For the third or fourth time, how do you God didn't make contradictions true for everyone except Bartricks? — Gregory

Because he does not seem to have done so. It appears to everyone that if a proposition is true, it is not also false.

Be assured, I test it every day. I go into my local and I say "I would like a pint". The bar lady says "that'll be $7. I say "I have paid you". She says "No you haven't". I say "I know I haven't. But I have". She then says "That makes no sense. You can't have paid me and not paid me. You either paid me or you didn't. And you didn't". I then ask everyone else in the bar if they agree. They invariably do and so I conclude that the law of non-contradiction remains in force for me and everyone else in my vicinity.

Stop derailing this with your incoherent ramblings. Nothing - nothing - you say about the views of others is accurate. Nothing.

What the hell are you on about? You never make any sense. Stop attributing bonkers views to me! Stop just asserting things without showing any working whatsoever. It's tedious.

Bartricks: "the law of non-contradiction is true, but not necessarily true"

Groggy: "So you own a cat?"

Bartricks: "What?

Groggy: "Epistemologimagically you said you own a cat and no one else owns a cat".

Bartricks: "Er, no I didn't. I said what I said, which isn't at all what you just said"

Groggy: "So, solipsticimagically, you said that you are the only cat in existence and everything else is a figment of your imagination. Correct?"

Bartricks: you're mad.

I don't know what you mean. If there appeared to be propositions that are true and false at the same time, that'd be prima facie evidence that the law of non-contradiction is false.

There are some propositions like that - such as "this proposition is false". The jury is out on whether they are really true and false at the same time. But it may turn out that the best explanation of why those propositions appear to be true and false at the same time is that they are; and in that case the law of non-contradiction would be false. Some propositions are true and not false, but some are true and false.

Some propositions would appear to be true and false at the same time.

How do you establish possibility without deducing an alternative state of affairs? The only reason I can imagine is because it has a truth value. I'm not saying it is a good reason. — Cheshire

I don't know what you mean. I think propositions are true or false. I don't think adding 'possibly' adds anything, apart from when it is being used to express the utterer's lack of confidence in the proposition's truth.

So, my claim is that the law of non-contradiction is true. Not necessarily true - I don't know what that means. Just true.

Is it possible for it to be false? Well, I don't know what that means either. I only say that it is 'possibly' false as a way of conveying to others that I do not think it is necessarily true. But if you press me on what 'possibly' means (beyond functioning to express a speaker's lack of confidence), then I do not know and don't need to know, as it is the opposite of something nonsensical, namely necessity.

So, I say "the law of non-contradiction is true". I deny that it is 'necessarily' true. There are different ways of saying that. One can say that it is 'possibly false'. Or that it is 'contingently true'. But when I say those things, I just mean by them "not necessarily true". ANd I mean that by them because I haven't a faintest idea what 'necessity' is.

Take flugemont. Is the law of non-contradiction flugemont true? No, I don't know what 'flugemont' means.

Ah, someone might say, if you don't think it is flugemont true, then you think it is flidgemey true.

Okay, I say, I think it is fligemey true.

What makes it fligemey true?

Well, I don't know - i've no more idea what fligemey true means than flugemont true - isn't it enough that I just think it true? I don't think it is flugemont true, and I say it is fligemey true simply as a way of denying that it is flugemont true, but really I just think it is true and don't add anything to it.

Dispense with necessity talk - it is easy if you try. And contrary to what many here seem to think, doing so will not mean one cannot reason. Far from it. One will reason better.

So, I think this argument is valid:

1. P
2. Q
3. Therefore P and Q

That is, I think that if 1 and 2 are true, 3 is too.

A believer in necessity who isn't completely stupid will agree that the argument is valid. But they will insist that if 1 and 2 are true, 3 'must' be too.

Well, I think that 'must' has nothing corresponding to it in reality. And I think the person who sticks the must in doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.

But we both think 3 is true if 1 and 2 are. So we can still reason with each other, it's just that they - the believers in necessity - keep sticking this word 'necessary' in all over the place.

I might say that something 'must' be the case as well sometimes. But when I use the word 'must' it functions expressively (as it does when everyone else uses it, with the exception of philosophers). That is, I am conveying to my listener that I really want them to, or that it is really important to, or some such. That usage comes with no metaphysical baggage.

