Wednesday, October 24, 2012
The quiz question for my two Intro to Philosophy classes on Tuesday was: Do you think this is the best of all possible worlds? (We watched the video by Brian Greene on TED where he basically argued the same point as my interpretation of Leibniz' view.)
In Truth Beauty Goodness after looking at how several examples of prose create feelings of sadness and happiness, hilarity, and joy, I asked the question what is the saddest you have ever been? Tough question I know. But is this all done through language?
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The biggest issue that I personally find with the question “Is Earth the best of all possible worlds” is that we do not have any other world even remotely similar to ours to compare it to. As far as we know we are the only world that supports life, which would lead one to assume that that fact alone would be enough to classify our dear old home as the best world. That does not necessarily mean that the life it sustains is the best of all possible worlds.
ReplyDeleteI am by no means a tree-hugging hippy, but anyone with a brain that cares at all about our planet can see that it is slowly falling apart. Habitats being torn away, oceans polluted, ozone slowly melting down into nothingness. This isn't even touching base on the destruction we impose upon each other.
So I think that at one point, yes, Earth was the best of all possible worlds, but because of the people on it, it is slowly becoming less and less desirable. Once people start leaving Earth to live on Mars, then we will really know we are in trouble!
I am reminded of Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" and another scientist who visited UAA years ago from Madrid (Ricard Sole) and his book "Signs of Life".
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