I get being like that with me, but you’ve never even talked to this guy before. Get a therapist Bart. — khaled

Get a sense of humour, Khaled.

Is false. That’s just the argument you find easiest to dismantle and so you put it in the mouth of your interlocutor so you can “slam dunk” them with you water gun of logic. — khaled

Now that's a perceptive observation! :up:

I said this:

What we know from experience, boyo, is that brains have such components, not that minds do. To get from the former conclusion to the latter you would have to assume that brains are minds. Yet they're not. — Bartricks

That's true. If you have evidence that brains have certain components, then to get from that to the conclusion that minds have those components, one would have to add the premise that our minds are our brains.

What you said had nothing to do with what I said.

Yes, but there is nothing intrinsic to the mind itself that makes it male or female — Bartricks

Who says I define it intrinsically? You do. I not.

Well now I don't know what you're on about. What point are you trying to make?

Who says I define it intrinsically? You do. I not. — GraveItty

Like I say, if you think there is no intrinsic difference between a 'female' mind and a 'male' mind, then your view is equivalent to mine. It's just you don't realize that you can dispense with the words 'female' and 'male' in relation to minds, as they are doing no work whatsoever.

On the other hand, if you think that there are female minds - that minds alone can have a sex regardless of what body, if any, they are inhabiting - then your view is distinct from mine and I want to know what it is about a female mind that makes it female.

Of course, I suspect that in reality you have no very clear view and will vacillate between the two very different views expressed above, as that seems to be what you've been doing up to now.

Like I say, if you think there is no intrinsic difference between a 'female' mind and a 'male' mind, — Bartricks

Like I said, there is no intrinsic mind. Okay, when you look at brainprocesses you can say so. But even these can always be connected to a body they are in. They just can't exist outside a living body, cut loose from it.

On the other hand, if you think that there are female minds - that minds alone can have a sex - then your view is distinct from mine and I want to know what it is about a female mind that makes it female. — Bartricks

There are numerous differences. If you know women, you should know. You want to get to know them?

If you have evidence that brains have certain components, then to get from that to the conclusion that minds have those components, one would have to add the premise that our minds are our brains. — Bartricks

But he didn’t say brains have certain components therefore minds have them too, did he?

He said: Everything that thinks has X component, we know that from experience.

He’s not saying “minds have X component since brains have them”, but that’s how you choose to interpret it so you can get your dopamine kick from “destroying the argument with facts and logic”

Or you could be charitable. For instance he could mean:

Every mind we know has a material carrier. — SolarWind

Which even keeps your dualistic notion of minds and matter and I would bet would be the immediate interpretation most have.

Or he could be a monist that thinks “minds are configurations of brains”. In that case he can be saying “the physical pattern known as ‘mind’ includes having X component”. In the same way sound waves necessarily have a wavelength.

Or any number of other charitable interpretations. And this is why no one wants to respond to you anymore. Because it’s very tedious getting you to understand what they’re saying. You will always read into it what you find easy to refute. All the while complaining about how no one understands poor you.

... I want to know what it is about a female mind that makes it female. — Bartricks

Melvin Udall in "As Good as It Gets":
"I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."

Joking aside. Since I do not believe that there is a mind beyond matter, there is also no female mind (beyond matter).

What color is an invisible unicorn?

Let me explain my reasoning.
Where does morality come from? Is it there for God to find and set or is it set by God in the first place?
If it is God that finds it, it implies there is a higher order he obeys, and if he sets it in the first place, by what mechanisms does he reach those decisions to make some actions pious and some other sin. How does he know?
If ur answer is, he from the beginning knows it. It means he was programmed to be who he is and he doesn't have power over himself which takes away his free will. And if ur answer is he learns if after seeing the actions of humans, the same reasoning can be used to extrapolate that he is without free will.

And to answer ur question, having all powers doesn't actually mean he has free will.
Being all powerful and with out free will can go together.
I am able to do anything that is humanly possible yet I am not without free will.

To which the answer is that yes, God does have free will. — Bartricks

What would God have free will about? What would god have to decide? After all, this is an all-powerful all-knowing being. What's left to decide? And two questions pending, 1) you know a lot about God, wwwww&h is he? and 2) you have not responded substantively to this:

Of course, there is a problem. There's a stone and he can't lift it. If he does lift it, then he has not created one that he cannot lift. Omnipotence is a contradictory concept that people have created. — SolarWind

Premise 1: somethings are pious while others are sin.
Premise 2: God decides which is pious or not because he is all knowing. — Vanbrainstorm

:ok:

Deduction: if God decides somethings as pious and somethings as sin, he, before hand, was endowed with knowledge. — Vanbrainstorm

Being able to decide piety and impiety, God's knowledge of morality is irrelevant. Whatever he feels/thinks is good is good and whatever he feels/thinks is bad is bad - his knowledge of morality doesn't matter in the least.

