MB> KK> "Perfection" may be a lovely concept in philosophy or theology,
MB> KK> but in science or technology the only important idea is making
MB> KK> it work.  No Shuttle launch has ever achieved a "perfect" orbit,
MB> KK> but all of them recently have achieved orbits with errors that
MB> KK> are trivially small.  The difference between those two points is
MB> KK> an important philosophical point -- the difference between science
MB> KK> and logic.
MB> You have done a marvelous job of supporting my point.  There is no
MB> such thing as "perfection" in the real world.  That is what I've
MB> pointed out numerous times.  But perfection is just precisely like
MB> an infinity - it's out there - we just never get there.  And without
MB> the ideal of perfection - we would not ever achieve orbits at all.
Yeah, I have to agree with your last sentence.  It's been suggested that
the rise of science was in great part due to the Judeo-Christian
idea of perfection or truth or an absolute.  Hadn't connected that.
Or, if you want to put something into orbit, you have to conceive of
a perfect orbit, even if you never attain it.
I would quibble with your next-to-last sentence, tho.  I don't think
the perfection we are talking about is 'out there' -- it's 'in here.'
That's a basic point in science: Jupiter is not obeying Newton's
'laws,' rather it is doing whatever it does, and Newton's model
is a very good description.  And if that isn't enough tangents
for one message, I'm also thinking of the evolution of stone tools
by our ancestors from three million years ago.  At first, they
would just bash two rocks together till they got a sharp flake.
As brains got bigger we see definite styles and shapes being
imposed, with the obvious inference that that shape had to exist
first inside the mind of the artisan, thence to be imposed upon
the stone.  That's what I mean by 'perfection' being in here
rather than out there waiting to be found.
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