DancesWithCoffeeCups

In an ongoing discussion I'm having via e-mail a friend made the above assertion.

I know little of "formal" logic but the above assertion just rings false with me.
Isn't there a difference between what actually is logical and what one can "imagine", regardless of whether or not it's logical to do so?

(I hope this is in the right forum).

ModernHeretic

The assertion above is correct. There may well be things that don't exist that are not logically impossible. For example, there may not be any women with green hair and red eyes, but that doesn't mean that in a few thousand years that some women won't have a mutation that will cause them to have green hair and red eyes.

For that matter, you didn't exist before you were born, but you weren't logically impossible, because you're clearly here now.

So, assertion correct.

Well, yes, you may be able to imagine something that's utterly impossible, but that's a different question from what your friend asserted above.

I would say that a "first cause" outside of time or a "prime mover" outside of space is logically impossible, as is foreknowledge and free will. But, without knowing what your friend is talking about, I can't say more than that.

Atheos

Well technically it's true that non-existent things can be logically possible. It is logically possible that I could have fathered 1000 children from 1000 different mothers. Those 1000 children don't exist and never did.

It is also logically possible that a horse-like creature with a single horn on its head might exist. It is logically possible that elves and leprechauns exist. It's logically possible that the Enterprise, Captain Kirk, Spock and the rest of the gang will exist at some time in the future. Hell there are an infinity of possible things that fulfill the constraints of logical possibility yet do not (and never will) exist.

Shifting into EoG territory, it is logically possible that a god might exist, depending on how one defines the term "god". Some gods are not logically possible, such as the "Problem of Evil" god (one that has the power to eliminate all suffering and wants to eliminate all suffering but exists at the same time suffering exists), the "omnipotent and omniscient" god who cannot ever do anything as simple as make a choice as it already knows all of its choices ahead of time, the "omnipotent god" who can create square circles and rocks so heavy it can't lift it, etc.

Other gods might be logically possible if one is willing to posit a "lesser" version of gods, such as were to be found in the greek pantheon. They were gods because of their immortality and certain superhuman abilities but were not necessarily omni-anything that resulted in internal logical incompatibilities.

So the answer is ... "depends".

DancesWithCoffeeCups

I apologize for not being more clear. We were discussing this in relationship to the existence of gods. I can see now that it would depend upon the specific god that is being asserted. Is that correct?

Perm

Not necessarily. Nearly any god could be logically "possible."

What you need to understand is the difference between logical possibility and the opposite of such.

For example, one could say: It is logically possible that a god exists that forces the grass to be the color green.

Of course, it's logically possible, because grass is clearly green. We know why grass is green, but we can't disprove there isn't some invisible magic causing chlorophyl to be green. So it's logically possible. There just happens to be zero evidence for it.

Logically impossible would be: I believe that my god created square circles.

That's logically impossible because of the definitions we attribute to square and circle.

If your friend is positing that it's logically *PROBABLE*, then they have a lot of explaining to do. My rebuttal would be somewhere along the lines of "magical invisible underpants gnomes are logically possible, try to disprove them." Check Sagan's "dragon in the garage" argument for a common logical exercise in this type of issue.

RAFH

Your friend is correct in stating, "Things that may not exist can be logically possible." As noted by others, there's no question something that may not exist can be logically possible. Mars might not have one of it's moons but that sort of moon is logically possible. Venus could have such a moon, which it doesn't, and yet it could be logically possible. I don't have a twin brother but there's no reason having one would be logically possible.

With regards to god(s), yes it may well be such entities do not exist (fulfilling the first part of the statement) yet there's no logical reason I know of that would prevent them from existing. At least not generic god(s).

If there were more specifics about the particular god(s) being discussed, maybe it would be logicially impossible. But on the generic level presented, I don't think logic has much to say one way or another.

That said, its also true a being which is logically possible might not actually exist, or even necessarily exist. As noted, logical possibility has little influence on actual existence. Its even possible that something we find logically impossible (based on our defined logic) really does exist. That's because logic is a tool, not a control of reality. It helps us understand reality, it does not create or control reality. Since we establish the rules of logic, it is possible the rules we have established do not accurately reflect reality which would mean the logic may be faulty in describing that reality. It could even be 99.999... ...99% accurate in its description of reality and still be inaccurate in some small way. a very good portrait of somebody might be accurate in almost every detail, but gets one detail wrong.

