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♫ Skilaboð til mannkyns ♫
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I enter the corridor, realizing from hearing the the sound of a drill, that Norbu is fixing something on his houseboat again. I open a bottle of wine on the terrace and wait for him with two glasses. When I visit my friend Norbu, I always make sure to have plenty of time. It’s never predictable how deep we’ll get tangled up in our discussions.
This time, I have a topic in mind. I want to know what Norbu thinks about climate change.
He’s sweaty and covered in oil, but he’s clearly happy to see me when he finally emerges from the chambers and passages below the waterline in the living room, a power drill in his hand.
“Climate change isn’t the problem,” he casually remarks. We clink glasses. “Humanity will eventually die out anyway. And even if we survive for a while, life on Earth itself is limited.”
“That sounds like catastrophism,” I chide.
“Pure astrophysics. The sun will extinguish. The problem isn’t global warming; it’s the heat death. You need to think on larger scales!”
My friend Norbu enjoys doing that. I, on the other hand, only need to ponder for ten seconds why there is something rather than nothing, and I’m already caught in the Total Perspective Vortex, dissolving.
“Hey,” my friend Norbu says, “are you still with me?” That pulls me out of the Vortex. I nod eagerly, “Heat death of the sun. It expands and burns up all its planets. The end of life on Earth.”
But Norbu impatiently shakes his head, “Heat death of the universe, the end of all life. That‘s the real problem, and that’s what we need to prevent.”
I stare at him in disbelief, “You want to prevent the heat death of the universe?” And then, “What is that, anyway?”
“Since shortly after the Big Bang, the universe has been steadily deteriorating: matter is distributed, interacting less due to increasing distances, and stars are burning out. Cold and hot zones are becoming more alike until everything assumes a uniform temperature and structure, like a featureless lukewarm soup. But so that we don’t allow it to happen without a fight, there’s ‘The Message.'”
Norbu gestures widely at the world around us. I can’t follow him. Finally, he sighs and begins to explain further, “The laws of nature are a message. The cosmic physical principles are exquisitely tuned so that life can emerge, life that recognizes itself for what it is. I’m talking about us!”
“Us two?” I ask meekly already suspecting that I may not be able to follow him again.
“All of us. Humans. And all other intelligent civilizations in the cosmos. And the laws of nature tell us that those who came before us tampered with them.”
“Those who came before us?” I can hardly keep up with him anymore.
“Sometimes I imagine,” and with that, Norbu leans back and looks thoughtfully at the rest of the red wine in his glass from below, “that before the heat death of the universe, a handful of intelligent civilizations will manage to make contact with each other and jointly initiate the greatest project in the world.”
He doesn’t say more. I should now ask what the greatest project in the world is, but now I’m being obstinate and staying silent.
After a while, he continues in a whisper, “To create a new one before the end of your own universe, so that it can give life again. So that the chain of being doesn’t break.”
Suddenly, I’m filled with awe at the thought that we could leave a message for the next universe, for the intelligent beings who will follow us: the laws of nature that help them evolve—a forward-looking measure that certainly exceeds what can be accomplished within a single legislative period and even surpasses a 739-year organ work, a ten-thousand-year Long Now clock, and the safest possible disposal of nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of years by a wide margin.
“Of course,” my friend Norbu suddenly becomes quite sober again, ” only if the universe is a closed system. Otherwise, there are numerous other possibilities because it doesn’t necessarily have to end in heat death or a Big Crunch. But as long as we don’t know for sure…”
“… it might be better to prepare for the worst.”
“Exactly,” affirms my friend Norbu. “640 billion years until heat death is a hell of a short time to evolve to the point where we can plan a new universe and put it into action. Better get started on that right away.”
My head is spinning, not just from the wine. As I ride home later under a gloriously starry sky, I look up and ask the universe arching above me if it has a message for me. And indeed it does. I can’t hear it or see it, but I can sense something. Life is worth living.
The Total Perspective Vortex: 
The Total Perspective Vortex as interactive graphic:
The Total Perspective Vortex as a film:
How the universe will die: