Talk:Omnipotence paradox/Archive 2

message: I have removed the following paragraphs:
:===Semantics===
:Many years later, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein formalized Allen's attitude in the concluding pages of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.  Up until proposition 6.4, the Tractatus stays generally within the realm of logical positivism, but 6.41 and the succeeding propositions argue that ethics is a "transcendental" subject which we cannot examine with language, as it is a form of aesthetics and cannot be expressed.  Wittgenstein then begins talking of the will, life after death, and God; he argues that all discussion of such issues is a misuse of logic.  Specifically, since logical language can only reflect the world, any discussion of the mystical, that which lies outside of the metaphysical subject's world, is meaningless.  This suggests that many of the traditional domains of philosophy—e.g., ethics and metaphysics—cannot in fact be discussed meaningfully.  Any attempt to discuss them immediately loses all sense.  This also suggests that Wittgenstein's own project of trying to explain language is impossible, for exactly these reasons, and so he suggests that the project of philosophy must ultimately be abandoned for those logical practices which attempt to reflect the world, not what is outside of it.
:Wittgenstein's work makes the omnipotence paradox a problem in semantics, the study of how symbols are given meaning.  (The retort "That's only semantics" is a way of saying that a statement only concerns the definitions of words, instead of anything important in the physical world.)  According to the Tractatus, then, even attempting to formulate the omnipotence paradox is futile, since language cannot refer to the entities the paradox considers.  The final proposition of the Tractatus gives Wittgenstein's dictum for these circumstances:  "What we cannot speak of, we must pass over in silence."
:One should note that in his later years, Wittgenstein himself revised or renounced outright much of what he wrote in the Tractatus.  His second major work, Philosophical Investigations (published posthumously), argues that many philosophical problems which had seemingly been intractable to logical analysis are in truth artifacts of the way philosophers misuse language.  Typically, commentators divide Wittgenstein's work into "early" and "late" periods, though beyond this simple distinction, it is difficult to find any consensus among Wittgenstein's interpreters.
from the article. They are both original research, and also advance a rather poorly-phrased interpretation of the Tractatus and PI, niether of which make any mention of the "omnipotence paradox". Indeed, Wittgenstein mostly steered clear of discussing religious beliefs and wrote very little on these sorts of "paradoxes" (he preferred to invent his own.) If someone has written an article applying LW's work to this particular question, great, let's cite and describe it, but this bit of amateur philosophy is not what we should be doing.
Sdedeo (tips) 00:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, thanks.  I didn't mean that to sound disrespectful to philosophy, it's one of my favorite pastimes...  which is how I know about the habit of philosophical BS'ing, just randomly speculating with friends.  It would be terribly tempting to put some of that stuff in an article on Wikipedia.  -Kasreyn 00:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you ever hang out with analytic philosophers, you'll be in for quite a ride. It's like half college bull sessions and half insanely exacting reasoning. Very amusing. Sdedeo (tips) 00:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: rm original research

message: Eh.  The Omnipotence thing doesn't bother me much.  If a being is all-powerful, then it can do whatever it wants.  Therefore whether it can create the rock depends at any given moment on whether or not it wants to be able to lift it later.
What interests me a lot more is, assuming an omniscient, omnipotent creator who has total knowledge of the future, how can there be such a thing as free will?  Of course, that's wildly off-topic, but it seems much harder to approach with the same kind of reasoning being used for the omnipotence paradox.  Kudos to all of you for a great featured article!  -Kasreyn 00:26, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There can be such a thing as free will and predestination at the same time, but because our minds our limited, it is hard to accept the concept.  I can explain it with an example.  Light is made up of many particles, but it is also a wave.  Theoretically that is impossible.  It is both at the same time, but for a very long time, ever since scientists discovered this, there was a split among the scientists, some said its only a particle, others said its only a wave, and others had no idea what was going on.  This split has been resolved, as mention in the article one Wave-Particle Duality.  This is happening today with the predestination vs. free will debate, and it has not been resolved, even though there is an answer.  --Kirk Surber 15:05, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Omniscience 

message: Well, man can.
*Will you please read the article before you start posting this garbage? I'm sure God could commit suicide (which is the same as destroying Himself), but why would He desire to?  And for the latter, it is explained in the article!
Link9er 14:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can God destroy Itself? Can God commit suicide? Can God create a temple so heavy he cannot carry? 

