Hey! I'm not a pessimist but have a mixed opinion about this statement.

• Obviously this condition is never going to achieve because all our wishes are interconnected in a way (in both the same and the opposite way). It's totally an imaginary condition.
  
• Let's just hope for a second, that such a condition appears even though after that, we will get new wishes. Our wishes are never-ending, even if Jack obtained his Jill, maybe life seems boring to him and he discovers a new Jill (I don't want that though, it will ruin our childhood). But yup wishes are never-ending.
  
• I think Schopenhauer is right in a way, that if such a condition appears then

there would be wars, massacres, and murders

but he conflict his own words, war, murders, and everything again ruins the equilibrium Schopenhauer trying to establish by fulfilling everyone's wish.


P.S.: There is a Bollywood film, named "God Tussi great ho" (God you are great), in that film the hero was angry with God because God is not fulfilling people wishes, so God gives him this opportunity to fulfill everyone's dream and then films goes on...(explaining things from different aspect). Film is not great though, but the idea is kinda good.

Our wishes are never-ending, even if Jack obtained his Jill, maybe life seems boring to him and he discovers a new Jill (I don't want that though, it will ruin our childhood). But yup wishes are never-ending. — theWhiteLight

But Schopenhauer said that all wishes were to be fulfilled in that scenario. Wouldn't you say Jack would also wish to never feel bored? So that wish must also be granted and then he wouldn't have anything to complain about. If he is still bored that would just mean that one of his wishes hasn't been fulfilled.

Dissatisfaction drives Humanity.

Any pessimists out there who'd like to defend Schopenhauer on this point? — Amalac

You're in luck! I am a full-blooded, card-carrying philosophical pessimist :D.

So you do bring up some interesting points. I think from one perspective, you might be right. If life was a paradise, there would be no negative state, including boredom.

However, Schopenhauer's metaphysics is that of Will, which in its mediated form, is felt in the "lack" (it's always negative and never positive). So, that quote really should go with this quote:

Then again, how insatiable a creature is man! Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will. And why is this? The real reason is simply that, taken in itself, Will is the lord of all worlds: everything belongs to it, and therefore no one single thing can ever give it satisfaction, but only the whole, which is endless. For all that, it must rouse our sympathy to think how very little the Will, this lord of the world, really gets when it takes the form of an individual; usually only just enough to keep the body together. This is why man is so very miserable.

Life presents itself chiefly as a task—the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won—of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden.

Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us—an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest—when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon—an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature—shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious. — Schopenhauer

Thus paradise can never be obtained in his worldview. Rather, what he sees as equivalent to paradise would be an end of lacking all together. That would mean metaphysically "being" all existence or having no existence at all. So I think his quote about Jack and Jill can only be seen in light of the context of his metaphysics of a world where we can never NOT lack as a manifestation of Will. Even in what we THINK is paradise (like the Jack and Jill scenario you quoted), we would lack something.. even if it is just the bare restlessness of existence itself (i.e. the state of boredom).

if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose — Arthur Schopenhauer

Then people could wish to be happy with whatever they had and to wish for nothing more. The wish would be granted. And they all lived happily ever after.

People can be content. It may not happen when they are 5, 15, 25, or 45, but as one ages (and understands the limitations of wishes) it becomes increasingly possible. Do we ever become totally content? There is no discontent in death, so there is that.

For most people (everywhere) the desires are for more materiel, because materiel is concrete, easily conceptualized, and (maybe) available. Better "art" (more moving, thrilling, unforgettable, riveting, meaningful, satisfying, complex... novels, poems, sculpture, music, painting, etc.) are more difficult to conceptualize, therefore more difficult to wish for.

We don't have to worry about it too much, because most people are about as close to paradise as they are ever going to get, and it isn't all that great.

So, question: do philosophical optimists wish for more, or are they content with what they have? I'd say the latter.

Even in what we THINK is paradise (like the Jack and Jill scenario you quoted), we would lack something.. even if it is just the bare restlessness of existence itself (i.e. the state of boredom). — schopenhauer1

I mean, I'm fine with lacking that. Is there a reason why we should not lack anything? In that paradise we also lack pain and despair, but it doesn't seem like that's bad in the least.

Dissatisfaction drives Humanity. — New2K2

Perfect point. Also the nature is humans is being so selfish. They will never been fulfilled because humans don’t know how we can be fulfilled. That’s why we call it “desires” because it is something in our stimulus perception of selfishness.
Probably some people barely can afford food each month but they desire a Play Station or a brand new mobile. It is selfish. When they would get those then they would want a new house, etc...
It is impossible for the human’s desires to be fulfilled.

