What is perfection?

[Abdul Fattah]

1. my "as good as it gets" may be very different from yours.

Yes of course, that's why I pointed out in my first post to you that there's a difference between
1. Acknowledging that there technically exists an "as good as it gets"
2. Proposing that a certain option is as good as it gets.

2. the reason why measurability would be necessary, is simply to provide an objective criterion, without which the judgement "perfection" remains subjective. yes, we can each conceptualize a checklist for what constitutes a perfect expresso - but it will be individual (subjective) and mine may be very different than yours.

Remember that language is only a medium to communicate ideas. If I make a checklist, and then can make the espresso according to it, my perfect espresso exists. If you can do the same yours exists to. Just because we disagree on which one of them is perfect, doesn't change that they do exist. again I would argue that our inability to reach agreement on what the criteria would be reflects more on our incompetence rather then on an inherited flaw of perfection. Btw, I never claimed that I know exactly what perfection is like, I only state that I believe it does exist.

3. this one i agree with 100% - just because we can't measure it, does not mean it doesn't exist - simply that there is no objective way of proving its existence.

I think the proof I offered ranma was both subjective as accurate.

you cannot put god in a test tube - does this prove that he doesn't exist?

there's a difference between debating on the existence of god and debating on the existence of perfection. I haven't said anything about god in any posts of this thread as far as I know.

all i am saying is that i don't think "perfection" exists as an absolute.

Yes, I agree hence one of my previous posts:
I'd argue, that language carries an inherited ambiguity, not only in the defenition of perfection, but also in the definition of cup of coffee, that renders the debate of whether or not perfection exists into a strictly semantical one. In the end neither one of us would argue that there isn't such thing as "the best possible form"

Funny how people keep arguing against my posts only to reach a conclusion I have reached several posts ago.

 

[snakelegs]

Funny how people keep arguing against my posts only to reach a conclusion I have reached several posts ago.

ok - no more argue. eace:

 

[ranma1/2]

ok so it sounds like that almost everyone agrees that perfection does not exists but is subjective.

 

[barney]

ok so it sounds like that almost everyone agrees that perfection does not exists but is subjective.

A perfect answer!

 

[truemuslim]

yep.
unless perfection is god.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

ok so it sounds like that almost everyone agrees that perfection does not exists but is subjective.

No I agree that utopian perfection does not exist.
I also agree that as good as it gets kind of perfection is subjective but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Hamas]

Assalamu Alaikum,

Firstly im not speaking in the context of God, im speaking in the context of humans, as in me, myself. If i made a gadget or some kind of machine and that machine did its job to the best of its ability and was in accordance with the reason of my making it that to me is perfect that to me is perfection.

You dont have to connect a humans perfection with the perfection of God and you cant even if you wanted to because when you talk about the perfection of God, your talking about a whole new level, a far more advanced level of perfection, one that humans can not even comprehend nor begin to achieve.

God is one, in His essence, His attributes and His acts. No one has partnership with Him in any matter. His existing and His living are not of the same category as the existing and living of created things. His knowledge bears no resemblance to their knowledge. His seeing, hearing, power, will and speech are not similar to, and share nothing with the seeing, hearing, power, will and speech of creation. Aside from the similarity of sharing these names, there is no similarity or sharing.

The court of the Lord is an endless one. The closer you approach, the further you find you have to go...

JazakAllah

 

[ranma1/2]

No I agree that utopian perfection does not exist.
I also agree that as good as it gets kind of perfection is subjective but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

i think calling as good as it gets "perfection" just really doesnt work since teh best option availble could be pretty horrible. There could also be better options that arent availble at the time.
you can have a choice of
green tea ice cream or pickle.
green tea is as good as it gets.

Of course there are other possibliities just not available.


the human eyes coudl be much better formed than they are. we only have the one choice that we came with so by default they are as good as ti gets.
(thankfully we can do surgery.)

 

[Abdul Fattah]

i think calling as good as it gets "perfection" just really doesnt work since teh best option availble could be pretty horrible.

If even the best option is horrible, that means that the situation is horrible, not the options. Doesn't change that the best among those options is still the perfect option in the sense that there is no better alternative.

There could also be better options that arent availble at the time.

that's a play on words, if it's not available it's not an option for this situation. If later it becomes available again, we're dealing with a different situation altogether.

the human eyes coudl be much better formed than they are.

How so?

we only have the one choice that we came with so by default they are as good as ti gets.
(thankfully we can do surgery.)

