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Will the Universe Ever End?
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Will the Universe Ever End?

TheArchitect
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Posted 06/12/08 - 06:38 PM: Subject: Will the Universe Ever End?	#1
If so, then will future civilization and technology be able to prevent its collapse and sustain existence? Even in the scenario of the technological singularity, is it possible to "control" the universe?

swstephe
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Posted 06/13/08 - 02:50 AM:	#2
The "singularity" only means only when technology advances to a point when we, at the current time, can't predict a state beyond that. To ancient, (pre-bronze age), people, we are already beyond their singularity. The Universe doesn't care one bit about what goes on the surface of one little drit-ball with a monkey infection. It will go along pretty much the way it was going before anyone could do anything about it. If you are asking if our civilization and technology will help us sustain our existence -- that is the ultimate evolution of any species -- survive or get recycled into something else. If we are somehow supposed to change the course of the Universe -- you have to ask where all that massive power is going to come from ... the universe? That's like trying to move a sailboat by blowing in the sail.
Ethics is the measuring of morality. Morality is the measuring of good. Good is the measuring of benefit. Benefit is the measure of values.

TheArchitect
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Posted 06/13/08 - 07:24 AM:	#3
What about turning everything in the universe into "smart matter"?

perseus
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Posted 06/13/08 - 10:11 AM:	#4
TheArchitect wrote: If so, then will future civilization and technology be able to prevent its collapse and sustain existence? Even in the scenario of the technological singularity, is it possible to "control" the universe? What collapse is this, don't the latest observations suggest it will expand forever? Perhaps it may suffer a sort of heat death with many local collapses in the very long run. It seems as if we are trapped in our universe, but what precisely is our universe, that stuff 'out there' or the perceptions of a conscious entity? Perhaps the real issue is what are 'we' rather than what is 'out there' and by answering that there may be an 'escape' after all.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw

Dichotomy
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Posted 06/14/08 - 03:33 AM:	#5
TheArchitect wrote: will future civilization and technology be able to prevent its collapse and sustain existence The universe will continue to exist, with or without, our conscious thought. Future civilizations might exist as genetic code waiting to be re-engineered?
The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend. - Aldous Huxley

Dichotomy
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Posted 06/14/08 - 03:39 AM:	#6
perseus wrote: Perhaps the real issue is what are 'we' rather than what is 'out there' and by answering that there may be an 'escape' after all. Are we not just some of the evolving energy and matter of the universe. Are we not just one tiny part? We can't leave the universe, we can't go to the universe, because we are always part of it.
The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend. - Aldous Huxley

perseus
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Posted 06/14/08 - 10:05 AM:	#7
Dichotomy wrote: Are we not just some of the evolving energy and matter of the universe. Are we not just one tiny part? We can't leave the universe, we can't go to the universe, because we are always part of it. I'm referring to something analogous to the experience when waking up from a dream. Whilst in a dream your universe is perceptively bounded by your memory and imagination, and is physically restricted even more. If consciousness is central to reality as some theorise this analogy may not be too far fetched! What is energy and matter over and above our perceptions of them?
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw

Prime_Mover
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Posted 06/14/08 - 02:33 PM:	#8
TheArchitect wrote: If so, then will future civilization and technology be able to prevent its collapse and sustain existence? Where will it all go? Into non-existence? Existence is atemporal; there was no time that everything came from nothing ex nihilo and there will never be time when it suddenly disappears. Mass cannot be destroyed; it can only be changed to another form. If all of the matter of the universe suddenly turned into energy, there would still be existence, no humans, but existence nonetheless. Consciousness makes no difference in the course of events outside of man's possible control.

Ron C. de Weijze
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Posted 06/14/08 - 03:38 PM:	#9
To me this is enough to conclude the universe will never end: http://www.techdo.com/images/largest-know-star.htm
Researching and developing a practical philosophy of 'Constructive Recollection'.

Dichotomy
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Posted 06/15/08 - 02:10 AM:	#10
perseus wrote: [quote=Dichotomy] What is energy and matter over and above our perceptions of them? They will always be 'other types' of energy and matter, or one or the other. All we can do is stripe away layer after infinite layer to examine the properties of each. Well, at least until our technology becomes completely inadequate for deeper examination, or the species dies out. Our perceptions and technology are the limiting factors to our examination of energy and matter. 'Over or above perceptions' are only survival motivations to explore them more deeply, are they not? We can only speculate and hope to be proven correct. I don’t think this will ever change as every answer always seems to open up more questions, more layers. Not that there is anything wrong with gathering more and more information to attempt to solve, at least, parts of the puzzle. Because we are energy and matter of the universe, attempting to explore what we are must be a task something like us being our own blood cells in our own bodies. Will our blood cells ever work out what might be beyond our energy and matter? Pretty doubtful I’d think.
The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend. - Aldous Huxley

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