I want to properly prove that perfection is devilish for you, real quick.
Imagine an apple, so you can imagine the perfect apple. It feeds you perfectly, it has the perfect shelf life, it is perfectly decorative.
We already get a few inklings that perfection is impossible. No matter how good the perfect apple tastes, you will get bored of it eventually, because it's always the same. No matter how good it looks, it's only aesthetic. It is not, say, a lifeboat. If you're not hungry it's perfectly useless.
An apple is not meat. We have to imagine the perfect apple is meat, so you can live off it alone. We have to imagine it changes taste, perfectly matching what you desire both aesthetically and nutritionally. It must also be a lifeboat - what else is it?
To be perfect, the apple has to be omnipotent.
Doesn't that solve the problem? Seems okay. Everything non-omnipotent can't be perfect, but omnipotence is perfect power by definition.
Omnipotence is in fact impotence. If you can do anything, you can't do anything. It's inherently self-contradictory. Perfection opposes the law of identity. Perfection can't be identical to itself. (Which is why the "perfect" apple is meat and a lifeboat and other specifically non-apple things.)
If an omnipotence needed anything, it already did it. Or, rather, to be omnipotence in the first place, it can't want for anything. It can do anything it wants, but wants nothing - omnipotence is the power to do nothing. I also can't do anything because doing a thing is a change. If it had to change, it wasn't perfect to start with, it wasn't omnipotence. Self-contradiction.
Rather than a perfect apple, wouldn't it be more perfect to never get hungry in the first place? The fact that 'apple' is a meaningful event to you at all is an imperfection. Same for meat. And lifeboats. Und so weiter, until it is perfect not to exist.
Let's run through that again. (Partially to check for errors; radio protocol.)
Limited perfection is not perfection.
Perfection must be unlimited.
Perfection is omnipotence.
Omnipotence can't do anything without contradicting its own perfection.
Omnipotence is identical to impotence.
Omnipotence is self-contradiction.
Omnipotence is nonexistence (and nonexistence is omnipotence).
Perfection is nonexistence (and nonexistence is perfect).
Theodicy solved.
The best of all possible worlds is an imperfect world, because it must be imperfect to be a world at all in the first place.
P.S. An unquenchable thirst for perfection isn't not a symptom of narcissism. To desire real perfection at all isn't divine, it's immaturity, insanity, and downright evil. Inherently opposed to Reality and Existence.
No comments:
Post a Comment
New failcomment system also fails to publish my comments, it's not limited to yours. Keep trying, it will usually work, eventually.
Blogger deliberately trying to kill itself, I expect.
Captchas should be off. If it gives you one anyway, it's against my explicit instructions.