one bright second

The last stars will burn out in 120 trillion years

We think. We still haven't solved things like the dark matter/energy problem. The answer to that alone could drastically change what we estimate will happen in the distant future.

Stuff only burns for so long. We might learn more about the geometry of space and that there is more out there at greater distances where maybe even other Big bangs are possible but there is a certain maximum amount of time that a star can exist.
Over the time scales of the life of a proton the maximum variability in the amount of time a star can burn is a rounding error against the scale of numbers needed to express the amount of time it takes for hawking radiation to reduce black holes to ultra long wavelengths of infrared radiation.
- Yes, but we don't have proof that universe can't generate new matter. For all we know there is a mechanism in universe not yet observed that can create new matter out of little vacuum and more stars will keep forming.
  So technically all we can say is, it's likely that stars will die out in 1000 trillion years.
We also haven't tried every possible configuration of atoms to see if anything creates a portal to an infinite energy dimension or a perpetual motion machine or something we can use to make our own stars
- Infinite energy is cheating. Same with travelling backwards in time.
  My intuition tells me the universe doesn't allow cheaters.
  But then I'm just an evolved bag of water cells clinging onto a clump of rock so what the fuck do I know?
I mean, have you considered that the expansion of the universe generates or increases the total energy in the universe?
As stars move apart, they gain both potential energy with respect to other stars, because greater distance from gravity sources means greater potential energy, but they also gain kinetic energy as they accelerate away from other objects. So, their mechanical energy (potential + kinetic energy) increases over time. Maybe somebody could build a clever machine out of this to harvest that energy?
- You should look up Penrose's work in conformal cyclic cosmology.
  The short version is this: as the rarified universe becomes massless particles flying in all directions as space expands, it is basically the exact same conditions as the big bang. IE, when the universe fizzles out, from a different reference frame it's still an infinite field of energy expanding out faster and faster.
  Just cross out the "distance" part of interactions between particles, without humans or anything with mass really to observe or interact with anything, the relationships between photons are all that matters, and from that perspective it will be the same as the big-bang state. All that's important to look at is the relationships between these particles, the angles between them and probability of them interacting with each other.
- IIRC, the current theory is that stars do not move apart, but that space itself expands, which generates the impression that they move apart.
Yeah for all we know stars are black hole poop
- Nah, that's the heavier elements.

Also see Dyson's Eternal Intelligence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson%27s_eternal_intelligence

Basically, if you assume it's possible to upload our intelligence to a computer and run it, then you can keep the energy going to run it for a very, very long time. Well past the heat death of the rest of the universe. It depends on running things in an on and off state to conserve energy for trillions of years. Subjectively, the people in there wouldn't notice that and would simply see their active lifespans go for trillions of years. It's not clear what the limit would actually be.

It's something like Zeno's Paradox. You cut things in half each cycle, but never quite get to zero.

I see someone else is a Kurzgesagt fan https://youtu.be/VMm-U2pHrXE
- I like to watch them when I need a good existential crisis
- I saw that pop up as a recommendation the other day but forgot to watch it until you posted that. Cool video! Weird how they come up with this crazy shit.
I cannot express in words just how much I do not want my consciousness to persist, trapped, for trillions of years of darkness. That would be unimaginable hell.
- What if there's cookies?
with only a finite initial store of energy, only a finite number of thoughts can ever be processed. This "thermal death" of the universe prevents the infinite hibernation and computation trick from working, thus rendering Dyson's eternal intelligence scenario impossible in a universe with a positive cosmological constant.
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
- Eternity would get boring, a few trillion years would give you plenty of time to not miss out on anything life has to offer
that explains Pantheon really well

This is the main reason why, if you come across a genie in a lamp, you should probably not wish for immortality. You're gonna be hellafuckin bored for a loooooooong time.

