the ultimate perfection

[Amorphos]

the ultimate perfection

going back to plato’s notion of forms [as metaphoric] can we find perfection amongst things and then an ultimate perfection?

we live in a world that is constantly changing in a way that seams fluid, yet within this change can we say that perfection is arrived at ~ indeed is it what existence strives for, the reason for all things? if we break don this flux of change there are certain ideas to be noted...

‘truths of the transformative are no truer than that of the complete or formed’ by this i mean that any set of values, principles or laws that we attribute to the transforming nature of existence, are no truer than what we consider for the completed form or end of task entity. if we look at a cup, it is referred to as a holistic object, we would say that there is no such thing as ‘cup’ only that there is a flux which at some point in the transformative process appears to be what we call a ‘cup’. what though if we say that a cup is a thing in and of itself, is this any less true than the vague reference to it as part of a changing process?

we could instead site e.g. an atom as a perfect object, indeed any combination in the periodic table can be so. perhaps unstable compounds are not so perfect though, nevertheless an atom is little different to a cup as it can be changed to yet is its own entity.

there is another side to this in philosophy, where it is asked; if we build a ship then continually replace its parts until all the new parts have been replaced, it is still the same ship? it would look the same and be the same to all intense purposes, yet every part of it would have changed. we may see ourselves much in the same light, every cell in our bodies change over time, do we remain the same person?

answer; when we build the ship it is to a blueprint a desired outcome is achieved in the building of it. once it is the ship as desired, it makes no difference if all the parts are changed as we still have the same entity!

let us look at this problem on another level i.e. in terms of truths. we will begin to explore the idea of an ultimate perfection as the blueprint and desire of existence...
as an anarchist i like this one so i’ll restate it...

if we say; ‘genius is the result of the entire product of man’.

then can we take this to a more universal level and say; ‘perfection is the result of a collection of imperfections’ & ‘a series of random imperfections will always give rise to a state of perfection’.

thence; ‘eternity is the result of all perfections’.

so is ‘god’ all perfection? no, we can have all examples of perfection, but they cannot be attributed to a single definitive entity e.g. you cannot have a perfect circle and a perfect square as part of the same perfection, they must be their own distinct forms of perfection. we may only have a place where they all reside at least in idea. the problem then arises that there can be no change as all things must remain as they are. however we may have perfection interacting with perfection without changing it. in fact back down here on earth we only have occasional imperfection in comparison to perfections made.

how can we call a thing perfect:
even if we conclude that the blue print for the ship is itself an imperfect thing, the execution of the construction [even if that process itself is imperfect] results in the perfect example of what is desired in the blueprint.

universal evolution is then a process of finding perfections, the blueprint is in the potentiality for a given entity.

what then can be the result of all perfections ~ what is ultimately achieved?

here we enter the idea that there are different levels of perfection. we can say that all through evolution we arrive at different examples like a mouse is a perfect mouse, a human is a perfect human. is an ape though an imperfect human? yes and no, it is a perfection but it is not as perfect as the next generation of forms along its evolutionary line.

in human terms we may not yet have reached ‘the perfect version’ of human, it may or may not be so that we could for example, make perfect inventions, perfect philosophies and have a complete and perfect scientific grand theory of everything, indeed we may stop growing beards ~ so was plato imperfect lols.

if we now take the collected works of the universe, then multiply that by infinity ~ so that somewhere along the line we have to concede that eventually the all-perfect thing is reached, what could that all-perfect entity be?

note the answer may be exactly the same as if we ask ‘must all things come to an end’, what would that state be? so we have the positive and negative example, both of which amount to the same thing? but what would that be ~ moreover how can the universe end up there?

[Problem Sleuth]

There is no such thing as perfection, as, in reality, there is nothing that is any more or less beneficial to the Universe. It just is, and it doesn't matter if a bunch of self-sustaining chemical reactions in this infinitesimally small portion of it shift the area themselves with thermonuclear explosions to end the sulf-sustinence. There's no more perfection than there is a point to the Universe or an answer to life, the Universe, and everything. Other than 42.

[Amorphos]

bertinator, hi

there are many things that are beneficial to the universe, energy for example, without it, it would not exist.

it doesn’t matter if a bunch of self-sustaining chemical reactions in this infinitesimally small portion of it shift the area themselves with thermonuclear explosions to end the sulf-sustinence.

what if we and everything else are part of the equation? every time we make something we add to the perfection speeding the universes development towards the ultimate example of itself, and adding to the pool of eternity.

