Once life ceases to exist, does that mean the universe will also cease to exist?

Question

When all living creatures of the universe die out, will the universe cease to exist? This may sound stupid, but think about it. Reality is no more than the result of perception. Therefore, without life, without perception, reality ceases to exist. Sure there will still be atoms, stars, black holes, etc... after we die out, but will it be real?

Answer 1

Not really.

Something created us and the Universe. And if that something ceases to exist than we all would sieze to exist.

Also the Universe goes through a series of reincarnations.

Answer 2

no. the universe is a human creation. once the perception ceases to exist, so does what is perceived.

Answer 3

no one will know that the universe exists...so really it could go either way.

Answer 4

Well this is difficult to answer because what actually goes on in the world outside of our minds is vastly different than the limited things that our senses inform us about.

The things that exist will still be "real" without our perceptions but it would be different from your perceptions.

Like radio-waves can not be seen but they still exist, all of these things will still be there but you will not be there to place labels on it or assign forms to them.

I guess a good visual would be to imagine the matrix(I hate to say this because I do not want you to get the wrong impresion, I am not saying we inhabit a matrix style holographic world but that your mind is the matrix and reality exists outside of it, if that makes sense) instead of a color there would be a value for the wavelength of light and so on, and so on all steaming and flowing together and constantly changing numbers and symbols of all the math used to discribe all the things we can only sense in extreme conditions.

All of reality would be an interaction of these different constants and values in nature instead of the limited information that is apprehended by the senses and then processed into form as objects by the mind.

In strict terms the world outside is nothing like what the mind projects.

It is far more vast and complicated and very difficult to discern and imagine.

But we try to by using symbols and formulas to describe the relationships that take place in reality.

However we can only do this in limited form and the universe is vast and interconnected.

In short it will still be real, just not like you think of when you think of something as being real but instead how something is real as it is in reality.

Answer 5

There would be no one to witness the universe, so no one will know.

Answer 6

Object permanence should be enough to answer that question.

Answer 7

i dont have an answer

but i have a familiar question.

when a tree falls and nobodys around to hear it.. does it make a sound?

Answer 8

...for the deceased...the universe will live on...

Answer 9

You have it backwards. Perception can only be the result of reality, because whether you identifity reality rightly or wrongly, it is still empirical. Perceptions are memories of sensations. As such, they must be sensations OF something. They cannot be projections of your mind.

The fallacy of believing the universe is the projection of consciousness is called the Primacy of Consciousness.

But because empirical existence is the object of your consciousness, the opposite of the fallacy becomes the Primacy of Existence.

Existence exists. A is A. When you die, existence continues to exist.

To believe in the Primacy of Consciousness means that you exist but the rest of existence does not, that it is just a mirrage, a projection, an illusion.

Are you so conceited that you really think you exist but the rest of existence does not?

Added:

I did not mean that we cannot perceive our own minds. When I said perceptions "cannot be projections of your mind," I meant that empirical existents cannot be projections of your mind, as in, "The existents of the universe will cease to exist if life ceases to exist."

If the empirical existents of your life are projections of your mind, then you are having hallucinations, mirrages, or worse: you are insane. The Primacy of Existence states that such existents are not dependent on any consciousness for their existence.

Answer 10

I used to believe that the universe was immaterial, a result of perception, but a very evidenced account of a past-life remembrance changed my belief.

A World War II pilot died in a crash, and he was reincarnated, about eight years back, as a boy with memories of his comrades, Iwo Jima, his death and even his reception in heaven. Just type in " Lt. James McCready Huston". What is really surprising is that the pilot's sister is still alive.

Now, if the universe was immaterial and shifted with every perception, thus, ceased to exist after we died, then how does it progress without blips in a seemingly seamless reality? How do souls which once ceased to exist end up re-converging with it without a change in the circumstances of the universe (same people, historical events, etc)?