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Someone said that ideal is when everything is perfect, but success is when you go from complete catastrophe to something workable. Because almost nothing in this world is ideal except for mathematics, it would seem that success is the greater virtue, as Albert Einstein said, "As far as laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

What do other philosophers have to say about the difference between ideal vs. success?

Fomalhaut
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  • Do we need to know the precision of PI to a 10th number to be successful in life? Probably not unless we're trying to get a gravity assist in a spaceship. On another hand even a tiniest deviation up or down in a speed of light C (which is a constant) would turn our current understanding of the universe upside down, so ideality is required in this case. – estinamir Feb 11 '23 at 18:49

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What about the sentence:

He was successful in reaching his ideal?

This shows they are not contraposing or mutually exclusive ideas and your way of phrasing this is somewhat simplistic.

Mozibur Ullah
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  • Applying your logic to my use case, is like saying that ChatGP will replace a software engineer. This remains to be seen. – estinamir Feb 13 '23 at 17:30
  • @estinamir: Can you please explain how, because I don't see why my reasoning implies that. – Mozibur Ullah Feb 14 '23 at 02:17
  • I guess I assumed incorrectly? And software engineers is still a good career. It was more like a question I wanted to ask you. Thanks – estinamir Feb 14 '23 at 03:37
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Your question is quite muddled. The word ideal implies a complete match with desirable requirements, while success implies the achievement of some sort of goal. Ideal refers therefore more to a passive set of attributes, while success implies positive change as a consequence of directed action.

Your second sentence starts with a false-premise, follows with a non-sequitur and ends with an irrelevant quote.

When you say almost nothing is ideal, you are overlooking a very common use of the word, which means that a thing or situation is adequately suited to a set of requirements. A spanner, for example, might be considered the 'ideal' tool for the loosening of a nut.

When you say success is the 'greater virtue', you are assuming that success is a virtue and that virtues can be ranked in an objective way, which is entirely questionable. I might successfully evade the payment of taxes, but that is unlikely to be considered virtuous by the taxman.

When you suggest that success must be the greater virtue because the ideal is in limited supply, you are simply wrong. I can cite many examples of rare behaviour that would be considered more virtuous than other less rare behaviours.

As for the question about what philosophers have to say about the difference between success and ideal, my answer is that whatever they have to say is almost certainly no more useful than what lexicographers have to say.

Marco Ocram
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    I am not a mathematician so it’s hard for me to understand why in physical world the success is the same as ideal, but in math which used in real world modeling they are not truly alike. – estinamir Feb 14 '23 at 17:21
  • When you live in a world where the ideal is in short supply, then from the perspective of survival of the fittest, yes it can be truthfully said that success is an objectively greater virtue. People who value ideal over success get quickly filtered out of the gene pool. – Fomalhaut Mar 03 '23 at 00:51