[HN Gopher] 'The Best of All Possible Worlds' Review: Leibniz Li...
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'The Best of All Possible Worlds' Review: Leibniz Lives Again
Author : drdee
Score : 74 points
Date : 2024-11-20 20:40 UTC (6 days ago)
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| brudgers wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6V9km/again?url=https://www.wsj.com/arts-...
| CannonSlugs wrote:
| > _In such a way, Leibniz, to cite Milton, dared to "justify the
| ways of God to men." Voltaire responded with a snarky misreading
| that exploited the undeniable empirical fact that evil was not
| balanced by good in the lives of every discreet individual. But
| Leibniz made no such claim. The best world was optimized as a
| whole, containing just as much good and evil as was required for
| the totality of creation._
|
| I like this paragraph. I've never been a big fan of Voltaire's
| criticism (although I may have not understood it fully, not being
| a philosophy expert of any kind). To me it always seemed like
| Liebniz tried to explain why there was suffering on the whole,
| and Voltaire responding with "there is suffering!". Like you are
| not really arguing the point.
|
| My question has rather been that, if suffering is required and a
| child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best of all
| possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have been
| scrapped at the planning phase. I assume God was not forced to
| create a world?
| verisimi wrote:
| > My question has rather been that, if suffering is required
| and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best
| of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have
| been scrapped at the planning phase. I assume God was not
| forced to create a world?
|
| It is not really possible to answer these questions when one
| does not know the spiritual infrastructure. Eg, say
| reincarnation of the soul is real, and in a previous life a
| soul has been in the body of an industrialist on whose account
| cancer causing pollution was spewed out. In the next
| incarnation, it seems valid for that soul to experience the
| effect of the earlier incarnation's actions. If that is it, the
| soul may in fact be learning and growing, which may be the
| point of the exercise.
|
| I know that this is all conjecture, but I hope I am relaying my
| point - that without understanding the spiritual domain, these
| sorts of moral appraisals are moot.
| feoren wrote:
| That is a really excellent point and in fact gets at the
| difficulty of arguing _any rational point_ about religion. I
| 'd guess that every rational argument that appeals to
| religion at all can be made to work or not work depending on
| this background "spiritual infrastructure". This is one
| reason why rationalists often feel like religious thinkers
| are moving the goalposts.
|
| Maybe the 5-year-old who died of bone cancer was just playing
| Roy on the hardest difficulty.
|
| However, this shiftiness also undermines every religious
| platitude as well. God loves you, everything happens for a
| reason, etc. etc. etc. -- maybe, or maybe God is trapped in a
| human coma patient and Loki is just fucking with us. If you
| have degrees of freedom over this "spiritual infrastructure"
| then it's completely impossible to reach _any_ conclusion.
| moomin wrote:
| I think you and Voltaire are thinking along the same lines.
| Both are a rejection of a bloodless utility maximisation creed
| on the simple basis that human morality just doesn't work that
| way.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _and Voltaire responding with_
|
| Like a very long joke, which builds and builds and builds and
| builds, the punchline in the end arrives.
|
| It's in the last sentence: "Yes, but you have to work for it".
| (I.e. he intended to stress an outer point.)
| graemep wrote:
| > My question has rather been that, if suffering is required
| and a child getting bone cancer and dying at five is the best
| of all possible worlds, maybe the whole project should have
| been scrapped at the planning phase.
|
| Is that better? it would also require not having all the good
| things from creation.
| cocacola1 wrote:
| I can't see the good being contingent on a five year old
| getting bone cancer.
| graemep wrote:
| In that case you have rejected Leibniz's argument anyway so
| the argument in the comment I was replying to does not
| arise.
| dotancohen wrote:
| You don't know that the child wouldn't have grown up
| Hitler.
|
| The argument seems similar - not exactly, but similar - to
| the question "if global warming is real, why is it snowing
| here". A function describing the maximum global integration
| over happiness could very well contain many local minima.
| allturtles wrote:
| Yes, but an omnipotent God could presumably just make
| Hitlers not exist. The argument rests on the assumption
| that there are hidden dependencies in the laws of the
| universe, such that it was _logically necessary_ that
| Hitler (or insert whatever other evil here) had to exist
| to make the best possible world. That 's hard to swallow.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Consider that many people today, who live better than the
| kings of centuries past, are depressed. One could
| conclude that happiness is a state of improvement over
| past experiences, not necessarily an absolute scale. If
| this is true (and I personally believe that it is), then
| evil is in fact a necessary baseline against which
| happiness can be improved upon.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This seems to be assuming omnipotence is not just a
| fantasy?
