You are equivocating between the sense of an objective perspective and an objective thing. — Pantagruel

I don't know what you mean by "objective perspective", perspective is something subjective.

All you are doing is declaring that realism (or maybe Platonism) is true, nominalism false. — Pantagruel

I am saying, as before, that if platonism is true, we automatically have objective perfection by definition. But even within nominalism you can simply "summon" objective perfection by manipulating semantics:

Perfect red is λ=650nm.
Imperfect red is everything between λ=600nm and 700nm besides 650nm.
Hydrogen emits light at λ=650nm.
Hydrogen is perfectly red.

If you don't admit degrees and only accept black-and-white scenarios, "perfection" in an objective sense becomes a non-point as something either is or is not and there is no need for adverbs.

I don't know what you mean by "objective perspective", perspective is something subjective. — Lionino

Well, a perspective can be objective. It can also take an object (intentionality) which is what I meant. An object of a perspective can be material or it can be mental.

Nice. I hear you but i don't think this is all that useful a formulation. We can find any number of minds to agree and visualise a unicorn but it still doesn't make it true. In this way we can also have objective accounts of ghosts and UFO too. Not sure what the word objective adds to this understanding. — Tom Storm

Just wanted to point this out:

All can however only provide the exact same example of what a perfect circle is epitomized by. And from this universality of agreement in understanding among all sapience then gets derived things such as the number pi. — javra

By entailment: If a perfect circle is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn, then the number pi is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn. If the number pi is no more real than is a unicorn, then neither is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which in part relies upon use of pi) any more real than is a unicorn. If the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which is a fundamental concept to quantum mechanics) is no more real than is a unicorn, then much if not all of quantum mechanics is no more real than is a unicorn. And, if the latter is true, then all technology reliant on quantum mechanics is no more real than unicorns.

I know, it might be hard to follow - but it's not oriented at convincing you of anything.

Unless evidenced wrong, the just mentioned argument appears to me quite sound; in brief: If a perfect circle is no more real than are unicorns, then the reality of our quantum mechanics based technology is on par to the reality of unicorns.

Since unicorns are commonly taken to be fully fictitious/unreal, something then is quite amiss with claiming that perfect circles are not objective in a way that unicorns can never be.

By entailment: If a perfect circle is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn, then the number pi is no more objective/true/real than is a unicorn. — javra

But I didn't say that a perfect circle is no more real than a unicorn. I said we can't rely upon the mechanism you identified since it can also imagine a unicorn. It's a critique of the epistemology not the putative conclusion per say.

You made this point which I liked:

A perfect circle is realized in this world by all minds which can comprehend it's, granted non-physical, being and, furthermore, all minds with sufficient comprehension will be able to thus realize an understanding of the exact same geometric form. — javra

But it may also lead to unicorns. :wink:

But it may also lead to unicorns — Tom Storm

Ha. Not that I agree (e.g., there is no one universal exemplar of the perfect unicorn), but, if so, it can then likewise also lead to unicorn based technologies we all live by and universally agree upon.

it can then likewise also lead to unicorn based technologies we all live by and universally agree upon. — javra

That I would like to see. Apparently their horns contain magic...

But you are quite right to say that a perfect circle and a unicorn have little in common. A perfect circle is a mathematical abstraction, while a unicorn is a mythical creature. The unicorn relies upon open an open ended imaginative discourse, while the circle's properties are defined mathematically.

But you are quite right to say that a perfect circle and a unicorn have little in common. A perfect circle is a mathematical abstraction, while a unicorn is a mythical creature. The unicorn relies upon open an open ended imaginative discourse, while the circle's properties are defined mathematically. — Tom Storm

Almost makes it sound as though the perfect circle - being here a mathematical abstraction delineated by its mathematical definition and, hence, not occurring to anyone prior to any such formal definition of it - is purely a construct of human imagination. This rather than being apprehended by understanding as something that objectively is (again, this in non-physical manners).

But, if so, then – via pi and so forth – so too is all our modern scientific knowledge of quanta nothing more than concoctions of human imagination. This rather than being discoveries (however imperfect) regarding the way the world in fact is.

Which to me would kind of relate to those magical unicorns you bring up: this being magical thinking with global efficacy.

But, if so, then – via pi and so forth – so too is all our modern scientific knowledge of quanta nothing more than concoctions of human imagination. — javra

I am not sure my point leads here but I am sympathetic to this regardless. I am a reluctant anti-foundationalist and consider human knowledge to be contingent. With constructivist leanings, I've often thought truth is shared subjectivity.

If I can remember back to the point of the discussion I think I was arguing that I have never seen an physical example of perfection in the real world. Examples we could proffer like Margot Robbie or George Elliot's Middlemarch or Mahler's Second Symphony or Botticelli's; Primavera, whatever, are using the word perfect to say we like them. The notion of perfection in this kind of context becomes a superlative rather than a precise philosophical understanding.

I suspect only maths offers us what we might dub perfect solutions (but I am no mathematician, so I'm happy to be wrong here) where an equation is the most elegant, prefect solution to a given problem. An equation which cannot be any better. This would satisfy my idea of perfection as that which can't be improve upon.

This would satisfy my idea of perfection as that which can't be improve upon. — Tom Storm

OK. Understood. To be clear, my own vantage in this discussion wasn't concerned with the issue of whether circles are perfect in the sense you here specify - to me, we both so far have given all indications that we both accept they are - but, rather, whether perfect circles are subjectively perfect (as you seem to have so far repeatedly upheld) or else objectively perfect. But its not the most pivotal of issues to me.

In seeing you've started a new thread on the issue of mathematics, best of luck in your investigations.

But its not the most pivotal of issues to me. — javra

Ditto.

Thank you for an interesting conversation. I've appreciated your approach. :up: