Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Yet Another Spurious Proof Message-ID: <2109@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 20:03:47 EST Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2109 Posted: Tue Nov 5 20:03:47 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 06:52:59 EST References: <1790@watdcsu.UUCP> <2004@umcp-cs.UUCP> <1237@mhuxt.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 32 In article <1237@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes: [In reference to an argument against omniscience] >> Unfortunately, this argument is totally bogus when applied to God, possibly >> for multiple reasons. Let us postulate that God has some sort of facility >> which erroneously recognizes false statements as true (a function which has >> some obvious utility). We therefore have God's mind recognizing the >> statement as true. Another part, presumably dealing only with true >> statements, realizes that the statement is in fact false (since He is >> recognizing it somewhere else). So there is no paradox, and God is still >> omnicient (and without resort to semantics!). > There never *was* a paradox, Charley. Just as Goedel showed that >any *complete* formal system must be inconsistant, you've showed that >an omnoscient being is no paradox as long as it is inconsistant. I'll readily admit that paradox was not the right word. I should have said that there's no impediment to God's correctly knowing that the statement is false. > Inconsistancy is considered a bad feature of formal systems. I guess >the specs for gods are more relaxed. Well, of course they are. The thing doesn't represent a *proof*, after all, without the assumption that the Mind of God constitutes a formal system. If I assumed omniscience instead, then this "proof" forces the conclusion that The Mind is *not* a formal system. I have yet to see a good justification for the statement that "God's Mind is a formal system," and certainly no proof of it. So I don't accept this "proof". Charley Wingate