ZM's Philosophy Thread

[Repeat]

I'm betting a lot of you out there have some good thoughts. Who are your favorite philosophers and topics?

[Itch]

I'm not one of those ponces who dances about Descartes or Plato, but I like the Paradox of the Stone. No-one's ever tried to answer it whom I know.

 

In brief: Can God, the creator of all, with infinite strength and wisdom, create a stone that he cannot lift?

 

That one's a classic...

 

Here's one..

 

If a says something and there isn't a woman around to hear it .. Is he still wrong?

[Captain Colon]

I'm not one of those ponces who dances about Descartes or Plato, but I like the Paradox of the Stone. No-one's ever tried to answer it whom I know.

 

In brief:

1. Either God can create a stone which He cannot lift, or He cannot create a stone which He cannot lift.

2. If God can create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent (since He cannot lift the stone in question).

3. If God cannot create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent (since He cannot create the stone in question).

4. Therefore God is not omnipotent.

That's pretty bad logic. If god can create a create a stone of infinite mass and can also lift a stone of infinite mass, then he must be omnipotent. It's like saying god can't know everything because he doesn't know a question he can't answer...if there's no question he can't answer then it must logically follow that he knows everything.

[Captain Colon]

I don't even see how that's a paradox, it seems pretty obvious to me that the answer would be "no."

 

It seems like one of those "problems" that just came about due to an inability of most people to deal with immeasurably large quantities.

[Italian Jew]

lol, no need to take any offense to it. He isn't aiming to disprove anything mainly because you cannot prove it. Enjoy the philosophy!

[Captain Colon]

Because it's an omnipotence paradox. If He is the creator, and is infinitely strong, then can He create a stone that is so heavy He cannot lift?

He cannot, but that doesn't mean he's not omnipotent. He can create a stone of limitless mass, but he can also lift that stone. Both his ability to create and his ability to manipulate are unlimited, hence omnipotency.

[Italian Jew]

Where would he put this stone of limitless mass? To lift this mass you would need a limitless supply of energy, which would in turn create a limitless supply of heat, which might very well destroy existence! Or you can mix and match any laws of science you seek to fit to manipulate whatever he said or what I said. Of course that is being technical about it, which takes the fun out of god

 

To be strict to the definition of omnipotence, isn't it power with no limits, so technically, if you believe god to be omnipotent he would have to be able to make a rock with more mass than he could lift. Infinity really cannot be measured, so to say he lifts something with infinite mass would be foolish since infinity can never be reached. It can be approached, but never reached.

 

ZOMG, two reasons against omnipotence!

 

I bet you guys can make many more for and against it...but like we discussed, not infinity. :001_tt2:

 

 

EDIT: OK, one for omnipotence....technically God could lift an infinite mass if the mass approaches 1 kg, so it would be .9999999999999999999999999999999....etc kg. the mass would be considered infinite because it would NEVER reach an exact number. you could also substitute any number that was infinite in this reason as well.

[Captain Colon]

Where would he put this stone of limitless mass? To lift this mass you would need a limitless supply of energy, which would in turn create a limitless supply of heat, which might very well destroy existence! Or you can mix and match any laws of science you seek to fit to manipulate whatever he said or what I said. Of course that is being technical about it, which takes the fun out of god

Heat is generally a byproduct of inefficiencies in a system (eg. resistance in an electrical circuit). It can be presumed that an omnipotent god would use energy 100% efficiently.

 

To be strict to the definition of omnipotence, isn't it power with no limits, so technically, if you believe god to be omnipotent he would have to be able to make a rock with more mass than he could lift. Infinity really cannot be measured, so to say he lifts something with infinite mass would be foolish since infinity can never be reached. It can be approached, but never reached.

To make an object that you cannot lift implies that your strength is limited; but if you have infinite strength, the inability to make an object you can't lift does NOT imply that your ability to create is limited, because your strength is unlimited. Whether "infinity can be reached" or not is a non-issue, because infinity isn't a set value, it's just a concept used to represent a lack of bounds to a value.