Logics are very useful but they can be tricky. Because they seem so simple and direct and are often quite correct in their conclusions, we can become sloppy and lazy and not remember they are our artifacts and as such are only as useful as we make them, only as useful as we can make them.

One always has to examine the basis of the logics in question to be sure they are relevant and accurate to the issue being explored. A 2D logic system can give very faulty results about a 3D environment. A 3D logic system can give very faulty results about a 4D environment.

DancesWithCoffeeCups

Thanks everyone for your responses. I think I'm clear now on the assertion.

I guess my next question to my correspondent is: So what?

Yes, it's logically possible that a god exists. If it can't be detected in any physical form....so what?

Perm

That's a question many of us ask. In fact, that's one of the "default" questions I make it a point to ask any theist who tries to push the issue that their god is real. If you throw facts and logic at them long enough and hard enough, eventually their argument breaks down to: "Well god just isn't meant to be perceived or understood, it's beyond man's capability to comprehend, and/or beyond space and time."

At which point you have to ask: "What good is a deity that has absolutely no effect on the world whatsoever?"

This world is just like what it would be if there *weren't* a deity.

I suspect you won't receive a satisfactory answer, should you pose this question to your friend.

Cheerful Charlie

I can imagine Easter Bunnies and a God who is not in any way limited by logic, and a billion other things. Its all rather meaningless. Whatmatters is what does exist, and imagining weird and unlikely things that may not be totally illogical in the way a 4 sided triangle is is a useless concept usually good only for those with bad ideas that need special pleading.

Sometimes things may be logically impossible depending on one's basic ideas about reality. If one is sure there are no supernatural entities, one may then rule out anything that is said to be supernatural as thus illogical.

Basically, Greek philosphers said many foolish things because they did not have enough knowledge to see why they were wrong, knowing no chemistry, physics, having no idea about biology or how anything worked. And thus we may say this is illiogical or logical without real knowledge about what we are blathering about.

CC

Cheerful Charlie

Exactly. The typical omni-everything creator god of Bible, Quran, and Vedas easily is shown to be impossible because the attributes that revelation claims these sorts of gods have contradict each other.

Butthereareotherclasses ofGods. How aboutnatureGods as in Rome or Greece or elsewhere? Science has stripped them of all credibility. These peoples did not have say, Gods of electrons, or Gods of DNA or Gods of the jetstream, or Gods of el nino events which real things that deeply effect how the world works.

No gods came down and said "Hi! Iam Quadratus the God of the 4 great forces of physics and this is my friend Quarkia, goddess of quarks and gluons.

Science, real knowledge shows us these Gods were not based on knowledge and were representations of vain hopes people could avoid things like droughts and bad crops by appeasing whoever caused these things to happen.

How about the millions of myth cycle gods, the Gods of Greek, Romans, Celts, Semites, Egyptians, Incas, Aztecs, India, and on and on?

Either one of these mythcycle gods is an omni-everything god with al lthe in built contradictory attrributes that doom that concept, or these gods are nature gods and not meaningful for reasons cited above.

What is left? Not much, Deist gods, God that allegedly do not rely on revelations, but still fail because their natural religion they are based on fails. These 'proofs' fail.

Pantheist Gods, variations on the failed omni-everything gods, transcedent gods, immanent gods, maya/idealist gods. They all still have contradictory attributes.

Sometimes we get new god concepts such as process theology that tries to avoid the problems of omni-everything gods. Process theology is interesting as it based itself of certain metaphysical claims that has created a God that does not work with modern day physics. Metaphysiocal god systems tend to do that, Libenez's monodism, and other systems usually come a cropper because you cannot outguess nature.
Process theology has been struggling with this problem of a God that does notwork with basic physics for decades now.

Soon we are down to spirits, animism.

And Greek concepts such as panpsychism, all matter and all things have mind. Which science shows is impossible, its easy to say that when one has no idea of what a mind really is and how a brain works, no idea
of biochemistry and existence of nerve cells.

Hylozoism, the idea that matter has life, vitalism. Vitalism was also killed by science long ago. Life is not some magic fluid or force that gives life to inanimate matter. Life is something that is an emergent property of biochemcal systems.

The idea then that rocks and trees, and seas have some sort of spirit is impossible, giving them names and personalities even more futile. So much for nyriads, nymphs, satyrs and such mythical beings. Voodoo gods, shaman's animal spirits, whatever.

Looking at such god ideas, none work, and there really are not that many of them. My current list has 18 such classes of Gods, none work.

Cheerful Charlie