Serialised book (with a progressively updated >>dashboard/ToC<< page). Part III: Philosophy of the Life Instinct

Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Chapter 27: Future Evolution

In a few million years…

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Will we be pretty, will we be handsome, will we be rich, will there be rainbows?

When I arrived at this chapter, I asked nature what we’ll be in a million years.

Here’s what nature said to me — Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not yours to see, Que sera sera.

But we humans aren’t satisfied with this. We can’t stop imagining what could happen.

Why do we think of the future? As we know by now in this book, the answer, as for everything we do, lies in the Life Instinct: prediction is valuable for its goals, which are our survival, growth and reproduction. (See Chapter 4 on the Life Instinct.)

If we can think about the next minute, hour, day, month, year and decade, we can plan how to live and live well. And it works for the longer future, too, beyond our lifetimes. It is why we have the innate urge to consider the situations that could arise in time.

Let’s see how far into the future it is helpful to look, approaches to predict the…