But of course, God transcends time.

And again, I am thankful to @Bartricks, for without his diatribe I might not have found this work on Logical Nihilism, nor this on Inconsistent Mathematics, as well as several other interesting topics.

Hoity toity. Come on Dummo, tell me what Geach said. I read it. It was shit. I could discern no actual criticism in it. All filler, no killer.
— Bartricks
...the resort to personal abuse. — Banno

No, it is fair comment - you 'think' he made an actual criticism. He didn't. Find it. He just went 'hoity toity' and 'hotium totium, as we said in my old school' and sneered at minds far greater than his dusty musty own. (He's dead, he won't care).

He's right, what he claims is that it is true in all situations, — Banno

No I don't. I think it is true. True. It doesn't have to be. It is. There are no centaurs. I don't think there are no centraurs in any possible situation (whatever that means). I think there are no centaurs. I am quite certain of it. But I don't thereby think it is impossible for there to be centaurs. I think propositions that are true and false at once are like centaurs in that respect as well. There aren't any. None anywhere. (Although perhaps there are, in fact, some - such as 'this proposition is false'.....but that's another issue...that's like a glimpse of what looked for all the world like a centaur).

Tell me, Bartricks, what would convince you that your argument is wrong? — Banno

A better one. Obviously.

A better one. Obviously. — Bartricks

Indeed.

Find it. — Bartricks

The contradiction is in your claim that the LNC is true in all situations but not necessarily true. You will have to explain this by digging yourself a deeper hole, and claiming that ☐p is not the same as ~⬦~p. — Banno

Yes, but triangle, goat, walnut, worm, square, windy road. What about that? Surely if chicken tree hole, then hole chicken tree?

There are no true propositions that are also false. None. (Well, there might be - but we'll ignore those).

There are no centaurs either (apart from the one that seems to be in the trees over there, but we'll ignore that as it's probably just someone dressed up).

Now, sticking to the centaur claim for a moment - I have not just said that there are no situations in which there are centaurs. That is, I have not said it is impossible for there to be centaurs. Someone who thought I had, would be a bit of a wally. Yes? Centaurs can exist. I have just said that there aren't any. I've done a survey of reality - and it seems centaur free. That, I assume you would agree, is a claim that does not generate a contradiction.

Now just exchange the word 'centaur' for 'true proposition that is also false' and you'll get the idea. Only you won't, because, you know, you won't. Stop being a wally and explain - without squiggling and squoggling - how my claim that there are no true propositions that are also false generates a contradiction. Methinks you won't be able to do so. That is, I think your conviction that my claim generates a contradiction is equivalent to a conviction that there are centaurs. It is possibly true, but actually false.

Then address something in the OP. This thread is about time, for goodness sake!

For someone who claims to understand logic, this is really a quite remarkable remark... "don't do logic at me!" — Banno

No, this is the problem with you - you think that 'logic' is squiggling and squoggling. No, that's just a language that some of those who are using logic employ. I don't know the language (and I don't care to learn, for it seems to me that I am better at reasoning than many of those who know the language, for when I ask them to stop using it, they either can't, or it becomes clear that their reasoning is poor; so why would I take the time and effort to learn a language that, so far as I can see, would not help me reason better than I actually am?). But that doesn't mean I don't know how to reason. That's like thinking someone who doesn't know French, doesn't know anything when they are in France. It's dumb. I know the same things, I just don't understand what the French are on about.

Now, I think your squiggling and squoggling is a parrot saying 'hello, who's a pretty boy then?!" That is, I don't think that in your case you are using a language at all, rather you are simulating using one.

You can show me wrong by dropping it and speaking in English. It has the largest vocabulary of any human language - so if you can't say it in English, you probably don't know what you're on about.

I know the same things, I just don't understand what the French are on about. — Bartricks

You don't know the same things as the French. Ýou don't know the French identity. The French kitchen. The French language. The French history. The French attitude towards nuclear power. The French popular singers of these days. French rap lyrics. French antique. French painters. French folk-music and dance. The political atmosphere. The feeling of walking through La Drome or French kissing beneath the Eifel tower. Or in short, you will feel a stranger upon walking through Paris, no matter how omnipotent you or God is. No matter if God's or your will is free or not. No matter if your visit is determined by faith, or by determining structures.

Oh good grief. I knew someone would start talking about language. Look, take the moral it was designed to convey and focus on the thread's OP.

This thread is about the nature of time and God's relationship to it.

We can get it back on topic by, say, focussing on the claim, made by some, that the past is unalterable - the so called 'necessity' of the past. A claim that I deny, of course.

Or in short, you will feel a stranger upon walking through Paris, no matter how omnipotent you or God is. — GraveItty

:up: But, as an American, I have a God-given right to be Ugly. :wink:

Oh good grief. I knew someone would start talking about language. Look, take the moral it was designed to convey and focus on the thread's OP. — Bartricks

I didn't say nothing about language. Only that you can't speak it.

