The Necessity of the Non-Ideal

                The subject of how much, as individuals, we want our ideal life to be filled with non-ideal concepts such as pain and failure seems to be a reoccurring theme in our philosophy class.  The class seemed to conclude that in order to truly feel and appreciate happiness and satisfaction we must have had experienced the opposite side of the spectrum.  

                I feel that this philosophy has manifested itself again in our discussions over which super hero is the best. During our discussions we found that while superman is a more powerful superhero the majority of the class seemed to believe that he was not a better super hero because he is too perfect. In the older world of Superman, he was a figure separated vastly from any of his advisories. He seemed to have only a slight weakness, kryptonite, which, with enough will power, he could always easily overcome. While I agree that Superman is a great superhero in that he can overcome all of his advisories, I believe that his entertainment value is less than that of Batman because Superman does not experience the dramatic low points that Batman experiences. For Batman the possibility of death at the hands of his advisories is much more real allowing me to appreciate his triumphs more than I could appreciate Superman’s triumphs.

                The matrix takes this idea to a much more extreme level in saying that as humans we define ourselves through these non-ideal concepts. In The Matrix, the first versions of the simulated world used to entrap the humans were simulations of ideals worlds.

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K-g7ipAqYY

However, as the architect points out, the program broke down because the humans could not accept such a version of reality.

                These concepts kind of reflect Epicurus’s philosophy of pain and pleasure. He believed that pleasure was simply the absence of pain. Consequently the more an individual understands pain the more the removal of all pain may be appreciated. While Matrix takes this idea to an extreme in suggesting that as humans we require a tangible separation between pain and pleasure, the ideas in the movie likely stemmed from philosophies similar to that of Epicurus.