Though it uses obfuscating philosophical language about consequentalism and teleologicalismisticness and crap like that, Game Theory and the Social Contract has, for me, resolved much of the paradox between whether we should focus on what is or what could be. I've always had some conflict between them, between idealism and realism.

It seems like we have to focus on what is, because if what we want is to make our lives or our friends lives or the world better, or at least more like we want them to be, we have to work within reality. Musing about impossible possibilities is mere intellectual masturbation. Yet it seems like we also should focus on what could be, because otherwise we cannot figure out what direction to try to push the world. We are stuck with what we have if we cannot imagine other options. As Flow (which I just finished) says, Action without Reflection is blind, Reflection without Action is impotent.

The resolution, like much of truth, is simple and commonsensical once we hear it. Reality must be our guide as to what can be, to the feasible worlds. If something is not feasible, if its is not an equilibria reachable by a sequence of equilibria, it is pointless to consider it. But there are many feasible worlds, and so we need "oughts", evaluations by whatever criteria we choose (moral, aesthetic, religious), as our tools for choosing among them. We Reflect, but only upon Actions that we can and may take. We Act, but in ways that our Reflections tell us are effective ways of getting to better worlds.

Thus we neither ignore the possible improvements, nor waste time thinking about impossible ones. The answer matches my intuition, but that's a black box and I'd rather have a clearly expressed principle.

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