FYI: This video is a re-upload containing an important correction. (See the footnotes in the description box for details and a link to the original video.)
Thanks, regarding "existence is not a property", am I right that the philosophical meaning of existence used here doesn't mean to exist in the real world (as opposed to being imagined) but rather just to be itself. Because the former would be a property while the latter meaning of existence applies to any concept that is not incoherent/self-refuting, I guess. So any logically valid concept "exists". But having a concept does not mean that there's an instantiation of that thing floating around somewhere in reality. So how does the theist make the jump from concept to reality?
@@BooshMasterOriginal Every "worldview" requires basal assertions. No amount of theological philosophy can change that. All that believers can do is add additional unjustifiable assertions that weaken their position automatically.
This is a more interesting critique of the ontological argument than most on youtube. I thank Theoretical Bullshit for not coming out with "lolololol imagine a perfect cheeseburger i win THEISTS ARE SO DUMB" and instead coming up with a more thoughtful contribution I don't think it works however. I love this video barbecue it shows how great a tool for analaysing our reasoning the ontological argument is, regardless of your stance on it. The question "What fact, in reality, makes it such that God is necessary" doesn't do the work he thinks it does; it's in fact a linguistic error. I was quite confused by the question initially, it seems that the answer is simply that God couldn't be maximally great unless he had necessary existence by definition, and we're only considering a definition of God where God is maxximally great. The first premise of Plantinga's argument is: 1) On some possible world x, a maximally great being M exists. Premise 1) is coextensive with: 2) On some world x, God exists. Given that we're defining God as a M at the outset. Thus is follows from both that: 3) God exists necessarily on x. Just in virtue of definition. The question of "what makes God on that world necessary" is redundant, either M is on x or not. If the definition of a maximally great being isn't contradictory, there's a world where a being with that definition exists. "what makes it so" is completely irrelevant, all that matters is if it's possible. But what I think he means is this, "okay, God exists on some possible world, but why is God a maximally great being there, rather than, say, just an maximally excellent being". This makes sense of an otherwise puzzling distinction he makes between the the being M defined and used in the argument, and "what God, if he exists, would actually be like". This distinction doesn't work because the only thing at issue for the question of whether M exists at some world is whether it's possible for a being to be M. Unless it's impossible, there's some world x where M exists. "How" is just a meaningless question, it's either possible or not, and if it is, its exemplified on a possible world. But theoretical bullshit seems to be asking why the premise "God exists in x" MUST imply "M exists in X"; after all, if God exists, we could be wrong in our theology; God is merely maximally excellent after all. He's making a very interesting linguistic mistake; he can think of referents to the word God other than M, so premise 1) and 2) aren't equivalent. But, to use his Santa example, he's saying: 4) Okay, I accept that on some world x Santa exists, but I don't accept Santa has property P on x. The Santa-theist, however, is saying: 5) No, I'm not saying Santa exists on x independent of his properties. I'm saying Santa, who has property P, exists on x. Applied to God, if you think it's possible that M exists, you think M exists on some world x. If you say God exists on x, but God isn't M on x, you haven't accepted the first premise. Fair enough says the theist, but to deny the first premise you have to show it's IMPOSSIBLE for M to exist, you can't get around it by saying that it doesn't follow that God is M on x from saying God exists on x when, for the purpose of this argument, we're defining God as M. Now onto his next argument: 1) God is a being such that if God exists, the negation of the proposition "God exists" is self contradictory. 2) If God exists, the claim "God does not exist" is not self contradictory. Conclusion C): God does not exist. Firstly, the proposition "God does not exist" is meaningful, coherent, and self consistent "whether or not God exists". Now, this is true if by "God" we're not restricting ourselves to the maximally Great being M, ie committing the mistake I argue he is above. But we are only considering God as defined by being M, so we're really discussing the proposition: 4) A Being M who exists in every possible world does not exist in world x. If M is impossible, that's of course non contradictory, but if M does exist, then you're saying: 5) Being M, who exists in all worlds if it exists in any world, exists in our world W, but doesn't exist in some world x. On the face of it, that's self contradictory, but let's consider his further arguments. He takes up the definition of God as being M, and says: 6) The proposition "A being whose nonexistence is self contradictory if it exists, doesn't exist" isn't self contradictory. And runs this argument: 7) M doesn't exist in possible world W1. 