If God wants to destroy evil...

[Zarathustra]

God created everything that has been, is, and is going to be in existence. He created the Earth and the Heavens. He created the Lake of Fire in which he casts sinners. He created Good, and He created evil. Does not the old adage says "I have created you, and so can I destroy you"?

If God wanted to, couldn't He, in theory, destroy evil with no need for the battle of the apocalypse?

[harvey1]

And yes, I ask that you use your own words rather than quote someone else. I am willing to sacrifice the "precision" that you prefer in the original text in order to hear what you think those philosophers mean, so that we can discuss your ideas.

No. Because, as I've said, I prefer to express myself anyway that I choose to do so. Therefore, I do not abide by this needless restriction. I would rather not debate than live by these rules that you have made for me. And, yes, that's my final answer.

So your best response to my challenge is to prove me wrong and show me that you do understand them. To do that, you need to put them in your own words. If you continue merely quoting people, and then essentially tacking on "see, that's just like my claim p!" when p has nothing at all apparent to do with the quotation, then I will continue believing that you just don't understand the quotation. Doesn't that sound fair?

It sounds like you wish to restrict me. I won't abide by it. It's easier to debate others or just go to a different site altogether.

After all, as David Lewis says:... I would explain in my own words how that shows God doesn't exist--but you know, Lewis just says it so much more precisely!

If you wish to quote Lewis instead of your own words, then I have no problem in you doing so. I'm not like those communist atheists that successfully restricted freedom of speech whereever those atheist beliefs arose to prominence.

By the way, at this point I'd like to refer you to the forum rules. What I wish to do is not forbidden by the rules.

[spetey]

Back again!

No. Because, as I've said, I prefer to express myself anyway that I choose to do so. Therefore, I do not abide by this needless restriction. I would rather not debate than live by these rules that you have made for me. And, yes, that's my final answer.

I'm sorry to hear that you don't feel you can say in your own words what your position is. Of course it's not against forum rules to quote passages you don't understand, and then assume they prove something totally unrelated. That doesn't mean it's good debate procedure to do so!

After all, as David Lewis says:... I would explain in my own words how that shows God doesn't exist--but you know, Lewis just says it so much more precisely!

If you wish to quote Lewis instead of your own words, then I have no problem in you doing so.

Of course you don't mind if I quote Lewis, and I don't mind if you quote Davidson. Again you make a straw man of my point ("never quote anyone ever!"). What I mind is that you take Davidson to be saying things totally irrelevant to his views, and then refuse to justify your readings. Instead you simply assert, in effect, "the passage says it best and shows I'm right!"

Do you mind my claim that the Lewis quotation proved God doesn't exist? Or do you agree with my reading of that passage? Have I shown God doesn't exist, because (my reading of) Lewis said so? Wouldn't you be well within your debating rights, so to speak, to ask how I read that passage as proving that God doesn't exist? And wouldn't that be asking me to put the passage into my own words to demonstrate my understanding of it? Isn't it just possible that I have misunderstood Lewis by taking his notion of "expanded postulate" to prove God doesn't exist?

I'm not like those communist atheists that successfully restricted freedom of speech whereever those atheist beliefs arose to prominence.

Oh please Harvey! Enough of the melodrama. I'm not restricting freedom of speech, for goodness sake! Stop playing the poor helpless heroic victim. All I'm doing is asking you to give reasons for your views in your own words. That is not thereby evil godless communism (much as Bush might want to paint those intellectual liberals who actually question things that way--did you know those evil stupid liberals sometimes change their mind according to reason?!). To request reasons for your views is simple debate; indeed, without such a groundrule you are engaging in mere rhetoric. If you can't provide reasons in your own words (even when your words are rewordings of other smart people), then I again suggest you seriously consider whether you actually have good reasons. How do you know they're there if you can't even express them?


spetey

[harvey1]

Hey Spetey,

I'm not sure how you wish to restrict me if you have compromised by allowing me to quote Davidson, et al. freely. Of course you can ask questions about why I selected that quote. And, I'll try to answer, either with another quote to substantiate that view, or I might answer in my own words. The point, though, is that I don't see a reason why I should sacrifice my freedom to state my views the way I see fit as long as it is in the guidelines of the forum. If you want me to define a term, I will do so (either by providing a quote, reference a paper or article, or clarifying it in my own words). In short, I'm not asking for much. All I wish is for you to do is concentrate on what is in the quotes and pay little or no attention to who said it. The only reason those words are in a quote if offered as an answer to one of your objections is because I have agreed with those words. In effect, those words are from me. If I could remove the quotes and not tell you who actually wrote them, then I would love to do that, but that's unethical and illegal, so I cannot.

Can we now get past all of these attempts for you to restrict my replies and just debate the issues?? Will you not blow a gasket the next tiime I quote someone in reply to a question from you?

[spetey]

I'm not sure how you wish to restrict me if you have compromised by allowing me to quote Davidson, et al. freely.

I wish you to quote only passages that you can understand--passages for which you are willing to demonstrate your understanding by restating their points in your own words.

