time atomism.

3. Time atomism collapses finally into a theory of perception. The dynamictimepoint is identical with the perceptual point because there is no simul-taneity of perception.

Because of its relevance to the Zeitatomenlehre, Schlechta and Andersincluded the following notes together with it, and added that Nietzsche’s perception-teaching (Empfindungslehre) is also an atomistic one, as number 3above clearly indicates.4

I have nothing but perception and representation.Thus, I cannot think of them as developing out of the representations-contents.All those cosmogonies, etc., are made accessible through the data of perception.We cannot think that which is not perception and representation.

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 25

Also not pure existence of time, space world, without perceiving andrepresenting.I cannot represent nothingness to myself.The existing is perception and representation.Nothingness would be something that is not perception and representation.The representing one cannot “represent its own non-existence,” cannot repre-sent itself away.The representing one cannot think oneself as having become or as passing away.The development of matter is also impossible until the representing one.But the opposition between matter and representation does not exist.Matter itself is only given as perception.Each conclusion beyond it is forbidden.Perception and representation are the reasons that we believe in causes,collisions, bodies.We trace them back to movement and numbers [my emphasis] (KSA 7:26[11]).

What these additional notes help us to understand more clearly is that forNietzsche not only does the cosmos arise for us through our sensation and rep-resentation of it, but also that our sensation and representation is its very exis-tence in each discrete timepoint.

Major Elements of the Time-Atom Model

I would like to propose that there are four important elements in Nietzsche’sZeitatomenlehre that need to be distinguished: the one spacepoint, infinite dis-crete timepoints, leaping forcepoints, and perceptualpoints. Let us take theseone by one.

1. The One Spacepoint. First, we have “the whole world at a stroke”; thewhole world as the one spacepoint. Nietzsche posits that space = 0. “If Itake space as infinitely small, all spaces in between the [space] atomswould be infinitely small, that means, all atom points fall together intoone [and the same space] point.” And, for Nietzsche, it is the one space-point that supplies the means of the whole material world. In Nietzsche’scharacterization of the one spacepoint, we must see the law of conserva-tion of energy, a static amount of space/matter. The experience of multi-plicity comes in coincidence of each perceptualpoint with each timepoint;representing beings “take the [space] point in different timepoints as notbeing identical and now take these [time] points simultaneously.” In otherwords, while we actually experience each timepoint discretely, we string

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them together in a line. However, what is real is only the one spacepoint.In the one (bounded) spacepoint, we have not only the whole world as itexists in this perceptual moment or timepoint, but all possible combina-tions of this world, past and future, exist in this moment and are syn-chronous with it.

2. Infinitely Divisible Discrete Timepoints. This whole world, and all itspossible worlds, dies in each moment and returns, having realized one ofthose possibilities in the following moment. Nietzsche’s timepoints arecompletely discrete and discontinuous. “Time is not a continuum, ratherthere are only totally different timepoints, no line.” Nietzsche writes thatwe can no longer talk of time but only of timepoints. Nietzsche adds thattime is infinitely divisible and each timepoint is distinct from each other.As we saw above, it is the one spacepoint that supplies the means for aworld to be posited in each discrete timepoint. This means the same space-point posited an infinite number of discrete times. “Thus it is possible tothink a whole material world, with the one [space]point supplying themeans, but in such a way that we can resolve matter into discontinuoustimelines.”

3. Effective Forcepoints at a Distance Through Leaping. Nietzschewrites: “Usually in atomistic physics one accepts unchanging atom-force in time. These however cannot work. Only absolutely changingforces can work, such which are not in any instant the same.” “The time-point effects another timepoint, thus dynamic qualities are presup-posed.” Thus, Nietzsche says that all forces come about only as functionsof the timepoints. “In each smallest moment the force would have to bedifferent.” “An effect out of successive time moments is impossible:because two such timepoints would collapse into one another. Thus everyeffect is action at a distance, that means through leaping.” A pointualforce is coincident with each timepoint and the effective force would liein these very relations and configurations. The effect happens throughthe leaping (action at a distance) of the forcepoint. The force of the effectsdepend on the degree of acceleration and distance. What Nietzsche issuggesting, put in a simplified form, is something like this: you have theone spacepoint in one discrete timepoint with its effective forcepointbased on relations. In the next discrete timepoint, you have the wholespacepoint but changed by the effective (leaping) forcepoint. In the thirddiscrete timepoint, you have the whole spacepoint, but changed againby a new effective (leaping) forcepoint, etc. This process is infinite.

4. Perceptualpoints are Representing Beings. Nietzsche writes: “There isno [sequential] juxtaposition [of time moments], except in representation.”

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 27

“One would have to think the essence of a body as distinct timepoints, thatmeans, the one [space]point placed in specific intervals.” But it is only theperceptual being of the present moment who supplies a “succession inwhatever proportions, who offers the becoming visible of these force-pro-portions.” This activity of taking time and forcepoints together is whatNietzsche calls the dynamic timepoint and he equates the dynamic time-point with the perceptualpoint. “Representation constructs the time-con-figurations in terms of sequential juxtaposition and explains the progressof the world in light of this juxtaposition: pure translation in another lan-guage, in that of becoming.” Juxtaposition of time moments needs a per-ceptual being to represent it. Nietzsche suggests not only that matter andmultiplicity arise out of the relations between timepoints, but also out ofthe perceptual process (the perceptualpoint) in each timepoint and theeffective force of these operating on the one spacepoint. “Matter givenonly as perception.” “Perception and representation are the reasons thatwe believe in causes, collisions, bodies.” Perceptual being is not outsidethe process but is part of it.

So what we have is the eternal recurrence of the one same spacepoint (the wholeworld and all of its possibilities of position) in each infinitely small timepoint: theeternal recurrence of the same (whole). But we also have the eternal recurrenceof each discrete possible configuration or position of the spacepoint in each dif-ferent but infinitely occurring moment (or timepoint) as represented multiplicity.

Although Nietzsche does not specifically discuss return to the same or recur-rence in his 1873 Zeitatomenlehre notes, he implies it. He was working withBoscovich in such a way that it must have been in his mind in some form, as Iwill show later. Also in two other short works of the same period, On theAdvantages and Disadvantages of History for Life (1873) and Philosophy in theTragic Age of the Greeks (1872–73), Nietzsche is working with similar con-cepts.5 My effort here is to point out that some of the elements and relations ofwhat later becomes Nietzsche’s major idea of the eternal recurrence of the sameare already here in this fragment. As the finite one spacepoint cycles through itspossible positions in infinite dynamic timepoints, there will come the timepointat which it will start to repeat the same chain of positions. The finite perceptualbeing strings together a certain number of discrete dynamic timepoints.However, as a finite perceptual string (of dynamic timepoints), a being is com-pletely caught up in the much larger changing positions of the one recurringspacepoint and will also infinitely recur. A “life” is a bounded illusory repre-sented continuity of timepoints; one is actually caught in the overall dynamicprocess of infinitely discrete time and force effects. The perceived time and forcerelations of “a life” are one possible configuration of the spacepoint, and thusmust recur infinitely.

