Talk:Omnipotence paradox/Archive 3

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What about other theologies?

What I miss in this whole article is what light other theologies than Christian / Muslim / Jewish might shed on this paradox; for instance Hinduism.

--Tim

Category Mistake - Logic: "The Law of Non-Contradiction"

Great stuff in this article and discission...

I did not see the "category mistake" arguement made in reference to the Omnipotence Paradox article. It seems somewhat obvious that the apparent contradiction of the two premises should point us to the conclusion that neither one is logical. In other words, "If God cannot lift the stone, then he is not God" and likewise, "if God cannot create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent". This "neither-nor" answer shows that the question is simply not a valid question to ask. Similarly, if I ask "Can God smell the color 9?" If he cannot, then he must not be omnipotent, right! But,this question is to ask God to violate logic, which (assuming God is the author and creator of all things)would be against his nature.

So, the conclusion is that to ask the question "Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannnot lift it?" is a category mistake. This arguement from logic also addresses the question "If God created everything, then who created God?" This, also is a logical category mistake, because there is a tacit assumption that God is subject to the "Law of Cause and Effect". But God is not an effect, and therefore, does not require a cause.

Corey Hampton

God's "essential" omnipotence

The God of the Bible (whose existence is presumed, not debated)is not, in fact, capable of doing anything conceivable. For example, it says that God cannot sin since that would contradict His character, which the Bible says is morally perfect. If God's creating an unliftable rock would violate His perfection (and it would), then He clearly can't do it. It would seem, therefore, that the scriptures support an "essentially" omnipotent Creator. We do run into a problem with trying to apply human logic (which is limited by nature) to an "unlimited" being. While it's not logical that the biblical God can create and unliftable rock, not all of His ways and activities can be pinned down by our own wisdom and understanding of the universe. For instance, the article mentions an omnipotent god who becomes subject to his creation's natural laws. Well, in the Bible, that would be Jesus. Yet, Jesus wasn't completely under natural laws as is evidenced by His miracles. The article mentions that a god who could subject himself to natural laws by divesting himself of his powers, only to regain them, would render logic meaningless. This is precisely what happens with Jesus. He had to "empty" Himself to become a man, yet was able to regain those same godly powers upon His resurrection. Rather than this disproving God's existence, it only shows how limited our logic and understanding is when trying to understand a Being whose ways are above ours.Jlujan69 23:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

People's minds are unable to funtion in a non logical sense, since we have been born into a world filled with nothing but natural law. However, you must rememebr that if a being like god were to be omnipotent, and the universe is not eternal, (it can not be, under the natural laws that have been estabished for us, otherwise it would still be another eternity before we exist) then this god had to create the universe. In doing so he would also have had to have created every semblence of what we call logic, incuding time. Thusly, since logic is nothing more then one of his creations, which he can alter at will, you can not use it in try to decribe what he can and can not do. Since logic is not an option, it would be totaly possible for him to lift a rock that is impossible for him to lift. Being essentialy omipotent, all he has to do is think, and a paradox will cease being a paradox. Aerken 18:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Christianity mentioned, but its answer not given

The article mentions that the paradox has been applied to Christianity, and gives several conditional resolutions to the paradox. It does not, however, give the conditional resolution that the Christian Bible gives, which is to say that God's "omnipotence" is defined not by having the ability to do anything, but by having all power. The Bible makes it clear that God cannot do certain things. Lying, for example, is not possible for God according to the epistle to the Hebrews:

Heb 6:17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, Heb 6:18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Heb 6:19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, Heb 6:20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Neither can God "deny himself":

2Ti 2:13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful-- for he cannot deny himself.

That is to say, he must be true to his own nature. Thus, Christianity does not posit a being that is omnipotent in the sense that the Omnipotence Paradox questions and therefore it is irrelevant to the question of the existence of the Christian God.

