Let's discuss some philosophy here, I have so many questions about life that I just have to discuss. Discuss anything you want that's related to knowledge or rather: what is knowledge ? What is truth? What is time? What's the meaning of life? My first question (think about this twice before answering): - Can you know what perfection is without knowing it's counterpart? If you don't know what's not perfect and can't compare perfect to anything else how would you explain to someone what it is? Would perfect just become normal and no longer have a positive meaning since we don't know what's not perfect? And does it apply to many things like, how do you know what's bright if you don't know what's dark? How do you know what's tall if you don't know what's short? How do you know what's fast if you don't know what's slow? Does it apply to everything? The list goes on etc etc. I saw a documentary about this but I just can't find it again!!
I'll take you seriously for a moment and put my thoughts out, if I can word it right. The same applies to blind people- how can they know what a color is if they've never seen it? Us humans put words to everything to explain things to one another. It's much more simple to communicate that way. For someone who is blind from birth, visual descriptions mean nothing. They don't know what dark is, nor do they know what light is. They dont' know what brown or black or blue is. This guy explains it pretty well. The idea follows for the same- you don't know what something's opposite is, if you dont know what it is. There's no concept of it.
Yea it goes both ways! Ugh let's say someone was to explain to me what fast is how would you describe what's fast to someone who has never heard it before without using it's counterpart to describe it? Is it possible?
You can know perfection if you don't know it's counterpart. The answer is super subjective, but the answer is there nonetheless. The way you can explain perfection to someone is with unobtainable norms like absolutely flawless skin or absolute efficiency, both are quite impossible. That's how I would explain perfection. Perfect has a neutral meaning to me. It's neither a goal nor should be. Each of us has a perception of perfect and I look at perfection with cynical eyes because it shows that you have nothing else to live for.
And then question would be what is absolute efficiency? And the questions goes on and on for every similar meaning or synonym, the loop would never end.
So the rule goes: you don't know what it's counterpart is if you don't know what it is but you know don't know what it is if you don't know it's counterpart? You have yo either know both or neither you can't just know one of them? But does this apply to everything right? Now if someone ask what a box is. What's the opposite of a box? It has none right? So you say it's a 3d square container then the person asks what is a 3D square container and you say it's a bla bla bla it goes on in an endless loop.
In this case you're more arguing "what is the point of language and communication" or even "what/why is meaning" than your original question. For perfection specifically, yes, you can know it. If something is absolutely suited to its purpose, with no flaws in construction or errors in design then it is perfect. If you can recognize that something is "perfect" for its application, then you can know it is perfect without knowing what objects would not be perfect. You can understand that a theoretial basketball hoop is the perfect object to use for shooting a basketball at within the rules of a basketball game, without understanding that a hockey net would not serve the same purpose as well. You can understand that a sphere, which is absolutely precisely even in all directions down to the atomic level is a perfect representation of a sphere, without understanding that a square is not. You still need a standard with which to relate it to (a task, in this case rather than an opposite, like for short and tall). This isn't philosophy though, it's linguistics - That's the way language works, we identify things, assign them words, and then relate those words to other words and in doing so get communication. At some point, all communication gets arbitrary and meaningless unless you and the person you're trying to convey an idea to can find some common ground to start building up from. As for the second part, about "perfect being normal" - yes and no. If you're talking about perfect becoming mundane, then yes that would certainly be the case if there were no exposure to less than perfect. If you're talking about perfect actually feeling slightly imperfect (and therefore what we percieve as "normal"), then I would say no, as those are actually opposing sides of one category (quality), where as perfect and mundane are separate categories altogether (quality and impression).
I was more arguing about how to explain something without it's opposite and without going in an endless loop of course you can explain it with synonyms but then you have to explain the explanation and then explain the explanation to the explanation etc etc but of course isn't needed in all cases like you showed. But I was not so much about linguistics but rather can you realize something is bright if there's nothing that's unbright because if you know what bright is you have to know it's opposite or don't you? On the second part I meant the first one not the latter but I didn't meant perfect becoming imperfect but rather that they switch sides, perfect becomes normal and imperfect becomes the opposite of normal(which is still the opposite of perfect since perfect is now normal). So let's say the majority here were imperfect and that's now normal, we all suddenly become perfect and stay that way now it's normal to be perfect and not imperfect and imperfect is no longer normal.
Again, I don't think you can explain things without that endless loop. That's just the way that language was developed, because opposites and contrasts are something we have the luxury of when trying to define things. If we didn't have these things, then certainly communication would not exist in the same way that it does now, but it's almost a moot point because these things are all a part of experience, and if you take away all of the intricacies of experience (the things that define and make beautiful "life") everything would just be "same." If you know everyone else is feeling the same things that you are at the same time, then what ever could it be necessary to communicate about? For your clarification... it depends on what you're trying to identify. Things like light and dark, tall and short, fast and slow are all relative terms - they are defined in relation to their opposites. Without their opposites, without context, they have no meaning. A term like "perfect" can be defined without using the word "imperfect" - its opposite, so this you can know. I suppose my answer here is "some things you can, and others you can't." Check out this youtube video - I feel like it's appropriate to this discussion. Things that you can't experience (living in 1,2, or 4 dimensions) but have an independent enough definition or explanation that they can be understood, to an extent. I'm partially agreeing with you, I just don't like the use of the word normal. Normal is too ambiguous a term for this discussion. I put forth two cases of what you could have meant: 1) everything becomes perfect. Perfect becomes "normal" and so, because everything is perfect it starts to feel less-than-perfect, because we always strive for improvement. 2) everything is perfect. The amazement of something being perfect wares down, and perfect starts to feel "normal" because emotions are fleeting. In the first case I would replace normal with "standard" and in the second case I (did) replace normal with "mundane." In either situation I could theoretically see them coming true if we were put into an alternate universe where we were exposed to this sort of experience.