So, your saying it is metaphysically false because it can hold a truth value. — Cheshire

I don't know what you mean. I don't think the law of non-contradiction is false. I think it is true. This is getting a bit mind bending. I think it is 'true' not 'false'. It doesn't 'have' to be. Nothing 'has' to be true. 'Hasness' 'mustness' - these are not real features of reality.

Are you asking me what makes it true?

I know the law of non-contradiction is necessary....for rational discussion. I make no claims beyond that. You cannot say the law of non-contradiction is contingent by saying something self-contradictory; to make sense what you say must itself be a non-contradiction: which rather proves the point. — Janus

How? How do you know it? Look, I am not going to get into a tedious 'how do we know anything' debate. If you think the law of non-contradiction is true, tell me how you know it. Then I'll tell you that I know it to be true the same way. See? Then you'll be satisfied, won't you? So, tell me how you know it. Or do you not? You just assume it, and that's that?

Then tell me how you know it to be necessarily true.

It seems like your misrepresenting his argument. — Cheshire

I'm not. He can come in at any point and clarify, but he'll just squiggle and squoggle and hope that others will accept that he's doing what he isn't.

I am saying that something - the law of non-contradiction - is possible false. Metaphysically possibly false, not epistemically.

He is insisting - 'arguing' is much too kind - that my view involves a contradiction. An actual one, not a possible one. Now, how can that be? How can one get from 'possibly' false to 'actually false' without helping oneself to the notion of necessity - the very notion I am claiming has nothing answering to it in this case or any other?

It is not a misrepresentation. He has no argument. He has this: Bartricks thinks the law of non-contradiction is possibly false....squiggle squoggle, Kazam!....Bartricks has contradicted himself. That's what he's got. And it's rubbish.
And then what he does is insist that Bartricks thinks the law of non-contradiction is false. And then he insists that this means that it is not worth arguing with me. Even though he'd jump at the chance, he says, to argue with Graham Priest, a contemporary philosopher who thinks the law of non-contradiction is actually false!
So, you know, we're not dealing with a very clear thinker, are we?

Impossible to be otherwise is pretty close to necessary. — Cheshire

Yes, I know. It's the same. But it doesn't get us anywhere. It's like giving me the Dutch for necessary. I want to know what the truth-maker is of the claim that something is necessarily true (or, if you prefer, impossible-to-be-otherwise).

That is not what the word possible means and not the claim that's being made. "...then it by chance is false" is the issue. There is nothing to justify the assumption of a chance; as a result the assumption possibility fails; implying but not proving by your standard a necessity. — Cheshire

Yes, I know - he, not I, is 'arguing' that I am contradicting myself. So, he - not I - is 'arguing' that as I think the law of non-contradiction is contingent, then I am committed to thinking it is actually false. So it is he, not I, who does not understand the notion of metaphysical possibility.

What corresponds to the word necessary? All the other corresponding facts related to the truth of a proposition essentially make a truth necessary. — Cheshire

I don't know what that means.

If a proposition is true, it is true in virtue of corresponding to some state of affairs. Now, what is the truth maker for 'necessary' in 'necessarily true'?

If that question doesn't really make sense to you, join the club. Propositions are true or false. There's no such thing as 'necessarily' true. Just true.

Which is as absurd as thinking that if it is possible for unicorns to exist, then they do.
— Bartricks
He's claiming they couldn't. You haven't shown they could. You need a 'could happen' for "possible" to obtain or whatever. — Cheshire

What? No, he thinks that if it is 'possible' for the law of non-contradiction to be false, then it 'is' false.

I think that's absurd - that there is no argument for that claim that doesn't just assume necessity.

Note, the question isn't whether the law of non-contradiction is a necessary truth or a contingent one.

He is claiming that my view - that it is a contingent truth - implies a contradiction. An actual contradiction. It doesn't. He has no argument to show this.

Whether it is actually contingent or necessary is another matter. What's at issue is whether my view - not his, mine - is self-consistent.

You've evaded the question by changing terminology, but for the sake of the argument I'll play along; how do you know the law of non-contradiction is certainly true? — Janus

I haven't changed the terminology. You are changing the topic from metaphysics to epistemology. Now, you tell me how you know the law of non-contradiction is true - i mean, you think it is true, right? - and that'll almost certainly be how I know it is true as well.

Then you tell me how you know that it is 'necessarily' true, and I will show you that it is contingently so.

He thinks that if it is possible for the law of non contradiction to be false, then it is actually false. Which is as absurd as thinking that if it is possible for unicorns to exist, then they do. And if it is possible for giraffes not to exist, then they don't. It's crazy, but he thinks the symbols show him this and he loves the symbols.