The perfect existence possible is a singularity, which can never be anything but a self-contradiction. Any other form of existence is at least vaguely aware of lack.

One idea is the law of attraction, developed by Esther and Jeremy Hicks, and a number of others, which suggests that we can draw the circumstances which we desire to us. A lot of people do find this helpful and I have experimented with it. I find it works to some extent. However, I do still get a lot of unpleasant experiences and this is supposed to be about aspects of the subconscious which oppose our conscious wishes and desires.

However, I don't think this is meant to be about wishing harm to others, which is another issue altogether. I would think that the person may be best to consider why they wish for that. It may point to something deeper.We could also ask if we got everything we wished for would not develop any wisdom? So, it may be worth reaching for the heights in what we wish for, but with some awareness that it may not even be desirable to fulfill all of our desires.

From my own experience and from the little that I've gleaned from the experiences of others, we definitely want "a world where everyone's desires are fulfilled" but we're not sure, as your question shows, whether such a world is desirable. There seems to be something going on between want and desirable and I can't quite put my finger on it at the moment.

If all desires are fulfilled, then soon a person will appear who wants all desires of everyone NOT to be fulfilled. And the great recursion will come. :)

I would think that the person may be best to consider why they wish for that. It may point to something deeper.We could also ask if we got everything we wished for would not develop any wisdom? So, it may be worth reaching for the heights in what we wish for, but with some awareness that it may not even be desirable to fulfill all of our desires. — Jack Cummins

I understand that many people (myself included) wish to believe that “all sin is due to ignorance”, as philosophers like Spinoza thought, and that if bad people were wiser they would abstain from evil actions.

But it's not obvious to me whether that's always true or not, since it is after all possible for the person who wishes for another's death to say: “Because I genuinely want that to happen, and I would feel so good if X, who I hate so much, dissappeared”, and even after examining all the arguments against his wish he may still not see anything wrong with his thoughts and desires.

On personal ethical matters, the final and ultimate basis of one's beliefs seems to be either some feeling, or some belief that is by no means self-evident, such as belief in God's divine punishment in the afterlife.

But people who have different feelings or different beliefs towards the same thing probably won't be persuaded by any “wisdom”. And there is at present no way of proving that they are wrong or that the ones who disagree with them are right.

However, it seems to me that we do not wish those things for their own sake, rather we wish them beacuse we realize that if they happened that would cause us to feel some good sensation (pleasure, happiness, joy, peace of mind, tranquility, etc.) in our brains/minds, whether it's an immediate or a future “good sensation”.

In that case, we only need to feel those sensations directly: the man who wishes for the other person's death actually wishes to feel the sensation produced by that other person's death. If so, it can be given to him without killing the other person, and the same could be done to all other contradictory desires among people, and in fact to all desires in general.

If all desires are fulfilled, then soon a person will appear who wants all desires of everyone NOT to be fulfilled. And the great recursion will come. :) — SimpleUser

True, like I responded to another user the only way out of such a situation seems to be this: The man who wishes for everyone's desires not to be fulfilled actually is saying something like: It would feel so good if I could ruin everyone else's desires.

And in that case, the wish that is to be granted is just the sensation he would feel if that happened, without the need for it to actually happen.

And so, the others could still have their desires fulfilled.

I think that there are so many perspectives, especially the subjective. I think that it can be that some fulfilment of desires leads to a happier and higher level of functioning. If I get Jill I may be much more positive to be around than if I am unhappy Jack, moping in a corner.

Also, at face value the desire to kill someone may appear to be based on a sensation, but it may not be that simple. It could be that the desire is based upon the way that person is having in their life. However, we may be talking about a certain desire arising and it does not mean that the person would actively try to fulfill that desire. Many people may experience such a desire but realise that it would be a problem to act upon it.

True, like I responded to another user the only way out of such a situation seems to be this: The man who wishes for everyone's desires not to be fulfilled actually is saying something like: It would feel so good if I could ruin everyone else's desires. — Амалак

Then all desires can be considered the same, seeming. Otherwise, it turns out that there are "right" desires and "false"?

Why is it that a boy raised on a remote island somewhere can find joy in building sand castles, collecting shells, and watching the clouds or the tides rise and fall, when a boy raised in a mansion in upstate New York always needs a new video game or iPhone every month?

Why are some men's favorite time of day just sitting around by a fire and telling stories, perhaps playing games either in or kept score by simple marks in the sand, just socializing with others, while for some, doing so would be a chore they'd pay to get out of.

