WHERE IS EVERYTHING GOING? When all of its energy is evenly spread out, the universe will have arrived at what physicists refer to as a state of thermal equilibrium, a rather dreary outcome that is glibly characterized as heat death. It is called this because energy in a state of equilibrium is not able to do anything. Why? Because energy that is all evened out has no high and low spots. A rock can roll down a hill because ... well, it's on top of the hill. If it were not on top of the hill it could not roll down. A rock can roll down a hill because there is a difference between the top of the hill and the bottom. If there were no difference, nothing would happen. The rock would not be able to roll (or anything else for that matter). It would just sit there. This is similar to what is going to happen when all of the universe's energy is evenly spread out. There will be virtually no differences, no hills and valleys. Human culture is headed in pretty much the same direction. The vehicle that is taking us to our heat death is called cultural diversity, or multiculturalism. In the past, superior cultures always overwhelmed inferior ones, either destroying or enslaving them. Cosmologically, this is the way it should be. I say this with the full awareness that there is no such thing as should in the realm of the cosmological. The universe is what it is. If we could explore every square inch of it I fully doubt that we would find so much as a single smidgen of should or ought. There is of course the argument that the human condition is also what it is, and currently what it is is a dynamic that is heading in the direction of perfect equality, what we might call social (i.e. political and economic) equilibrium, a state of affairs in which there will be no differences (at least virtually none). When there are no differences, nothing can happen, whether it's in the cosmos or the arena of human affairs. Already we hear much talk of dummying down. A Master's Degree (or a Phd), for example, doesn't mean what it used to. Nowadays nearly anyone can get them. The very phrase "dummying down" suggests differences, specifically differences in personal ability. The holder of an MA or Phd used to be regarded us "up there" intellectually and/or academically, which of course carried with it the implication that everyone else was "down here", suggesting a very real contrast. With every passing year these distinctions are less significant. Where is everything headed? To a state of utter dreariness. T.S. Eliot was right. The world does not end with a bang, but a whimper, a very dreary whimper. Where Did Everything Come From? I'm Looking a Four-Leaf Clover
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