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The Bingo Cage Metaphor

Now, I would like to offer an analogy that makes the aspects of Nietzsche’sZeitatomenlehre a little more accessible. Let us imagine a huge bingo cage con-taining countless (but finite) bingo pieces (the one spacepoint, the whole worldat a single stroke with all its different possible configurations). The cage exists:it had no beginning and it can have no end; it exists in infinite process.6

You and I are individual bingo pieces inside this bingo cage, which turns itselfin each moment at infinitesimally small intervals (timepoints) for an infiniteamount of time. We are one of countless other bingo pieces. All of the piecesnecessary are in this cage (a finite number, thus all possible configurations arecontained in it; it is the Gesamtlage, the total situation, the whole world at astroke). Upon one infinitesimally small turn of the cage (one Lage or one time-point comes about), all of the pieces and their positions are changed and the rela-tionships of themselves and all the other pieces change as well because of theforces effected by the turning of the whole, giving a new timepoint. This setsoff the effective forces in time of each bingo piece moving according to themovements (relations) of all those around it in that particular turn (moment).Those more distant from one another turn more slowly, and thus with less force,and those closer in proximity turn rapidly, and thus, with more force.The cage stops, time stops (completely discrete, discontinuous timepoint).The cage turns again, all is simultaneously rearranged again. A whole differentconfiguration and all its possibilities at this next stroke.The cage stops, time stops.The cage turns again, all is simultaneously rearranged again. A whole differentconfiguration and all of its possibilities.This stopping and then turning again is an infinite process of relations of the onespacepoint, infinite timepoints, and the “leaping” of effective forces.Because there are a finite number of bingo pieces and possibilities and infinitelydivisible timepoints, at some timepoint the same combination (Lage) must occur,and it must occur again and again, in fact, infinitely. Of course, all of the pos-sibilities recur infinitely.

Within this cage, we as one bingo piece have consciousness as a perceptual being(perceptualpoint). In the pause between each infinitesimally small rotation andrearrangement of all the pieces, we are in a certain spot in relationship to all theother pieces in the cage, but we can perceive (according to the nature of our humanperception) only that which immediately surrounds us. In the next rotation andrearrangement, we can perceive only that which now surrounds us. It is of neces-sity different, but with enough resemblance to what surrounded us before that somecontinuity and some idea of space is posited there. We connect our perception ofthe previous configuration with the present configuration, tying them together insuccession. In each timepoint we perceive only a fraction of the total configuration

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 29

of all the bingo pieces in the cage (which includes all our other possibilities), butwe say that the configuration of the last moment, understood from our limited per-ception, causes the next, suggesting a continuity that does not in fact exist. In eachmoment, we understand the world as a process of causal becoming instead of under-standing it as the simultaneity of the existence of all the pieces and their possiblerelationships in infinite discrete timepoints. This allows us to create a historical(causal) perspective that is based on a perceptual process that only yields appearances, or as Nietzsche writes: “In this way our bodies are imagined.”7

If we posit a conscious being who lives eternally and can oversee this entireprocess, he or she would have of necessity been turned along with all the bingopieces an infinite number of times and at some point in time, in fact at an infinitenumber of points, he or she would have come into and repeated the same finitenumber of possibilities of relationship with all the other pieces and been con-scious of them—seen himself or herself live through a very great number of dif-ferent but recurring moments. And that person would have seen also that the exactrepetitions had to occur because of the sameness of the whole (spacepoint).

But our consciousness (perception) is finite (or at least we believe) and a per-son must perceive himself or herself living only a finite (period of time) num-ber of different moments (a lifetime). However, when our consciousness ceases,the bingo piece that we are does not disappear, but continues to be turned an infi-nite number of times, realizing many possibilities, until one of the turns of neces-sity brings consciousness and the identical world of that consciousness back tothat bingo piece. We do not see our recurrence, but can only perceive each dis-crete point of time over again. Being and succession (becoming) belong only toconsciousness, which periodically recurs. In each discontinuous timepoint, one“is” but also is in potentiality as “becoming.” Consciousness works only in con-junction with the timepoint. Thus, in the simultaneity of bingo pieces and thepossibilities of relationship of the bingo pieces in the bingo cage, the intervalbetween one individual’s perceptualpoint and the next occurrence of that indi-vidual perceptualpoint is “no time.” Each moment (timepoint) is timeless or dis-crete (in any sequential sense) and eternal by virtue of its necessary repetition.Nietzsche writes: “You think you have a long rest until rebirth—but do not foolyourselves! Between the last moment of consciousness and the first appearanceof new life lies ‘no time’—it passes by like a stroke of lightning, even if crea-tures measure it in terms of billions of years or could not measure it at all.Timelessness and succession are compatible as soon as the intellect is gone”(KSA 9: 11[318]). This is because the existing is perception and representation.

Nietzsche, Boscovich, and Loop Quantum Gravity

Most commentators on Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre go to Boscovich’s work, ATheory of Natural Philosophy, because it was a large influence on the theory.8 In

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the symposium on the Zeitatomenlehre in the Journal of Nietzsche Studies,GregoryWhitlock, in his article, “Time Atomism and Eternal Recurrence,” while not inter-preting Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre in the way I have, still comes close to under-standing what Nietzsche found attractive in Boscovich. He points to a passage inKeith Ansell Pearson’s article “Nietzsche’s Brave New World of Force,” whereAnsell Pearson discusses the question: Is duration of time actual or only possiblein the mind of the perceiver? Ansell Pearson posits two possibilities for answer-ing this question: “(a) that of generating a conception of temporality or temporalprocesses from points or parts (instants) that are devoid of time or temporality or(b) maintaining that time is in the instance (as opposed to the instant being in time),but also claiming that time does not exist [as a continuum] and so the need for gen-erating a notion of temporality is rendered superfluous.” Ansell Pearson adds:“Nietzsche follows Boscovich in pursuing the first option,” and based on this char-acterizes Nietzsche’s time atomism as an objective theory of duration.9

I will have to agree with Whitlock’s assessment, that it is more the second optionthat Nietzsche is pursuing. In doing so, Nietzsche parts from a couple ofBoscovich’s main assertions. As Whitlock affirms, in Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre,as I hope I have shown with the bingo cage metaphor, “the ‘time atoms’are not intime at all, [the discontinuity of] time is in them.”10 In other words, time is a humancreation and completely discontinuous ‘time atoms’exist. Whitlock also disagreeswith Ansell Pearson’s idea that the “intervals” between timepoints (taken as dis-crete) are to be taken as mathematical points and thus continuous. He thinks, rather,that according to Boscovich, “the intervals between points are lines of force andnot a continuum of space.” Whitlock continues: “these intervals are lines of force,and thus scattered in a relational, not absolute pattern. . . . There is no continuumof space or time because the lines are relational, not absolute. . . . For Boscovich,space and time can be discontinuous because force is the only continuum.”11

This seems more in keeping with Boscovich’s theory, except that for Nietzscheeven force is pointual. In Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre, though there is the onepoint of space, it is discontinuous because it is perceived only in each discretediscontinuous timepoint. The discontinuous positions of the one spacepoint andeach timepoint are determined through the effects of force. But for Nietzsche,the effects of discrete forcepoints work through leaps across discontinuity, notas a continuous force. “Timepoints prove the absolute non continuance of force.”

