Originally posted by Scriabin
I don't disagree. However, that is not the consensus of a majority of philosophers and other professionals. It is just one view.

I am not convinced that it is a matter of opinion anyway. As far as I am concerned ThinkOfOne stated the definition and as such it cannot be contested. You may give your own definition or the definition of some other philosopher but at no point can you claim ThinkOfOne got it wrong.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Truth is a set of definite facts which exist independently of human perception and conception.

Which begs a question or two, does it not.

Originally posted by Scriabin
Deductive reasoning shows that the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically contradictory, from considering a question like: "Can God create a rock so big that he cannot lift it?" or "If God is all powerful, could God create a being more powerful than itself?"

I really doubt that. Of course there are different conceptions of 'omnipotence'. But, just for example, we can consider one that is relatively common -- the idea that omnipotence is the ability to do anything that is logically possible (or the ability to bring about any logically possible states of affairs). I think a person who holds such a conception of omnipotence has nothing to fear from your questions.

Consider your question "Can God create a rock so big that he cannot lift it?" Now import in their supposition that God is an omnipotent being. So the question is, "Can an omnipotent being create a rock so big that an omnipotent being cannot lift it?" So you are asking them if an omnipotent being can create a rock with a certain property; but it is clear that ascription of this property entails logical contradiction (because if a being is omnipotent then the being can lift any rock whatsoever). In other words, such a rock itself is a logically impossible entity. So, at bottom, you are basically asking them if an omnipotent being can create a particular logically impossible entity. Their answer will simply be no, and in no way does any of this demonstrate that "the concept of an omnipotent entity is logically contradictory". They were never committed on any level to the idea that omnipotence entails the ability to bring about logically impossible stuff. Same thing goes for your second question inasmuch as a being that is even more powerful than a maximally powerful being is also a logically impossible entity. You may as well just ask these people if God can bring about a square circle (or some other paradigmatic logically impossible object). Their answer will be no, and yet they can still maintain -- with no notional inconsistency -- that God is 'omnipotent'.

In short, these sorts of questions should pose no problem for many reasonable and common conceptions of omnipotence. They won't reveal any sort of paradox stemming from the actual conception of omnipotence at hand.

Perhaps you have some other notion of 'omnipotence' in mind, but the one I mentioned above (or at least the basic notion embodied in it that even an 'omnipotent' being is still constrained in some sense by logical possibility) is relatively common.

Originally posted by Scriabin
I don't disagree. However, that is not the consensus of a majority of philosophers and other professionals. It is just one view.

This is what G.E. Moore or Bertrand Russell might say. The correspondence theory of truth expresses the very natural idea that truth is a content-to-world or word-to-world relation: what we say or think is true or false in vir nd said such things as:

Truth is the end of inquiry.
or
Truth is satisfactory to believe.

Right, and if people want more general information on the correspondence theory, or other competing theories of truth, they can just refer to the site from which these ideas are sourced:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Originally posted by Scriabin
Did I indicate I believed this proposition? I don't think I did.

Your response is classical inductive reasoning, however. The "no reason" argument tries to show that an omnipotent and omniscient being would not have any reason to act in any way, specifically by creating the universe, because it would have no needs, wants, or desires since these very conc ...[text shortened]... -knowing being change its mind?"

I merely have to ask my wife the answer to that one.

I hold with the theory of Theological noncognitivism.

I've seen theological noncognitivism (TN) in different forms. Which is the form you espouse? Is it the thesis that the sentence "God exists" does not express a proposition? If so, I find TN highly implausible. If you want some dissenting opinion, I tend to agree with this guy when he concludes that "if there is any version of noncognitivism that is true, then it has relevance only to the most esoteric forms of God-talk."

http://www.sewanee.edu/philosophy/Journal/Archives/2002/Conifer.htm

Originally posted by whodey
So you think there is an all powerful being that is stupid? Throw in a bit of wisdom and common sense and what you get is a being that would not waste his time on such pursuits.

