How to Make the Best Possible World?

Leibniz, a revolutionary mathematician (founder of Calculus) and philosopher, argued that we live in the best possible world. There are infinitely many other possible worlds – one where I wouldn’t write this article, one where I would change a single world, and one of the many resulted my article and you reading it. Leibniz was not afraid to state, that the scenario we are living in, is the best possible out of all. Shortly, he explains this by everything having a reason. And even though I would really like to agree with that, I can’t.

I would start with a simple thought. How would a better world look like? Imagine you, readers, have the power to change anything you can on Earth. What would you change to create a better world? Of course, stopping wars, diseases, would be the most frequent answer. But for me that is too broad. That doesn’t change people or anything physical but just dismisses the concept of wars.

My answer would be, to make every person answer this question. That is how the world can be changed. The reality isn’t a godlike person telling everybody that it is the era of Apple products, or that Islamic state will horrifyingly spread. A certain trend, change, is a sum of millions of individual minds sharing ideas. So, I think, that if every person on Earth, would consider this thought and act like it - that would be a better world.

An example could be the war – it isn’t an unstoppable phenomena. It is only people having different opinions and willing to kill others for it. Without soldiers there couldn’t be any war at all. But not many people realize this concept, and are manipulated by the mystical non-existing force of the present.

I want my essay to lead to a simple statement. The magical quest towards the better world doesn’t start on the level of state, nations, religions, but in individuals. Many times I was told: “we are the generation that will change everything.”  I would definitely rephrase that. I, as an individual, am the one who will change the world. Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” nicely illustrates how killing a single butterfly in the age of dinosaurs changes the present (of course fiction). Now imagine how you as an individual, the ideas you come up with, the influence you have on other people, can change the world. Of course there is a difference between Bill Gates’ contribution and my contribution, but that doesn’t dismiss my influence.

All in all, I want to say, the society looks how it looks because of every one of us. It is the sum of individuals; it isn’t that we are what the society wants us to be. This is why everyone changes the world in the present and even more in the future; even tough it doesn’t look like we do, we still are a seven billionth of the whole pot. A dish of seven billion different ingredients where each part contributes to the best meal, in Leibniz's view.

"Cena člověka je v tom, v čem sám sebe přesahuje, v tom, čím je mimo sebe, čím je v jiných a pro jiné."

-Milan Kundera

Lukas Cerny, 22.9.2014