Liberal, please be patient with someone (an atheist, as you may recall) who is glad you have returned to the Board. Allow me to rephrase. If one starts from the premise (which you acknowledge I’m not required to accept) that God exists, what does the MOP add? Honest question, not an argument.
Well, nothing, but you’re mixing up two things. One, the (main) premise of the MOP is that it is possible that God exists — not that God exists. “God exists” is the conclusion, not the premise. The second thing is my premise that the supernatural is real. There can be a supernatural without a God. One can still be an atheist and believe in ghosts, ESP, or any number of other supernatural things. And so these are not the same:
-
God exists.
-
The supernatural is real.
Liberal, I’m sure my question will expose my denseness, but here it goes:
As far as the MOP is concerned, God is that which is supremely existent, meaning that it’s main characteristic is that it exists most necessarily?
Is mathematics necessarily existent?
Hope you can answer and possibly illuminate the subject. I’ll probably not understand it anyway, but please do try to answer.
Would this statement mean same to you if the “aesthetical” modifying “evaluations” was taken out? I think that is my stumbling block. Maybe “situational” could be substituted in?
I imagine that I cling to my preconceived ideas as stubbornly as most. That doesn’t make keeping an open mind impossible - just more difficult. If you find my friendly opposition and tenuous grasp to be an adequate sounding board then I would be pleased to participate. I may not learn what you learn, but I am sure I would learn something if only about myself.
Do you believe that there is nothing objective (with the possible exception of the self)? This may seem simple to answer based on common definitions of objective and subjective, but some (like me) would disagree. Maybe this is best left to another thread.
It means that God exists everywhere that existence is possible.
Platonists would say yes. Intuitionists would say no. Me, I don’t know.
I might be willing to do so if I understood it better. Could you develop it a bit more thoroughly? What are the implications with respect to the premise that God freely values goodness above all else?
Your grasp is hardly tenuous, but your opposition is indeed friendly. I’ll ask a mod.
I believe that God is the only objective being, what with His ontological supremacy. I believe that we are subjective beings, what with our ontological contingency. (That is part of the reason why I’m still at work on the above — do we exist necessarily as pieces of Him or contingently as pieces of Him?) And I believe all that in the sense of a hub and spokes metaphor. The hub has an objective view onto the spokes, but the spokes have no objective view onto each other.
If there is a pit ahead I assure you it as hidden from me as it is from you. Removing the first “aesthetical” just cleans things up for me: There is an evaluation agent (that is free) which is tied to and operates on but is separate from an identity (that is fixed). Having aesthetic or moral in both descriptions just muddies up my pigeonholing (a bad habit, I know). Maybe what I am doing is just walling off the “free” thing - a problematic concept for me.
Thanks… a few more and I think I got it…(or not)
Does everything that exist necessarily exist in actuality? If no, why not.
What qualities of God make it necessarily existent or is this by definition?
If my questions miss the point, by the kinds of questions I’m asking, can you tell what I’m failing to understand?
Well, the evaluation agent and the identifiable agent are one and the same agent. It’s just that evaluation and identity are not the same functions. That said, the evaluation is aesthetical in nature (actually, by definition), while the identity merely implies an aesthetical evaluation. We can go directly across a bridge of implication from the identity to the evaluation, but we cannot go directly in reverse. However you wish to word all that, so long as it is precise, is fine by me. I hope that helps.
Incidentally, we have clearance from Tomndebb to have our thread. It will be up to us to state our intentions in our OP, giving fair notice to all spectators. For those who would not honor our wishes, it is up to us to ignore them. Tom might be willing, under some circumstances, to delete their posts but I believe that that is too onerous a burden to put on his shoulders, and so all I need from you is a pledge that you will respond to me and only me. I pledge to do the same with you. Just let me know.
Please don’t feel badly about asking questions. I honestly enjoy answering questions from people who show simple respect. We all learn through this sort of give and take. 
Yes. You can think of it this way:
Whatever exists necessarily exists in all possible worlds. The actual world is a possible world. Therefore, whatever exists necessarily exists in the actual world.
