What would you ask a person who knew everything?

[Global Skeptic]

Matter, energy, nature, Creation. ...

Okay, try to understand this - I asked what a given specific word corresponds to, for which you answered with more words, for which I am going to ask what do they correspond to?

 

[Souron]

You don't need me to be your dictionary. Certainly "thing" can have different meanings, and I specified the one I meant. Beyond that, I think my point is clear.

 

[Global Skeptic]

You don't need me to be your dictionary. Certainly "thing" can have different meanings, and I specified the one I meant. Beyond that, I think my point is clear.

No, because you haven't explained what e.g. matter corresponds to? I.e. what is matter?
correspondence

 

[Global Skeptic]

As to the true Scotsman fallacy

Kill them all, God will recognize his own.

-Arnaud Amalric, 1208 (when asked by the Crusaders what to do with the citizens of Beziers who were a mixture of Catholics and Cathars)

Now whether Arnaud Amalric actually said that or not doesn't matter, because it is what happened to the citizens and in what context it happened that matters.

 

[Traitorfish]

So the word thing corresponds to what???

In this context, it means something that exists independent of the mind.

 

[Flying Pig]

Earth is less than 10,000 years old? That'll be news to the original Native North Americans, who came over from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge, then. Gee, since they were the ancestors of the North American Indians, I wonder where the Indians came from?

Or the paleontologists who just found another dinosaur fossil in Drumheller, Alberta. You know, dinosaurs that lived tens of MILLIONS of years ago?

This is one of those things that really annoys me, because it gives the rest of us broadly-sane Christians a bad name. Using the Bible as backing for subjective moral principles is fine, using it to stick your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen to reason is not.

 

[Global Skeptic]

I think that you're confusing ontology with grammar. "The illogical" is, again, a hypothetical, it isn't something which comes within the terms of that which may exist. Just because there exists the noun "illogical" doesn't mean that it corresponds to anything outside of itself.

In this context, it means something that exists independent of the mind.

I think that you're confusing ontology with grammar. "The mind" is, again, a hypothetical, it isn't something which comes within the terms of that which may exist. Just because there exists a noun - "mind" - it doesn't mean that it corresponds to anything outside of itself.
I think - are place-holder words for nothing but caused and determined physical processes, remember there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind. Except of course the rule - that there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind - that one is a mind-rule, that doesn't according to itself exist, because the mind doesn't correspond to anything outside of itself.

 

[Souron]

I think that you're confusing ontology with grammar. "The mind" is, again, a hypothetical, it isn't something which comes within the terms of that which may exist. Just because there exists a noun - "mind" - it doesn't mean that it corresponds to anything outside of itself.
I think - are place-holder words for nothing but caused and determined physical processes, remember there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind. Except of course the rule - that there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind - that one is a mind-rule, that doesn't according to itself exist, because the mind doesn't correspond to anything outside of itself.

I'm confused about what you're trying to say. What's your point with regard to logic and omniscience?

 

[Mise]

I don't see why God can't create something that violates our logical intuitions. E.g. creating a triangle with 4 sides. The counterproof rests on the idea that a shape can't have both 3 sides and 4 sides simultaneously, but I can't say that an omnipotent being can't create such a shape. Maybe an omnipotent being could create such a shape, and it's just that we limited humans just wouldn't be able to perceive it (or understand it or whatever). Maybe there are square triangles all around us, but we can't see them or perceive them, so we build into our Euclidean geometry axioms that render them "illogical" or whatever. Maybe we do this with other "logical intuitions", such as a rock that God can't lift: perhaps there really is a rock that God simultaneously can and cannot lift, but our brains are too limited to understand what that could mean, or are otherwise incapable of perceiving it, even in our imaginations. I can't even begin to imagine what a 12 dimensional object might "look" like, but I bet God could. Could he imagine what a rock that he can't lift might "look" like? Could he thus create one? Maybe he could, afterall.

 

[Cutlass]

This is one of those things that really annoys me, because it gives the rest of us broadly-sane Christians a bad name. Using the Bible as backing for subjective moral principles is fine, using it to stick your fingers in your ears and refuse to listen to reason is not.

As a whole most modern Christians are on your side rather than dommy's. However, the sane side of Christianity isn't nearly as aggressive as the insane side in making their points known. And so tend to get drowned out in the common conversations, leading to a mistaken impression of the majority. And the more that the sane Christians allow the others to control the terms of the debate, the more the otherwise sane, but uninformed, part of the populace may get swayed in that direction.