Aaronimo 18:07, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It is not that he can not lie, but rather that lieing is not part of his character, if he holds all power, then he can lie, even though he can not. If he so desired, he could make lieing something other then lieing for a time, or even make liein the right thing to do. However, that was not what he wanted, and thus he places limits on himself, limits that he can transcend, but ones that he has no desire to change. Aerken 18:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The Church's Own Paradox

In fact, the Christian Church has created a more obvious paradox of its own.

The Church teaches that God is omnipotent and He wishes to save everybody, which means to proffer everybody eternal life in Heaven. But at the same time, the Church insists that a human being has free will, and it is up to him to choose to believe in God to get saved; or he will be condemned to Hell. This is to say, a necessary condition--to choose to believe in God--is at the control of the concerned individual, but not at the control of God. In other words, if an individual chooses to go to Hell and thus not to believe in God, God will be unable to save him and place him in Heaven.

The Church may argue that God can save a non-believer if He chooses to do so. But then it can be argued that God cannot prevent the fact that He acts against His wishes. --Roland 03:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

• I suppose the above can be added to the article. Any opinions on this? --Roland 03:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a bad idea. The interaction between free will and God's purported omnipotence is a very loaded theological question, which has been much debated. To speak of one position on the matter is a mistake, as is the term 'Christian Church'. Depending how one interprets the problem, it might be another instance of the omnipotence paradox, but one that is far more convulted than the rock example, which is already itself a poor example, chosen on the strength of historical prevalence. All in all, this seems like it brings more noise and confusion to the article, without shedding any fresh light on the paradox at hand.

- Ncsaint 12:45, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

But an encyclopedia is supposed to present all there is in this world, including questions to which answers have not been found? Isn't it? --Roland 21:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but questions to which the answers have not been found is the job of philosophers, isn't it? The job of the encyclopedia is then to give an unbiased view of all the arguments. --The1exile 21:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Then the question needs to be presented in the first place. Afterwards, people with all different opinions can edit the article, and this process will go on and on until some balance is reached. If the question is even not allowed to be presented, then a part of the world is hidden from the encyclopedia. --Roland 22:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. I submit that there might be eoom for an article titled divine omnipotence versus human free will or something like that, if there's nothing so focused yet. Doesn't really belong here, though. --Christofurio 19:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

A large section of the free will article addresses this issue. Ncsaint 08:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The "problem" is only a problem for synergistic systems. Calvinism does not have this "problem." Aaronimo 20:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no Paradox in this anyway, becasue while man does have the ability not to chose god, god could force him to choose him. He exercises his own freewill by letting us choose. The descision is at the hand of god, and his choice is to let us choose. By saying that he does not have such a choice is denying his own omnipotence. Aerken 18:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I have to disagree. God knows what any one man will do during his lifetime before that man is born. This includes knowing whether that man will choose to love god and join him in heaven, or turn from him and depart into hell. With omniscience, this is known before birth. By choosing to create that man, god has set in motion the events that will lead to that known destination. God had the power to not allow that man to be born if he wanted, but allowed him to be born. Ergo, whether we choose to pursue good or evil, either way our choice was made for us by god in the decision of making us. There's no way out of the bind of omniscience and omnipotence. Man only has the ability to not choose god if god lets him have that ability, which means it's really god's ability to have man not choose him. Which makes me wonder what he's doing it all for. Kasreyn 19:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

You are right in the fact that he does know exactly what we are going to do as he creates us, and thus in a way has the ability to control our descisions, but he does not make them for us, we still make those descisions. The only comparison I have been able to think of is offering you something you hate, and something you love, of course you are going to pick the one you love, but I still did not make the choice for you. This does not work exactly of course, since, you could possibly pick the other just to spite me. It is fairly close though. As to what he is doing it all for, and as to why he feels the need to give the choice to people he knows are never going to accept him, I do not know. As god is not restrained by logic, since he created it, there is probably no way we can ever understand the whys in this question. Aerken 15:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• The Rock Paradox seems to be one of the most popular theological paradoxes around today, but a lot of googling has turned up nothing on its origin. I have never seen anything like this from either the Greeks or scholastics. I suspect it is then late 1700's or later, as far as I can tell much later, it seems quite modern. Does anybody have any information where this came from and how it became so widespread?