We do define God as that which exists necessarily; however, the burden is then upon us to prove that such a thing indeed exists. We do that through a series of inferences that lead us to the logical proposition: G (it is necessary that God exists). From that proposition, we can then deduce the proposition: G (God exists in actuality). But a definition by itself, without proof, is useless. As I said before, were that not the case we could prove that pigs fly by defining fly to mean “wallow in mud”.
So far, your questions are on point. The greatest hurdle for logic virgins, as it were, seems to be separating in their minds the difference between a definition and a logical statement or proposition. But the differences are profound.
Definitions have no truth value. They do not imply anything. The are not part of a proof in the sense that rules of logic are applied to them. They are simply given for purposes of clarity, so that everyone may know what is being examined. Some terms are necessarily left undefined; otherwise, we’d get into an infinite recursion of defining things that define things that define things…
Logical propositions, on the other hand, are called “truth bearers”, meaning that they have a truth value. In the case of bivalent systems (systems that use two truth values), propositions are either true or false, but not both and not neither. And I suppose that at this point, I should add: and not “don’t know” or any other third value. Our system is modal logic, specifically S5, which uses a Euclidean frame for purposes of accessibility among possible worlds, and it is bivalent.
When a logical proposition is offered without proof, it is called a “premise” and is typically placed at the beginning of the proof. Unproved premises are necessary because if we don’t start somewhere with some truth bearer, then we will run into the same recursion problem inherent to trying to define all terms. All propositions that are not premises must follow from previous propositions (including the premises) in accordance with the rules of the system. The last proposition in a proof is called the “conclusion”.
If a proof contains no logical fallacies, it is called “valid”. If a proof is valid, and its premises are true, it is called “sound”. The conclusion of a sound proof may not be denied. Whether a proof is valid is a matter of objective examination, but whether a proof is sound is up to each examiner to decide for himself. The MOP is unquestionably valid; whether it is sound depends (mostly) on whether you accept the premise that it is possible that God exists.
Thanks a lot. Yup… I got it! It’s valid.
And this was quite helpful:
“Whatever exists necessarily exists in all possible worlds. The actual world is a possible world. Therefore, whatever exists necessarily exists in the actual world.”
Yes, that does help quite a bit. Calling the evaluation and the identity different functions does the trick.
Yes, agreed. This part of the task will be easy. However, my ability to be a worthy foil remains in doubt. Remember, I will be standing on borrowed ground.
My apologies if my question has already been answered or discussed or is clearly misguided in some fashion, but this is a rather long and difficult to wade through thread… not that that’s any excuse.
Liberal, you gave earlier a proof in your modal logic of the statement AxEy(y = x) (I.e., for all x, x exists necessarily), this statement apparently being of some importance to you and your thinking on God. But as this asserts that all objects exist necessarily, if we accept it, we must conclude that, for example, the Eiffel Tower exists necessarily; it is not possible for the Eiffel Tower to not exist. And, indeed, in your modal logic, possible existence implies necessary existence. We must conclude that if it’s possible for Santa Claus to exist, then it’s necessary for Santa Claus to exist (and thus, if it’s at all possible for Santa Claus to exist, then Santa Claus really does exist). This strikes me as a ludicrous way to set things up. Do you really buy this?
Of course, the argument is watertight with respect to your particular logic, but, then, there are other different logics. Your modal logic asserts that every possible world has the exact same set of existing objects, but we can easily set up a logic where this isn’t the case, and where necessary existence is no longer a valid theorem. In fact, as you linked to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s discussion of necessary existence before, you are probably aware of the discussion on that same page of Kripke’s quantified modal logic , in which necessary existence cannot be derived. So, I suppose, my question is, given the tenuousness of the set-up of your particular first-order modal logic (what the SEP calls SQML), why should we accept that set-up as opposed to a different one which invalidates necessary existence?
Note that my question has nothing to do with Becker’s postulate or anything else of that sort; I don’t care if the accessibility relation is assumed to be Euclidean, transitive, or any such thing (i.e., I don’t care if the treatment of the modal quantifiers in your logic is S5, S4, T, or any such thing). I’m only concerned with the interaction between the modal and first-order aspects of your logic (why you set things up to assume all possible worlds have the same individuals).
