the best possible world.
the best possible world.
for my French exams, im reading 'Candide - or optimism' by Voltaire.
it is by far the most abstract novel ive ever read. but it does feature some thoughts of a wise man:
the main theme of the novel is optimism. one of the protagonists, Pangloss, is a philosopher. his philosophy is that we live in the best possible world, that everything is exactly the best possible way and that everything was created for the best possible purpose.
if that sounds familiar, yes, its a very obvious (and very satirical) reference to the German philosopher Leibniz, who actually believed that - and was made fun of because of it.
although Leibniz's theory was mocked and generally disapproved, it made me think.
what is the best possible world? and from whose point of view are we preceiving the best possible world? is it from mankind's point of view? or from an animal's?
if this is the best world, why does it constantly get better? for example, science has improved living standards by much. thanks to medicine, we get to live almost twice as long as we did 150 years ago, and the infant death rate is declining continuously. this all sounds perfect, but Leibniz (and Voltaire) both lived many generations ago.
so what happened to their best world?
if the world Leibniz described as the best - the world as it was when he lived - was actually the best possible world, does that imply that the world we live in now is getting worse? does it mean that we actually arent improving our lives with advancing science and resources? is what we find "better" actually "worse'?
at some point i must agree with it. never before our time was a threat of immediate distruction of the entire world population. never before has mankind held so much power over nature and over each other, and never before have we lived in such a distinct world hierarchy.
with more knowledge and the want of more knowledge, we advance quickly to the point at which we will actually control everything. and the thing is, its not everybody that will have the same power. it will be - or already is - one or a small group of people that hold most of the power, and a large group of people who are inferior to them, hoping that this small and powerful group of people wont make any stupid decisions.
after all, what i find weird about that is that i actually like our world, and i believe that for the time right now, it is the best world possible.
the world - we - are only as good as we want it to be.
and i want it to be the best possible.
for my French exams, im reading 'Candide - or optimism' by Voltaire.
it is by far the most abstract novel ive ever read. but it does feature some thoughts of a wise man:
the main theme of the novel is optimism. one of the protagonists, Pangloss, is a philosopher. his philosophy is that we live in the best possible world, that everything is exactly the best possible way and that everything was created for the best possible purpose.
if that sounds familiar, yes, its a very obvious (and very satirical) reference to the German philosopher Leibniz, who actually believed that - and was made fun of because of it.
although Leibniz's theory was mocked and generally disapproved, it made me think.
what is the best possible world? and from whose point of view are we preceiving the best possible world? is it from mankind's point of view? or from an animal's?
if this is the best world, why does it constantly get better? for example, science has improved living standards by much. thanks to medicine, we get to live almost twice as long as we did 150 years ago, and the infant death rate is declining continuously. this all sounds perfect, but Leibniz (and Voltaire) both lived many generations ago.
so what happened to their best world?
if the world Leibniz described as the best - the world as it was when he lived - was actually the best possible world, does that imply that the world we live in now is getting worse? does it mean that we actually arent improving our lives with advancing science and resources? is what we find "better" actually "worse'?
at some point i must agree with it. never before our time was a threat of immediate distruction of the entire world population. never before has mankind held so much power over nature and over each other, and never before have we lived in such a distinct world hierarchy.
with more knowledge and the want of more knowledge, we advance quickly to the point at which we will actually control everything. and the thing is, its not everybody that will have the same power. it will be - or already is - one or a small group of people that hold most of the power, and a large group of people who are inferior to them, hoping that this small and powerful group of people wont make any stupid decisions.
after all, what i find weird about that is that i actually like our world, and i believe that for the time right now, it is the best world possible.
the world - we - are only as good as we want it to be.
and i want it to be the best possible.