Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site uf-csg.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!uf-csv!uf-csg!mark From: mark@uf-csg.UUCP (mark fishman [fac]) Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion Subject: Re: Logical paradoxes in the notion of omnipotence? Message-ID: <209@uf-csg.UUCP> Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 22:41:44 EDT Article-I.D.: uf-csg.209 Posted: Wed Oct 10 22:41:44 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 16-Oct-84 04:05:25 EDT References: <213@laidbak.UUCP> <1804@ucbvax.ARPA>, <192@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: Univ of Fla, Computer and Information Science Lines: 26 <> Seems curious that no one on the SIG's ever been exposed to the most primitive rudiments of mathematical logical -- which is to day, specifically, type theory. It's an altogether trivial, primitive and not very esoteric observation that the question, "Can an all-powerful being create a rock HE/SHE/IT can't lift" is semantically ill-formed in the worst sense, and demonstrates only the cognitive deficiencies of the poser. Look: The modal form "able to" can apply only to sentences that don't include negations of itself. Russell recognized this umpteen years ago in the Principia. You'd think that somebody else might have heard of this only seminal result in the history of twentieth-sentury logic. But then again, maybe not in a user population capable of taking seriously questions of magicness and fanciful superstition, in the first place. I really believe that anybody is entitled to nurture any exotic delusions he or she likes, provided they don't lead to his or her acting to crush and maim other people (religion too often conduces to this), but why pretend rationality is upward compatible with the silly, atmospheric fuzziness? ....innocuously yours.. ---------- The opinions herein expressed are irrelevant, inflammatory and possibly fattening. They do not represent those of the University of Florida or of any known biological organism or mythical construct.