Abstract
So when we are balanced between danger and opportunity and the future is unknown, how do we think usefully about the future? … If we imagine ourselves living in the cosmos in which novelty is an illusion, agency is an illusion, will is an illusion, there is a demoralization that takes place. There’s an alienation that takes place between our aspirations and our view of the universe we live in. If we imagine ourselves living in the universe in which everything changes and everything evolves, and in which novelty is a real possibility, in which the imagination of human beings is an organ that takes advantage of the natural capacity to invent novel phenomena, and for novel regularities to arise, then we may get a moral lift. We may think to ourselves, “maybe—even if we can’t see how—it’s possible that we have the agency, the imagination and the will to invent our way out of the problems that face us.” .