Hmm .... I haven't been on the 'forum' for several years, but this is a good starting place for me to jump back in. :grin:

'Abstractions' are a huge can of worms, and their wriggling is very real. ... It's how biological creatures understand and apply them that can either be very useful or very dangerous (we're stepping into that danger now with AI haphazard hypostatic abstraction). ... When you understand thought as a system, you cannot possibly dismiss its very real 'existence'. — Mapping the Medium

All thoughts are mental entities or operations, hence they are private to the thinker.  The ordinary folks would say thoughts exist, but it is a vague expression.  

When X exists, it means X is a being.  Being means it has a body to present itself to other beings.  Mental operations and thoughts don't have that type of presentation.  They are invisible not just to other minds, but also to the thinker too.

The thinker will know about the thought he / she has in their mind, but cannot see the presentation.  Thoughts are only expressed via the linguistic expressions to other minds.  Thoughts can also work as the causes for actions of the thinkers.   But they can never present themselves as existence i.e. they are not the presenting beings such as the bodily structures, or bodies in the physical world.

The ordinary folks would say thoughts exist, ideas exist, numbers exist, God exist, but these expressions are all incorrect logically and ontologically speaking.

They must be corrected to say, they know numbers, use numbers to count or calculate, and have an idea to sort out the problem, thought about the incidents, can infer or understand the concept of God, or they believe or don't believe in God ... etc.  

Only the beings which are presenting themselves in visual and touchable physical or material forms exist.  Nothing else exists. Not able to tell this difference and misusing the language describing all the mental entities, concept and events as existing is the cause for all the confusions in reasoning.

I don't have to prove my logical inference any more than you have to prove yours. There is no reason to think an omnipotent being cannot choose to ceasr to exist. — Patterner

You must come up with at least some premises which are objective i.e. omnipotent being(s) as God in the traditional religions, which we know of in their properties of the deities.

Talking about non-existent deities, and the characteristics people made up for them, is going to get you exactly the same place. Any ideas we come up with for our hypothesized beings are as valid as the ideas people in the past came up with for their hypothesized beings — Patterner

But your hypothetical or hypothesized ideas are too subjective and cloud catching story, I cannot even imagine what you are even talking about. We need some kind of objective ground to engage in the argument. That means you must come up with your premises for the argument and conclusion, which could be accepted by the other interlocutors in the discussion.

I am not able to accept your premises, that we could talk about an omnipotent being which doesn't exist in the world. I don't know who we are talking about.

Do you have any support for this idea! — Patterner

That is my logical inference. If you think it is not correct, then prove it wrong.
If a being is omnipotent, then it cannot die.
If it can die, then it is not an omnipotent being.
Therefore, an omnipotent being cannot kill itself.

Of course that's what I'm talking about. I have literally said I'm talking about a hypothetical omnipotent being. I said it twice, in fact. — Patterner

But there are the traditional deities such as the Christian God, the ancient Egyptian deities and the other Gods which we could have some clues from the existing holy texts and theologies, which we could make more reasonable inference and analogies.

Talking about a non-existing hypothetical being with omnipotence is not really going to take you anywhere. You would have far better ways wasting your time.

I take 'God' to mean a person who has the three omni properties (omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence). — Clearbury

This seems to be the problem in your thinking, which is leading you to the faulty reasoning. You are equating God with a person. They cannot be the same. God and person are not the same being or class. No person is omnipotent from inductive reasoning. Only some God can be omnipotent.

If you 'define' God as 'someone who can't commit suicide' then you haven't raised a puzzle either, for then 'by definition' God can't commit suicide and the question was like "are squares four sided?" — Clearbury

If a being is omnipotent, then the being cannot die. If being can die, then it is not an omnipotent being. Therefore you are talking nonsense here.

