Effect

2025/05

有一个经典的希腊神话故事：
太阳神阿波罗之子奥菲斯，拥有超凡的音乐天赋，其琴声能令猛兽驯服、顽石落泪。他深爱着森林仙女尤丽迪斯，他们结为夫妻。但幸福短暂，在婚后不久尤丽迪斯因被毒蛇咬伤而身亡。悲痛欲绝的奥菲斯，带着他的七弦琴，踏上了前往冥界的旅程。他的音乐感动了冥王和冥后，他们破例答应让尤丽迪斯重返人间，但提出一个条件：奥菲斯必须走在尤丽迪斯前面，在完全走出冥界之前不能回头看她，否则她将永堕冥界。奥菲斯带着尤丽迪斯一路前行，但在接近人间时却不知何故而回头，在这一瞬间，尤丽迪斯在他面前永远消失。奥菲斯返回了人间，心中满是思念与悔恨。阿波罗安慰他，从今往后尤丽迪斯将到处都是了，空中的繁星、鸟兽、山川湖泊、清晨的薄雾和晨露当中你都会看到她的身影，你对她的爱可以变成艺术上的创造力，你歌颂整个世界就是在爱她。

但是，究竟奥菲斯为何回头？

即便已经被明确地告知不能回头，只要足够坚定地遵守，就能让爱人复活。奥菲斯尽管身具神性，却终究是个凡人，脆弱和易碎。一定是在那个关键的关头被情绪压过了意志，毁掉了这一切。冥王早就知道了人类本性的弱点，才提出这个考验，而奥菲斯，他像个普通人一样，失败了。
即使奥菲斯是个人类，但是也有神族的血统，肯定也继承了他父亲自恋的一面，冥王这点小把戏不算什么。通常而言，要获得艺术上的创造力，都需要牺牲一些有价值的东西。古希腊哲学家赫拉克里特，他认为只要牺牲自己对美好事物的享乐，就能获得完满的哲思，所以他把自己眼睛给弄瞎了。奥菲斯同样如此，他是故意回头的，他通过牺牲尤丽迪斯，从而把她作为诗意灵感的崇高客体重新获得。早在阿波罗跟他说那番话之前，他就幻想了这一切，他为尤丽迪斯在万物面前诗意的闪耀而欣喜若狂。这样，他就能一直回味自己那种追悔莫及的样子，让音乐充满悲怆与深度。
这样说的话，尤丽迪斯的享乐在他之上，因为在奥菲斯前往冥界时，尤丽迪斯就发现他所陷入的僵局，他在失去她时所演奏的音乐中充满天才般的创造力，她发现自己的不在场居然具备如此强大的力量，她对自己的死亡的意义感到难以自持，深陷其中。既然自己作为一个鲜活的在场对于奥菲斯的理想是个阻碍，那就让奥菲斯再次失去她，让他在永恒的悔恨和丧妻之痛当中，成为一个伟大的艺术家。所以她主动牺牲自己，在前往人间的途中故意引起他的注意，使他回头。
其实他并没有去冥界，冥王阿波罗等等的，应该也是不存在的，实际一点，只是一个因失去妻子而极度悲伤的吟游诗人，在悲痛当中虚构出了这一切。因为他无法接受爱人的离开，更无法接受她的死亡与自己无关。于是在这样一首乐曲当中，他偏要把妻子的死归咎在自己身上，他把自己说成是一个牺牲妻子的利己者，把奔赴冥界跟回望的行为都说是成就诗意和戏剧性自我的变态自恋。尤丽迪斯之死已无法挽回，但可以强行和自己相关，在他构建的第二次死亡当中，他牺牲了自己一生的清白，心甘情愿承认自己有罪。只要虚构出这一罪责，就可以将不可承受的失去转化为可承担的忏悔。

“结果是原因的实现，原因在结果中才是原因本身。原因正是通过规定自己为结果，才成为原因。”

在黑格尔的逻辑学当中，因果性是自我展开时所产生的产物。
当人们认为自己在对一件事情进行原原本本的溯源时，自我的生存状况和意识形态才是真正的起因，表面上的“因果事件”则是次要的。
通常会认为原因产生结果，但实际上当结果一旦发生，又会“反馈性”地确立了原因，这时似乎结果才是设定性的。事实上产生这一因果链条的自我才是设定性的起因，这种溯源性的操作只是自我运动所展现的“效果”。

There is a classic Greek myth:
Orpheus, son of Apollo, possessed transcendent musical talent—his lyre tamed wild beasts and moved stones to tears. He married the wood nymph Eurydice, but their bliss proved fleeting when she died from a serpent's bite shortly after their wedding. Grief-stricken, Orpheus journeyed to the Underworld with his lyre. His music moved Hades and Persephone, who agreed to return Eurydice on one condition: he must lead without looking back until both fully exited the Underworld, lest she perish eternally. As they neared the mortal realm, Orpheus turned for unknown reasons. Instantly, Eurydice vanished. Returning in anguish, Orpheus heard Apollo's consolation: "Eurydice now permeates all things—stars, beasts, mountains, lakes, morning mist and dew. Transmute your love into art; to hymn the world is to worship her."

Why Did Orpheus Look Back?

Though warned that steadfast compliance would resurrect Eurydice, Orpheus—despite divine lineage—succumbed to mortal fragility. At that critical juncture, emotion overwhelmed resolve. Hades, foreseeing this human frailty, designed the test anticipating his failure.
Even as a mortal, Orpheus inherited divine narcissism; Hades' "trick" meant nothing—he turned deliberately. Artistic creation demands sacrifice. Like Heraclitus who blinded himself to gain philosophical clarity by renouncing sensory pleasure, Orpheus sacrificed Eurydice to reclaim her as a "sublime object of poetic inspiration". Before Apollo's counsel, he envisioned her "poetic radiance illuminating creation," reveling in this metamorphosis. Thus, he could endlessly savor remorse, deepening his music's pathos.
Herein lies Eurydice's superior jouissance: during the descent, she discerned his creative impasse—his genius flourished only in her absence. Recognizing her physical presence hindered his artistry, she actively provoked his glance during the ascent, orchestrating her second death to immortalize his grief and artistic legacy.
Realistically, no Underworld journey occurred; Hades, Apollo—none existed. A grief-maddened bard fabricated this narrative. Unable to accept Eurydice's random death or his irrelevance, he cast himself as the culprit in this musical lament: a wife-sacrificing egoist framing the quest and glance as pathological narcissism serving poetic self-mythology. Though Eurydice's death was irreversible, he forcibly claimed responsibility. By constructing this "second death," he sacrificed his innocence, willingly embracing guilt. This self-imputed culpability transformed unbearable loss into endurable penance.

"The result actualizes the cause; the cause becomes itself only within the result. It is by positing itself as the result that the cause constitutes itself as cause."
In Hegel's Science of Logic, causality emerges from self-unfolding:
When people believe they are tracing the pure origin of an event, their own existential condition and ideology are the true origin. The apparent "causal event" is secondary.
It is usually thought that the cause produces the effect. But actually, once the effect occurs, it "retroactively" establishes the cause, making the effect seem constitutive. In truth, the self that produces this causal chain is the constitutive origin. This act of tracing origins is merely an "effect" manifested by the movement of the self.