▶ Your Answer :
Few would deny that the world in which we live today is submerged under
the vast sea of multifaceted problems and mysteries. The problems that we
encounter are often so tangled and irresolvable that sometimes it seems better
not to know anything about the world and live under complete ignorance.
Nevertheless, as our mysteries and problems become ever-confusing, we must
acquire even more knowledge in order to escape our ocean of complexities and
misery.
Firstly, the scientific and philosophic discoveries made by mankind alone
were able to clearly describe our view of the world, as can be seen in history.
Issac Newton’s laws of physics and other discoveries became the keystones upon
which mankind were able to escape from its medieval prison and enter the age of
enlightenment. The scientific discoveries clearly made understanding our world
easier for us. For instance, thunderstorms were mysterious phenomena to ancient
people, and they believed that the thunders were punishments given to man by a
supreme deity. However, the discovery of electricity and the famous experiments
done by Ben Franklin proved to all that thunders are nothing but simple weather
condition that can be easily explained. We now even know how to predict
thunderstorms by computer simulation, so it is safe to say that knowledge
gained by mankind made things understandable and clearer for us.
Secondly, while it is true that science and philosophy
are not the panacea for every problem, and new problems and complexities are
generated each second, the very efforts to find the solutions to them can lead
to even more comprehension of our world. Many solutions to diverse problems
were actually obtained not by trying to solve that problem, but by doing
something completely irrelevant. For instance, the discovery of quantum
mechanics, which opened the door to atomic and subatomic worlds, first started
out as a quest to accurately measure a red-hot metal’s temperature by analyzing
its color. No one expected that the investigations to solve this particular
problem will lead to one of the greatest discoveries ever made by mankind, the
theory that demonstrated what we are made of and where we came from.
The human condition, in a way, is like inertia. Things
will remain as they are if we do not seek or strive for something. What this ‘something’
must be will depend on each individual’s personal beliefs, but our course of
history clearly demonstrates that the scientific and philosophical endeavors
proved best in clarifying our view of the world. When such efforts seize to
exist, the only option available for us will be to remain in an inescapable
state of chaos and ignorance.
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