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When unable to access the minutiae of some byzantine concept with my hominid navigation apparatus I often comfort myself with the knowledge that all that I know will ultimately be lost to the chaos of the universe and that the cumulative impact of everything I’ve ever done is utterly inconsequential.


You are not the universe. You are you and this is your reality. In that reality, it matters. A lot.


Such is the illusion we all have trained into ourselves.


It only matters if you care. GP already mentioned that in their reality it actually does not matter.


THE universe? Which one? There are so many!


> [all] will ultimately be lost to the chaos of the universe and that the cumulative impact of everything I’ve ever done is utterly inconsequential.

What would be the alternative? An universe where our changes are more "permanent"? Ignoring the paradoxes that entails would it really make them more consequential or just more lasting? It would be completely subjetive, just like is subjetive to believe something matters even if it ends in a few years down the line.


It would be nice if thermodynamics weren't such a harsh mistress.


Immortality would be a possible goal if heat death or big crunch wasn't the inevitable fate of everything.


If you leave stuff as-is then you are probably right.

But what if technology can solve that issue aswell?


That would assume that physics as we understand it is fundamentally wrong. You might as well hope for an eternal afterlife in the garden of Eden.


How many times have our understanding of physics have been fundamentally wrong in the past?

What is the chance it will never happen again?


The chances that the laws of thermodynamics are fundamentally wrong is pretty low. Asimov has a nice essay on this topic: https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.ht...


Thanks, that’s a load off my shoulders.


Allow for the possibility that you have something important to contribute to the world.


Allow for it, but then realise in reality even something important is trivial.




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