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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: God knows.
Message-ID: <2287@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 01:08:15 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2287
Posted: Thu Nov 21 01:08:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 05:28:40 EST
References: <27500154@ISM780B.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 27

In article <27500154@ISM780B.UUCP> jim@ISM780B.UUCP writes:

[BTW, jim, your system isn't handling references properly]

>>What's the hole?  There's an implicit assumption that minds are like formal
>>systems, and can't maintain contradictions in any useful way.  I think this
>>assumption is unwarranted; it's not even clear that it's true for humans,
>>much less gods.

>>So I don't believe this argument at all.

>The problem is analogous to asking whether God can create a stone so heavy
>that he cannot lift it, yet I could have readily predicted that you would
>reject any argument which limits the capabilities of God, a word the meaning
>of which I am unable to determine other than that some people appear to
>believe that to it refers to an actual entity without limits, regardless of
>the lack of evidence of such an entity or the lack of credibility of a
>notion such as omniscience.

Actually, I will argue that the answer is YES.  The reason is that
omnipotence implies the ability to change oneself so as to cease to be
omnipotent.  So the arguments aren't really related.

The rest of jim's article is a reply to an obsolete argument of mine, so I
will not reply to it.

Charley Wingate