Pangloss has the ability to justify anything. We have noses to wear spectacles. Pants exist so we must have legs. If we didn't have syphilis in Europe, we wouldn't have chocolate either. To him, the world is a simple relation of cause and effect and it all happens because that is how God created the world. Is everything really that simple? Is our world and the universe based on the simple laws of cause and effect? What about free will? How much control do humans really have over our lives? Or, is everything already planned out for us and we are just acting as it was ordained? Please discuss.
Everything is really this simple. If something isn't the cause then it is the effect of something. Our world is based on this simple thing. Because we pollute, there is global warming and a hole in the ozone. Because we can't get along, wee have wars. Everything is caused by something or is an effect of something. Free Will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate. We don't have free will, no matter how much we believe we do. Everything we do will have a consequence whether we like it or not.
ReplyDelete-Sylvia Williams
I don't think that our world is as simple as Pangloss makes it out to be. If we all believed in this narrow minded belief then how would there be any creativity in the world today or anyone fighting for their own opinions. If we believed God did everything for a reason without questioning it then we wouldn't even bother to try to prevent some things from occurring. I mean sure things do obviously create the cause and effect method for different situations, but sometimes it's not so easy as Pangloss makes things out to be. He believes that the earthquake in Candide was God's plan and he wanted things to go the way they went, but never considered that maybe it was due to science or possibly humans fault for influencing the making of it. We actually believe we obtain more free will than we have throughout our lives. We do control the choosing of our jobs, but we also have to obey the rules at the job, show up at specific times, etc. We have been classically conditioned with more things than we realize though. For example, at school we have 5 minutes to get to each class and have to follow the rules or we can get referrals. Our lives are not planned ahead, we choose what to do with them, whether positive or negative, and based on our choices we live with them.- Alicia Wilson
ReplyDeleteLife is not simple at all. It is more complicated than Chinese Checkers. I believe Pangloss is just simplifying the world. Sure there are cause and effect, but not everything is filled with cause and effect. Some people believe that we have a destiny. Others believe we choose what we want to be. In my opinion, we all have a fate.
ReplyDeleteI believe that everything is not really that simple and that some but not all things are made by chance to acompany our human make up. They made glasses for our eyes the way they did because we had a nose. I don't think the world is bases on the laws of cause and effect. Human have control over the way they live their lives and also the way they perceive things. I believe that we have a free will to act in our own way but the way we are going to act is already known by a higher power.-Brandon Day
ReplyDeleteThe world is not really as simple as Pangloss makes it out to be. Our world is based on the laws of cause and effect, but only to an extent. Humans are capable of making right of situations and being creative. Pangloss seems narrow-minded with all of his reasoning and thinks God controls everything that ever occurs. Humans do have free will because we can makes decisions about almost anything and everything. Our perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts are all outcomes of our decisions. We control our paths in life. For example, going to school for a well paying job or working at McDonald's all of your life.
ReplyDeleteThe world is not really as simple as Pangloss makes it out to be. Our world is based on the laws of cause and effect, but only to an extent. Humans are capable of making right of situations and being creative. Pangloss seems narrow-minded with all of his reasoning and thinks God controls everything that ever occurs. Humans do have free will because we can makes decisions about almost anything and everything. Our perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts are all outcomes of our decisions. We control our paths in life. For example, going to school for a well paying job or working at McDonald's all of your life.
ReplyDeleteNothing in that world is that simple, Pangloss just oversimplifies everything. Our universe is too complex to be based on the simple rule of cause and effect. Yes, one can say that suffering is caused by things like poverty, disease, natural disasters, war and other things but what causes these things and then that person can give me scientific, economic, political, etc. reasons; but there what causes those? Can you see where I am getting at? There is no real cause, everything just happens and we have to learn to deal with it. If we spend all our time wondering why something happened and the cause to all of this, then we could actually go back thousands of years in history and never find the answer. Of course something caused the effect but something also caused that cause and something else caused the thing that caused the cause that made the effect. There is no real reason for everything that happens in this world which is what makes the simple rule of cause and effect so ineffective in explaining the happenings of the universe. We definitely do have free will and complete control of our lives. We choose how we react to everything, what we believe in, who are friends are, where we live, what we eat, what we do, etc. and this shapes who we are as people. Every decision we make is our own decision and no one else can make it for us. Our lives are not planned out for us to follow like a map but are based on our day to day decisions that lead to the outcome of our lives. Our destiny and our fate is what we make of it, not any preordained plan.
