Do you ever stop to consider the fact that one day not only will you be dead and everyone you know will be dead too, but that the planet will probably fall back into the sun and the entire universe w

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Actually, no, now I come to think about it, I never consider this scenario at all. Call me shallow and buy me drink.

― Person doomed to extinction, along with the rest of the world and in fact the en, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, i do.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't. I sometimes wonder how we invented bricks, though.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i do, but then i take another hit.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I sometimes think about this, but such thoughts usually lead nowhere really.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure it's going to happen, sonny - but not for MILLIONS of years! So we should just enjoy ourselves while we can, huh? HUH? AHahahahahaha!!!

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe you're right. I think I'll just go out with Diane Keaton instead.

― person who bla bla, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Who says it's going to happen? The universe is too vast for such assumptions to be made surely. I quite like the idea that in order for the universe to return to margin/pre-big bang status (non-existent?) it has to retract i.e. reversal of it's current process of rapid expansion - re-assuringly cyclical, breathe out, breathe in

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

16. Jamie Cullum

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Why do you ask? Do you have a solution?

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I think about it, but I can't say I care as long as it doesn't happen in the next 200 years or so (ie after everyone I ever meet in my life is dead anyway). Am I shallow? Buy me a drink.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Surely this thread should be on ILM?

― pete s, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I sometimes think about this, but such thoughts usually lead nowhere really.

There's a John Updike line about how you sometimes add an extra digit to the date by accident - and suddenly realise that you'll have been dead for 19 thousand years or whatever by that time...a ilttle tremor of mortality flitters across your heart and then you return to illusion.

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

man i was really planning on being alive in 19,000 years time

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 13:59 (twenty-one years ago)

God will look back and think "how exactly did Phil Neville get 45 caps for England?"

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:03 (twenty-one years ago)

The past was yours but the future's mine.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:06 (twenty-one years ago)

what a rubbish present, AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:08 (twenty-one years ago)

ha ha fall "back" into the sun

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The world only exists inside ones own head anyway - when I die the world effectively ends. Selfish, but I won't know otherwise.

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Thwe world generally ends in May and starts again in August. You just have to get used to it.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

instead of saying all of your goodbyes
let them know you realise that life goes fast
it's hard to make the good things last
realise the sun don't go down
it's just an illusion caused by the world
spinning round
*key change*
do you realise ooo oo ooo
*key change*
do you realise ooo oo ooo
do you realise?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I think about this all the time.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i bet wayne coyne 'stops to consider the fact that...' every day at breakfast. for several hours.

― pete s, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

What about the many worlds theory? If all possible universes exist, then there must exist one with perfect equilibrium that will go on infinitely. Therefore although our puny universe may die, others might live on!

Or consider the Hawking theory of the universe, where there is no definitive point at which the universe begins or ends, because at certain levels of density quantum theory kicks in and time and space become blurred. Therefore the universe doesn't really "end" at all!

Think positive, I say!

― positivist, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I find it odd that some people don't think about this quite a lot.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I think about how bridges get made more.

― teeny (teeny), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, we might evolve to a whole new level of consciousness that is not dependent on a physical support. Sort of like 2001 A Space Odyssey or something.

Also, God may exist and we might live on eternally anyway. Always worth considering.

― positivist, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to think quite frequently about how, REALLY, the extinguishing of our sun will have next to no consequence on a cosmic scale. But I had to stop, because it made it very hard to get out of bed in the morning. Or early afternoon.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

More often than I think about being dead, I think about how when kids being born right now are the age I am now, they are going to think I'm such a dweeb.

― kirsten (kirsten), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh...

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it makes sense.

― kirsten (kirsten), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

there was an excellent long piece in Slate on this subject the other week:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2096491/entry/2096506

― slb, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I suppose thinking about this is quite comforting and nebulous compared to the horror of thinking about the kind of climate our children and grandchildren are going to have to live with.

― pete s, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I just think about how cool my kids will think my record collection and shoes are.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

*sniggers*

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Membrane Theory to thread.

[the best TV prog I have ever seen btw]

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 14:56 (twenty-one years ago)

With the advances in nanotechnology and gengineering and such going on the way they are, I'm lately starting to feel like the name of the Tortoise album Millions Now Living Will Never Die might not be total bullshit. I also think it's a shame that humans as a whole aren't as obsessed with innovations in livingry as they are with weaponry and because of this we might not be able to develop as a species. I also like hits from the bong.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the last thing the world needs is a means to further increase the prevalence of human beings upon it by enabling them not to die. It is interesting as a theoretical exercise tho - how would our worldview change? What would happen to religion? What would you do with all that time?