message: Should there be an objection to the paradox along the lines of "just because God can't create this rock, doesn't mean he can't torture you eternally". After all, the point of God's omnipotence is that God punishes those who reject him. (As it happens I don't come close to believing in hell or God. But see it as a possible answer to the problem)
BillMasen 01:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  It doesn't matter, he can still send you to hell 

message: I removed the link " square circle " in the article because "to create a square circle" has absolutely nothing to do with squaring the circle, the latter one meaning to use "a finite ruler-and-compass construction to make a square with the same area as a given circle" (from Wikipedia). Whoever created that link is totally irresponsible and deserves to be smashed by a stone so heavy that an omnipotent being cannot lift. F15x28 02:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Squaring the circle" link removed

message: I have removed the following from the end of the section Logically impossible:
:Still, this explanation is not at all irrational given a certain train of events:
:#An omnipotent creator-being exists.
:#They created logic.
:#Ergo they existed apart from or before logic and must necessarily transcend logic.
The argument is simply superfluous; it does not add anything to the debate, and also provides a somewhat biasing "parting shot". It also seems to have been introduced to replace bias from the other side. Hairy Dude 03:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yet more removed text 

message: the classic example is, "Could an omnipotent being create a stone so heavy that even that being could not lift it?" - the classic example is a gender-nonspecific, faith-decentralized question?  No, I'm pretty sure the "Classic Example" includes the words "God" and "he" (or "He", but Wikipedia shouldn't be capitalizing He, just as we don't write "Mohammad(pbuh)") Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 08:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See above to Talk:Omnipotence paradox#God/omnipotent being for a reason as to why the phrasing is as it is. GeeJo (t) (c) •  08:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is a fine way to summarize the theological paradox, but it is not the "Classic example", which the article claims it is. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 09:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the concept that is classical, not the exact wording.  --Vagodin 15:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitely not

message: robg -- the reason people are removing your new section "Christian responses" is both because it only contains a one sentence paragraph linking to your blog (generally considered bad taste to link to your own article off-wiki -- let others determine if it meets wikipedia source requirements), and because segregating discussions by faith are probably not the way to go (i.e., we don't have a Jewish responses, Muslim responses, etc. section, and organize the article differently.) Sdedeo (tips) 12:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: robert grant blog article

message: didn't the comedian George Carlin use this paradox in his nightclub act years ago? It was supposed to be one of the questions he and other "neighborhood kids" used to ask their parish priest, IIRC. --Christofurio 13:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can find the reference, please, by all means add it under "Popular culture and humorous responses"!  Anville 15:10, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: George Carlin

message: I would like to applaud to everyone who worked on this article.  Very nice :D
Link9er 13:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very Nice 

message: The article says:
One can also attempt to resolve the paradox by postulating that omnipotence does not necessarily demand that a being must be able to do all things at all times. Thus, one reasons,
# The being can create a stone which it cannot at that moment lift.
# However, being omnipotent, the being can always later reduce the weight of the stone to a weight where it can lift it. Therefore the being is still legitimately omnipotent.
but if the 2nd statement is correct, doesn't that mean that this "omnipotent being" cannot lift the unliftable rock in its original (and unliftable) state? that means that the omnipotent being is not omnipotent anymore. Oh, and can this "omnipotent being" limit its own omnipotence, in which case it would no longer be omnipotent anymore? If it can't, then it's not not omnipotent. If it can, then it's also not omnipotent.  Iownwikipedia 14:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I don't get it

message: I could answer that question, but I might not. rikjoh 14:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can Omnipotence be self-limiting? 