ReplyDelete-Matthew Greene
I don't think the world is based on a simplified law of cause and effect. No one ever knows how things will turn out, and we can never really know the real consequences to our actions. I'd like to believe we have free will but to be honest, all our our decisions are influenced by other people and events that occur around us. Also, we can't control what happens after we make a decision so it really isn't "free will". I think the extent of a person's control is the actual "ability" to make a decision and just hope that it is the right one.
ReplyDelete-Lindsey Tonnesen
Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, there will always be some deeper meaning to anything. The world cant be based on Pangloss' simple laws of cause and effect, its too simple and doesnt ever really make sense. But I dont think that we have a lot of free will our lives are shaped for us from when we were born. we are shaped by our parents, teachers, bosses, etc. I dont think that we can control our lives the way we would like to someone is going to be there to put restraints on how far you can live your life. The government, a teacher, a boss, a parent, a wife, a kid. it doesnt matter you will always have someone there to keep you from living your life to the fullest.
ReplyDelete~Taylor Stephen
I think the world is most definitely based on cause and effect...however not in his distorted way of god doing everything on purpose and his backwards reason of cause and effect because we pants were definitely shaped for out legs not the other way around. However, Every thing that happens is an effect of something that has happened and that effect will result in another happening and the process will repeat on. You go to school because you been told that you have to or you been told you will have a good job, You are late because there was a wreck so you had to take a detour. Those are affects of causes that will again result in another affect. Life is a series of chain reactions that you have have control over, to a certain extent. Free will still applies but what ever you choose to do will create an effect that will effect something else. Its simple, however its not simple to understand how to prevent unfortunate happenings, or to predict which cause is going to have a devastating effect.
ReplyDeleteYou can look at the world logically by assuming everything is based on cause and effect, but its not simple. Life is very complicated. People know the effects of the things they do and make choices to cause them. Everything you do is for some sort of effect. Some being simple, and some are difficult. Although everyone does not have the same effect. Humans do have some control over their lives but not much. Free will exists but then again it doesn't. You can do what ever you want, but you can't without having consequences or EFFECTS. I think life is planned out for you, your expected to live up to certain expectations and to do certain things but you have the choice to go along with the plan or not either way you have to live with the effects of your choices. ~Haley Rasnick
ReplyDeleteThere is absolutely no way to know if everything is planned out for us or not. All we have are our opinions. That’s it. But even those aren’t based on anything concrete. One could argue that free will is absolute. Every action (or lack of) will completely change the future. In this case the future is blank, and changes constantly with every decision made. On the other hand, one could say that every action was preordained. The future is decided, and the actions we take lead us to that end regardless of how we justify them.
ReplyDeleteObviously Pangloss was an idiot. Or was he? Arguing that we have noses because we are supposed to wear glasses is of course ridiculous. But knowing that these arguments are all just personal beliefs, he could’ve said anything and not been disproved.
I don’t necessarily agree with Pangloss’ theory, but since I can’t refute it, I can’t discount it entirely. The point is we won’t KNOW the answer to this question until we die, and even then there’s no guarantee.
-Alex Colling
As humans I believe that we do have free will. Not everything can be blamed on God because we are able to make choices that can impact our lives. There is cause and effect to life but it's more that and action that a person does can cause either a positive or negative effect. Humans have plent of control over their lives an nothing is really ever set in stone. If everything was planned out for us then man wouldn't have the ability to make the types of decissions they make. I believe that God can give ideas and humans are responsible for using the ideas to their advantage whether or not they act correctly is up to them.
