# Possibility != Existence **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538 "2003-02-03T17:32:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/181 "2003-02-07T14:00:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > **Hmm. The only thing I am denying is the necessary existence of _anything except_ Necessary Existence.** Hmm… Well, there’s still a tiny problem, though. If you allow the possibility, then you allow the 2nd inference, ~~G. The necessary existence of God is not implied until the 9th inference, G, and it is validly derived. Even materialists like Suber say so. If you intend to deny a validly derived inference, then we won’t have much of anything to talk about. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/182 "2003-02-07T14:03:16Z")
Czar wrote: > [@](#): > > But arguments about the possibility of God’s existence are meaningless, when discussing the necessity of God’s existence. Sure. I agree. But between the possibility (inference 2) and the necessity (inference 9) are six other inferences. Unless one of them does not follow logically, there is a chain of inference that connects possibility to necessity and gives it meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/183 "2003-02-07T14:04:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **The confusion is understandable enough. It is natural to think of creation as positive and destruction as negative, or love as positive and hate as negative. But if that were what McHugh had meant by positive and negative descriptive terms, then I would be the first to join others and throw either tomatoes or stones at McHugh, whichever arithmetic can more easily provide me.** Perhaps it is “natural,” but it has nothing to do with what I said. According to my understanding of McHugh (who explains himself quite well – which is why I’m surprised you contradict him as you do), to assert anything positive about God opens you up to Professor Martin’s charges that such a god is logically impossible because such a God is self-contradictory. Let’s review McHugh’s two axioms again: > [@](#): > > Axiom 1- If no positive descriptive term can be applied to God, then the concept of God is free from contradiction. [At first this may seem surprising, but a thought experiment will prove it to be true that no single descriptive negation or conjunction of descriptive negations is ever able to consume all of logical space to yield a contradiction. Of course, negations of non-descriptive terms like “A or non-A” yield contradictions immediately, but the axiom only applies to the negations of descriptive terms.] > > Axiom 2 - If the concept of God is free from contradiction, then it is not logically necessary that God does not exist. [In other words, if God is consistently described then the existence of God is logically possible.] According to McHugh’s argument, love is positive, but so is hate. Creation is positive, but so is destruction. Any descriptive term that is “understood through an act of direct conceptualization” is positive. His examples of negative terms include things like non-fast, non-hot, and, later, non-temporal, non-spatial. These are formulated very differently from your formulations: > [@](#): > > Therefore, rather than saying that God is omniscient, we say that His knowlegde is unbounded. Rather than saying that God is omnipotent, we say that His power is without limit. Rather than saying that God is good, we say that He is sinless. And indeed, in our remedial studies of modal logic, we find that that is precisely how necessity _itself_ is derived. It is the negation of impossibility, or ~\<\>~ (not possible not). G means ~\<\>~G, or it is not possible that God does not exist. When you say that God’s knowledge is unbounded, you’re necessarily saying that God knows what I had for breakfast – otherwise, his knowledge has a limit. When you say that God’s power is without limit, you’re necessarily saying that God could turn my nose into a cabbage. These are clearly positive statements. And when you say that it’s the negation of impossibility, I fail to see how this is different from saying that God is not non-blue, McHugh’s example of a double-negative, therefore positive, descriptive term. This is where you diverge from McHugh. Your argument may still be valid, even if you disagree with McHugh on what terms apply to God. But if it’s valid to say that God is love without bounds, is is not equally valid to say that God is hate without bounds? You may no longer rely on McHugh’s defense, that “Hate” is a positive descriptor, because you yourself have allowed a positive descriptor, inasmuch as you allow God to be loving. I will agree with you that McHugh would allow for a sinless God, because “sinning” is a positive descriptor, just like “doing good” is a positive descriptor. The God of McHugh’s proof is virtueless and sinless both. If you alter that aspect of his proof, then the God may equally be full of virtue or full of sin. As you eloquently state in your post, “creation” is not positive, and “destruction” is not negative. You must find some other way to define your God, if you want Him to be the one and not the other. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/184 "2003-02-07T14:04:42Z")
