I know it is necessary for rational discussion because otherwise discussants could make whatever self-contradictory statements they liked, and discussions would be reduced to nonsense.

As I said, I won't make any metaphysical pronouncements; I am only saying that the LNC is necessary if there is to be rational and sensible discussion. And that is not going to change either.

LIke I say, you don't understand anyone.

So you reject all history because "God" can make the past different from what he was. Descartes just as likely started WWII in your worldview as Hitler, and Buddha was the big bang! — Gregory

No, I do not 'reject history' (whatever that means).

Your position on relativism leads straight to solipsism. — Gregory

No it doesn't.

As I have said before, show your working. How - how - are you getting to these conclusions? I am currently rather fancifully imagining that the inside of your head contains a slowly revolving cake whisk with some post-it notes on it with philosophical expressions and theories written on them, rather than a brain. Now please will you explain how you got from what I said to those bizarre conclusions? Or did the 'solipsism' paddle just hove into view?

How do you know that?

You don't know, I suspect. That is, you don't know how you know it.

Doesn't matter. I think it is true too. So, this mysterious way by means of which you know of its truth - just attribute it to me too. I know of its truth just as you do. Happy?

We both agree that it is true.

How do you know it is 'necessarily' true, as opposed to just true?

I can't believe I have to spell this out. If God can do anything then he can change the past. So it's as likely you never had parents as that you did. You've thereby destroyed your existence because of you insistence on some she God

Ah, the fine and delicate logic of a whisk brain.

God can change the past. That doesn't mean he does or has. 'Can' doesn't mean 'has' or 'is doing'. Bloody hell.

And being 'able' to do something does not mean there's a 50% chance you'll do it. How do you not know this?!

I am able to take the glass in front of me and smash it into my face. That is something I can do. That doesn't mean there's a 50% chance I will. There's a 90% chance I will out of frustration at this discussion!

We were talking about God, not you. If we don't know what will happen at all as it is the case with God we treat it as 50/50. We all do that

Well, now I'm down one glass.

You have no logical reason believing you have a real past

God can change the past. That doesn't mean he does or has. — Bartricks

You wouldn’t be able to tell if he did or didn’t so you have no reason to think he hasn’t.

Why not? You think it is only if the past is necessary that we can know about it? Why on earth would you think that?

That's as silly as thinking that I can't know there's a cat in my kitchen because there isn't necessarily a cat or necessarily a kitchen. That is, it's tremendously silly. I have a kitchen and there is a cat in it. Deal.

How do you know your hair is not Aristotle? Your position is against common sense because your God is without any rules or even common sense.. You believe is a fire of rule-less will who can make and sustain any contradiction whatsoever to infinity

How do you know your hair is not Aristotle? — Gregory

Look, I don't have a limitless supply of glasses to smash into my face.

Our reason tells us that some things 'must' be so, and others are merely 'possibly' so. Philosophers (with the occassional exception, such as me) then think that there is, in addition to truth, 'mustness' and 'possibility'. There is not. There's just God being adamant and God being tentative. — Bartricks

Generally, I'd say I am agreement with skepticism when comes to knowing we have established truth beyond doubt. But, extending it to self-referential systems like logic or mathematics might be further than reason allows. Put another way the law of non-contradiction is maintained in certainty because of the meaning inherent in something being true or false. But, truth in reality appears so often an approximation instead of a binary assignment that I suppose the opposite could be true in practice.

1+2 can't have more than one answer, but miscounting is always in play.

↪Cheshire Yes, to say that something is 'possibly true' is normally to express tentativeness. And that's fine. That's how I generally use it. Similarly, if someone says "that 'must' be true" they mean to express certainty. — Bartricks

Why not leave it on an agreement. At least till sunrise.

It seems like your misrepresenting his argument. — Cheshire

Just a bit. :wink:

@Bartricks
I'm quite happy to debate this, if you like. Fancy a bit of formality?
Ah, on second thought, it would be flogging a dead hose. I take it back.

