Huh? We’re talking past each other here.
… I’m talking about logical possibility, not existence.
Oh, oops. My mental model was this: Consider an all-perceiving entity (APE) such that, for all actually existing X, APE magically perceives X. That’s all of the APE’s properties—I’m not talking about classical theism or the God of any particular religion—so it doesn’t look to me like there are logical problems.
If there’s an all-seeing deity, P is well-formed, meaningful, and false. Every object is perceived by the deity, including the deity itself. If there’s no all-seeing deity, the deity pops into hypothetical existence outside the real world, and evaluates P for possible perceiving anythings inside the real world; P is meaningful and likely true.
Mostly agreed. But that’s not the GEV verificationism I suggested. The above paragraph takes the form “Evaluate P given APE” and “Evaluate P given no-APE”. My suggestion is the reverse; it takes the form “Evaluate APE’s perceptions given P” and “Evaluate APE’s perceptions given not-P”. If the great APE counts as a real thing, what would its set of perceptions be given that there exists an object unperceived by anything? That’s simply to build a contradiction: APE sees everything, and there’s something APE doesn’t see. But if the all-perceiving entity is assumed not to be a real thing, the problem goes away.
Oh, oops. My mental model was this: Consider an all-perceiving entity (APE) such that, for all actually existing X, APE magically perceives X. That’s all of the APE’s properties—I’m not talking about classical theism or the God of any particular religion—so it doesn’t look to me like there are logical problems.
Mostly agreed. But that’s not the GEV verificationism I suggested. The above paragraph takes the form “Evaluate P given APE” and “Evaluate P given no-APE”. My suggestion is the reverse; it takes the form “Evaluate APE’s perceptions given P” and “Evaluate APE’s perceptions given not-P”. If the great APE counts as a real thing, what would its set of perceptions be given that there exists an object unperceived by anything? That’s simply to build a contradiction: APE sees everything, and there’s something APE doesn’t see. But if the all-perceiving entity is assumed not to be a real thing, the problem goes away.