My apologies, again, for not having read and comprehended the thread in full yet, and I’m not exactly sure how AxEy(y = x), whether or not valid, plays into your arguments for God’s existence (so far as I could see, your argument for God’s existence depends on defining God to include the characteristic of necessary existence, taking as a premise that God’s existence is possible, and then proceeding via Becker’s postulate. I would not argue against Becker’s postulate, but I would also not, in this context, right away grant the premise that God’s existence is possible, anymore than I would right away grant the premise that Horf’s existence is possible, where Horf is designed as a red lizard which necessarily exists). But I am interested in understanding exactly what the nature of your ontological argument is (obviously, I am somewhat hostile to the idea of proving God’s existence via these ontological arguments, but I imagine we can have calm discussion as logicians despite these differences in our viewpoint).
If this is all way off track from the current bent of this thread, feel free to tell me so and then ignore this post.
I guess it’s too late to edit, but in the above post, “Horf is designed” is, of course, meant to read “Horf is defined”.
Great!
You’re sandbagging. 
It may be a few days, even a week, before I can put together my notes into some coherent proof sketch. But you can watch for the thread. I’ll title it something like “Man’s metaphysical origin”.
Just to be safe, I’d suggest you e-mail the OP to me before posting it. This could save us both some embarrassment if I’ve inadvertently signed-up for more than I thought. I wouldn’t want us to stumble right out of the gate.
Back to the matter at hand… I’ve only made up a small piece of the ground toward the pack as they focus on the proof itself.
From what I’ve read, the reason this works with God but not other possible things is because the object of the proof must be maximally perfect. Nothing else can be maximum possible perfection or it would be God. This seems to open up a problem of competing criteria (and Voyager’s objection). If it cannot be determined what within the realm of the possible constitutes maximum perfection, then the proof will not apply to anything.
I’ve actually been trying to be as polite as possible, hoping not to follow Liberal down the rose-lined path of making posts composed entirely of line-by-line ad hominem attacks. (He started this path with me with his post to me prior to the grand-in-size-if-nothing-else #356, and has failed to even so much as refer to me without an ad hominem following that.)
I did slip somewhat in allowing my somewhat ironic and slightly acerbic wit to surface. I clearly overestimated his ability to detect sarcasm in my posts; but then I didn’t think the sarcasm in calling Stanford a ‘disreputable source’ was at all hard to detect, even on an inflectionless messageboard. (To be fair, I don’t think he’s been reading my posts for content for some while. I don’t think he read my last one at all.)
I don’t know where Liberal got his understanding of logic, but he seems to misunderstand the requirements for rejecting premises. This makes him very hard to argue with, and not just for me; it looked like others were running up against his thoughts on that point as well. So I presented information to correct the misconception. Due to one thing and another, he has decided to grossly misunderstand my posts, and all that I accomplished was to get him to insult me, a lot and repeatedly. My fault for fighting ignorance, I guess.
He also was fallaciously citing unsupported definitions in his arguments for his premises, as if calling a controversial statement a ‘definition’ gave that assertion some kind of special status. I think that’s why he unfailing protested my reference to Premise 2 as a definition; that would (correctly) imply that any random definition was not inherently universally acceptible. He didn’t respond to my section of the monolithic post about definitions and statement construction, though, so I really don’t know what he thinks on that subject.
I kind of doubt his modal argument for God’s existence is invalid; I mean, he copied it from arenas of longtime public scrutiny. It’s not going to be full of obvious logic holes. (Though I did see some suspicious things about the modal logic system itself, on my “disreputable source”, and am not certain that he is using the ‘logical worlds’ informal analogy correctly.) I haven’t bothered to look into any of this further, since there’s no point: he won’t debate the points I make about the logical argument since he doesn’t perceive his premises to require further support, and (I wildly speculate) probably doesn’t believe that the modal structure itself is subject to debate either. (Also he now thinks I’m a doodyhead, which can’t possibly help matters.) While it might be vaguely interesting to discuss his assumptions about the moral framework with him, but I don’t feel like doing it this thread; it’s hijacked enough already. Which leaves little of interest to debate here, to me.
