When I was a kid, I read somewhere that the universe was fated to keep expanding until, at some point, it started contracting again. In other words, the universe seemed to be fated to an endless, infinite succession of big bangs.
This was exciting to me because it seemed to imply that all the possible outcomes in this universe were going to happen over the course of the universal contraction/expansion cycles. Among other things, this implied to me that everyone would eventually be everyone. We're all individual points of view oriented to the outside world. Somehow this seems to be connected to the matter that makes up our minds and bodies. If every possible arrangement of matter happens, then it just made sense to me that individuals who have existed were less like a one-time event and more like a slot, a role, that keeps getting filled. The matter associated with one person would one day be associated with another.
I don't know if scientific consensus leans towards an expanding and contracting universe these days. Last time I checked, the informed money seems to be on universe just continuing to expand and eventually burning out.
But there's also no assurance that ours is the only universe. They could be many. I would bet against the notion that all we can sense is all that there is, and that things don't keep getting born, in some way, forever, as other things die - things like points of view.