 

EDIT: OK, one for omnipotence....technically God could lift a limitless mass if the mass approaches 1 kg, so it would be .9999999999999999999999999999999....etc kg. the mass would be considered limitless because it would NEVER reach an exact number. you could also substitute any number that was limitless in this reason as well.

How is it limitless if the upper limit is 1? :confused1: I think you're confusing the length of the number in digits with the actual size of the number There's a limitless number of masses up to 1kg, but it still wouldn't be heavier than 1kg.

 

Or you can mix and match any laws of science you seek to fit to manipulate whatever he said or what I said.

The laws of science aren't very useful in this situation...science only covers what we think we understand about the universe, and most definitions of a god place it outside the realm of human comprehension.

[Italian Jew]

lol, yeah I noticed the limit thing I said when it approached one, so I changed the wording I used. The number itself has a limit, but the mass it represents cannot have a limit because it is infinite. It would not be heavier than 1 kg, which means god could lift it, but the mass itself could not exist because of the infinite amount of particles attributed to the object.

 

That's why I say you cannot prove or disprove that there is an omnipotent being. For proof, you would need to rely on science, but in the case of an omnipotent being, it could break those laws. However, if the omnipotent being broke those laws, it would change what it has already done, and if the being was infallible, there would be no reason to change the rules. Its something like the movie Dogma where if the two angels thwarted god's plan, then existence would become non-existence.

 

If the omnipotent being made an object of such a large mass, the universe would rip itself apart, but this is according to scientific theories regarding black holes. The object would be infinitely massive, therefore infinitely dense creating an infinitely massive blackhole.

 

 

SO TO SUM IT UP... philosophically, an omnipotent being cannot be proven to exist, nor disproven as the rules for judging between science and spirituality conflict with each other. According to science, no....but if you are spiritual yes....but the only way to find out for sure is die and see what happens.

[Captain Colon]

lol, yeah I noticed the limit thing I said when it approached one, so I changed the wording I used. The number itself has a limit, but the mass it represents cannot have a limit because it is infinite. It would not be heavier than 1 kg, which means god could lift it, but the mass itself could not exist because of the infinite amount of particles attributed to the object.

That's just dodging the issue completely because the question is whether a god could create an object of such large mass that even he could not lift it. It also sounds to me like you're saying "it has a limit but it's infinite INSIDE that limit" which is contradictory. A number cannot be used to represent a limitless value, because numbers are concrete.

 

That's why I say you cannot prove or disprove that there is an omnipotent being. For proof, you would need to rely on science, but in the case of an omnipotent being, it could break those laws. However, if the omnipotent being broke those laws, it would change what it has already done, and if the being was infallible, there would be no reason to change the rules.

Again, science is only what we think we know already. We used to think that heavier objects were accelerated faster by gravity, and that trepanning and electroshock therapy were good ways to cure mental illness.

 

You're probably right that there's no way to prove or disprove the existence of an omnipotent being, but that doesn't really have any bearing on the question at hand, which is whether or not an omnipotent being could make an object so heavy that even he couldn't lift it.

 

If the omnipotent being made an object of such a large mass, the universe would rip itself apart, but this is according to scientific theories regarding black holes. The object would be infinitely massive, therefore infinitely dense creating an infinitely massive blackhole.

Actually it would collapse in on itself. But one could assume that an omnipotent being has the capability of maintaining the integrity of the physical world as it manipulates it and isn't bound by any natural laws.

 

SO TO SUM IT UP... philosophically, an omnipotent being cannot be proven to exist, nor disproven as the rules for judging between science and spirituality conflict with each other. According to science, no....but if you are spiritual yes....but the only way to find out for sure is die and see what happens.

If there's an omnipotent being controlling the happenings of the world, that doesn't necessarily mean you go anywhere besides a hole in the ground when you die :ohmy:

 

 

This is a fun thread