In my earlier post I stated that I think I am a momentary fluctuation of engery, some energy slipping into the form of matter, and some energy in the form of electrical activity in my head.
The matter of me is held, temporarily, together by various forces, the strong nuclear force and weak force that keeps my atoms together, and to a limited extent electro-magnetism, and finally the force that keeps me stuck on Earth, gravity. The only reason, at least physically, that allows "me" to exist in such a state as to be able to write this blog, is that the ambient local conditions suffice to keep those forces working together in such a way as to allow me to "live". However this is an instantaneous event lasting practically no time at all.
People looked at me sort of strangely when, at a church picnic, I said that your life on earth is only the spark of your real eternal fire. To live a day or a thousand years is basically no time at all on cosmic scales.
Getting back to "me" the alive "me" of now. In ten billion years I will, physically still exist. My atoms will still be around and in pretty much the same shape they are now. Some will be floating in interstellar space, others will be stuck in the middle of some forming planet on the other side of the galaxy, or maybe in a different galaxy all together. That "me" will not be able to write this blog. And that is probably going to make the readers quite happy.
Metaphysically will there be a "me" seperate from the "me" of ten billion years hence? If there is a "me" I would hope it is not the same me as now. To exist as Scott for ten billion years would really get on my nerves, or the metaphysical equivalent. Surely if you want to find me in a hundred years go dig me up and there I will be, more or less. That is if you define "me" as matter. If I am an idea in the mind of something else then is the matter the idea too? And if it is why bother with the melodrama of birth and death? Especially since we live such short lives.
Maybe our whole life in this universe, that portion of our physical existance where electrochemical activity happens in our heads and bodies, is mere conception. The day an egg is fertalized is a pretty hecktic day for both sperm and egg. But after the this happens the show has only just begun. I would like to think that we have as much understanding of how our lives will unfold as the sperm and egg have.
What I know for certain is that the "me" of this universe, in physical terms, will last for the duration of the cosmos. All the atoms that make me up were born in the instant of universal expansion some 15 to 20 billion years ago. And they will be there at the end too.
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