While Nietzsche agrees with Boscovich that there can be no continuity ofspace it is because, for Nietzsche, all of space collapses to one point (space-point). This is not a strange perspective as Whitlock points out:

Newton’s theory was that there exists only so much matter in the entire universeas would fill a nutshell. The rest of the physical world is made up of the effectsof force. Force, not extension, fills space for Newton. Boscovich went one stepfurther and claimed that all the matter of the universe is unextended, and so wouldnot even begin to fill the volume of a nutshell. . . . Scientists currently believe

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that the ratio of space to all matter, visible or invisible, in the universe is that often cubic meters to one atom of hydrogen, where it takes about ten million hydro-gen atoms to span the diameter of the head of a pin.12

In a recent article in Scientific American (January 2004) entitled “Atoms of Spaceand Time,” Lee Smolin explains the current physics of loop quantum gravity inwhich the time and space we perceive to be continuous actually come in dis-crete pieces. There are miniscule quantum states of space and these quantumstates of space are related to discrete “ticks” of time, not a continuously, smoothlyflowing time. The article begins by saying, “we perceive space and time to becontinuous, but if the amazing theory of loop quantum gravity is correct, theyactually come in discrete pieces.”13 The totally relevant image that accompa-nies the article shows a human being sensing or perceiving the nature of quan-tum or discrete points of space and time and transforming or interpreting theminto a seamless and contiguous world. Smolin writes:

In the spacetime way of looking at things, a snapshot at a specific time is like aslice cutting across the spacetime. Taking such a slice through a spin foam pro-duces a spin network. But it would be wrong to think of such a slice as movingcontinuously, like a smooth flow of time. Instead, just as space is defined by aspin network’s discrete geometry, time is defined by the sequence of distinctmoves that rearrange the network. . . . In this way time also becomes discrete.Time flows not like a river but like the ticking of a clock, with “ticks” that areabout as long as the Planck time: 10–43 second. Or, more precisely, time in ouruniverse flows by the ticking of innumerable clocks—in a sense, at every loca-tion in the spin foam where a quantum “move” takes place, a clock at that loca-tion has ticked once.14

Smolin emphasizes that time does not exist in between the ticks; there is no “inbetween,” in the same way that there is no water in between two adjacent mole-cules of water.15Although Nietzsche posits the one spacepoint, Smolin’s descrip-tion of discontinuous time “ticks” corresponds with Nietzsche’s idea of discretetimepoints. However, since the one spacepoint can only be perceived in each dis-crete timepoint, that makes it in effect a discontinuous spacepoint in each moment.

So Nietzsche, like Newton, Boscovich and some modern speculations byphysicists, suggests that space can be very small, even, in Nietzsche’s case, thatit can be only one spacepoint. It is the discontinuous timepoints and the effectsof forcepoints on the perceptualpoint that creates the perception of movement.“Translation of all laws of movement into time-proportions.” Thus, time cannot be 0, but space can. So counter to Boscovich’s assertion that space canbe discontinuous, Nietzsche transposes space into one point.

In his Zeitatomenlehre Nietzsche transposes two additional key ideas thatBoscovich first posits, but then himself later rejects: compenetration and returnto the same place. In talking of compenetration, Boscovich writes: “For if we take

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one real point of position [space] belonging to one point of matter and associateit with all the real points of position belonging to another point of matter, thereis one among the later, which we call compenetration. Those points of position, which induce a relation of infinite number of such points belonging tothe infinite number of points of matter to be the same; and mean them when wespeak of the ‘same position’.”16 Here Boscovich adds: “All that has been saidabove with regard to points of space applies equally well to instants of time,” sug-gesting that all moments could be the same moment through the process of com-penetration.17 However, after suggesting these possibilities, Boscovich decidesthat points [of matter and position] cannot coexist. He denies the real possibilityof compenetration but maintains it as an imaginary possibility: “two points ofposition belonging to the same point of matter cannot be conjoined, but must lieone outside the other.”18 In his speculations Boscovich is dealing with three terms,points of matter (being his primary concern), points of space and instants of time.But Nietzsche has collapsed space (and matter) into one point (transforming theinfinite nature of space and matter in Boscovich into one finite spacepoint), whichhas its effects (forcepoints) between infinite discontinuous points of time.

Another idea that Boscovich posits and rejects is return to the same place orreplication. At one point, following the idea that chance is what structures thecosmos and the activity of his material points, Boscovich posits eight differentkinds of combinations of points of space and instants of time depending upontheir relations of distance from one another both local and temporal. Of the eightcombinations, four consider combinations of space and time for a single pointof matter. I am only concerned with his first and third combinations among thesefour because they suggest the idea of return of the same.

First: If the same point of matter connects the same point of space withseveral instants of time separated from one another by any interval, therewill be return to the same place.

Third: If the same point of matter connects the same instant of time withseveral points of position distant from one another by some interval, thenwe have replication.

Boscovich rejects both of these possibilities. “Replication is usually consid-ered to be naturally impossible.” Return to the same point of position Boscovichsays is “infinitely improbable in Nature” and must be excluded.19 However,Nietzsche puts time in the place of Boscovich’s material points. Not “material”points as the basis of dynamic atomism, but rather “timepoints” as the basis ofdynamic atomism. It is in the distances between timepoints that forcepoints, andthus motion, have their effect.

By making these two simple, but significant transpositions Nietzsche can havecompenatrability and he can have return to the same place. Nietzsche gets

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coexistence by using Boscovich’s idea of compenatrability where all points ofmatter are the same, that is, have the same position—Nietzsche’s one spacepoint.When Boscovich says that, equally under the idea of compenatration “allmoments could be the same moment,” Nietzsche gets his “whole world at a stroke”in each discrete timepoint. Nietzsche posits complete coexistence or simultane-ity of time and space/matter, but pointually or in quantum units. And for Nietzschethe one spacepoint as the finite point supplies the means (the material of all pos-sibilities), and the infinite discrete timepoints and forcepoints play out all of themand must start over again. So, contrary to what Boscovich says, the infinite playof time points and their effects upon the spacepoint would bring up the same posi-tions of the spacepoint over and over again, or “return to the same place.” So onceagain, in Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre you have the whole eternal recurrence ofthe same, but in two senses: the eternal recurrence of the same whole (spacepoint and all of its possibilities in each moment, “at a stroke”) and the eternalrecurrence of each specific individual combination of those possibilities.

Whitlock, too discusses Boscovich’s suggestion of the possibility of return tothe same place or replication and his rejection of the possibility. For Boscovichto accept recurrence, he would have to posit the possibility that the universe isdue to chance and that the recurrence would only be true if one postulated afinite number of combinations. Whitlock concludes:

With each argument [that Boscovich has against the idea that things can return orreplicate], it becomes clearer that the force of Boscovich’s logic is this: eternal returndoes not occur because God exists. . . . With regard to the notion that the universe isdue to eternal self-regulation (perhaps closest to the Nietzschean notion), Boscovichargued that, were this so, points would have already entered into prior locations aninfinite number of times. But they have not because a Being external to force deter-mined a law of force such that points may be inserted infinitely into intervals.20

Because Nietzsche did not possess these theological limitations, he was willingto entertain the finite nature of the law of conservation of energy in his one space-point, alongside the infinitely divisible nature of timepoints and forcepoints andthe possibilities of return thought on the basis of chance.

