Originally posted by: zorrro
Why do you think so? What would be different if say it ends and if it did not unless you knew you would be there to witness it?
When self-consciousness developed in early hominids to a point where it became clear that the death is an inevitable event,it created such a profound terror that some sort of survival mechanism became necessary to offer a distraction and to live peacefully until the impending event.
The culture(customs,traditions,beliefs, social norms and behaviors) evolved as a defense mechanism to counter this existential anxiety.Some of such cultural values offer literal immortality (religion,existence of soul,after life) and some, symbolic immortality(legacy,lineage,species).In short,it takes away the idea of absolute annihilation and the terror associated with it-That some part of the deceased continue to live forever either in afterlife or through descendants and legacy left behind on earth.
Such ideas are built on the assumption that the universe exists forever; the destruction is only of the self-at an individualistic level.If the universe too were to meet the same fate as the individual,such optimisms about the immortality would be rendered hopeless.The defense mechanisms against the existential anxiety would fail to work because it would be hard to assign meaning to something when everything is sure to end.
Edited by QuietlyLoud - 10 years ago
