hadn’t noticed, no one has yet found a reason why we are sitting on a planet stocked with all the facilities to live for billions of years. No one has found out the supreme leader who has created all of us. No one has found out what our moral obligation is, or the meaning of life (no, it’s not 42, sorry). So, why are we so interested in these unanswered questions? Most of you reading this magazine now are ‘ordinary’ (as far as the term goes). You will go home to an ordinary dinner, a bit of homework, and then you’ll relax before sleeping. Then you go to school again. Bar the occasional slip in routine, we live normal, uninterrupted lives.We get up and we fulfil our so-called ‘purpose’ as human beings. That’s why, when someone stops this chain of settings to say ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘Who made me?’, we’re bound to give it some thought. This interest stems from a very transcendent argument which proceeds to a concatenation of questions. And, often, many people get tangled up in a voluminous space of particles.Whilst it may be interesting, what are the benefits of asking, but not answering? I have an example to demonstrate my point: Descartes, a distinguished philosopher who lived in the 16th century. He devoted three years of his life to concluding something which he categorically knew was true. To this end, he concluded that ‘I think therefore I am.’ As basic and unrevolutionary as it may sound, even this premise cannot actually be validated (on account of many reasons I wish not to talk about, at least not in 500 words. If you put it in perspective, the depressing idea that one philosopher wasted three valuable years to come to an incorrect understanding of the world presents my issue in black and white: we don’t make (beneficial) progress or discovery with Philosophy. Of course, you may wish to argue that we develop logic and appreciation for the world around us, and you would be right. But, with the evidence around us that vaccines are waiting to be applied, and fires are waiting to be extinguished, we shouldn’t waste our time letting Philosophy creep its way into a systematic and productive world. By Cameron Davies 17
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