|
| More likely they were operating under significant
| constraints...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _an omnipotent ... could_
|
| The Architect in Leibniz is not omnipotent, and can only
| make the best out of what is possible.
| allturtles wrote:
| I think you are just restating what I said. Yes, Leibniz
| and any of his defenders must assume that there are
| hidden constraints to what is possible that lie beyond
| human understanding that made Hitler (just to use a very
| salient example, but insert whatever evil you like),
| necessary to achieve a greater good. It is ultimately an
| argument from faith (just trust in God, he had the best
| for the world at heart) that can only be accepted by
| those who already believe.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I meant that it is explicit, not just an assumption but
| the very metaphysics. A Logos is thought as predominant
| over the Agent that uses it. (Otherwise, it would be
| logical to have perfection and only perfection
| immediately.)
|
| > _an argument from faith_
|
| I think it remains (it was intended to be) a logical
| argument from the very definitions (not from devotional
| faith).
| benlivengood wrote:
| Nah, just create the world at a state where modern medicine
| can cure cancer, like we're on the slow road to doing.
|
| In the 1800s someone might have asked "if suffering is
| required and a child is going to die of a systemic infection,
| maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the
| planning phase".
|
| To me it's clear that human flourishing without much
| suffering is possible in this universe and it's more about
| knowledge and power to prevent suffering being hard to come
| by. The kind of knowledge that e.g. could have been written
| down in ancient religious books or whatever if we had a best
| possible world.
| thesz wrote:
| > maybe the whole project should have been scrapped at the
| planning phase.
|
| This is an argument made by one of the Dostoevsky characters, a
| famous "tear of a child" argument.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky
|
| "Their first child, Sofya, had been conceived in Baden-Baden,
| and was born in Geneva on 5 March 1868. The baby died of
| pneumonia three months later, and Anna recalled how Dostoevsky
| "wept and sobbed like a woman in despair"."
|
| So Dostoevsky suffered the pain of losing a child.
|
| Despite that, an argument about "tear of child" was put into
| antagonist's mouth.
| geysersam wrote:
| Couldn't that be a misreading of Voltaire though? I didn't
| interpret Candide as "there is suffering", I interpreted it as
| "this is obviously not the best possible world and no logical
| gymnastics can convince me it is"
|
| (With the collorary that logic is pretty useless in moral
| philosophy if it's only used to find contrived justification
| for the status quo.)
| Tossrock wrote:
| _Unsong_ has a pretty novel take on it.
| nanna wrote:
| > A key to Leibniz's view is symmetry of creation. The best only
| emerges against the worst, the beautiful against the ugly, the
| harmonious against the dissonant.
|
| Leibniz's surviving corpus is massive and sprawling (far larger
| than any other member of the Republic of Letters) so it could be
| that i haven't read whatever this is a reference to, but I don't
| recognise this sense of balance. For Leibniz as i understand him
| ours is the best of possible worlds because God created it to be
| this way, in his infinite benevolence and wisdom, and whatever
| the calamities occur must be part of some kind of plan of which
| we can only be ken (apperceptive) to a fraction thereof.
|
| Reading Leibniz is like standing at the gate of modern and
| medieval thought. He didn't so much 'ransack' ideas, as this
| piece says he does, as try to reconcile even the most
| contradictory of positions. It's odd but exquisite.
|
| If anyone wants to jump in I would recommend Lloyd Strickland's
| annotated translation of the Monadology (Leibniz's Monadology).
| Or really anything by Strickland, including his book on Leibniz
| on binary. See Strickland's website: http://www.leibniz-
| translations.com/
| moomin wrote:
| The balance idea sounds like misremembered Hegel. I think the
| best of all possible worlds theory should be seen for what it
| is: an attempt to reconcile the idea that a perfect god made
| the world with its observable imperfections. It's
| intellectually more satisfying than the "fallen world" idea
| which just leads to more questions, and it remains compatible
| with mainstream Christian doctrine.
|
| If you want to reject mainstream Christian doctrine that's
| fine, but it's not what Leibniz was trying to do.
|
| In any event, his most lasting influence isn't even in the
| realm of philosophy. Dude was a genius.
| thrawa1235432 wrote:
| Pretty hard considering Hegel would not even be born a few
| decades after Leibniz died. Agreed that it is preferable to
| the "fallen world" starting point of so many other
| philosophies. Once you think the world is fallen or broken,
| the only remaining thing is trying (and waiting ;) ) to bring
| about some kind of Utopia by changing humankind, nature,
| etc.. See Judaism, Gnosticism, Marxism,
| Positivism...
