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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

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.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> You claimed that essentially no individual contributions is there after 100 years. I didn't, I claimed they didn't matter, which you are agreeing with. Sure, scale matters, and that's also my point. You aren't Plato, you probably aren't going to be the next Plato, and that's OK. Plato matters today, but he won't in a million years, and that's infinitesimally small compared to the time-span to heat death. And again, if your individual contribution matters, you don't have to worry about your contribution not mattering as the heat death of the universe will be your legacy.
- dpierce9 4y ago
  You want to say ‘nothing matters’ because there is some high entropy state of the universe way in the future. I don’t think that is reasonable. I am saying things matter. Individual contributions matter along the way and they easily and often last longer than many lifetimes. Not just like Plato. ‘Mundane’ reproduction of humans matters to all future individuals that result as a consequence. This is true even if we all end up dead and the universe ‘ends’ in a perpetual entropic fog.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

> You claimed that essentially no individual contributions is there after 100 years. I didn't, I claimed they didn't matter, which you are agreeing with. Sure, scale matters, and that's also my point. You aren't Plato, you probably aren't going to be the next Plato, and that's OK. Plato matters today, but he won't in a million years, and that's infinitesimally small compared to the time-span to heat death. And again, if your individual contribution matters, you don't have to worry about your contribution not mattering as the heat death of the universe will be your legacy.

dpierce9 4y ago
You want to say ‘nothing matters’ because there is some high entropy state of the universe way in the future. I don’t think that is reasonable. I am saying things matter. Individual contributions matter along the way and they easily and often last longer than many lifetimes. Not just like Plato. ‘Mundane’ reproduction of humans matters to all future individuals that result as a consequence. This is true even if we all end up dead and the universe ‘ends’ in a perpetual entropic fog.