The End of the World

Whether it is the Second Coming of Christ, Ragnarok, Asteroid Impact or any other end time prophecy one thing is made clear in most religions and sciences, this world is one day going to end. I am not sure if there are any sort of contradictions or mistransliations but one thing is made clear to me, the world is gonna end and every is gonna die. What sort of bothers me is that it feels I just got here and already is going to be in less than ten minutes. I'll admit I am saying this selfish reasons but can this world actually end? Can there be an event that actually elminated humans, animals, the universe and even reality itself? Does anything we do even matter in the face of such an event? I know that even if the end of the world doesn't happen, we will still die from all sorts of thngs but in the End of the World everyone is screwed regardless age, religion, country or status. These questions occupy my mind and I am trying to sort them out but what do you think of the whole 'End of the world' thing?

The world is certainly going to end no later than when the Sun dies and expands enough to swallow our planet before it contracts, explodes and becomes a Red Dwarf - but that's more than 5 billion years from now IIRC, so it's not as if we, the descendants of life that is mere 3.5 billion years old, have to worry.

Besides, we might at some point be able to tow the Earth to some safer location or somehow shield it from the expanding Sun or evacuate the planet. We have more time than life has existed on Earth, and I have little doubt that if sentient life survives until then, it will not have a very hard time finding a way to continue past the expiration date of our Sun.

Of course, it's not at all guaranteed that sentient life would indeed survive until then.

Life on Earth is going to be extinguished way before the Sun actually goes red giant...I don't remember the specifics, but the changes in the Sun's radiation, magnetosphere, and light that will take place in the next billion years or so will affect Earth drastically enough that it will make life practically unsustainable, and might even start scouring the atmosphere off the planet.

edited 28th Apr '12 7:51:16 PM by Willbyr

Over a long enough period of time, we're doomed anyway. Even if we somehow escaped our sun dying, all the stars in the Universe will go out eventually. And even if we somehow survived that, the atoms that make up our bodies and everything else in the Universe will break down and cease to exist as well.

But hey! That's like, quintillions of years away, so we can chillax for the time being.

A billion years is still plenty of time

I predict that by the time that happens, we will have successfully turned ourselves into Ubermenschen and/or deities, and the very fabric of reality itself shall give way to our wills.

edited 28th Apr '12 11:21:43 PM by stripesthezebra

This question has been discussed all the way through the 17 pages of the "Cessation of Existence" thread. I'll post some of the things I've said there that address this question of things "mattering" after the end of the world (or the end of the self, as is the topic of that thread.)

In this post, which I'm going to quote in full, I'm responding to an encouragement to elaborate, from my position that I can care about my life and those of others even if I won't be able to care once I'm gone, a more universal perspective:

This much earlier post is about how one can find meaning in life when one accepts that life and existence will end. So it's pretty much the same thing, but this is a much longer post that tries to answer it from a personal perspective and tries to point out that knowing that things will eventually end doesn't have to reduce their subjective value at all in the here and now.

The most relevant bit:

Have to point out that life adapts as long as the changes are gradual and slow enough. There is a higher oxygen concentration in the atmosphere during the time of dinosaurs, and yet life keeps going, for example. As to what the limit is we have to see.

^

Similar to how we can survive at different altitudes where the air is thinner.

Uhh, Barkey, I don't know if I'd call it similar. That's adaptation of an individual, which is of course interesting and significant, but what Ira is talking about is evolution, which is a much greater force. Ira is saying that if the Sun changes slowly, evolution will cause the lifeforms on Earth to adapt to each change before in a subtle way before the changes accumulate to such a point as to kill all life.

Even if the Sun changes so that our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren couldn't survive it if they were exactly like us, they will have evolved for the changed conditions if the change has been gradual, and if that happens, you couldn't bring one of them back here with a time machine because they might be unable to survive here (or now) if they're adapted to conditions there (or then.)

(Of course, I'm exaggerating the speed of evolutionary adaptation here; I should've included many more "greats.")

EDIT: On the other hand, the peoples that live very high from sea level actually have adapted to those conditions, so in that sence you're spot on. But if we're talking about the ability of an individual to adapt, that's not anywhere near the same scale.

edited 28th Apr '12 9:13:21 PM by BestOf

Yeah, even a million years, and we can colonize the entire galaxy with only slightly more superior technology than today.

So by a billion years, I should hope that by that time we can solve the question of heat death. If we can't oh well. None of us will be around then to worry about it.

I'm with Breadloaf. Heat Death is a great threat, and I have no idea how we might manage to avert it, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Everything begins, everything end, there is nothing wrong with that, thats just how it is. There is no need to be sad about it, things will just begin again.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the ending part from hitting us.

And then there is the religious stuff, such as the Second Coming or Ragnarok.

What do you guys think of the Second Coming and Ragnarok?

That we shouldn't worry about them. The latter is a pretty awesome way to end things if that's how it has to be; and the faith that came up with the idea has been out of practice for centuries. Its probably never going to occur outside of the brain of Stan Lee. The former? Even the (oft misread/misused) Book of Revelations says (along with several other Biblical passages) that only Big G knows when the world will end. And that's ignoring the fact that all this Rapture stuff is a relatively new belief that doesn't hold water under many older views of Christianity.

edited 2nd May '12 11:36:55 PM by Rationalinsanity

Embarrassing or hilarious?

Jesus to Thor: You can't have your Ragnarok today. Rapture's scheduled for tomorrow!

Both Jesus and Loki are such divas. That really wouldn't go well. If those two clash, oh good god, it would be the end of the world!

Yeah, how can "a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars" appear in the sky if Fenrir keeps trying to eat her dress?

edited 2nd May '12 11:50:25 PM by Carciofus

Maybe that's why the world ended. Internet, I command thee to write this!

So, 15 per cent of the Earth's population thinks the "end of the world" will come within their lifetime.

That's a ridiculously high number. I thought only a few crazy sects and self-appointed prophets believed that.

This is ridiculously common all throughout history. It is not uncommon at all for a large portion of people to feel that they are the last generation at any given time in history. At least in the western culture, can't comment on much else.

Medieval times were of course an especially egregious example

Actually, most of the middle ages were rather unconcerned with the end of the world. And when the issue came up, doomsday prophecies and predictions were often considered heretical and outright persecuted.

If you look at the list of doomsday predictions, you will see that the frequency of such predictions during the Middle Ages was not more than in other times. If anything, it looks like the frequency is increasing now, although part of that is possibly because the records are less complete if we look into the past.

edited 3rd May '12 3:56:27 AM by Carciofus

Plus a lot of that 15% are probably more worried about World War III (or are grossly misinformed about impact events and stuff like that) than they are about a more supernatural End Times.