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> At the end of it all there will be nothing but the heat death of the universe. I'm as non-religious as they come, but I often wonder about this. Any time I s

> At the end of it all there will be nothing but the heat death of the universe. I'm as non-religious as they come, but I often wonder about this. Any time I spend even a little bit of time thinking about this stuff, I always find myself turning to the thought that, if that truly is all there is, then why does anything exist at all? Like, even on the level of energy/matter. My brain just can't get past the logic of, if there truly isn't anything here at the end beyond a dead, near-infinite void, wouldn't it have been cheaper and simpler for literally nothing to ever exist? Why go through the hassle of all this matter creation? It's just a really stubborn blocker for me. I get sort of stuck there and kind of throw up my arms and get to living as if some of this must matter somehow. I'm not saying it does. But the fact that matter exists, as opposed to there just simply being absolute never-nowhere-nothing, keeps me questioning.

hvidgaard 7y ago
For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident. Or perhaps our universe it all there is, and it doesn't expand infinitely, but will begin a pullback at some point leading to a new big bang. Or maybe we're just simple 3d beings, and the universe is really multi dimensional. Or even more mind boggling, we're just a simulation. None of the above explains what is outside, nor does it answer your question. What I'm trying to paint, is that we will probably never know. But we do know that being happy feels good, so just focus on that, because that is the meaning.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  >For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident. Is that true? I thought the whole reason they came up with dark matter was that the universe was expanding faster than the amount of detectable matter inside it would suggest.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    That's dark energy. Dark matter would slow down the expansions of the universe, and they came up with that to explain the rotation curves of galaxies: they're flat- all the stars in e.g. the Milky way go around the center in the same amount of time- but that shouldn't be the case going by just the matter we can see. Ergo, dark matter.
vekker 7y ago
I think the trick is to reverse your thinking. Looking for answers to existential questions outside ourselves is just a rabbit hole leading to more questions. I'd love to be proven wrong, that would make things a heck of a lot simpler. But this is like the dreamer asking himself where all the dream stuff comes from and why it's there, making up all sorts of theories about the dream universe and dream black holes or even dream gods. I think reality is very similar. You cannot solve problems with the same thinking used to create them.
latexr 7y ago
> if that truly is all there is, then why does anything exist at all? (…) wouldn't it have been cheaper and simpler for literally nothing to ever exist? Why go through the hassle of all this matter creation? This assumes purpose, intent. Yes, it might’ve been more logical to not create anything, but the processes that initiated creation didn’t reason, they didn’t think “what makes more sense”, they happened randomly. But even it there was an objective behind creation, that might have just as well been “to see what happens”, same way some people keep ant farms just to watch them — doesn’t make the ants’ existence any more meaningful.
brokenmachine 7y ago
Why does everything need a reason? Nobody really knows enough about what could happen on timescales that large. We've invented dark matter to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe because we don't have any proof of why that is happening. One thing is clear to me though, and that is that both Earth and the universe will outlive me. So no matter what happens to the universe, it's not my problem and I'm back to, "it's my choice whether I just sit here depressed about my imminent demise, or just forget about that which I have no control over and just try to enjoy myself as much as I can".

hvidgaard 7y ago

For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident. Or perhaps our universe it all there is, and it doesn't expand infinitely, but will begin a pullback at some point leading to a new big bang. Or maybe we're just simple 3d beings, and the universe is really multi dimensional. Or even more mind boggling, we're just a simulation. None of the above explains what is outside, nor does it answer your question. What I'm trying to paint, is that we will probably never know. But we do know that being happy feels good, so just focus on that, because that is the meaning.

brokenmachine 7y ago
>For all we know, we live inside a black hole, as far as we understand the matter in the universe and it's size. The size of the observable universe line up with the event horizon of a black hole with the same mass. It may be a coincident. Is that true? I thought the whole reason they came up with dark matter was that the universe was expanding faster than the amount of detectable matter inside it would suggest.
- antepodius 7y ago
  That's dark energy. Dark matter would slow down the expansions of the universe, and they came up with that to explain the rotation curves of galaxies: they're flat- all the stars in e.g. the Milky way go around the center in the same amount of time- but that shouldn't be the case going by just the matter we can see. Ergo, dark matter.

vekker 7y ago

I think the trick is to reverse your thinking. Looking for answers to existential questions outside ourselves is just a rabbit hole leading to more questions. I'd love to be proven wrong, that would make things a heck of a lot simpler. But this is like the dreamer asking himself where all the dream stuff comes from and why it's there, making up all sorts of theories about the dream universe and dream black holes or even dream gods. I think reality is very similar. You cannot solve problems with the same thinking used to create them.

latexr 7y ago

> if that truly is all there is, then why does anything exist at all? (…) wouldn't it have been cheaper and simpler for literally nothing to ever exist? Why go through the hassle of all this matter creation? This assumes purpose, intent. Yes, it might’ve been more logical to not create anything, but the processes that initiated creation didn’t reason, they didn’t think “what makes more sense”, they happened randomly. But even it there was an objective behind creation, that might have just as well been “to see what happens”, same way some people keep ant farms just to watch them — doesn’t make the ants’ existence any more meaningful.

brokenmachine 7y ago

Why does everything need a reason? Nobody really knows enough about what could happen on timescales that large. We've invented dark matter to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe because we don't have any proof of why that is happening. One thing is clear to me though, and that is that both Earth and the universe will outlive me. So no matter what happens to the universe, it's not my problem and I'm back to, "it's my choice whether I just sit here depressed about my imminent demise, or just forget about that which I have no control over and just try to enjoy myself as much as I can".