The Imperfection of Perfection?

For something to be perfect, it needs to have reached a state where no amount of change can improve the state which has been reached. Therefore, a state of perfection would be constant and unchanging. If there is change, then it is not perfect anymore.

Now, here's the paradox. Is something which is constant and unchanging perfect? Can something which is always the very same be perfect?

If something doesn't change, that means that that something has no energy, it doesn't generate any energy and, therefore, cannot accomplish anything.

So the paradox is that something which is perfect, as in an unchanging state that cannot be improved, is actually imperfect. The universe which we see around us is always changing and is always improving. It is in that change and that improvement that actual perfection can be observed.

How perfect is perfection?

Yaba Daba :m:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

This is the source of the japanese concept of the perfection of imperfection. I agree with you completely. If something is constant and unchanging, it's dead.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

But who knows what perfection actually is like?
We, the imperfect, attempt to make assessments of that which we don't and can't know. Not exactly a wise thing to do.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Without a mirror you can only imagine how you look like.

 

The "perfection of imperfection" is a wesmorris trademark, and I've started more than one thread on the topic long ago (thought it wasn't titled exactly that way). No one else has ever thought of the idea but me, and then people ripped me off with no credit.

Hehe.

Bah, whatever. I did stumble across the notion independently and have said plenty on the topic.

Here's a smattering:

Perfection implies design. The universe IS, and no design can be cited - regardless of whether or not there "exists" one somehow outside of the universe.

The universe cannot fail in its function. It simply performs. Whatever it does is must be flawless, as there is no "design" to compare it to in order to discern flaw. It is expectation that introduces flaws. If one for instance, postulates a design based on its function and then it is found that there exists an exception to the design, is the universe questioned about it?... or is the inferred design scrapped or tweaked to incorporate the "flaw"?

bah.

here: (from the wayback machine)

http://phi.asmallorange.com/~porfiry/showthread.php?t=15024

 

We are perfect in our imperfection. DNA is perfect because of it's errors, which allow living things to evolve. Our imperfection creates a personality, which is valued in our culture. Our mistakes allow us to learn. Imperfection in a model gives her character. If the universe were perfect, there would have been no variability in the positions between particles, and there would never have been planets, galaxies, stars, etc...

 

I suppose it all depends on the time-frame we choose to make our observations in.

 

I doubt perfection is perfection. Just like evil isn't necessarily evil. Maybe perfection is that which includes everything, even "imperfection" and "nothing" (no mind, no relation)

 

Truthseeker:

Simply because it can "do" nothing does not make it imperfect by virtue of being perfect. Without perfection, things could not be. Infinity, for instance, is perfect, and if we had not infinity, finitehood could not exist.

Wesmorris:

Upon what foundation do you base this assertion? Design, aside from Quantum Quack's "perfection of utility", does not produce perfection in the least. Infinity, for instance, cannot ever be reached by incremental means, and thus it actually fits your definition of existing in a universe that just "is".

 

It is only by comparison to design that we might gauge something's "perfection" - in real life almost always to find it short of the cause. Of course that depends on how you qualify your design. For instance if I say "I want this to be between 1 and 3 inches" and I measure 2.5, is that not "perfect" in the sense that it completely satisifies the criteria I set forth? To the end of being within 1 and 3 inches, it IS perfect. *shrug*

 

Wesmorris:

Quantum Quack would argue that if you set an appropriate criteria, and then fit that criteria, then that is a "perfection of utility".

And as to non-design based perfection: All the traditional "omni" attributes of God, are just the logical perfections of normal attributes of nature.

 

What "normal attribute of nature" results in the logical perfection "omniscient" or "omni-benevolence"?

Is benevelonce a "normal attribute of nature"?

 

Wesmorris:

Touche. I should have added a modifer: Aside from omnibenevolence. Since there is no known sign of "goodness" or "evil" in the natural world (which few would argue save for Platonists or Natural Law Theorists) then we cannot speak of omnibenevolence of any natural action. On the other hand, knowledge is known to be natural (in that it occurs in natural creatures, humans) and thus one can speak of "all knowledge" as the perfection of a natural thing.

 

Knowledge is hypothetical, an abstract construct. There is nothing 'natural' about it in the context you supply, as far as I can tell. I assert (for the fun of it) that anything you can offer to be knowledge can be expressed in terms of function.

"perfection of utility" is the only utilitarian usage of the term perfection. Hehe. So that's why I don't bother to qualify it as such.

 

Wesmorris:

A hypothetical and abstract construct? So you would argue that a carpenter has not the knowledge of carpentry? How can then he perform his craft?

 

Hehe... uhm.

Hold on I'm gathering my notes. (getting my BS generator functioning)

By expanding his function to encompass utility in a fashion that garners a desired output.

*clears throat*

*runs away*

 

*********
Truth*seeker: For something to be perfect, it needs to have reached a state where no amount of change can improve the state which has been reached
*********

But.....but.......let me tell you something.

ultimate good is excellence.
ultimate bad is poorness.

To "improve" means to make make better by adding good, so what good woould it do to add good to excellence?
This is why perfection is perfect:

perfect<-------- does not need improvement.


**********
Spider*gonads:
We are perfect in our imperfection
*****

Be quiet!!!

 

My micro analysis is beginning to conflict with my macro-analysis. Hmm.

Time for some basket-weaving:

"knowledge" is necessarily subjective, as it can only exist as such. As such, it doesn't apply to 'objects' of nature unless they possess a demonstrable POV. Agreed?

 

Wesmorris:

Your BS generator is superb!

Tamponia:

Reminds me of Plato's "Gorgias", one of my favourite of his dialogues.

Agreed. Intelligence is required for subjectivity.

 

He who sees orgainization must possess an unorgainized mind to see such. He who sees unorganization must possess an organized mind to see such. They simply compliment each other.