This thread is about the nature of time and God's relationship to it. — Bartricks

Then give a good definition of time first. I'm sure God will be "subjected" to it. How else could it be? They created it all. Call it divine time.

We can get it back on topic by, say, focussing on the claim, made by some, that the past is unalterable - the so called 'necessity' of the past. A claim that I deny, of course.
8m — Bartricks

The past is unalterable. Our perception of it can change. An neo-nazi will have a different view on nazi- Germany than a black-red anarchist.

Then address something in the OP. This thread is about time, for goodness sake! — Bartricks

:grin: Always a good rhetorical strategy when someone starts to draw uncomfortable implications from your OP. Nice.

This thread is about time, for goodness sake! — Bartricks

It's about time that you define time.

You can show me wrong by dropping it and speaking in English. — Bartricks

Point is, of course, that you do understand ☐p and ~⬦~p. You pretend not to for rhetorical purposes.

But here it is in English, so as to undermine your rhetoric.

If something is necessarily the case, then it is not possibly not the case. And similarly, if something is possibly the case, then it is not necessarily not the case.

Now that means that necessity and possibility are different ways of saying the very same thing.

Now that means that necessity and possibility are different ways of saying the very same thing. — Banno

That looks like a very bad conclusion. You've just separated necessity and possibility such that they are completely distinct, one having no part of the other. Necessarily means "not possibly...". And possibly means "not necessarily...". Now you say that they are different ways of saying the same thing. I don't think so.

Gotta hand it to you, too, Meta, your grasp of logic is quite disconcerting.

Have you met @Bartricks?

Part of why I think it is no great loss to deny that necessity is real, is precisely because if one tries to say exactly what one means by 'necessary', one will be reduced to saying what you just did, which is that it means 'not possibly', which says nothing if it turns out that 'possibly' just means 'not necessarily'. So, that's part of why I think adding 'necessarily' to 'true' adds nothing whatever and why I can do away with it at no loss at all.

For instance, let's just say that some truths are hoity truths. What are they? Why, a hoity truth is not a toity truth, that's what a hoity truth is. And what is a toity truth? A toity truth is a truth that is not hoity.

Seems to me that in your hands the word 'necessarily' adds no more to 'true' than hoity would. That is, nothing at all. Which if true, means that you agree with me that we can dispense with it, just as we can with hoity and, indeed, toity. Do you? That is, do you agree that both 'necessarily' and 'possibly' add nothing and we can dispense with them and just stick to talking about what's true and what's not? If so, welcome to my view. You are now a guest in the land of the intelligent - don't steal anything.

Now, I do not know what 'possibly' means. I really don't. And I don't think it adds anything to 'true'. However, I can use it to convey to others that I do not believe in necessary truths. And that is how I use it. The English language was developed long before i came here, and by people more ignorant and less dedicated to following reason than I. As such I am fated to have to express myself using the tools of fools. But whatever. If I wish to convey to you that I do not believe in necessary truths - and by extension, do not believe that the law of non-contradiction is a necessary truth - I say that I believe it is contingently true, or possibly true, even though I think 'contingently' adds no more to 'true' than 'necessarily' did.

So, now that you are using English and not squiggles and squoggles, explain to me how my claim that the proposition 'no true proposition is also false' is true - just true, note - generates a contradiction....and do that without popping the word necessarily in

No. If time exists, then the things that exist - trees, minds, whatever - exist in time. — Bartricks

This is precisely what I disagree with. I already said that it is possible for a mind (God) to exist outside of time and gave an image of it. So no, not everything must exist in time. Restating that over and over doesn't make a case. And the reason I make an exception for your God is that he's capable of exempting himself. He can make it the case that he created time, and is also not subject to it. So it's entirely possible that he is not subject to it, that wouldn't even violate any laws of reason (it's not a contradiction, it would just show that the premise that everything exists in time is wrong). Certainly one of the more tame things your God can do.

It doesn't at all appear obvious to me that God must be subject to time, because it doesn't appear obvious to me that all minds, or all things are subject to it, possible exception: God. Remember, I'm not making the case that God is indeed not subject to time, I'm saying you haven't shown he is.

It seems what appears to me to be the case is not what appears to you to be the case. Which brings us back to when you decide whether to trust what appears to you or what appears to others.

I believe that we all deserve to be exposed to the risks of harm that living in ignorance in this world exposes us to. — Bartricks

Bullshit. That's not what you were originally saying.

