WEBVTT - The Great Transhumanist Rapture War: Part 1 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:17.080 dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.800 My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Joe McCormick. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:21.680 And Hey, Robert, I've got a question for you. Hit me. 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.680 Any time in your life have you ever had the 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.520 feeling the things are about to come to a very 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.720 serious conclusion? And I don't mean like the meeting you're 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.319 in right now, I mean the world. Did you ever 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.680 get that feeling like you're living in the end times? 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:44.240 This has got to be the last of days? No um. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.640 Sometimes I feel I sometimes I wonder what if the 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.800 next moment is going to be the last moment? Like, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:52.760 but it's always there's always going to be some sort 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.680 of harbinger of destruction, right, So I don't I look 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:58.480 up into the sky and think, Hey, what would it 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:03.640 be like to see the you know, civilization busting near earth, 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.760 object entering the atmosphere. I think about things like that, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.279 but even then I'll have like a few more minutes 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.520 to process it. It all does have to come to 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.800 an end at some point, so it makes you wonder 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:16.960 if that end is near, And in fact, I think 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.160 some people have made statistical arguments that if you assume, okay, 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.320 I'm a random observer, not a privileged observer. Uh. The 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.360 the statistical argument is that humanity has got to be 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:33.679 ending pretty soon because if human if the human population 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:39.440 continues to grow, that many, many more randomly selected observers 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.080 will be among those born in the future than those 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.240 that are living you know, right now or have lived 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.720 in the past. And so if we you assume that 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.120 you are the middle of the road random observer and 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.640 not one of the tail end, then humanity has got 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.800 to end pretty soon. I don't really because I always 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.520 would think, well, if I'm not a privileged observer, why 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:02.520 do I get to live in the end times? Like, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.440 surely I'm at least living in like the penultimate age 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.359 and on the ultimate age of man. Well, that instinct 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.040 of yours is I would say, fairly unique, because it 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.480 is very common for people to think that they are 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.760 living in a very privileged time. Have you noticed that? Yeah, well, no, 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.799 I think I'm living in a privileged time. I mean 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.799 compared with before. I don't mean materially privileged. I think 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.320 that's true too. I think we are some of the 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.760 luckiest people and the golden age of television, Joe, have 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.280 you seen these shows? Yeah, I'm assuming you're referring to 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.480 the fact that we can still get quantumly rerunning every 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.919 now and then. But but yeah, we're materially privileged. But 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.880 but I also mean privileged in terms of I happen 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.720 to be the person who's of the generation that's alive 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.120 when it all comes to the end. So today's episode 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.000 is going to be about the field of eschatology, which 0:02:55.080 --> 0:03:00.000 is both theological and ostensibly secular, but it's the stuff 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.880 of the end of times. What what happens when there 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.440 is a conclusion to it all the either the end 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:12.600 of the human species or a very significant transition of 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.200 the human species into another kind of being, or a 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.120 very significant transition of the human species into a very 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.560 different kind of situation or station, either ushering in a 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:27.240 utopia that brings happiness and prosperity for all, or you know, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.280 an apocalyptic vision. And we can get into what these 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.160 words mean in a minute, but that brings destruction and 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.800 calamity and uh, you know road warrior kind of stuff. Yeah, 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:39.680 I mean, it's so much of it hinges on this 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.200 feeling that we're talking about, where it just it seems 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.520 like something's gotta give, something's gotta break, something's gotta change, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.120 for better or worse. It it always takes me back 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.440 to to the Yates poem. Right, surely the second coming 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.520 is at hand. Surely something is about to get the 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.520 falcon cannot hear the falcon? Or man, something's going wrong? Yeah, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:05.160 pasionate enthusiasm among the worst? Right, passion passionate intensity intensity? Yes, 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:11.400 that's even better. Yeah, what's the exact line. The the 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.120 best lack all conviction, and the worst are filled with 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.279 passionate intensity. I very often find that's true. You know, 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.000 some of the some of the best people I know 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.400 with the best opinions don't speak up that often. But man, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.839 people who have bad opinions are allowed as heck, well, 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:29.320 they don't have to worry as much about saying the 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:31.480 wrong thing, do that. No, Well, I mean it helps 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.400 when you're never wrong. So let's let's let's get into 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.120 it here. Um. First of all, let's just talk a 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.240 little bit about basic human utopianism. You know, I want 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.240 to share a fact with you, Robert. I always assumed 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:49.320 that the you in the word utopia comes from the 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.960 Greek prefix meaning good, as in uh, you know euphoria, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.159 the good feeling, but that is not actually where it 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.400 comes from too. So the title Utopia, of course, can 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.920 be traced back to Thomas Moore's book Utopia and this 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.560 sort of fictional but also philosophical treatise on what a 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.680 perfect society might look like. You could look at it 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.400 as a sort of update to Plato's Republic in a way, 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.520 or a laying out of the groundwork of you know, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.720 how could we achieve a perfect world? And so if 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.640 utopia and that since had meant it had been the 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.240 way I understood it, it would have meant good place. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.560 You know, utopia a good place. But the U is 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.719 not actually eu as in good place, but it's you 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:35.040 as in no place, because it didn't exist, right, Okay, 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.559 well that makes sense. Yeah, so I think that's something 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.760 that we should keep in mind. Going all the more reason, 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:42.800 I guess that Microsoft word is always telling me that 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.040 dystopia is not a word. Oh really, yeah, or at 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.080 least I get that. I get that correction all the time. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.839 I mean, obviously, dystopia has come to have a meaning 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.240 for us as the opposite of utopia, as as a 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.839 dissident vision of the future. Right, But well, before we 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.000 get to dystopia, walk me through utopia, all right. So, 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:07.240 and really, in defining utopia, we essentially define dystopia human experiences. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.560 Of course, you can think of it as the spark 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.400 on the line right between the expanse of the past 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.719 and the expanse of the future. It's like, you know, 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.560 it's like like a cartoon fuse to a bomb, right, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.520 and we're just sparking along. And humans have thrived in 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.440 large part by their ability to perceive and mold that future. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.880 All right. We developed new ways of doing this, doing 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.640 the things we always did, hunting, farm and crafting, as 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:35.240 well as the ways we think about the world, cosmology, society, etcetera. 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.840 And so we think of human existence. If we think 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.719 of human existence, has this spark upon the fuse of time, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.320 we judge the soon to ignite, and the igniting based 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.360 on the charred and flaming remnants of what proceeded is 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.200 and we we we come to look beyond and imagine 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.880 near and far futures on this very line. And so 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.960 humans across cultures and times have sought to radically trams 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:07.120 formed their existence socially, bodily, technologically, etcetera. All as ares 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.000 a ways to try and and better ourselves and better 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.240 the way that we live on this world. Yeah, I 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:14.160 think that's true. And of course, if you look at 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.640 the basic human project of civilization as one that tends 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.760 towards creating a better life for all of us, it's 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.480 easy to look at that and conclude, well, than a 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:31.080 successful execution of this project would end in utopia. Yeah. Yeah, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.080 it's it's kind of like the it's it's the notion 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.840 that if a city is essentially engineering engineering exercise, there 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.760 should be some idealized version of the city that we're 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.880 aspiring to. I mean, eventually we can get there. In 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:46.720 this case, you know, the city is not just a 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.800 literal city, but the city is the model for the 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.560 you know, all things civilization. Now, I would argue, I 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.840 think that one reason we sense attention here, Like you 0:07:56.920 --> 0:07:59.560 might say, well, I don't expect us to ever reach utopia, 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.040 but I do advocate civilization continuing to try to improve 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.960 the lives of everyone for as long as possible. Uh. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.120 Doesn't that seem a contradiction. I would say that the 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.560 main contradiction lies in the incoherence of the idea of perfection. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.960 You can't create a perfect society, because that idea doesn't 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.840 make sense. They are inherent tensions in society. People want 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.440 different things, and so there there is no such thing 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.080 as a perfect society for everyone. Yeah. I mean, you 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:30.160 could make this more or less idealized building in which 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.720 people are going to live and work. But then what 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:35.280 are you gonna set the thermostat to right? Because some 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.000 people are gonna be too hot, some people are gonna 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:38.760 be too cold some people what people want to wear 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.160 a hoodie in the office. Some people want to sit 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.040 there and sweat. Now, one way you could get out 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.119 of this bind is by saying, you know, this project 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.480 of continually trying to improve human civilization is going to 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.160 be cut short, and it is going to be cut 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.520 short by supernatural forces. So you're talking about a an 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.520 apocalypse of spiritual apocalypse, Yes, and I think it is 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:05.160 very worth mentioning something about the etymology here. The word apocalypse. Now, 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:09.160 the word apocalypse originally did not mean mad max uh. 