>
>Mr. Rigor wrote to Mark Bloss about "Existence Exists"
 
 MB>  It's interesting you believe that we can get "close enough" without
 MB>  the ideal of perfecting being something to which we use to gauge
 MB>  "close enough" in the first place!  It is astounding actually; that
 MB>  any person would assume we can grasp perfection - but we must
 MB>  know of its existence; for all our getting "close enough" to it.
 MR> Who said I was referring to getting "close enough" to "perfection"?
 
 You must then define that to which you are close enough.  Unless you 
 have some method to define it, then there is no such thing as close
 enough.  How does one know if their calculations are close enough to
 get a craft to the moon, for example, if there is not a "not close
 enough" and a "close enough" to gauge one way or the other.  And to
 do that, there MUST be scalability.  In order to have a scale, one
 must know the uppermost point on the scale, else one can't tell the
 difference at all between "not close enough" and "close enough".
 MR> Besides you, that is.
 
 Try every notable philosopher since Thomas Aquinas.  If one is to
 judge something good or evil, one most know noumenally of the most
 good, (and the most evil) to do it; else is it impossible.
 MR> What I want is a coherent definition of the word "perfect".
 
 Absolutely, positively, flawless, in every absolute, possible, way.
 MR> Until I hear such a definition, I try to keep that particular
 MR> pseudo-concept out of my conversations.  Sometimes years of
 MR> Perfectionist brainwashing makes me slip though. 
 MR> In the (local) cases of "square" and "word spelling" I think someone
 MR> could come up with a reasonable definition of "perfect", however
 
 No,  only "accurate", or "sufficient", will suffice.  There is a 
 difference (technically speaking of course) between something which 
 is "accurate", and something which is "perfect".  We switch the
 words around plenty during colloquial banter; but if we are to remain
 "accurate", then "perfect" must be used technically.  This is the 
 main reason there are many arguments surrounding the use of the term;
 and I by no means have remained innocent of colloquial usage of the
 word "perfect"; but do intend to qualify my usage during this phase
 of the discussion to only the most technical usage of the term.
 MR> trivial (as in the example of word spelling) or unattainable (as in,
 MR> according to some physical Universe models, the case of the square). 
 
 Even then, the accurate usage of the term "Perfect" in referencing a
 "perfect square" is still qualified by a certain relativity.  Even this
 usage is inaccurate, to a degree, but is accepted [quod si per se].
 MR> I'd rather find and use better words than that globally-sloppy
 MR> "perfect" though. 
 MR> Mr. Rigor
 But, "perfect" is the most accurate terminology!  There isn't anything
 more superlative than "perfect".  You can't use a better word, because
 there aren't any.  Every other synonym of the word "perfect" are
 subordinate in some esoteric way to the proper usage of the term in
 its most technical sense.  So... please forgive, but we are rather
 bound to use it, if indeed there is any method to carry across the
 full import of its technical sense.  We might set up a scale of
 words, with "Perfect" at the top, and "Atrocious" at the bottom,
 for example, then whatever is penultimate to "Perfect" would be
 second - something like "Flawless" or "Accurate" perhaps - and on
 down the list we go.  But "Perfect" in its most technical sense _must_
 be at the top; that is ([nemo est quin velit]) its best connotation.
... Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude
--- GEcho 1.11++TAG 2.7c
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