Will everything that can happen, actually happen?

@iambrian,
As far as the future of mankind goes, it really depends on human beings surviving as a species. If humans do survive, “everything that CAN happen physically and spiritually” depends on probability and possibility (<why I capitalized can). That being said, consider the concept of infinity; there are infinite possibilities for what the future will bring, be it the next minute, the next year, or the next century. We don't know if time is infinite, but presuming that it is, and knowing there are infinite possibilities, then there can be no end as far as our comprehension will allow. If there is a finite amount of time, there must needs be a finite amount of possibilities, which touches closer to your questioning. I don't believe anyone will ever know all of the "answers", because think about how much knowledge that has been lost in the past (take for instance the destruction of the Library of Alexandria), and will continue to be lost and rediscovered over time. As far as death goes, reincarnation may be one possibility (no proof against it), but ponder this: How do you know you're not already dead and your entire experience of this world is merely a recreation of the world you knew when you were alive, but you're really just in your head?
I hope this was helpful or at least thought provoking.

My opinion is yes. The universe is infinite in both size and duration, and thus in theory (i.e. given enough time) the particles that make up your body will pass through all points in the universe at some point and will, one way or another, by breaking down or combining or even changing (through such wonderful processes as nuclear fusion), turn into every particle (or wave, or whatever) possible. Time becomes meaningless when viewed from a standpoint of infinity. So does form. You were once a zygote, today you are a human, one day you will be carbon.

If you examine the following koan, the point becomes clear:

Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “The wind is moving.” The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: “Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.”

Because we perceive time linearly, we see a flag in one position, then another, then another. Our mind connects the dots like a film strip and we perceive the flag to be waving in the wind. However, if we look at time as an infinite ongoing moment or “now”, we see the flag as actually being in all of the places it has ever been, outside of time. The flag exists in every position and space it has ever occupied, including the positions in which it has blown, the place it was made, where it has traveled, etc. Expand the view a bit more and we realize that the particles forming the flag were not always “flag”. Nor were they always “cotton” or even the same atomic elements. Every particle in the flag suddenly becomes inseparable from the rest of the particles in the universe.

So, the proverbial “it” is everything, all at once, which paradoxically also includes nothing. The universe can be viewed like a greedy child that wants to experience everything. It wants to be a tree and another type of tree and the same type of tree but still different nonetheless. It wants to be a radio wave and a rock and a bug and you and me and the Buddha and Adolf Hitler. It wants to feel the greatest joy and the deepest suffering. And it does. We have, as humans, been blessed with a limited ability to examine and ponder the universe, but we cannot even make an observation without somehow affecting the thing being observed. This is because we are all inextricable cogs in the system ourselves. You are not your body. You are much bigger than that. “I AM THAT I AM”.

Then you get into the idea of an infinite number of alternate realities occurring simultaneously alongside our own, which covers up any gaps in the current timeline. In an infinite number of alternate universes, you turned left instead of right, or said yes instead of no, and an infinite number of different things happened, each branching off from the previous one.

And it is all happening at once.

Sorry about the length of this. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.

TL;DR: Yes. Yes I do. Because of Zen and science and quantum physics and stuff.

@iambrian, http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson821.html

STW guy is beyond hilarious