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.319 It originally meant an unveiling or a revelation. So, for instance, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.520 the Book of Revelation in the Bible in the New 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.280 Testament is sometimes known as the apocalypse of John. Means 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.440 the same thing the Revelation to John John wrote down, 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.840 so it's vision that he had all these cryptic things 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:28.800 that are playing out at the end of time exactly. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:34.599 So a revelation it could reveal knowledge, visions, understanding, or 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.160 very often predictions about the future. And I think because 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:42.040 of associations with predictions about the future and the Book 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.040 of Revelation itself, the word apocalypse is a word that 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.160 has come to be associated with end to times events, 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.280 either the end of the world, the end of humanity, 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:56.840 or some radical change in station and the fortune of humankind. 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.040 And we should go ahead and say when you use 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.040 the word apocalypse, that changes usually for the worst. Right. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.280 People don't usually say apocalypse in a positive way, like 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.480 there will be an apocalypse and will it will lead 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.400 to utopia, which is interesting considering the fact that the 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:13.680 the origin of the word stems from a story that 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.480 is supposedly about the the victory of the eventual victory 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.960 of all things good overall things evil. Right. Yeah, there 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.840 are a lot of different Christian visions of the end times, 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.040 and we'll talk about them in this episode today, but 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:30.440 they typically involve both very negative events and ultimately a 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:35.040 perfectly positive event but so the popular version of apocalypse. Yeah, 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.199 we we associate with kind of post apocalyptic movies. Again, 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.240 The Road Warrior perfect example, great movie. Human civilization as 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.679 we formerly know it has ended and everything has just 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.920 gone to hell. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold right, 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:53.199 and you need guzzline. So it's also worth stressing here 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.560 that plenty of religions do not depend on such a 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.280 linear time frame right. Instead have a sickle coal and 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.280 certainly we see this in the older religions, the pre 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.600 Christian religions. Plenty of religions are more concerned with cosmological 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.920 origins underlying everyday reality and less of any notion on ending. 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.000 So for in for example, for example, in Hinduism, the 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.520 universe is continually created, preserve, destroyed, and created again. It's 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.640 an endless cycle, and the process of creation moves and 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.319 these large overarching cycles, and each cycle has four great 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.720 um epochs of time. The concept of reincarnation works alongside this, 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.760 as life flows into life, flows into life. I like 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.440 this because it mirrors some different hypotheses about the ultimate 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:39.120 nature of the universe. Now we don't know yet what 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.520 the ultimate nature of the universe is, but there are 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:46.040 some cosmological models in which, for example, our local universe 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.360 maybe a bouncing universe where it it collapses into a 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.200 singularity and then re explodes back into a universe with 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.680 distributed matter and energy all over the place, or event 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.280 like a bounty house where it's it's inflated in the 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.079 morning and then nipuke in it all day described that 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.599 with chlorox bleach and deflated the evening. Yes, it is 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:11.360 kind of like that too, But there is another apocalyptic 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:13.760 spiritual event that I wanted to call attention to just 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.920 because it's so cool. I can't pretend to understand it 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.920 all that well because it's Norse mythology, and Norse mythology, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.400 I feel like is is a more impenetrable to the 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.679 outsider type of mythology than things like Greek mythology or 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.440 do you find that too. There's I mean, I feel 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:31.719 like I can get it a lot more when I 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.560 listened to death Metal. Okay, I think that's that's how 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.280 I tend to try and process it. Think of like 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.800 extreme survivalist situations, uh, and the and the and the 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.600 resulting pantheon of gods, the resulting time frame of events 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.480 that would that would shape that and be shaped by that. Well, yeah, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.920 in that popular sense of apocalyptic, Norse mythology has some 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.960 great apocalyptic events that they've got Ragnarok and it's this 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:04.120 epic escottological battle involving God's monsters, chaos. There's this disastrous 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:09.320 cataclysmic winter, the mountains crumble, this giant sea serpent comes 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.079 up and spits venom over all the earth and poisons 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.920 the waters, and there's this huge slog down, bloody battle 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.520 where most of the gods get killed. Uh, it's brutal, 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:23.840 but hey, it would be an extreme bummer of a 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:28.280 religion that just ends with a cataclysmic disaster for everyone 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.920 and has nothing positive to come of it. So so 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:36.079 many religions also sort of have spiritual utopias in their 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.720 scatological framework, right, that the end times will result in 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:45.040 some kind of very positive situation for many people at least, 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.679 that's right now. Obviously we're gonna get to Christian models 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:50.679 here in a minute, but before we get there, I 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.360 want to just touch base on on some Buddhist ideas here. 