The Theoretical vs. The Practical

In political theory, there's socialism, communism and capitalism--as if these are three competing theories, one of which is right; and the other two are wrong.  I'm here to tell you (so long as I'm alive!) that they are all right and all wrong.  From the practical world, each draws upon human experience as the foundation of its fundamental thesis.  The trouble is they generalize too far--and when they do, they enter the world of absurdity, where nothing exists but fantasies!  I recall sitting in on a lecture on Marxism.  The lecturer was boldly stating without a smile on his face that, as Marx first stated, the world is inexorably headed toward a new era of never-ending peace once capitalism has been overthrown.  No one need do anything to rid the world of capitalism, the forces of history will destroy it.

Now, there are instances when it's important to share equally one's wealth: after a physical catastrophe--a monstrous earthquake, a volcanic eruption of enormous proportions. Survivors help each other out of beneficence.  So too, cooperatives emerge when people find that by pooling their assets, they can support a capital venture they could not afford and so could not benefit from--an "A" for socialism.  And you can't motivate an individual to do something without giving him a reward--the old stimulus-response mechanism, the basic truth of capitalism.  (As in the adage, work hard, and it will pay off in huge dividends!)  So, every one of these theories is right--to a degree. 

You may recall in chemistry or physics class, the mathematical equation of a law or principle was written on the board, and the professor expounded on its meaning.  But the application made in the laboratory turned out to be a mere approximation of what was its precise meaning.  In other words, a demonstration of a particular principle produces rarely the findings anticipated from its formula derivations.  The "close enough" empirical, laboratory findings to the formula derivations are explained as variations due to the inability to sufficiently control the conditions of testing in the laboratory situation.

In other words, the world of thought, of intellectual perfectability is never that of the real, physical world.  The chemist or physicist aims at producing findings in the laboratory that are only approximations, given the variances of testing conditions, to his theoretical expectations.

That same conclusion occurs in other contexts.  For instance, interior home design.  The interior decorator produces on his laptop a design of a room that contains the elements he wants to put in it at some physical location approximating what he believes are the home owner's expectations.  But a property owner won't know if that's really the way he wants the room to look until he starts living in it!  For instance, the interior designer may think the plasma TV will look great over the mantelpiece, distant from where the inhabitants will sit to see it; but in actuality, it's not in a location viewers will find comfortable to watch.

Similarly, computer system designers will schedule several re-iterations of coding based upon their dissatisfaction with how the programs actually mesh together into a coherent, systematic whole in practice.  That is to say, systems design can't really achieved until it's beta-tested in various situations where it is to be used.

So, the perfect can't be a theoretical structure; but the physical, real instance of its application is by definition, perfect because it is real--which counters Plato's thesis of the real world being the ideal conceived in thought!  Thought captures merely the repetitive elements of what occurs in reality.  Another way of saying this, the practical world of physical things in interaction controls how we can change the world as we would want, our conceptions being sometimes no more what history can tell us regarding our past success in relating thought to action.

I think that's what I mean!