Zeitatomenlehre Represented as Interlocking Circles

Both Ansell Pearson and Whitlock suggest that in his Zeitatomenlehre Nietzscheis positing a universe closed at the global and local level. Whitlock writes: “itis strongly closed at the cosmic level due to the conservation of energy; it isweakly closed at the local level because its power is contingent on all otherpoints in the universe, though that same power reconverges, closing the locus.”21

I agree that according to Nietzsche the universe is strongly closed at the cosmiclevel due to the finite nature of the one spacepoint. However, in my reading the

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universe is strongly closed at both the global and the local level. Strongly closedat the local level of each discrete, discontinuous timepoint in which the wholeworld (and all its possible configurations) appears in a new configuration.

In thinking of representations or images of closing or replicating, or return-ing, one is led to thinking in terms of circles. In the Zeitatomenlehre Nietzschedid not really talk of circles per se, but rather of a discontinuous or pointual time-line. But by the time he offered his idea of the eternal recurrence of the same in“The Vision and the Riddle” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the circle, or time as“bent,” had become its major symbol. Look back at Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehrediagram (this article, p. 26). Although he calls it a timeline, note his emphasison the discontinuity of timepoints and notice that to show the effects of force-points leaping from timepoint to timepoint he had to draw half circular lines. Itwas only a step from that to thinking of the “timeline” itself as a circle.

I would like to suggest in the diagram below that the closing of the circle atthe global level (all possible finite combinations of the one spacepoint playedout in infinite timepoints) be called the larger or global timepoint circle. Second,that the closing of the circle at the local level of each discrete, discontinuoustimepoint and its new configuration be called the one spacepoint or local circle.The diagram also indicates the beginning of the next repetition of the large time-point circle due to infinite timepoints. Thus when all possibilities have been runthrough, the first instance of repetition will close the circle of timepoints, but itwill not stop the generation of timepoints because they are what allow the infi-nite recurrence of all of the possible closed spacepoint configurations. Nietzschewas also considering the image of a cosmic spiral or a circle during the sameperiod in his discussion of Anaxagoras in Philosophy of the Tragic Age of theGreeks (1873).22

The Zeitatomenlehre and the Unhistorical

Nietzsche was playing out his thinking about elements of the Zeitatomenlehrein On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. In this essay

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 35

timepoint circle

timepoint circle recurrence

one spacepoint configuration

Nietzsche describes three perceptions of history: the unhistorical, the superhistorical, and the historical.

Man . . . cannot learn to forget but always remains attached to the past: howeverfar and fast he runs, the chain runs with him. It is astonishing: the moment, herein a wink, gone in a wink, nothing before and nothing after, returns neverthelessas a spectre to disturb the calm of a later moment. Again and again a page loosensin the scroll of time, drops out, and flutters away—and suddenly flutters backagain into man’s lap. Then man says ‘I remember’ and envies the animal whichimmediately forgets and sees each moment really die, sink back into deep nightextinguished for ever. In this way the animal lives unhistorically: for it goes intothe present like a number without leaving a curious fraction: it does not knowhow to dissimulate, hides nothing, appears at every moment fully as what it isand so cannot but be honest. [my emphasis] (HL 1)23

Nietzsche writes that the animal lives unhistorically, within a “horizon which isalmost a point.” He suggests that to be able to live almost on a point of time, tohave the capacity to perceive unhistorically to a certain degree is fundamentalin providing a foundation upon which “alone something right, healthy and great,something truly human may grow” (HL 11). To emphasize this, Nietzsche sug-gests the person who lives best lives unaware of existence in a temporal sense:“Whoever cannot settle on the threshold of the moment forgetful of the wholepast, whoever is incapable of standing on a point like a goddess of victory with-out vertigo or fear, will never know what happiness is, and worse yet, will neverdo anything to make others happy” (HL 1). Clearly, Nietzsche is thinking of hisZeitatomenlehre, where the creativity of the living timepoint free of past andnot yet future offers the perceptual point of a new beginning. Thus, a major con-tention in On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life is the idealthat history serves life best when it is experienced as an unhistorical living.

Then Nietzsche posits a person who could gather together all of the unhis-torical effects (timepoints) and tells us what that person would see from thesuperhistorical perspective, a person very much like the eternally consciousbingo piece in my bingo cage metaphor: “The superhistorical man does not seesalvation in the process, rather, the world is complete and achieves its end atevery single moment”(my emphasis). Superhistorical men see that “the past andthe present are one and the same, that is, typically alike in all manifold varietyand, as omnipresence of imperishable types, a static structure of unchanged valueand eternally the same means” (HL 1). This is not meant in a negative sense atall by Nietzsche, but it represents the eternal stability of the one spacepoint andall of its positions.

By “historical” one understands the calling to memory of previous momentsand the tying together of them through cause and effect, the sequentializing oftime and perceptual points allowing the creation of past, present, future. WhileNietzsche concedes that the historical perspective is necessary for life, he

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repeatedly asserts that an excess of history is detrimental to life. However, ofhistorical men Nietzsche writes: “They do not know how unhistorically theythink and act despite all their history” (HL 1). While we may think our histori-cal perspectives describe our situation, it is a necessary gloss over the actualatomistic state of affairs in which we are caught up.

In On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, we get a proto-version of Nietzsche’s call to recurrence of the same when he writes: “Whoeverasks his acquaintances whether they would want to relive the last ten or twentyyears will get the answer no, but for different reasons”(HL 1). The historicalmen would say no because they have hope that the next twenty years will bebetter. The superhistorical man, the one who could gather together all of theunhistorical effects, would say no because he does not see salvation in theprocess, because the world is complete and achieves its end in every singlemoment and every single moment is the same moment. Adding more years wouldmake no difference. Again, the superhistorical perspective refers to the staticnumber of positions of timepoints in the one spacepoint. The unhistorical manwithin the bingo cage lives each timepoint, each moment of the spacepoint con-figuration, fully and without remainder of past. However, the historical man whois caught in an excess of history, drags his memory of past timepoints with him,which weighs him down. Nietzsche suggests that the unhistorical and the super-historical are the only antidotes to the excess of the historical perspective. “Bythe word unhistorical I denote the art and strength of being able to forget andenclose oneself in a limited horizon: ‘superhistorical’ I call the powers whichguide the eye away from becoming and toward that which gives existence aneternal and stable character” (HL 10).

Thus, already in this early essay, influenced by ideas in the Zeitatomenlehre,there is evidence that living unhistorically is to live each timepoint configura-tion fully and freely, and to see from the superhistorical perspective is to livethe eternal recurrence of the whole spacepoint (with all of its recurring time-point configurations).