The hedonic treadmill, perhaps? Probably. Perhaps we're all just chasing shiny objects at the end of the day, in an effort to feel more alive and human in an inhumane world. Perhaps, it is the shiny objects that chase us, gradually robbing us of our humanity. Does a man drink a can of beer until it's empty? Or does the beer drink the man until he's empty? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves. Before too late.

I mean, I'm fine with lacking that. Is there a reason why we should not lack anything? In that paradise we also lack pain and despair, but it doesn't seem like that's bad in the least. — Amalac

So I think other posters have stated it too, but Schopenhauer's main metaphysics is that of dissatisfaction and unrest. Thus, he was giving a sort of false paradise. What we think is paradise, is actually laying bare the patent unrest that characterizes existence. The boredom and then the self-inflicted injuries that he predicts would ensue would start the suffering cycle all over again.

Then all desires can be considered the same, seeming. Otherwise, it turns out that there are "right" desires and "false"? — SimpleUser

They are the same in the sense that they are merely something that occurs in one's mind, that fact itself is neither right nor wrong.

What may be right or wrong is a judgement concerning that desire, or justifying an action with that desire.

at face value the desire to kill someone may appear to be based on a sensation, but it may not be that simple. It could be that the desire is based upon the way that person is having in their life. — Jack Cummins

True, it could be that they are simply accustomed to that life style and were taught since their early life that it was good or normal to do or think such things.

Though even in that case one could argue they may still act looking (indirectly) for a good sensation, since they could find it painful or annoying to act contrary to the habits they acquired from their early infancy, and since they think there's nothing bad with those actions or desires, they may act according to them since they think they will feel better than if they don't (unconsciously most of the time).

I am really talking about conflict over desire, although I am aware that the passage from Schopenhauer is talking about boredom. However, I do believe that the difficulty of desire may be about conflict in achieving them. Of course, life is different in our time. What that means is that our satisfaction of desires may be done differently. We may watch television, use the internet and probably have a different repertoire of working with desires.

You speak of sensation and I am not sure that desires are purely physical, because they involve the emotions. The emotions arise physically but they are bound up with conscious wishes, so are idea related. In the case I spoke of a person who feels oppressed by another and experience a desire to kill that person it may be based on an idea of the impact this has. It may be experienced as a sensation but even as an intrusive thought. It is at that level that we may experience conflict because we don't just have sensations but thoughts about them.

Getting back to the idea of boredom, we could ask if that is an actual sensation, experienced bodily, because it could be experienced more as an absence. So, really, Shopenhauer's Jack may just be left with a void of craving if he did not have to work to win Jill's love. So, it seems that the presence of craving is seen as worth having as opposed to boredom. The question is whether boredom is really the worst possible scenario. What is boredom exactly? Is it simply a sensation?

Getting back to the idea of boredom, we could ask if that is an actual sensation, experienced bodily, because it could be experienced more as an absence. So, really, Shopenhauer's Jack may just be left with a void of craving if he did not have to work to win Jill's love. So, it seems that the presence of craving is seen as worth having as opposed to boredom. The question is whether boredom is really the worst possible scenario. What is boredom exactly? Is it simply a sensation? — Jack Cummins

@Amalac

The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present—the ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form ​of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.

In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope—in such a world, happiness is inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.

At the same time it is a wonderful thing that, in the world of human beings as in that of animals in general, this manifold restless motion is produced and kept up by the agency of two simple impulses—hunger and the sexual instinct; aided a little, perhaps, by the influence of boredom, but by nothing else; and that, in the theatre of life, these suffice to form the ​primum mobile of how complicated a machinery, setting in motion how strange and varied a scene!

On looking a little closer, we find that inorganic matter presents a constant conflict between chemical forces, which eventually works dissolution; and on the other hand, that organic life is impossible without continual change of matter, and cannot exist if it does not receive perpetual help from without. This is the realm of finality; and its opposite would be an infinite existence, exposed to no attack from without, and needing nothing to support it; [Greek: haei hosautos dn], the realm of eternal peace; [Greek: oute giguomenon oute apollumenon], some timeless, changeless state, one and undiversified; the negative knowledge of which forms the dominant note of the Platonic philosophy. It is to some such state as this that the denial of the will to live opens up the way.

The scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off. So, to gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again. We look upon the present as something to be put up with while it lasts, and serving only as the way towards our goal. Hence most people, if they glance back when they come to the end of life, will find that all along they have been living ad interim: they will be surprised to find that the very thing they disregarded and let slip by unenjoyed was just ​the life in the expectation of which they passed all their time. Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death!

