But I'm sad because people die. I will die, and the human species looks really quite likely to die out too, the way things are going."

I'm sad because people die. I will die, but the human species looks really quite likely to survive into the long term future."

Determinism vs scepticism.

Determinism vs scepticism. — javi2541997

Entropy versus the unlimited potential of imagination multiplied by energy.

One viewpoint which I think is worth considering in relation to the dialogue of selves is that of RD Laing. I know that the antipsychiatry movement is seen as outdated in some ways, but in 'The Divided Self', he explored the whole way our thinking can be affected by the conflicting voices, in socialisation within the family. The contradictions we are brought up with giving rise to divisions within our sense of identity and thinking, to the point where it can it can lead to 'breakdowns'.

However, I do realise that you are speaking about entropy and futility, but you are also looking at defense mechanisms, so this may involve looking at the basis of power structures within our imaginary personal inner selves.

The Dialogue of Selves is a means of exploring the existential difference, for two otherwise similar people, where one belongs to a species with a future by virtue of the recognition of science as 'truth' and a more rational application of technology. So I am in dialogue with myself from a world with a future. It could have happened. It's no more unlikely than civilisation is inherently improbable, in the sense that civilisation is anti-entropic. It's designed structure. It takes the expenditure of effort and energy to maintain a designed structure, and we need that energy to maintain and grow civilisation sustainably going forward. It could happen. It's a simple, rational scientific observation - that would surely have been acted upon had science been afforded the recognition it deserves. Don't you agree?

It is hard to know if the various scientific observations could have brought us the technology to maintain civilisation because we are dealing with the unpredictable and with the whole practical and political management of resources. No one a couple of years ago would have imagined the deep mess we are in presently amidst the pandemic.

My battling selves have a war between the possibility of our time for transformation, or the other prospect that the worse is yet to come with many further waves of Covid_19, which could last for many years to come potentially. Science has provided the vaccines but will it be enough?

The same goes for ecology and the likelihood that petroleum will run out. Science has some ideas but to what extent will the best ideas be embraced enough and will the ideas work?

So, I would say that I have a raging war in my own psyche between optimism and pessimism, as well as other conflicts in thinking.

It is hard to know if the various scientific observations could have brought us the technology to maintain civilisation because we are dealing with the unpredictable and with the whole practical and political management of resources. — Jack Cummins

Agreed. It's not possible to reconstruct the past 400 years with but one significant difference. There is only the one example: that which actually happened. Any alternate course of events is pure speculation.

No one a couple of years ago would have imagined the deep mess we are in presently amidst the pandemic. — Jack Cummins

Very few people anticipate global pandemics. That's true!

My battling selves have a war between the possibility of our time for transformation, or the other prospect that the worse is yet to come with many further waves of Covid_19, which could last for many years to come potentially. Science has provided the vaccines but will it be enough? — Jack Cummins

I have not yet proposed securing a prosperous, sustainable future as a cure for pandemic malaise; but coming out of this crisis, it might be just what the world is looking for. Tapping magma energy on the scale I envisage would be transformative; but I do not propose revolution. Rather, magma energy is the one thing we could and should do - precisely because it is the minimal amount of - the most beneficial kind of change, necessary to a sustainable future.

Attacking the climate and ecological crisis from the supply side, by harnessing massive clean energy to power civilisation, sequester carbon, desalinate, irrigate, recycle, makes much more sense than blaming the end consumer for impending ecological disaster.

I oppose approaches that make people the problem before even basic things have been done to supply their needs sustainably. Everything possible has not been done. Quite the opposite. Individual needs are problematic because technology is misapplied; and technology has been misapplied because, in my view - science has not been rendered its due. Do you not agree?

Even acknowledging we can't know how things would have turned out otherwise; indeed, asserting certainly that things could not have been, and were not otherwise than in fact they were, we are faced with an existential crisis, so it's reasonable to imply things aren't quite right. Scientifically and technologically, it is not necessary that we are faced with an existential crisis. So it's not difficult to infer what we have wrong.