Re: The logic of atheism

I disagree that math and logic are part of the natural world; I
would say, rather, that they are abstract mental constructs that
assist us in our description of the natural world, but they are
not themselves part and parcel of nature, except insofar as
rules like the law of non-contradiction, like the laws of
physics or chemistry, accurately describe phenomena we observe.

This is one of the fundamental disagreements over the nature of
reality that tends to come up occasionally in discussions between
theists and atheists. In short, you're making a distinction
between the material and the immaterial that frankly baffles me,
and has every time I've come across it.

I think the distinction I'm making is more between the material and
the intangible. Let's suppose that in a million years, humans no
longer exist. Would the laws of physics, chemistry, etc still exist
and govern the way the universe works? Clearly yes. Would the laws of
logic, or the laws of mathematics? Not really; like the sound made by
the proverbial tree in the forest, math and logic are really only
consequential if a sentient observer is there to use them as tools to
describe what reality is like. They don't superintend reality in the
same way the laws of nature do. 2+3 = 3+2, Stoke's theorem, and the
law of cosines would still be "true", but wouldn't really be
terribly meaningful.

How you can assert that basic logic isn't ``real'' and doesn't
directly interact with the universe but that your god /is/
``real'' and /does/ directly interact with the universe is beyond
me.

How does basic logic interact with the universe?

Take the fact that it's impossible for me to run a one-minute
marathon.

But this isn't a mathematical or logical limitation; a machine
that could supply sufficient power (a rocket, eg) *could*
perform the task.

You prove my point. The impossibility isn't in simply covering the
distance in that amount of time; orbital mechanics means that I
cover /far/ more than that distance in /far/ less time just by
sitting here on my ***.

The impossibility lies in /me/ running a one-minute marathon. Not
some rocket, not some six-million-dollar cyborg...but me,
unpropeled, unaltered, unmodified.

I'm not following your point. You said "I've yet to come across a
physical impossibility that couldn't trivially be reduced to a logical
one." I don't see anything logically impossible about a person
running a one minute marathon, unless you are making the additional
assumption that "the laws of nature are binding; they cannot be
violated". That's not a ridiculous assumption by any means, but it
is an assumption -- it cannot be empirically verified. The closest we
could come is to say that "in every case we've ever observed, we
know of no violations to natural law". A person running a 1-minute
marathon, or a magnetic monopole, or a green sky are all physical
impossibilities (on Earth, anyway) but not logical impossibilities as
far as I can tell. What connects the laws of physics and chemistry to
the laws of logic and makes them identies?


Instead, I'd not start by talking about objects in general, but
specifics. ``Object'' is too vague a term for a smart-alek like
you. ``Apple'' would be a lot safer. Or ``penny.'' Or perhaps
electrons, if we're in a physics class and it seems like a good
excuse to pull out the Millikan experiment, or bits if it's a
computer science class.

Smart-alekery has nothing to do with it. An object, a penny, a
quantized charge, a bit, it's all the same. Let's go with pennies
for now. Math happens in the way you choose to group the pennies.
Prior to the addition operation, they all exist. You make a mental
decision to view the two pennies on the table as one subset and the two
pennies not on the table as another subset (and, additionally, you view
all pennies everywhere else as a third subset). Then, you add the
pennies together by choosing to consider the subsets to no longer be
subsets, but to instead constitute a set. But you haven't actually
done anything other than changing your frame of reference. It's
entirely semantic.

Physical laws work very differently. You don't heat up a pot of
water by choosing to see it as having a higher temperature. And the
local temperature of the water doesn't change, whether you're
looking at just the pot, at the entire room, or at the whole world.

And if, as I've stated elsewhere, ``able to do anything that it >is possible to do'' is a valid definition for ``omnipotence,'' >then /I/ am omnipotent. Think it through: let's say that >something's impossible. Therefore, the fact that I can't do it >doesn't count against my omnipotence, because it's one of those >things you've already explicitly excluded. I /am/ able to do >anything that is possible to do--by definition. Anything I can't >do is impossible. Duh!

Wrong; you're conflating physical impossibility and logical
impossibility. I'm pretty sure you're implicitly assuming
"necessitarianism" as I discussed the other day; since that's a
foundational assumption that I can't grant, we may not be able to get
anywhere.

I'm sorry, but you don't get to re-define perfectly good words
into oblivion just to support your favorite faery tale. The real
world just doesn't work that way.

Are the conventions of language now, too, part of physical reality?

The truth is that I'm not redefining omnipotent. If you look up the
word "omnipotent" in a dictionary, you'll get things like
"all-powerful", "almighty", "having [virtually] unlimited
authority or influence" ([] from M-W.com). None of these
unambiguously indicate whether the ability to perform logically absurd
tasks are included in the definition or not.

I think a little common sense shows that such abilities are excluded.
I'm assuming you have a high regard for the scientific method. To be
convinced that a being has a particular ability, you'd want to see
that ability demonstrated. If the act enabled by the ability was
successfully performed, you'd agree that the being had that ability.
But here's the thing: to be able to test for the ability, you have
to be able to define what success or failure would look like. For the
case of a square circle, you cannot define what the success would look
like -- since the object, as I showed, is inherently
self-contradictory, you'd never be able to verify whether the object
had been successfully created or not.