The Overchild

Throughout On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, Nietzscheposits the child and the youth as those who live or should live unhistorically.The child can follow instinct, “trust in the ‘divine animal’” (HL 5). “The child,as yet has nothing past to deny, playing between the fences of past and future inblissful blindness. And yet the child’s play must be disturbed: only too soon willit be called out of its forgetfulness. Then it comes to understand the phrase ‘itwas,’ that password with which struggle, suffering and boredom approach manto remind him what his existence basically is—a never to be completed

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 37

imperfect tense” (HL 1). In Zarathustra’s first speech, “On the ThreeMetamorphoses” (Z:1), which one can find in embryo form in On the Advantageand Disadvantage of History for Life, it is the Child that represents the highestpoint of life. The camel is the “beast of burden, which renounces and is rever-ent,” accepts and lives the historical sense.24 But rather than bear an excess ofthis historical sense, one transforms into the lion. To do this he must overcomethe great dragon of “Thou shalt” which grows out of the “it was.” The lion inovercoming the dragon of “Thou shalt” is opening a space for new creation andassumes the right to new values. He develops a critical sense of history (HL 3).25

He overthrows the excess of historical sense. Nietzsche is clear in insisting thatthe historical sense robs youth of their more positive spontaneous instincts. “Itrust in youth to have guided me correctly when now it forces me to protestagainst the historical education of modern youth and when in protest I demandthat above all men must learn to live and use history only in the service of thelife they have learned to live” (HL 10). We must suppose that what Nietzschemeans here is the life that they have learned to live in their own unique momen-tary perception and experience of each timepoint.

Nietzsche looks to the youth who “can themselves use no concept, no partyslogans from the present store of current word and concept coinage to designatetheir own essence, but are only convinced at every appropriate moment by apower active in them, a fighting, eliminating and separating power, and by anever heightened sense of life” [my emphasis] (HL 10). It is obvious thatNietzsche is privileging the moment and the child or youth as one who can stilllive fully in the moment: “Only from the standpoint of the highest strength ofthe present may you interpret the past” (HL 6). The camel (excess of historicalsense) becomes the lion (critical of the historical sense), becomes the child (livesthe present timepoint): “But say, my brothers, what can the child do that eventhe lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child?” (Z:1).The child lives unhistorically: The child is innocence and forgetting, a newbeginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes.”Become what you are—in each moment. Not only that you perceive a newmoment, but you are a new moment, always and in each moment. Standing onthe peak of a new timepoint all the time!

Nietzsche’s Teaching of the Two (Married) Eternal Recurrences

In “On The Vision and the Riddle” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where he firstpresents the full idea of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, Nietzsche’s ideasfrom the Zeitatomenlehre come directly into play. Zarathustra points out to thedwarf the gate “moment,” and then refers to timelines: “This long lane stretchesback for an eternity. And the long lane out there, that is another eternity. It is

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here at this gateway that they come together [the discontinuous timepoint/per-ceptualpoint].” If the gateway is the “moment” then the lanes are composed of“moments.” “But whoever would follow one of them, on and on, farther andfarther—do you believe, dwarf, that these paths contradict each other eternally?”The dwarf responds that time is a circle. But Zarathustra says, “do not makethings too easy for yourself;” indicating that a simple circle is not adequate.Zarathustra says, must not you and I and the slow spider have been here before?“And walk in that other lane, out there, before us, in this long dreadful lane—must we not eternally return?”(Z:2).26 What we see here is that Nietzsche hasin mind not only the long lines of moments (timepoint lines) backward and for-ward that must meet and make a circle, but that the very gate moment, this time-point itself, forms a circle in that it will return again and again. So rather thanone circle we would have two interrelated circles: the timepoint circle (of theinfinite string of discontinuous time moments meeting to form a circle) and theone spacepoint circle taken up in each moment, out of which every possibleconfiguration of the whole will be actualized and must repeat itself.

In “The Convalescent,” Zarathustra’s animals say: “to those who think as wedo, all things themselves are dancing; they come offer their hands and laugh andflee—and come back. . . . In every Now, being begins; round every Here rollsthe sphere There. The center is everywhere. Bent is the path of eternity” (Z:3).In light of the Zeitatomenlehre I interpret this to mean that in each timepoint(and its whole world at a stroke) existence begins anew. Within the Here of thatparticular configuration the possibilities of There (the next and all subsequentconfigurations) already lie. The forcepoint effects of each timepoint, and withineach configuration, is always at the center of the whole process. Bent is the pathof eternity. With the necessity of recurrence both without and within, each time-point and the one spacepoint must circle back on themselves. Because, thoughtime may be infinitely divisible, the one spacepoint only offers a finite numberof possibilities of configuration. For although timepoints are infinitely divisiblethere are a limited number of combinations of the spacepoint, bringing about “amonster of a great year,” “tremendous years of recurrence,” a “turning of thehourglass” (Z:3).

Some commentators have asked whether what the animals say here repre-sents their perception or whether it coincides exactly with Zarathustra’s idea ofrecurrence. Based on what Nietzsche wrote about the unhistorical nature of ani-mal experience of timepoints in On the Advantages and Disadvantages ofHistory for Life, we could say that the animals speak for themselves. But inexpressing the recurrence and ring of reconvergence, this must be Zarathustradeclaring the eternal recurrence from the superhistorical perspective, which isonly available to human thinking.

In “The Seven Seals” (Z:3), Zarathustra sings of the “nuptial ring of rings,the ring of recurrence.” Perhaps Nietzsche does not intend “ring of rings” to be

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 39

merely hyperbolic or poetic, rather maybe he really means that there is a ring(greater timepoint circle which recurs) of rings (each recurring configurationwithin the spacepoint circle). (Refer back to my diagram, p. 36.) In a weddingthere are two rings exchanged: “Oh, how should I not lust after eternity and afterthe nuptual ring of rings, the ring of recurrence.” In “On the Great Longing”(Z:3), Nietzsche repeats this image of ring of rings with the image “circumfer-ence of circumferences.” Later in “The Convalescent,” the animals speak outthe idea of recurrence very clearly:

Behold, we know what you teach: that all things recur eternally, and we ourselvestoo; and that we have already existed an eternal number of times, and all thingswith us. You teach that there is a great year of becoming, a monster of a greatyear, which must, like an hourglass, turn over again and again so that it may rundown and run out again; and all these years are alike in what is greatest and inwhat is smallest; and we ourselves are alike in every great year, in what is great-est as in what is smallest. (Z:3)

Why nuptial? First a marriage of the two circles out of which, with the essen-tial ingredient of a representing being, the world is posited. The will to power,(the effective forcepoints) grows out of this marriage in the coming together oftwo elements (the configurations of the spacepoint and timepoints) creating anenergy, a power out of which new elements must come. Nietzsche also talks in“On the Great Longing” (Z:3) of the “umbilical cord of time” (the greater time-point circle birthing each possible configuration of the one spacepoint). This isthe birth of the children Zarathustra wants to have with the woman eternity, theoverchildren who live unhistorically and superhistorically.