No, I don't think so. First, consider that I think everything that happens here is just. — Bartricks

So that means that no matter what I do to someone else, that person deserves it, and no matter what anyone does to me, I deserve it. — Bartricks

You just came up with the "risk of harm" bs to avoid an uncomfortable conclusion. "No matter what I do to someone else they deserve it" applies to everyone in your system, which means that rape victims deserved it, all of them.

But ok, let's say you didn't. That you intended to say that we simply deserve to be exposed to risks (though I really don't see how "no matter what I do to someone they deserved it" can be reinterpreted to that). You also believe this correct?:

I do not believe all rape victims deserve to be raped. — Bartricks

Thus it is possible there will be rape victims that did not deserve to be raped, who have to suffer it (and some deserve it, apparently). God knew this too correct? He is omniscient after all. Even if free will implied that he doesn't know the future if you and me can reason to it surely God could too.

So why is God being lazy? Why put people who deserve different degrees of punishment in the same spot? God could have created a private world for each person where they would be punished exactly as deserved, but he didn't do so. Instead he either chose, or was only able to, make a world to send different degrees of sinners. But this will result in some being punished too hard, which is wicked, and some being punished too lightly which could also be thought to be wicked. So despite having the ability to make it otherwise, why did God choose to make it possible that some people are punished much more than they deserve? That's clearly wrong, and would mean God is not omnibenevolent. Or was he actually incapable of making these private worlds so settled on a less optimal solution, making him not omnipotent?

But anyway, if or when appearances conflict, then our faculty of reason appears to be unreliable on that matter, yes? — Bartricks

I didn't say this, what? When appearances conflict for me I try to find to what extent each is true.

So, that's part of why I think adding 'necessarily' to 'true' adds nothing whatever and why I can do away with it at no loss at all. — Bartricks

Tell me, do you suppose you might have written that sentence differently?

First, the argument from God. God is all powerful by definition. From this we can conclude that God created time. Why? Because if time exists, then one is subject to it. And so if God did not create time, then God would be subject to something he did not create, which is incompatible with being omnipotent. So, given that God would be subject to time if time exists, something which would be incompatible with his omnipotence were he not to have himself created time, God created time. — Bartricks

While your first conclusion is right, the answer to your "Why?" Is nonsense. If God is omnipotent, he will not be subjected to time, as being omnipotent means escaping the limitations of space and time. He can create something without being subjected to it. Thoughvthis act will be difficult to conceive for us, because we tend to think about creation in spatiotemporal terms: "If He created time then isn't the very act of Him creating it a proof that He is subjected to it?" No. If He is all powerful, He is subjected to nothing. Hence, a creature to have pity with. Being all powerful means being all powerless at the same time, speaking of which. You might question this but think about it. How would you decide something, being all powerful? If He could create an infinite number of universes, which one would He choose? Is the choice to create the universe we life, being seemingly infinite in both space and time, a random one? Like in the string landscape our universe is accidentally the one in which all works out perfectly to be suited for life? If he created this stringy world, with about $10^{500}$ possible universes, still being nothing compared to infinity, this would have to be a random choice, for in His all-powerfulness, being not subjected to the laws of space and time, He won't have a means to contemplate them all, though you might claim that in His all powerfulness He has a way. If so, then what His all powerfulness still means? Nothing at all, and the very concept of being all-powerfull is meaningless. Meaning that you can do anything without actually being able to. Unless being subjected to irrational, anarchic, random whimps. Finding your way in a disoriented state of infinite confusion.

But if God created time, then time was not needed for that initial act of creation. We can conclude, then, that there can be creation without time, for otherwise time itself could not have been created. — Bartricks

Here you show some sense. If He created time, then time was not present before He created it. Indeed. But if He's all powerful, can't He make himself being subjected to time, trying to grasp its meaning? Or does He understand time already before He creates it, in which case He is subjected to it. Being omnipotent includes omnisapience (He has omnipotence, so He can make Himself omnisapient), so He would be perfectly able to understand what life needs to develop, what people need to live. In the act of creating time He must at least have had some knowledge of it. Or can His omnipotence prevent this?

And as time involves an event changing in its temporal properties, we can conclude as well that change does not require time either. For how could God have changed an event's temporal properties if time needed already to be on the scene for him to do so? — Bartricks

Abracadabra! Time involves an event changing in its temporal properties? You mean a relativistic event in spacetime? Or what? How can change not involve time? You ask:

"For how could God have changed an event's temporal properties if time needed already to be on the scene for him to do so?"

How? He is omnipotent! Here you are contradicting yourself.

If God created time - and he did, for he wouldn't be omnipotent otherwise - then neither causation or change essentially require time. It is the other way around: for time to exist, there needs to be causation and change, controlled by God. It is God, not time, that changes an event's temporal properties. — Bartricks

Here you are plainly wrong. The fact that God created time doesn't mean that neither causation or change require time. Physics can be defined without time, by positing a block universe, but then you take away the entropic time that lives on the block universe.