message: "Able to be lifted by an omnipotent being" isnt a physical property of an object, its a conundrum. Since an omnipotent being has unlimited for and unlimited power, then yes, they can lift anything. --Cronosquall 15:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conundrum 

message: I look forward to putting the pieces of this article back together after it leaves the Main Page.  (sigh and smile)
As to the Wittgenstein stuff, well, see the FAC and peer review discussions for why it got put there.  Anville 15:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Main Page and beyond... 

message: Several times during this discussion, I have noticed that people say the omnipotent being can defy physics, but not logic. Does logic surpass physics? Since our brains are contained within physics, and we originate logic within our brains, through means which are a part of physics, isn't physics superior? Of course, we often imagine things which are impossible by the laws of physics, but are imagined through the laws of physics. How do we determine the superiority of Logic or Physics?  - Scourgeofsmallishinsects
:They are equal in my opinion.  Both are absolutely binding. --Vagodin 15:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Math which turned out to be applicable to phenomena is physics. It's as binding as it's good, which means pretty good but imperfect. A related consideration is if mathematics or logic are real or merely artifacts of human mentation, however this diverts to ruminating on omniscience, rather than sticking to the omnipotence paradox. 207.172.134.175 19:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both are equal, but God is above both.  Simple proof of this is that we exist.  Scientists still don't understand every thing that happens in nature, much less in our bodies.  Also,  the Laws of physics and logic state that matter cannot be created from nothing, nor can it be completely destroyed, it turns into energy.  However, God completely defied both laws by creating the world, and if you don't believe in creationis, then the big bang theory is still illogical.  The big bang theory states that everything was contained something the size of a golf ball, and then it exploded, forming the universe.  so where did the golf ball come from?--Kirk Surber 14:54, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are the laws of physics or logic superior? 

message: Everytime I see this paradox presented it's done poorly.  The unliftable rock example is poor because it relies upon some liftin mechanism.  I far prefer asking if an omnipotent being can create an indestructible object.  But why even bother with examples?  By definition, an omnipotent being can do any thing.  That set of doable things must, necessarily, include robbing itself of its own omnipotence.  Therefore, all omnipotent beings are necessarily only contingently omnipotent, as their continued omnipotence relies upon them not depriving themsleves of their own omnipotence. --Llewdor 19:52, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yay for someone who makes sense!  This is the only way I have ever seen God as being omnipotent.-The Scurvy Eye 23:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poorly Framed Question 

message: * If an omnipotent being can do anything... ie. make a rock it cannot lift, make itself no longer omnipotent, then being omnipotent, it should be able to do so.
* AFTER doing such, the being is no longer omnipotent, having restricted its own omnipotence. 
* It may be able to regain omnipotence by removing the restriction, if the restriction it gave itself was not structured in such a way as to make it impossible.
** IF the restriction was made in such a way as to be irreversible, then it's a permanent reduction from omnipotence.
- 132.205.45.110 20:14, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If it changed the object that it couldn't lift to be something it could lift, then object is no longer the same object that it was before... So, an omnipotent being cannot create an object it cannot lift and remain omnipotent... But it can do so, at the cost of its omnipotence... To remain omnipotent and create an object it cannot lift would cause the paradox. ..... So the example has a flaw. 132.205.45.110 23:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That was my point, above.  Omnipotence is necessarily contingent.  --Llewdor 23:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a paradox, temporally solvable 

message: Whoever wrote this article, is completely wrong... God IS omnipotent and he IS real. ALL things are possible with God. It's not 'good' logic, God is good, and the philosophical jargon bs they are posting still can't hide the truth. The truth stands- God created the heavens and the earth. He created all things. He is all powerful, He spoke and the world was. The real 'false dilemma' are the lies and deception in opposition to the truth. These philosophers can try to analyze and try to explain away with their 'logic', but they can't outsmart God.
:Alright, now please make this npov and then we'll see if it's worthy for inclusion.  **snort**  Cyde Weys votetalk 01:09, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong

message: I'm not an expert on this paradox, but to me this section has an air of 'original research', lumping together various not particularly closely related paradoxes (without much sourcing either). Ben Finn 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophical responses