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > intellectually more satisfying than the "fallen world" idea
| which just leads to more questions, and it remains compatible
| with mainstream Christian doctrine.
|
| Doesn't mainstream Christian doctrine say that we're in a
| fallen world? Isn't that bit about "by Adam's sin we all
| sinned" (I'm forgetting the rhyme) a pretty central part of
| the catechism? (basically Romans 5:12)
|
| Now as to God creating a universe in which a fall like that
| could occur (one that emphasizes free will), is that perhaps
| what Leibniz was addressing?
| about3fitty wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide
|
| Only thing I've read by Voltaire but it slapped.
| sswaner wrote:
| Same. Maybe this thread can lead a resurgence of the word
| "Panglossian".
| hks0 wrote:
| > Leibniz challenged "humanity to participate in the work of
| striving toward perfection,"
|
| > Because the world is the creation of a perfect being, it can
| achieve only the "best possible" state short of divine
| perfection.
|
| That's a lot of presumptions: That the creator is perfect, there
| is even a perfect, what I (Leibniz) call perfect is the
| god's/gods' perfect, ... while not giving a frame of reference.
|
| I find this a common theme for those who are struggling to marry
| religious beliefs with logic.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| Replace "perfect" with "likely optimal" and you get the general
| thrust of it without the deus ex machina.
| lukan wrote:
| "Because the world is the creation of a likely optimal being,
| it can achieve only the "best possible" state short of divine
| likely optimisation"?
|
| If understood in a very mystic transcending meaning of
| "creation" maybe, otherwise it reads still like dogma to me.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I'm also reminded of quantum probabilities and expected
| outcomes-- how possibilities converge to create reality,
| like quantum Darwinism.
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-darwinism-an-idea-
| to-...
| lukan wrote:
| That is a new quantum thing to me, but looks interesting,
| thanks.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Meanwhile the realists found the world to be a combustion
| chamber from life that adapted itself to the combustion chamber
| and whorships the adaption process instincts.
|
| And we all agreed that staying in the surplus valley of the
| combustion process is nice, as long as science can deliver. And
| now we have to jam machinery into our lifes so we can remain
| sentient, while at the same time speculating for another
| delivery of surplus coming down the line. Panopticon here,
| social networks there- and it does nothing yet, atrocities in
| wartime and civil unrest are still rampant.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _with logic_
|
| It's actually deductive, application of logic: given some
| concept, develop the theory it generates (the set of its
| consequences). The "rationalist" way.
|
| The real context may not necessarily be that of "beliefs" (of
| doctrinal beliefs as an object... Possibly as a subject,
| instead).
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Yes, you must have assumptions to apply logic in the first
| place. I don't mind it, even if I have different assumptions.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| > _[that] there is even a "perfect"_
|
| This an important insight to this that I feel many people miss.
| Most of us consider "striving for perfection" to be equivalent
| to striving for the "absolute best". Real life often has no
| _absolute_ best option. Real life is much more like an
| intricate web of interconnected rock-paper-scissors like
| relationships and choices, where "better" or "worse" is highly
| contextual and even conflicting. Aeon had a really nice essay
| about the problem[0].
|
| Perhaps we tend to have a cultural blindness to this in
| cultures with European heritage due to the legacy of Plato's
| "perfect forms", and later how Christianity positions God.
|
| [0] https://aeon.co/essays/attempts-to-choose-the-best-life-
| may-...
| djaouen wrote:
| The real question is, would a perfect Being create an imperfect
| creation? While I don't proffer any, I think there are valid
| reasons to do so.
| goatlover wrote:
| The Christian gnostics reasoned it must have been either a
| lesser evil god or blind fool who created the material world.
| stiiv wrote:
| Perfection for Leibniz might be considered more of a logical
| concept than an observable state. After all, he uses the same
| thing to argue (somehow) for the existence of god!
