The Perfect Entry

"A chair is not a chair," Mav's girlfriend was explaining to me, "it is the perfect image of a chair." In essence, a simple phrase such as, "I sat down in a chair," may conjure an image of a chair to anyone, but how that person visualizes the chair may differ drastically from one person to the next. While one might think of an office chair, another might think of a recliner, and another of a bar stool. So, in essence, the symbolism of the chair is a perfect symbolism in that each person envisions the (personal) perfect image of a representation of whatever word.

Though this was not exactly the intended debate of the philosopher, it was the route that she and I ended up discussing it, and that has been very fortunate for me in my subsequent religious and philosophical endeavors.

Although at that time, some five or six years ago, the argument seemed logical enough, today I realize that it was not at all sound. The chair one creates in his or her mind is indeed not perfect. The reason for this is that it is created with sentient intent (or more directly, with intent at all).

Cutting past all the complicated steps through five years and infinite religious and philosophical explanations, the reason is quite direct and simple:

If something does not intend an outcome, the outcome cannot be flawed in comparison to the intent, and therefore cannot contain mistakes as to an intended outcome. Thus it is perfect.

In this way, nothing outside of humans (I will explain this "outside of humans" a very little) in nature can be imperfect. Because a tree does not have intent in the way it appears, nor a river in the path that it takes, neither that appearance or that path can be imperfect. They may register to us as ugly or inconvenient, but that is simply because it hinders our intents for them as humans: not because they have betrayed any intent as acts of nature. Therefore even the sickliest of trees or muddiest of rivers is in all ways perfect.

Even a snake hatched with two heads was neither intended by its mother to have only one nor registers this as a want for itself, and therefore even as an abomination to the human viewer it is still perfect.

Again, in music, if I play the wrong note or pitch on an instrument, it is only wrong so far as my intent did not mean to make it a B sharp instead of a B, or a slur instead of a staccato. It is still, as whatever it ended up being, perfect in that existence and only imperfect in regards to my intent.

Conversely, when something is made with intent or simply counters the intent of the sentient will, it will without fail be imperfect. Whether a person makes a machine, or art, or another person, the outcome will be in some way other than exactly the way the intent had willed it to be formed, and thus it is imperfect.

If I intend to paint a friend, there will be something about the painting that doesn't look quite precisely like that friend at any given moment. To be sure, the subject of my painting would be constantly changing anyway, and so my painting will be always imperfect. If I intend to create a piece of steel six centimeters in length, on some scale it will be imperfect, whether it is even a millionth of a millimeter too long or short, it will be imperfect as to my direct intent. If I have a child and it is blond instead of brown haired, or breaks a bone, or is introverted etc as whatever preference might be against my intent as a parent, the child is thus imperfect in regards to my intent as a parent. (Though, arguably, a child who is mentally handicapped or etc that cannot consciously intend to be one way or the other is intrinsically perfect and only imperfect to outer registers.)

The fact that diets and makeup exist is testament enough to the human acknowledgement of both physical and aesthetic imperfections of intent. Take, then, into account that there are sanders and buffers to shine and reshape your steel, and shading and erasers to rework any sketch. It is clear that anything made with human intent can not be perfect, but simply come to a state where it is deemed satisfactory. In this way one might instead decide to make the steel "roughly" six centimeters long.

One may raise the argument, then, of what happens when a sentient thought of intent is raised in the realm of nature. If I plant a tree intending only that it grow to be ten feet tall and it grows to be eleven, is that not imperfection? Would not the existence of something like a hatchet or chainsaw or pruning sheers serve in their existence to correct this imperfection into something more satisfactory to my intent?

But this is not the case at all: the tree is not the product of human will. The tree was not created by human will, and therefore by not adhering to human intent, it is not at all any less perfect. On the other hand, the location of the tree was chosen by the human and therefore may not be an ideal location, but to be sure, location is a human device and the tree is completely indifferent to this intent.

The same is easily visible in any example. Wouldn't a polluted river be imperfect? No: because only the sentient intent will register that it is anything other than a perfect river, and the river itself has no regard or care as to what is in its waters.

What, then if a human digs an irrigation ditch or canal and makes a false river? Again simple: the design of the stream may be considered imperfect in a way, or even the flow or quality of the water. But these are all extrinsic imperfections in the way they register upon a conscious observer with intent. The waters or flows themselves are, by all means, intrinsically perfect.

The importance of this line of logic cannot be underestimated when one comes to apply it to, for example, the governing of humans in any way. Any intended government (and subsequent laws, etc) can by nature be only satisfactory and not perfect. This forces any group of people seeking a government into a 'lesser of two evils' position.

Just as importantly, the fundamentals of this logic can be applied to religion. If creation was sentient but humans 'sin' or are otherwise flawed in a way unfavourable to the creator, the creator has made imperfection in regards to its intent and therefore is imperfect itself. Whether creation may have been originally perfect and became imperfect later is not matteral: If a builder makes a house out of cheap wood and it stands for ten years only to fall down in the eleventh, the builder has failed in the intent of creating a shelter.

Most significantly in these regards, no being with intent (be it conscious or subconscious) can be considered perfect after it has taken any action, whether of creating or moving or even thinking.

It would also seem, by this line, that sentience as a trait of imperfection due to intent begins not with abstract thought, but with the advent of intent. This would lead not to a simple commonality of sexual organs or pain registry in applying sentience to animals (or plants, rocks, etc) but simply to the point of a conscious registry of intent in whatever entity, which is wholly different than any reflexive action (those of self-preservation and so on).

That said, though, I must also point out that this advent of intent would not be any basis of argumentation for the rights of one entity over another. Just as nature would not have imperfections in that most of its natural creations do not have intent, the fact that some entities do or may have the capacity for intent was, in itself, neither an intended or unintended design of nature. Therefore it is not the capacity or even the intent itself that is imperfect, but rather the outcome in regards to the intent once that intent is present. This registry against intent, to be sure, is thereby the breaking off of nature and sentience as I have explained it to be previously.