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I would spend all of if considering impossible philosophical dilemmas in 11 dimensions

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

and wanking

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

in 11 dimensions

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Sleep glorious sleep.... but would we be allowed to retire? Who would support the billions of jobless and elderly?

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

If we lived forever, there would be no action that we couldn't undo at some future moment and life would become meaningless. Then again, since life is meaningless anyway, I vote for living forever.

― "HAL", Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I would have assumed that, if they can figure out a way to stop people dieing, then they can figure out a way to make them young, or at least stop ageing at a certain point in their lives.

xpost
Daisy, Daisy....

― hmmm (hmmm), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Would we age? What would be the prime stage of life to be at forever? Aaargh, my brains melting!

xpost

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I wonder where all the whale/shark/seal/fish poop in the ocean goes. Am I swimming next to all that shit (literally)? How come I've never seen it? Not that I ever hope to, mind you. But I honestly think about this every time I swim in the ocean.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Not just marine creature shit you need to worry about...

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe that's why salt water?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

boom-tish

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Do planes empty shit in the sea?

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Does the pope... hang on.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

See! I knew sea-horse dung was the least of my surfing worries!

― Rumpy Pumpkin (rumpypumpkin), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:35 (twenty-one years ago)

"How long can life survive in the universe? Can it evolve forever, or will the third law of Thermodynamics lead to universal heat death? Apparently there might be some ways around this fate, if intelligent life is sufficiently clever and tenacious.

Essentially life has to adapt as the universe grows older, changing itself to be able to survive when the stars grow cold. If the universe is open, there will be plenty of time to work in, but energy will become very scarce. Dyson has shown that a finite amount of energy is enough to guarantee infinite survival if it is spent sufficiently slowly (this is called the Dyson scenario

On the other hand, if the universe is closed, it will recollapse into a Big Crunch after a finite time, becoming hotter and hotter. Life has to adapt and restructure itself to these conditions, and if intelligent beings accelerate the speed of their mental processes accordingly they can even experience a subjective infinite time during the last stages of the collapse. This is called the Tipler scenario

A third possibility is that the universe may be open or closed, but new baby universes branch off due to natural or artificial causes, and intelligent life can survive indefinitely by migrating into new domains as the old become uninhabitable. This is commonly called the Linde scenario."

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I think about this sort of thing a lot. It doesn't really make me feel depressed, but then only the living can contemplate the finite nature of everything.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Brother Void to thread

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 18:14 (twenty-one years ago)

This depressed me a lot when I was about 12. If it's not getting to you yet, concentrate on specific people, pets, places etc etc

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 18:17 (twenty-one years ago)

both this fact and the many worlds theory make me stable on a day to day basis. my own complete insignificant is a comforting thought. it takes a lot of the pressure off of life.

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Which fact?

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

the fact that one day not only will i be dead and everyone i know will be dead too, but that the planet will probably fall back into the sun and the entire universe will entropy and there won't be a single person or thing left alive.

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 21:27 (twenty-one years ago)

You see I don't find that remotely comforting.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Brother Void vs Reason (founder of longevitymeme.org)... that would be a good fight. the weels are in motion.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 21:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm an egoist. I regularly think about the fact that one day I will no longer exist. Full stop. Don't really see how what happens after that is any of my concern. Don't particularly find it comforting either though. Call ME shallow and buy me a drink instead.

― mouse, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 23:18 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not really to do with empathy. More fear of a black universe.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 23:29 (twenty-one years ago)

???

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 16 March 2004 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 00:31 (twenty-one years ago)

When we die, we will remain dead for a length of time known as infinity. (Unless, as Einstein proposes, time is curved and loops back round.) Now, one of the odd mathematical properties of infinity is that any fixed bit of finite time is the same proportion of infinity as any other, no matter how long or short. Okay, think of this second right now as a starting line, and 'infinity' as an end point. Despite the fact that every second brings you one second closer to death, you are still the same distance away from infinity and have not shrunk the proportion of time between then and now in the least. It's like a big bank account that fills up with money no matter how much you spend. Reassuring, isn't it?

― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Sadly, I consider this fairly often in a Keanu-esque "woah" way. The concept boggles the mind, etc. - I would have made a great stoner.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 01:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I've thought about the fact that I'm going to die almost every day since I was 17. Not in a morbid way but in a realistic one. Like Felonious Drunk said upthread, it really helps keep things in perspective. No point sweating the trivial stuff - just get on with living.

― J-rock (Julien Sandiford), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 02:10 (twenty-one years ago)

it takes a lot of the pressure off of life.

that's how i feel. in fact, whenever i feel anxious or upset or whatever i just medidate on the fact that i will eventually be dead anyway. keeps things in perspective.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 02:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I knew this was a Person doomed to extinction, along with the rest of the world and in fact the entire universe thread the instant I saw the title!

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 02:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Who the hell really knows. I think Stephen Hawking's position of an endless universe is as close to right as I can agree with. Otherwise you'd have a big brick wall at the outermost limits and then we'd have to wonder who in tarnation built that, and more, what's on the other side. Life surely evolves, and, let's hope, in a good way.

― jim wentworth (wench), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 04:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I tend to get stuck close to home. I occasionally look at my spouse and think "It's nearly certain one of us will die before the other. It must end in tears."

― Hunter (Hunter), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 06:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I think those same thoughts, too.

― jim wentworth (wench), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 07:05 (twenty-one years ago)

there's a funny isaac asimov story about two drunk guys who ask a computer "can entropy ever be reversed?" one night after getting paranoid about the universe coming to an end. the computer says it doesn't know, and the rest of the story just has this happening over and over at intervals of a few million years or so until mankind's died out and the last computer just sits there until it finally figures out the answer, and then it turns out to be god.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 07:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't think many scientists thought the universe was endless? You don't have to have a brick wall - it just has to loop round. I suppose that's a kind of endless.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 11:13 (twenty-one years ago)

my favourite infinity = tv with tv on screen showing same picture. also mirror opposite mirror.

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 11:17 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

I like to contemplate this when I've had a hard day or when someone I don't like succeeds at something.

― moley, Friday, 20 July 2007 11:44 (eighteen years ago)

YOU ARE STARDUST, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!

― Beth Parker, Friday, 20 July 2007 11:57 (eighteen years ago)

My favourite infinity = the real numbers

Anyhow, I'll be dead when all o' that stuff happens, so why give a shit?

― Stone Monkey, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

I am not afraid to kill you because there is no death.

― dean ge, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:09 (eighteen years ago)

What's the oldest point in history where an individual person is still remembered today?

― Ste, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:47 (eighteen years ago)

The Bible has odd factoids that seem real, like Nebuchadnezzar went crazy and ate grass.

― Beth Parker, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

I like to meditate on the nothingness and the insignificance of the creation, that majes me feel a lot better about the barbaric acts humas visit upon one another, the killers were nothing, those killed were nothing, we're all nothing.

― Heave Ho, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:52 (eighteen years ago)

I think about this shit too much.

― Hurting 2, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:52 (eighteen years ago)

All we are is dust in the wind, dude.

― onimo, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:53 (eighteen years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:William_Blake_-_Nebukadnezar2.jpg

― Beth Parker, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:54 (eighteen years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d4/William_Blake_-_Nebukadnezar2.jpg/800px-William_Blake_-_Nebukadnezar2.jpg

― Beth Parker, Friday, 20 July 2007 12:55 (eighteen years ago)

this shits making me want to just stand up and walk right out of work because it's all just bullshit and insignificant.

(but i'm not gonna)

― Ste, Friday, 20 July 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

two years pass...

The Independent's in a cheery Monday morning mood:

imagine the last inhabitants of the universe huddled around the evaporative glow of gamma rays from the last black hole, telling timeless stories about time. It was fun while it lasted.

― Bob Six, Monday, 14 June 2010 07:46 (fifteen years ago)

My favourite infinity = the real numbers

for me the full complex plane is a slightly more confounding and intriguing infinity

― Krystal Chic (crüt), Monday, 14 June 2010 07:50 (fifteen years ago)

two years pass...

― markers, Thursday, 23 May 2013 00:53 (twelve years ago)

"how bout you never wake up...ever?"

― controversial vegan pregnancy (contenderizer), Thursday, 23 May 2013 01:05 (twelve years ago)

- Bob Marley

― controversial vegan pregnancy (contenderizer), Thursday, 23 May 2013 01:06 (twelve years ago)

― obligatory kate winslet nipple shot (Bob Six), Thursday, 23 May 2013 07:20 (twelve years ago)

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