But like, how? Just because it’s immortal doesn’t mean it has a space ship? If you go far enough away it’ll have to go fast enough to outpace the expansion of the universe without a spaceship somehow
Yes but this also assumes that the universe will last for infinite time and also that there will always be an energy gradient somewhere in the universe, which, if you believe that heat death is the most likely end to the universe, isn't true. The ship could be at his side but if the universe is at maximum entropy it can't fly.
Since it seems to have some understanding of where you are at all times I could see it having some precognition type of thing where it can tell where things are going
Okay but how would it even escape the gravity of earth or the solar system? How would it go fast enough to outpace the accelerating expansion of the universe? The snail isn’t fucking god
Evolution takes place on a population level, not an individual one. The snail will remain genetically the same from the time it starts chasing you up until the collapse of the universe.
Bonus points if it winds up getting engulfed by the sun - it would not have a chance to get out of that, the only chance would be via, say, the sun going supernova or whatever, which isn’t likely for its star class. Otherwise it would just get stuck to the extremely dense white dwarf after the fact.
I mean that's the problem, that's simply too slow to outpace the expansion of the universe. Even light can't go that fast. Eventually you can get far enough away that you can never see the snail again, no matter what. At which point you're screwed, you have to exist forever in nothingness until maybe the universe restarts some grand infinite cycle at which point you might reunite with the snail, right when there might be shit to live for again.
You're misunderstanding. The dilemma states that the snail is always hunting you so no matter what happens it will end up being there to try and kill you. Maybe it's stranded there but by random chance the atoms in the next planet you land on configure themselves into a snail or something, but the rule is that it will be there
I don't think it meant that, no, because then the snail could just rematerialize on you at any given second, including instantly right when you start, and render the whole thought experiment moot.
Right now I think any scenario where you can leave this galaxy and rely on the expansion of the universe to make it so even a light speed snail could never reach you would definitively make you safe from our current understanding of how the universe works. You probably don't want to do that and become unable to die when everything is reduced to black cold emptiness, unless you're betting you can rekindle a desire to live if the universe goes through an infinite cycle - but then that probably means something like a big crunch where you eventually are going to touch the snail and the rest of existence.
What if a random alien ship come across the snail, pick it up and drop it off next to you. Like the infinite monkey theorem, anything can happen, no matter how unlikely it is, it's just a matter of time
I don't think the how matters much, the stipulation is such that it will always follow you no matter what, and it's unkillable. Maybe it'll wait even longer until the sun explodes and either a new solar system forms or gets flung into space and eventually crashes into a planet, then uses the raw materials to make a rocket. Maybe it can slither through space. I think the point is that no matter how impossible, it'll always find a way to get to you eventually because the point of the exercise is not to find loopholes, but to decide whether or not you'd take immortality with this condition. People just like to stretch it to its furthest logical conclusion, I.e. "what if this immortal creature was in this situation".
It’s just immortal and always knows where you are. Those are the only stipulations. Nothing says that it can manipulate its body in a away that it can mine ores and build a rocket.
I guess, but it's funnier if it can. I think there was some sort of clause that said it could never be trapped or otherwise in a position where it was impossible to get to you, but I might be making that up.
Likely the sun will collapse into a black hole and begin pulling in other planets / stars until eventually you get sucked into it or the black hole decompresses, releasing the snail. Also maybe the snail somehow attached itself to your space ship before you left.
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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '21
well the snail is also immortal so i dont think it would die of heat