By Keith Tidman
In the 1977 movie “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen played the role of a fictional protagonist Alvy Singer, who iconically portrayed a nebbish character: timid, anxious, insecure. All in all, vintage Woody Allen. But equally, these less-than-stellar traits were apparent in Alvy as a young boy. Which is why, when Alvy and his mother went to the doctor’s, she reported that her son was depressed and refusing to do his homework. She thought that Alvy’s unease stemmed from “something he read.”
In response to the doctor’s inquiries, Alvy gingerly elaborated on the whys and wherefores of his disquiet: “The universe is expanding…. Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart, and that would be the end of everything.” At which point, Alvy’s mother interjects, “Why is that your business? What has the universe got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!” To which Alvy, perhaps channeling Albert Camus’s absurdism, concludes dejectedly, “What is the point?”
The way in which this dialog unfolds has been dubbed “Alvy’s error”. That is to say, Alvy — along with the philosophers and scientists who similarly argue over the meaninglessness of life in a universe seemingly on track to die leading to the extinction of our species and civilization — have been accused of “assessing purpose at the wrong level of analysis”.
As the ‘errors’ reasoning goes, instead of focusing on a timescale involving billions, or even trillions, of years, we should keep the temporal context within the frame of our own lifespans, spanning days to years to decades. That being said, one might reasonably ask why timescales, cosmic or otherwise, should matter at all in calculating the purpose of human life; the two are untethered.
On balance, I suggest Alvy actually got it right, and his mom got it wrong. It’s a conclusion, however, that requires context — the kind provided by the astrophysicists who reported on a recent study’s stunning new insights into the universe’s life cycle. At the center of the issue is what’s called “dark energy,” a mysterious substance that astrophysicists believe exists based on its cosmological effects. It’s a repulsive force that pushes apart the lumpy bits of the universe — the galaxies, stars, and planets — incidentally setting off Alvy’s bout of handwringing by causing the universe to expand ever faster.
To be clear, dark energy is no trifle. It is estimated to compose seventy percent of the universe. (In addition, equally unseen dark matter composes another twenty-five percent of the universe. By comparison, what we experience around us everyday as observable matter — when we agonizingly stub our toe on the table or gaze excitedly upon vast cosmic swaths, star nurseries, and black holes — composes just a tiny five-percent sliver of cosmic reality.)
That our species is able to persistently ponder alternative models of cosmology, adjusting as new evidence comes in, is remarkable. That our species can apply methods to rigorously confirm, revise, or refute alternative models is similarly remarkable. The paradox is that three of the four models now in play by astrophysicists will lead to humankind’s extinction, along with that of all other sophisticated intelligent species and their civilizations ever to inhabit the universe. How can this be so?
For starters, the universe’s expansion has consequences. That said, recent observations and research has added a new twist to what we understand regarding issues of cosmology — from how the universe’s initial spark happened 13.8 billion years ago, and especially how things might end sometime in the future. Alvy was gripped by angst over one such consequence: he contemplated that the increasing acceleration might continue until the universe experiences a so-called Big Rip. Which is when everything, from galaxy clusters to atomic nuclei, fatally “breaks apart,” to borrow Alvy’s words, leading to a grand-scale extinction.
But, according to the most recent studies of the standard cosmological model, and of the increasingly understood role of dark energy, there’s a paradox as to a possible cosmic end state other than a Big Rip. Because there is an alternative outcome of accelerating expansion, in which the distance between stars and galaxies greatly increases, such that the universe eventually goes cold and dark. This is sometimes called the thermodynamic death of the universe, moved along by the destructive role of entropy, which increases the universe’s (net) state of disorder. No less fearful, surely, from the standpoint of an already-timorous Alvy.
The third possibility that dark energy creates is that its pushing (repulsive) effects on the cosmic lumps start to weaken, in turn causing the universe’s expansion to slow down and reverse, eventually leading to contraction and a so-called Big Crunch. Whether the crunch segues to another Big Bang is hypothesized, but the recent cosmological and dark-energy research doesn’t yet speak to this point about a cosmic bounce. Either way, extinction of our species and of all other intelligent life forms and civilizations remains inevitable as our full cosmic history plays out.
The fourth and last option is less existentially nihilistic than the preceding three possibilities — and is one that might be expected to have had a calming effect on Alvy, if he only knew. In this less-likely cosmological model, dark energy’s effect on cosmic expansion might slow but stabilize rather than implode. In averting the fate of a Big Rip, or a heat death, or a Big Crunch, there would be no extinction event occurring. Rather, circumstances would lead to a universe existing stably into infinity.
No matter how one dices reality, the existentialism and nihilism espoused by, for example, Schopenhauer, Sartre, and Nagel, as well as ideas about will-to-power advanced by Nietzsche, hang over the inconvenient realities of a universe fated to reach an all-encompassing expiry date, depending on the longer-term influences of dark energy.
From a theist’s standpoint, striving to live Aquinas’s “beatific vision,” one might wonder why a god would create a highly intelligent, conscious species like ours — along with innumerable cosmic neighbors (extraterrestrials) of unimaginably greater intelligence and sophistication because of earlier starts — when every species is assured to go poof. There will be no exceptions; the scale of annihilation will be cosmic.
So, what’s the meaning and intent, if any, of such teasing capriciousness? "What's the point?," as Alvy muttered with deep resignation. And how realistic can a transcendental force be, purportedly serving as a prime first cause of us and of our cosmic co-inhabitants subject to such conditions? Besides, contrary to some assumptions, even the existence of a god does not vouchsafe purpose for our species; nor does it vouchsafe purpose for the universe itself.
On the other hand, from a secular, naturalistic viewpoint, life might be imagined as meaningful in the sense of “purpose in life.” That is, where we make decisions and perform deeds as moral, empathic individuals and community members — not on the scale of an entire species. By definition, these secular events occur in the absence of a divine plan, such that we emerge from the physical laws of nature, to go on to create personal value, purpose, and social norms. As to purpose in life, where meaning is defined on the scale of a single personal, the prospect of “the end of everything” might be seen as less vexing, as meaning is acquired on the level of a single person.
In the sense, however, that’s conveyed by the slightly altered phrase “purpose of life” — where the one-word change shifts the focus from the individual and to the species — cosmic extinction looms more consequentially in terms of the lack of purpose and meaning. Given the prospect of such cosmic annihilation, Alvy might be excused his existential musings.
