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Comics @lemmy.ml

8mo ago

Endless torment

168 comments

- Upvoting because I've never seen this
  but also I am now sad
- But what's the frame of reference?
  
  The black hole in the centre of the universe.
- good boy

Wtf this is terrifying
- Is it though?
  You've died, what's there to be afraid of? You're no longer a bag of chemicals what is there to feel?
  
  In the comic you are still conscious. Forever. Not being able to move in any direction, the universe around you slowly drifting away. You will be swallowed by the darkness between the stars for a hundred billion years, all the while fully aware that you are completely and utterly alone with your own thoughts.

Eventually, she stopped thinking.
- Is that a JoJo reference

I don't like this

I was expecting to see a trail of ghosts left behind as the earth moves away.
- There is the Great Ghost Cluster in the distant void, passing messages up and down its endless stream of ghost bodies in order to log world events at the speed of voice.
  
  This is actually an awesome writing prompt: The older ghosts get updates from the younger ones, and send stories back from their own lives, like a long telephone wire..
- Yeah, and anyone who died at the same time within sight of each other.

to be a little pedantic, if you take in account the rate of expansion of the universe, and take as a truth that the ghost stays stationary in spacetime, earth would disappear in an instant
- The spirit is already moving at the same speed and in the same direction as the earth when it exits the body.
  
  That's a fair point. So then one might expect the ghost to continue their motion tangential to the orbit of the earth, and so they'll float away.
  However, the theory of general relativity suggests that gravity isn't really like other forces. It doesn't push or pull anything at all; but rather its bends the fabric of time and space. Objects 'falling' due to gravity, or 'in orbit' around a planet are actually moving in a direct straight line in curved space-time. And this is why gravity still applies to massless objects such as light. So then, I'd say the ghost would still be affected by gravity - and that their main concern would be falling into the earth rather than drifting away.
  
  😆 this comment really amused me, i guess the basic physics plus ghosts in the same matter-of-fact statement
  
  But that would imply that the ghost is a physical thing right?
  Does it come to existence when we are born? Or does it appear when we die?
  Does It behave like matter? If not, properties like velocity, inertia or energy wouldn't apply.
  The comic is really amusing to bring forth these questions
  
  And it would still be gone in an instant
  
  Nah, it won't be perfect. Some, tiny divergent velocity will exist.
- Would that not depend on your inertial frame? Like isn't the entire concept of being stationary relative to spacetime not an actual thing? I'm not trying to be pedantic, BTW, I literally don't know the answer to my question.
  
  Yup. Same as the time travel meme that was on the front page recently, this relies on there being a fixed inertial frame which is not a thing in our weird universe.
- which is all the more terrifying

This implies there's an absolute center to the universe relative to which the earth moves but spirits do not.
- Or you just maintain your velocity at death. With no other forces, that's the way you head forever
  
  But this character died stationary on the floor. Unless it's the Earth moving away from her as part of its normal orbit, in which case she'll get to visit it again soon
- There absolutely is a coordinate system like that, in the comic it would be the spirit's coordinate system with them at the center. There actually is an absolute center of the universe and it is you and me, and everything else in the universe is at the center of it's universe (depending on your definition of the universe). That's what special relativity is all about, each thing is at the center of it's own universe and you have to translate any measurements between coordinate systems.
  All the comic implies is that a sprit doesn't follow null geodesics, but that's general relativity.
  
  There actually is an absolute center of the universe and it is you and me
  I think that's the observable universe, not just a specific definition of the universe. I believe the consensus is that the observable universe is only a part of the universe centered on each observer, and there's no center to the "full" universe.
  
  There actually is an absolute center of the universe and it is you and me,
  Oh stop it you🥰
- I think they simply became totally massless and is no longer affected by gravity.
  
  Photons don't have mass, yet they are affected by gravity.

Nothing is as terrifying as SpaceEngine.
Frankly. This… software rearranged my brain and changed me fundamentally.
There are no words to describe being lost in the 10^{27 of space. It’s just too much, you will go insane and if you survive you will lose the ability to talk with people, lose every single thing that you thought matters. You will be alone even in the busiest of places, some part of you forever stuck in the 10}27 of emptiness between Galaxy Groups.
This isn’t a joke. Ignorance is bliss
- It's anxiety inducing in VR, so fucking cool
- I don't know if I want to try this or not now

I always thought it funny that traditional ghosts can go through walls but are held up by the floor. Finally some consistency.
- They're just behaving as they've been taught ghosts are supposed to behave.
- That's because floors aren't part of their finished business, but walls are.
- Just implies that ghost have some kind of interaction with gravity. Maybe ghosts make up dark matter.
  
  If you just had interaction with gravity, you'd fall through the floor.