I don't want to imagine the level of procrastination I would have if I were immortal.
I would wish for a life that ends when I want it to. Like the numenoreans had in LoTR
Just one trillion years will do
- Ideally our species survives and manages to send ships away from Earth well before that or you're going to get a really warm summer eventually, followed by sitting on a charred ball of barren, airless rock for the majority of those trillion years.
From what I have read on the internet so far, it's probably best to not wish for anything at all. Just throw it in the deepest ocean to do us all a favour.
- I suppose you could wish for all genies to be instantly annihilated. Maybe toss the GOP in there for good measure.
- Fuck that, I will mess with shit.
  "I want all humans to be able to change sex, race or species at will."
  "Give every human being the ability to experience what someone else has experienced by pressing a small button on the top of our heads."
  "Make volcanoes erupt food. Just endless, nutritious food for everyone."
  "Babies are hatched from eggs. I dunno man, seems like it would be silly."
  "No more mosquitoes. Replace them with tiny little airplanes that sometimes circle around you and you have to swat them down like king kong."
Why? Are you bored now? If so, why is it a problem? If not, then what's the problem?
- Spending Eternity either crushed to a point in the heart of black hole or drifting thru the darkness of space all alone with nothing to do or even anything to look at.
If you get the chance, ask for omnipotence or to become conscious energy systems or something. You can still choose to experience being a human and having all these experiences, but you will never be stuck, you will never get bored or feel anything related to being mortal if you don't want.
You could even choose to live a whole lifetime. Maybe billions of lifetimes, each one feeling totally and completely indistinguishable from reality, because it would be reality.
You could be experiencing that right now.
- conscious energy systems or something
  Like Kevin Spacey? Ew.
What about extreme longevity though
- Seriously, even halfway through my expected lifespan and I'm already seeing a point where I'll be ready to get off the ride. Not in terms of self-harm or depression, but just generally as the decades go on it gets less and less enjoyable in a broad sense.
  Our brains absorb too much information and memories than our minds were meant to handle. Our emotions become an annoying liability. Our memories reveal themselves to be these tenuous and bizarre amalgamations of experiences and imagination and cannot be trusted, and maybe most annoying of all is seeing people making the same mistakes around you all the time, and tuning you out for being "old" more and more, determined to fall into the same holes and traps that could be easily avoided, but dragging all of society with them over and over. It takes away a lot of the magic of seeing the future.
  Even all that would be something manageable, if I had a loooong life I would probably escape from everyone and just read in the woods or something. But holy shit it has to be alongside physical health because by far the worst, worst, worst thing about getting old is the aches and pains and minor irritations that turn into crippling infections, unhealed strains, and degrading senses.
  I am quite positive that something happens after you're dead for an infinity amount of time, no idea what, but it happened before so it stands to reason it may again, and even the slimmest chances become 100% assured after an infinite amount of time.

Thus began the Age of Fire. But soon the flames will fade and only Dark will remain.

every soul has its dark
- Just like every Knight praise the sun.

Tangentially related great sci-fi short story: “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html

Thanks for that. I've read it before, long ago, but completely forgot about it. Still a great story.
I feel like reading this story is an internet nerd Rite of Passage. It had a huge impact on me when I read it as a teenager and I think about it a lot.

We're doing a pretty bang up job of making that one second as stupid and painful as possible.

One second of light illuminating a torture chamber
- There are four lights.

Does thinking about the long dark make anyone else feel like they are going to vomit?

The chances of me living long enough to actually be effected by it are so slim that I'm completely unconcerned about it.
- And if you could live so long it would invalidate basically everything we know of physics. So the long dark wouldn't actually come.
- I do like how you haven't ruled it out yet.
I don't know, I thought it was pretty fun.
Nope, I think humanity will be long gone by then, so it doesn't really matter what happens after that.
More like head spinning, like when you look at the stars are you loose your reference frame
Why’s that? If humanity presumably nearly couldn’t be around then?
It makes me feel like all the suffering people inflict for the sake of selfishness jand greed just pointless.

That's neat, stars are just the sparks after the big bang, and "soon" that energy will be gone. Even with all the bad shit happening, it makes me happy to be alive in this beautifully short window of time in the universe, even if our little dust speck circling a spark is a bit fucked up sometimes

coulda said trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion and saved us a little time

we still have 120 trillion years left. we can spare the time for a few extra words
- No no, it will be over just like a second! Blink for 120 trillion years and you'll miss it.
- No! We must be absolutely positively as terse and brief as possible. Concision is the watchword, my friends.

Yoink

I think the passing of time, as in waiting, is an experience of the mind. Without a waiting mind, the length of time is just another number out there, like the distance between the edges of the universe. If after the dark finale of this universe there exists another event that spawns a conscious mind, there is no actual waiting happening between this universe bright, starry second and the next one.

Time can stretch and squish and follow physical rules, if the passage of time is an experience of the mind time itself would remain existent without minds just as real as distance and the passage of distance via movement between objects would remain without minds.
One interesting thing I heard is the DESI data from a telescope observatory in Arizona that was trying to build a more accurate map of the universe identified the dark energy acceleration as slowing. That could mean if the trend continues eventually gravity will overpower dark energy and everything collapses back together again. I don't think it's conclusive, but it is evidence maybe heat death isn't an ending phase.
Reminds me of that Kurzgesagt video about Optimistic Nihilism:
"If you don't remember the 13.75 billion years that went by before you existed, then the trillions and trillions and trillions of years that come after will pass in no time once you're gone. Close your eyes. Count to 1. That's how long forever feels."

What happens after the 10^106 years of black holes?

The black holes evaporate eventually.
After that, depends on who you ask. Most physicists would say something like “as close to nothing as possible”. Penrose would say at a certain point when nothing can interact with anything else, distance loses meaning, which makes the universe and a singularity equivalent, so then things restart.
Nothing really. And since nothing is happening and nothing ever changes time itself becomes meaningless.
🤷🏻
Yes.
- Alternately, no.
From what I understand, the universe would just be in equilibrium. Nothing but cold particles floating around.
- A recent discovery might suggest that we happen to be in a big void, and that a great amount of the universe is much much denser than where we are or what we have observed. If true, Big Crunch time bby

Anthropic Principle moment

Honestly, this factoid is the closest thing to a real Total Perspective Vortex that I’ve ever felt.