42 is 7 X 6 a form of perfection.

[Problem Sleuth]

there are many things that are beneficial to the universe, energy for example, without it, it would not exist.

It isn't beneficial because it doesn't 'help' the Universe. If you grab a hunk of dirt and slap more mud on it, are you helping the dirt? No. Because either way, it's irrelevant, as there's no 'goal' to be beneficial towards.

what if we and everything else are part of the equation? every time we make something we add to the perfection speeding the universes development towards the ultimate example of itself, and adding to the pool of eternity.

There's no 'goal' for the Universe, and therefore no way to be perfect... You can't solve an equation if all you're given is a blank piece of paper.

42 is 7 X 6 a form of perfection.

So am I.

[Gary88]

well in regards to plato's forms i guess we would never be able to appreciate perfection because we would never for sure know if we were out in the real world or simply in a bigger cave with a bigger fire still just looking at the shadows cast by perfection.

[Eli Phoenix]

The whole view of perfection is obscured by our bias views...In order to achieve an unbias view of perfection we must ask ourselves why do I think there is no view of perfection? and what is perfection to me? everyone has their own view of perfection...it's just a matter of questioning it...

[Hunter Makoy]

Simply put the only way to achieve perfection, or to even be able to notice it, is to be perfect your self. U would have to know universal truth, and universal knowledge. Because we cannot know these things, perfection has generally been discarded as futile.

As far as wat would be considered perfect, i can think of only 2 examples: the cosmological situation of the Earth, and a perfect game in Baseball.

the earth is almost perfectly situated for us. its size, its composition, its distance from the sun, even the gas giants further out from the earth, all of that is there to insure life on this planet. any closer to the sun, and it would be to hot, and further, and it would be too cold. any bigger or smaller, and it wouldn't be able to have the correct composition. take Jupiter and Saturn away, and we have nothing to help sheild us from meteors.

and then of course the perfect game of baseball, no hits, no walks, no errors. there is no way to score a better game. while in any individual perfect game, there may be ways to have made the achievement easier, it no less comes to the same conclusion.

but again all of these rest on our unperfect assumption of perfect. u would have to be perfect, and see perfect, in order to understand wat it truely is. in the same way an amature could never truely criticize a pro, and a pro, no matter how many times he beats an amature, could never call himself great.

because there r always tradeoffs that have to be made, and u can never increase a positive without possibly increasing a negative. how can we even look at certain things and believe that one change could make it a lot better, while unknown to us, that change also creates a negative, which stops the achievement of perfection.

everyone lives in their own world, everyone's world is different from anyone elses, and there for there can never be a Universal anything.

[Amorphos]

hunter makoy

interesting point about perfection being arrived at for the earth and baseball. these are certainly evidence of cosmic perfection being sought and occasionally obtained. at some point the cosmic order wont be so grand e.g. the moon is moving away from us so an eclipse wont always be the same it will one day be partial only. the perfect game is rarely achieved and happens like a flash in the night.

but again all of these rest on our unperfect assumption of perfect.

this is a very good point, as like what gary88 was saying about us only seeing the shadows cast by the light of perfection. how do you know that we are not perfect? we may be the ultimate example of what the universe builds to and is here for, we could literally be the perfect form! secondly as like in my opening post; the blueprint for us has been achieved thus we are at the very least perfect humans.

there are it seams different levels of perfection. indeed we may even ask if that is all there is i.e. everything is a perfect example of itself?

perhaps if we could see the blueprint of existence we could know what ultimate perfection is? i see no reason why we are not equiped to find the blueprint.

[Hunter Makoy]

with the cosmos, as u say, it shows how fleeting and temporary natural perfection is. while it may be perfect now, it will not always be that way. and wat is not perfect now, may, for a breif period of time, be perfect in the future.

same with baseball, it comes more as a fluke, or a stroke of luck, then pure will, because the entities involved, r themselves imperfect.

on the last note, that was a point that i ment to touch on more fully. because that is absolutely correct, because our perceptions, we can never truely know, it may very well be true that we r perfection, to an extent. we seem to believe that we r not perfect because of certain flaws, wars, poverty, and so on. but with universal balance, it could be that we have reached the perfect balance. if we take out something negative, like poverty, we might end up losing something positive as well. perfect does not have to mean universal good. there will always be yin and yang.