How do you know it is necessarily true? Do you see, touch, smell, taste or hear its necessity? Tell me how you are aware of its status as a necessary truth, and I will use those same means to show you that it isn't.

And yes, it could cease to be true at any moment. But I could cease to exist at any moment, yet i can be sure i exist.

You are confusing 'necessarily true' with 'certainly true'.

The law of non contradiction is certainly true, just as my own existence is. But both are contingently true.

Yes, off you run. When you have an actual argument that shows my claim that the law of non contradiction is contingently true, do say.

In the meantime, good luck with your symbol spells. Bartricks has contradicted himself because he believes that the law of non contradiction is contingently true...but now watch the magic symbols (^)*%$#@€£¥₩₩₩₩ . ...Kazam!!! A contradiction!! That's logic children. Logic with Banno. Remember kids, it's not how you think that counts, it is the symbols you use - #$%/#!!!^&*¥ Kazam!

I do not understand your question. I don't even think the word 'contingent' does any real work, if that helps. I think there are true propositions and false ones. I don't think adding the word 'contingent'or 'necessary' adds anything. But I say that all truths are contingent as a way of making clear that I don't believe in necessity.

So my question would be 'what is it?' If a proposition is 'necessarily' true, what in the universe corresponds to the word necessary that makes it true?

Er, no, I have not rejected logic. Christ, you are woefully bad at logic. I don't know what the symbols mean, yet you don't know what follows from what.

I reject NECESSITY. Not logic. NECESSITY.

You think that's the same, right? That's dumb. Really dumb.

The law of non-contradiction is TRUE. Contingent. But true.

You think that means I think it is necessarily false. Which is bonkers. I mean, just crazy. How does that begin to follow??

Reasoning well isn't about knowing what symbols mean. As you are demonstrating.

To everyone: don't let banno use symbols. Ask him to explain in English. Then notice his arguments don't work or don't exist.

No, you said the debate is over whether there is any possible world in which God does not exist "theists say no, atheist yes". And I am not sure that classical theism is a well defined view anyway. But the word 'classical' was not there.
Anyway, the idea that God exists of necessity is not definitive of theism. Indeed, it is incoherent.

Yes, Banno's argument is circular. Saying that there is a possible world in which God does not exist is to assert that God's existence is not necessary rather than to establish it.

But you say theists think God exists of necessity - but they don't, only some do. I am a theist and I believe God exists contingently (and that it is incoherent to think God exists of necessity). What makes one a theist is the belief that God exists.

So his argument, as well as being circular, addresses a straw man. Theism doesn't claim that God exists 'of necessity' but only that God exists.

I don't know what you are saying. It doesn't engage with the OP.

I hear 'skydaddy' all the bloody time. It's not original. It's tedious. If only there was some kind of device - a 'search engine' (I have coined that term) - whereby one could establish if it has been used by millions of others?? Hmmmmmm.

God is not my daddy and he's not in the sky. So it doesn't make sense - not addressed to me. Address it to someone who thinks the sistine chapel lacks a ceiling

No, I am demanding an argument that doesn't presuppose the reality of necessity.
I think the law of non contradiction is actually true. True, not false. So I am sensitive to actual contradictions. I don't think any are true. So, if my belief that the law of non contradiction is contingently true can be shown to generate an actual contradiction, then I will take that to be evidence my view is false.
But what @Banno is doing is presupposing necessity and presupposing - not showing - that the law of non-contradiction is either necessarily true or necessarily false. That's precisely what I deny. He insists my denial of that is contradictory - he needs to show that, but he can't.

So again: I am not denying the law of non contradiction. I think it is true. I think it is 'contingently true'. I think all truths are. I don't believe in necessity. But what many here - including banno - don't seem properly to grasp, is that 'contingently true' means 'true' not 'false'

Arrived at knowledge of God via reasoned argument alone. Born and raised an atheist. Atheist until mid thirties. Then I became a cautious theist after I discovered, more by accident than design, an argument that appears to prove God. After a year or so I became confident in its conclusion after it resisted my best attempts to refute it and those of others.

So, no religious experiences. No religious background. No interest in religion. No self interest. Just an argument that I can't refute, despite years of trying. Far from it, It just gets stronger.