One of the problems with these logical “proofs” of God’s existence is that one can just as easily use irrefutable logic to prove that God cannot exist, as we see in the OP of this thread.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
-2007, 10:30 AM #344 Report Bad Post
Liberal Liberal is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mapache
If I wait until the pile on is on, it’s because I work for a living and can’t post whenever I feel like it, and also because I prefer to think about things for a while before I say anything.
Welcome to the club. Has it ever occured to you that I’m in the same boat? Have you counted the number to whom I’m responding? Do you think you could manage it better than I? Not to toot my horn, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it.
So do I; I can’t imagine having to answer fifteen people all at once, and I am highly impressed that you can. But then I didn’t suggest that you were discourteous for not replying to me at once, or accuse you of “dumping stuff like that” to join the pile on; that was you.
Quote:
The reason I used the terms “ignore” and “non sequiter” should be obvious from your reply; you ignored my first point and answered the second, which was "Did the Cherokee “treasure” the Trail of Tears, which would seem to follow from your statement quoted in my last post, with another non seq.
Quote Lib:
With respect, I think you’re a bit lazy about all that. The fact that the spirit is real and the flesh illusory should answer all your questions about the Trail of Tears.
I have never seen you do more than assert that “the spirit is real and the flesh illusory”, and I don’t agree.
Quote: Lib:
I’m no smarter than you are, but I can draw the necessary conclusions. And strange as it may sound, there is great value in that horrible episode. It is a bellwether for people who blindly trust governments to be benevolent.
I don’ think the Cherokee needed any such demonstration, and certainly not at the hideously high price they paid for it. I just finished rereading 1491, by Charles Mann. I assume you’ve read it; if you haven’t you should. If you think you are proud of your people’s heritage now, it’ll knock you on your ass. It did me, and I’m not an Indian. My wife is Mestiza, so my children are at least a quarter what we call in Mexico Indigenous People, although we don’t know what group. Anyway here are a few quotes: Roger Williams- “they will not conclude of aught…unto which the people are averse.” The Great Law of the Five Nations: “when the council of sachems was deciding on ‘an especially important matter, or a great emergency’ its members had to ‘submit the matter to the decision of their people’ in a kind of referendum.” "Colonist John Adair of the Ani YunWiya [Cherokee?] ‘Their whole constitution breathes nothing but freedom’ " In other words, they already knew, their whole way of life was based upon, mistrusting tyranny.
Quote Lib:
As for the people themselves who bloomed into their eternal existence, it was of great value as well. They are hallowed saints (to speak metaphorically) who have all that they treasure.
Nevertheless, they weren’t "nothing but bones’’. They were living breathing feeling people, and I don’t think they were singing along with Joe Hill to the tune of “You will eat, by and by, there’ll be pie in the sky by and by” as they froze and starved.
Quote Lib:
And even in this temporal world, they are martyrs and heroes who are an inspiriation to whole nations. But none of that removes the Indian Hater’s culpability. Just because he was incapable of destroying the Indian spirit does not mean he didn’t make the attempt. He is still a despicable monster.
Quote:
You like to use abstruse logic to defend your various ideas;
Quote Lib:
Listen. Let me ask you something straight up. Is it at all within the realm of your abilities to craft a post to me that contains none of that kind of sniping? Has there ever been such a post? There’s something about you that keeps telling me that you’re sincere, and yet you have the bedside manner of Dr House on steroids in the Pit. It is a struggle to trust you. If you honestly want to do something about that, it is within your power.
Jesus. Now “abstruse” is somehow an insult? It means “difficult to understand”. I;m sure you have noticed that at least a dozen people in this thread have told you that they find your logic difficult to understand. Is there another adjective that I can use to avoid offending you? And who is Dr. House?
Quote:
…this is just plain Logic 101. Yes or No: if your god gives what is treasured, did the Cherokee treasure the trail of tears? Yes. Or. No.
Quote Lib:
Of course we treasure the Trail of Tears. That’s why we treat it as sacred, and why we’re so pissed off about it.