I quit. Must fetch some stuff. Nice thread! But I'll return with a vengeance.

Gotta hand it to you, too, Meta, your grasp of logic is quite disconcerting. — Banno

Your grasp of the English language is a bit disconcerting (but nothing unusual there, it's common place in our society). It seems you've taken principles of logic and attempted to apply them to language use in general, exactly what Wittgenstein warns against. And you accuse me of adhering to principles of essentialism! You say possible is what is not necessary, and necessary is what is not possible, concluding that you have said something about "necessary" and something about "possible", by saying what each is not, therefore nothing about each of them. Saying what something is not, says nothing about what it is, because that does not qualify as a description.



Your question of the relationship between God and time demonstrates that we have a faulty conception of time. We tend to associate time with physical change. Furthermore, some even equate the two. But really, the relationship between time and physical change can be proposed in numerous ways. We can say that physical change is required for time, which puts physical change as prior to time, we can say that the two are equivalent, which is to assign no priority, or we can say that time is required for physical change.

The latter, that time is required for physical change, is unacceptable in modern physics, because it allows that time could be passing without any physical change (no way to measure it), but it is the most intuitively coherent proposal. This proposition allows that observable physical change is the result of time passing, and that there could be time passing, prior to physical change (at which time God creates the physical world). But in relation to our conventional conception of time, which ties time to physical change, this would put the activities of God outside of "time" (eternal), rendering such "activities" as unintelligible.

This is why we ought to reject that conception of time, because it makes activity outside the realm of physical activity impossible, as unintelligibly incoherent. Activity is temporal, so if we want to understand the activity which is the cause of physical existence, we need to allow that whatever exists when there is no physical existence, which could act as the cause of physical existence, is really temporal, and therefore not eternal.

Come on then - show me how my claim that there are no necessary truths generates a contradiction. I'll abandon the view if you can. I promise. — Bartricks

Nobody can show you anything about a statement you made which statement is syntactically not English.

show me how my claim that there are no necessary truths generates a contradiction. I'll abandon the view if you can. I promise. — Bartricks

A=A. Necessarily true. For, if not necessarily true, then false under some interpretation. But there are only two such interpretations possible. 1) That A does not equal A, which is to say that nothing is the same as itself, and 2) that the symbols used do not mean what they mean. The contradictions would be that A, not being A, would be some B not A that it is not, and, that the symbols, not meaning what they mean, would then mean something else that they do not mean.

Which you will now demonstrate by not keeping your promise.

Which you will now demonstrate by not keeping your promise. — tim wood

:fire: :smile:

Arguing with bartricks employing logic is somewhat similar to battling a body of water with a sword. No matter how you cut it, which direction, which angle, and with how much force, the water opens for the edge of the sword, but closes back together once the sword's blade passed through. You can't kill water with a knife; you can't defeat bartrick's propositions with logic to the requirement that bartrick will see or rather, that bartricks will admit he is wrong. — god must be atheist

What a powerful image. The only way to beat him is becoming a body of water yourself. Like an aikido fighter is able to beat his opponent by making use of the fighting energy radiating from him. If the energy flow is reversed, the energy won't harm you but the warrior you stand in front of all the more. Leaving him beaten and confused, wondering what the hell happened. But as we are human all, we sit down beside him, pet him over the back, and give him consolation and an understandable nod. We will offer him a paper handkerchief to wipe away his tears. Telling him we will give him a second chance.

So what shall we do? What must we say? Howcshall we move or proceed? Confined as we are by the computer we sit behind, being able to use language only, complemented by a small amount of visual information, if necessary, we must adopt his language and make a thorough self-critique first, the result of which can subsequently be used to redirect the flow in the polemic.

So what does this imply in practice? It's easy. There are inconsistencies to be found in every language used, be it the language of logic and pure math, the language of the mystic, that of the astrologist, or of the physicist. Denying your formal system is inconsistency-proof, would be to deny reality.

I deny that there are any necessary truths. So you have to generate a contradiction without assuming that there are necessary truths, otherwise all you are doing is assuming I am wrong, not showing me to be. So you don't even understand the task.
Note, I think A is identical with itself. I don't think that's a necessary truth though. It's just true.

What?

Yes.
Now, once more, without assuming that necessity is real, demonstrate that by claim that it isn't commits me to a contradiction. For I accept that no true proposition is also false, and so I accept that if you can do that, then you have demonstrated my view to be false.

If you might have written that sentence differently, then you agree that it was not necessary that you write it as you did.

Yet

I deny that there are any necessary truths. — Bartricks

But you cannot see this, as your answer to shows.

But really this has been pointed out to you before; that to deny there are any necessary truths is to assert the necessity of there being no necessary truths, and hence to assert a contradiction.