World riddle
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The term "world riddle" or "world-riddle" has been associated, for over 100 years, with Friedrich Nietzsche and with the biologist-philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who as a professor of zoology at the University of Jena, wrote the book Die Welträthsel in 1895–1899, in modern spelling Die Welträtsel, (German "The World-riddles"), with the English version published under the title The Riddle of the Universe, 1901.
The term "world riddle" concerns the nature of the universe and the meaning of life.
The question and answer of the World Riddle has also been examined as an inspiration or allegorical meaning within some musical compositions, such as the unresolved harmonic progression at the end of "Also sprach Zarathustra" (1896) by composer Richard Strauss, made famous in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
See also
- Epistemology - study of the nature of knowledge.
- Existentialism - philosophy of life.