What defines a perfect human?
My friend and I were talking the other day about how for a perfect society to exist, surely every person within that society must also be perfect, which lead us to discussing what defines a perfect human.
Clearly we live in a imperfect world and therefore it can never be accomplished, but we realised there are multiple ways in which a perfect human could be defined. This included such parameters such as emotional stability, morally perfect, physically perfect (whether or not this is even possible) and a whole array of other parameters that have escaped my memory.
What do you think defines the perfect human, assuming it's even possible in the first place? Should it just be defined by one parameter or a mix, and would some parameters be valued higher over others? For example, is a perfect moral compass more valued over physical perfection? I would love to hear your guys take on the question.
EDIT: By perfect I mean functioning within a society perfectly.
A perfect human in vacuum is a smooth sphere.
I suppose you need to define what "perfect" means before you define "perfect human". Is it just functioning within the confines of society? Complete self-reliance?
I really should've added that, I meant functioning within society in this specific scenario as we were talking about what makes a perfect society.
Well... then you have to define "a perfect society". ;) That's a very subjective idea!
I think, as others have pointed out, it becomes an issue of definition. What is perfect, what's a "perfect society"? Along which dimensions? To what ends?
And besides that I think there's a flaw in the "for a perfect society to exist, surely every person within that society must also be perfect" statement. I think it's conceivable that there's emergent properties, that even with flawed parts you can have a better whole, once added up. And how far can you take that "better whole"? i.e. can you still have flawed humans but a perfect society?
(I'd argue yes, by the way, or at least to a degree; if you think about relationships where people are able to love and forgive each other, that might approach 'perfection' much more than a relationship that's simply devoid of 'bad')
I agree with you there, I was definitely brushing over the idea of how a perfect society does not need to be made up of perfect humans, and in fact this is probably the more easily achieved method of creating said perfect society.
I'd also agree with you there, I think a relationship in which no arguments or disagreements take place is almost unnatural and I guess too perfect? This could be taken further to say that a perfect human is maybe one not emotionally stable but more someone who can overcome their imperfections to resolve a situation of conflict.
Well there is no universal set of ethics or morals. Perfection is subjective. If we're talking "inherently good," then I think that's achievable. Doing more good than bad. Or as close to no bad as possible.
I think we talked about that as well. I feel like when people say someone has done something morally good or bad, it's similar to saying that gravity exists. We have observed it and collectively agreed that it exists, and so it becomes fact. Similarly, ethics and morals just seem a collective agreement on what is good and what is bad. What's interesting I think is that ethics and morals and not decided by experimentation as such and more seem to come from our own minds by default.
So for you it would be morally perfection? Or at least what we perceive to be morally perfect, i.e. only doing "good" things?
I think I even have a higher moral standard than what most people would perceive as good. Don't harm any living things, significantly reduce pollution, regulate frivolous lifestyles (no private jets, yachts, etc.) I could go on ad nauseum, but I think you'll find how subjective "good" is once you dive deeper into it.
Is a multi-millionare athlete good for donating 90 percent of their income to charity? What if the rest is used to fund their Nascar team (or other similar ecologically harmful venture?) Is being 90 percent good enough for perfection? Does it get canceled out by the other things? Is making athletes millionaires anti-perfection by virtue of overvaluing entertainment? There is no arbiter for this sort of metric. It's too vague, uncertain.
I'll admit that the definition of good is a very subjective opinion, but I guess that's what makes it interesting to talk about. Your athlete example is a very good piece of food for thought though, definitely makes me think about how good could and cannot be quantified.
I've thought about this quite a bit. The simplest answer is to not define it at all. If you are generally "nice" and "good" then we can achieve perfection. If we split hairs over every instance of goodness, and try to label it and level it, it gets mucky and wrong and argumentative.
I like that idea, where perfection is more achieved by the general populous instead of looking at an individuals actions. I still find it interesting how our notion of good and bad comes not from observation but from our own instinct. I can see how in someway these pre-programmed morals are beneficial in an evolutionary sense, but some seem to have appeared of their own accord.
Yes, precisely. To say we have an innate knowledge of good I believe to be true. You must also have the will to enact it. I'm a bit of a hippie in that I believe perfection entails no war, no famine, no excess waste. Good humanities.
So you believe that there is good in everyone, they just need to equip it? I wouldn't class myself as a hippie as such but I definitely side with a lot of their arguments. I guess it still varies though from person to person, so it's hard to say "I have the same morals as this particular group of people". Like you said, perfection is a very subjective thing.
Yes, everyone has the capacity for good. Some just find it easier to act against it.
There is no perfect unless every environment is the same. Any basket of physical and mental characteristics might be perfect if you live on a mountain that gets 4 months of winter, but would utterly fail compared to a different basket of characteristics if you lived in a temperate river Delta or a tropical rain forest.
The question has no answer without further constraints
But which society?
To function perfectly within an autocratic society, a human must be submissive and compliant. To function perfectly within a democratic society, a human must be informed and cooperative. To function perfectly within an anarchic society, a human must be self-sufficient and competent.
You need to define which society you want this hypothetical human to function in, in order for us to design the perfect human for that society.
And if you're going to refer to some "perfect" society, you need to explain why it's perfect.
In other words, there is no perfect society and there is no perfect human: it's all subjective.
You're only ever going to get Pareto-optimal people, not perfect ones.