Is it normal that my only real fear is that life repeats?

54% Normal
19 Comments

I don't mean it's the only thing I fear (I'm scared of lots of things, like spiders), but it's the only thing that actually keeps me up at night, and a few times I've been on the brink of tears thinking about it.

Let me explain:
Everyone knows about the big bang - the primordial expansion of matter that produced the universe as we know it. The universe has been expanding since the beginning, and will continue to expand until all the energy in the universe is exhausted, an event called heat death.

One of the main theories for what will happen then is that the universe will begin contracting until it has returned to the state it was in before the big bang, at which point the big bang will happen again.

If this happens, all matter will have to move in the same way it did after the previous big bang - randomness isn't a real thing and as we understand it the universe is mechanical, meaning that all events in the universe are predictable given knowledge of the motion of the matter expanding with the big bang (impossible to have such knowledge in accordance with the uncertainty principle, but that's beside the point).

My point is, if the big bang happens again, all of life as we know it will repeat over and over again for eternity.

The source of my deepest horror and my single greatest all-consuming fear is that I have to live the same life again and again and again and again.

Is it normal?

Voting Results
54% Normal
Based on 57 votes (31 yes)
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Comments ( 19 )
  • [Old Memory]
    10 years ago

    Even if it is undeniably true, it's not as if you're going to be consciously aware of it. Each time will feel like the first time. Oh, yeah. ;)

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  • thegypsysailor
    10 years ago

    It is not a given that things will repeat as they did before. The fact that life happened on earth was a set circumstances and a great deal of luck and there is very little probability that everything will be exactly right, for life to evolve here, and be the same as it was before.
    It is not a recreation of time lines.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      10 years ago

      It almost certainly is though. There's no such thing as randomness or chance. All motion happens because of its interaction with its environment. When all possible variables are perfectly replicated, the outcome has to be the same. If the Big Bang happens again, the variables have to repeat - there's no other possible outcome.

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      • thegypsysailor
        10 years ago

        If you were to put a bomb in the center of a group of marbles, they would not repeat the same paths each time. There are random forces that will change things. If you choose not to believe that, without doing the research the internet offers, then you are not being proactive about your fear, but succumbing to it.
        Your choice.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          10 years ago

          They would if the bombs were bombs and situation were identical in every way, which they could not be because they are different bombs. A better analogy would be that if you had a time machine and went back to watch that bomb explode over and over and over again, do you think the explosion would ever have a different outcome?

          True randomness is a physical impossibility.

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          • Shelbs
            10 years ago

            I get what you're saying, because if the big bang happens again then everything will repeat itself. If everything is repeating itself then it will repeat in the exact same way each time. There can be no randomness because all of the variables will be the same.

            The only way events would be slightly different would be if the variables were different. But that's not possible because the repetition of time is not continuous in this theory, and so it erases randomness.

            But the rebuttal to this is that there is no repetition of time because time is continuous. And as a result the "repeated" events would only be similar instead of exact.

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          • thegypsysailor
            10 years ago

            If you were watching the same explosion each time, I agree. But with different explosions, the outcomes would indeed be different, each and every time.
            So the second (or one thousandth) big bang explosion could not be identical to any other.
            Find something else to worry about and let that one go, it ain't going to happen.

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  • delling
    10 years ago

    Maybe you need to not think so big?

    I have a lot of existential fears about why there is something rather than nothing, or how it's possible to not exist after death, and whatnot. It's the vastness of everything that makes my puny brain overwhelmed, and the only solution I've found is to just let it go and focus on something else.

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  • DiningOfTheHauntedDad
    10 years ago

    You should watch a show called Lexx. It's on Netflix and it's really good biopunkish rather quirky fairly kinky sci-fi, and you would find it terrifying.

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  • tripw7
    10 years ago

    You need to take a rest. How ever you came to the conclusion that things repeat is totally false. Just think about it. What has happened has happened, there is no turning back and there is no repeat. Who ever told you and somehow you came to believe this was the case, is completely untrue.
    Live like there is no repeat, just live like you can be proud of yourself.
    Good Luck......

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  • handsignals
    10 years ago

    so does that mean i have to fuck all the woman that I didn't really want to fuck all over again...that sucks.

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  • DragonQueen
    10 years ago

    What the hell u smoking!

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    • Agirlsbestfriend.
      10 years ago

      Hahaha

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  • dom180
    10 years ago

    It's interesting that you dislike this idea. For me, it is a source of great comfort. Would you mind explaining why you fear this?

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  • spaghettifrier
    10 years ago

    DANG, this just blew my mind. Love thinking about stuff like this. Great, if your life is bliss. Interesting to think...

    if this WERE true, is there ANY possible variable? is there any actual conscious decision? If I make a random choice is it really for no reason at all? If I make a random choice, will I make the same random choice in the next life (if it is truly random). Could there be any learning? Scarier even, could some thing change that would cause you not to exist at all,.. you'd be lost forever.. or for some vital aspect of your life or life in general or who knows what or who, to not be there?

    Is consciousness itself some kind of a force? I'm afraid of nothingness. The most pleasant thought is the singularity being a unified, blissful state of consciousness. Ideally maybe even one that could remember all that had happened during expansion, but that might also cause distress. Not that I could comprehend such a state. But wow. Now I'll go watch some Carl Sagan...

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    • jeebley
      10 years ago

      "...the singularity being a unified, blissful state of consciousness."

      wow... That's beautiful.

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  • [Old Memory]
    10 years ago

    I've always though about this, even before I saw it on Futurama where they had an episode about this. I actually find this thought comforting. I could understand not being comfortable with it if you've had a bad life. Maybe if this is true we can change it a bit each time, since we do seem to have free will and possibly a bit more knowledge of the previous paradox to make life go different. Maybe this is why we have dejavu.

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  • Short4Words
    10 years ago

    None of this is certain, so you just have to hope this isn't the case. It's an interesting theory though.

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  • Sunshine:)
    10 years ago

    The big bang is a theory, not a scientific law.. So take a chill pill. Second, life does not repeat itself. Period.

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