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.080 So there's a recurring theme in Hinduism and Buddhism that 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.160 one may escape the endless psychle of death and rebirth 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:05.800 the wheel of sam Sara and attain liberation. Um. And 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.240 you can interpret such liberation as it's as its own 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.439 form of ending or perfection even but it's also kind 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:14.319 of a it's a form of escape or form of 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.400 ending that can be acquired at any point along the line. 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:20.040 So there's not you don't have to wait till the 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:24.640 end times or some distant future to attain liberation to 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.360 reach nirvana. So the inner journey as opposed to a 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:33.680 physical world journey asynchronous timelines. That being said, Um, there 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.360 is a pretty cool um idea out there, and that 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:42.520 is the belief system within Buddhism. Uh. That's a millennial 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.960 Buddhist in particular. Uh. They have this uh, this character 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.120 known as my Trea, and my Trea is the Bodhisattva, 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.240 the being, an enlightenment of the future who will arrive 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.360 on Earth. Generally, I've seen some numbers thrown out there, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.840 but just it's gonna be a long time in the future. 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.120 Try no, Robert, you have a number on our notes. Okay, 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:04.880 I have a number, and this is a this one 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.560 comes from a from my belief Japanese model. There's a 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.640 sect of Buddhist monks. They're are devoted to my trio 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.280 and I and I forgive me, I do not recall 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.240 the Japanese name from my trio off the top of 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.480 my head. But it is what five billion years in 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.000 the future. My reading that those are a lot of zeros. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:28.120 Uh No, that would be five trilli, five trillion, six 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:33.240 hundred and seventy billion years. So it's no way sixties seven, yeah, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.400 six hundred and seventy billion years. It's a colossal number. 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.600 And it's from that this would be this is gonna 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.040 be like a far future time when people live to 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.400 incredible ages. I want to say eighty thousand years old, 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:50.000 So huge numbers involved here, and my trio would be 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:54.120 the ultimate successor to our current Buddha. Um Sharda got him, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.360 got him a Buddha and uh this Buddha will achieve 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.480 complete enlightenment and teach pure dharma here on earth. And 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.240 I just want to read a quick quote. This is 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:08.000 from book of my Trea, The Future Buddha by Alan 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.320 Spenberg says quote, the prospect of a future Buddha, yet 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.840 another in the long line of Buddhas, offers an attractive possibility. 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.600 Although liberation from suffering is possible for anyone at any time. 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.800 According to Buddhist those being fortunate enough to live at 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.200 a time when a Buddha is active in the world 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.960 are far more likely to realize the arduous goal of 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:33.000 bringing all craving to cessation. Though perhaps initially a minor 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.480 figure in the early Buddhist tradition, my Trea thus comes 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.960 to represent a hope for the future, a time when 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.760 all human beings could once again enjoy the spiritual and 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.320 physical environment most favorable to enlightenment and the release from 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.359 worldly suffering. I think that's fascinating because the very positive 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.360 situation here, that the utopia that's being brought about isn't 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:59.400 one necessarily of material fulfillment, but one of the realization 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.680 of the lack of necessity for material fulfillment. Very often, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.520 when you see like a heaven or just any kind 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:14.480 of very positive, spiritually imagined future situation, people people speak 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.800 of material comforts. Yeah. Yeah, And indeed this, uh, this 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.960 particular idea, I guess would only entail material comforts and 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:26.200 insofar as they enable you to seek in or enlightenment 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.879 and realize that you don't need material coming rights. Okay, 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:31.400 So a lot of what we're gonna be talking about 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:35.280 in this episode is not just spiritual, religious supernatural frameworks 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:40.239 for eschatology, but actually secular and very often scientific or 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.119 technological frameworks for eschatology. And there are just like we 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:50.440 talked about religious apocalypses and religious future utopias, there are 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.280 secular apocalypses and secular future utopias. Yeah. And I think 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.159 the fascinating thing here and and and something preving to 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.600 keep in mind as we we play with this topic 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:04.600 here today is that there's so much shared um circuitry 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.800 involved both ideas. So you know, it's it's easy for 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.280 for for an atheist to stand on one side and 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.280 scoff at some of these spiritual ideas of utopia and 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:19.919 salvation and destruction. But when you break it down, how 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:25.280 different is the underlying experience of those ideas? How different 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.680 is that from some of these secular ideas we're discussing. Now, Well, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:30.600 that's a good question. I think we should discuss them 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.000 and explore. Well, as far as secular apocalypses go, we 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.040 really only don't even have to to mention many of them. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.400 I mean, they're pretty obvious. The idea of nuclear annihilation 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:45.480 of global cataclysm green Goo, greg Goo. Um, I don't 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:46.520 even know if this one is a thing, but I'm 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.440 gonna go and say it. Brown goo, who knows? Um singularity? 