I didn’t ask you if you, or your Nation today, treasure the memory of the Trail of Tears. I asked you if the Cherokee who suffered on the Trail treasured the experience. I find it hard to believe that you truly believe that a mother, listening to her child pleading for just a mouthful of cornmeal, a scrap of blanket against the cold, or an old chief who had been chosen by his people for the strength and wisdom he had shown, and now was so weakened by cold and hunger that he couldn’t reach out a hand to lift a dying brother from the snow, would have been consoled by the idea that they would be regarded as martyrs a hundred ffty years later. I don’t suppose that the men who died on the Bataan death march, or the Jews filing into the gas chambers, or the disidents freezing to death in a Siberian labor camp “treasured” the experience either. And what about the seventy or eighty million who died ghastly deaths from smallpox, plague, thyphus, and on and on after Columbus “discovered” their world? They weren’t just forgotten completely, their cultures obliterated, their few survivors reduced to misery;’ their existence was actively denied until a few years ago. Did your god send them what they treasured?
Or let me get personal for a bit: what about me? I assure you I don’t treasure, at sixtysix years of age, seeing all the preparations I had made for retirement blown away like smoke due to circumstances outside my control. I don’t treasure the fact that I will have to work (with my hands) until I die for just enough income to feed my family, if nothing goes wrong. I didn’t treasure hearing the doctors tell me two and a half years ago that I probably had six months to live, knowing that if I go my family will be reduced to poverty. I don’t treasure the Parkinsons that makes the work that I have to do sometimes beyond my abilities. Your god hasn’t would have a lot to explain to persuade me that it gives me whatever I treasure most.
Quote:
Jeeze, man, other people call you nasty names, pit you regularly, sneer at your ideas. I ask what seem to be reasonable questions, try to be polite, and you come at me like this.
Quote Lib:
Maybe its my “abstruseness”.
Maybe it is. I doubt it.
Quote:
Hurts my feelings, to tell you the truth.
Quote Lib:
Good thing you have feelings and I don’t, huh. Oh, wait…
I don’t understand where this vitriol comes from. I have gone through every post I have made to you; I have never insulted you. I asked you politely to tell me why you think I hate you; you didn’t reply. Does disagreeing with your posts mean I’m deliberately hurting your feelings? So I’ll ask once more: what exactly have I done to offend you.
Quote Lib:
Let’s see whether your posts from here on out match your claims about good intentions and all that.
Gee, thanks so much for your tolerance.
Reply With QuoteQUOTE]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mapache
If I wait until the pile on is on, it’s because I work for a living and can’t post whenever I feel like it, and also because I prefer to think about things for a while before I say anything.
Quote Lib:
Welcome to the club. Has it ever occured to you that I’m in the same boat? Have you counted the number to whom I’m responding? Do you think you could manage it better than I? Not to toot my horn, but I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it.
So do I; I can’t imagine having to answer fifteen people all at once, and I am highly impressed that you can. But then I didn’t suggest that you were discourteous for not replying to me at once, or accuse you of “dumping stuff like that” to join the pile on; that was you.
Quote:
The reason I used the terms “ignore” and “non sequiter” should be obvious from your reply; you ignored my first point and answered the second, which was "Did the Cherokee “treasure” the Trail of Tears, which would seem to follow from your statement quoted in my last post, with another non seq.
Quote Lib:
With respect, I think you’re a bit lazy about all that. The fact that the spirit is real and the flesh illusory should answer all your questions about the Trail of Tears.
I have never seen you do more than assert that “the spirit is real and the flesh illusory”, and I don’t agree.
Quote: Lib:
I’m no smarter than you are, but I can draw the necessary conclusions. And strange as it may sound, there is great value in that horrible episode. It is a bellwether for people who blindly trust governments to be benevolent.
I don’ think the Cherokee needed any such demonstration, and certainly not at the hideously high price they paid for it. I just finished rereading 1491, by Charles Mann. I assume you’ve read it; if you haven’t you should. If you think you are proud of your people’s heritage now, it’ll knock you on your ass. It did me, and I’m not an Indian. My wife is Mestiza, so my children are at least a quarter what we call in Mexico Indigenous People, although we don’t know what group. Anyway here are a few quotes: Roger Williams- “they will not conclude of aught…unto which the people are averse.” The Great Law of the Five Nations: “when the council of sachems was deciding on ‘an especially important matter, or a great emergency’ its members had to ‘submit the matter to the decision of their people’ in a kind of referendum.” "Colonist John Adair of the Ani YunWiya [Cherokee?] ‘Their whole constitution breathes nothing but freedom’ " In other words, they already knew, their whole way of life was based upon, mistrusting tyranny.
