Monday, June 18, 2012

Predicatibility of the World

Quoted from "Small is beautiful" by E.F. Schumacher.

When the Lord created the world and people to live in it -- an enterprise which, according to modern science, took a very long time -- I could well imagine that he reasoned with himself as follows: "

If I make everything predictable, these human beings, whom I have endowed with pretty good brains, will undoubtedly learn to predict everything, and they will thereupon have no motive to do anything at all, because they will recognize that the future is totally determined and cannot be influenced by any human action.  On the other hand, if I make everything unpredictable, they will gradually discover that there is no rational basis for any decision whatsoever and, as in the first case, they will thereupon have no motive to do anything at all.  Neither scheme would make sense.  I must therefore create a mixture of the two.  Let some things be predictable and let others be unpredictable.  They will then, amongst many other things, have the very important task of finding out which is which."

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