For that reason, this strikes me as a very petty objection against
omnipotence. It's not very much different that this kind of
conversation:

Atheist: "If God is omnipotent, he should be able to make a
gleeg".

Theist: "Hmm...what's a gleeg?"

Atheist: "It's undefined."

Theist: "Well, then how would God go about making an undefined
object?"

Atheist: "That's not my problem, it's God's. Can he make a
gleeg or not? If not, then there's something that God can't make.
If there's something God can't make, then there's something God
can't do. Therefore, God is not omnipotent."

Theist: "But if you can't even specify what a gleeg is, how could
you identify when God had successfully produced it?"

Atheist: "If God is so powerful, he can create a gleeg so evidently
a gleeg that I would just know it was a gleeg. Again, the fact that I
don't know what it is right now isn't my problem, it's God's.
Well? Where's my gleeg? I'm waiting..."

Well and good -- then they should be capable of manifesting
themselves without respect to a particular natural system.
Otherwise, violating a rule is simply a violation of one of the
physical rules of that reality, and not a violation of the
underlying mathematics itself.

Funny. You just provided an excellent example of just such a
manifestation below. You know, how you offered a symmetry-based
proof that square circles are impossible? Even your god couldn't
draw one in an Euclidian space...but your faith means that that
somehow doesn't limit his omnipotence, of course.

Sorry, I'm not going to let you wiggle out of this one by
redirection. How would God cause 1+1 to be equal to 3, without
reference to utilization of real, physical objects or phenomena? Once
again, you can't even specify what success would look like.

In this context, the only meaningful definition for
``universe'' is ``the set of everything that exists.''

Say, rather, "the only definition that is convenient for me, >>Ben Goren, for the purposes of this discussion" and I'd agree >>with you. I think that the "universe" more conventionally >>refers to the material universe -- to those entities and >>phenomena that are governed by the laws of nature.

You could make such an assertion, but only if you wanted to dodge
the parts of the argument that you know in your heart prove the
lie to your fantasies.

I think my view makes more sense than you're giving credit. I would
say, rather, that "reality" is the set of everything that exists.
The universe, or nature, are those entities and phenomena that we can
touch, see, interact with, measure, calculate the existence of, etc --
it is that subset of reality that is contained in our space-time and
that observes a set of natural laws, (some of which we think we
understand pretty well but there's potentially room for further
clarification).

Now, it's entirely possible that reality and the universe are
synonymous, and one can assume that they are, but I don't see any
logical necessity why that must be the case.

[big snip]

So your god, even if real, couldn't possibly have been the cause
of all existence.

Wow, you used a ton of verbiage to basically say what Bertrand Russell
said in one sentence! Hey, I sympathize with you, I'm pretty verbose
myself.

I don't think the "who created God?" argument is really germane
to the conversation about the nature of the supernatural and the
requirement of the ability to perform logically absurd tasks as an
essential component of supernaturality. You didn't really say
anything original on the subject, and I don't think I can offer
anything that someone else hasn't equally well explained somewhere
else. We can agree to disagree on this point.

One thing human experience teaches us is that if someone dies,
and no one intervenes with any kind of medical assistance, the
dead person will stay dead. Right?

Worng. Ask anybody who's spent a long time working in a busy
hospital and they'll tell you their own experience about somebody
who was clearly dead, removed from life support, etc., and who >was later seen moving under the *** and fully resuscitated.

No one has ever buried a friend only to find him walking around
the next day.

Worng. History is replete with stories of people who've been
``dead'' and buried but who, by modern understanding, were >clearly in a coma and who later came back to life.

The intellectual dishonesty I alleged earlier is readily on display
here. "Being in a deep coma and mistaken for dead" and "being
dead from crucifixion" are not at all the same situation. (Yes, I
grant that I didn't explicitly appeal to the crucifixion, but it's
obvious from your remarks you could see where I was going).

But hold the phone -- there's an account that a long time ago,
someone died, was confirmed to have been dead, was buried in a
sealed tomb, and several days later, the tomb was found to be
open and the person was alive and walking around again.

Do you have any idea of just how many accounts we have from all
throughout history of exactly that sort of thing happening?

To be honest, no, I don't. What accounts are you aware of where a
person was actively murdered (NOT just "slipped into a deep coma"),
was buried for a day, and was later found to be fully alive?

Do you have any idea of just how ludicrously unsubstantiated
and--frankly--fucking goofy the particular account you're
referring to really is?

Again, the historicity of the account is a separate matter. You are
arguing that the event, even if historical, doesn't count as a
supernatural occurence. I think it's reasonable to say "I don't
believe the event occured" (I don't think it's correct, but
it's at least reasonable). I think it's unreasonably selective to
say that the event wouldn't count as a miracle on the grounds that
comatose people have been mistakenly pronounced dead.

-Jeff

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