Thought #2: Looking forward to the future

“Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge” – David Deutsch

Whenever I need a reason to smile, I just think about what it’ll be like to have an Eternal Blissful Life. This thought makes it hard for me to be truly sad about anything. It’s like when young children look forward to Christmas, and are full of life and excitement for days or even weeks in advance. The anticipation of something great on the horizon can overshadow everything else.

Sometimes I look at the stars in the night sky, wondering what it might be like to visit one of them. What would it feel like to walk upon another planet? Are there aliens out there somewhere, within reach? How far will humanity be able to go? 1 According to our current understanding of physics, there’s indeed a limit to how far humanity can go. Check out this short video for more. [LimitsOfHumanity]  ^{(click me)} . Since I believe in an Eternal Blissful Life, I’m optimistic that there will come a time when I don’t need to wonder idly about these things anymore. I myself will find out the answer to all these questions and experience these new and incredible sensations firsthand. 2 At the very least, I will experience equivalent wonders. The existence of an Eternal Blissful Life doesn’t require humanity to become a space-faring civilization. But I like the idea, and prefer to imagine it this way. You can paint your own picture of what an ideal future might look like.

I can gaze up at a specific star in the night sky and think to myself: One day I will visit that star!

And I can hold this belief without self-deception.

It doesn’t matter how likely it is. What matters that it’s totally feasible according to everything I learned during my study of physics. I can envisage a plausible way to live long enough – and what’s more, humanity is headed rapidly in the right direction. 3The last one is a verifiable truth. If you remain skeptical that humanity is on the right track, have a look at the Appendix.. This is the power of conditional optimism! 4 Just a reminder: Conditional optimism is what motivates the child who dreams of a treehouse, and realizes that if he gathers some wood and nails and enlists the help of other kids, he can build one. Complacent optimism, by contrast, is what a child feels while idly waiting for presents on Christmas morning I can justify my conditional optimism because I’m young, healthy, and live in Germany in 2018.

When I look at the stars and dream about the future, I also like to reflect on what had to happen for me to find myself in such an extremely fortunate position. It’s worth watching this video, just to remind yourself how far we’ve had to travel as a species in order to attain such high levels of comfort and prosperity.

Isn’t our story incredible? I strongly believe that we should be proud of ourselves – or at least grateful to the whims of fortune – about how everything has turned out. 5 I readily admit that humanity is far from perfect. But I don’t think it’s constructive to be too harsh on ourselves. Far better to approach humanity with kindness and generosity, in the same way we might approach a struggling teenager – a pockmarked angsty kid, riddled with emotional issues yet absolutely full of potential. Given the right input, that teenager can grow wiser over time, learn to restrain his impulses, and develop into a flourishing adult. Steven Pinker’s book Enlightment NOW adds weight to my hope that our species is finally on the brink of true adulthood.

Reflecting on our past makes me even more excited about what’s still to come. I love to indulge in the delicious feeling of being part of something larger than myself – the fascinating story of humanity. And I feel incredibly fortunate to have been born in circumstances that give me a solid chance of seeing how this story will unfold over the coming centuries. The same is probably true for you. Chances are you live in a time and place in which you can realistically hope – for the first time in human history – to live into the distant future. If you entered this world at any other time – any moment in the approximately 200,000 years that Homo sapiens has walked the earth – then you would have had no chance whatsoever. But you were born in the 21st century, which many claim will be one of the most significant and transformative centuries in human history. 6 Nearly all experts agrees that “the invention of advanced artificial intelligence will be the single most transformative event in the history of our civilization” (Stephen Hawking). And it will probably happen during this century. There are other enormous leaps on the horizon, too. We might soon become a multi-planetary species,  and biotechnology might find a cure for aging. We’re also on the verge of learning to reprogram our own genetic code.[/foonote]And if you’re reading this, you most likely either live in the developed world or have a reasonable degree of geographical mobility, giving you even more reason to believe in an Eternal Blissful Life. [footnote] The rather sad truth is that people in the developing world have a lower life expectancy, and tend to have reduced access to new technology such as cryonics. Yet even the developing world is getting richer fast, and the World Bank aims to eliminate extreme poverty by 2030.

