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I can guarantee you your individual contribution would stop mattering far earlier than that. Not saying that as a slight, but for realities sake. If what we d

I can guarantee you your individual contribution would stop mattering far earlier than that. Not saying that as a slight, but for realities sake. If what we do matters in 100 years after we die we're doing better than most of entire human history. It's the height of hubris to think that it's going to be heat death that finishes our accomplishments off. Better to realign expectations to something less grand than "have an effect that last forever".

edgyquant 4y ago
Yea I will, but the entirety of all earth life won’t. Anyway it’s not me, I’m just responding to a question with the obvious answer.
- mannykannot 4y ago
  Fair enough, but the reply you got is just as obvious. Update: That may be a bit harsh, so here's something to balance it: there's a sense in which what has been achieved is timeless, regardless of what the future brings.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Huh? How is that obvious for "entirety of all earth life"?
    - mannykannot 4y ago
      By "fair enough", I was mostly thinking of edgyquant's second sentence. With regard to "entirety of all earth life", I think the point here is that these are all subjective opinions - The universe either will or will not undergo heat death regardless of what any of us think about it. Obviousness is an opinion, and in my opinion, SketchySeaBeast's attitude to the possibility of heat death is just as obvious as edgyquant's, and there is no objective reason to adopt one over the other.
dpierce9 4y ago
YOU are the consequence of individual contributions 10s or 100s of thousands of years ago. Writings and works, almost certainly lose their effect (but not a guarantee). But kids go on to have more kids until they don’t. That impact stretches out until it doesn’t, maybe not forever but also not necessarily a narrow window.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  > YOU are the consequence of individual contributions 10s or 100s of thousands of years ago. I am the consequence of thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of individual contributions (genetic and otherwise). Sure the sum ended up in me, but how changed would I be if one of those changed? Who can know. Yes, we are all the consequence of innumerable contributions and choices since the very beginning of time, but that means that as we stretch that time back each individual elements quickly loses meaning and becomes static. But if you do believe that each contribution matters then great news - your little contribution to the universe's heat death will be there on display for all eternity and the fact that it can't actually be observed because of said heat death will also be due to your contribution, so no worries as you're still important at the end of the all things.
  - dpierce9 4y ago
    Without the contribution of every unique individual in your lineage it is safe to say YOU wouldn’t be here. Differences between identical twins should be enough to tell you that. You might say ‘I would be here but with a different genetic makeup’ or some such. But that is basically nonsense. You are, at the very least, the sum of the PARTICULAR causal sequence that made you. You claimed that essentially no individual contribution is there after 100 years. That isn’t true. I am not suggesting the contributions are clear, good, special, or even ‘matter’ in some grand sense. They don’t have to even be linked to the originator. But that doesn’t mean individual contributions aren’t there. Scale matters. Plato contributed to humanity. Plato contributed to the heat death. One of those is infinitely more interesting than the other.
    - 4y ago

edgyquant 4y ago

Yea I will, but the entirety of all earth life won’t. Anyway it’s not me, I’m just responding to a question with the obvious answer.

mannykannot 4y ago
Fair enough, but the reply you got is just as obvious. Update: That may be a bit harsh, so here's something to balance it: there's a sense in which what has been achieved is timeless, regardless of what the future brings.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Huh? How is that obvious for "entirety of all earth life"?
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    By "fair enough", I was mostly thinking of edgyquant's second sentence. With regard to "entirety of all earth life", I think the point here is that these are all subjective opinions - The universe either will or will not undergo heat death regardless of what any of us think about it. Obviousness is an opinion, and in my opinion, SketchySeaBeast's attitude to the possibility of heat death is just as obvious as edgyquant's, and there is no objective reason to adopt one over the other.

dpierce9 4y ago

YOU are the consequence of individual contributions 10s or 100s of thousands of years ago. Writings and works, almost certainly lose their effect (but not a guarantee). But kids go on to have more kids until they don’t. That impact stretches out until it doesn’t, maybe not forever but also not necessarily a narrow window.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> YOU are the consequence of individual contributions 10s or 100s of thousands of years ago. I am the consequence of thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of individual contributions (genetic and otherwise). Sure the sum ended up in me, but how changed would I be if one of those changed? Who can know. Yes, we are all the consequence of innumerable contributions and choices since the very beginning of time, but that means that as we stretch that time back each individual elements quickly loses meaning and becomes static. But if you do believe that each contribution matters then great news - your little contribution to the universe's heat death will be there on display for all eternity and the fact that it can't actually be observed because of said heat death will also be due to your contribution, so no worries as you're still important at the end of the all things.
- dpierce9 4y ago
  Without the contribution of every unique individual in your lineage it is safe to say YOU wouldn’t be here. Differences between identical twins should be enough to tell you that. You might say ‘I would be here but with a different genetic makeup’ or some such. But that is basically nonsense. You are, at the very least, the sum of the PARTICULAR causal sequence that made you. You claimed that essentially no individual contribution is there after 100 years. That isn’t true. I am not suggesting the contributions are clear, good, special, or even ‘matter’ in some grand sense. They don’t have to even be linked to the originator. But that doesn’t mean individual contributions aren’t there. Scale matters. Plato contributed to humanity. Plato contributed to the heat death. One of those is infinitely more interesting than the other.
  - 4y ago