I guess it depends on your definition of God. But I'm not talking about that. I'm taking about whether or not an omnipotent being can commit suicide. I don't see why it would not be possible. — Patterner

I still don't know who your omnipotent being is, you are talking about. And it seems clear that you don't know who you are talking about either.

You seem to be talking about an omnipotent being which doesn't exist. If something is non-existent, then it cannot be omnipotent, therefore you are barking at the wrong tree for non-existing answers.

I am not talking about any God/god/deity at all. I am speaking about a hypothetical omnipotent being. — Patterner

What exactly would the being be without being God?

That misses the point somewhat! There's no puzzle. There's nothing to discuss.

God is by definition an omnipotent person. So 'of course' they have the ability to kill themselves. Why would you think they don't? — Clearbury

I am not quite sure what you are talking about here. Perhaps if you could let me know which God you are talking about, and also the nature of the existence of your God, it would help in understanding you better.

Is the statement "The force cannot be killed, because it is not a biological bodily existence" an established fact? Perhaps a natural law? If so, I would be interested in hearing about it. — Patterner

No it is not. It is an analogy or inference based on the ancient Egyptian God which is the Sun.
If we could make another analogy on the Sun and force and light, it is burning itself radiating the light and hot temperature for the lives on the Earth. The Sun's burning will not last forever, and one day it will die according to the scientific forecast. Maybe it will take billions of more years for the Sun to die off completely, but it could be looked as killing itself?

I would think the important aspect of the being at all times, regardless of the form it assumes, is it's omnipotence. — Patterner

Omnipotence is just one of the alleged properties of God, and before we could discuss about omnipotence, it would be clearer, if you let me know which God you are talking about, and what type of existence your God has.

For example, the Bible says man was made in God's image, and that Adam and Eve hid when they heard the sound of God walking in the Garden. So it is possible some people believe God was in human form. In Marvel comics, the omnipotent being known as the Beyonder put himself in human form. I don't know of a reason an omnipotent being could not be in human form. Do you? — Patterner

My above posts were some inferences I made based on the ancient Egyptian God Sun. It is not my own claim just in case you might demand me to clarify or prove it. :)

In the case of Christianity, the story is different. The only thing you have is the bible, and the holy texts in it. Nothing else. In the bible, it says God made humans into the God's own image. But we have never seen the God. So he must look like humans, but exact how he looks like, no one has a clue.
No one knows where he lives or what he does for his living. No one knows if he is a living being or some force or energy or indeed spirit. It is veiled in mystery.

He supposedly have sent Jesus into the world to savior folks, but not sure if it is a real story or myth. Why did he not come down himself instead of sending Jesus who had to go through tremendous suffering in the world at the time? Jesus supposed to have resurrected after his death, but no one knows where he resides and what he is doing.

In this situation, I am wondering if there is a point to ask if the Christian God is even omnipotent. The bible says he is the almighty God, and he has demonstrated some miraculous events in the bible, but do you have any evidence to support that story?

I would say this depends on the particular belief system. — Patterner

I agree. Therefore it is quite meaningless to keep on talking about God without clarifying which God one is talking about. First, we need to make clear which God we are talking about, and then what type of existence the God has, before going on to talking about the other properties of God.

However, stipulating a hypothesized omnipotent being is not in human form, but is "force and spirit," I am not aware of a reason this being would not be able to die. Or, if this being cannot be said to be "alive" in the first place, but exists, then I am not aware of a reason this being cannot cease to exist. Are you? — Patterner

The ancient Egyptian God was the Sun.   Sun was the source of life, and energy which made all life in the world possible.  Sun is also vital for growing the plantation to feed the cattle and humans which are the food sources.

When  God is the Sun, what you get is the light from God, and even from a modern scientific point of view, the Earth rotates around the Sun because of the gravity between the 2 stars pulling and being pulled.  Without the force of the gravity from the Sun, the Earth will go out of its orbit, and fly away into space to its apocalyptic destruction with all the lives on it.  Hence, to the ancient Egyptians, the Sun as their God meant it was the light and force the Sun sends to the Earth.   Therefore the Sun as their God was quite reasonable even from scientific point of view.

