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wilkox comments on Hollow Adjectives - Less Wrong
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The point is that "omnipotent" is itself a "hollow adjective", as you put it. Omnipotent doesn't mean "you can do anything that can be done", it means you can do anything, full stop.
This bothered me too. If 'omnipotent' is defined as 'able to do things which can be done', we're all gods.
Defining 'omnipotent' as 'able to do things which can be done' is an interesting move-- it makes me realize that my ideas about what can be done (especially by hypothetical extremely powerful beings) are very foggy.
Religious people bump up against that when they try to see why some prayers apparently get answered and others don't.
Not really. Something "can be done" if some possible being, which may not be actual, can perform it. If there's a 500 pound barbell in front of me, and I can't lift it, this doesn't mean that the barbell can't be lifted, only that I can't lift it. If you're omnipotent, then you can lift it.
I guess I've always understood omnipotence as being so powerful that no possible being can be more powerful than you are.
With a lever, and a place to stand, you can lift the barbell.
Defining omnipotence in respect to all possible beings seems more like "suprapotent" or "ultrapotent".
How is this the actual meaning of "omnipotence" and how does it relate to "a descriptor who's actual meaning makes an argument self-evidently bad, but which is sound if you do really think about it"
I'd taboo "actual" and "really".
I think it's more aptly described as "able to do that which is logically possible." Thus, the square circle paradox is generally deemed to be ruled out since it really is nonsense. I agree that the stone question is actually different.
HERE's some discussion about that very thing...