ReplyDelete-Kayla Barrett
I don't think everything is just that simple. If that was the case, why are there more than one reason to more than half the things that go on in the world? Pangloss's philosophy of cause and effect, conveying that we only have noses to hold glass, is insanely stupid. He fails to include the fact that he and everyone else uses the nose to breath in and out of, for the most part. He also fails to explain why not everyone wears glasses! If his philosophy was so,... on point, what caused and eventually an effect to having God? Certain situations follow the concept of cause and effect, but life is not, cannot be based on just cause and effect. Its not that simple, but if so, we would have answers to everything, and no further research in any aspect would still be going on to this day.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to humans having control of their lives, I think we do, just to the simple fact that an individual contains their own brain. They do what they choose to do. And yes, I believe in Karma, but I believe that God knows that what going to happen in the end, but there is no way for us to tell, until the end comes. We don't know what our plan is, so how exactly can we say that we are going do the path that was "predestined" for us? I believe that we have free will do to what we want, and based on our actions, is how we will be judged later on. Panglosss' theory is bogus.
Nothing in life is that simple. The essence of our existence is not even that simple. We are all complex individuals and we make up a complicated world. Pangloss reasoning of cause and effect is naive(we have noses so we can wear glasses) and does not consider that our nose has the purpose of breathing and smelling and that not everyone wears glasses. If his logic were true then people that don't wear glasses would not have noses. For Pangloss we can not prevent things and if it things good or evil happen to us its all because God wanted it that way, but that's not true where would free will fall if this were true. The choices we make have consequences,but they could have been prevented. The fact that someone got syphilis could have been prevented. We change the things we can change and we deal with the things we can't. Only ignorant people think that there is nothing that falls in their hands that they can change.We make decisions everyday and those decisions are the cause to our effects. Yes, there are things that our hands can not reach, but that does not mean it's an excuse to say that nothing is our fault or that we can not do anything about something.
ReplyDeleteI think that free will is a quality that all humans possess. Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think you have the ability to make choices that affect your individual surroundings. I think that God has a plan for me, but I also think that I have control over how I reach my ultimate goal. I think God allows me to make mistakes so that I can learn from them, and I also believe he allows me to interpret the bible as opposed to listening to the way a church would interpret it. - Barack Jordan
ReplyDeletePangloss's belief is greatly flawed. First of all, he doesn't even have the experience to make such a claim. He uses this belief to explain something that he doesn't understand just so that he doesn't have to put much thought into it and still sound knowledgeable. Second, he's the "lead philosopher" or scientist or whatever of the Baron, so he tries his best to impress everyone even though he's not that smart and practices some long-named ridiculous belief. The world is not that simple because we have free will and are able to make our own choices and think for ourselves. That's why people don't just let others drown like Pangloss did because it's part of the supposed "big plan."
ReplyDeletePangloss bases his entire beliefs off of cause and effect. It is a simple way to explain things that happen and why they happen. There is no way of justifying anything that he says. Life is not that simple and the way that we think and act definetely effects the outcomes that we recieve. We all have the choice to make decisions that influence how we live. We do have free will to make choices for our selves. Some people with very religious views say that our entire lives are already planned out and there is nothing we can do to alter them but from my point of view, your life is your life and the way you live it is your choice. Pangloss would let a helpless person sit and die because in his mind that was apart of the plan for them but we dont do that in our society. If someone was laying there in need of help we would help them, not let them just die.
ReplyDelete-Ashley Collins
The world is not based on cause and effect. Our free will is not free. For example, Candide had 2 choices to make. That wasn't free will because he was still made to choose between those 2 choices. Another example can be everyday life. People say we have free will but we don't. We are still conditioned to follow what people want us to do. I believe humans control everything we do. They control our emotions towards everything. People might say we choose how we feel but it isn't true. If they want us to hate something, they will present it in such a way that it is hated by everybody.
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