Laurentius

AVE


Keith Russell

Laurentius said:
"There is perfection in reality: any work of art. Works of art perfect and are unchanging."
As an artist, I must disagree.

Most of Leonardo's works have changed, and not for the better. Several of them were so shoddily constructed that they no longer exist.

The "Last Supper" has had to be restored at least twice.

And the Sistine Chapel ceiling underwent massive restoration less than a decade ago.

Works of art most certainly DO change, just like any other existent.

Everything that exists is perfectly what it is.

A is perfectly, precisely, and only A.

Keith.


I was thinking that many of these resored works of art had been renovated without using photographs - only following a representation that existed in the resorers' minds, and that abstract model, I realized, was the perfect work I had been referring to.

But then, I was thinking, perfect numbers, perfect spheres, perfect love, and so on, exist in the same manner: pure abstractions generated by our minds - pure abstractions whose material replicas are doomed to change and degrade, exactly as Plato has pointed out.

Therefore, God is too such pure abstraction, the highest one, a philosophical creation of our minds longing for perfection - only that it seems God contradicts himself conceptually, which eventually triggers his philosophical inconceivability.

AVE

WJ

Start here:

quote:
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So it is not correct to say abstract things [concepts] do not affect physical things.
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"You simply pulled this out of thin air. Why is my formulation wrong? How do imaginary numbers directly affect rabbits?"

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Philo!

If an engineer wants to create structural members to support the weight of a building, he/she uses math (abstract things) to create its size. And if the structural materials are natural (wood, steel, etc.) then the 'imaginary numbers' do 'directly affect' physical things.

Does that answer your specific concern?

Walrus

hinduwoman

4. why would he want to create anything? how can he even think of something that is different than himself?

Philosoft

I can see this going nowhere if you are going to insist on calling the above a "direct interaction" between imaginary numbers and physical things.

Can we please please please use terms as they are commonly used? To wit: There are no imaginary numbers exerting physical forces on structural members, yes? Can we limit the scope of "direct interaction" to this please?

99Percent

Ron Singh: You seem to know a heck of a lot of a being that is essentially unknowable.

Laurentius

AVE

hinduwoman

4. why would he want to create anything?

Indeed, antother inconsistency with the seemingly perfect nature of God. Perfection should have no wants. God is complete and self-sufficient by definition and should not wish to create anything.

how can he even think of something that is different than himself?

Suppose he can't. He can imagine stuff starting from himself - but that's exactly why he has created man, for instance, "in his own image". The Universe may also resemble himself, in ways that our mind finds it hard to comprehend. My opinion is that his Creation should be strikingly and undoubtedly perfect. A God perfect God could naturally create only perfect things. There's no perfect thing in reality that might support God's existence.

AVE

Laurentius

AVE

... a being that is essentially unknowable.

Unknowable, yes, most likely. But how about "conceivable"? Is this God character philosophically consistent? Being by himself and knowing everything? Showing perfection inherently and wanting stuff? Being omnipresent, in time, space and beyond them, and experiencing things?


AVE