If the universe reaches a final state at one point, isn’t the implication that this is where all process that defines time ends. If so, how can one speak of things happening “after” that point?
The final state is a kind of thermal death where thermodynamics say that nothing happens anymore. However, thermodynamics is only an effective theory. It is false on tremendously large time scale: after a very very very large time a random fluctuation can bring down the universe entropy to pre-death level and restart a new non-boring universe (for a very short duration compared to the time spent in the thermal death).
To clarify. I wasn’t arguing against there being a possibility of an “after” with new universes from nothing. I was curious about what constitutes “a very very very large time” in a universe without clocks