The Will to Power

The jumping effects of forcepoints from timepoint to timepoint becomeNietzsche’s idea of the will to power. If we look at some of Nietzsche’s mostfamous descriptions of the will to power and the eternal recurrence, we can seethe two circles of recurrence: “If the world may be thought of as a certain defi-nite quantity of force [the spacepoint] and as a certain definite number of cen-ters of force [timepoints] and their leaping forcepoints—and every otherrepresentation remains indefinite and therefore useless—it follows that, in thegreat dice game of existence, it must pass through a calculable number of com-binations.” Remember my bingo cage analogy. Nietzsche often uses the idea ofgames of chance as above. Here we have the configurations of the spacepointcircle, the bingo cage. He goes on to describe the timepoint circle:

In infinite time, every possible combination would at some time or another berealized; more: it would be realized an infinite number of times. And since

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between every combination and its next recurrence all other possible combi-nations would have to take place, and each of these combinations conditionsthe entire sequence of combinations in the same series, a circular movementof absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated: the world as a circularmovement that has already repeated itself infinitely often and plays its gamein infinitum. (WP 1066)27

I beg the reader’s indulgence in looking at one more, well-known passage. Inthis passage the leaping effects of forcepoints, the dynamic movement of thetimepoint universe comes to dominate as the concept of will to power imagedas a play of forces, waves of forces, a sea of forces. The “ebb and flood of itsforms” takes us back to the Zeitatomenlehre where Nietzsche wrote: “forces asfunction of time, express themselves in relations of close or distant timepoints,namely quickly or slowly.” This also echos exactly Nietzsche’s description ofAnaxagoras’s explanations of the movement of the whirling, spiraling cosmosin my note 24.

And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mir-ror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, ironmagnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expenditself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household with-out expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by“nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not somethingendlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a spacethat might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play offorces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here andat the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together,eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence,with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward themost complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward thehottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning hometo the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to thejoy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years,blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows nosatiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold volup-tuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of thecircle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself—do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light foryou, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?—This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves arealso this will to power—and nothing besides! (WP 1067)

In this passage, in near ecstatic language, Nietzsche describes the bounded“household” of the bingo cage (the one spacepoint) and he describes the “theuniformity of its courses and its years,” in other words, the realization of the

NIETZSCHE’S OVERHUMAN: CREATING ON THE CREST OF THE TIMEPOINT 41

huge but finite number of spacepoint possibilities, which having been realizedmust start a repetition at the point he calls the “tremendous year of recurrence.”He describes the entwined or married work of the two circles as “this mysteryworld of the twofold voluptuous delight,” the circle of circles, the ring of rings,the circumference of circumferences. Notice that Nietzsche characterizes thecircle without will, but the ring feels goodwill toward itself. The world itself andits eternal circling of time is “this world of the will to power.” And the worldand possibilities of each person (bingo piece/perceptualpoint), “you yourselvesare also this will to power—and nothing besides!” As the perceptualpoint in con-junction with force and timepoints playing out the possibilities of the one space-point, we are this eternal process.

Overhuman: Creating on the Crest of Each Timepoint

Now, what light does the exposition of the Zeitatomenlehre throw on the con-cept of the overhuman? To think of the qualities of the overhuman, based on theforegoing exposition, we have to return to the concepts I presented in talking ofthe overchild. If, indeed, Nietzsche is privileging an atomistic view of the uni-verse throughout his thinking in which timepoints and forcepoints structure ourperception of a dynamic universe; if, in fact, we as perceptualpoints co-createthe cosmos in each moment as will to power, and if Nietzsche is seriously devalu-ing the illusory nature of the continuity of posited historicity, then it seems clearthat the overhuman in living his nature would live very differently. Taking thisperspective puts new force and possibility of understanding in many ofNietzsche’s enigmatic proclamations concerning the nature of the overhuman.

Like the child, who lives the moment, the overhuman is a new beginning anda downgoing in each discontinuous moment. The overhuman is a game of chancewith time and will to power (effects of forcepoints), and in living each momentfully, “conceives reality as it is.” (EH “Destiny” 5)28 The overhuman, by assum-ing this stance and accepting the idea that all life is an eternal overcoming,downgoing, and rebirth in each moment, wills his own down-going, onward-going in each moment and in the repeating cycles of life. Nietzsche’s idea of theunhistorical leads to “the great health—that one does not merely have but alsoacquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again,and must give it up” (EH “Books” Z:2). The overhuman is a first movement inthe process by willing to will with the will to power, which he/she already is, afirst movement at every moment in a whole new creation of humanity and theworld. The overhuman, like the child, is a new beginning, a self-propelled wheel,a first movement, a sacred “Yes.”

The overhuman knows “no satiety, no disgust, no weariness” (WP 1067). Theoverhuman is Dionysian in affirming “the world of the eternally self-creating,

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eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight,my ‘beyond good and evil’.” Good and evil arise as the product of an excess ofthe historical sense. The overhuman is “without goal, unless the joy of the cir-cle is itself a goal.” The overhuman is “without will, unless a ring feels goodwill toward itself.”29 This would be an unhistorical living as free as possible ofpast and future. The overhuman sees the world as will to power and knowshim/herself as nothing but this will to power. Will to power as the continual for-cepoints that accompany and effect the ongoing and repeated cycles of the time-point realizations of all possibilities of the one spacepoint—which you are.

Zarathustra sings of the overhuman: “What is great in man is that he is a bridge[from moment to moment] and not an end: what can be loved in man is that heis an overture and a going under [in each moment]. A beginning and a move-ment to a new beginning [in each moment].” We may have thought of theseproclamations in terms of a life, but they are meant in terms of the timepoint.

I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they arethose who cross over.I love him who loves his virtue, for virtue is the will to go under [in this moment]and an arrow of longing [for the next moment].I love him whose soul squanders itself, who wants no thanks and returns none:for he always gives away and does not want to preserve himself.I love him who justifies future and redeems past generations: for he wants to per-ish of the present.I love him whose soul is overfull so that he forgets himself, and all things are inhim: thus all things spell his going under. (Z:P 4)

Nietzsche shows us that at present we are limited by our perception of linearcause and effect time perception and thus by our illusory, our imagined histor-ical sense. It is only because we as perceiving beings can relate one discontin-uous moment to the next and/or to the last that we get the idea of continuity andhistory and build upon that an excess of historical sense.

If I am correct that Nietzsche calls us to a more pointual and unhistorical rela-tionship to living, the characteristics that Nietzsche writes would allows us to“endure eternal recurrence” make more sense: “No longer looking for joy in cer-tainty but rather in uncertainty;” not knowing what the next moment will bring.“No longer ‘cause and effect’ but the continually creative;” each moment as anew possibility willing creatively with the will to power. “No longer will to preser-vation but to power;” the power of moving with the crest of each timepoint in thenecessary repeating circles of the will to power. “No longer . . . ‘everything ismerely subjective,’but ‘it is also our work!—Let us be proud of it!’” (WP 1059).It is the recognition that our “subjectivity” is merely the momentary perceptualmovement of each timepoint, forcepoint of the one spacepoint. Each of ourmoments is a point of force in the ongoing circles of repetition, so let us be proudof our working power of this creation in each moment of the whole.

