One of the things he spoke about was the belief that entropy meant that our personal lives were destined to go to shit.
I recognized that same belief from my own life. I had discarded it, believing it was applicable to physics but not human beings.
I found this Wired article [1] and sent it to him. (He was the kind of person who responded to feed-your-brain kind of stuff like that, so it was not as tone-deaf a move as you might think.) We also did a great deal of talking, and, yes, I tried to do whatever I could to also get him to professionals' care.
Given that HN has a lot of learned people about it, I am curious about how people have dealt with this concept - smart people applying the concept of 'entropy' in physics to justify deep pessimism for personal lives' outcome.
This situation seems popular enough that others here would've encountered this before, too.
[1] - http://archive.today/PLvun
Fundamentally the difference is that religion is rooted in philosophy while science is rooted in empirical reasoning.
Using science to answer philosophical questions is like trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver, and then thinking you're a genius because you found a way to consolidate two tools into one.
I don’t think that analogies from physics are always helpful. But the encouraging thing about entropy is that you can lower it by spending energy. And that seems to be a very apt analogy for living.
Doesn’t help when you are depressed though, because spending energy is then the last thing you want, even though you full well know how this is hurting you.