Permanence doesn’t exist. Does not. Never has. Never will. The concept of permanence is impossible to understand. Nothing lasts forever; nothing stays the same; nothing is immutable. Not we humans, not the Earth we live on, not our sun, not our galaxy, and not our universe either although no one residing on a tiny, blue, inconsequential planet niched somewhere off in a distant corner of the Milky Way star cluster will ever be privy to its cold, whimpering demise. Nothing lasts forever; nothing stays the same; nothing is immutable. Certainly not the batch of dreams we hatched and pursuantly incubated when we were only knee-high to a grasshopper and still fervently believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the benevolence of government at every level and the intrinsic equality of all human beings. In terms of theory, permanence and infinity belong squarely in the same conversation, in the sense neither can be understood or logically explained with the feeble entity that passes for human intellect. On metaphysically complex issues such as the ones I referenced, we of the Homo sapiens species can only speculate and make unsupported, unsubstantiated guesses, rendering us little different than the yak, the ostrich, and the ring-tailed lemur. No better than those cognitively maligned creatures insofar as comprehending existential conundrums, but assuredly no worse either if you want to be charitable and look at the bright side of things. Nothing lasts forever; nothing stays the same; nothing is immutable. Period.
Fred's Soapbox 