Why are there always problems?

Problems are the obstacles and challenges that confront us daily as we move through our world.  They can range from existential threats to our survival to simply finding ways to relieve boredom.

Overcoming problems is what leads to progress, and looking at the world from a problem-oriented point of view can encourage both civilizational and personal progress.  

Humans have only ever faced problems since they evolved out of primates on the African plain.  But, despite our unique human ability to create explanatory knowledge from very early on, we only made slow progress overcoming the problems we faced for millennia.  Then, during the Enlightenment, certain societies began to adopt an attitude of openness towards new ideas and refinement of these ideas through criticism.  The scientific revolution was born of this attitude and led to rapid technological progress, which continues to this day.  Much moral progress was also made during this time, leading to democratic societies.

The standard of living that most people in the developed world live in today would be the envy of any king or queen mere centuries ago.  All of this has resulted from finding solutions to problems that we have faced in the past.

This is progress not despite problems but because of them.  And yet, as we are reminded every day, we still have so many problems! This is because all progress leads to new problems, which in turn offers more opportunities for progress if we can find the requisite solutions.

Finding solutions requires an optimistic stance towards the future, which recognizes that all problems are solvable, with the right knowledge.  A more precise way of stating this; is that if a solution to a problem does not go against any of the known laws of nature, then solving it is just a matter of discovering the right knowledge.

This is not to say that continual progress is inevitable and we will solve all the problems we face, but only that it is possible, with the right knowledge.