What is the significance of perfect circles not existing in nature? I am struggling to grasp concepts and universals in light of Lonergan's thought. Below is what's coming to mind as I work on this:
1. Plato imagines an actual world of forms--Aristotle/ St. Thomas/ Lonergan reject this.
2. Atheists say perfect circles only exist in the mind as concepts, and they charge God is a mere concept, too.
3. But a circle is a universally-acknowledged concept, so it is TRUE? does it speak to TRUTH? Since we identify God with the Truth, is it an instance of God and the intelligibility of His Creation?
4. Lonergan says the real is being, and being is what can be intelligently grasped and reasonably affirmed. Is a perfect circle real? Does it exist? Does reality consist of existents, or is that the significance of potentiality, formality, and actuality?
5. Lonergan says concepts are byproducts of knowledge, so knowledge of circles exists before we form the concept? We abstract this from the phantasm as in the Euclidean oversight of insight with the equilateral triangle and the two circles?
6. What of Aristotle's Ideas (of God)?
7. We can't actually imagine a circle because we can't imagine a line, correct? So first we know it, then we conceive it, but we can't imagine it?
8. An atheist tells me he wants "evidence" to affirm what is real. Does he think knowing consists in "taking a look?" When I tell him he knows circles without evidence, am I not showing that knowing is not "taking a look?" But he thinks conceptual knowledge is only real inside a human mind. Is he stuck on the "already out there now real" take on being?
9. Could we actually draw a circle in the sky, it's just that we don't have the instruments and our human eyes can't see it as perfect? By saying perfect circles don't exist in nature, are we just saying they don't occur accidentally, and that we can't create them as human beings?
10. In the field of structural engineering, the closer we get to true, geometric shape, the stronger a structure? We affirm the truth of the forms, then build as close to them as possible?
This is rambling, I know, and I think the answer may be short and cut through all my struggles. Perhaps the single question is: are perfect circles "real" since they can be intelligently grasped and rationally affirmed?
Thank you in advance.