-- wbarwell@mylinuxisp.com

Evil and Omnipotence

I am surprised that there is no discussion of this form of the omnipotence paradox on the page and it passed as a featured article. If it is on another page I suggest it should be moved here, as it seems quite relevant to the topic. A good discussion of the problem can be found in J.L. Mackie's 'Evil and Omnipotence', published in Mind, New Series, Vol. 64, No. 254. (Apr., 1955), pp. 200-212.

The argument suggests that belief in the traditional concept of God is self-contradictory. The basic premises:

• God is wholly good.
• God is omnipotent.
• Evil exists in the world.

Two further premises or "quasi-logical rules connecting the terms 'good', 'evil' and 'omnipotent'", as suggested by Mackie, are:

• Good is opposed to evil in such a way that a good thing will always eliminate evil.
• There are no limits to what an omnipotent thing can do.

The article goes on to evaluate the various possible solutions to the paradox, which obviously depend on the denial of one or more of the premises. Subtitles from Mackie's paper give you some idea:

• 'Good cannot exist without evil' or 'Evil is a necessary as a counterpart to good'
• Evil is necessary as a means to good
• The universe is better with some evil in it that it could be if there were no evil
• Evil is due to human free will

Also see http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/omnipotence.

Should this discussion be incorporated into the article?

Eh, I don't really think it should be incorporated in the article itself, but I'll gladly take a stab at it!

Evil is due to human free will.

This is the easiest one to debunk. If god created humans, then god is inescapably responsible for everything we have ever or will ever do. Even "giving" us "free will" changes nothing. It just makes us indirectly controlled rather than directly. The choice to make us was his; anything we have done could have been prevented by either not making us, or by making us in a way that would prevent some of our choices. Ergo, we are not and have never been responsible for what we do; there is no such thing as "free will", and we only delude ourselves that our choices matter. If god is omnipotent, then we are entirely his puppets. I try to imagine what possible amusement mortals would provide an omnipotent being, and the only things I can come up with are unpleasant. Perhaps we're slapstick entertainment.

The universe is better with some evil in it that it could be if there were no evil.

Hmm, I think this is really a part of the topmost argument, "good cannot exist without evil". Here's why. "The universe is better" essentially means "the universe contains more goodness". I'm willing to accept this - perhaps good and evil, rather than opposite ends of an integer scale, are two things which can coexist and require or even feed off of each other. However, if this is so, the two arguments are really the same thing: good requires evil. So I'll get to that last.

Evil is necessary as a means to good.

Ahh, the old doctrine of ends and means. When I was in Sunday School, this was the most basic thing I was ever taught. I am no longer religious, but my personal sense of morality is still defined by two things I learned there: the Golden Rule, and the fallacy of the ends and means. Simply put, the doctrine of the ends justifying the means is the very definition of negative morality, or amorality. Using this solution essentially proposes a universe in which an omnipotent god who purports to be "good" justifies his momentary, evil actions by saying they support some future good. But why would god need to, if he's omnipotent?? He could just make the good stuff happen right now, and skip over the bad stuff. The ends justifying the means is a doctrine of placing pragmatism over morality; but everything is pragmatic for god, even the most insanely difficult things, because he's omnipotent. Therefore god never has to make sacrifices in his moral standards due to restrictions of the world. He is free to always choose the good act, every single time. So there is no excuse on those grounds for god to allow evil into the world; nothing ties his hands.

(For that matter, it always upset me greatly as a child that "ends justifying the means" was explained as evil to me, and in the same breath, god's allowing evil in the world was waved away with "man cannot know the mind of god", which was just a sneaky way of saying "god chooses evil now to accomplish good later", which makes no sense as I've shown. They didn't much appreciate me in Sunday School after that.)

Good cannot exist without evil' or 'Evil is a necessary as a counterpart to good

Out of the three (I consider this and solution #3 to be essentially the same thing), this is probably the most sensible. If in the entire history of the universe, no evil deeds had ever been committed, there would be no standard of comparison against which to measure good. There would be nothing but the blank, featureless plain of god's perfect goodness. Or, alternatively, if god were evil, the blank, featureless plain of god's perfect vileness. All sensation and awareness (that we know of) is relative. That is to say, we know something by knowing how different it is from something else.

