An ending is typicaly the embodiement of imperfection (Have you ever read Dean Koontz?)

Life, Birth and Death

I covered death

so birth - you have two pens one has ink the other does not, but there is no way of knowing this until you use them so you can not base perfection of the pens based souly on it existence.

life - you have two bombs one will detonate one will not the only way to know is to give them life but in doing so the bomb ceases to be a bomb and becomes something else so it cant be life because life is the mechanism by which death occurs.

Whats important about both is that neither idenitfies the object singularly birth compares it to another like object and life evaluates the object against its purpose. The problem is you dont need to have a purpose to exist nor do you need a comparitive object to exist. For example a dog that is blind in one eye is something less then a dog and yet it still is a dog. But we live in a world in which comparissions can be drawn so we know a thing is perfect in itself but we assume that everything is imperfect relative to something else. Why do we assume this because we can not make that comparison.

I think that you think I am saying something cant be perfect iam not for example, I can eat a perfect piece of choclate I just cant eat a whole box.

i've never read dean koontz, but if you can conclusively prove that statement then i guess you've got it all figured out. however, that's really just the opposite of what my theory is, so obviously i don't agree with it.

sure i can, read a couple of his books youll find his endings are fairly weak. oh wait you ment the statment itself ahh. well a pen without ink can not write and it is also incomplete assumeing also that the pen began with ink and theirfor ink was part of its existence it has also ceased to be perfect singularly it has changed from what its orginal existence was into something so ceasing to exist is the ultimate imperfection because all three aspects of perfection are lacking

ummm... restating the same thing isn't actually proof.

This bothers me immensely. For, what about the objectivity of a thing?! Surely, the subjectivity of death is part of the definition. I wasn't trying to declare that only the death of a thing is the objectivity of the thing's perfection. I was trying to say, that it's not until the death of a thing that the objectivity in question can actually be formulated.

I agree with Heidegger...and you most certainly agree with Heidegger..."a thing is not a thing until it is the thing that is thinging." However, I think it's just as fair to state that a thing hasn't fully been the thing until said thing can no longer thing(ing). Understand?

For example...take that ole' pen again.

In death, it's true, the pen has now become something different. But hey, so what...if it's now something different, how can you use that argument against the thing that it was? How can you say: No, B isn't A! Of course it's not. That's a moot point. The symantics of the discussion are nil. I know B isn't A. But, before B became it's own, there was A. And I'm only interested in A. When A changed, A ended. That's the entire scope of A. And only of A. As for B, well it's similar to A (such as, both are letters in the alphabet...or rather, the pen still looks like a pen), but we can all agree that B isn't A.

Therefore, as I already stated, I'm only concerned with A. And the death of A is very much part of that concern. A may come into being when it's formed; A may be best defined when in use; but A can only truly be understood when it's no longer...when it has made that leap into B. The death of a thing has some subjective significance.

And I rather liked Apostate's comical example about humanity and God. But I'll take it a step further...

Take two pens...give them all of the same physical characteristics...in fact, these two pens are both Bic ballpoints with blue-ink...they came from the exact same package. In fact, they were made in the same factory and right after one another.

An example:

OBJECTS: Pen Number 1; Pen Number 2; sheets of paper (where, again, same type of paper, same factory, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah).

THE TEST (it would be neat if someone actually did this): The objective here is to take both pens. Make a 1 inch slash, applying the same pressure. See which pen dries up first.

Now, theoretically, both pens (being equal in nature) and doing the same thing, should dry out at the same time. But (and this is only hypothesis, since I'm not actually going to do the test myself), I'm willing to bet that one of them dries first. And there is probably a number of reasons why, but for the sake of this philosophical discussion...

If you take 1000 pens, and apply the same test, and you discover that...say, 40% of them made several hundred marks, while 50% of them only made a few hundred marks, and 10% dried out abnormally fast...

In a philosophical context, the death of these things is very much an important aspect in defining the overall perfection of the thing (objectively).

