Fighting Entropy

The Last Question keeps me up at night. If death and disorder is fundamental, why are we here?

Life seems to exist because Universe seems to be maximising entropy through free energy dissipation. Assembly theory also seems suggest that Universe is incresing the global net information density and entropy by increasing the local complexities through evolution and selection of the objects in the Universe. Ironically the very thing that enables life to exist is also the killer of it. Entropy. In order to perform useful work, or to create order, you're always creating more disorder somewhere else. There will come a point in the Universe when there is no more useful energy to do work and the Universe reaches thermodynamic equilibrium. The End of times.

This document is heavily inspired from Outlasting the Universe by David Klipping. In this document we discuss how living in digital-Worlds/metaverse might really be the only way to outlast the heat death of the Universe and live a meaningfull life.

The more the Universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

Steven Weinberg (Physics Nobel laureate, 1977)

The most prevalent philosophy of modern age is existentialism. Existentialism is simply put: Life is fundamentally meaningless but as an individual human being, you create your own meaning in this Universe.

Even though I would personally disagree that life is not fundamentally meaningless, I think there is a bigger game that is being played in this Universe, which is almost a relgious statement

Considering death as fundamental and an important priori in our understanding of our Universe, it really comes down to the question, what is "your" meaning of life? What is "your" purpose in the Universe? What is the purpose of civilization in this Universe? Who are you? What makes you "you"? Is it your consciousness?

Ship of Theseus is more than just the sum of its parts, because it also has informational grounding in this Universe. that persisted through experiences. Information lives on when physics dies, just like how your body is not your body every 7-10 years.

Information has size in time. Not in space.

Sarah Walker (MindFest, 2024)

Meaning from experiences

I have always loved art. Especially the art of storytelling. I have watched a lot of TV shows, anime and movies. One of the reasons I think storytelling captivates the human mind besides music is because of the nature of complexities invloved in wrtiting a captivating story that mirrors the real World. Whenever I'm engaged in a storytelling artform, I am completely immersed in its Worlds with their characters and their plots. I have explored with them, learned with them, fought with them, loved with them, cried with them, laughed with them, grieved with them.

I don't see the distincton between digital experience from physical experience. It's just experiences. AI will even add the first-person player aspect to digital experiences. Although level of immersion may vary from digital to physical. But these are just technological challenges.

Fundamentally meaning-making is search for values in experiences. Since values are contextual, you are going to need more context if you are going to become more wise with more values for different contexts. It stands to reason that wisdom is directly proportional to the no. of experiences/context.

The Grand Death is coming. The story of Life always ends if not few decades from now or a quadrillion years in the future. Create your own meaning and choose how your story ends.

My greatest regret in life would be to not experience enough experiences before I die. The good and the bad.

Metaverse as afterlife

I recently watched DUNE: Part Two. I was completely immeresed in its Universe, while watching it. That movie gave me a great experience that opened my mind to these beautiful Universes. Immersion in stories is a very real thing just like you are immersed the story of our Universe with yourself being the protagonist. I want to experience more Universes and Worlds like this.

I want to see what it would be really like if humanity ever were to face an alien civilization like in the series, 3 Body Problem.

I want to explore more worlds like Assassins Creed Series, Cyberpunk 2077, Prince of Persia Series, Age of mythology.

I want to explore simulated life of Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Napolean, Muhammad Ali, Mandela.

I want to explore simulated Universe of Kardashev Scale 3 galactic society as captain of the ice-hauling spaceship.

I want to explore the simulated mueseum of our observable Universe and visit the acreetion disk of the largest blackhole ever documented from a safe distance, see the Earth's magma core up close, visit the Pillars of Creations, hike the Olympus Mons, visit all the documented wonders of astronomy.

I want to live as beggar in the streets of New Delhi, oil baron in Dubai, live in alternate timelines with different histories.

We'll all eventually die. Everything dies. Literatures of religion has used the idea of afterlife (heaven, hell, game-over screen, etc) to steer one's own morality and ethics of the decisions they will make in this Universe before they cease to exist.

Virtual reality/Metaverse enables us with the sandbox for playing with the ideas of ethics and morailty to articulate your purpose and meaning in the Universe, before we inevitably cease to exist anyway.

The Grand Finale

LIFE is the constant battle against DEATH for SURVIVAL.

Let's say besides having such a small chance of survival, our civilaztion somehow manages to reach the end of times. We have passed all the Great Filters even at galactic scale. We have survived the Andromeda–Milky Way collision. We survived The Great War of Heavens, as it was called, when we eventually collided with Laniakea Supercluster at the Great Attractor We had harnessed all the energy of all the stars in our local pocket in the Universe. Our minds had been digitized had been fused into one single mind colony to preserve our identity and information over time.

To survive longer far, we increased our perceived render rate of the Universe in our simulated world. Computers now, leveraged reversible computing paradigm by reducing the entropic losses of energies and being able to run just by the energy released from hawking radiation of supermassive black-holes.

Knocking at the gates of afterlife, until the lights eventually went out.

In denial of death & search of truth, I want power over nature. In search of purpose & wisdom, I want infinite experiences.