LJ Idol Week 2: What Really Matters?

 In the really long term, nothing really.

Either the universe will continually expand, until every galaxy group is all alone, and eventually even the red dwarfs will burn through all their fuel and gutter out.

Or at some point, gravitation will overcome the universe's expansion, it will pause for an instant at the top of it's parabola, and start collapsing. Possibly eventually rebounding once again, in several trillion years, to create another universe.

Or there could be a false vacuum decay event at some point, where the entire universe fundamentally changes.

 

Isaac Asimov once theorized a four-fold / four-leaf clover universe. Matter / Antimatter / Negative Matter / AntiNegative Matter. All starting from the same Big Bang, expanding and contracting in a trillions year long dance. 

 

IS Earth alone in the current universe, as the abode of intelligent life? I'd like to think that we are not, that there is something similar to a Prime Directive that prevents other civilizations from contact us before we fully settle our solar system. But surely, if there were civilizations capable of harnessing a galaxy's entire energy (Kardashev 3) there would be visible evidence?

 

If we are alone, do we need to spread life thoughout the universe, similar to Marshall Savage's ideas in The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps? Is life singular, or universal? Is the universe itself alive?

 

What really matters?

Nothing.

Everything.