Pen 1 did better than Pen 2. Both pen's are perfect in their own right, but Pen 1 is more perfect. But how can we judge any of this...because in the death of the thing, all we're left with is trying to understand that thing.

my thoughts exactly. this is intense. i've been polling people i know in the *real* world for their answers, nothing new so far. lol. i enjoy this shit way too much.

maybe the reasoning behind why something can only be deemed perfect afterwards has to do with the fact that... matter is corruptible but ideas are eternal. imagine for a second that we can only see pen 'a' from your previous example. when it ceases to exist, our blinders block out 'b'. then all that remains is the idea of what 'a' was. hence, as a pure idea, it can be deemed perfect or not.

does that make any sense? i was only halfways trying on that

Um...sure.

You have two deaths for all things death of essence and death of form for example our friend the pen A, B and C

A. Complete pen (see parameters above)
B. Same Pen Empty (ink is gone)
C. Plastic pellets

Pen in b state is death of essence it cant write anymore so it is less then A but it is still a pen. No information can be collected at this point relative to the object itself, you cant for example determine if pen B is as smooth to write with as a living pen A. Such an evaluation is good for determining the life expectancy of an object. Depending on the intent how short or long that expectancy is can be used to gauge only that aspect of its perfection. More often that not the fact that it has ceased function means the object itself was imperfect. For example the human race species - intent - continue forever to pass on the genetic sequance of DNA that produces human - human race ceases to exist failure to accomplish intent as a species we were not perfect.

Plastic pellets now you have death of form or complete death in which no correlation can be drawn between A and C because A has ceased to exist.

an object that dies (typically) is imperfect an object that doesnt die well death cant be used to evaloute such a thing - conclusion nothing can ever be deemed to be perfect

oh, but theburningbush, as i've said time and time again, a definition of anything that means it can't ever be applied to anything means that either the definition is wrong or the word is superfluous... no need having a word we can't use. lol. we must change the idea of perfection so that at least something fits it... we can only prescribe so much before we begin talking about phantoms and innanities. we must also describe things, or our prescriptions become void of meaning.

when you say that 'b' is less than 'a', you then say that 'b' is still a pen. this is totally logical but then again, so is questioning whether 'b' is really still a pen when it is incapable of writing. is a pen which cannot write even a pen? if you make a pen with no ink, intentionally, is it really a pen? if the pen doesn't work, is it a pen? if you find something that looks like a pen, and it writes, is it a pen? i say that 'a' ceases to even be a pen when it loses its ability to 'pen' (verb). thus it is not even a pen at all, and unfair to say it's not a perfect pen. goats aren't perfect pens, but they are perfect goats. and why must perfection be eternal? you seem to imply that for something to be perfect it must last forever. i don't see the connection.

if i have only ten minutes to live, and want to write a letter non stop until i'm gone, and the pen doesn't run out of ink, in fact, it writes beautifully and without problems. what difference does it make if, after i'm gone, the pen breaks in half, runs out of ink and spontaneously combusts? none, since for me it fulfilled its 'purpose' or existed its existence 'without lacking any essential'. in my opinion, perfection can be temporary, or long, but never forever or instantaneous (neither of those time frames really exists).

i can remember things being perfect, though they don't exist now. they are perfect because they no longer exist as they were. i think change, or process, or progress is perfect. transition breeds perfection. perfection implies birth, life, and death. all three are needed for perfection to be established. since death comes last, death is the final touch which gives a method to the madness.

you are right about change, change is perfect it will always happen, the change as it occured can not be better then it was, and it is perfect in itself as such it is a perfect thing.

10 minutes to live - I never said an object could not be perfect I only said it could not be THE perfect or without equal

now are friend the pen

if it looks like a pen and writes like a pen ill bet you its not a zebra

goats arent pens who said they were i would like to meet that guy

if i make a pen with no ink is it a pen - ever do caligrophy in art class?

all joking aside I have a simliar thought more about that later