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imho, that notion is afflicted with the Aristotilian/Paltonic solid stuff which presumes there’s a perfect chair somewhere and all other chairs are perversions of that one.... Maybe God has lots of different perfect chairs.... Maybe He loves watching His kids create ever new versions.

I think in a certain way this goes back to A-G's reference to permanence and flux. For Plato, the "perfect chair" is the [permanent] model on which any chair at all is built; it is the very idea of "chairness." The "perfect chair" resides only in the mind of God: There is no "perfect chair" in physical reality, just every type of chair constructed according to the paradigm of "chairness" that resides in the mind of God, which is the permament standard of chairness that does not change. Nothing can be said to be a "chair" that does not accord with this "perfect chair" -- it would have to be something else. All physical chairs are just various executions of that one chairness paradigm. Thus the "perfect chair" paradigm is also an instance of "non-existent reality"....

But then, the great Greeks may be an acquired taste, and not of general interest nowadays.... more's the pity!

What an excellent example and explanation of Plato's universals or forms!

Though some may have lost a taste for the Greek philosophers, I suspect their legacy will continue unabated by the mathematicians and physicists.

After all, every time a mathematician scribbles a variable in a formula he is attesting to the universality of it. And pi remains pi whether on earth or some distant galaxy.

And there will always be physicists like Max Tegmark and Roger Penrose who perceive "things" in space/time as mathematical structures "beyond" space/time.

I think in a certain way this goes back to A-G's reference to permanence and flux. For Plato, the "perfect chair" is the [permanent] model on which any chair at all is built; it is the very idea of "chairness." The "perfect chair" resides only in the mind of God: There is no "perfect chair" in physical reality, just every type of chair constructed according to the paradigm of "chairness" that resides in the mind of God, which is the permament standard of chairness that does not change. Nothing can be said to be a "chair" that does not accord with this "perfect chair" -- it would have to be something else. All physical chairs are just various executions of that one chairness paradigm. Thus the "perfect chair" paradigm is also an instance of "non-existent reality"....

Of course, you are right about "chairness."

Thus the "perfect chair" paradigm is also an instance of "non-existent reality"....

I suppose. Though part of me starts checking my wallet; looking for the door and scanning for threat whenever someone talks about 'non-existent reality.' LOL.

But I agree--many intangible constructs have a lot of usefulness. I just think that some of them get so intellecualized and pontifically . . . airy . . . as to entirely fly out the window of really practical Biblical usefulness.

All of which is to say what . . . where were we at the start of this exchange . . . MAYBE I'll go back and check by and by.

Ahhhh yes, back at THAT WHICH IS PERFECT DOESN'T CHANGE.

Which I still find to be mostly nonsense.

Kosta50 and I think at least I have somewhat moved beyond that because the better English construct turned out to be COMPLETE, FULL, FINISHED.

But assuming that there's still some Biblical usefulness to the English notion of perfect . . . I still contend that we finite souls have little to NO practical comprehension about perfection such that we could really honestly DARE to presume/assume/infer/extrapolate that

ALMIGHTY GOD--THE--ALMIGHTY GOD WE KNOW--HIS PERFECT would not include whatever varieties, aspects of change HE CHOSE. Certainly HE IS DYNAMIC, CREATIVE TO THE MAX . . . and THAT involves at least CHANGE IN HIS CREATION and thereby in HIS RELATIONSHIP with that Creation.