Starship Asterisk*

Once upon a time, on another forum, I was arguing that, to "can God create a stone he can't lift" the answer is: once God creates such a stone, he loses his omnipotence, but not before. While he could, in theory, do so, he apparently doesn't want to. Later, I was pointed on yet another forum that real "pradox" comes to life if we demand god to create a rock that he can't lift AND keep his omnipotence or, in simpler terms, if we demand A AND B to be true while A implies NOT B. IMHO, this is less of paradox and more like nonsense aka can you have a cake and eat it, too.

But, that's not the point i would like to bring up here (since no religion is allowed, right); the point is, unliftable rock actually exists and, coincidently, it is the largest rock known.

By definition, to lift something here on Earth means to move it away from Earth center, and that's exactly what no power in the Universe can't do to Earth itself. Even if mighty god would reach out and grab our planet with his hairy cosmic hand, and throw through space at the speed of light or something, the Earth would still be at the same distance from its center as before.

I'm not pushing this as religious argument against christian or jewish god omnipotence, etc; just a thought I had this morning about how definitions of things dictate limits of possible (points to... cough... speed of... cough.. light)

makc wrote:By definition, to lift something here on Earth means to move it away from Earth center, and that's exactly what no power in the Universe can't do to Earth itself. Even if mighty god would reach out and grab our planet with his hairy cosmic hand, and throw through space at the speed of light or something, the Earth would still be at the same distance from its center as before.

It seems to me, in order to lift Earth, one probably wouldn't be on Earth, so the frame of reference wouldn't necessarily be Earth's center. Lifting Earth could mean something like raising Earth's orbit, moving it further from the Sun. Although this isn't practicle, it is, at least, theoretically possible.

surely we can change definitions to make things possible. in fact, we do it all the time, daily, when we change our mind on some subject.

I do play games. One is that I go to sleep and forget who I am. During this time I experience a loss of omnipotence. Until I awake.

Name of that game? Being Human.

makc wrote:surely we can change definitions to make things possible. in fact, we do it all the time, daily, when we change our mind on some subject.

It's not so much changing the definition (at least not the definitions I've read) as changing the frame of reference. Lift must have some gravity well as its frame of reference, but it doesn't have to be the Earth's. If you were sitting on Mars, would you still define lift as motion away from Earth's center? Lifting any object with respect to itself just doesn't make any sense.

Sorry we couldn't leave god out of this discussion.

I agree with Bystander. By the "Unliftable" definition given, an Onion would be unliftable if using the gravitational center of the onion as a frame of reference.

frame of reference is part of definition. otherwise, for example, in andromeda galaxy frame of reference, I may "lift" things by actually dropping it.