From this perspective, God could be a force, which was omnipotent.  The force cannot be killed, because it is not a biological bodily existence.  Could it kill itself?   How can it kill itself, when it is impossible to be killed?

Yes, I did. I am no longer saying they are invalid, and have not said it in several posts. Can we move on? — Patterner

Ok cool :up:

How do you propose to verify whether they are right or wrong? What is the method of achieving verification? — Patterner

According to my logic book, you can make any assumptions in proof so long as they are relevant and within the context, and would help coming to the sound conclusion.

I only offered my assumption to the question from @clearbury. He thinks there is no puzzles in the OP's point. I thought there were many philosophical paradox points in the OP.

My point was when we say God's omnipotence, is it a valid concept to begin with? We want to find out what the concept of God means. It naturally proceeds to the question if God exists. We cannot know if God exists, without knowing what God means and also what existence means.

But then is God in bodily existence just like humans? No, my reasoning tells me it isn't. If God was a biological bodily existence, then s/he will get old and die just like humans. That couldn't be God. Then what existence God has? Could it be then some type of existence of Force or Spirit? That was my assumption, which you thought was invalid.

At that point, it is too premature to say it is either valid or invalid. We need further discussion for coming to clearer idea on the point.

You definitely said they are invalid. Hence this talking is going on now.
Anyway, you don't seem to understand what assumption means. Why should assumption be supported or clarified? Assumptions are made so they could be verified to be either right or wrong.

I am in a position to claim either the assumptions could be right or wrong myself at the assuming stage. I would be there to see what other people say about it, before I could make up my my mind on the points.

If you tell us why those points are invalid, then I would tell my thoughts on your points. I could agree with your points, or I may disagree with your points. But right now I don't know the reasons why you think the points are invalid, because you never made clear here.

You have not given any reasons why they are invalid, so I am not sure what point are invalid. You just think they are invalid doesn't mean anything to me.

Can you support this? I an not familiar enough with beings of force and spirit to know why they cannot die/cease to be. — Patterner

Can you clarify this? I don't know why an omnipotent being could not kill itself. If its idea of "winning" is no longer existing, could it not make that possible? — Patterner

As I said repeatedly, they are the assumptions which could be analysed and clarified by arguments. They are not the final concluding claims.

If you claim that they are not valid, then you must write down the reasons why you think they are not valid in logical manner, and then I will come back to you with my thoughts on your arguments.

You need not supply the reason why your statements are valid in the first place, but I must supply the reason why they are not? — Patterner

The assumptions were not claiming anything was valid or invalid. They were just assumptions. Whereas you made claims that you think the assumptions were invalid.

In other words, we have not even gone down to have detailed arguments to come to the conclusions, but you made the claim that the assumptions are invalid in haste without the supporting arguments.

Assumption are made for further reasoning and inference possibilities. Assumptions are not for claiming my ideas or converting people's ideas.

You are perfectly welcome to say the assumptions are invalid, but you must supply the reasons and evidence why they are invalid.

To my understanding you are distorting the fact. I was only making assumptions and inviting the prospective interlocutors to contribute their own logical arguments. I was not claiming anything at all.

But you just claimed that my assumptions are invalid out of the blue - no reason, no logic, no evidence and no argument. You just think the assumptions are invalid. Please read your own posts.

These things seem to be axioms of your position. But I don't think they are valid. — Patterner

You made your counter claims on the assumptions, but you have not given out any logical or evidential arguments on why your claims are valid, and my assumptions are invalid.

Remember this is The Philosophy Forum. We are not into making emotional claims saying you just don't think they are not valid with no reasons, no logic and no evidence supporting your claim. Doing so would be just opening up your psychological state.

