Ivanhoe, I think you are confusing two very distinct things - violations of logic, and violations of the laws of nature, as we currently know them.
As royalchicken said, you haven't shown any example of a logical contradiction in reality. The examples you take with Einstein's theory superseding Newton's are examples of a new theory showing that what would previously have been considered a violation of the laws of nature was in fact completely in line with the laws of nature - our previous understanding of those laws was just incomplete.
These have nothing whatsoever to do with logical contradictions. Logical contradictions are completely independent of any laws of nature, whatever they may be - and no theory that purports to accurately describe reality can contain logical contradictions.
An example of logical contradiction would be for example, if I were to say that person X is taller than person Y, who is taller than person X. This would be a violation of logic - Y can't be simultaneosly both taller and shorter than X. No amount of tinkering with the laws of nature will change that - there will be no Einstein in the future to show that you really can be simultaneously both taller and shorter than someone else.
Thus logical contradictions don't exist in nature - not even in parallel universes (should they exist) that have completely different laws of nature. If some claim contains a logical contradiction, then that claim is unambiquously false.
Which brings me to the original point - that omniscience and free will simply cannot exist simultaneously. My argument was that the claim of omniscience and free will existing is a claim that contains a logical contradiction; in exactly the same way as a claim that 1+1=3 would be contradictory, or that y>x>y would be contradictory. No future discovery could dispell that contradiction, just as no future discovery could show that y>x>y could be true.
The logic is simple: If for example, god were to know that in my next chess game I will start with 1.d4, and god cannot be wrong about this, then I am not free to choose anything else than 1.d4. Because if I were to chose, say, 1.b3 instead, than god would have been wrong!
Note that this contention depends on no laws of nature - you can upturn every single law of nature, and the argument would still hold. This is because the argument is one that depends on pure logic alone, just as 1+1=2 depends on pure logic alone.
This is why either the claim "There exists a god that is omniscient", or the claim "People have free will" must be false - as a matter of immutable logic, not some current perceptions of the laws of nature.
-Jarno
Originally posted by ivanhoeCertainly, Ivanhoe. When I said you were talking about violations in physics, I meant that recent advances in physics may extend or modify old physics, but they are not illogical. Apparently we didn't disagree in the first place.
Royalchicken,I'm not talking about violations of any kind and I'm certainly not talking about abandoning logic .Einstein did not wipe
away the findings of the scientists before him on the contrary he
stood on their shoulders.(But to make sure that I understand the English correctly I'm gonna ask you this question: Do you think Einstein violated the l ...[text shortened]... his fits in here someplace ...
Can you or someone else tell me what it is all about ?
IvanH.
You are quite right to say that Einstein stood on the shoulders of those before him. His laws do not violate those of Newton except under conditions where Newton's laws do not apply. We really should say that newton's ideas violate Einstein's under certain conditions. No, Einstein did not violate the laws of Newton.
i'm sorry, the two online Dutch-English dictionaries I have found do not contain the word "lek". I'll see what else I can find.
This is why either the claim "There exists a god that is omniscient", or the claim "People have free will" must be false - as a matter of immutable logic, not some current perceptions of the laws of nature.
-Jarno
I agree with you that this has nothing to do with the laws of nature.
Well, let me put it this way: I want to agree with you.
Let's grab the tiger by the tail:
It is true that i'm a bit confused.You asked me about the contradiction that may exist in reality and I answered yes. What I should have said was that something that seems(!) a contradiction to us now, may not be a contradiction in the future anymore, because we explore things .The examples that you chose are simple and clear especially when they can be caught in mathematical symbols.
But what happens when confusion strikes?For instance: is it possible
for somebody to be a sister and a mother to one other person at the same time ? Well, fifty years ago everybody would have answered the question with no and now we know this is possible through cloning technique.Or we can ask ourselves the question : Is it possible to go on a trip and return younger then you were when you left ?The problem is of course the terms, the words that we are using are rather complex in meaning and they can only form a thesis together with other complex words and i'm sure you can come up with a couple of other things, . You can see what I mean when you read my Gedankenexperiment somewhere in this thread.Now the< three O >God is so complex that Christian people and others call it a Mystery . The Free Will issue is also very complicated with or without the existance of God.
This problem cannot be caught in mathematical or other "edible" terms and therefore we should be extremely cautious to draw any conclusion at all.Now I return to the quote with wich I began this post and I try to formulate
accurately.On the basis of what we know now about the substance of the two claims mentioned in the beginning of this post and what our knowledge
is about logic ( do we know everything about Logic ?)and how logic is affected by changes or absence in space and time ( There are particles that have a negative time) No, no no, I wanted to agree with you on the fact that logic had nothing to do with the perception of laws of nature ...
On the basis of what we know now the only rational and logical answer we can come up with is : I don't know, and that's it.
Another answer could be: I don't know , but I'm gonna accept that He is there for me, because I cannot wait forever for the logical evidence to be brought forward, and then it becomes a question of courage, of free will, of making a decision, a choice in which direction you want your life to go and then you say to yourself and to God : "So be it, Amen" . 😴
IvanH.
Originally posted by Pyrrho"supporting logic with reason is a bit silly,as logic is the very foundation of reason." Pyrrho.
You do make a valid point - indeed supporting logic with reason is a bit silly, as logic is the very foundation of reason. However, if you look at Ivanhoe's replies to my claim of the mutual exclusiveness of omniscience and free will, it seems that he is not contending the reason or logic of the claim, but rather doubting the validity of logic itself. Why fu ...[text shortened]... k of a way to argue against a denial of logic in any way that is not tautological. 😕
-Jarno
"I can't for the life of me think of a way to argue against a denial of logic in any way that is not tautological." Pyrrho.
These two statements and a statement made by Royalchicken ( I'll try and find it somewhere in some thread) and maybe some others too,led me to ask about the "Lek in de Logica" .Yes, you can translate "lek" as "leak" and in this context also as "hole" (empty place in solid body).
IvanH.
I'm writing an essay for a philosophy class I'm going to be taking this fall, and the first section deals with why reason is the most useful method for arriving at meaningful conclusions. It basically states the fact that if methods other than reason sometimes solved our difficulties in a superior manner, there must be a mechanism in place that decides which methods to apply under which circumstances. By examining what characteristics this mechanism must have, I was able to argue that (if reason is allowed in examining it--reason was used in my argument) deductive reasoning is more useful to answer questions of this type than any alternative.
Originally posted by royalchicken
I'm writing an essay for a philosophy class I'm going to be taking this fall, and the first section deals with why reason is the most useful method for arriving at meaningful conclusions. It basically states the fact that if methods other than reason sometimes solved our difficulties in a superior manner, there must be a mechanism in place that decid ...[text shortened]... ument) deductive reasoning is more useful to answer questions of this type than any alternative.
You're making me curious ...
Have you found anything about "The Leak" ?
IvanH.
There is a leak, but only if the question is asked in a vacuum. Any question that can be asked in a clear and unambiguous way can also be similarly answered, because the questioner is expected to doubt the method as much as he does the answer, otherwise it was clearly pointless to ask the question.
Originally posted by royalchicken"supporting logic with reason is a bit silly,as logic is the very foundation of reason." Pyrrho
There is a leak, but only if the question is asked in a vacuum. Any question that can be asked in a clear and unambiguous way can also be similarly answered, because the questioner is expected to doubt the method as much as he does the answer, otherwise it was clearly pointless to ask the question.
Are you two (Pyrrho and Royalchicken) talking about the same things here ?
IvanH