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

nautil.us

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

#121

Post by platz »

stan_rogers wrote: post #116
platz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is the leading cosmological theory. If that is true, all our observations are descended from a pinpoint region of space that contained everything we can observe now. We don't have any means to judge whether the parameters of space are the same or different in regions that have always been causally separated from us. Be more comfortable with saying "I (We) don't know".

For the things we can observe to be the way they are, the furthest things that can be observed by the furthest things we can observe must be more or less the same as well, and so on.

This is a bad inference

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

#122

Post by awb »

1270018080 wrote: post #80
awb wrote: 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…

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.

Yet it would have been impossible for many folks to even imagine such things 1,000 years ago.

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

#123

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

kibwen wrote: post #115
ansible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Similar experience here. Learning about astronomy was a psychologically traumatizing experience. After a few years of ceaseless low-key existential crises I think I finally ended up better off, with a healthy perspective of my place in the universe and an appreciation for what a miracle it is that we have the chance to observe anything at all. The writings of Carl Sagan helped greatly. But I fear I could have just as…

Is nihilism or hedonism bad? A lot of people already live their lives for pleasure (hedonism) - people work their entire lives to earn money to either enjoy / vacation / sex / etc. Nihilism is considerably rare but I believe that's because it's opposite to hedonism, in a way.

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

#124

Post by ud_0 »

stackbutterflow wrote: post #36
misthop wrote: 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.

> Like what's even the point of all this, of life, of us, if in the end nothing matters, everything decays into nothingness.

I don't understand this reasoning. If the universe had a different end state, or if it collapsed in on itself only to erupt again, would that make any difference to the meaning of your life or that of our civilization? Probably not, because things still end.

It seems to me that you'd arrive at this conclusion of meaninglessness in any case. The thing is, while the universe may not care, there are many things we as humans do care about. They have meaning because we give them meaning. Isn't that liberating?

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

#125

Post by AlexanderTheGr8 »

ansible wrote: post #78
stackbutterflow wrote: post #36

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.

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 l…

"Nothing matters" - that's a very soothing thought. It's soothing because we all focus of what we haven't / couldn't done. It's human mentality to think of bad things over good things. So if nothing matters, then our bad things don't matter, and so it's soothing.

But I don't think we should base our life on any 1 particular ideology because of the possibility of us being wrong. Imagine someone basing their entire life on 1 particular ideology , and it turns out that they were simply wrong. The sunk-cost fallacy would be unbelievable.

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

#126

Post by handrous »

lemonberry wrote: post #50
webkike wrote: 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.

Life before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.

Life after enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.

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

#127

Post by NikolaeVarius »

kibwen wrote: post #115
ansible wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

Similar experience here. Learning about astronomy was a psychologically traumatizing experience. After a few years of ceaseless low-key existential crises I think I finally ended up better off, with a healthy perspective of my place in the universe and an appreciation for what a miracle it is that we have the chance to observe anything at all. The writings of Carl Sagan helped greatly. But I fear I could have just as…

I dont understand. hedonism and nihilism are good things.

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

#128

Post by jsolson »

lemonberry wrote: post #50
webkike wrote: 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.

Without going into details that would spoil things, the TV series "The Good Place" touches on this idea, although it's Madden rather than Mario.

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

#129

Post by effingwewt »

city41 wrote: post #71
bl0rg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In the micro sense we see this all day every day. Restaurants start good but aim for max profit and become garbage. Apps/websites start great then keep adding cruft while removing features. Capitalism. Housing. All we do is advance to regress and repeat ourselves over and over.
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