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The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

nautil.us

71–80 of 213 posts

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#71
post #59
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech moves so fast, I can’t think of a termination event that couldn’t be solved with 1M years of exponential growth. Even with the Big Freeze or Big Crunch of the universe, there’s at least some hope that some currently unknown science, energy source, etc. might be accessible to us in 1M years that could delay or reduce the severity of the event. But, let’s say there’s a an event that will somehow destroy our entire…

Tech moves so fast now . While I don't believe we'll be leveling off anytime soon, it's worth considering the possibility of it.

There's also the pessimistic view that we will actually lose progress and regress over time. Jonathan Blow has an interesting talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#72
post #12

Wikipedia has a page on the Timeline of the far future[1]. It lists a ton of physical and cosmological things that are predicted to happen based on our current understanding of physics. A really fun read that always takes me down a rabbit's hole of phenomena wikipedia pages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

There's a video on that. The end of the universe: https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA This is so weird to think that for most of its life the universe will be empty and cold. Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.

Is there an axiom of your personal philosophy that causes you to conclude that something must persist for infinite time in order to possess meaning?

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#73
post #15
post #7

So the universe is just biding it’s time to die? This is it, no more creation, no more new platforms for biological miracles. Interesting, so while humans figure out how to navigate the universe, many planets/stars would simply die and we will not even know.

I mean the universe is so incredibly vast that even if we figure out how to travel at the speed of light, we'll only ever get to see a small fraction of it. I don't think we'll have to worry about running out of places to explore.

So, about that. One of the weird things about General Relativity is that if we COULD travel at or near the speed of light, then time dilation and length contraction will conspire to enable a trio to the end of the observable universe in 30 years.

So we could definitely explore the universe, we just have no way to share what we discover with our friends back home.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#74
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super Mario bros is pretty fun

I imagined this as a modern buddhist story: The student approaches their master lamenting the meaninglessness of everything. The master, "Super Mario bros is pretty fun". Enlightenment ensues.

And then two schools of Buddhism diverged, one favoring Super Mario Bros and the other Super Mario Bros 2

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#75
post #15
post #7

So the universe is just biding it’s time to die? This is it, no more creation, no more new platforms for biological miracles. Interesting, so while humans figure out how to navigate the universe, many planets/stars would simply die and we will not even know.

I mean the universe is so incredibly vast that even if we figure out how to travel at the speed of light, we'll only ever get to see a small fraction of it. I don't think we'll have to worry about running out of places to explore.

> we'll only ever get to see a small fraction of it

True, but on the other hand, due to relativistic time dilation, a very fast traveller could visit very far away destinations if they get closer and closer to the speed of light.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#76
post #68
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we have a good backup star AI intelligences would have no problem traveling between stars. Who cares if it takes thousands of years even... just turn yourself off. Even better send automated factories to build compute power and robotics and then transmit your minds when the new site is ready.

It does have pretty nasty flares...

Beggars can't be choosers...

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#77
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a video on that. The end of the universe: https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA This is so weird to think that for most of its life the universe will be empty and cold. Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.

Is there an axiom of your personal philosophy that causes you to conclude that something must persist for infinite time in order to possess meaning?

I can try. If the result of doing something vs doing nothing is indistinguishable after a certain time, does it matter that it ever happened?

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#78
post #12

Wikipedia has a page on the Timeline of the far future[1]. It lists a ton of physical and cosmological things that are predicted to happen based on our current understanding of physics. A really fun read that always takes me down a rabbit's hole of phenomena wikipedia pages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

There's a video on that. The end of the universe: https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA This is so weird to think that for most of its life the universe will be empty and cold. Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.

Thinking about this stuff is what prompted my thinking about things like suicide.

The Universe is so vast. So much space, most of it with only the barest wisp of gas. Most of the solar systems we see in the night sky may not have life (we don't know yet). And yet here we are, a rare event in a vast Universe.

In the end it doesn't matter what you do. What you accomplish or did not accomplish. What awards were won or lost, life goals achieved or not.

Everything you can see (including the stars in the sky), everything you have ever heard about will be less than dust at some point in the far future. No statues will survive, no history books, no songs of glory. The stars will wink out, the galaxies red-shift past the point of visibility as they rush away from us. It will eventually be a vast, empty and quiet expanse, as the last of the black holes slowly evaporate.

But right here, right now, you are alive and able to experience the Universe. Yes, you may be in a shitty situation now, but you are still alive and you still have possibilities to experience something wonderful. It won't last, it never lasts, but that isn't the point. We all have to appreciate what we do have, when we have it.

Some people are in truly shitty situations, and legitimately have no way out, with no possible means to create even a little happiness for themselves. But for everyone else thinking of ending things prematurely, I urge you to consider how rare and precious you are. If you can give even a little kindness to someone else, it will have been worth it, because that's all that really matters, on our journey to infinity.

Re: The universe has already made almost all the stars it will ever make

#80
post #32
post #24

I'd be interested to know how people (humanity) would feel if it were known that the universe would just come to a hard-stop in a million years. In practice, it should make no difference. That's already much, much further than any of us can comprehend. It's a hundred times the length of recorded human history. What would it really matter? On the other hand, it would seem so short, I think a sense of nihilism would al…

Tech moves so fast, I can’t think of a termination event that couldn’t be solved with 1M years of exponential growth. Even with the Big Freeze or Big Crunch of the universe, there’s at least some hope that some currently unknown science, energy source, etc. might be accessible to us in 1M years that could delay or reduce the severity of the event. But, let’s say there’s a an event that will somehow destroy our entire…

The total arrogance of people in technology lol. We're still just sentient specs of dust abiding by the laws of the universe on a spec of dust planet. Writing CRUD apps, flying to Mars, or driving an electric car, isn't going to save the universe.
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