Let me tell you something: most contemporary philosophers would describe themselves as atheists. But they don't defend atheism. Not most of them (there are exceptions, there always are). They just assume it. They think atheism is true based on arguments that convinced them (if they needed convincing) as undergraduates. And then they never revisited them. They just assume the truth of a broadly naturalistic worldview and then set about the task of showing how this or that important concept- morality, free will, the mind, perception, truth - can either still be said to have something answering to it on that worldview, or not. And then they write papers and books disagreeing with one another about that.

They don't argue for atheism. This is what many here don't understand. They think the 80+% atheist beliefs of contemporary philosophers is borne of reasoned argument - but it isn't. Theism isn't taken seriously. Most don't debate it at all. For instance, I have an introductory book on metaethics on my desk. It doesn't even mention divine command theory. It's not even in the index! Yet it's not just highly plausible, it's demonstrably true. Theism has not been refuted, it's just ignored.

you are now begging the question by confusing knowing everything with knowing all true propositions. I have argued that these are not the same and so you need to refute that case. That is, you cannot just assume that God knows which of his beliefs are true and which ones false. He is 'able' to know, of course. But you can't just assume he does without thereby assuming 'omniscient' and 'believing all truths and no falsehoods' are the same. Which they demonstrably are not. Or at least, I appear to have demonstrated them not to be. But you are not entitled to just assume they're the same until or unless you show a flaw in my demonstration.

God can make mistakes. But he didn't make you. For that would have been immoral.

I am talking about an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent person.

no, you don't need the squiggles, as I am demonstrating. If you can't say in words what the squiggles stand for, it's because you don't know what you are on about. The minute you do without them it becomes clear to virtually everyone that you are arguing in a circle. You are assuming what needs to be shown.

You are profoundly confused about contingency and necessity. If there is a possible world where the law of non contradiction is false, then some contradictions - at least one - will obtain in that world. Not all worlds. That world. To insist it is 'all' worlds is just to assume the law is necessarily false or necessarily true. That's obviously question begging. I think it is contingently true and you need to show how that view generates a contradiction. You haven't. You have just assumed -the law of non contradiction is necessarily true or necessarily false and then reasoned that as I think it is false in some possible worlds I am committed to affirming its falsity in all possible worlds. Why? Why the hell would that follow?

No. Once again, if something is 'contingently' true then there is a possible world in which it is false. It does not follow that it is false in all possible worlds. You saying it does is not an argument, it's just you being confused about the difference between contingent and necessary.

You don't have an argument. If you do, present it without asserting the crucial claim or squiggling and squoggling. So, a deductively valid argument with no question begging assumptions. Remember, you are trying to show that MY position entails a contradiction, not that my position contradicts yours. And so you are not allowed to assume that the law of non contradiction is a necessary truth. You must assume it is contingently true - TRUE not FALSE- and derive a contradiction from that.

You won't be able to. So I suggest sticking to fibbing and saying you have and criticizing me as a person and dispensing condescending advice on how to be more like you.

haha, pathetic. Like I say, you haven't got an argument. The law of non-contradiction is true. It is contingently true. That doesn't mean 'false'. It means 'true'. It is metaphysically possible for it to be false. That doesn't generate a contradiction in the actual world. And this explosion you are talking about is both disputable and will occur - if it occurs - in the possible world in which the law of non-contradiction is false, not in those in which it is true. Obviously.

Anyway, perhaps dimly recognizing that you have nothing to say once deprived of your symbols, you just resort to your favourite thing: talking about me, and not my arguments.

Here's the thing: continuing on in this belligerent irrational way will only render your posts here irrelevant. Folk will increasingly ignore you. As it stands, very few of the top posters bother to reply to you. Your posts are taken up by new members, who entertain you only until they realise your foibles. It's not a winning strategy. — Banno

Aw, has the nasty reasoning man exposed you as an empty kettle again? Aw, diddums.

You don't believe we have minds?? So you don't believe in mental states either, for they are states of mind.

Well, your beliefs do not determine what's true. We do have minds, for mental states exist and they couldn't absent a mind to have them. Thus minds exist.

There's a metaphysical question over whether minds are material or immaterial. But there's no question they exist.

There's also no question they are the basis of our intrinsic moral worth. I am morally valuable because I am a mind, rather than because of any of my sensible features. My size and shape and colour and location are all irrelevant to my moral value, for instance. And thus the fact a fetus is very small and not shaped like me and probably a different colour and certainly in an odd location does not affect its moral value. What makes it morally valuable, if or when it is, is its possession of a mind.

