Zyxx said:
magine a world without hope and full of certainty. It would probably be a happier, safer place, albeit a more boring one. Often the one thing holding people back is hope: hope for change, forgiveness, or success. It takes an objective view to see the shackles of hope, as hope is comforting. To break the shackles you have to shatter dreams too, but they were hope's delusions...
"Certainty"? I think the word you want is "Resignation". Certainty doesn't exist. We tell ourselves it does in order to function; our illusion of certainty -that our senses don't deceive us, that we can expect certain reactions from actions- is a product of hope. Without it, we can't put one foot in front of another. If we substitute resignation for hope, we might keep putting one foot in front of the other, but we'd fall off the first cliff. Why should we care?
The world you describe would not be safer, because it would fall apart at the first opposition. How would a society even arise in such a place? How would sapience evolve and propagate without hope - hope to mate, hope to build, hope to protect, hope to kill, destroy, accrue power and control? Hope might hold people back, but it's also a crucial element that makes the world as we know it possible, and in my case, the shackles are also floating devices: the only things keeping me from sinking and never coming back up.
Maybe there is no point. I can accept the possibility, but I cannot adopt it as my belief. Some might say I'm deluding myself, but I wonder why they care. Even if there isn't a reason, I will continue to live as though there were. I am, in a word, resigned to it.