[Problem Sleuth]

the earth is almost perfectly situated for us. its size, its composition, its distance from the sun, even the gas giants further out from the earth, all of that is there to insure life on this planet. any closer to the sun, and it would be to hot, and further, and it would be too cold. any bigger or smaller, and it wouldn't be able to have the correct composition. take Jupiter and Saturn away, and we have nothing to help sheild us from meteors.

Hence why life developed. Life as we know it would have never developed on a planet unsuitable, so saying it's a miracle that it happened is somewhat silly. Earth isn't perfectly situated for us, per se - we developed to be perfectly situated for -Earth-, as there's no point in having something that can survive on Mars when it can't reach it.

And in the eyes of the Universe, it's not perfect. It's just a hunk of rock that happened to be able to support some self-sustaining chemical reactions. There are plenty of others that can do the same, we're just on one of them. I'm sure we'd be saying the exact same **** except about a different planet if we didn't exist on Earth.

[Hunter Makoy]

Hence why life developed. Life as we know it would have never developed on a planet unsuitable, so saying it's a miracle that it happened is somewhat silly. Earth isn't perfectly situated for us, per se - we developed to be perfectly situated for -Earth-, as there's no point in having something that can survive on Mars when it can't reach it.

And in the eyes of the Universe, it's not perfect. It's just a hunk of rock that happened to be able to support some self-sustaining chemical reactions. There are plenty of others that can do the same, we're just on one of them. I'm sure we'd be saying the exact same **** except about a different planet if we didn't exist on Earth.

thats just not true, as i stated, u make one small change in the set up of the earth and everything could die. we did not adapt to earth, as a whole. the fact that there isn't life on every planet shows that it is not simply the adaptation of a species. of all the planets out there that we know of, and thats a ton now, there is only ONE that even has the CHANCE of sustaining life.

whether it happend for a reason is irrelavant, wat matters is that everything about the earth just happends to be in such harmony that life is able to thrive here, and as far as we have ever known, no where else in the universe.

[Problem Sleuth]

thats just not true, as i stated, u make one small change in the set up of the earth and everything could die. we did not adapt to earth, as a whole. the fact that there isn't life on every planet shows that it is not simply the adaptation of a species. of all the planets out there that we know of, and thats a ton now, there is only ONE that even has the CHANCE of sustaining life.

whether it happend for a reason is irrelavant, wat matters is that everything about the earth just happends to be in such harmony that life is able to thrive here, and as far as we have ever known, no where else in the universe.

There are plenty of others of planets that can possibly sustain life that we know of. Do you think we've looked at billions of planets? We know only 1 can support life, out of 220 (see the first source detailed below). If there's only one planet/star... Hundreds of billions of stars per galaxy, times tens, if not HUNDREDS of billions of galaxies. We haven't much to say other planets can't support life.

And we're hardly in harmony. Life is always changing, always struggling to survive. We're adapted to Earth how it is, not vice versa. Change conditions dramatically, but not enough to cause vivicide (simultaneous extermination of all species on a planet). Life will die off, and then adapt to it over time. Change them again, it'll happen.

Now for more specific attacks...

thats just not true, as i stated, u make one small change in the set up of the earth and everything could die.

You can make one small change and some things will day. You make one large thing and many things will die off. And then life will adapt to the Earth with the massive change, albiet with times of even more severe hardship than normal, and everything will be as peachy as you seem to think it is now for non-human animals.

of all the planets out there that we know of, and thats a ton now, there is only ONE that even has the CHANCE of sustaining life.

Gleise 581c. I think that's what it's called, lemme check. Like others, we're not sure. Because it's so damned far away.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...001021,00.html

"Of the 220 or so exoplanets found to date, most have either been too big, made of gas rather than solid material, far too hot, or far too cold for life to survive"

So 2 out of 220 can support life, or 1 out of 110. Trillions of planets, and it seems like a damn good chance.

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...614620,00.html

"Debating whether suns other than our own have planets has always been like debating whether cats other than your own have kittens. The answer is self-evidently yes."

It's not guaranteed, but there's a good chance. The point is that is destroys YOUR point. It also mentions later on how there are a few other places with that opportunity.

the fact that there isn't life on every planet shows that it is not simply the adaptation of a species.