It seems that many of us were born at the right time and in the right place.

I try to keep the above always in mind, and cultivate a sense of gratitude every time I indulge in daydreams about my Eternal Blissful Life. That way I manage to derive even more satisfaction from it.

Science has confirmed the benefits of thinking this way. A single person, over the course of their life, can be focused on different time perspectives: past, present, or future. The way their mind filters information depends on which time perspective has become dominant. Our adherence to one or another time perspective is a product of lifelong learning, and it can change with education and training. Unsurprisingly, a future time perspective is known to support a healthy lifestyle and can promote psychological wellbeing. So thinking positively about the future doesn’t merely feel good – it also increases your ability to live a better Current Life. 7 If you’re interested in reading more about this, check out: (1) Stolarski, M., Fieulaine, N., & van Beek, W. (2015). Time perspective theory; Review, research, and application. Cham: Springer International. (2) Griva, F., Tseferidi, S. I., & Anagnostopoulos, F. (2015). Time to get healthy: Associations of time perspective with perceived health status and health behaviors. Psychology, health & medicine, 20(1), 25-33.

You don’t need a PhD in psychology to know that being grateful and optimistic is good for you – there’s a whole host of evidence to support this idea. Pessimism can soften the blow of bad news, but it usually isn’t worth it in the long run. 8 Read any book on positive psychology for more information and sources on this. I can recommend this one in particular, but there are many other great books on the subject out there. The act of visualizing future scenarios in detail, or otherwise actively engaging with them, yields fantastic psychological benefits. 9 My motivation for writing these articles is perhaps becoming clearer!

Every day, especially when I’m feeling low, I try to keep my Eternal Blissful Life in mind and imagine what I might be able to do with it. Sometimes there’s a specific thing that I look forward to. 10 And there are a lot of things I am looking forward to. E.g. I am addicted to knowledge. There is just so much that I would like to know. At the same time I am constantly reminded of my limited cognitive abilities in my Current Life: Even if I spent 50 years of my life only studying books, there would still be so much that I don’t know. In addition it often feels like I forget stuff faster than I learn it. But by far the most frustrating is that some knowledge, e.g. on some highly advanced mathematical or physical theories, is simply out of reach for me with my current cognitive abilities. However, in my Eternal Blissful Life I will have vastly increased cognitive abilities thanks to cognitive enhancement drugs or brain-computer-interfaces [WaitButWayNeuralinkArticle]. Understanding String Theory is not on the menu in my Current Life. But one day in the future, it will be! But knowlegde might not be an important source of happiness for you. Maybe you dream of becoming an author instead and wish you had all the time and resources you need to do so? Or you would like to create some fantastic art? Produce your own movie or compose a song? Learn all sorts of instruments? Maybe you are a very social person and wish your life was just an endless party with your best friends? Or you love to travel and see different parts of the world and explore them? The bottom line here is: Whatever it is that you like to do.. There will be a time when you have everything – the time, the resources and the skills – that you need to do so. Other times, I simply look forward more generally to my Eternal Blissful Life, and my spirits are lifted by the notion that everything will be OK in the end. Even if I have a particularly unexciting and mediocre day, I can at least comfort myself with the thought that I’m one day closer to heaven on earth.

It feels nice to have a dream – a vision – to look forward to. When Elon Musk was asked why he wants to build a city on Mars, he answered:

“I think it’s important to have a future that is inspiring and appealing. . . . there have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? And if the future’s not including being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, it’s incredibly depressing if that’s not the future we’re going to have.” 11 Watch the video of this part of Elon Musks speech here.

You may disagree about whether going to Mars is desirable goal, but having an exciting future to look forward to is clearly very enriching.