Who's spreading falsehoods?

[FishFace]

I highly advise you watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

My Chemistry teacher showed me this. Awesome.

I hold a rock in one hand that's 80,000 years old.

I hold a piece of paper in the other, written from the creator of the rock, that says this universe has only been around for 6100 years, and he can't lie.

Question: is this a contradiction, or a paradox?

Contradiction. If a rock is 80,000 years old, it's not also 6100 years old. Right, since you insisted people answer instead of actually dealing with the problem, I'll do both.

Assumption 1: the creator can't lie
Assumption 2: the piece of paper is actually from the creator.
Assumption 3: the creator exists
Assumption 4: the piece of paper actually says the earth is 6,100 years old
Assumption 5: the piece of paper is to be believed over any evidence.
Flaw: if the creator doesn't actually know when he created the rock, he wouldn't be necessarily lying.

 

[Upisoft]

I highly advise you watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Thanks a lot, Hank fart on you!

 

[MrGoodBytes]

I hold a rock in one hand that's 80,000 years old.

So far, so good.

I hold a piece of paper in the other, written from the creator of the rock, that says this universe has only been around for 6100 years, and he can't lie.

Here the trouble starts. You do not have a paper written by the creator, you have a compilation of texts written by men claiming to speak for the creator.

Question: is this a contradiction, or a paradox?

Depends. If the rock really is 80.000 years old, and the creator exists and is unable to lie, it is a direct contradiction.

 

[AV1611VET]

So far, so good.


Here the trouble starts. You do not have a paper written by the creator, you have a compilation of texts written by men claiming to speak for the creator.


Depends. If the rock really is 80.000 years old, and the creator exists and is unable to lie, it is a direct contradiction.

You DO realize I'm grading papers, don't you?

 

[RealityCheck]

You DO realize I'm grading papers, don't you?

Wait, now your grading the paper that claims to be written by the rock's creator?

I'm confused. Where are the scissors?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

You DO realize I'm grading papers, don't you?

By what criteria?

 

[AV1611VET]

By what criteria?

Paradox resolution.

 

[RealityCheck]

Paradox resolution.

Genuine paradoxes do not have real resolutions. Most things that are posed as a "paradox" are not - they end up being based on a faulty assumption or premise, or they turn out to provide only partial information - there is a key piece of the puzzle purposely not revealed, the revelation of which undoes the paradox.


Here's a classic for you to try, AV.

1. All Cretans are liars.
2. A Cretan says, "I am lying."

Is the Cretan's statement a lie? Premise 1 says yes, it is a lie. But that means the Cretan is telling the truth, because he is in fact lying.

How do you resolve that?

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Paradox resolution.

I'm confused. I thought we were talking about the process you use to discern texts written by God vs. texts written by men.

 

[AV1611VET]

Genuine paradoxes do not have real resolutions.

Wikipedia disagrees:

The word paradox is often used interchangeably and wrongly with contradiction; but whereas a contradiction asserts its own opposite, many paradoxes do allow for resolution of some kind.

Here's a classic for you to try, AV.

1. All Cretans are liars.
2. A Cretan says, "I am lying."

Is the Cretan's statement a lie?

He's not a Cretan, as a Cretan would not be able to say "I am lying."

Let's employ Occam's Razor to resolve this, and assume only one Cretan exists in the universe; and that he's a liar.

In that case, if he was to say, "I am lying," then, by definition, he either ceases to become a Cretan, or he nullifies the paradox (which, IMO, is not really a paradox - it's a contradiction).

 

[AV1611VET]

I'm confused. I thought we were talking about the process you use to discern texts written by God vs. texts written by men.

Let's go over it again, then:

I hold a rock in one hand that's 80,000 years old.

I hold a piece of paper in the other, written from the creator of the rock, that says this universe has only been around for 6100 years, and he can't lie.

Question: is this a contradiction, or a paradox?

So far, so good.


Here the trouble starts. You do not have a paper written by the creator, you have a compilation of texts written by men claiming to speak for the creator.


Depends. If the rock really is 80.000 years old, and the creator exists and is unable to lie, it is a direct contradiction.

You DO realize I'm grading papers, don't you?

By what criteria?

Paradox resolution.

Not a single reference to God --- in fact, I changed it to the XN-6100 MATERIALIZER, did I not?

 

[RichardT]

so how is this thread going anyway?

 

[Aron-Ra]

so how is this thread going anyway?

I'm still waiting for you to answer the challenge in the OP.

 

[RealityCheck]

so how is this thread going anyway?

To sum up:

AV is still defending embedded age, and attempting to present a simplified argument for why it is true.

The rest of us have been continually pointing out the flaws in both embedded age and in AV's attempt at a simplified argument. AV has refused to acknowledge the flaws, and has insisted that we simply debate on his terms alone.

So all in all - like a lot of other threads.

 

[RichardT]

.

 

[Aron-Ra]

I'm still waiting for you to answer the challenge in the OP.

.

But answer came there none.
And this was scarcely odd
because there never was a one.