Science, similarly to religion may be embedded in mythic understanding. What do you think, especially in relation to the concept of myth?.As far as I see it is a topic involving dialogue between ancient philosophy, as well as anthropological thinking and research. — Jack Cummins

When you say "the concept of myth", does it mean something like Platonic world of idea, which is separated from the material world, and out of reach? Or would it mean some sort of hidden principles and entities within the religious sects and organisations with the artificial makeup for seclusion from the general public?

An omnipotent person can - has the ability to - commit suicide. What puzzle does that raise? — Clearbury

The OP is not asking about an omnipotent person, but omnipotent God. The first puzzle is what type of existence God has. If God has biological bodily existence like humans, then perhaps self killing is possible.

But if the existence of God is non-bodily existence such as force or spirit, then self killing would be impossible, because force and spirit is outside of the boundary of physical death.

So I would have thought, you could have started discussing the nature and type of existence of God.

Is there any reason to think God lacks that ability? If there is no reason to think God lacks that ability, then what puzzle is there? — Clearbury

How can one kill someone who is omnipotent? Omnipotence means that it is powerful to win, resist or make anything possible. If omnipotent being could be killed either by itself or others, then it means that the omnipotent being was not omnipotent, hence it is a paradox to believe that omnipotent being could kill itself.

If I say that I am sat in a chair, that is not philosophically interesting. No puzzle that needs resolving is raised. — Clearbury

There was nothing in this thread saying you have sat in a chair. Can we say that God exist? If it does, in what form does it exist? Which God are we talking about? What is the concept of omnipotence? Is it a logically sound concept? Or is it just a religious myth?

I was just replying to the posts directed to me. No agenda at all. You seem to be wrong on everything you say. My replies had been already give out on the point in numerous times, so if you still don't understand, then keep reading them until you get it. Nothing more to add from this end. Bye~

If you reject using reducio ad absurdum in the proofs, then you are restricting yourself in the cage of the truth table which is very limited to the classic blindness.

I am not seeing a point why anyone would prison himself in the cage of the ancient propositional logic and the truth table in logical proof process.

When it was claimed that, John is in Paris in the introduced assumption of the argument, if one still doesn't know John is not in Japan, then

1. he has no knowledge in the world geography.
2. he does not have ability to reason.

So why bother.

I do not see that there is any philosophical puzzle here. — Clearbury

There are many possible questions emanating from the statement relating to God's power and existence, which are theological and logical paradox in nature. But if you are coming from the Humean vulgar state of mind, of course, there is nothing visible or problematic here.

For example, one could start with a question, if God really existed. If so, what kind of existence it would be. This question alone could take thousands of pages for discussion. And further ensuing questions and debates on all the paradoxes of self killing possibilities, or impossibilities and resurrection debates ... etc it could be quite a large topic.

But obviously it is not an interest to your type of philosophy, and you are not seeing anything in the topic. That is perfectly fine, and natural. Thanks for making clear on your stance of the state of your mind.

This is Matt the same as:
Surely if a being is omnipotent, then he must reincarnate himself too. — Patterner

When you say "he must", it implies he is under obligation or duty to do something. Being omnipotent, God is under no such limitation. "he can reincarnate himself" implies God has Free Will to please himself in deciding or acting.

If God can reincarnate himself, then it implies that his body is not the biological body like humans. Because no biological body can be reincarnated in the same body when died and perished from the world.

If God is also omniscient, then he would know how to be omnipotent and omnipresent as well. Hence knowledge is power. That's why we all read philosophy suppose.

which is obviously wrong.

If "John is in Tokyo" then "John is in Japan", but if "John is not in Tokyo" then John could be some other place in Japan. — EricH

It sounds like you have never heard of "reductio ad absurdum" in Logical Proof.
If John is in Paris is claimed as the axiom or fact in this proof above, then it gives a logical implication that John is not anywhere in Japan.

