On Medium: The Prospects of Heroism despite the Eventual Cosmic Equilibrium
Read on to learn about the con of mystical oneness, the demonization of humanists, and the heroism of existential rebellion against the universe's pointlessness.
Great article. I especially like how you drew a parallel between nirvana/moksha, the eschaton and the heat death of the universe. A lot of people miss it, but much of our 'modern' cosmology is just warmed over mythology.
Everything humans do is ultimately futile if the bar for non-futility rests on eternity; nothing we create can last forever. Everyone knows this on a deep level - hence the appeal of religion - and yet this doesn't prevent us from going about our business. I think nihilism is just a sheep dog priests use to keep their livestock in the fold. Plenty of people with no hope of an afterlife somehow find the motivation to do things; occasionally such people do great things.
Oh, and I think that the notion of there ever being a time when nothing will happen is incoherent. If the universe is doomed to reach a state of perfect energetic equilibrium (in other words: zero energy) in which nothing further will occur, then time will have effectively come to to an end since time is, by definition, a mathematical relationship between events. Just as you can't have motion without reference points, you can't have time with reference events. So cheer up: there will never be a time when something interesting isn't happening in the universe!
Thanks. Indeed, if dark energy wins out and pushes the last photons out to be cooled to absolute zero, nothing further will happen forever. Time will be meaningless because change will be impossible at maximum entropy (disorder).
I may have shared this video before, but I like how it sums up the physical history of the universe (link below). It's speculative, because dark energy is mysterious.
To avoid the incoherence, I suppose we'd have to say nothing will happen at the end of time.
Great article. I especially like how you drew a parallel between nirvana/moksha, the eschaton and the heat death of the universe. A lot of people miss it, but much of our 'modern' cosmology is just warmed over mythology.
ReplyDeleteEverything humans do is ultimately futile if the bar for non-futility rests on eternity; nothing we create can last forever. Everyone knows this on a deep level - hence the appeal of religion - and yet this doesn't prevent us from going about our business. I think nihilism is just a sheep dog priests use to keep their livestock in the fold. Plenty of people with no hope of an afterlife somehow find the motivation to do things; occasionally such people do great things.
Oh, and I think that the notion of there ever being a time when nothing will happen is incoherent. If the universe is doomed to reach a state of perfect energetic equilibrium (in other words: zero energy) in which nothing further will occur, then time will have effectively come to to an end since time is, by definition, a mathematical relationship between events. Just as you can't have motion without reference points, you can't have time with reference events. So cheer up: there will never be a time when something interesting isn't happening in the universe!
Thanks. Indeed, if dark energy wins out and pushes the last photons out to be cooled to absolute zero, nothing further will happen forever. Time will be meaningless because change will be impossible at maximum entropy (disorder).
DeleteI may have shared this video before, but I like how it sums up the physical history of the universe (link below). It's speculative, because dark energy is mysterious.
To avoid the incoherence, I suppose we'd have to say nothing will happen at the end of time.
https://aeon.co/videos/deep-time-and-beyond-the-great-nothingness-at-the-end-of-the-universe