Does perfect exist?

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reading a book called 'The Evolution of Useful Things', here is a little snippet that I love:

Here, then, is the central idea: the form of made things is always subject to change in response to their real or perceived shortcomings, their failures to function properly. This principle governs all invention, innovation, and ingenuity; it is what drives all inventors, innovators, and engineers. And there follows a corollary: since nothing is perfect, and indeed, since even our ideas of perfection are not static, everything is subject to change over time. There can be no such thing as a "perfected" artifact; the future perfect can only be a tense, not a thing.

I love that passage.

What do you think? Is the future perfect relegated to the status of tense, or can it be a thing?

Comments

[Mike]

Jon,

I have to agree with the author. Since the people using the artifact are constantly evolving, their perception of what they need will necessarily evolve, too. You could probably say the same thing about relationships, and much more.

[Julian]

Jon,

As a student in the engineering field, I know that other engineers as well as myself are always trying to perfect past designs and devise new models unrelated to the past designs. I would agree with the quote above. Though I think that while 99 things go one way, there is always 1 that goes the opposite. So I offer an artifact that I think "perfected", the design of the arch.

[fouro]

"Future perfect" is a thing metaphysic, parked in our own conscious, real in the sense that's it's personal although often unenunciated; unrealizable, and properly so, because perfection is a terminal destination.

I suspect Nirvana is a very boring place.

[dan]

I recently saw something useful regarding "perfect". It said don't strive for perfect, strive for excellence. Seems to be a workable tolerence.

[Jon Strande]

Wow, lot's of great comments...

Mike, yeah, great point about relationships!

Julian, I hadn't thought of the Arch... very timely though as I prepare for a trip to St. Louis!

Fouro, terminal indeed... what do you have to look forward to if you've achieved perfection?

Dan, I like it. Strive for excellence seems good to me as well!

Again, great comments! Thank you guys!

Jon

[fouro]

Some deep Jungian stuff in there, Dan. Excellence is forgiving and flexible, perfection is not. Excellence can have steps and variance, pefection is a plateau. Or something like that.

[Arnie McKinnis]

The future can always be perfect - it is only in the present that inperfections can be realized - and the past is just full of dumb, bad and poorly designed ideas.

Perfection is only attainable in our minds - and that is where the future lies.