You said that. I counter by quoting myself:

Hence why life developed. Life as we know it would have never developed on a planet unsuitable,

Obviously it won't develop on a planet that can't support it, regardless of adaptation.

[Amorphos]

the fact that there are probably uncountable amounts of planets with life on, only supports the universality of life. each one that supports life will be part of a synchronicty of some kind where you have protective planets like gas giants, why then does the universe fall into place in such a way as to provide for life on a universal scale?

it could be pure chance but the more you have the less likely it is chance alone

what we can say for sure is that the universe provides the perfect platform for life! it is perfect for us.

[Amorphos]

HM

same with baseball, it comes more as a fluke, or a stroke of luck, then pure will, because the entities involved, r themselves imperfect.

yes sometimes perfection comes and goes in a moment, it is like when you throw a piece of paper in the bin at distance and by fluke it goes in, no matter how many times you try again it never happens.

with universal balance, it could be that we have reached the perfect balance. if we take out something negative, like poverty, we might end up losing something positive as well.

exactly! like in the opening post ‘genius is the result of the entire product of man’, then ‘perfection is the product of imperfection’. we wouldn’t know what good is but by contrasting it with bad, humanity is perfect and part of that is to be flawed.

occasionally we may go straight there, you may hit upon an idea and make a perfect invention, usually though we make a bunch of inventions that don’t quite cut it. evolution is the same, sometimes it mutates and goes straight from worm to caterpillar then other times it doesnt make it and the flawed creature is destroyed [usually eaten].

bertinator
not sure about all that ‘just so happens’ stuff, can we be sure that the universe isn’t designed to make stuff happen [i don’t mean by god, but by interactions, harmonics etc].

i think far to much is left to chance when if we study each set of events there is usually very little chance involved.

‘a vague philosophy is a comparatively false one’

[pokefan]

perfection is imposible. for one to reach perfection one must reach total knowlage and understanding of the known and unknown. one must also understand the morals of the universe and the laws of everything

[Amorphos]

what if perfection is absolute simplicity?

[Hunter Makoy]

because there is nothing to say that any other planet that supports life wont be almost exactly like ours. our planet is unique to an extent, but not unique in totallity.

if we find a planet with life on it, it will most likely be very very similar to ours. which if the case, would still show the perfect equilibrium of earth.

ur mentioning of life adapting is not very relavant because it is not a question of whether life can sustain indeffinately, but whether it can sustain at all, even without drastic changes to the planet.

we have found many many more stars then planets. there is a very large ratio of lone stars to stars with planets. so regardless of the multiple trillions of stars out there, only a fraction of those will even contain planets, and a huge portion of that wont even come close to being able to sustain life, so if u continue to dig into this, u find that the chance of there being life out there, whether we even find it or not, is still farely small. it is far from a guarentee. while i believe that there is life somewhere out there, i also believe the planetary and solar make up will have to be extremely similar to ours.

perfection does not require it to be unique. any other life sustaining planet will be just as perfect to life as ours, even if that life is not carbon based.

[Problem Sleuth]

Really, now? Alright, let's say only 1 out of every 1000 stars has a planet. 1:100 planet-to-star ratio. 1 planet/1000 stars. That makes them pretty uncommon statistically. Yet, the thing is, there would be a -lot- of stars. How many? About 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Divide that by 1000. Now, if only one out of a billion planets (so far we have 2 out of 220, plus some possibly habitable moons, so that's probably way off) is capable of supporting life... Do you have any idea how many habitable planets that leaves? 10,000,000,000. Ten -billion-. If only one out of a million sustain life, there are 10,000 inhabited planets, and we're nothing close to one of a kind.

That's with VERY disfavorable odds. Do you want to question the unlikelihoods of life anymore? No? Good.

ur mentioning of life adapting is not very relavant because it is not a question of whether life can sustain indeffinately, but whether it can sustain at all, even without drastic changes to the planet.

There are undoubtedly planets where life can be sustained, but only in a very small area and with lots of difficulty. At first, life will struggle. And then, because of evolution, those that are most adapted to it will survive. (See: Artic and Antarctic)

If they were brought into temperatures we find survivable, they would probably die off except for a handful, and vice versa. Yet in either one life can be supported. It'd seem like paradise to the frozen guys, and a burning desert in our middle latitudes (say, 45 degrees N/S?). We can see this on Earth! Things aren't adapted to 'Earth', even, they're adapted to subclimates, and no single area is 'perfect' for all life because the life inhabiting those areas is adapted to live there! And that's life as WE know it.

