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From: jvh@clinet.FI (Ville Heiskanen)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.math.symbolic,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Russell's set of sets which... paradox
Message-ID: <472@clinet.FI>
Date: Sun, 2-Aug-87 19:55:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: clinet.472
Posted: Sun Aug  2 19:55:38 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Aug-87 08:53:56 EDT
References: <1404@cullvax.UUCP> <902@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jvh@clinet.UUCP (Jussi-Ville Heiskanen)
Organization: City Lines Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Lines: 29
Summary: All-powerful enough to counteract his own maximum effort, huh?
Xref: mnetor sci.math:1758 sci.math.symbolic:122 sci.philosophy.tech:363

In article <902@bsu-cs.UUCP> Rahul Dhesi writes:
>Conclusion:  God *can* make a stone that he can't lift.  Then he *can*
>lift it.  For being all-powerful means having the ability to violate
>the rules of logic, for the rules of logic exist only because God
>allows them to;  therefore God can suspend the rules.
>
>If you disagree, it is because your concept of a supreme being (a being
>who can do anything provided he abides by your axioms) is different
>from mine (a being who can do anything, including changing my axioms to
>suit his purpose).

Ok. So assume a generic all-powerful Meta-being (to steer clear of religious 
arguments):
  
Now: Can he formulate rules he cannot suspend? Your posting mentioned that he
certainly could do what he wanted with your axioms, but what about his own?
And saying that this Meta-being would not deal in axioms and rules of logic
at all (being above it all) will not help either. After all, this guy IS
ALL-POWERFUL, so playing with rules of logic should be childsplay...
  
And another little glitch: How does a Meta-being allow rules of logic to exist

To me it would seem, that the act of allowing requires at least one previous
formulation of logic: "There exists *rules of logic*, for which: (formulations
to suit this Meta-beings wishes)". Well, who said that life was easy... Even
for Meta-beings :-)
  
Any which-way you look at it, you're bound to get a serious sprain of the
cogitative faculty...