We know a pan on the stove is hot because it's hotter than the air around it. Everything we know, we know by comparison with something else. Even the common (in my opinion childishly simple) Judeo-Christian view of Heaven - angels plucking harps on fluffy clouds - would have to have varying levels of goodness. Would you have more fun harping, or listening? Lying on a cloud, or standing on streets of gold? One would be less "good" than the other - even if both were extremely good by mortal standards. Likewise, Hell would have to have varying degrees of pain, or else there would be no suffering. Without the comparison, no discernment is possible. Therefore, I'd reason that without evil, we might be entirely surrounded by good but we would not be equipped to know it. We would not recognize its worth because there would be no evil to make us appreciate this. Therefore, the existence of evil makes us aware of, and appreciative of, the existence of good.

Now, before you start thinking I've worked things out, here's the snag: if this were the case, and god created evil so that we would know good, you have to wonder what possible motivation he could have for this. Why is creating a few puny scraps of flesh like us, just so that we could exist and know good from evil, so important that it was worth creating the universe for? If we accept that all goodness flows from god (as most deists do), then it stands to reason that the purpose of knowing goodness is to know god. Therefore god is a narcissist! He created Satan in order to have a shadow, to throw himself into sharp relief. He created evil in order to provide contrast, to allow us to see him. But what good to him is the recognition of inferior beings such as us? Some may say to be loved, but please be serious. Does it deeply matter to you whether your pet mouse loves you or not? Now imagine a relationship infinitely more imbalanced in power than that. God may love us - as a writer I can attest that creators can't help loving their creations, being reflections of themselves - but why would god care about receiving our love? When a composer jots down a new theme, does he ever stop to wonder what his creation thinks of him? Of course not - it's a thing, it's something he made. It is contained entirely within him; it can never do anything he didn't plan for it. Only a fool would expect something more from his creation than he put into it.

This paints yet another disturbing picture of god: a preening narcissist, lonely and bored, who creates an entire universe, peoples it with comparatively worthless sacks of meat like us, and inflicts evil upon it in order to drive them to worship him. This reminds me less of a father figure than of a boy trapping bugs in a mason jar. Far better, ethically, to never even create us, if he couldn't come up with any better reason for it than this self-adoring waste of his time. Not really consistent with the concept of a perfectly good god.

In any case, I've ventured afield a bit, and I'm straying a bit out of philosophy and too far into theology. Still, these are essentially the thoughts I have on the matter. The solution to the paradox is there is no solution. An omnipotent, perfectly good god would not have created a universe with evil in it. Therefore god must either be not entirely good, or not entirely potent. Kasreyn 15:42, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

There is also the veiw that god allows evil, not because it make the universe better, but that if he did not, then we would not have free will. If there was nothing else to choose, then we could be nothing but slaves to his will, whereas, if given the choice between good and evil, and we choose good, then we (not he, as he already knows) can trully know that we love him. In this case, the very fact that he allows evil as an alternative choice to him makes him more good, and he has no need to partake in it. The definaition of what free will actually is does come to play in this, but under the assumption that we do have it, this is the best explanation I have heard. Aerken 18:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

To answer the original question, this issue has a substantial separate article under Problem of evil. So at best it should be linked to from this one. 84.70.132.186 23:04, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

More than one resolution to the Problem of Evil

I'm not sure who posted the above, but there are more than one attempted resolutions to the "problem of evil." Greg Bahnsen provides one reprinted here. Aaronimo 20:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Varying degrees

i dont want to make a large problem where there isnt really one. in the intro when it mentions the false dilemna and varying degrees of omnipotence, i think this sticks out as a bizarre idea to the reader, because omnipotence means "total power", not varying degrees of power. im sure it makes sense and is described well by heagel, maybe a link to an explanation? Spencerk 20:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this a false argument?

