In the far, far distant future, on a cosmological time scale unimaginable and incomprehensible to humans, the remnants of humanity evolved from the corporeal to beings of photonic energy, and finally after uncountable eons, to lives of spirit, residing only in the quantum field of consciousness.

Not only did humanity change, but so did the universe in which they were formed.

They witnessed the star they called Sol burn through its hydrogen fuel, getting hotter and brighter.  Ten billion years after it first shined brightly, Sol became a Red Giant, and, expanding past the orbits of the inner planets, vaporizing them.

They witnessed the end of ‘The Age of Stars,’ when after 100 trillion years, the stellar nucleosynthesis of the last star still shining, a lonely, unnamed, and unknown M-type main sequence Red Dwarf ended, casting the universe into perpetual darkness. 

They witnessed the end of ‘The Age of Black Holes,’ when after 100 million googol years, the last black holes evaporated through ‘Hawking Radiation.’  The bright flash of gamma rays emitted in their final Planck second of existence was the last light ever 'observed.'

After a centillion years, fermions, the building blocks of matter, decayed.  Only energy remained, increasingly diffuse as the empty universe, still exponentially expanding, now experienced ‘heat death,' All energy was evenly and perfectly distributed.  Only random photons were left, and they, traveling at the speed of causality (the ‘c’ in Einstein’s field equations), did not experience the passage of time.  The universe reached maximum entropy, the lowest possible energy state.

Humanity finally achieved what it had always sought. 

Permeating all creation, transcending space and time.  They were infinite in scope and eternal in being. They had become like God.

But at what cost they now asked?

Realizing that while alive, they were not living.  Simply existing.

Without warmth in a cold universe.

Without feeling.  Emotion is a distant memory.  To love, long forgotten.  They are without connection. 

Sensuousness was irrelevant.

They yearned for that they had given up in their headlong rush for improvement and advancement.

They yearned to see each other, to touch each other, to taste each other, to smell each other, to feel each other.

They yearned to love and be loved.

Yes, they questioned the cost of being infinite and eternal.

They pondered the question humanity has always sought the answer to.

What is the purpose of life?