Limitations and the meaning of life - The Brussels Philosophy Meetup

We are living in an age of ever increasing intelligence and power. Individual humans haven’t really become any smarter or more powerful, but together we’ve developed systems that increase the control we exert over our environment. If we look at a country like China for example, the last 50 years have seen an undeniable and unprecedented increase in living standards, which correlates with an increase in happiness and life satisfaction.

Another way to look at this is that we’re constantly finding ways to overcome the limitations imposed on us by life/existence/the universe. Hungry? Just go to the supermarket! Had a bad fall? Here is surgery and some painkillers! Cold? Open your tap and warm water flows out like magic!

What if we follow this process to its conclusion? What does a world without struggle, problems or limitations look like? What would the absence of limitations do to our behavior, our values and our ethics? Would we still be human or does something get lost along the way? Is our current intelligence explosion missing a balancing wisdom explosion?

We’ll be approaching these topics by thinking creatively about the following concrete questions among others:

- If we had a vaccine against lung cancer, why shouldn’t we smoke?

- If we could suck all of the CO2 out of the air, why shouldn’t we continue using fossil fuels?

- If antidepressants had no side effects, why shouldn’t we all take them to deal with grief?

- If we could breed animals (human or nonhuman) without pain receptors, why shouldn’t we eat them?

- If all human activity could be automated, why shouldn’t we become “WALL-E people”?