What's that phenomenon that describes noticing things more after you become aware of them because I'm seeing a lot more Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references than I remember now that I've started reading it

Black holes aren't "dark"...

These ones will be quite dim
- Yeah, I suppose after a billion billion billion or so years, it probably would be
Is that because of the accretion disk?
- And Hawking radiation. Hawking radiation is pretty "dark" for solar-mass scale black holes and up, but it can become relatively very intense for smaller holes.
  For the holes we observe astronomically, the things we can see are the accretion disks and the orbits of stars around the black hole.
Black holes ain't black because they didn't vote for Biden
/s

Well then I'm just going to enjoy the absolute fuck out of Hawking radiation and Mr pouty pants can sulk for 10^elebenty eons.

Wont there also be balls of iron-56 just chilling?

Proton decay
- Oh shit that's true

I just had a moment of what is everything

I don't know how to explain it but from nothing to something to nothing again but no why

The 'why' is us.
Without consciousness in the universe, there might as well not be a universe.
- Typically something a consciousness would say.
- Not having consciousness might be the best thing that could happen to a universe. Just everything existing, without desire or suffering.
  With a universe that peaceful, there might as well not be us.
Its the whole "why is there anything at all" thing for me. Like why is there any energy to have made all of this. Couldn't there just have never been anything at all? Nothing for anyone to experience. Its so hard to perceive and think about but its absolutely fascinating.
- If the universe wouldn't exist, you couldn't ask yourself that question. So, by wondering "why is there anything at all" you have already answered the question: because otherwise you couldn't even ask the question.
Well if its just backhoes life will evolve to see infrared/sonar
- And dig plenty of holes
- One minor problem is that life as we know it is supported by the continuous input of energy from a nearby star. Without it, no photosynthesis, and nearly all primary energy production in Earth life comes from that.
  The slightly bigger problem is that by the time there are only black holes, there are no planets. Because, you know, there's only black holes. So nothing outside of black holes for life to be on, and the vacuum of space isn't really the most conducive to life or interaction of any kind.

Fun fact;

The last Star Wars movie will be made roughly around that same time.

Supposedly this will happen just after the release of The Winds of Winter.

Yet all this energy and electromagnetic phenomena
from our very limited vantage point and experiments
feels like it bathes everything as it decays gradually
in slow motion, one rung at a time, towards entropy,
zooming down an exponential thermodynamic curve
that aims and trends towards zero, beyond our view,
beyond the horizon, touching infinity itself.
And here's the craziest part: the space itself where
this is all taking place, is accelerating its' expansion.

and what comes after that guys

No, really, this is a fantastic question we should all ask more.
Because on the outside, in terms of space and the physical universe, it will undergo phase transitions, it will experience a long, slow cooling into rarified energy... but those terms "long" and "rarified" are just from our human reference frame. Roger Penrose's work demonstrated how even a vast, infinite expanding space with tiny particles zooming through it, from other reference frames behaves exactly like the big bang. IE: as the universe cools and expands, it's still infinitely dense and exploding outward from a different perspective of time and space. It's perpetual.
That's one thing. The other thing is this... time passing is meaningless if nobody is there to observe it. You will be dead for an infinite amount of time, you won't notice a moment of it. But every passing moment you're dead, the universe is rolling dice. It's always rolling dice.
Eventually, even if it takes so incredibly long that we don't have numbers to express it (we actually do) then something is bound to happen again. Eventually these "somethings" will be just right to create a kind of universe, complex information systems, and maybe even a consciousness that can experience it.
It sounds kind of fantastic and overly fanciful, but I am basing this on the evidence that it happened at least once before that we know of.

I used to like wait but why until he made a 3 post puff piece about elon musk's neuralink

This is actually a very good argument for simulation theory, since if some species ever manages to synthesize consciousness beyond natural biology, then the vast majority of all consciousness will exist in black hole entropy farms in the post-star universe, making it almost a statistical certainly that we are one such farm.

The more you zoom out, the more you realize how insignificant we are. I've heard a lot of people realized this when they saw "The Pale Blue Dot" photograph of earth, but I had to have the perspective of time to realize it. We are nothing, not even a spit in the sea.

Try the Total Perspective Vortex.
- Highly effective unless the universe really does revolve around you.
I dunno, I feel like neither empty space nor vast aeons of darkness are particularly pulling their weight in terms of really doing existing with any real level of conviction. It's easy to be vast if you're doing fuck all with most of it.
if the history of the earth was a roll of toilet paper, human history would take up 0.1mm of that toilet roll. Does that make you seem even more insignificant?
- Are we talking standard roll or mega roll? 2-ply?

We live in but a bright second, yet are determined to fill it with darkness unending.

Speak for yourself, Tom Urban!

Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Not sure how accurate this is, but pretty cool video https://youtu.be/uD4izuDMUQA

Do we know if ä is greater than or less than zero?

The universe is just a big big computation, and this is just the seed phase

Good to know that. I am sometimes just thinking that we lived in a bright second. And are now staring into darkness.