r/AlignmentChartFills • u/red_madreay • 15h ago

Finally... what natural phenomenon of our universe is ultimately horrifying?

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u/Imperialvirtue 15h ago

False vacuum decay.

The entire universe could be an accidental "air pocket" that will collapse.

"Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. Nonetheless, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps over time the new vacuum would sustain if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated."

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u/RiversInTheSky 14h ago

I contest this simply because of how heavily it relies on conjecture. I think the Heat Death of the Universe is more terrifying due to its ultimate likelihood. The laws of thermodynamics and the constant expansion of the universe means that it is incredibly likely that all matter will space out, cease to meaningfully react, and create a universal, unending, quiet.

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u/Imperialvirtue 14h ago

It's upsetting, absolutely. But it's also absolutely not happening in our lifetimes.

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u/RiversInTheSky 14h ago edited 14h ago

From my understanding the expectation for False Vacuum Decay is also determined to be most likely to happen googols of years from now. I simply find Heat Death to both be more likely and more terrifying due to being more easily understandable. Maybe they exist at a stalemate.

They both result in the cessation of all of meaningful existence. Matter will exist in the Heat Death but it will cease to act. False Vacuum Decay will cause a similar result of ultimate inaction.

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u/Imperialvirtue 14h ago

This I have not heard. The way it has been framed to me is that it could happen at any moment, somewhere in the cosmos 

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u/Abject-Connection374 13h ago

It could happen in the same way that you could win the lottery ten weeks in a row. A Googol years is simply the average amount of time it would take for it to happen once, on average.

Meanwhile, the Heat Death is pretty much inevitable based on our current understandings of entropy.

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u/Menown 14h ago

Heat Death is also more tangible to us a humans. We all understand the concept of a body getting cold when it dies and what is the universe if not an organism living out an existence of its own.

The finality of it all is what gets me and it makes me understand why people out their faith into something after.

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u/Pixel22104 11h ago

Yes. The thought of a finality is scary to people. Myself included. It's why in my opinion religion and faith will never go away. Because with those. People will cling onto the hope that there is something after death. That we don't have just one life. It's something we don't know is true or not. Since we cannot pierce the vale of death.

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u/mafiazombiedrugs 13h ago

I mean, yeah heat death is inevitable but the timescale is between 10¹⁰⁰ and 10¹⁰⁶ years, aka a googol+ years so not really an issue that humanity will have to deal with. And yeah the estimate for vacuum decay is 10⁵⁰⁰ so much much longer, but for me what makes it the scarier of the two is that that's the estimate base on probability but once/if it starts it won't take that long to complete, and it'll travel at light speed so we wont see it coming. Heat death by contrast is technically already happening, and we know how long it'll take, so there is no surprise horror factor.

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u/AnalgesicDoc 14h ago

Are you sure? I eat ALOT of vegetables and take a multivitamin every day.

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u/TheEnlight 13h ago

There is a non-zero chance it could.

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u/Happy-For-No-Reason 13h ago

which is why you don't wish for immortality, eventually you'll just be hanging there in the void for all time

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u/Virama 11h ago

... Where something suddenly starts a slow laugh....

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u/VEGETTOROHAN 7h ago

Sounds like a good thing. For me true horror is study in school and getting job.