My motivation for believing that it's as good as it gets is because I think it's the best design without compromising certain criteria. Not simply because "we don't have a choice". See when I mean the different options, I don't mean the different choices we can make, I simply mean the different forms, they could have been created in.

 

[ranma1/2]

are you saying someone with poor formed eyes couldnt have better eyes? (near sighted, far sighted, blind ect...?) Could humans have better than 20/20 vision, see untraviolet, ect??

 

[Abdul Fattah]

are you saying someone with poor formed eyes couldnt have better eyes? (near sighted, far sighted, blind ect...?) Could humans have better than 20/20 vision, see untraviolet, ect??

There's a different in saying that the design is flawed, and saying that some people have imperfect eyes (since they aren't formed according to the design). I'd say if you have the current 20/20 it's far enough. There's no need for humans to have further sight or to see ultraviolet for that matter. In fact I think seeing UV might actually cloud our vision more, especially on sunny days. As for extra focus like the eagle eyes, that comes at price. The more you can focus the less panoramic view you have. A perfect eye would have a balance. Also where would you draw the line? at each limit of sight you could say that a further sight is even better. Would you want unlimited distance? I think that might be confusing to. Also note that we need to consider the amplitude and wavelength of photons when dealing with the sight of far away objects. Of course as a creator of the universe, you could change that to, but then you would have to adjust the photon receptors in the eye, you would have to remake the quarks that photons are made up out, and pretty much rebalance the whole universe and it's physics from big bang on. When I say "best possible form"; it's important not to lose sight of the word "possible" because for every change you would make there is a consequence that needs to be balanced out. You need to see the bigger picture here.

 

[ranma1/2]

There's a different in saying that the design is flawed, and saying that some people have imperfect eyes (since they aren't formed according to the design).

that seems to be a flaw int he design if it can form imperfectly.



I'd say if you have the current 20/20 it's far enough. There's no need for humans to have further sight or to see ultraviolet for that matter. In fact I think seeing UV might actually cloud our vision more, especially on sunny days. [/QUOTE] Some humans do see in the ultraviolet. (more common among women as i recall, and it doesnt cloud their vision.) Ill see if can get a source.

As for extra focus like the eagle eyes, that comes at price. The more you can focus the less panoramic view you have. A perfect eye would have a balance. Also where would you draw the line? at each limit of sight you could say that a further sight is even better. Would you want unlimited distance?

HUmans ahve also been known to have better than 20/20 vision as well so its clear our eyes are not perfect or as good as it is possible to get. (and you would think god could make a design without flaws. Its not limited in what it can do is it?)

... When I say "best possible form"; it's important not to lose sight of the word "possible" because for every change you would make there is a consequence that needs to be balanced out. You need to see the bigger picture here.

and a perfect being would have no problem doing that. (of course if it all happened naturally then what we have is what we would expect. Somethign good enough. (not perfect but good enough)

of course one other neat little factoid is that some poeple cane even see music or smells or tastes ( i think its thought of as some sort of automatic creativity in the brain) of course this isnt realted to anythign but it was on the topic of vision.

 

[Abdul Fattah]

that seems to be a flaw int he design if it can form imperfectly.

I tend to disagree. Like I said in the other post; there could be reasons that some people are created with flaws in the design. Some peopel might be born with these flaws in order to test them, as well as to test those around them. Flaws can also be a reminder to mankind how dependent they actually are.

Some humans do see in the ultraviolet. (more common among women as i recall, and it doesnt cloud their vision.) Ill see if can get a source.

Yeah some source would be nice ^_^

HUmans ahve also been known to have better than 20/20 vision as well so its clear our eyes are not perfect or as good as it is possible to get. (and you would think god could make a design without flaws. Its not limited in what it can do is it?)

Yes I know, my optician told me I had 11/10 vision. However over the years my eyesight got worse, and now I'm down to 10/10. With glasses I can get my 11/10 sight back. Still, the difference in depth view is only small (perhaps a meter or so). Hardly anything you can count as significant in this debate.

and a perfect being would have no problem doing that. (of course if it all happened naturally then what we have is what we would expect. Somethign good enough. (not perfect but good enough)

I'm not saying that a perfect creator wouldn't be able to balance these request you have. What I am saying, is that perhaps if you balance in these few insignificant things (like further eyesight, and UV-sight); for all we know, the end result might actually be less perfect. You can't just say this feature will be nice, so a form with it is more perfect then one without it. You'd have to first balance the form, and then compare the completely different form. Something that we humans could only test by a parallel universe experiment.