But the whole chain falls apart unless we agree on using your definition of “God”. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/185 "2003-02-07T14:07:17Z")
Czar > [@](#): > > Likewise, it seems as if you have “proven” that God is necessary and thus exists by defining God to mean that which is necessary and thus must exist, then using the model to give you back what you have defined in the first place. That’s been thoroughly covered. The argument begins with **IF**. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/186 "2003-02-07T14:08:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Czarcasm \* > \*\*But the whole chain falls apart unless we agree on using your definition of “God”. \*\* Well, just indulge us, okay? > [@](#): > > But if I have constructed, in my mind, a temple which I desire to build, and infer from the description of it that I must buy such and such a site and so many thousand stones and other materials, will any sane person tell me that I have drawn a wrong conclusion because my definition is possibly untrue? or will anyone ask me to prove my definition? Such a person would simply be telling me, that I had not conceived that which I had conceived, or be requiring me to prove, that I had conceived that which I had conceived; in fact, evidently trifling. — Benedict de Spinoza ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/187 "2003-02-07T14:12:19Z")
The necessary existence of God is implied at G -\> G, _ie._ the very first step. If G=NE, this is so. I posit that G and NE are not identical, and so G-\>~G. I am hoping to find some way which satisfies _me_ that God is contingent, or can be ascribed a positive descriptive term, or whether you can conceive of the thing you _think_ you’re conceiving of, or some other objection altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/188 "2003-02-07T14:19:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > \*\*I am hoping to find some way which satisfies _me_ that God is contingent, or can be ascribed a positive descriptive term, or whether you can conceive of the thing you _think_ you’re conceiving of, or some other objection altogether. \*\* I’ve been thinking about this as well, and it seems there MUST be a problem in defining God as Necessary or Impossible. After all, isn’t the point of modal logic to figure out whether things are impossible, contingent, or necessary? How, then, can you define away one of these three possibilities? It really sounds to me like begging the question: if you’re trying to figure out the status of an entity, modal logic seems like it would fall apart if you were allowed to exclude one of its three possible statuses in the definition. But I can’t quite wrap my brain around it. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/189 "2003-02-07T14:20:40Z")
Daniel wrote: > [@](#): > > When you say that God’s knowledge is unbounded, you’re necessarily saying that God knows what I had for breakfast – otherwise, his knowledge has a limit. When you say that God’s power is without limit, you’re necessarily saying that God could turn my nose into a cabbage. These are clearly positive statements. Well, one is damned if one does and damned if one doesn’t. If one uses technical language, one is pedant. If one uses lay language, one is daft. In talking of God’s knowledge, we’re talking of a predicate, not of God. When I make that distinction, I’m playing word games. When you make it, you are clarifying. > [@](#): > > And when you say that it’s the negation of impossibility, I fail to see how this is different from saying that God is not non-blue, McHugh’s example of a double-negative, therefore positive, descriptive term. Impossibility is already negated. [Citation that necessary is derived from not possible not](http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/c95-kr/Lectures/How_Logic_Works.pdf). See page 23. > [@](#): > > As you eloquently state in your post, “creation” is not positive, and “destruction” is not negative. You must find some other way to define your God, if you want Him to be the one and not the other. Once again… No, sorry… More like fifty times again, this is not a proof of “my God” or the “Christian God”. A God with attributes other than necessary existence is another topic. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/190 "2003-02-07T14:23:51Z")
Sentient wrote: > [@](#): > > The necessary existence of God is implied at G -\> G, ie. the very first step. But the second term of any implication is true **if and only if** its first term is true. And we don’t know about that until the conclusion. It is the implication as a whole that is accepted or discarded, namely that _if it is the case that_ God exists, _then and only then but not yet decided is the case that_ God exists necessarily. “If 4 is even, then it is divisible by 2” is not declaring that 4 is even. ---