Besides, if Earth was 'perfectly made', I'd imagine it'd be warm and humid all across the world, so as to best support microbial life, and equally well support the following forms. Higher oxygen contents would've definitely hastened our evolution. So don't say 'It's perfect', because it's not.

i also believe the planetary and solar make up will have to be extremely similar to ours.

Yes. If we want something that'll support -humans-. And it doesn't have to be similar; it just needs some basic elements and a certain temperature range. That is, if we want to support EARTH life. There are probably other forms. That's speculation, though, and it isn't scientific. So let's assume there isn't (which is a good choice unless we also want to accept UFO's visiting Earth and giant, pink unicorns flying around. )

Gleise 581c's is far closer than our planet to its sun. The sun it has is far bigger than our sun, yet, at the same time, is 1/100th as bright. It doesn't need to be exactly the same, only possess a few key traits.

if we find a planet with life on it, it will most likely be very very similar to ours. which if the case, would still show the perfect equilibrium of earth.

As I mentioned why before, we don't have a 'perfect equilibrium'; we were able to support life, which probably didn't do too nicely right away. It got better and better at living on Earth over time, and continues to improve.

so regardless of the multiple trillions of stars out there, only a fraction of those will even contain planets, and a huge portion of that wont even come close to being able to sustain life

It's many orders of magnitude larger than 'trillions'.

[Hunter Makoy]

Really, now? Alright, let's say only 1 out of every 1000 stars has a planet. 1:100 planet-to-star ratio. 1 planet/1000 stars. That makes them pretty uncommon statistically. Yet, the thing is, there would be a -lot- of stars. How many? About 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Divide that by 1000. Now, if only one out of a billion planets (so far we have 2 out of 220, plus some possibly habitable moons, so that's probably way off) is capable of supporting life... Do you have any idea how many habitable planets that leaves? 10,000,000,000. Ten -billion-. If only one out of a million sustain life, there are 10,000 inhabited planets, and we're nothing close to one of a kind.

That's with VERY disfavorable odds. Do you want to question the unlikelihoods of life anymore? No? Good.

well i was never arguing the unlikelihood of life, rather the fact that it would have to exist in a situation very similar to ours.

Gleise 581c's is far closer than our planet to its sun. The sun it has is far bigger than our sun, yet, at the same time, is 1/100th as bright. It doesn't need to be exactly the same, only possess a few key traits.

let me begin with, your facts r all wrong.

Gleise 581, its star, is actually 1/3 as big as the sun, its a red dwarf. Gleise 581c would infact not be habitable due to a major greenhouse effect. altho it is slightly outside the habitable zone of the star.

wat u fail to understand is that there r many many criteria that have to be met inorder for life to even be a possiblity. and all of this has to run very close to the way it is on earth. it all fits within a range. even if sun is not as big as ours, or as bright, then the planet has to be closer. differing sizes of the planet have to fall within a certain points.

as has been stated here before, no one thing has to be perfect, it is the combination of effects that make the outcome perfect.

[Problem Sleuth]

We don't know the atmosphere, we can only speculate, because it's not as if we can get a robot there and back to analyze it. We don't even know the temperatures of it other than a rough guess... We could -try- to get a sample, but something tells me we'd get impatient after the first hundred thousand years on the way there. We'd still have a long way to go, and then a return trip.

Gleise 581, its star, is actually 1/3 as big as the sun, its a red dwarf.

altho it is slightly outside the habitable zone of the star.

You're right about the first part, for the second it depends.

as has been stated here before, no one thing has to be perfect, it is the combination of effects that make the outcome perfect.

There can't be perfection if there isn't a goal. Self-sustaining chemical reactions is nice and all, but it doesn't accomplish anything nor take away from anything other than shift around of bit of matter until they end.

wat u fail to understand is that there r many many criteria that have to be met inorder for life to even be a possiblity. and all of this has to run very close to the way it is on earth. it all fits within a range. even if sun is not as big as ours, or as bright, then the planet has to be closer. differing sizes of the planet have to fall within a certain points.

That doesn't make Earth 'perfect'. It makes it excellent for supporting life, but not 'perfect', as there are, undoubtedly, better conditions for it than we have here.