Why an ideal world can’t be imagined by a human being

[Vijaydevani]

The world is already an ideal world. The problem is it does not agree with our opinion of ideal.

[Belindi]

The problem of suffering and lack of care is not to be dismissed as the upshot of inadequate value system. This problem is more important and salient than every other problem of philosophy.

An ideal world would be a world with some stress and suffering but certainly not with that degree of suffering that we know of throughout recorded and unrecorded history, daily reportage, and personal life events.

[Newme]

When I think of the (almost 1 billion) 1/7th of human beings chronically hungry while so much food goes to waste, or think about innocent babies suffering the most cruel deaths imaginable just because people are sexually irresponsible, it makes me question the idea of opposition as potential strength & revealing goodness that otherwise wouldn't be revealed. Still, what is the alternative? A world tyranical government dictating every move of everyone?

I would say that freedom of speech is important - people should have access to facts, as ugly & uncomfortable as they can be, so they can make more educated decisions. Unfortunately, not only some moderators on this forum, but also many in media & politics often do NOT honor freedom of speech.

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Maybe if each of us did our own part in reasonably & intuitively making this world more ideal, it would still be likely that our ideal is not another's ideal. But it is all that each of us can do - that, and always being open to redefining our ideas of ideal, as we learn more.

[Platos stepchild]

I disagree that a perfect world is necessarily fair. This is how I understand perfection: first, that which-is and that which-ought-to-be are the same thing. There's no deficient in the world for which "ought" has any meaning. Next, the world is as harmonious as it possibly can be. Note that this doesn't mean there isn't any disharmony, just that there's no excess or wasted disharmony.

So then, what exactly is harmony; what does it mean? Of all the various definitions, the one thing they have in common is the effect of being "pleasing". There must then be a template for registering what is, and what isn't. A perfect world can't be perfect without such a template. Perfection, therefore is and has a pleasing effect, which can be registered.

A perfect world is thus exactly as it ought-to-be, which in turn is as pleasing as it possibly can be. But, there's something missing. How does the template know that the pleasing effect which it registers is actually as harmonious as possible? There has to be a mechanism capable of assessing this question. So, we have a "mechanism" tied somehow or another to our "template".

This "gizmo", being part of a perfect world must also be perfect, as well. But, is this just a euphemism for God? Maybe; that doesn't matter, though. Our mechanism and it's template are minimally defined, with no gratuitous, "divine" encumbrances. The question which really matters is why our world isn't perfect. No one could seriously argue there's no excess disharmony.

Our world is clearly filled with too many ought-to-be's to have ever been perfect. Or, is it? Are we really the perfection-assessing-gizmo which we've just posited? I don't think so. When we say that something ought-to-be, and yet isn't, the perceived disharmony in the world usually wounds us, which make our assessment unreliable. Maybe "perfection" needs the disharmony of a few frustrated ought-to-be's in order to be perfect.

We've conceded that even a perfect world may yet be disharmonious, at least to some minimal extent. What if we lived within this disharmony? It would then appear that the world is imperfect. Being imperfect, we'd be unable to assess the pleasing effect of our truly perfect world. But, is our world truly perfect? The only clue, and I believe it's quite telling, is that we're able to imagine perfection. Being therefore not impossible, we can hope and believe that it's real.

[Dnph33]

But then being omnipotent means that if one wishes to be satisfied, then he has the power to change his own emotion such that he now feels satisfied.

[Newme]

Perfection or what ought to be, is subjective and usually based on very limited context.
IE: The perfect career may involve less than perfect relationships. Exhaustively considering an ideal world would mean a degree of omniscience.
All we can do is consider as many factors as possible, like a giant chess game, try to place players in the most beneficial ways.

[Mark1955]

First of all we need to define what an ideal world is. Summarising, an ideal world is a fair world, because it’s a world where everyone is satisfied, and have all they want. Since it’s a perfect and ideal world it is possible for such thing to be accomplished.


In order for everyone to have everything they want, all individuals are omnipotent. That’s where the things start to collapse, as an explanatory example, if one individual likes white chairs so much that they want to have a farm of white chairs, he wishes it and the farm appears, because he is omnipotent, but if another individual is observing what the first is doing, and that second individual hate chairs so much that he wishes that the farm disappears, he wishes it and the farm would disappear, as he is also omnipotent, but it would cancel the will of an omnipotent individual, which doesn’t make sense, creating a paradox.


It’s not possible for both of them be satisfied with this setting, and if one of them were satisfied, the other wouldn’t, respectively, hence this world wouldn’t be ideal anymore.

So an ideal world is one where we're all altruistic enough to recognise that we should constrain our omnipotence to our fair share of the world, both it's space and resources, and accept that within that area we will have heaven, and that by not interfering in anyone else's fair share we will allow them heaven as well.

[Renee]

In order for everyone to have everything they want, all individuals are omnipotent.

