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From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Yet Another Spurious Rebuttal
Message-ID: <1840@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 21:37:03 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1840
Posted: Mon Nov  4 21:37:03 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 05:10:59 EST
References: <1790@watdcsu.UUCP> <2004@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 60
Summary: Supposing that God is schizophrenic doesn't help.

In article <2004@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes:
>In article <1790@watdcsu.UUCP> dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) writes:
>
>>The following constitutes a proof that for some random arbitrary person,
>>"Tom", there is at least one true statement that Tom doesn't know --
>>in fact *can't* know.  I've borrowed it from an article posted by
>>lambert@boring.
>
>The gist of it is that one sets up a statement about whether a function of
>that statement can be recognized as true by a person X.  The statement is
>constructed so that supposedly the person can erroneously recognize it as
>true, or if it is true, he can recognize it as true (since to do so would
>contradict the statement.  David Canzi then makes the following claim:
>
>>Now, this proof that there is at least one true statement that Tom doesn't
>>know still works if we substitute the word "God" for "Tom".  So much for
>>omniscience.

Charley's brief description above is less than clear.  Maybe I can make
the matter clearer:  a statement, S, was constructed which, in effect,
stated that "S cannot be recognized as true by the mind of God" (but
didn't actually contain such a direct self-reference).  If God could
recognize S as true, then this would contradict S, thus S would be
false and God would be mistaken.  Thus it follows that God *can't*
recognize S as true, thus S is true.  And God doesn't know it.

Says Charley:
>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!).

And what's wrong with semantics?  If we don't understand the semantic
content of what we're saying, we literally don't know what we're
talking about.

Let's suppose, as Charley suggests, that God's mind is divided into two
parts: one, the "false half", recognizes false statements as true; the
other, the "true half", recognizes true statements as true.  What can
it possibly mean to say that this "bicameral mind of God" recognizes
a statement as true?  One meaning that Charley uses is for some part of
God's mind to recognize that statement as true.  The other possible
meaning, which Charley also uses, is for God's mind as a whole to
recognize this statement as true.  This latter meaning is a function
that God's mind *must* be able to perform, or else we would have to
wonder *which* part of God's mind wrote which parts of the Bible.

My argument used the expression "recognize as true" consistently,
meaning the same thing by it in all of its occurrences in the argument.
Charley changed the meaning of one occurrence of "recognize as true" to
evade the contradiction.  By doing so, he attempts to invalidate my
argument by changing its meaning.  This doesn't work.  In order to
invalidate somebody's argument, you have to invalidate *what* *they*
*meant*, not some clever re-interpretation of their words.
-- 
David Canzi		"Permission is not freedom."