 

[Souron]

I don't see why God can't create something that violates our logical intuitions. E.g. creating a triangle with 4 sides. The counterproof rests on the idea that a shape can't have both 3 sides and 4 sides simultaneously, but I can't say that an omnipotent being can't create such a shape. Maybe an omnipotent being could create such a shape, and it's just that we limited humans just wouldn't be able to perceive it (or understand it or whatever). Maybe there are square triangles all around us, but we can't see them or perceive them, so we build into our Euclidean geometry axioms that render them "illogical" or whatever. Maybe we do this with other "logical intuitions", such as a rock that God can't lift: perhaps there really is a rock that God simultaneously can and cannot lift, but our brains are too limited to understand what that could mean, or are otherwise incapable of perceiving it, even in our imaginations. I can't even begin to imagine what a 12 dimensional object might "look" like, but I bet God could. Could he imagine what a rock that he can't lift might "look" like? Could he thus create one? Maybe he could, afterall.

The comparison with a 12 dimensional shape is inadequate. We can describe a 12 dimensional object without contradiction. One might have difficulty imagining such a thing physically, but it's properties are knowable. By contrast, a square triangle, or for a simpler example a married bachelor is a contradiction. It boils down to something being both true and not true at the same time. And if we can claim that something can be both true and not true at once, then we can make absurd claims like God is both omnipotent and not.

EDIT:
You're also misunderstanding what a mathematical axiom is. Axioms are arbitrary premises that are declared to be true, but aren't true in any objective way. Mathematics does not study nature, it studies hypotheticals that sometimes behave analogously to nature. Triangles or numbers, don't exist in the same sense as physical things. There are no triangles, much less square triangles, around us, except in so far as there are things that are very similar to triangles. Now sure you could call a particular triangle like thing in nature a triangle, but that would be a different definition. And if it's found that the triangle in nature had a particular property, it's not automatically true that mathematical triangles have the same property. For example, the Bermuda Triangle, being on the surface of a the earth, does not have angles that add up to 180 degrees, but that does not allow us to say that euclidean geometry is wrong.

 

[Global Skeptic]

I'm confused about what you're trying to say. What's your point with regard to logic and omniscience?

That if we can't agree on what existence and logic is, then how should we even begin to know what that is to God. In other words, it appears we don't have a perfect understanding of reality is, so how should we ever understand a perfect understanding?

 

[Souron]

But we're not reasoning what existence and logic are to God, we're reasoning about what possible God there could be in the first place. If the definition of God amounts to a logical contradiction, then either we have to claim that a statement can be both true and false, or a God so described does not exist.

Note I've been using the word "exists" in two different ways in this thread. Logic exists in one sense, matter exists in another. By saying that God may not exist I'm saying that there is no reasonable definition of existence that could be applied to God1. Not that of logic, not that of matter, and not a third reasonable definition.

1:And that's an example of existential qualification, another meaning of the word "exists." Isn't semantic ambiguity great!

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that you're confusing ontology with grammar. "The mind" is, again, a hypothetical, it isn't something which comes within the terms of that which may exist. Just because there exists a noun - "mind" - it doesn't mean that it corresponds to anything outside of itself.

Yeah, no.

I think - are place-holder words for nothing but caused and determined physical processes, remember there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind. Except of course the rule - that there is nothing but that, which exists independent of the mind - that one is a mind-rule, that doesn't according to itself exist, because the mind doesn't correspond to anything outside of itself.

I didn't say that only mind-independent things exists. Clearly, mind-dependent things exist as functions of the mind. All I said was that, in this context, "thing" implies mind-independence.

 

[Mise]

The comparison with a 12 dimensional shape is inadequate. We can describe a 12 dimensional object without contradiction. One might have difficulty imagining such a thing physically, but it's properties are knowable. By contrast, a square triangle, or for a simpler example a married bachelor is a contradiction. It boils down to something being both true and not true at the same time. And if we can claim that something can be both true and not true at once, then we can make absurd claims like God is both omnipotent and not.

EDIT:
You're also misunderstanding what a mathematical axiom is. Axioms are arbitrary premises that are declared to be true, but aren't true in any objective way. Mathematics does not study nature, it studies hypotheticals that sometimes behave analogously to nature. Triangles or numbers, don't exist in the same sense as physical things. There are no triangles, much less square triangles, around us, except in so far as there are things that are very similar to triangles. Now sure you could call a particular triangle like thing in nature a triangle, but that would be a different definition. And if it's found that the triangle in nature had a particular property, it's not automatically true that mathematical triangles have the same property. For example, the Bermuda Triangle, being on the surface of a the earth, does not have angles that add up to 180 degrees, but that does not allow us to say that euclidean geometry is wrong.

What I'm saying about square triangles doesn't depend on Mathematical axioms being "abstract", "hypothetical" or otherwise "not-real"; I'm just describing something that appears contradictory (i.e. a square triangle; an object that is both 3-sided and 4-sided simultaneously). Separately, that a 12-dimensional object is logically consistent is again irrelevant to the separate point I was making about my inability to imagine a 12-dimensional object; I'm merely describing something that I can't imagine.

