• r_wraith@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    We are all headed towards the heat death of the universe with near zero chance for persistence beyond it. (…) With that said, we are the only beings that demonstrate an understanding of that probable future; And are thus the only beings possibly capable of doing anything about it.

    You do not really think that, even if some descendant of us still exists at the time of the heat death of the universe (having somehow survived billions of years in a dark universe with no posibillity (to our present knowledge) to generate any kind of usable energy), they will in any way be human? Or even be able to remember or discover that we were their ancestors?

    Edit (Addendum): I think even if human descendants should be around at the death of our sun, they will not be able to be called (or remember being) human.

    • TheShadowKnows@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for asking. A few things that I know based on scientific fact:

      1. We will only know the answer to that question if we strive to keep our species and it’s evolutions alive.

      2. What we call the laws of nature are only what we observe them to be NOW, based on the technology we have. We thought splitting the atom was impossible.

      Entropy is something we view NOW as inevitable, but it could be that we figure a way to harness the fundamental forces of the universe and overcome even that.

      I do think it is possible. Probably maybe not, but I will keep pushing people to investigate it’s possibility rather than suggesting we should simply give up because we’re not perfect.

      The people at that point in time may not be recognizably human. That is fine by me. They may be very recognizably human though. Time and space are funny that way. If tomorrow someone figures out how to harness gravity, we may very well be the species that does just that. It would be very cool to see the end of the universe and persist as beings that can create a new universe.