A Piece of Pi

Over an excellent martini at Moscow on the Hill...

I love that place

Yeah, its pretty cool. Anyways, a good friend tells me that there is no such thing as a perfect circle. Sure, we have an idea for a perfect circle. A perfect circle will have a ratio between its circumference and diameter equal to Pi. If you recall, Pi, is the symbol for that number that starts out 3.14 and goes on forever with out any pattern. Well, the problem is there is no such thing in the universe as a circle with that ratio. It doesn't exist. Why? Its pretty simple; try creating the most perfect circle in the world. If there is one more atom on the left side of circle then the right, sorry, you don't have a perfect circle. Even if we could create a perfect circle, we wouldn't be able to measure it to see if it was, in fact, perfect. If our caliper is off one atom our measurements will show something not quite a perfect circle.

So?
So we have an idea of something which does not exist. I can have an idea of a tree that does not exist, but trees do exist. Circles do not.

Well, circles do exist, they are just not perfect.

I argue that there is no such thing as an imperfect circle, an imperfect circle is not a circle, its a loop or maybe an ellipse.

Ok, fine, in the physical universe circles do not exist. Big deal, what's your point?

Right now, all I'm trying to convince you off is that we have an idea for something which does not exist. We have "knowledge" of something which does not exist in the physical world.

Like I said before, big deal. George Lucas dreamed up Star Wars yet Tie Fighters and Darth Vader don't exist.

Well, actually they do. Prior to George Lucas they didn't, after him they did. I dont think anyone believes Darth Vader has a social security number, they understand he is a character. He does exist, as a character with a real physical presence at least at one time on the film set.

Christ, whats your point?

Well, I really don't give a damn about circles. I do give a damn about things that we have ideas for and supposedly have knowledge that actually don't exist. Take WMDs in Iraq for instance.

What the fuck does this have to do with Iraq?

Nothing, never mind. I'm just saying, this isn't about circles. William Carlos Williams said there "No ideas but in things"

I love that poet, his is brilliant. What does that quote supposed to mean?

Well a circle is an idea which is not a thing. I think what Williams is getting at is that all ideas come from things, things that actually exist. So if thats the case, what the hell is a circle?

A circle is just a mathematical abstraction of something that approximatily exist in the real world.

Ok, yeah, I agree. You're following me now. I guess what I am interested in is that line between mathmatical abstraction and existence. You agree that perfect circles don't exist, but we know what a perfect circle is, right? Well do think there are other things for which we have ideas which do not actually exist?

Ghost. I don't believe in Ghost, a complete crock of shit.

Yeah, I don't believe in ghost either, but, they have real affect. Ghost regardless of whether or not they actually exist scare the shit out of people.

Just like Pi is used in math but doesn't actually exist. We launch rockets with it, make computers with, everything.

Exactly! Well I am trying to get at something on the edge of my mind, so bare with me. I think there something really important about this phenomenon of ideas of things that do not exist having a real effect on the material world. Some mechanism allows our minds to experience reality, and recombine it our minds and create things which do not exist. I think most of its pretty harmless. Like Santa Clause or twinkies (well, they do, but they shouldn't)

Hey, I love twinkies.

But there is something special about the idea of a perfect circle. A perfect idea, Pi, that we cannot truly know, that we don't fully understand and which, if you buy it, doesn't really exist. There is a lot of human emotion invested in Pi. People spends year memorizing as many decimal points as they can. They have competitions to who can recite more. I suspect that number fills them with a sense of mystery and power. Its something perfect and perfectly unknowable and by memorizing more and more decimal places that can get closer and closer to perfection. But it doesn't exist.

Whoa, you are losing me. Why are you looking at the ceiling?

To a caveman Pi wont fill his stomach but a crude and imperfect sharpened stick will. I think there something connected between the idea of a perfect circle, a perfect abstraction and the idea of a perfect and omnipresent god.

What the fuck dude? What does this have to do with god?

I dunno man. I mean, if there is a god and we have eternal souls and those souls have some innate knowledge about perfect forms and the one and perfect god then bam, no problem. It means there is something beyond the reality we see. But start with the assumption that there is no god or soul or any of that stuff. What the fuck is a circle? How did we arrive at the idea of god? Well I am saying that whatever in our minds, and our experience on this planet allowed us to conceive of the idea of a circle that is the same thing that allowed us to conceive of the idea of a perfect god. I just don't have the knowledge or skill to look under the sheets to see how exactly those ideas are connected but I have more then a hunch that they are.

I don't really get the point. Pi is just a symbol for an idea.

Which doesn't exist.

So God is a symbol for an idea that doesn't exist?

Maybe, but thats not the important part.

Huh? What the fuck? I thought we were talking about god.

Well yeah but...

(Stairs off at the slow rotation of ceiling fan in the distant corner)

The important part is that human being have the capability to construct abstracts idea removed from reality that motivate people to do very real and very terrible thing. And yes good things to. It's not just about god. Look at the Communist, atheistic by definition but believed to much in their ideas they were willing to starve and murder and start wars. Thats a bit of broad stroke but still, I think the point is relevant.

And Pi?

Pi is just an example of something totally abstract and irrelevant which I think illustrates this capability of human beings to construct abstractions which no basis in material reality. Pi is apolitical and godless, a pure and universal abstraction. Which does not exist, like WMDs in Iraq. Kidding...

You don't make any fucking sense.

I'm working on that.