Of course you can ask questions about why I selected that quote. And, I'll try to answer, either with another quote to substantiate that view, or I might answer in my own words.

Okay. I will take you up on that. Please, for the sixth or seventh time now: what do you mean when you say "physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility"? And what are your reasons for your claim? You may use quotations, like a quotation defining Davidsonian supervenience, if you can also show how the quotation helps substantiate your view. You may not just randomly quote someone about some random topic and then say "there, see, that shows physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility!" (And I don't mean "may not" as though I had the power to stop you, and were thereby restricting your poor innocent freedom of speech on which I apparently infringe when I ask you to explain yourself. I mean "may not" in the much weaker sense that I would not consider such practice as giving any kind of reason for your view, and so would not consider it any kind of response to my points in this debate.)

In effect, those words are from me.

No, they aren't, not if you don't understand them. Look, I'll pick a passage from Wikipedia somewhere:

• 

There. I've managed to cut and paste something. Can we therefore treat that as "from me", and it's just mere accident that someone else happened to write it? Do I get credit for understanding this because I've copied and pasted it? Will you just trust me if I say that this equation proves there is no God? Or might you ask me to explain what it means (according to me) and how it shows there is no God? And isn't it just possible that I don't understand what I just copied and pasted?

Can we now get past all of these attempts for you to restrict my replies and just debate the issues?? Will you not blow a gasket the next tiime I quote someone in reply to a question from you?

Yes, please do get back to the point--answer my questions from above. And if you quote someone, be prepared to show that you understand that quote and how it relates to your views.


spetey

[harvey1]

Yes, please do get back to the point--answer my questions from above. And if you quote someone, be prepared to show that you understand that quote and how it relates to your views.

I will be re-constructing the quote from physical-mental to logical-physical, so therefore all I have to do is provide reasons why the quote has to do with a logical-physical relation.

[spetey]

I will be re-constructing the quote from physical-mental to logical-physical, so therefore all I have to do is provide reasons why the quote has to do with a logical-physical relation.

Oh boy. Harvey, there is no quotation on "physical-mental to logical-physical". This is another new set of nonsensical, undefined phrases. What do you mean by "physical-mental"? Is it a noun? An adjective? How can we tell whether something is "physical-mental" or not? And what is a "logical-physical relation"?
and what does it have to do with the relation between logical possibility and physical possibility? Are you aware of the distinction between the scientific notion of what's physical, and the modal notion of what's physically possible?

Okay. Maybe I shouldn't prejudge. Perhaps you actually really mean something by these phrases, and aren't just making new stuff up as it appears. I will wait to see, I guess. It looks for all the world like you want to take a Davidsonian point about how the mental relates to the physical, and assume mysteriously that the same relation holds between physical possibility and logical possibility.

I just would like to save some time by preventing you from introducing new undefined terms to define your old ones. If I claim God doesn't exist because of all the parlits, and you ask me what a "parlit" is, and I explain it's like a perlit but better, have we really made any progress? But this is exactly what you're up to when you say stuff like "physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility because of interpretationalism". I could ask you about interpretationalism, and you would no doubt say something like "it's Tarskian semantics but modal", and I could ask you about that, and you could say "oh it's just like Quine's indeterminacy of translation but with supervaluation..." and so on, and we would never get anywhere. At some point you have to demonstrate that you understand these fancy phrases and can put them in your own words.


spetey

[harvey1]

Hello Spetey,

Oh boy. Harvey, there is no quotation on "physical-mental to logical-physical". This is another new set of nonsensical, undefined phrases. What do you mean by "physical-mental"? Is it a noun? An adjective? How can we tell whether something is "physical-mental" or not? And what is a "logical-physical relation"?

This is one of the main reasons why I prefer to quote philosophers with you. It seems you aren't really interested in a pleasant discussion.

In any case, for whatever good it will do to clarify things with you, physical-mental is referring to the "mental as 'supervening' on the physical in a way that implies a certain dependence of mental predicates on physical predicates." Logical-physical is referring to the "[physical] as ‘supervening’ on the [logical] in a way that implies a certain dependence of [physical] predicates on [logical] predicates."

To be honest, I really don't want to debate if you continue this tone and level of pickiness. It's just not enjoyable, and this is why I discuss issues. It's so much more pleasant to talk with QED. Why don't you get less anxious about your work and we'll pick things up later?

[spetey]

Hullo!

This is one of the main reasons why I prefer to quote philosophers with you. It seems you aren't really interested in a pleasant discussion.

I assure you, I am interested in a pleasant discussion. I just don't find it "pleasant" when you insist on using words and views you don't understand well as though they magically supported your view. I keep urging you: if you can't admit you're just plain wrong about whether physical possibility supervenes on logical possibility, please at least drop the supervenience stuff (stuff you brought up though you admit you don't understand it well), and get back to the point, which I have stated in perfectly plain English.

In any case, for whatever good it will do to clarify things with you, physical-mental is referring to the "mental as 'supervening' on the physical in a way that implies a certain dependence of mental predicates on physical predicates."

