Can God make a statement be both true and false?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

[pnwmom]

1. What is a paradox? n/t

[Tunkamerica]

2. for those of us who don't already know what you're talking about a little context would be

the polite way to go

[inademv]

3. God also cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent

[Tunkamerica]

4. why not?

[inademv]

13. with the power to know all and do all

one cannot NOT do what one knows they are going to do.

[Tunkamerica]

15. seems like a very narrow way to look at it. In an infinite universe "God" will do all things

and he'll know that he's going to do all things.

[inademv]

16. Ok look

God can make a cube
he knows he will make a cube in the next instant
he can't NOT make a cube in the next instant because it would negate his knowledge of himself making the cube in that next instant

[Tunkamerica]

17. he both makes the cube and doesn't make the cube and is able to see both outcomes.

[inademv]

18. So God is a logical contradiction eh?

[Tunkamerica]

21. Maybe so... and truthfully, I'm not a believer, but I see it more as the oft-repeated

branching timelines idea. God can know the consequences of every action taken by him so he is able to take any action and know the outcomes of said action. To say he can't not do something he has seen is imposing false limits based on assumptions you've made about the nature of his power.

[inademv]

24. Entire line of conversation is pointless

because it presupposes that there has been presented reasonable evidence or reasoning that God exists in the first place.

[Tunkamerica]

27. well, many of the lines of conversation on here presuppose any number of things

If we stuck only to "proven" facts we'd not have anything to talk about.

[johnroshan]

22. The elegant multiverse. Its a fascinating concept. nt

[johnroshan]

5. Wheres the damn cat when you need him? nt/

[Nihil]

38. Starved to death ... no-one knew he was really in the box ... (n/t)

[meegbear]

6. My dead son is alive

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Yes ...

... and no ...

[Silent3]

8. Quantum!

The magic word is "quantum"! Everything spiritual and mystical is better with some pop-sci QM thrown in. If you want to get extra fancy with an answer to the OP, the word "qubit" might just fit the bill.

[sudopod]

11. Touche nt

[rug]

9. That's like asking what time it was at the moment of the big bang.

[trotsky]

19. Oh really? Why is that?

We understand why the concept of time before the big bang is meaningless - there are mathematical expressions behind it that grow out of well-established scientific fields.

So what kind of evidence do you have that the question in the OP is similar?

[rug]

25. Because concepts that are meaningful in some cases are meaningless in others.

[trotsky]

35. We can explain why when it comes to time and the big bang.

Can I get anything more out of you than a one-liner?

[rug]

36. No.

[quaker bill]

23. t zero

[Festivito]

10. To us it can seem that way. /nt

[skepticscott]

12. Who needs god?

This post is false. And I always lie

[laconicsax]

14. Yes under two conditions:

Condition 1: Omnipotence, since it creates logically contradictory conditions.
Condition 2: God is small to have wave function properties.

The real question is if God can make an argument so circular that even he can't believe it.

[struggle4progress]

20. Logic concerns the orderly use of words to help us organize our thinking and conversation

But it has been known for thousands of years that one can craft sentences that defeat logic

That we can craft such sentences does not tell us anything at all about reality: it merely reminds us that we need to be wary in trusting our own discourse

[struggle4progress]

26. I think I will try to shed some light on the disagreements in this forum, by discussing

the "absurdist" concept of negation

According to the "absurdist" view, a rational discourse involves certain statements that are regarded as "absurd." These might vary according to the particular conversation: say, '0 = 1' or 'John ran from New York City to San Francisco in less than a minute' or 'A pig differs from all the other trees, only in that a pig has wings.' A statement in the discourse is summarily dismissed, if it implies an absurdity: that is, if we have an implication of the form '<statement X> implies <some absurdity>' then we immediately back away in horror and put a big taboo sign on <statement X>; this taboo sign is generally called negation, and the 'backing away in horror' rule is codified by an inference:

from
'<statement X> implies <some absurdity>'
infer
'not <statement X>'

Now certain issues arise

What statements are to be regarded as absurd? A general answer to that question might be 'An absurdity is any statement with too many consequences' -- in keeping with the saying, "Well, that proves entirely too much!" This is why '0 = 1' is regarded as absurd, for example

And what are the rules governing negation?

Two popular rules are double negation and excluded middle. Double negation asserts that 'not (not <statement X> )' has the same meaning as '<statement X>.' Excluded middle asserts that '<statement X> or not <statement X>' is always a harmless assumption in discourse. But neither double negation nor excluded middle is at all obviously correct under the "absurdist" interpretation of negation. Excluded middle, for example, suggests that, for any <statement X>, we are either in the convenient position of being able to assert definitively '<statement X>' or else in the convenient position of being able to assert definitively '<statement X> implies <some absurdity>' -- but we seldom in either of the convenient positions. Moreover, any number of other very desirable reasoning rules would require us to accept both double negation and excluded middle, whenever we accepted one of them. It is common to accept both, declaring that all statements must be either true or false

But this view, that all statements must be either true or false, leads immediately into new swampy territory, where we can easily be mired: first, because we really want to use logic in the sciences -- where statements are never really unambiguously 'true' but are more properly speaking only 'approximately true,' some being (at best) rather 'more true' than others; second, because we have suddenly complicated the problem of discussing 'negation' by introducing new terms ('true' and 'false'), which themselves require explanation. The meanings of 'true' and 'false' are not obvious; one might think 'false' represents an abstraction of '<some absurdity>', extended to include all statements which imply an absurdity; then perhaps 'true' represents a converse notion, according to which one begins from some axioms, and considers 'true' the statements derivable from the axioms; but then one should be careful the axioms themselves cannot lead to an absurdity -- which, unfortunately, is impossible to check in general. Boolos, in fact, has a nice little book, that studies the consequences of interpreting 'true' as 'provable from a set of axioms' and 'false' as 'provable from <the same> set of axioms,' but then there is usually a vast unclaimed territory, of statements which are neither 'true' nor 'false' -- in other words, excluded middle does not hold

It seems to me that many posters in this forum regard omnipotent beings as "absurd" -- since such beings would (by definition) have limitless consequences, thus certainly must have "too many consequences," and so must be rejected as "absurd" (under the general philosophical view that such notions "prove entirely too much"). I have some sympathy for this view, I suppose, but the conclusion I would reach is somewhat different: logic, wonderful tool that it is, has certain limits, and some issues simply cannot be addressed by mere logic.

In any case, I can see why the question in the OP ("Can &c&c?") should admit a 'yes' or 'no' answer: it does not seem to me to involve a statement which must be 'true' or 'false.' (And neither can I see any way one could test a purported answer to the question, nor can I imagine any use to which a supposed answer could be put)

[trotsky]

28. "some issues simply cannot be addressed by mere logic"

Special pleading!

I love these games. Can we play some more?

[struggle4progress]

29. Good morning, Trots! What insights are you bringing to the table today?

[trotsky]

30. Just pointing out fallacies!

You do tend to throw a few out in your pontifications.

[struggle4progress]

31. No ideas from you about the proper interpretation of negation?

[trotsky]

32. That's not the problem.

Your special pleading is.

[struggle4progress]

33. I entered this thread to mention some issues in logic. So, have a greart day!

[trotsky]

34. And mention them you did...

along with introducing your own. Nicely done!

[Sadena Meti]

37. Mathematically Simple

Two examples.

4^0.5=+-2

So 4^0.5=2 is true and false.



Other example (with a tribute to George Orwell)

2+2=5

On it's face, false.

But for sufficiently high values of two, such as 2.49, rounded to an integer is 2, the answer is 4.98, rounded to an integer is 5. So true.