>
>Keith Knapp was probably misquoted, but here goes anyway...
>
 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.
 KK> Yeah, I have to agree with your last sentence.  It's been suggested
 KK> that the rise of science was in great part due to the Judeo-Christian
 KK> idea of perfection or truth or an absolute.  Hadn't connected that.
 KK> Or, if you want to put something into orbit, you have to conceive of
 KK> a perfect orbit, even if you never attain it.
 KK> I would quibble with your next-to-last sentence, tho.  I don't think
 KK> the perfection we are talking about is 'out there' -- it's 'in here.'
 
 Semantics... 
 KK> That's a basic point in science: Jupiter is not obeying Newton's
 KK> 'laws,' rather it is doing whatever it does, and Newton's model
 KK> is a very good description.  And if that isn't enough tangents
 KK> for one message, I'm also thinking of the evolution of stone tools
 KK> by our ancestors from three million years ago.  At first, they
 KK> would just bash two rocks together till they got a sharp flake.
 KK> As brains got bigger we see definite styles and shapes being
 KK> imposed, with the obvious inference that that shape had to exist
 KK> first inside the mind of the artisan, thence to be imposed upon
 KK> the stone.  That's what I mean by 'perfection' being in here
 KK> rather than out there waiting to be found.
 Whether it's "out there", or "in here" - the meaning is quite the 
 same - because whatever is "out there" must of necessity be "in here"
 or it couldn't be "out there" - unless it's _really_ out there... 
 ;)
 
  
... All general statements are false.
--- GEcho 1.11++TAG 2.7c
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