Being omnipotent implies God could stop killing himself, or if he did kill himself, being omnipotent, he could resurrect the moment he dies, hence he is alive again as he has always been. It is not really a problem for him logically or otherwise.

By the Law of Contradiction, free will cannot be the case, as it would result in a contradiction. At exactly 1pm I can't equally decide to press or not press the letter "T" and decide to press the letter "T" at the same time. — RussellA

It sounds like you decided to contradict your decision and action at 1 pm from your free will. :D

Free Will
A person hears an argument.

If that person has free will, then they are free to accept or reject the argument. — RussellA

Isn't FREE WILL time based ? You don't have free will for the past, because you can't go back even 1 second into the past. But you have free will to choose and decide for now and future events in your life.

Faced with this result, it has a "slide into multiplicity" and produces a multitude of isolated truths, goods, and beauties, with each varying by culture, individual, or even context. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Truths are reflection of the world, and properties of judgement. When the world changes, truths also changes. Judgements are from the psychology, and bound to be different from mind to mind. Some truths will be subjective, but some are objective when they are based on the reasoning.

The same goes with the moral good and beauty. There is no such a thing as good as absolute goodness, or absolute beauty. These are the product of psychological judgement and practical reasoning, hence they are subjective and at the same time can be objective.

The only objective truths are the mathematical and logical truths, because they are deductive, demonstrable and verifiable.

Abstract mathematical objects such as numbers, functions, operational symbols are descriptive language for the existence in the real world. They are not the existence themselves. In that regard, I agree that Platonic math objects don't exist.

Do infinitesimals exist (in the platonic sense)? — Michael

They are convenient and useful descriptive tools to denote and express the small objects and motions in the real world such as the information or movements of particles and atoms.

And this, again, is just ignorance of the subject matter. It doesn't really merit much more engagement than that. — Darkneos

It is impossible to communicate with someone who doesn't understand the difference between the Big Bang theory, and a metaphor for accepting the theory blindly with no reasoning or evidence which is similar attitude of blindly accepting the creation of the world episode in Genesis of the Old Testament.

More ignorance on the Big Bang and what it means. To compare it to Genesis is the height of stupid. — Darkneos

Instead of trying to give out explanations or arguments, just keep saying it is stupid, is not philosophy.

My point was not a comparison between the BB and Genesis. It was a metaphor to describe your attitude of blindly accepting the BB as the absolute truth, which is not much different from believing Genesis creation of the world. You are not even understanding a simple English sentence.

Problem with the Big Bang theory is, inability for explaining the perfect position, and workings of the matter, space and time in the Solar system. — Corvus


That’s not a problem with it. The workings are pretty much standard for something with no design or intelligence. — Darkneos

Without solid explanation backed by evidence and reasoning, the BB is not much different from the creation of the world story in the Genesis of the Old Testament in terms of its coherence and cogency.

If you accept the BB blindly, you have committed yourself to being an esoteric shaman under the apparel of science.

Tell me you don’t understand the theory without telling me you don’t understand it. — Darkneos

What do you not understand on my understanding of the BB?

there is no need for a before the Big Bang being it's creater (motion) moves singularly at the moment of the universe's and time's first motion forward. — Gregory

Problem with the Big Bang theory is, inability for explaining the perfect position, and workings of the matter, space and time in the Solar system.

If the big bang was true as a form of gigantic explosion of some sort, then it wouldn't possibly have created the perfect ideal place for the existence of life such as the Earth in the solar system with all the intelligible physics and math working on the matter, ideas and life in the intelligent and harmonious way.

It would have been more like total chaos with debris of the rocks, minerals and burnt out matters scattered and floating around in the space even at this time. You see some of the old gignatic stars exploding when they are dying. It is nothing short of the massive nuclear explosion destroying and burning everything around them.

Therefore I am not quite into believing in the BB theory. If the BB had created the solar system as it is now, then it must be the most unbelievable magic ever created in the universe nothing short of the miracle act of some omnipotent being. But is it?