Very important to you—maybe. You aware, I presume, that for most people, the end of the world is not high on their agenda. It is evidently not “very important” to them—or they would spend more time on it.
Are you aware that most species that have ever lived have indeed been wiped
out? Not thinking about such possibilities worked well for them, eh?
If you mean to imply that thinking about such possibilities would have helped them all to survive, then that doesn’t seem right. If new species keep being born (as happens naturally), other ones seem practically bound to die out—due to resource competiton in a limited ecosystem. Hypothetical contemplation of their own species-level mortality seems unlikely to have helped—and might well have hindered their survival chances.
Thinking about such things is the necessary first step to preventing such new species from arising that would make you extinct. So yes, if they had thought about these things competently enough, and otherwise been competent enough, it would have enabled them to survive.
Doesn’t seem very smart of you to argue against thinking. If you don’t think, you’re certainly even more screwed than with thinking.
The “most species that have ever lived” that you mentioned were not capable of preventing new species from arising—because that happens naturally all the time. If you introduce this hypothetical, it seems as though you have to abandon your original argument.
It is thinking too much about events that you have little control over that can be bad.
Also, in biology, more thinking than normal is not good, on average—thoughts are costly and there is an economic tradeoff.
Very important to you—maybe. You aware, I presume, that for most people, the end of the world is not high on their agenda. It is evidently not “very important” to them—or they would spend more time on it.
Basic biology explains this phenomenon, as I have previously explained:
“Organisms can be expected to concentrate on producing offspring—not indulging paranoid fantasies about their whole species being wiped out!”
Are you aware that most species that have ever lived have indeed been wiped out? Not thinking about such possibilities worked well for them, eh?
EDIT: And of course we can also present scholarly analyses of why extinction in the case of our species is not particularly unlikely: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html
If you mean to imply that thinking about such possibilities would have helped them all to survive, then that doesn’t seem right. If new species keep being born (as happens naturally), other ones seem practically bound to die out—due to resource competiton in a limited ecosystem. Hypothetical contemplation of their own species-level mortality seems unlikely to have helped—and might well have hindered their survival chances.
Thinking about such things is the necessary first step to preventing such new species from arising that would make you extinct. So yes, if they had thought about these things competently enough, and otherwise been competent enough, it would have enabled them to survive.
Doesn’t seem very smart of you to argue against thinking. If you don’t think, you’re certainly even more screwed than with thinking.
The “most species that have ever lived” that you mentioned were not capable of preventing new species from arising—because that happens naturally all the time. If you introduce this hypothetical, it seems as though you have to abandon your original argument.
It is thinking too much about events that you have little control over that can be bad.
Also, in biology, more thinking than normal is not good, on average—thoughts are costly and there is an economic tradeoff.