Imagine intelligent life in a solar system that has been ejected (due to gravitational interaction with other stars) from its galaxy at escape velocity.
Just like us, their scientists calculate that their sun will reach the end of its life in a few billion years. But unlike us, they look up at the night sky and see no nearby stars, only galaxies millions of light years away, a seemingly hopeless endeavor to try to reach, especially with the system itself traveling at high speed. So their civilization proceeds with a resigned finality: when the sun goes out, they're done. Nothing they have done or will do will ever matter in the Universe, as their graveyard floats forever through the deep empty blackness of intergalactic space.
Can we learn from their hypothetical philosophy?
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