To be clear, I am not in any way comparing a 12 dimensional object to a square triangle or a married bachelor. I am saying that (a) a square triangle / married bachelor contradicts my logical intuitions, and (b) a 12 dimensional object is beyond my comprehension. The purpose of (a) is to pose the following questions: What if some, most or all of my logical intuitions are wrong? What if logically contradictory things can exist? The purpose of (b) is to pre-empt the response: "well, how could that possibly be? I can't imagine how a man can be both married and unmarried at the same time, or how an omnipotent being can create a rock that even he can't lift." So what if you can't imagine it? I can't imagine a 12 dimensional object, but that can still exist (it's logically consistent, after all!).

Why is it absurd to claim that something can be both true and false at the same time? I mean, I know why it's absurd for normal people to claim that, in the real world, in every day life, because we wouldn't get anywhere without logical consistency and analytical rigour. But just because the claim isn't very useful doesn't mean it can't be true. I think it can be true that God can create an object that even he can't lift -- and, simultaneously, that he can lift it because he is omnipotent. You ever had a dream where you were your adult self, at 27 years old or whatever, but were still in school, aged 7, standing in front of the entire year without pants on? Doesn't make any sense that you are your 27 year old present self but also simultaneously your 7 year old past self, but you knew that both things were true. In your head, both things were true, and you just accepted it as a fact along with everybody else. You just accept that, oh, I'm 27 and I need to get up for work in the morning, but also I'm 7 and I forgot to put my pants on for some reason and now my schoolfellows are laughing at me. Why can't the universe be like that? At least some of the time, anyway. I don't think any that is true, and I don't think it's useful to believe it's true either, but I think it's useful to believe that it could be true.

 

[Souron]

But if something can be true and not true at once, how can it be wrong to make any arbitrary claim about God or anything?

Normally when we say someone is good, that precludes them from being evil. Being able to do something means not being unable to do that thing. Being of the same form as map precludes being shaped like an octopus. But if for a given source being unable do to something, and being able to do something are not contradictions, and able and unable are meant in the same sense(1), then the same standard should logically be applied to every other claim by that source. Normally if someone is good, they are worthy of trust, but if being good does not preclude being evil, that may not be the case. So if your Good Book claims that there are contradictions, and it also claims that God is good, I cannot safely conclude that your God is trustworthy, like I could with any other source claiming someone is good.

It goes further than that in fact. Logicians claim that any arbitrary claim can be proven from a contradiction. So if a contradiction is true, or can be true, then everything is true.

All that said, I do admit that the law of non-contradiction, ie. that all contradictions are false, is a logical axiom, and cannot be proven. We can only reason about how a system of logic that assumes the law of contradiction is more analogous to reality than one that doesn't.

1)It is possible for being able and being unable to do something not to be a contradiction, even though unable means "not able" iff the word able means two different things for the two words. For example you can talk about how you are physically able to do something, but honor makes you unable to act a certain way. That's not a contradiction, even though you're both able and unable to act.

 

[caketastydelish]

I'm not so sure. "The illogical" doesn't actually exist, it's a hypothetical which humans developed to help them understand the logical, so there's no reason to assume that it is encompassed by the infinite.


That doesn't actually work, though, beause if he wasn't able to lift the rock, he wouldn't be omnipotent.

^ This is pretty much it.

The conundrum "How can God make an object too big for him to move?" was first introduced to me when I was 7 by my brother who is 3 yrs older. It plagued me for years. And I owe the answer "Well, of course he can - he's omnipotent." to Billy Graham.

The answer delights me by its elegant simplicity.

Omnipotence is the top trump.

(You might of course come up with a more philosophical reasoned discourse on why this is or isn't valid; but, you see, I wanted a 7 year old's answer to a 10 year old's question - and this does very nicely.)

To say an omnipotent being cannot do such and such (logical or not) is of course to say the being is no longer omnipotent.

You guys should know this very question has already been asked in the ask a theologian thread.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Y'know, I get the impression that many of you don't play Dungeons & Dragons. The answers I posted many pages back are the sort that a Dungeon Master/Mistress would give to a player trying to formulate a wish. It's up to the player to pin down the form of the request/question in such a way that the granter (a genie, magical artifact, etc.) - which is necessarily played by the DM - can't find wiggle room (or much) to twist it into something else.

As for a 4-sided triangle... ever see a d4 (a 4-sided die that resembles a pyramid)? The 4th side is the bottom - the one you can't see.

In other words... just add a dimension. The Universe already does that.

 

[Souron]

A tetrahedron is not a triangle. . .

 

[madviking]

And an additional side isn't an extra dimension...