He was programmed to be this God that labels some actions as pious and others as sin. — Vanbrainstorm

How can he be programmed when good and bad are whatever he fancies them to be?

Also, that God is good implies God has free will. Nothing that lacks free will can be good (or bad).

You don't seem to be following the dialectic. I was asked if God had a sex. I said that he did not, as he is a mind and minds do not have sexes. And I emphasized that this is not a peculiarity of God's mind, but is rather a feature of all minds: no mind has a sex. Bodies have sexes. Minds do not.

Now, if someone wants to reject this idea, they have a few options: they could argue that minds, despite not being bodies, nevertheless have sexes. Or they could argue that minds are bodies and thus do have sexes. What makes no real sense, however, is to argue that minds 'depend' for their existence on bodies. For as well as being false, that would do nothing to settle the matter of whether minds have sexes or whether the bodies they depend on do.

Where does morality come from? Is it there for God to find and set or is it set by God in the first place?
If it is God that finds it, it implies there is a higher order he obeys, and if he sets it in the first place, by what mechanisms does he reach those decisions to make some actions pious and some other sin. How does he know? — Vanbrainstorm

God is by definition all-powerful. Thus God is not constrained by morality, but must instead be its creator. For if he were not its creator, then there would be something he did not control: morality.

That is one argument - an argument from God to morality. Morality is - must be - God's creation, for were it not, God would not be omnipotent. (So to your question 'where does morality come from?' the answer is clear: God).

Here is an argument that goes in the other direction, namely from morality to God. Morality is made of directives and values that have a single unifying source, Reason. That is, the directives and values of morality are among the directives of Reason (as is widely acknowledged). Now, minds and only minds can issue directives or value things. And thus the one unifying source of all moral norms and values - Reason - must be a mind. And that mind will, by dint of being Reason, be all-powerful. For Reason determines everything - what's true, what's known and so on. Thus Reason is an all powerful mind. And as Reason determines what's known, Reason will also be all-knowing. And as an all powerful mind can reasonably be taken to be exactly was she wants and values herself being, and as we have already established that moral values are no more or less than her values, Reason will be all-good too. Thus, the source of all morality - Reason - is a mind who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. God, in other words.

You can get to the same conclusion either way, then. You can reflect on the concept of God and realize that morality must be God's creation and wholly under God's control and thus not in any way something that constrains God. Or you can reflect on the concept of morality and recognize that for the concept to have something answering to it, God would need to exist and be the controlling source of its norms and values. Either way, morality is not something that constrains God.

And to answer ur question, having all powers doesn't actually mean he has free will.
Being all powerful and with out free will can go together.
I am able to do anything that is humanly possible yet I am not without free will. — Vanbrainstorm

These are just assertions, not arguments. It seems quite obvious that having all power does involving having free will, for lacking free will would be an impediment and thus would manifest a lack of power. God does have free will, then. Obviously. He doesn't have to have it - he could divest himself of it, for he can do anything. But he actually has it, for he's all powerful.

And we can get to the same conclusion by reflecting on God's omnibenevolence (an argument I made but that you have entirely ignored, so I will make again). God is, by definition, morally perfect. As such there is nothing one could do to God that would morally improve him. Yet if God lacked free will, then God would not be morally responsible for his possession of the virtues or for his behaviour. Now, as it is morally better to be praiseworthy for possessing the virtues and praiseworthy for one's behaviour, God has free will, for without it he'd be less than maximally good. That is, without free will, there would be something God could acquire that would make him even better than he is, namely free will. Yet that's a manifest contradiction: there is nothing that a morally perfect being can acquire that would make that person morally better, as if there was then they would not be morally perfect.

We can get there by yet another route too: God is Reason and thus God would not be stupid and willfully deprive himself of something he valued having. God clearly values free will, for our own reason - the faculty by means of which God communicates with us and expresses his attitudes - tells us that free will is something valuable. Thus God clearly values free will and so it is not reasonable to think he'd not have it himself, given his all-powerful nature.

What does it matter if the will is free or not? What matters is that others don't put their will on it. That can make the will unfree.

No, I mean he can do it. I think you don't understand omnipotence. Being omnipotent means being able to do anything. So, he can create a stone that is too heavy for him to lift. I fail to see what you're having trouble grasping.

If he did that - if he created that stone - then he'd no longer be omnipotent. Being able to not be omnipotent is an ability an omnipotent being has. It's just an ability that an omnipotent being, by hypothesis, does not exercise.

This isn't hard. — Bartricks

God cannot overcome logic though. can he? He cannot be both omnipotent and unable to lift a stone.

Or both:

minds 'depend' for their existence on bodies. — Bartricks

And

minds, despite not being bodies, nevertheless have sexes. — Bartricks

Once again, the options you presented are simply the easiest to refute, not all options.

