If we take on a materialistic view of the universe, then we are nothing more than another stage in the universe's chemical processes becoming more and more complex, DNA being nothing more than chemistry learning to encode itself as instructions for replication, which culminated in us, clumps of cells deluded into believing we are a person. A delusion of conciousness that has defined beginning and an end, death being the obliteration of identity and the disollution of the self into its constituent parts.

The question is, how do we escape death?
Could we become immortal by transferring our consciousness into machines?
Is becoming immortal something to aspire to? And what about the latter stage of the universe? Could our successors figure out a way to escape the universe before it finally expires?

Should it be ultimate purpose of life to try to escape the universe before it dies?
Perhaps by creating another one to escape to?
And if so, could we be the way the universe itself has to replicate itself?