Then again, how insatiable a creature is man! Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will. And why is this? The real reason is simply that, taken in itself, Will is the lord of all worlds: everything belongs to it, and therefore no one single thing can ever give it satisfaction, but only the whole, which is endless. For all that, it must rouse our sympathy to think how very little the Will, this lord of the world, really gets when it takes the form of an individual; usually only just enough to keep the body together. This is why man is so very miserable.

Life presents itself chiefly as a task—the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won—of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden.

Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to ​boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us—an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest—when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon—an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature—shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.
— Schopenhauer

But I am not convinced that all life is miserable. That is Schopenhauer's subjective perspective. Personally, I find that it has extreme lows and highs, and some inbetween times. But it does come down to personal experience and interpretation.

I guess I was just trying to give the best quote to highlight the OP's questions. He likens a sort of unrest/motionless/Platonic realm as a sort of "the" actual realm of paradise of sorts.. It is a negation of all lack, a perpetual stillness likened to nothingness.. and similar to Buddhist ideals, etc.

Thus the OP asking why Jack and Jill scenario is not good enough for a paradise, I think that whole quote kind of gets at Schop's major point. It gives it more context.

Okay, that's fine, because the discussion did begin with Schopenhauer, and I probably was stretching the question in other directions.

Any pessimists out there who'd like to defend Schopenhauer on this point? — Amalac

From the Psychology of Being:

"So far as the person himself is concerned, all he knows is that he is desperate for love, and thinks he will be forever happy and content if he gets it. He does not know in advance that he will strive on after this gratification has come, and that gratification of one basic need opens consciousness to domination by another, "higher" need. So far as he is concerned, the absolute, ultimate value, synonymous with life itself, is whichever need in the hierarchy he is dominated by during a particular period. These basic needs or basic values therefore be treated both as ends and as steps toward a single end-goal. It is true that there is a single, ultimate value or end of life and also it is just as true that we have a hierarchical and developmental system of values, complexly interrelated.

This also helps to solve the apparent paradox of contrast between Being and Becoming... ."

AH Maslow

Maslow seems to be the antithesis of Schopenhauer here.. Maslow is buying into the scheme of becoming, in Hegelian fashion (someone Schopenhauer despised, though one of many). Schopenhauer's ideal is Platonic rest or being.

However, I can see the relevance of Maslow's ideas, because he is suggesting that when one need is met this becomes a basis for moving on to the next one up in the hierarchy. Also, it would be easy to compare the whole idea of desires with needs, because both could be seen as arising from the essence of human nature, even though the actual idealised goal of the two thinkers is vastly different.

However, I can see the relevance of Maslow's ideas, because he is suggesting that when one need is met this becomes a basis for moving on to the next one up in the hierarchy. Also, it would be easy to compare the whole idea of desires with needs, because both could be seen as arising from the essence of human nature. — Jack Cummins

Yes, but just pointing out that this wouldn't be the salvation-worldview of Schop. Maslow is essentially saying that "there is somewhere to go, and someone to be, and something to do". Schopenhauer is saying that this is the illusion. Stop. Rest. Stillness. Stasis.

Maslow's ideal is something akin to a famous social activist or scientist. Schopenhauer's is the Buddha.

So, really, Shopenhauer's Jack may just be left with a void of craving if he did not have to work to win Jill's love. So, it seems that the presence of craving is seen as worth having as opposed to boredom. — Jack Cummins

If he is bored because his life is too easy, all he has to do is to wish that he were not bored (if in fact any and all of his desires are to be fulfilled in that “possible world” Schopenhauer describes).

we could ask if that is an actual sensation, experienced bodily, because it could be experienced more as an absence — Jack Cummins

But see, you yourself say that it could be experienced as an absence. Whatever is experienced is a sensation, and all sensations are produced by the brain (such is the view suggested by the empirical evidence, anyway), and therefore in that sense boredom is bodily too.

Unless you are a mind-body dualist. But even in that case, even if the experience were not “bodily”, that is still something you experience and that we would call “bad” (not as bad as pain of course, but still bad) is it not?

The question is whether boredom is really the worst possible scenario. — Jack Cummins

I think it's obviously not the worst possible scenario. I'd much rather feel bored than feel a horrible pain in my stomach, for example.

I think that your view of Maslow is a bit wrong because he is not just a social activist or scientist. He places great emphasis on peak experiences. Even though the Buddha stressed the overcoming of desire as a goal, he did also stress enlightenment.