The Fate of Mankind

[Peachy Nietzsche]

Eventually, natural life on Earth will end. The sun isn't going to be burning forever, and even if we beat that, our galaxy is going to implode - and even if we beat that, the universe itself is going to implode/explode/annihilate itself and, more than likely, will start over again.

There is an infinite cycle of recurrence and I'll apologize for letting you know that we are stuck in an infinite repeat. The only way to explain how we are experiencing existence "right now" is if there is a primordial chaos; and primordial chaos and eternal recurrence come together - they're like a package. You see, we are experiencing "right now" because if ALL possibilities exist in a primordial chaos, then there has to be a "right now". Basically, you exist, because you have to exist, because your existence must be included without a doubt in a set of "all possibilities", right?

This is nothing new; this is not new knowledge -- it is not knowledge we recently unlocked after gaining understanding through innovations in physics. All it is is knowledge that is gained merely through semantics and logic after thinking about it long enough. The Ancient Egyptians have said the exact same thing thousands of years ago - although to you their philosophy seems spooky and esoteric (when in actuality it is no different, not in the slightest, from our philosophy of today). Philosophy itself hasn't changed since the dawn of man; only the language used to express it has changed. Within our collective unconscious, the mind's memory gained not through experience but through genetic code, ALL philosophical principles are contained - but we create an accidental schism in our unconscious mind's perfect knowledge merely by living in a chaotic and fluctuating environment.

So what are humanity's options when it comes to prevailing against the eventual end of the universe? Our first guess may be that we must transcend - perhaps actually physically transcending to a higher state of being through future technology; perhaps we convert our race into energy-beings like in some science fiction story. Or perhaps we master multi-dimensional travel through both space and time; perhaps we gain technology which allows us to create matter and energy out of nothing, perhaps by channeling it through from another dimension. Perhaps we master the craft of manipulating the world around us to the extent that each human being becomes his own god.

But what then? If you try to fantasize about being able to manipulate anything/everything to the extent of your will, you will run into confusion. The first problem is, the will itself is only a function of imperfection. The will exists to drive a creature towards a state of lesser imperfection, but if there is no imperfection to begin with then the will has no purpose and would not function. If we became perfect beings, we would be will-less - because there is no point in doing anything when you already have everything.

I conclude that we are existentially fucked - doomed to eternal recurrence. Get used to the life you're living, because you're going to live it eternally.

[volchok]

The fact that the universe will implode and start again does not mean you're going to exist again. It just doesn't follow.

But it is funny to think, how long has this been going on? Forever? Or maybe the question doesn't even make sense since time may have come into existence at the beginning of the universe.

[Amorphos]

Interesting thread topic!

I am not sure about your definition of will, on the esoteric level it is perhaps more a movement between thought and form, even if form is itself a kind of thought [in ether]. I agree that perfection would be unchanging but here we are talking about the inner most circle, the impersonal. Once we get onto manifestations of the soul we move to the outer circles of manifestation and in that the will exists.

The esoteric self to me seems to be something that can float effortlessly between statelessness and state, that inner perfection and form. ..perhaps as the story unfolds it requires certain characters and that brings us into being.

For me there is nothing to escape, information, weather historic or not, remains in the now and is indestructible in essence; even though it can change and be changed it pertains to the same thing as mentioned above, a record is kept of every change [this is the unchanging realm of information] even while changes are being made in the more transient realms.

Now imagine that across universes, info is still in the now, any ‘now‘! objects and their universes may come and go, emptiness is eternal, the soul is empty and all info is in the now. We are just eternal travellers.

[lizbethrose]

Hi, PN,

volchok wrote:
The fact that the universe will implode and start again does not mean you're going to exist again. It just doesn't follow.

I agree with him. There's no assurance that another "BB" will result in the exact element configuration that produced Homo sapien sapien or any of our genetic ancestors. There's no assurance that anything we 'know' will ever exist again, given the death of this universe and the start of another. Even an implosion, given the expanding universe, is suspect.

On the other hand, given evolution, our world--and, perhaps, the entire cosmos--is undergoing constant change. So, what will our descendant be? Will they be closer to Nietzsche's ubermensch--the Philosopher? Or are we the Neaderthal preceding the ubermensch?