Presumably an omnipotent being can do whatever they like, by merit of being able to destroy our laws of logic (and, come to that, us). --The1exile 19:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

• an omnipotent being need not follow any logic (eg. can do whatever they like), but cannot control itself, - paradoxSpencerk 19:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, the way I see it..

Shouldn't an omnipotent being be able to do the logically impossible, without breaking the laws of logic? After all, something omnipotent could do anything.

Yet doing the logically impossible without breaking the laws of logic is, not possible under the very same laws, and as such; they must be violated. And so the 'omnipotent being' would have failed to accomplish something, and as such could not be truly omnipotent.

An omnipotent being must also be able to limit its own omnipotence, temporary or permanently (since it could anything), yet by being able to do so, its omnipotence would have limits (since it could be limited), and an omnipotence with limits cannot exist, since it would not be omnipotence.

Therefore, omnipotence cannot exist.

Added 09/03/06

Omniscience is necessary for Omnipotence

For what it's worth, I wonder if omniscience is prequisite for omnipotence. I've often fantasized about having unlimited power, but run into trouble when I realized that I did not know enough about how the human body functioned for such a fantasy to not be too unrealilistic. - Adam H.

Added May 6 2006

The trouble with that is that functional omniscience leads inevitably to total inaction. If god knows everything (past, present, and future), then he knows the outcome of any of his actions - even ramifications billions of years into the future - as soon as he acts. Put more simply, in the first nanosecond after the Big Bang, he already knew everything. When he was speaking to Abram and telling him that his people would number like the grains of sand, he already knew the Holocaust was going to happen. Think on that for a while. Now pose yourself this question: if you're god, and you can do anything, but you already know everything that will happen, including all possible consequences of your own actions throughout all of time, then what is the point of taking any action at all? All you need to do is imagine it, because being omniscient, you don't need to actually do it to find out what will happen. If there really is an omniscient being, I kind of feel sorry for it. It would never understand curiosity, the drive to learn and grow. In fact, it probably wouldn't be capable of a personality as we have - to have a personality, you have to have desires, and an omniscient, omnipotent god would have none.

So we get to the second problem. Being omnipotent, god can do anything. This makes him utterly responsible for everything that has ever or will ever happen, and tidily does away with the concept of "free will". Even if god "gave" man free will, giving that free will was god's choice, therefore everything man does using his free will is god's fault, too. So god is entirely, 100%, responsible for every event throughout time. Next, god is omniscient and has no need to do something in order to see what will happen. To god, the universe is a movie that someone has told him the ending to before he even bought his ticket. No point in going to the theater then. So god has no reason to do anything. But if god is entirely apathetic, and never did anything... then how did the universe arise?

Summation: there cannot be an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe. I suppose it might be remotely possible that a creator who is only one of those two - but not both - might exist. One way or the other, though, free will is rubbish. Hope this provides someone with some pleasant rumination. Kasreyn 14:45, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleted material

I've deleted the following, but it can be debated: The modern science of quantum mechanics postulates that all material objects naturally exist in a superposition of states. Though the basic equations of quantum mechanics can be interpreted in several different ways, a common viewpoint states that when an object is "observed" or "measured", it "collapses" into a single state. Many calculations in quantum mechanics are intended to determine the probability with which an object will collapse into one state or another. This concept has led to a tongue-in-cheek solution for the omnipotence paradox, in the tradition of physicist humor exemplified by Schrödinger's cat. If an omnipotent being is in fact omnipotent, it can prevent others from observing it. Such a being could then both create a stone it cannot lift and lift the stone at the same time, and because others could not observe it doing so, there would be no way to confirm the outcome of events. Greg Egan's novel Quarantine explores some of these issues in a fictional context.