Morality is - must be - God's creation, for were it not, God would not be omnipotent. — Bartricks

Explain. You frequently talk about how you don’t think God created everything. So why is this particular creation required to be omnipotent?

And that mind will, by dint of being Reason, be all-powerful. For Reason determines everything - what's true, what's known and so on. — Bartricks

False. Reason does not determine everything. It determines what we have reason to believe is true, which is different from what is true.

How can the mind that determines what is reasonable, lift a rock? Or can it not? How can the mind that determines what is reasonable affect those that refuse to listen to reason such as yourself? Or can it not?

Joking aside. Since I do not believe that there is a mind beyond matter, there is also no female mind (beyond matter). — SolarWind

Well, your beliefs are just that: your beliefs. Justify them.

Minds are not made of matter. I have fourteen arguments for that conclusion. Do you have even one for the opposite?

And it is certain arrangements of matter that we categorize as male or female or both. Like I say, I do not even know what it means to say that a mind has a sex - it is as incoherent as saying that numbers do, or that tuesday is female whereas monday is male.

What does it matter if the will is free or not? What matters is that others don't put their will on it. That can make the will unfree. — GraveItty

It matters because free will is intrinsically valuable, or so says our reason. And it matters as well because if we don't have free will then we aren't morally responsible for our behaviour. So, you know, it's quite important.

And God obviously has free will because God is maximally morally good, which he wouldn't be if he lacked free will.

God cannot overcome logic though. can he? He cannot be both omnipotent and be unable to lift a stone. — Janus

Oh good grief, do pay attention.

Yes, he can overcome logic (whatever that means) because he can do anything. Logic must, therefore, be God's creation and its content in his gift. Why? Because if that were not the case, then he wouldn't be all powerful.

Second, there's no stone an omnipotent being is unable to lift. But an omnipotent being is able to make themselves less than omnipotent. If they couldn't do that - that is, if they were constrained to be omnipotent - then they wouldn't be omnipotent! So, though there is no stone an omnipotent being cannot lift, an omnipotent being can create such a stone that he is unable to lift, it's just that his doing so would be his making himself less than omnipotent.

Again: bachelors are unmarried men. So, bachelors do not have wives. That doesn't mean bachelors are unable to have wives. That's the silly reasoning of you and Tim and every other 8 year old who thinks there's a significant problem here despite never having taken any serious time to think about it.

Bachelors are able to have wives. There isn't some strange forcefield preventing them from going down the aisle. But if a bachelor takes a wife, then that person ceases thereby to be a bachelor. That doesn't mean that prior to doing so the bachelor is not a bachelor.

Yet this is how you reason: bachelors don't have wives......therefore a bachelor can't have a wife, therefore they lack the ability to have a wife, therefore they lack a power: bachelors are people unable to have wives.

No, bachelors are men who do not have wives.

An omnipotent person is a person who can do anything. Anything. Thus, an omnipotent person can create a stone too heavy for them to lift. They'd cease to be omnipotent at that point, just as a bachelor would cease to be a bachelor at the point at which they get married. But that's beside the point: bachelors have the power to get married, and an omnipotent person has the power to dispose of their omnipotence.

Bachelors are able to have wives. There isn't some strange forcefield preventing them from going down the aisle. But if a bachelor takes a wife, then that person ceases thereby to be a bachelor. That doesn't mean that prior to doing so the bachelor is not a bachelor. — Bartricks

Poor analogy! If a bachelor takes a wife they cease to be a bachelor. A bachelor cannot defy logic by remaining a bachelor and at the same time taking a wife. Similarly, if God creates a stone he cannot lift he ceases to be omnipotent. The point being that God cannot create a situation wherein he is both simultaneously omnipotent and unable to lift a stone, because that would be to defy logic. If God cannot defy logic, then he is subject to logic, just like the rest of us.

Explain. You frequently talk about how you don’t think God created everything. So why is this particular creation required to be omnipotent? — khaled

I just presented an argument showing why morality is God's creation. Here:

Here is an argument that goes in the other direction, namely from morality to God. Morality is made of directives and values that have a single unifying source, Reason. That is, the directives and values of morality are among the directives of Reason (as is widely acknowledged). Now, minds and only minds can issue directives or value things. And thus the one unifying source of all moral norms and values - Reason - must be a mind. And that mind will, by dint of being Reason, be all-powerful. For Reason determines everything - what's true, what's known and so on. Thus Reason is an all powerful mind. And as Reason determines what's known, Reason will also be all-knowing. And as an all powerful mind can reasonably be taken to be exactly was she wants and values herself being, and as we have already established that moral values are no more or less than her values, Reason will be all-good too. Thus, the source of all morality - Reason - is a mind who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. God, in other words. — Bartricks

And yes, I do not believe that omnipotence requires having to have created everything. But it does involve being Reason and if one is Reason then morality is one's creation. Furthermore, if morality were not the creation of an omnipotent being, then its existence would not be to the omnipotent being's credit. And that would be a fault. By contrast, that you - for instance - are not the creation of an omnipotent being does not reflect badly on the omnipotent being. Quite the opposite.