How do you know it is 'necessarily' true, as opposed to just true? — Bartricks

because otherwise discussants could make whatever self-contradictory statements they liked, and discussions would be reduced to nonsense. — Janus

So I know that it is necessarily true that the LNC is necessary for rational discussion because its negation leads to the negation of all possibilty of rational discussion.

you are just expressing convictions, not telling me the means by which you know things.
What you say is false, incidentally.
But I want to know how you know these things. Not 'that'you know them,but how you do. How did these beliefs get in you head? (Not that beliefs are in heads, of course)

No, you'd be mildly annoying a tiger. But yes, I don't think it'll be profitable. Hasn't been thus far. Just lies and squiggles squoggles.

Again.

See the "because" in

because its negation leads to the negation of all possibilty of rational discussion — Janus

The stuff after that is the reason.

And it's the same one I explained to you previously.

So the problem is that you don't recognise reason...

But you are good for the length of my threads...

Why not? You think it is only if the past is necessary that we can know about it? — Bartricks

I didn't mention necessity once so you're just pulling things out of your ass.

I'm saying your God has the ability to change the past, and your memories of it, and not tell you. In which case you'd have no way of knowing whether or not he did so. So, you have no way of knowing whether or not he has or has not changed the past. You have no evidence in support of either proposition.

I am able to take the glass in front of me and smash it into my face. That is something I can do. — Bartricks

Look, I don't have a limitless supply of glasses to smash into my face. — Bartricks

Ah so every time someone disagrees with you, you smash a glass in your face. I see the problem now.

God is supposed to be a necessary being. Something is necessary if it is true in every possible world. — Banno

I think you're using "necessary" in a way different from how the classical theologians used it. God is said to be necessary in the sense of "required for".

Logic is needed in order to have the discussion, not as a consequence of the discussion. — Banno

Here's an example of that sense. In the same way that you say logic is needed to have a discussion, theologians say that God is needed to have the world which we have.

Yes, you can conceive of a possible world, which does not require God, but that's irrelevant because God is determined to be necessary for the world which we actually have.

See, it's a different sense of "necessary". It is the sense which describes how a contingent thing actually exists. A contingent thing requires the appropriate efficient cause to bring its actual existence from a mere possibility. The efficient cause is said to be necessary for the thing's existence.

I think you're using "necessary" in a way different from how the classical theologians used it. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm using a more recent notion.

he he he. Nicely played.

I'm saying your God has the ability to change the past, and your memories of it, and not tell you. In which case you'd have no way of knowing whether or not he did so. So, you have no way of knowing whether or not he has or has not changed the past. You have no evidence in support of either proposition. — khaled

So the takeaway here is...God is a dick and may randomly screw with our memories/past for personal entertainment. Or to have faith that God is not a dick and while having said ability does not use it as doing so destroys any ability we have to learn or grow from any point in our life.

Alternately, there is no God. Our past is functionally what we need it to be and therefore exactly as we remember it at any given moment, which allows us our identity and an ability to move forward/onward in life.

Lastly...How exactly do you know what my, or anyone else's, God can, or cannot, do? My God might be limited to only making a decent hot turkey sandwich, because that is all I need him for. Yet somehow you know this already...

We were discussing the God as explained by Bartricks

First, objects don't have potentiality. They have actuality in a form which can change to something else. That doesn't mean they have potentiality within them as an attribute.

Second, there is no contingency or necessity in objects in the sense you think. A balloon can be popped so there is one of it's contingencies. A sidewalk will kill me if I drop to it from 10 floors. These are contingencies and necessities known in science. Your ideas on them are abstract and unprovable

The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden. — 180 Proof

That is an interesting Camus quote - would you mind either explaining or directing me to a good explanation, maybe by Camus himself?

"Everything is permitted" because there are no deities, or no transcendent lawgiver. This, however, "does not mean nothing is forbidden" by mortals who, mostly as strangers, must live together.

We were discussing the God as explained by Bartricks — Gregory

Hey, my OP, my god.

It's pretty clear that Bart is using a confused notion of the relation between necessity and contingency. His notion of God is consequently impaired - see his thread about god making mistakes. See also the comments about the poverty of this sort of argument in the new thread "What is the Obsession with disproving God existence?"

Bart's god is incoherent.