Omnipotence is a self-contradictory oxymoronic ideation. If you are omnipotent, you could create such a hard problem, that even you can't solve it. But then, you are not omnipotent, because you can't solve it. Or maybe you become omnipotent by solving it, but then your omnipotence fails at the creation of a really difficult problem.

I don't know who came up with the idea of omnipotence originally, but he or she did not follow her reasoning through.

That's why I prefer to talk about onomatopoeia instead of omnipotence.

[LuckyR]

I truly disagree with a number of the premises on display in this thread. Having things exactly to your liking at all times sounds like hell not paradise. What makes up a large part of the human experience involves issues like victory, winning and accomplishment. Well, you can't have winning if there is no losing. And you can't have accomplishment without failure.

Getting your way all the time is boring.

What would be "ideal" would be to have everyone have a descent opportunity to accomplish what they want, but get your hands off of the actual process for doing things.

If I want to play the guitar, I need to obtain one, seek out a learning technique and practice a lot. Snapping my fingers and suddenly playing like an expert is essentially no different than turning on the radio and listening to the music that comes out with no real effort on my own.

[Belindi]

Well said as usual LuckyR!

If I remember rightly it's in the other phil forum that there is a discussion in which I raised the human need to strive , regarding AI.

[Mark1955]

I truly disagree with a number of the premises on display in this thread. Having things exactly to your liking at all times sounds like hell not paradise. What makes up a large part of the human experience involves issues like victory, winning and accomplishment. Well, you can't have winning if there is no losing. And you can't have accomplishment without failure.

Getting your way all the time is boring.

What would be "ideal" would be to have everyone have a descent opportunity to accomplish what they want, but get your hands off of the actual process for doing things.

If I want to play the guitar, I need to obtain one, seek out a learning technique and practice a lot. Snapping my fingers and suddenly playing like an expert is essentially no different than turning on the radio and listening to the music that comes out with no real effort on my own.

But i I am omnipotent I can set up challenges so that I can fail and not use my ability to 'cheat' to win. I will choose to have the body I had when I was younger, but not the body of superman, so I can still set out out to row more than x km in 30 minutes on a rowing machine in the knowledge that sometimes I'll fail, thus when I succeed I will be satisfied.

[LuckyR]

I truly disagree with a number of the premises on display in this thread. Having things exactly to your liking at all times sounds like hell not paradise. What makes up a large part of the human experience involves issues like victory, winning and accomplishment. Well, you can't have winning if there is no losing. And you can't have accomplishment without failure.

Getting your way all the time is boring.

What would be "ideal" would be to have everyone have a descent opportunity to accomplish what they want, but get your hands off of the actual process for doing things.

If I want to play the guitar, I need to obtain one, seek out a learning technique and practice a lot. Snapping my fingers and suddenly playing like an expert is essentially no different than turning on the radio and listening to the music that comes out with no real effort on my own.

But i I am omnipotent I can set up challenges so that I can fail and not use my ability to 'cheat' to win. I will choose to have the body I had when I was younger, but not the body of superman, so I can still set out out to row more than x km in 30 minutes on a rowing machine in the knowledge that sometimes I'll fail, thus when I succeed I will be satisfied.

You CAN, but few (if any) do. If you include failure, pain, decrepitude in the equation, then omnipotence is not required to have a pretty ideal existence for yourself. And if everyone did that for themselves, then that would be (from a practical sense) an ideal world for everyone, meanwhile the world itself would be just as far away from ideal as it is right now.

[Belindi]

Ideal based on what standards?
I agree that "there must needs be opposition in all things."
I think it was Scott Peck who said that this world, with all the opposition and options to choose from was the most ideal situation for developing mature souls.

It's also an opportunity for mature souls to learn to be addicted to drugs, die at age twenty of some infectious disease, see their child starve to death, be chained for years in some dreadful prison, and learn that violence is right.

[Mark1955]

But i I am omnipotent I can set up challenges so that I can fail and not use my ability to 'cheat' to win. I will choose to have the body I had when I was younger, but not the body of superman, so I can still set out out to row more than x km in 30 minutes on a rowing machine in the knowledge that sometimes I'll fail, thus when I succeed I will be satisfied.

You CAN, but few (if any) do. If you include failure, pain, decrepitude in the equation, then omnipotence is not required to have a pretty ideal existence for yourself. And if everyone did that for themselves, then that would be (from a practical sense) an ideal world for everyone, meanwhile the world itself would be just as far away from ideal as it is right now.

The OP is why I can't imagine an ideal world, I think I'm doing quite well at disproving that. I make no claims about the likelihood of such an event occurring.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

Cillinhos,

Are you saying and proving that an unimaginable thing is beyond people's abilities to imagine and that an ideal world is just one such thing? I respect your point of view.
But if I think of the world as an ideal place, does it mean I'm not imagining the world correctly?