So there's just a long ass trail of ghosts floating in space?
At least some sections would be heavily populated....
- No, because the solar system is moving together along the outer edge of the ~~cosmos~~ Milky Way. I don't know if there's anything such as a cosmic absolute frame of reference for "no motion", but (depending on what you're motionless in reference to) you would likely never see another soul.
  
  If you were killed in a mass-killing you'd have other ghosts near you though.

Thank you, just what I needed. More existential horror. 💀👍🏻
- Well do catch up on SMBC if that's actually your objective. His bits are deeper on all that than anything I've read without some good drugs.

Odd how they chose gravity, but not the fact the earth is both rotating and revolving around the sun. Even more than that, the entire solar system is revolving around the center of our galaxy.
- The way I interpreted it, is that gravity normally holds you on Earth despite all the effects you listed, and gravity not affecting this ghost, that's the problem.
  
  Gravity is just the pressure of all the ghosts keeping us down
- The effect of rotation is visible in the first two pictures, she is floating sideways.

Should be a comet trail of ghosts drifting behind the Earth. She wouldn’t be alone.
- They would be pretty far apart though

I always thought it was fun to imagine you are an immortal being and you get to walk around pranking people like jumping in front of a train but just bounce off or eating a sandwich with bleach but you are perfectly ok then one day the sun balloons and eventually the earth gets destroyed and you are wisked away then eventually trapped in the gravity well of a brown dwarf star and get sucked to the center for trillions of years.

This was an unfortunate way to start my day

With the death rate I feel like it wouldn't be that lonely
- Space is a lot bigger than the death rate.
  
  Yeah but you're likely to die around the same time as another person. As long as you can float as fast as you could run, im sure you'd eventually find a partner....
- Provided that ghosts can even see or interact with other ghosts...
  
  Why couldn't they and do only humans have ghosts

ITT: people thinking way too hard about a comic
- you know its a good comic when it makes people think too hard about it
- This is my religion now
  
  Mine too but mine is slightly different and I'm gonna have to kill you now.
  
  Praise Fido
- It is always a good time for some philosophy
- Too hard for what?
  
  Dees

loses mind
gains ultimate power
becomes Azathoth:
"the ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demonic flute held in nameless paws"
- Or Cthulhu, The Unknowable One.
  
  Or Yog-Sothoth, The One and All

Eventually, Kars stopped thinking

If you do certain types of drugs or meditation you can get that out of body illusion.
- Meditation does that ?
  
  Its just a simple perceptive trick, like when you stare into your eyes in a mirror for like 5min, or if you touch cold water and with an active enough imagination imagine even colder water it doesn't feel quite as bad. There are meditation lines that open with weird suggestion perceptive things like that. Our perception is quite hackable in some ways, its very fun.
  
  honestly i feel like people just think meditation is magic

What if a ghost is affected by gravity but not other "fundamental" force in the standard model? This will raise a lot of interesting questions. Is... ghost dark matter?
- If the ghost is affected by gravity, but is able to pass through solid objects, then it will get sucked down into the core of the earth and burn forever. Which interestingly is what some people say is what happens.
  
  Huh, interesting though on some religion huh
  
  Not forever, just till the core finally cools down from Theia hitting us.

So do they just maintain their initial velocity or would we have a chance to discover the static reference velocity of the universe?
Also they would still be affected by gravity if they still exist in space. Gravity is not a force that pulls objects together. It is merely the act of going straight in curved space. Either they are in that space and they are going to move along it within the shape of that space or they are not in that space. Though really if they just moved in a straight line with no external forces they are going to be subterranean because a real straight line in our space is down.
- We're talking about ghosts here, we don't know what laws they follow. That said, either you are right or they would be miles far from earth before being able to finish that first sentence.
- No a real straight line in our space is not down
  
  I mean everything is made up of little spheres do straight lines even exist

Finally billions of years without social interactions.

This reminds me of psychedelics suprisingly lot

So ghosts consist of mass?
- I mean clearly not since gravity isn't affecting her
  
  Gravity affects massless things, like light
  
  Oh, then the earth moved away? Damn, I got the whole thing wrong.

Being alone is not torment to everyone
- This isn't just being alone. This is being in a black void for an incomprehensible amount of time.
  
  And that is being alone. No stimulus whatsoever
  
  But it wouldn't be a black void? My second thought was "where are all the stars?".
  
  I would say this is literally as alone as one could be...

I have always imagined it this way.

Calm yourself, the Monad is a long journey away even for a spirit.

Peace

Reminds me of an ending to a certain mediocre but entertaining Nathan Fielder HBO show. Wild finale that had nothing to do with the rest of the show.
- it was on Showtime in the US.
  
  Oh, I'm dumb. Showtime I meant.

I was expecting her to snap back into her body and wake up with disappointment after astral projecting

Fuckin OUCH

If they are not bound to the laws of physics, what would they need gravity for?

168 comments