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Whitlock asks, “what sense does it make to demand Live your life as if it eter-nally recurs, if there are no persuasive grounds for believing it to be true?”30

But humankind has believed over and over where no persuasive grounds haveexisted. Nietzsche is pointing out to us that our only possibility of persuasiveground lies in our own perception in each moment, and thus we must ask: Isthere any such persuasive ground that lies outside of each discrete moment? Infact, today, research into quantum physics runs along side of the very questionsand possibilities Nietzsche was working with, and quantum physics assures usthat, while the possibilities open for exploration are many, there may be no ulti-mate ‘knowing.’ With an understanding of Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre asdrawn out here, we can replace the deadening effects of the excess historizationof “past,” “this” and “other” worlds, and the “oughts” that attach to them, witha life-enhancing, dancing accordance and creation with the unhistorical, super-historical experience and willing of power as what is and in living not what oth-ers tell us we are, but what we are in each moment.

This reading of Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre plunges us into a deeper under-standing of Nietzsche’s “The History of an Error” and “The Four Great Errors”culminating in section 8 in Twilight of the Idols. In the “History of an Error,”Nietzsche abolishes the true world and the apparent world leaving us at “Noon,moment of the briefest shadow, high point of humanity!” That would be Noon,the unhistorical moment with the least shadow of past and future, least shadowof the historical sense. But Noon is also eternity, and thus asks us to live thatsame moment superhistorically.

Nietzsche asks us to make a paradigm leap! In the Zeitatomenlehre he offersa key to how we might proceed: “The essence of sensation [or the essence ofperception, ourselves as perceptualpoints] would consist in gradually per-ceiving and measuring such time configurations more and more keenly.”Work at perceiving more deeply and with greater awareness in each timepoint.Why? To break through the function of sequential perception? Nietzsche writes:“the dynamic point is identical with the perceptual point.” To set us on the roadto the possibility of experiencing our actual nature as pointual and eternal; tobecome what we are?

What happens at the moment of Noon? Two things. First, in “At Noon” (Z:4),Zarathustra says: “Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard’s rustling, abreath, a breeze, a moment’s glance—it is little that makes the best happiness,”moment after moment. Second, “Did time perhaps fly away? Did I not fall . . .into the well of eternity?” In practicing what the “divine animal,” the child orthe overhuman might do, in practicing how to live the moment “more and morekeenly” without trailing anything into it, might we not experience the conjunc-tion of each discrete timepoint with eternity, live the unhistorical and the super-historical as Zarathustra does in “At Noon”? Zarathustra asks: “Did not the worldbecome perfect just now? Round and Ripe? Oh, the golden round ring—where

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may it fly [timepoint circle]? Shall I run after it [spacepoint circle]?” This is aquestion to us: shall we run after it?

Department of PhilosophyNorth Hennepin Community College

NOTES1. Throughout this essay, quotes with no bibliographical reference are from my translation of

the Zeitatomenlehre. See “Symposium on Nietzsche’s ‘Time-Atom Theory’ Fragment,” Journalof Nietzsche Studies 20 (Fall 2000). Carol Diethe and Keith Ansell Pearson offer a translation ofthe Zeitatomenlehre fragment. I will be referring to the following articles from the symposium:Keith Ansell Pearson, “Nietzsche’s Brave New World of Force: On Nietzsche’s ‘Time AtomTheory’ Fragment and the Matter of Boscovich’s Influence on Nietzsche,” and Greg Whitlock,“Investigations in Time Atomism and Eternal Recurrence.”

2. Although I have attempted to interpret the 1873 Zeitatomenlehre on its own merits and inrelation to other works of 1873, I cannot say that what I saw here was always completely free ofthe influence of Nietzsche’s later idea of eternal recurrence of the same. I have tried to keep themas chronologically separate as possible, while maintaining that the general shape of Nietzsche’seternal recurrence of the same finds much of its foundational ideas in this early fragment and thatit provides key ideas to its understanding.

3. When Nietzsche uses the term temporalis punctum, Schlechta and Anders tell us thatMittasch in his work says this comes from K. E. v. Baer, Reden und Aufsatze (1864). Momentusor punctum temporis is the time we need to have an impression upon our sense organs becomeconscious, with humans approximately 1/18 of a second.

4. Ibid., 140–53.5. I will discuss these later in my essay.6. Bingo is a game of chance. Players have boards on which random numbers are printed.

The bingo cage contains many, many bingo pieces, each with a number on it. The function of thebingo cage when turned is to shuffle the numbered bingo pieces, so that a random number can betaken and called out. The person with that corresponding number takes the bingo piece and putsit on his or her card. The winner is the person who first has the corresponding bingo piece for eachnumber on the card.

7. See Twilight of the Idols, “The Four Great Errors,” for Nietzsche’s later discussion ofimaginary causes as they relate to morality.

8. Roger Joseph Boscovich, Philosophiae Naturalist Theoria, 1759, translated as Theory ofNatural Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1966).

9. Ansell Pearson, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 20 (Fall 2000): 8. Please note that I haveadded [as a continuum] in the quotation.

10. Whitlock, “Investigations in Time Atomism and Eternal Recurrence,” 44.11. Ibid., 45–46.12. Ibid., 46.13. Smolin, 72.14. Ibid., 71–72. Spin networks are graphs that describe the geometry of space and provide a

convenient shorthand for all the possible quantum states of space. These graphs are called spinnetworks, which represent particles and fields moving through space by these labels moving indiscrete steps on the graphs. These graphs are called spin networks because the numbers on themare related to quantities called spins. The spin networks that represent space in loop quantumgravity theory accommodate the concept of spacetime by becoming what are called “foams.”

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15. Ibid., 73.16. Boscovich, Theory of Natural Philosophy, Supplement 1:11, p. 199.17. Ibid.18. Ibid., Supplement 1:12, p. 199.19. Ibid., Supplement 1:13, 14, 15, pp. 199–200.20. Whitlock, “Investigations in Time Atomism and Eternal Recurrence,” 49.21. Ibid., p. 50.22. Nietzsche’s little book, trans. Marianne Cowan (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962), entitled

Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (1872–73), addresses the issues of space and time, ofbeing and becoming, and one can find some of Nietzsche’s Zeitatomenlehre thoughts at work here.One of the things I am maintaining is that the relatively few lines of the Zeitatomenlehre is acrystallization of a very great deal of research and work on Nietzsche’s part—work in hiswrestling with the pre-Socratic philosophers, with the Stoics, with Socrates, with contemporaryphilosophers of his day, and especially with the science and physics that were available to himduring this period. His work with Lange, Zöllner, Spir, Boscovich, and others all feeds into theZeitatomenlehre notes. To see how these were all interrelated, look at the lists in KSA 7:26[1]–26[5]. By studying the pre-Socratics, Nietzsche was working out a problem for himself, theproblem of the mutually exclusive idea of becoming and being, which is the problem he “solves”with his eventual doctrine of the eternal recurrence of the same. But here in this essay, alongsidethe Zeitatomenlehre and On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life, Nietzsche isworking with the same concepts in different contexts.

Following Heraclitus, Nietzsche discusses the moment as that which consumes the onebefore and is in turn consumed by the moment after, and that the present moment is “but thedimensionless and durationless borderline between the two.” Nietzsche sees that, given the ideasin Heraclitus, one can say that “everything that coexists in space and time has only a relativeexistence and that the whole nature of reality lies in its effects (wirken)” (PTA 5; Cowan, 52–53).