message: Orthodox Catholic theology - including Aquinas but preceding him -  generally holds that God limits himself in order to relate to finite, sinful humanity.  
God's potentia absoluta (absolute power) is unlimited.  God's potentia ordinaria (ordinary power) is limited by what God has himself decreed.  For example, by his absolute power God could preserve human beings from death; but in the present order this is impossible, since he has decreed otherwise because of Original Sin.  In other words, God keeps his promises or, perhaps better, God has no limits other than those he has freely chosen to impose on himself.  
It seems to me that each of the major monotheisms believes in God's self limitation in one way or the other. The heart of Judaism is the Covenant, in which God has limited himself to the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The heart of Islam is the Kor'an, in which God has expressed himself in Arabic, a limited human language.  Most of all, the heart of Christianity is the Incarnation, in which the eternal, omnipotent God emptied himself to become a human being.  
I think the theme of God's willing self-limitation needs to be brought out a bit more in the article.
BTW -  Was Averroës condemned by Bishop Tempier for advancing the omnipotence paradox?  I thought he was condemned for his belief in the universal soul. --Joey1898 23:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  potentia absoluta; potentia ordinaria 

message: The definition of Omnipotence, is to be all-powerful, infinitely so, yes?
That means Gods power - God used for the sake of sanity - is infinitely expanding and growing every second?
That means, in the time for God to create an incredibly infinitely heavy rock, his power will have increased, yes?
After all, is not our metaphysical definitions of 'big' and 'infinite' ever largening? In economics, a large sum of money has changed over the dedicates. A million dollars has been decreased in value, yes?
Then, by logic, God can carry the rock, because a rocks weight is never all-increasing.
If God created an all-increasing weight rock, he'd be able to carry it because of the instant between "no rock" and "rock"
Yes?
No?
===Link to God===
This section, with above header, was in the article; I couldn't see how to clean it up, so I'm moving it to here.  If anyone can make it worthwhile, go ahead and put it back in, but in current form it shouldn't be in an article with a link from the front page.  --RobthTalk 00:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just thinking, People 

message: This section, with above header, was in the article; I couldn't see how to clean it up, so I'm moving it to here.  If anyone can make it worthwhile, go ahead and put it back in, but in current form it shouldn't be in an article with a link from the front page.  --RobthTalk 00:59, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Link to God

message: internal angles that did not add up to 180 degrees is self-contradictory while a stone even the creater cannot lift it. It is a inappropriate analogy. If no one oppose it, I will add this remark to that paragraph--192.193.160.5 04:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No it isn't.  There's no reason an omnipotent being couldn't change the rules that govern Euclidean geometry (incidentally, such a triangle is possible if you're working within non-Euclidean geometry). --Llewdor 22:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "a triangle with internal angles that did not add up to 180 degrees" is a inappropriate analogy to the paradox 

message: The topic of this article talks nothing about gods. And not all gods are omniptent. It is a severe flaw on this article. All reasonings based on gods' attribute(especially christian god) is invalid. If no one opposes it, I will remove or amend all reasonings based on gods. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.193.160.5 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 10 January 2006
:The article talks about gods so much because rarely is any other type of entity conceived as being omnipotent.  --Mr. Billion 05:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't. BrianH123 05:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why God is related to this article? 

message: All right.  As the history page shows, this article has become somewhat unstable since being featured on the Main Page, on January 9.  I've particularly noticed the misuse of the  tag.  But there's also a lot of vandalism and content dispute going on.I would like to request that everybody get a grip, or I will enforce temporary protection of the article.  Thank you.  Redux 12:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Easy now 

message: I've re-added the following that was deleted by an anon.
* God's Debris by Scott Adams treads ground similar to the omnipotence paradox; the treatment is more serious than humourous. According to the central character of the book, the only challenge for an omnipotent being is to annihilate Himself to see if the resulting components can re-combine into Him - thus, all objects, animate and inanimate in this universe are God's debris.
It would be interesting to know if others feel the above is inappropriate and specify their reasons, before deleting it. --Gurubrahma 17:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  God's debris