Deductive reasoning is a man made construct and, as such, should in no way be able to fully capture an all knowing and all powerful being.

so what you are saying that god can do all but may choose not to? that is not what he asked. he asked how he, the all mighty, create a logical paradox. an immovable object and an unstoppable force. someone that could kill him, the eternal. how do you propose he manages to accomplish that. the fact that he wouldn't want to is irrelevant.

"Deductive reasoning is a man made construct" are you saying that god doesn't use logic? are you saying that logic is invented by man instead of discovered by man?

Originally posted by Scriabin
As for truth, show me a single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree.

Are truths independent of our beliefs? Except for propositions that are actually about our beliefs or sensations, is that which is true or false independent of what we think is true or false?

Is truth subjective?

When we agree on the i ...[text shortened]... s — even if the correspondence cannot be established.

How do we reconcile all these?

"As for truth, show me a single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree."

i have problems with this construct. why would you need a majority of professional philosophers to agree? are you afraid to think for yourself? is a professional philosopher more entitled to an opinion than yourself? i would go so far as to say that a non-philosopher's opinion is many times more valuable than that of someone who studied philosophy. because it is not influenced by anything that has been said before and is "fresh". so you can debate that idea. not say "Wittgenstein dissagrees". often the new good ideas are exactly those that the "majority of professional philosophers and scholars" do not agree with.

"Is truth subjective?"
this brings us to my original statement. "there is no spoon". if we fall into the philosophy of the matrix (which is a very good talk subject when drunk or high) we may never get out. if the information we have about the universe is received through our senses, "how can we know our senses or not deceived at any time or even all the time?might i be a brain in a vat somewhere?" (a cookie if you can guess where is that quote taken from). but here comes the kicker: why should we care? if we do not have any method of verifying if what we see is really there, if the real truth is different than what we see or think, but have no way of getting to it, if our theories, axioms, describe how the universe we see works, why should we care about "truths" that do not produce perceivable results in our universe?

we can either stop caring or continue inventing unverifiable hypotheses. either way the "false universe" we perceive is undisturbed.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I am not convinced that it is a matter of opinion anyway. As far as I am concerned ThinkOfOne stated the definition and as such it cannot be contested. You may give your own definition or the definition of some other philosopher but at no point can you claim ThinkOfOne got it wrong.

cannot be contested, why, because that is all the room there is in that terribly small and narrow mind of yours?

would love to get you on the stand in a court of law -- you are so inflexible that you'd break far more easily than most for the inability to bend.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Which begs a question or two, does it not.

ask those questions, pls.

I would comment by adding to the mix the deflationary theory of truth, which holds that to claim a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself.

For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’.

Some of those questions you refer to have been extensively studied in philosophy:
truth consists in correspondence to the facts;
truth consists in coherence with a set of beliefs or propositions;
truth is the ideal outcome of rational inquiry.

According to the deflationist, however, such suggestions are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake.

The common mistake is to assume that truth has a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of.

For the deflationist, truth has no nature beyond what is captured in ordinary claims such as that ‘snow is white’ is true just in case snow is white.

Here is the source for my OP's title. In looking for the nature of truth, we are bound to be frustrated, the deflationist says, because we are looking for something that isn't there.

The deflationary theory has gone by many different names, including at least the following:
the redundancy theory,
the disappearance theory,
the no-truth theory,
the disquotational theory, and
the minimalist theory.

There is no terminological consensus about how to use these labels: sometimes they are used interchangeably; sometimes they are used to mark distinctions between different versions of the same general view.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I really doubt that. Of course there are different conceptions of 'omnipotence'. But, just for example, we can consider one that is relatively common -- the idea that omnipotence is the ability to do anything that is logically possible (or the ability to bring about any logically possible states of affairs). I think a person who holds such a conception ...[text shortened]... is still constrained in some sense by logical possibility) is relatively common.

Well, I cited this argument to lead us where you've gone. All concepts of truth, reality, God, depend on language and its uses. If I'm convinced of anything, it is that analysis of our use of language often helps us separate the wheat from the chaff.

