Radical Uncertainty

Radical Uncertainty opens the door to Radical Clarity.

Radical Uncertainty, Radical Clarity, Radical Possibility

Let us consider the possibility of cataclysm for a moment:

“Many thought leaders, scientists and cultural commentators insist that when it comes  to climate change and environmental devastation, the seeds of our own destruction are already sown.

The predictive modeling on this is compelling, and it’s hard to deny the science. Many of the best predictions suggest we are too late to save ourselves, absent some as-yet-unimagined technological breakthrough that can reverse the trend and prevent the ultimate catastrophe.

Some go further and say that the moment complex cognition evolved in consciousness, the die was cast. In other words, the evolution of complex cognition itself leads inexorably to the extinction of the species that evolves it.
 
This is a profoundly shocking thought for anyone to contemplate. But especially if you are devoted to the evolution of consciousness in a developmental context, it’s a devastating conclusion. If true, it would completely overturn our long-held assumption that evolution inevitably leads to ever-greater complexity in a never-ending upward trajectory.

As many physicists have pointed out, we live in a universe in which mass extinction events are not only commonplace, but inevitable. That confronts us with another sobering and unsettling thought: that mass extinction is a fundamental and intrinsic part of the evolutionary process, and only our deeply embedded anthropocentrism prevents us from realizing it.

The limited bandwidth of human perception also explains why we have been lacking a basic objectivity about our own most destructive tendencies for so long. But what does this doom-laden narrative mean from the highest possible perspective?”

The passage above suggests given the large number of scientists and cultural observers who say it is already too late - barring some unforeseen innovation for us to save ourselves from catastrophic climate change - that perhaps the many physicists who espouse a view that Complex Cognition itself, sews the seeds of its own destruction are correct. And given that mass species-level extinctions are common, asks - why should we assume we are somehow a special case?

And to be even more clear, long before species-level extinction Malthusian checks set in for every species on the planet. Except possibly us. Possibly.

To recognize this nihilistic future is a very real or even likely possibility one must face or own Radical Uncertainty.

Radical Uncertainty opens the door to Radical Clarity.

We cannot know. But we can choose to take a stand. Radical Clarity is the recognition that Hope is a choice. We can choose resignation (as the modern movement of Doomerism does thereby creating a collective story coffin). Or we can choose possibility.

Radical Clarity is realizing that choice is ours. And as Dostoyevsky said “to a greater degree than any of us can imagine, the entire enterprise depends on us and us alone”.