Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a scientific border crosser. He developed plans for a submarine, invented an anemometer and a mechanical calculator. He died in Hanover on November 14, 1716.
by Patric Seibel
Leibniz was an intellectual high-flyer. He moved in the most diverse fields:theology, philosophy, mining, mathematics, history, to name just a few. At the age of 20 he received his doctorate in law. He then made a career in the service of the Archbishop of Mainz and the Guelph Duke Johann Friedrich. By then he was no longer "just" a lawyer and diplomat.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and divine harmony
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a scientific border crosser. A fundamental thought for him was the harmony of the world. The modern holistic approach - for Leibniz it was already a matter of course 300 years ago. For example, he sought and found mathematical principles in theology. Conversely, he believed in a divine harmony of numbers and dreamed of logic based on numbers.
This is how he invented the dual system, the basis of today's computer programs, explains Sonja Schierbaum, a philosopher at the University of Hamburg:"On a purely technical level, he can be seen as a pioneer because he invented this binary code:0 stands for nothing and because God World ex nihilo - i.e. created out of nothing, it is symbolized with the 1. It has really advanced that knowledge can be digitized, undisputed."
The "best of all possible worlds" is possible
Leibniz also caused a sensation as a philosopher and influenced subsequent thinkers of the Enlightenment. Leibniz devoted himself intensively to the so-called theodicy problem, i.e. the question of how suffering and misery in the world are compatible with the idea of an almighty and benevolent God. "In the process of creation, God has to make compromises because he cannot create something perfect. Then he would duplicate himself and be identical to himself. But that was impossible from the point of view of the time," said Schierbaum.
While the world created by God is not perfect, it does meet two main criteria:maximum abundance and harmony. Leibniz came up with the formula of the "best of all possible worlds". "The degree of perfection in the world doesn't depend on each thing having the same degree of perfection, but you have to see it as a whole," explains Sonja Schierbaum. "You only know the quality of creation when you add it all up. There must be better and worse things."
Leibniz:Mocked by Voltaire
Voltaire alias François-Marie Arouet mocked Leibniz and his theses in his book "Candide".Another example of Leibniz's method of thinking mathematics and theology together. For him, there is logic behind the numbers. In sum, the world is the best possible. This also provoked the ridicule of contemporaries. Even the great French thinker Voltaire made fun of it in his novel "Candide".
For Sonja Schierbaum, the result of a misunderstanding:Leibniz didn't want to prove that we actually live in the best possible world. Instead, Leibniz wanted to show that the idea that this is the best of all possible worlds is compatible with the idea that God is omnipotent and benevolent.
Everything is preordained
Leibniz also intervened in the contemporary discussion about the relationship between spirit and matter. The Frenchman René Descartes saw body and mind as two separate substances. Leibniz wanted to bring the separated substances together and invented the monad. You could think of it as the smallest unit of matter, but unlike the atom, endowed with spiritual properties, a kind of program that virtually contains the whole world. "When a person comes into the world, what God conceived and determined for each individual before creation unfolds. So every little characteristic that a person has, i.e. what they become, do, think, feel who he's going to marry is already in his mind and coordinated with the others," explains Schierbaum.
Creation works like a DVD. When God presses the play button, a feature film will play. If you think of a computer program when you think of this world model, you're not wrong, says Sonja Schierbaum:"That's exactly the idea. Sometimes he also talks about the spirit of the machine - that the spirit also works like a machine."
Problems and controversial issues of current discourses between neuroscientists, cognition researchers, psychologists and philosophers are already mentioned here. Today - 300 years after his time - Leibniz is less interesting in terms of content and more as a source of keywords and thinker with a broad horizon, who confidently crossed the borders of the disciplines.