After considering many perspectives in Parmenides, Nietzsche comes to the idea ofmultiplicity as true being, and on the basis of that suggests: “all the properties have true being, ashas motion. About each and every moment of this world, even if we choose moments that lie amillennium apart, one would have to be able to say: all true essences contained in the world areexistent simultaneously, unchanged, undiminished, without increase, without decrease. Amillennium later exactly the same holds true; nothing has meanwhile changed. If, in spite of this, theworld looks totally different from time to time, this is not an illusion, not mere semblance, but ratherthe consequences of everlasting motion. True being is moved sometimes this way, sometimes thatway” (PTA 13; Cowan, 89–90). Here we can see the one spacepoint moved into different positionswith each effective moment. Following upon this, Nietzsche further concludes, followingAnaxagoras’s reaction to Parmenides, that “if all originates out of one unity, . . . then matter itselfmust contain true being. Its substance and content must be unconditionally real, and all its changescan refer only to forms, i.e., to position, order, grouping, mixing or separation of these foreversimultaneously existing essences. We have then the same situation as in a game of dice. The dice arealways the same, but falling now this way, now that, they signify different things for us” (PTA 14;Cowan, 91). As I have emphasized, chance underlies Nietzsche’s concept of movement of timepointsin the Zeitatomenlehre and thus my image of the bingo cage. Nietzsche writes: “It is said that thereare countless substances, but never more, never fewer, never new ones. Only motion tumbles themabout into new patterns” (PTA 14; Cowan, 92). The critical question that concerns Nietzsche, then,is: “if there are many substances, and these many move, what is it that moves them?” Nietzschecannot resolve this satisfactorily. He says it is a wicked problem. We know that in theZeitatomenlehre it is the timepoint and its jumping effects that come as an answer to this question.

But we do see Nietzsche thinking atomistically based on Anaxagoras: “Anaxagorasimagines the primal existence of the world to be something like a dust-like mass of infinitely small

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filled points, each of which is a single specific, possessing but one property, yet in such fashionthat each specific property is represented in infinitely many single points” (PTA 16; Cowan,104–5). Although Nietzsche does not specify what the points are, whether spacepoints, timepoints,forcepoints, as he later does, he writes that it would be a great error to equate the primal pell-mellof all such points with the single primal substance of Anaximander. For the latter, called the“indefinite,” is an absolutely single and unique mass. It is the coexistence of the multiplicity of allthe atomistic points that constitutes true being, or ‘primal substance’ for Nietzsche.

Then Nietzsche turns to Anaxagoras’s nous. It is spirit that sets the chaos into movementbringing about a cosmos. Nietzsche calls Anaxagoras’s supposition on this point Anaxagoras’smost holy of holies: “How does the nous devise its first movement so that the world as it now ismight come to be, with its times of day and times of year, all conforming to law, without theaddition of any new substances or force?” Nietzsche answers that Anaxagoras says that nousbegan a self-movement at a random point and started a spiraling movement. “It began at somerandom point of the chaotic mixtures in the form of a small turn, and in ever greater orbits thiscircular movement spans all available being, by its centrifugal force pulling out all likes to jointheir likes. The circular movement gets larger and larger, eventually encompassing the wholeactions of the universe” (PTA 17; Cowan, 108–9).

But Nietzsche writes that at some point nous shall return to its self-movement, no longerroaming the world, itself divided, at times into greater, at times into smaller, masses. But the ideais that the motion of the nous demonstrates marvelous efficiency, for by it the task is nearercompletion with each passing moment. Here, again, the moment or timepoint and its forcepointcould be seen by Nietzsche as the necessary atomic point in the process, but he does not. Ofcourse, in the Zeitatomenlehre the timepoint is the key element.

In relation to the thesis of my article that Nietzsche always had in mind two circles, onesmaller and one much larger, I would like to quote the following passage in full: “Nous startssuddenly with frightful force—its motion is a ‘whirl’. Since such a whirl must be infinitely strongin order not to be stopped by the load of the entire infinite world that is resting on it, it must beinfinitely rapid, for strength can originally demonstrate itself only in the form of speed. The widerthe concentric rings grow, the slower the movement may become. When motion shall havereached the end of the infinite world, at long last, it must needs have attained an infinitely lowspeed of revolution. Conversely if we imagine the motion infinitely large, i.e., infinitely fast, aswe have at the very first inception of movement—then the starting circle must have been infinitelysmall. Hence we get, for the beginning, a point rotating about itself with an infinitely smallmaterial content. But such a point could not explain any further movement; one could easilyimagine each and every point of the primal mass whirling around itself yet leaving the mass as awhole unmoved and unseparated.”

Anaxagoras has a good point here, and so Nietzsche suggests the following: “But if thematerial point of infinite smallness that is originally seized and whirled by the nous was not, as amatter of fact, rotated around itself but instead described a periphery which was randomly chosenas larger than itself, then this alone would suffice to impel other material points, to move themonward, to centrifuge them, rebound them, and thus spread a tumult which would create as its fitproduct the separation of the aerial from the aethereal masses. [Is this action at a distance?] Justas the inception of movement, then, is a voluntary act of nous, so is the quality of its inception,insofar as the first movement descries a circle whose radius is randomly larger than a single point”(PTA 18; Cowan, 111–12).

Nietzsche asks what possessed the nous to impel a random material particle, chosen fromthat enormous number of points, and to revolve it in whirling dance. To this, Anaxagoras answeredto Nietzsche’s satisfaction: “Nous has the privilege of free random choice; it may start at random;it depends only on itself, whereas all other things are determined by something outsidethemselves.” Also, for Anaxagoras, nous has no duty and hence no purpose or goal that it would

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be forced to pursue; its nature and movements are, taking a clue from Heraclitus . . . a game. (PTA18; Cowan, 112) Thus, in Anaximander and Anaxagoras, Nietzsche finds the single primalsubstance and circular movement, dynamic theory, the pervasion of matter and penetration topoints.

In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche writes: “The doctrine of the “eternal recurrence,” i.e., of theunconditional and infinitely repeated circular course of all things—this doctrine of Zarathustramight in the end have been taught already by Heraclitus. At least the Stoics, who inherited almostall their principal ideas from Heraclitus, show traces of it.” (EH BT:3) If the overall project of theStoics was to make the personal and political lives of men as orderly as the cosmos, we can say—following my interpretation of the ring of rings as the microcosm of each spacepoint circle to themacrocosm of the great timepoint circle, and Nietzsche’s statement that the world as macrocosmis will to power and we as microcosms are also nothing but the will to power—that his project ofthe eternal recurrence is modeled to some degree on a Stoic worldview.

23. Nietzsche, On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980).

24. See HL 3 for Nietzsche’s description of the reverent historical man who so resembles hisdescription of the camel.

25. See HL 3 for Nietzsche’s description of the activity of critical history, which very muchresembles the description of the lion.

26. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (NewYork: Viking Penguin, 1982).

27. Nietzsche, Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1968).28. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1969).29. See TI “Errors” 7, 8. Here Nietzsche explains what he means by “without will.” Remember

Anaxagoras’s idea that the whirling dynamic of the cosmos has no goal; it is a self-perpetuatinggame.

30. Whitlock, “Investigations in Time Atomism and Eternal Recurrence,” 54.

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