Scottish Nous

Epistemic/Metaphysical Modal Confusion

From an old conversation (with a very bright philosopher) that brings back fond memories:

Scott Hagaman:  After all, it seems to me that there's always the possibility I could be wrong.
Sean Choi:  Hey, it might even be actual. ;)

Proof That God Exists

I've been linked by Vintage Piranha, so I'll formalize the valid argument for God's existence we've been discussing below.

Let:

G = God exists.
P = I pray to God.
A = God answers my prayers.

Here's the natural language version:

Premise 1:  If it is not the case that God exists, then it is not the case that if I pray to God, God answers my prayers.
Premise 2:  It it not the case that I pray to God.
Conclusion:  God exists.

And here's the proof in propositional logic:

Proof:

1. ~ P                                     (Premise)
2. ~ P V A                            (Disjunction Addition)
3.  P --> A                            (Material Implication)
4.  ~ G --> ~ ( P --> A)     (Premise)
5.  G                                       (3,4, Modus Tollens)

I'll post remarks later.  For now, please feel free to comment if you wish.

OMG

Look at this C.V. and despair.

Dialetheism at Emanations

The nerdy bloggers are out in force.  Hell yeah!  Check out the fun discussion of dialetheism over at Emanations if you want.  In case you didn't know, the dialetheist thinks that while all contradictions are false, some contradictions happen to be true as well.  So while truth-value gaps have long been bandied about in the literature, the dialetheist proposes truth-value gluts.  This necessitates a rejection of classical logic, since a theorem of classical logic, ex falso quodlibet, generates explosion (you can prove anything you like) if true contradictions are admitted.  I like my classical logic, but the position can be motivated, so I'm currently suspending judgment on the issue pending futher study.