Okay. First, I should say: thank you for, at last, fulfilling a request for clarification on my part. That wasn't so painful, was it? And I appreciate it. It helps a lot. Now I see what you mean by "physical-mental". (I don't see why you invented a hyphenated phrase to stand for the proposition that the mental supervenes on the physical, and why you didn't just say the mental supervenes on the physical--but okay, whatever, as long as you do mean something determinate by the term, and are willing to say what it is on request. I also notice that after the sixth or seventh request you still don't want to clarify what you mean by "physical possibility supervening on logical possibility", but at least you're willing to try to clarify some things, and I guess that's progress for which I should be grateful.)

Logical-physical is referring to the "[physical] as ‘supervening’ on the [logical] in a way that implies a certain dependence of [physical] predicates on [logical] predicates."

Wow! Is that your new claim? Not only does physical possibility supervene on logical possibility, according to you, but the physical supervenes on the logical period? And this immediately after I reminded you of the difference between the physical and physical possibility, so you must really mean it.

In other words--in your favored Davidsonian gloss on supervenience--anything that can be discriminated by physical properties (like mass, charge, etc) can be discriminated by purely logical properties (like validity, consistency, etc)? Please--discriminate the London Bridge from all other things using purely logical vocabulary (no terms that refer to bridges or bricks or atoms or quantum particles or energy!). I would like to see how it's done. This claim strictly implies, you realize, that all physical statements are necessary, and no physical statement is contingent. (If you like I can give a proof to that effect.) It thus implies that you could derive "spetey had Indian food for lunch" from pure logical taugologies. Your new claim is a truly astounding one, even less plausible than your initial one, and will take some serious defending. But insist you know exactly what "supervenience" means, of course, so I guess I should try to take you seriously. So please, I'm eager to hear how your argument for this claim goes! (You do have an argument right--not just whatever kind of credo-brainstorming-thing you claimed your "13 points" to be when I suggested it wasn't an argument?) Your argument, if successful, would revolutionize philosophy! Foolish philosophers have thought that physical propositions are contingent all these thousands of years. How they shall hang their heads in shame!

Remember, Harvey, that arguments that the mental supervenes on the physical do not thereby show the physical supervenes on the logical, any more than they show that tortoises supervene on hares. Just because A supervenes on B doesn't mean C supervenes on D. That's why I have very little faith that anything Davidson says can avail you. Davidson talks about the particular relation between mental and physical predicates. Davidson never made such a huge (and prima facie outrageous) claim that the physical supervenes on the logical. (That, I would say, is because Davidson understood what "supervene" means.)

To be honest, I really don't want to debate if you continue this tone and level of pickiness. It's just not enjoyable, and this is why I discuss issues.

I'm sorry you find actually defending and explaining your views so trying. And I agree that I haven't been the most pleasant disputant lately. But that is simply because you're driving me nuts, defending to the teeth a nonsense claim that you just refuse to give up! I started off with an admirably patient response for such blatant balderdash, I think. But as you kept refusing to reconsider, I got more and more testy.

It's as though someone kept insisting that 2+2=5, even though it had nothing to do with the point at hand. People try to show her this is false using ordinary arithmetic reason, counting on fingers and such, but she sticks to her claim. In exasperation someone shows her a formal proof that 2+2=4 from Peano axioms, and she gets hurt and complains "oh, unfair, you're some kind of expert, you're changing the subject to math! I didn't mean to make a math claim! I'm just a simple layperson, I can't speak your complicated language, and I have a right to express my view that 2+2=5!"

I assure you I'll be much more pleasant if you just drop defending the supervenience stuff (or, much more pleasantly but hardly worth daring to dream for--if you actually genteely admitted that perhaps you might have been somehow mistaken in your claims). Please, if you have an answer to "the point", let's hear that (preferably without introducing any new undefined terms, or any new theories that you haven't explained in your own words).


spetey

[harvey1]

I'm not sure I want to proceed Spetey with your attitude. It's obvious that you are the kind of person that doesn't like to consider perspectives far different than your own. Afterall, you're an atheist, someone who is closed-minded about what 95+% of the world believes to be true. Perhaps I'm just gonna pass.

Of course, if you want to demonstrate to me that you can change your attitude to one of curiosity and one where you are willing to explore what you consider very weird ideas, then I'm game. You should express a totally different attitude here or I just don't think I can have fun discussing things of this nature with you. And, this is all about fun for me, nothing else. It's why I do this. Make it fun for me, or else let's just drop the whole thing. (Afterall, you're not having fun either.)

[QED]

Remember, Harvey, that arguments that the mental supervenes on the physical do not thereby show the physical supervenes on the logical, any more than they show that tortoises supervene on hares. Just because A supervenes on B doesn't mean C supervenes on D.

It does look like harvey1's run into a problem here. That mind supervenes on matter is an essential plank in the Atheist argument -- one that is agreed with here. In this case the only salvation for gods existence is if matter supervenes on logic. This does indeed seem a bold claim to make. Never mind what 95% of believers think, why should I think that this must be the case? I'm not saying I don't accept it - I am agnostic on the point.