The omnipotence paradox is a family of related paradoxes.

Descartes argued that God is absolutely omnipotent. But some philosophers have considered the paradox to be a false dilemma.

Some, however, argue that omnipotence grants the ability to bend logic, therefore rendering the paradox useless and the concept of omnipotence meaningless.

Note that the question relies on its linguistic construction. The question itself disguises a question of ability with a question of inability.

The Omnipotence Paradox may be a linguistic twist on the definition of the word "omnipotent."

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]I hold with the theory of Theological noncognitivism.

I've seen theological noncognitivism (TN) in different forms. Which is the form you espouse? Is it the thesis that the sentence "God exists" does not express a proposition? If so, I find TN highly implausible. If you want some dissenting opinion, I tend to agree with this guy when he conc ...[text shortened]... forms of God-talk."

http://www.sewanee.edu/philosophy/Journal/Archives/2002/Conifer.htm[/b]

in simple terms, I use that term to mean that I have seen no evidence to convince me God talk has any pragmatic purpose or relevance to our lives.

People can believe the moon is made of green cheese, the Earth is flat, and electricity is the Devil's work, and I don't care so long as my civil rights and my government aren't compromised by such crazies.

As for that which has not been established by evidence, I am open to new information.

Therefore, I would say I am apatheistic.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
so what you are saying that god can do all but may choose not to? that is not what he asked. he asked how he, the all mighty, create a logical paradox. an immovable object and an unstoppable force. someone that could kill him, the eternal. how do you propose he manages to accomplish that. the fact that he wouldn't want to is irrelevant.

"Deductive reason oesn't use logic? are you saying that logic is invented by man instead of discovered by man?

The Bible is full of apparent parodoxes. For example, Christ's message that it is better to give than recieve or to love your enemies and bless those that hate you etc. These apparent paradoxes we can see through, depending upon who you are, but not every one of the paradoxes can be understood. Logic is simply what makes sense to you. As to whether it is faulty, that is the only question and only time tells as to whether it is. As for God, I presume that I am unable to make sense of everything he does, assuming that he exists and is all knowing, of course. In fact, that is the way it MUST be because I am in no way his equal.

Originally posted by whodey
The Bible is full of apparent parodoxes. For example, Christ's message that it is better to give than recieve or to love your enemies and bless those that hate you etc. These apparent paradoxes we can see through, depending upon who you are, but not every one of the paradoxes can be understood. Logic is simply what makes sense to you. As to whether it is ...[text shortened]... all knowing, of course. In fact, that is the way it MUST be because I am in no way his equal.

is mathematics only that which adds up to me?

you are not bound by the laws of mathematics?

so 2 + 2 always equals 4 to some, but not you?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
"As for truth, show me a single definition about which a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree."

i have problems with this construct. why would you need a majority of professional philosophers to agree? are you afraid to think for yourself? is a professional philosopher more entitled to an opinion than yourself? i would go so far as to ...[text shortened]... iable hypotheses. either way the "false universe" we perceive is undisturbed.

you have trouble with my question because you are ignorant and wish to assume you can make up a definition or express an opinion about the language you use and not repeat that which has already gone before.

Back up your claim that "often the new good ideas are exactly those that the "majority of professional philosophers and scholars" do not agree with." Examples?

go on, make up a "fresh" definition for "truth" and see if it has never been used before.

If so, btw, how then can it be a definition for that word, at all?

You seem to have problems avoiding contradicting yourself.

as for your problem of verification, have you read Wittgenstein? It isn't as though he has "the truth," or that you can't find what he observes elsewhere, but he has put it together in his later work rather well. As for your idea regarding the senses, well, you leave out a few things -- perhaps you are putting Descartes before the horse?

how do you know your axioms describe how the universe you see works? what about the universe you haven't seen yet? Einstein made a few predictions, did he not? How did things turn out for him?

Originally posted by Scriabin
is mathematics only that which adds up to me?

you are not bound by the laws of mathematics?

so 2 + 2 always equals 4 to some, but not you?

In the here and now yes, in another diminsion????