Quote Lib:
As for the people themselves who bloomed into their eternal existence, it was of great value as well. They are hallowed saints (to speak metaphorically) who have all that they treasure.
Nevertheless, they weren’t "nothing but bones’’. They were living breathing feeling people, and I don’t think they were singing along with Joe Hill to the tune of “You will eat, by and by, there’ll be pie in the sky by and by” as they froze and starved.
Quote Lib:
And even in this temporal world, they are martyrs and heroes who are an inspiriation to whole nations. But none of that removes the Indian Hater’s culpability. Just because he was incapable of destroying the Indian spirit does not mean he didn’t make the attempt. He is still a despicable monster.
Quote:
You like to use abstruse logic to defend your various ideas;
Quote Lib:
Listen. Let me ask you something straight up. Is it at all within the realm of your abilities to craft a post to me that contains none of that kind of sniping? Has there ever been such a post? There’s something about you that keeps telling me that you’re sincere, and yet you have the bedside manner of Dr House on steroids in the Pit. It is a struggle to trust you. If you honestly want to do something about that, it is within your power.
Jesus. Now “abstruse” is somehow an insult? It means “difficult to understand”. I;m sure you have noticed that at least a dozen people in this thread have told you that they find your logic difficult to understand. Is there another adjective that I can use to avoid offending you? And who is Dr. House?
Quote:
…this is just plain Logic 101. Yes or No: if your god gives what is treasured, did the Cherokee treasure the trail of tears? Yes. Or. No.
Quote Lib:
Of course we treasure the Trail of Tears. That’s why we treat it as sacred, and why we’re so pissed off about it.
I didn’t ask you if you, or your Nation today, treasure the memory of the Trail of Tears. I asked you if the Cherokee who suffered on the Trail treasured the experience. I find it hard to believe that you truly believe that a mother, listening to her child pleading for just a mouthful of cornmeal, a scrap of blanket against the cold, or an old chief who had been chosen by his people for the strength and wisdom he had shown, and now was so weakened by cold and hunger that he couldn’t reach out a hand to lift a dying brother from the snow, would have been consoled by the idea that they would be regarded as martyrs a hundred ffty years later. I don’t suppose that the men who died on the Bataan death march, or the Jews filing into the gas chambers, or the disidents freezing to death in a Siberian labor camp “treasured” the experience either. And what about the seventy or eighty million who died ghastly deaths from smallpox, plague, thyphus, and on and on after Columbus “discovered” their world? They weren’t just forgotten completely, their cultures obliterated, their few survivors reduced to misery;’ their existence was actively denied until a few years ago. Did your god send them what they treasured?
Or let me get personal for a bit: what about me? I assure you I don’t treasure, at sixtysix years of age, seeing all the preparations I had made for retirement blown away like smoke due to circumstances outside my control. I don’t treasure the fact that I will have to work (with my hands) until I die for just enough income to feed my family, if nothing goes wrong. I didn’t treasure hearing the doctors tell me two and a half years ago that I probably had six months to live, knowing that if I go my family will be reduced to poverty. I don’t treasure the Parkinsons that makes the work that I have to do sometimes beyond my abilities. Your god hasn’t would have a lot to explain to persuade me that it gives me whatever I treasure most.
Quote:
Jeeze, man, other people call you nasty names, pit you regularly, sneer at your ideas. I ask what seem to be reasonable questions, try to be polite, and you come at me like this.
Quote Lib:
Maybe its my “abstruseness”.
Maybe it is. I doubt it.
Quote:
Hurts my feelings, to tell you the truth.
Quote Lib:
Good thing you have feelings and I don’t, huh. Oh, wait…
I don’t understand where this vitriol comes from. I have gone through every post I have made to you; I have never insulted you. I asked you politely to tell me why you think I hate you; you didn’t reply. Does disagreeing with your posts mean I’m deliberately hurting your feelings? So I’ll ask once more: what exactly have I done to offend you.
Quote Lib:
Let’s see whether your posts from here on out match your claims about good intentions and all that.
Gee, thanks so much for your tolerance.
Reply With QuoteQUOTE]