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/#ExiGod
|
| This leads to some strange conclusions about perfection that
| aren't intuitive, and sometimes seem monstous.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > * After all, he uses the same thing to argue (somehow) for
| the existence of god!
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/#ExiGod *
|
| His argument from contingency is probably a better one:
|
| * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2024/02/avicenna-aquinas-
| an...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Perfection might be imperfect.
|
| I'm reminded of Pythagorean philosophies of harmony that
| quickly reveal the imperfections inherent to math, ie right
| triangle with two sides of one unit producing square root of
| two or Pythagorean tuning which is so perfect it is imperfect
| (eg the wolf fifth)
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _That 's a lot of presumptions: That the creator is perfect,
| there is even a perfect, what I (Leibniz) call perfect is the
| god's/gods' perfect, ... while not giving a frame of
| reference._
|
| The Creator (First Mover) being perfect is not a presumption,
| but rather a conclusion; see Corollary 1.3:
|
| * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-
| casca...
|
| (You'll need to go through the series of weblog posts (they're
| not that long) to get the full logic of the argument.)
|
| See also perhaps Aquinas, "Whether God is perfect?":
|
| * https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1004.htm
| thesz wrote:
| I think you will be pleasantly amused by this marriage of logic
| and religious beliefs:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_ontological_pro...
|
| It is formally proven that an entity that encompass all
| qualities of a God must exist.
| hks0 wrote:
| Very interesting read, Thanks!
|
| If I'm reading that article correctly, the criticism to Godel
| is the same criticism I had for Leibniz:
|
| > A proof does not necessitate that the conclusion be
| correct, but rather that by accepting the axioms, the
| conclusion follows logically.
|
| > Many philosophers have called the axioms into question.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| And I only read the Monadology. But apparently its the only thing
| by Leibniz one really has to read, unless they intend to become a
| scholar of his work.
| mazsa wrote:
| Try this: Discourse on Metaphysics
| https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/leibniz1686d.pd...
| Oarch wrote:
| My understanding was that Leibnitz was a pivotal figure in the
| ideas behind early computing. Didn't see that mentioned in the
| article so much.
| jampekka wrote:
| He was pivotal in a lot of stuff, so such not being mentioned
| in an article discussing his metaphysical ideas is not
| surprising.
| greghendershott wrote:
| Obligatory mention of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle
| bewuethr wrote:
| In Ideas That Created the Future [1], a curated and edited set
| of influential computer science papers, the Leibniz
| contribution is "The True Method" [2], which I read more or
| less as "if we could formalize everything, we could use
| mathematical methods to find answers to all questions".
|
| In the collection of papers, it's picked because of its ideas
| later formalized in Boolean logic, and logic programming in
| general.
|
| [1]: https://direct.mit.edu/books/edited-volume/5003/Ideas-
| That-C...
|
| [2]: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/624726/3/The%20true%20method.pdf
| medo-bear wrote:
| history keeps repeating, so often that there is no tragedy left,
| just farce
|
| i give it 5 more years till hegel becomes popular. 10 more years
| till dialectical materialism and dictatorship of proletariat
| sswaner wrote:
| Or 2 years for Heidegger?
| empath75 wrote:
| Leibniz independently invented calculus, including the notation
| for the derivative that is most common today.
|
| He also basically invented computer science -- he did pioneering
| work in binary arithmetic, designed a mechanical calculator, and
| came up with the concept of a "universal language", which was an
| early attempt at codifying the rules of logic and reason into a
| form that could be operated upon mechanically.
| julianeon wrote:
| I have to say it's confusing as hell that there's ANOTHER
| nonfiction book titled "The Best of All Possible Worlds", also
| about Leibniz, but centered on his friendships with other
| intellectuals (by Nadler). This seems close enough that people
| will get them mixed up when searching and ordering.
| ptsneves wrote:
| I need to plug "why evil exists" [1] as it was where I first
| learned about Leibniz and how he framed the renascentist period
| as one where men got closer to God through progress, until shook
| by the Lisbon earthquake. It is in audiobook form and starts with
| Gilgamesh all the way to pope Benedict XVI.
|
| [1]
| https://books.google.pl/books/about/Why_Evil_Exists.html?id=...
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