[Nursie]

I find it weirdly comforting to know that nothing in this universe is really eternal. If you could live literally forever, you'd witness the end of all life on earth in about a billion years, and eventually the slow heat death of the universe.

I'd love a lot more life than I have in front of me - a few millenia at least - but even with a traditional, linear view of time there's no point, need or possibility of eternity.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Even if the universe were eternal, the way I see it eternity is just another kind of ending. I think the important thing to realize is that a thing does not cease to have value simply because it is impermanent.

[goatlover]

It will cease to have value when there's nobody left to value it.

[CuriouslyC]

It can value itself. After all, that's what it's doing now via us. It doesn't necessarily have to configure itself into something like a human to perceive and appreciate itself.

[gowld]

What is "it" when "it" is purely random noise? By definition and known physics, heat-death of the universe means there is absolutely no configuration.

[CuriouslyC]

Is the noise truly random, or is it just unpredictable? Does the maximization of entropy indicate no deviations from equilibrium will spontaneously occur? Does the lack of memory indicate a lack of consciousness?

[icebraining]

Why? Can't we value things that will exist in a future where we no longer belong?

[goatlover]

We can value whatever, but eventually there won't be anyone left to do the valuing. Impermanence doesn't stop us from valuing, but impermanence does guarantee that value won't last. Which may or may not bother us now, depending on how existentially grumpy we feel in the moment. But luckily, those feelings are impermanent as well.

[simonh]

All true, but of course the point of the idea we're discussing here is that there may not be any reason to assign special weight to the value of things in the present or the future, over the value of things in the past.