Note: The following is taken from an English paper I had to write, I think it's hilarious.
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of the inventors of calculus, was a genius. While Leibniz was a genius for his mathematical and scientific accomplishment. Leibniz, however, was an idiot for his philosophical beliefs.
Leibniz was famous for the idea of monads, and his philosophy of optimism. Monads are the fundamental unit of the metaphysical world. This means that they are basically atoms, only better. Monads have no mass at all, and the are completely and mutually independent from other monads. Meaning, it would be impossible to detect a monad interacting with another monad, because it couldn't possibly happen. Each monad has it's own program, so that it may know what to do at each moment. Because of this, each monad can act as it's own mini-universe. To further confuse people, monads need not be small. For example, God would be considered a monad, and therefore, the existance of this all powerful being can be inferred by the “harmony” in the other monads. Even in Leibniz's day, the idea of monads was considered eccentric.
Leibniz's idea of optimism is summarized by the idea of “the world must be the best possible, and the most balanced because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God.” However, this entire argument is based on the idea that “God” created the world, and not logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence. In fact, it is a known fact that a flying spaghetti monster created the world, everything that one sees and touches has, at one point or another, been touched by His Noodly Appendage. However, this is no all powerful and all knowing God, there are several flying spaghetti monsters, each communicating superluminally in order to create the appearance that logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence is correct. Therefore, because these flying spaghetti monster are the true creators of the world, and not some all powerful and all knowing God, Leibniz was incorrect.
Gottfried Leibniz was famous for monadology, and optimism. He was wrong on both accounts.
