From: I3150101@DBSTU1.RZ.TU-BS.DE (Benedikt Rosenau)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Omniscience
Date: 20 Dec 92 18:46:53 GMT
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Mathew types:

>
> From the definitions of my Catholic youth. Omnipotent meant being able to do
> absolutely everything and anything.
>
>Yes, but not absolutely everything and anything for all time.  It's
>the "for all time" bit I'm asking about.

No, it included all the time. Omnipotent was restricted by nothing, as
restrictions and omnipotence (tm) do not go along.

>> It tells me that the omnipotent and absolutely down to earth logic cannot
>> coexist in the same reference system.
>
>Only if you keep using your strange definition of "omnipotent".  Any
>definition of omnipotent which is rendered impossible by a tautology
>isn't much of a definition.

The definition of omnipotent is naive, admittedly. However, I have not seen
a better one yet. It looks as if you are implying that omnipotent means that
it *can* do anything that is not impossible at least once.

I understand that the discussion of omnipotence referred to an attribute of
gods of many monotheistic religions. Others have pointed out that for instance
the bible makes such statements.

And our point is that such statements make the concept of an naively omnipotent
god either contradictory or the attribute of that god works only in an
meaningless, IMO, reference system which also implies that the concept of
that god is meaningless.


>> >You can't get profound statements out of the inability to solve problems
>> >which don't have a solution; otherwise you could just say "Solve sj jksdj
>> >sdfj ksjd dfj."
>>
>> A and not A has a value, it is always wrong. That does not apply to the
>> sentence given, I assume.

>Then consider the statement "A" instead of "A and not A".

A is true (possible) when A is true and is false (impossible) if A is false.
If A is an statement ( conceivable action). It takes more information in
order to say more.

I wonder what kind of information the concept of omnipotence holds at all.
For instance, is an omnipotent allowed to be some kind of 'supersystemal'?
Like being able to say with 100% certainty if a Turing Machine stops or not?

I know that it can't give an algorithm in order to prove it, but what I mean
is that is simply says: yes or know. Or do you mean something that can solve
any problems solvable from within the system?

>> By the way, it applies to me as well that I can't solve problems that
>> haven't got a solution for me. I am afraid that this implies also that
>> I am Omnipotent, since I can by definition, solve all problems that have
>> a solution for me, and the others don't count.

>OK.  Get me a piece of rock from Phobos.  That problem has a definite
>solution for you.

Semantics again. I would say that getting a piece from Phobos has no
solution for me. I know that you mean that there is a path of events
conceivable that allows me to get pieces of rock from Phobos, without
violating any physical assumption, but such things as social physics
(who would pay everything?) makes it actually impossible. There are
more nonos - all bound by a priori assumptions. Yes, it is imaginable
that some way of getting people there and back again that would allow
me to do it is found .  But until this has happened, there is no
solution for me.

Or another way, as you say, I *CAN* do it, but I don't have to do it.
I choose not to do it. What now?


>You confuse "problems which you cannot solve" with "problems which are
>provably insoluble".

I don't confuse them, we were discussing different things. If you have given
a definition of what you mean with omnipotent, I must have missed it.
   Benedikt
Newsgroups: alt.atheism