THE FALLACY OF PERFECTION

Have you ever noticed that the same people who subscribe to the concept of "universal truth" almost always subscribe to the idea of "perfection?" Their line of reasoning goes something like this: if over a billion people accept a concept, never mind how the concept came to be accepted,  then that concept must universally true, and thus perfect.

I know what you're thinking. "Oh, he's probably talking about religious people (I.e. Christians and Muslims)." Well, the truth is I am, but I'm also talking about non-religious humanists who subscribe to the same delusion of perfection as religionists.

As far as I'm concerned, the concept of universal truth or perfection, be it religious or non-religious, is illogical and fallacious. Same fallacy but different groups! Now, let's examine each group.

The Muslims and their estranged-Christian cousins would tell you to subscribe to their respectful spiritual concepts just because their doctrines are premised on universal truth and divine perfection. They're quick to point to the popular acceptance of their doctrines, billions of adherents and counting, as a testament to the universal truth embedded in their doctrines. Never mind, no where on this planet, truth has ever been established based on the popular acceptance of a concept. 

Well, since religious folks don't dwell much on logic. It behooves me to impress logic on them. If a concept is divinely perfect and universally true, no one would deny its validity. That is, if Christianity is the universal way to "divine truth;" then by default, there would never be Muslims, and vice versa. For example, the SUN is universally true in that it shines. This is why there's no Christian sun, Muslim sun, agnostic sun or even atheist sun. There is only one SUN that rises in the East and sets in the West, and the cosmic truth is that the sun would shine on you with or without your acceptance.

Anyway, the idea of "divine perfection" is even more bizarre than the conceptual idea of "universal truth." For the umpteenth time, there is no such thing as perfection in the Cosmos. The Cosmos operates on a strict "cosmic order" and balance (I.e. MAAT). On this planet, reality is based on relative perception or relativism (I.e. relative balance between opposites), but not on absolute perfection.

The non-religious humanists are just as fallacious in their thinking of the concept of "perfection" and "universal truth" as the religionists; though, in a different way. The humanists, unlike the religionists, believe nature is perfect. According to them, if nature is perfect and if Darwinian Evolution is a natural process, then everything must be evolving towards "perfection" and Darwin's Theory of Evolution must be universally true - this is a fallacious piece of reasoning.

First off, I subscribe to the theory of evolution, but the evolutionary process is not a perfecting process. Every evolutionary process is a binary-mutation process (I.e. positive mutation and negative mutation). Whatever you think you gain in the evolutionary process, you also lose something else of equal magnitude, balancing out the net outcome. In other words, evolution is a balancing process not a perfecting process. As evolved and prefect as we think we are, if the bees were extinct, we'd probably be extinct as well - we must not be too perfect if our existence is predicated on that of bees. Well, cosmic order and balance make it so!

Great thinkers overstand the cosmic principle of order and balance (I.e. MAAT), and that's why they don't conceptualize or waste time with the idea of  "perfection." They only conceptualize optimization and spend time on finding the optimal points not the perfect points. 

For example, Modigliani and Miller conceptualized and proved an optimum Capital Asset Equilibrium Price not a "perfect" Capital Asset Equilibrium Price. In Game theory, John Nash wasn't looking for the perfect payouts but optimal payouts (i.e. Nash Equilibrium). In the Monte-Carlo method, analysts never look for perfect models but optimal models.

In conclusion, perfection is not part of human reality; order and balance (I.e. MAAT) are. So, if you're constantly searching for perfection in anything, you're simply searching for something that's not there. Search for MAAT (order and balance) not perfection!