No matter what, life 'as we know it' is doomed, not only because of evolution; we're also contributing to our doom by our use and misuse of resources as well as our technology.

[FilmSnob]

Man, good OP.

The will is a direct function of the imperfections of existence.

[Peachy Nietzsche]

Hi, PN,

volchok wrote:
The fact that the universe will implode and start again does not mean you're going to exist again. It just doesn't follow.

I agree with him. There's no assurance that another "BB" will result in the exact element configuration that produced Homo sapien sapien or any of our genetic ancestors. There's no assurance that anything we 'know' will ever exist again, given the death of this universe and the start of another. Even an implosion, given the expanding universe, is suspect.

On the other hand, given evolution, our world--and, perhaps, the entire cosmos--is undergoing constant change. So, what will our descendant be? Will they be closer to Nietzsche's ubermensch--the Philosopher? Or are we the Neaderthal preceding the ubermensch?

No matter what, life 'as we know it' is doomed, not only because of evolution; we're also contributing to our doom by our use and misuse of resources as well as our technology.

when you're dealing with values like 'infinity', the probability of something happening can be deemed negligible - this is not always the case, but sometimes it is just the nature of infinity.
If our universe has been (and will be) destroying/re-creating itself an infinite number of times, then it would seem to make sense that our universe will re-occur eventually. One simple reason supporting this is that initial conditions lead to our exact universe before, they certainly could lead to our exact universe again.

But ignoring the hard science, lets just take a look at the concepts (far less time consuming and less confusing than looking at the hard science).
What are the odds of 'us' existing right now? Think of old sayings that go something like "My life isn't so bad - I could have been born a goat". The odds are fairly low that we should even exist. But, we can 'explain away' this feeling of specialness -- it depends on what preceded our universe's creation.

If something came from nothing, then the only mathematical way anything could have been 'created' is if there was an equal and opposing force to the creation. A "primordial chaos containing all possibilities" satisfies all the unanswered questions surrounding this paradox - because within a set of 'all possibilities', everything is perfectly balanced: There is a universe where you brushed your teeth this morning, there is a universe where you didn't brush your teeth this morning; there is a universe where the earth was created, there is a universe where the earth wasn't created; etc, etc.

Nothingness is perfectly whole, an absolute value.
'Existence' was in a way able to bypass 'nothingness' through a sort of loophole: as long as 'existence' was counter-weighted by all other possible 'existences', then 'existence' wouldn't violate the wholeness of 'nothingness'.

We could also view 'somethingness' as being tangled up 'nothingness'

Am I making sense yet or do I need to give more examples and go further into detail?

[James L Walker]

The fate of human beings is the same of everything else. Extinction.

[lizbethrose]

In a way, you're making sense, PN. I can understand, but I can't always 'image' and I'm always most comfortable if I can image, which is why I often think in terms of quasi-science. It's difficult for me, for example, to image nothingness--yet I can image both an expanding and a contracting universe. I can image multiverses, but I can't image them occurring all at the same time.

Am I making any sense.

[Amorphos]

Assuming that there are reasons why the universe has formed into planets and stars etc, then that those reasons are from a set of universal laws to wit the universe takes instruction, then I assume at least that we have a similar setup of universe in any installation.

I think atoms would form the structures they currently do because that’s how energy patterns relate, indeed its probably as simple as 2 n 2 = 4, if we knew what those laws were.

If we get those same patterns then we’d get the periodic table, we’d get planets of many variations of that and ultimately earth like planets. Bla, bla, we’d probably end up with DNA and evolution, it may not always produce human beings, but sometimes amongst the billions of possibilities you would get humanoids.

You get isolated caves with blind scorpions in them, so it may be so that certain kinds of forms are always arrived at, I don’t see why humanoids would be so different.

From a spiritual perspective, assumedly there is a relationship between spirit and form [be far stranger if not], so if we can arrive at humanoids again, then spirit would surely utilise users [spirits of previous forms] with experience of that in some manner.

Ubermensch are a different species, most likely artificial.
I made a thread concerning the more immediate fate of mankind.

[[Jay88]]

Hi all, im looking to the ubermensch atm. Now as far as im aware Martin Heidegger continued on this nietzschean philosophy and incorporated the will to power and the eternal recurrence. Any remarks on this? Does he offer a more coherent savior figure?