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how it all ends

2024-06-04 · letter vlog · John · 5:25 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Science & nature, History & curiosities) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, heavy topic

Drawing on what Katie Mack taught him for their podcast, John argues that human history's rising curve of preserved information will end with Earth absorbed into the Sun's white dwarf, so we cannot leave a permanent mark; we remember and record for the living and for future generations, and maybe are here to ease suffering and live in brief wonder.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Podcast hook; how little we know of the distant past and human history as the story of preserving and passing down information

  • ★★ John says he co-hosts the podcast Crash Course the Universe with astrophysicist Dr. Katie Mack, and while making it learned what will become of him in about 10 billion years. — 00:00:00 · Crash Course
  • ★★ John says we know very little about the distant past: not when people started having names or what they were, when language developed, or what our relationship with Neanderthals and Denisovans was like. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John says our species has been around for about 300,000 years, and for almost all of that time very little information has been passed down to us. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ John often thinks of human history as the story of humans getting better and better at preserving and passing down information. — 00:00:29
  • ★ John illustrates: he cannot see plays from 30,000 years ago or a photograph of London from 1200 CE, but can see plays from 2,000 years ago and a photograph of London from 1900. — 00:00:29 · London
  • ★★ John says it is tempting to see the human story as ever-accumulating knowledge: a line of progress from before cooking fires to understanding the universe, from nobody's story recorded to everyone's. — 00:00:58 · progress

00:01:27 — Humans have a temporal range; the Sun brightens, boils the oceans, becomes a red giant and then a white dwarf holding Earth's remains; a white dwarf observed with planetary remnants

  • ★★★ John says that picture imagines the roller coaster of information accrual only goes up, but humans, like all Earth species, have a temporal range, with lots of time before and after humans. — 00:01:27 · Earth
  • ★★ John says nothing ever observed in our universe is permanent, and we can be reasonably sure what will happen to Earth and all Earth life, including us. — 00:01:27 · Earth
  • ★★ From Dr. Mack, John says the Sun is getting brighter and in about a billion years will be so bright that all Earth's oceans boil. — 00:01:56 · Earth
  • ★★ John says the Sun will later become a red giant so bright and large that it consumes Mercury and Venus and probably, though not definitely, Earth. (hedged) — 00:01:56 · Earth
  • ★★ John says the Sun will eventually shrink into a white dwarf holding what remains of the Sun and inner planets: about Earth-sized but hundreds of thousands of times denser than Earth. — 00:02:26 · Earth
  • ★★★ John concludes that we are headed to probably being part of a white dwarf. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John says researchers found unexpected elements in a distant white dwarf and concluded it was probably once a red giant that consumed rocky planets, as Earth probably will be. (hedged) — 00:02:55 · Earth

  • ★★★ John says in the distant future Earth's love stories, technology and birdsong will be a bit of pollution in the Sun's white dwarf; nobody will have a name or a story. — 00:02:55 · Earth

    “a bit of pollution inside the sun's white dwarf”

00:03:24 — Earth as pollution in a white dwarf; no permanent legacy, so remember and record for the living and the future, and live in brief wonder

  • ★★★ Making the podcast, John has been thinking that we cannot leave a permanent legacy, and the urge to do something eternal for this world is the wrong urge. — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ John says we don't need to remember or record everything: we remember what we can and record what we want, not for posterity but for people sharing the planet now and those after us. — 00:03:53
  • ★★★ John doesn't know why we are here, but says it is certainly not to leave a permanent mark, which would only be engulfed by our star. — 00:03:53 · meaning of life
  • ★★ John says that, since any mark would be engulfed by the Sun even if we survive the next 300,000 to 300 million years, it can't be about forever; it has to be about now and what we can see coming. — 00:04:22
  • ★★ John guesses ancient humans, like us, couldn't hope in forever but hoped in themselves and future generations; we embody their hope as future generations will embody ours. (speculative) — 00:04:22 · hope

  • ★★★ John suggests maybe that is why we're here: to ease present suffering, solve problems for each other and for those who inherit the earth, and above all to live in brief wonder. (hedged) — 00:04:22 · meaning of life

    “to live in brief wonder on this our brief planet”

00:04:52 — Sign-off; P.S. plugs Crash Course The Universe and the Crash Course Coin that funded it

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a channel comment answering 'what if we get to the stars?', John says we'll never leave our part of the galaxy, even near light speed, nor our area of the universe, citing a Kurzgesagt video. — creator comment
  • ★ In the comment John says that before reaching the stars we face many problems, including our galaxy colliding with a nearby galaxy, which may be a Proper Emergency. (hedged) — creator comment
  • ★★ In the comment John says the universe is temporary, but if we last 300 million years we will be the most successful complex species in the known universe. (playful) — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Earth · Sun (star) · white dwarf

Also: Projects: Crash Course

Works: Crash Course coin · Crash Course Pods: The Universe

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: death anxiety · Denisovan · hope · Human extinction · meaning of life · Neanderthal · progress · red giant · wonder (emotion)

Places: London · Mercury · Venus

Only in the description or credits: Katie Mack · Kurzgesagt · Milky Way · speed of light

Also centred on Sun (star): On Sunlight · Flyana Boss Asks Hank Anything

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 4 videos, 2024-05-28 – 2024-07-09.