• Most of this has nothing to do with popular culture, which is the section where the material appears. If it is notable, it needs to be elsewhere in the article.
• It is speculative and original research, unless sources can be provided.
• The reference to Egan's novel is dubious. Perhaps the paradox is mentioned in the novel somewhere, but I don't recall it, and don't recall any high-profile critical discussion of Egan making a point of it. Even if that one sentence should be retained and expanded, it needs a source to support the claim that the novel has something to do with the omnipotence paradox. Metamagician3000 02:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for zapping this. Actually, this part has been bothering me for a while; I looked (off and on) for sources to substantiate it, something like a "physics joke book". Nothing came up, but then again sometimes search-engine queries can miss the obvious. One day—Real Soon Now!—I'll write an article which gives this joke and attributes it to "the folklore which floats without attribution around the scientific community". Then the WP can just cite me. (-:

There is a folklore of that sort, of course. Just as many concepts have become so "common knowledge" that journal articles don't reference them in their bibliographies, so too do jokes float among students and professors, a memetic diffusion which obscures all traces of its origin. An example is the classic story about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. One day, a cop pulled over Werner Heisenberg for speeding. "Do you know how fast you were going, sir?" asked the cop.

"No," Heisenberg replied, "but I know where I am."

Anville 09:43, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I am disappointed that this has been removed, I am currently an Engineering student in the UK and this made me pick up a book on quantum mechanics to have a look at this very argument (I find a lot of things trying to relate philosophy/theology to science mainly based on false premise). Anyway after having a look at this I then went and spoke to a physics professor on the subject who said he'd heard of something very similar to this and we had a great long chat about it. Don't know if any of this is relevant, but I thought you might like to know that I found it very interesting (if I ever find a book with this hypothesis in it I'll let you know). Alex 30 April 2006

Aristotle

Aristotle believed in geocentrism, but not in a flat earth. But I´m not sure if the example is based on Aristotle science or geocentrism and a the believe in a flat earth, so i dont know which part of it needs to be corrected. --84.134.72.203 15:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Essentially Omnipotent is Vacuous

The Essentially Omnipotent definition is a vacuous definition. It is equivalently, an Omnipotent entity is omnipotent except when it logically can't be omnipotent.

Well guess what? I am omnipotent except when I logically can't be omnipotent. I am also green except when I logically can't be green. And on Tuesdays I am a dog except when I logically can't be a dog.

The definition of Essentially Anything is a vacuous class of definitions.

However much of the stuff in this section is worthwhile stuff. CHF 08:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Real omnipotence?

I think that if you can't truly defy logic then you're not omnipotent, because true omnipotence is the ability to do anything, so yeah 83.250.206.156 15:43, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

This has to be true, because as you said, if you could not do it, then you were not omnipotent. Most beliefs I know of that beleive in a single all powerful god believe he created everything but himself, which means he had to define logical realationships in the first place, changing them wouldbe nothing to a god like that. Aerken 15:08, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Beyond Understanding

I didn't see it mentioned in the article but... isn't an omnipotent being beyond our comprehension especially if your talking about a God who created humans? That seems ridicously obvious, a being that is totally beyond us certaintly can't be explained through our own logic.

That's a notion that leads to what is known historically as Negative theology, the notion that nothing can be said about God except negations. Yet when people say that God is omnipotent, they aren't engaging in Negative Theology -- they are trying to say something positive. The paradox in question is an examination of that effort. If paradox is misguided for the reason you suggest, then presumably the statement "God is omnipotent" is also misguided, because it is an attempt to use human language and logic to say something positive about Him too. --Christofurio 15:20, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Or possibly ignosticism, the belief that the question of whether god does or does not exist is meaningless because it can have no observable consequences. Kasreyn 14:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Original research

The mention of the grandfather paradox seems to me spurious, and has the whiff of 'original research' (by a non-philosopher) about it.

Similarly the section starting "One can also attempt to resolve the paradox by postulating that omnipotence does not necessarily demand that a being must be able to do all things at all times" seems misconceived & 'original research' to me. Including the discussion of the physics of lifting stones - this was presumably written by a physicist, not a philosopher; it's irrelevant to the philosophical issue. (I hope this stuff wasn't in there when it was a featured article.)

IMHO someone should delete much of this; but I'll leave it for someone else to do. 84.70.132.186 23:00, 27 May 2006 (UTC)