**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/191 "2003-02-07T14:24:22Z")
\*\* SentientMeat\*\* wrote: > [@](#): > > I’m coming back when I’ve got something different to say. At the moment I’m exploring whether God could be contingent on human thought. Keep you posted. God can’t be contingent on human thought because human thought doesn’t **know** anything. Human thought is the book that is read not the reader. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/192 "2003-02-07T14:25:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Sentient wrote: > > But the second term of any implication is true **if and only if** its first term is true. And we don’t know about that until the conclusion. > > It is the implication as a whole that is accepted or discarded, namely that _if it is the case that_ God exists, _then and only then but not yet decided is the case that_ God exists necessarily. > > “If 4 is even, then it is divisible by 2” is not declaring that 4 is even. \*\* Or that it is divisible by 2. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/193 "2003-02-07T14:27:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DanielWithrow \* > \*\*I’ve been thinking about this as well, and it seems there MUST be a problem in defining God as Necessary or Impossible. After all, isn’t the point of modal logic to figure out whether things are impossible, contingent, or necessary? How, then, can you define away one of these three possibilities? It really sounds to me like begging the question: if you’re trying to figure out the status of an entity, modal logic seems like it would fall apart if you were allowed to exclude one of its three possible statuses in the definition. > > But I can’t quite wrap my brain around it. > > Daniel \*\* Daniel, please consider this. If you are to prove that a triangle is equilateral, have you begged the question by first defining what you mean by equilateral triangle? If so, then you must toss out every proof in every branch of math. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/194 "2003-02-07T14:29:14Z")
Once you have defined equilateral triangle, your proof may proceed by saying something like, “ **If** this triangle is equilateral, then…”. That’s exactly what the modal ontological proof does. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/195 "2003-02-07T14:29:42Z")
“If 4 is even, then it is divisible by 3” is the analogy here, is it not? I posit that “even” is not identical to “divisible by 3”. Were you to disagree, I would accuse you of using at least one of the terms incorrectly. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/196 "2003-02-07T14:30:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Daniel wrote: > > Well, one is damned if one does and damned if one doesn’t. If one uses technical language, one is pedant. If one uses lay language, one is daft. In talking of God’s knowledge, we’re talking of a predicate, not of God. When I make that distinction, I’m playing word games. When you make it, you are clarifying. > \*\* I’ve accused you neither of pedantry nor daftness, so dispense with that, please. Instead, clarify how saying that “God knows what Daniel had for breakfast” is not making a positive statement about God, according to McHugh’s proof; how saying, “God is compassionate” is not making a positive statement about God. The only thing I’d accuse you of when using technical language is of misusing it: the more I read about McHugh, the less I suspect you understand what he’s arguing. But I think it’s an honest mistake on your part; I don’t think you’re playing games. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/197 "2003-02-07T14:34:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*Daniel, please consider this. > > If you are to prove that a triangle is equilateral, have you begged the question by first defining what you mean by equilateral triangle? If so, then you must toss out every proof in every branch of math. \*\* Of course not. But this is not equivalent. Traditional logic systems have two outcomes: a statement is true, or a statement is false. If your definition of the entity described in the statement includes the phrase, “any statement including this definition may not be considered false,” then your proof will necessarily find the statement to be true, because otherwise, you’re not dealing with the entity described in the statement. But you’re not allowed to do this. You can’t throw out the possibility of falseness using your definition. I don’t see why, in modal logic (with three rather than two outcomes), you’d be allowed to throw out the possibility of contingency in your definition. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/198 "2003-02-07T14:34:24Z")
McHugh is saying nothing that hasn’t been said for four hundred years. Suspect whatever you wish. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/199 "2003-02-07T14:34:46Z")
So, have we determined whether or not this “God of Necessary Existence” is God the Creator, or the God of Love? Have we determined if this “God of Necessary Existence” is even compatible with God the Creator, the God of Love, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2003, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538/200 "2003-02-07T14:35:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide \* > \*\*That’s why I have a problem with claiming that things that are possible _exist_. It’s establishing a connection between two ideas that were previously distinct for no good cause. I do not feel they are any less distinct at all. “Does the corner store carry beer?” Is it possible? Sure! We can imagine stores that carry such things. Else the question wouldn’t make any sense. I remain puzzled at your objection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/possibility-existence/152538.md?page=11)