I mentioned souls partly because I want to stop those who believe in souls thinking their position on abortion is "it is always wrong" - if our minds are souls the ethics of abortion remains the same as it would be if our minds are material things.

your rish was gibber. Up your game

Gibberish.

Learn what words mean. Then realize that everything I said in those quotes was accurate.

'Can' is the important word there. Yes, he 'can'. That's why there are no necessary truths, just contingent ones. God 'can' do anything.
If God exists, then there are no necessary truths. One would be affirming a contradiction if one thought otherwise.
The irony here is that though I think the law of non contradiction is contingent, I seem to be the only one concerned to obey it.

Gregory, your comprehension skills seem to be somewhere between those of a rock and a newt. I think the law of non contradiction is TRUE. I have said this countless times. I think it is true,not false.

I think it is 'contingently' true. Most think it is 'necessarily' true. I understand why they do and other things being equal it is an eminently reasonable thing to believe about it, given virtually everyone's rational intuitions represent it to be. And that's very powerful apparent evidence that it is necessarily true.

But the issue here is whether, in believing the law of non contradiction to be contingently true rather than necessarily true, I am committing a contradiction. And clearly I am not.

But you believe in the mind, presumably? A soul is just an immaterial mind. So the same applies if, implausibly, minds are material.
There comes a point where a tangle of foetus meat has a mind. We don't know where that point is exactly. But it is at some point during the fetuses career inside the pregnant person. Same points apply, for the only difference is that one is creating a mind rather than sucking one in. Makes no real difference to the ethics of it all.

I mentioned souls rather than minds partly because that really is what makes the difference (our minds are souls, whether you believe it or not), but also because there is currently a tendency among those who believe in souls to think all abortions are wrong because life begins at conception - a position that is in no way implied by the soul thesis.

We have souls and it is our possession of them that puts our bodies on the moral map. But when our bodies acquire them is no clearer than when our bodies have a mind, if minds are material.

Focus on the argument and not the arguer. What I can't stand are shit arguments.
Now Banno has a shit argument. Banno thinks that if the law of non contradiction is contingently true, then it is actually false. Which is, irony of ironies, a contradiction! Banno thinks if something is contingent, then it is not contingent. An actual contradiction!
He thinks I am committing contradictions. He has no argument to show this and is himself committing a contradiction, given he thinks that if something is contingently true then it is also false. He is VERY confused, but doesn't know it. Which is the worst kind of confusion, because it is so hard to remove.

Depends if a soul is present in it. Lumps of meat don't deserve moral consideration. Not normally anyway. Souls do.

Not clear when a soul enters a fetus. It seems obvious that newly born babies have them, so at some point earlier a soul enters. But it seems fairly implausible to think it is there from conception, and equally implausible to think it enters the instant of exit.

So, at some point inbetween those two points, a soul enters.

My view - which I hold with no great confidence - is that when the fetus is just a piece of gristle, you ought to abort it for unless you do it will suck a soul into this realm, and that's bad. So I think early abortions are probably a duty.

But later, when it is more plausible that a soul is present, then they are not a duty. Nevertheless, if their presence in the pregnant person was not the pregnant person's fault, then I think abortion is morally permissible as it is beyond the call of duty to insist someone go through the pains and inconvenience of pregnancy to save a life for which that person has no special responsibility.

But if it was intentional - that is, if the person got pregnant on purpose or had voluntary unprotected sex fully in the knowledge that a pregnancy might result, then i think that person deserves the pains and inconvenience of a pregnancy and has no right to kill a person to avoid them. (They still ought to abort in the early stages, however, as though they have done a wicked thing and deserve to suffer, it is more important to prevent a new soul from being sucked into this realm than it is to give oneself one's just deserts).

So I have a mixed view. Early abortions are morally obligatory for all. But with later ones it all depends on the manner in which the pregnant person got pregnant.

My view reflects my antinatalism. That is, I believe it is wrong - very wrong - knowingly to attempt to force innocent souls into this realm. But if I am wrong about that, then i think most abortions will be morally permissible.

No, if you can't get to sleep if you want to, you lack an ability. If you can get to sleep whenever you want to, you have one.
If you can destroy yourself if you want to, you have an ability. If you can't, you lack one.
If you can make mistakes if you want to, then you have an ability. If you can't, you lack one.
And so on.
Being unable to make mistakes is a lack of an ability.
God has the ability not to make any mistakes. That's an ability. He also has the ability to make them. That's another.