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.639 Um I I love our Scott Baker's idea of a 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:58.639 semantic apocalypse, which one is that semantic apocalypse is basically 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.119 just the death of meaning. Where we reach this point 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:05.639 from where we have a certain neuroscientific understanding of the 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:10.400 human experience, and uh, we realize that all human consciousness 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.760 is a coin trick, and we explain the coin trick. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.439 It's kind of a Nietzsche in despair. Well, all of 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.359 those are possible things that people could predict happening, you know. 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.600 So you've got green goo, gray goo. You know, people 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:26.680 talking about nanotechnology or something that could take over the world. 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:28.920 We don't even have that kind of nanotechnology yet and 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.200 maybe we never could. Uh, it could just be something 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:36.240 impossible that people are dreaming up. But on the other hand, ultimately, 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.359 if we assume that our current understanding of physics is 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.920 basically correct, and we think it probably is, I mean, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.919 there's a lot we don't know, but what we do 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.199 know we're pretty confident about, and that the laws of 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:51.000 physics don't change with time. Our scientific picture of the 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:55.919 universe does very firmly predict one type of scaton that 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.960 is unsurvivable. Right, And I want to read a say, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.240 action from a book I've been reading. Actually, it's a 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.000 book by the physicist Sean Carroll called The Big Picture, 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:09.840 and he's talking about the physical cosmological model of what's 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.720 going to happen to the universe after a while. So 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.399 he talks about the accelerating expansion of the universe, and 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.359 that's fueled by the pull of vacuum energy, you know, 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.120 the energy out there that's causing the galaxies to expand 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.560 farther and farther apart. Uh, And that all tells us 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.119 more or less what's going to happen, he writes, quote, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.480 it's possible, and in some sense would be simplest for 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:36.280 the accelerated expansion to simply continue without end. That leads 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.760 to a somewhat lonely future for our universe. Right now, 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.320 the night sky is alive with brightly shining stars and 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:47.919 galaxies that can't last forever. Stars use up their fuel 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.520 and will eventually fade to black. Astronomers estimate that the 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:55.200 last dim star will wink out around one quadrillion or 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.560 ten to the fifteen years from now. That's well, that's 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.600 well after the age of my Trea. Yeah, good to know. Yeah, though, 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.000 who knows how long my Treia lives. Throwing that out there, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.600 my Trea could could have something to say about these 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.040 stars burning up all their fuel. But anyway, Carol continues. 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.159 By then, other galaxies will have moved far away, and 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.359 our local group of galaxies will be populated by planets, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.520 dead stars, and black holes. One by one, those planets 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.480 and dead stars will fall into the black holes, which 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.080 in turn will join into one supermassive black hole. Ultimately, 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.920 as Stephen Hawking taught us, even those black holes will evaporate. 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:38.080 After about one google or tend to the one hundred years, 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:41.640 all of the black holes in our observable universe will 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.440 have evaporated into a thin mist of particles, which will 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.960 grow more and more dilute as space continues to expand. 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.280 The end result of this are most likely scenario for 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.520 the future of the universe is nothing but cold empty space, 0:21:55.800 --> 0:22:01.760 which will last literally forever. Well that's um, that's nice 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:06.320 and dark, but literally and figuratively Yeah, but then again, 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.320 it sounds like that mist of particles. That sounds kind 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.639 of refreshing, yeah, I mean, but also it's you're dealing 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:15.760 with such a long period of time here, it's kind 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.160 of it's kind of like the idea of the humanless universal, 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.840 lifeless universe. It's really more just return to normal normalcy 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.120 in the universe, right, I mean, we were not around 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.280 for ages and ages and ages for the vast majority 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.720 of cosmological time. So what's it mattered that we're not 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.160 going to survive in the long run either. Well, I'm 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:38.560 just trying to offer an example of how you don't 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:40.960 have to get far out into left field with crazy 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.560 technological predictions in order to say that at some point 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.680 there will be an end. There will be an endpoint 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.679 to humanity. Uh that you know, it's it's hard to 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:55.200 survive the energy evaporation death of the universe unless in 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.920 a post in my tray a world we have figured 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:02.000 out ways technologically to escape into alternate universes. So true, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.440 in those doors to alternate universes, maybe our salvation, but 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.080 you might not have to walk through a door to 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.919 reach a very different kind of world that might be 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:13.080 much better than the one we have, because there are 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.760 also secular visions of utopias right there, most certainly are 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:18.760 it doesn't have to be heaven. It can be we 0:23:18.800 --> 0:23:22.000