So yes, there are, I think, billions of things that the omnipotent being did not create: all those things that, were the omnipotent being to have created them, would be to that being's discredit.

Poor analogy! If a bachelor takes a wife they cease to be a bachelor. A bachelor cannot defy logic by remaining a bachelor and at the same time taking a wife. Similarly, if God creates a stone he cannot lift he ceases to be omnipotent. The point being that God cannot create a situation wherein he is both simultaneously omnipotent and unable to lift a stone, because that would be to defy logic. If God cannot defy logic, then he is subject to logic, just like the rest of us. — Janus

It's a good analogy. There are minds. Some of them qualify as bachelors. Those that qualify as bachelors do so becasue they are inhabiting male wifeless bodies. That's sufficient to make one a bachelor. That, however, tells one nothing about the powers of that mind. It is simply a description of its current status. And clearly only a total idiot would think that as bachelors do not have wives, they must be unable to have them. They are perfectly able to have wives, it is just that were they to do so, they would no longer be bachelors.

One mind among us is omnipotent - the mind of Reason. That mind qualifies as omnipotent, for that mind can do anything. That's a description of what this mind is able to do, not a description of what it 'is' doing or has done. Now, is this mind 'able' to create a stone it is unable to lift? Yes, it is able to do that. Were it to do so, it would no longer be omnipotent. But that is no problem, for clearly an omnipotent being is able to cease to be omnipotent.

As for being able to defy logic: an all powerful being can defy logic, for were they not able to do that they would not be all powerful.

So, an omnipotent mind is able to create a stone it is unable to lift and lift it. That is, nothing prevents an omnipotent mind rewriting the laws of logic such that they can create a rock they are unable to lift and lift it. An omnipotent mind has the power to make contradictions true. For it is only by Reason that contradictions are unable to be true: that is, it is Reason that tells us that if a proposition is true, it is not also false. Nothing stops Reason telling us the opposite: that if a proposition is true, it is also false. She just doesn't. Except in some cases. Again, I stress (pointlessly, I know) that having the power to do something doesn't mean that one is doing it.

So, an omnipotent mind is able to create a stone it is unable to lift and lift it. That is, nothing prevents an omnipotent mind rewriting the laws of logic such that they permit there to be a person who is unable to lift a rock that he can lift. — Bartricks

Now you're changing your story. before you said God can give up his omnipotence by creating a stone he cannot lift. Now you claim that God can create a stone he cannot lift and yet lift it, thus defying logic. All you are doing now is saying that God can do what is unimaginable to us: both lift a stone and be unable to lift it; and yet you have absolutely no rational warrant for such a ridiculous claim. You and your God sure are lousy exemplars of reason. :rofl:

I just presented an argument showing why morality is God's creation — Bartricks

That’s not what I asked for. I was asking for the “other direction”. You claim we can either go from morality to God or God to morality I’m asking for the latter. You said:

Morality is - must be - God's creation, for were it not, God would not be omnipotent — Bartricks

Explain this claim. The claims that morality is Gods creation, and that creating morality is required for omnipotence are vastly different.

And yes, I do not believe that omnipotence requires having to have created everything. — Bartricks

But it requires having to create morality? Why?

it does involve being Reason — Bartricks

If God is omnipotent he can make anyone do anything correct?

Also the only thing God can do is determine what is reasonable (being reason and all that)

How can God make someone who doesn’t listen to reason do something?

How can the mind that determines what is reasonable, lift a rock? Or can it not? How can the mind that determines what is reasonable affect those that refuse to listen to reason such as yourself? Or can it not? — khaled

Seems like a coin toss whether God can defy logic at this point.

God, come down and show yourself, and settle the issue hand to hand. Can you create a rock that you can't lift for eternity? And how long is eternity if nobody is around to verify that length?

I'm sure he is like those Jinn in Arabian nights, who gets any manner of loops holes based on the limits of language. If he can't lift the rock, can he drop it upside down, or turn off gravity, or kick it? What keeps the laws that determine the outcome of the situation from changing once nobody cares anymore, or between blinks?

Now you're changing your story. — Janus

No I'm not. Same story. God can do anything. So he can do that. And that. And that. And that.

Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Yes.

Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift and yet still lift it? Yes.

Does Janus understand this? No. But that's got nothing to do with anything.

You and your God sure are lousy exemplars of reason — Janus

Dunning and Kruger.

All I can say to that Fartricks is "bollocks!