Let me throw in something here, which is both a question from me and a sort of example/related topic of your question, digestive. One of the biggest philosophical questions of all time still is "What is reality?" or "Is what we see real?". Neither that nor the exact counterpart ("Is what we see fake?") can be proven, but most people answer the question for themselves for simplicity's sake. Anyways, if we were to find out that what we see around is either fake or real, this knowledge we gained will be used and, ultimately, used to create the exact opposite. Say all we see is, in fact, real and not an illusion, so basically naive realism being proven to be correct, human beings will, most likely, be capable of finding a way to make the other way, the exact opposite, plausible and even possible. To be concrete: If we prove everything is real, we will find a way to generate, develop or invent something that isn't and we will, then again, ponder on the mysteries of that "fake thing" (or a sort of alternate, "fake" universe [which would then no longer be called a universe due to that word meaning, by definition, a singular thing that doesn't have parallel systems, so it should be called a multiverse]. So... If we were to realise and prove and define what is perfection, we would, as you mentioned earlier, consider it normal and move on to think about, for example, what exactly imperfection would be. If we then repeat the process, imperfection becomes a normal thing, making both perfection and imperfection, by definition, "normal", thus equal and therefore eliminating both terms entirely, essentially then categorising everything as normal. Anyways, my question continued... Is everything around of real and do we experience the reality, or is what we see an illusion caused by something we can't reach in any way, both mentally and physically? To go even further: Do we even possess an actual physical body and a mind of ourselves, or are we simply in a sort of eternal dream? This is actually just the main question in the philosophy of mind and materialism, but it has always baffled me and I'm curious to see what others think.
Let's say someone walks into a bright room now it's not considered bright because the person inside it doesn't know what bright is, in order to know what it is you'd have to know it's counterpart and if you want know it's counter part you have to know bright. So let's say you walk into the bright room and someone says "wow it's so bright in here" and the other person says "bright?" and you respond yes it's a lot brighter than mundane in here. The other person says: mundane? Isn't this mundane? So it's like trying to explain colors to a blind person who has never seen colors. The person Is still confused and unable to truly grasp brightness so you turn down the lights a bit. And the person says "What is this? I don't understand I don't see as clearly now!" but you tell him that it's because you adjusted the light's a bit which made it a bit darker which is what you perceive as being able to see less clearly. "Darker, is this darker?" and then the person understand what brightness is thanks to comparing it to the absence of it he also now learns that what he considered mundane isn't really mundane anymore because there's more variations to it and by testing out the settings he finds his new favorite mundane level of brightness where it's not really very bright nor dark for him. Well it's hard to say if what he considers bright is bright to your eyes same as that I can't know if the green you see is the same as my green but the norm is there of what most people prefer as suitable to be mundane. So can you realize or tell the difference if something is bright or not without ever had experienced the absence of it?
Pssssst guyzzzz I'm from the future. Guess what, turns out our conception of reality is false because we live in the matrix. See, me going back in time just proves that we are in the matrix because I am able to access a point in time that cannot exist in a singular dimension. I'll refer to my current time, what would be the future to yall, as time(f) and the past time, what would be the present to yall, as time(p). Presupposing that y'all and I were in dimension(1) at time(f) and we are still in dimension(1) at time(p) it would be the case that we are experiencing only one dimension. If our conception of time, to be a forward moving linear progression, is true, then it would be the case that time is either backed up in one dimension or each frame in the progression of time (time frame) is the experience of dimension(x) - x being any number from 1 to infinity. If it were to be the case that each "time frame" is the experience of dimension(x), each frame can only be related to a unique dimension. A unique dimension being a dimension that is not tied to another "time frame". Ex) timeframe(a) can only be related to dimension(10). If time were to be backed up in one dimension then it must be the case that there is a time database located within that particular dimension. There must be a database because the principles of time rule that time is always moving forward. Therefore, time cannot move backwards. If there is a database, then it may be the case that we can access it and subsequently experience the progression of time starting at a point that has already passed. Given that it is currently time(p) and we are in dimension(1) and when I was at time(f), before I traveled back in time, your future selves and I were in dimension(1), it must be the case that time is backed up in one dimension and the time database is accessible. However, the notion of time being "saved" in some kind of database is counter intuitive because multiple progressions of time cannot occur in one experience. Assuming that we can move back to a point in time, when we do move back, time does not progress backwards. If time travel occurred in one dimension, then subsequently there would be two progressions of time in that particular dimension. One progression being time(f) and the other being time(p). An individual having two experiences of time contradicts individuality. It cannot be the case that person(a) can exist both in time(f) and time(p). It would be that case that when person(a) in time(f) travels back to time(p), person(a) is no longer person(a) but becomes person(a2). When person(a2) goes back to time(f), either person(a) or person(a2) would cease to exist or coexist. Given that person(a) ... Blah blah blah, I'm tired and this is going to take a long time to argue for. Long story short we're in the same dimension right now in the past as we were in my current time and that cannot occur in real lyfe. So therefore, real lyfe doesn't exist and we are living in the matrix. Take heed to my words of wisdom.