8) If M exists in any world x, M exists in W1 And therefore by modus tollens: 8) M does not exist in any world x. Now, 6) is only true if M is impossible, that is, exists in no possible worlds. So 6) really says: 9) M exists in no possible worlds. So the argument here is that it's self consistent to say that M is impossible alongside the claim that if M is possible, M exists. Fair enough, it doesn't seem like I'm contradicting myself when I say that "sure, if all lemons are yellow and also not yellow, frogs are fish (this actually follows by the principle of explosion; all things follow from a contradiction), but frogs aren't fish". But we have to look closer at the meaning of "self contradiction" here. We're, by assumption, uncertain whether M is possible. The truth conditions of 6) are as follows: 10) 6) is true only if M is impossible. Now, if I believe M is impossible, I'm certainly epistemically non contradictory. It's consistent with my prior beliefs that M isn't possible. But that's rather uninteresting; the fact that I don't know I'm not self contradicting has no bearing on whether I am or not. We're talking about logical self contradiction, given the facts which obtain. And theoretical bullshit's argument is that, regardless if M is possible or not, denying that M exists is self consistent. So, suppose that M exists; that M is possible. Then 6) is necessarily false, by the laws of modal logic. That is, given M exists, M exists on all possible worlds, and so there's no possible way for 6) to have been true (because there are no possible worlds absent M, but for 6) to possibly be true there must be some). It follows that, under the assumption that M exists, it's impossible for 6) to be true. To clarify my reasoning: 10) 6) is true only if M is impossible. 11) If M is possible, 6) is false necessarily. 12) A necessarily false statement is self contradictory. 13) 6) must be non self contradictory even when M is possible to be an instance of 2).* 14) 13) is false by 11) and 12) *(recall; 2) is that denying an existent M is non self contradictory). Now, clearly Theoretical bullshit wants to deny 12). But how can he? It can't be merely epistemic; consistency with your belief that M is impossible doesn't make the claim that "M doesn't exist" non self refuting if M is possible. But I don't think he's making an epistemic/ontological slip here. His mistake, if I'm right, is far more interesting. I suggest he thinks something like: a self contradiction must be an internal contradiction, ie not false in virtue of contradicting any other statement. 6) is false is M is possible, but that's just saying "God exists" contradicts "God doesn't exist". He then says that because 6) therefore doesn't self contradict, there's a possible world where M doesn't exist, and so M isn't possible. This is deeply confused. If 6) is false because M is possible, then it's not merely contingently false, it's necessarily false. If M is possible, then by definition, there are no possible worlds where M doesn't exist. That means, there's no possible world in which 6) is true. 6) would therefore not merely be false because it's contradicted by M on the actual word, but that there is no logically possible way for it to be true. He's missing that the modal logical space changes whether dependent on whether we accept M is possible; if it is, then there are no possible worlds that could make 6) possibly true. 6) is always false. I can't see why 12) isn't true. But if it isn't, I can't see why we shouldn't reject one. Surely "rejecting M is necessarily false if M exists" is true, and if that doesn't count as self contradiction, why accept 1)? What motivates 1) if the preceding formulation won't do? I should really stop, but one more argument: He makes the same mistake as I pointed out at the start regarding white unicorns. When someone says "All Unicorns are necessarily white", and someone asks if a non white unicorn is coherent, they're talking about different definitions of unicorn. Any argument that used the definition of unicorn as necessarily white would stand and fall based on that concept of unicorn alone. The fact that other unicorn concepts use the same world is irrelevant. You can't vary the object, in the ontological argument this being God, with various different definitions of it, when discussing whether an argument using one of those definitions holds. All talk of "confirm or discomfirm" is irrelevant, those are empirical concepts. We're talking about mathematical definitions here. It's like saying "how can I confirm that sets can have infinitely many elements".
Scott, I don't do Twitter. Please spend more time here on UA-cam, if you can find the time. Please. I know the platform is broken but, I'm certain that there are still myriad people like me who haven't switched media and who need to hear your wisdom again. Your uploads from years back taught me so much and went straight into my 'favourites' folder. Apologies if this comment reeks of fanboy/sycophant/desperation.
I agree,... except that Scott noted how much time these UA-cam videos take, especially compared to Twitter. Much as I enjoy his videos - and I'm a guy who has _never_ been interested in philosophy (although I do enjoy exercising my brain) - I understand how busy people can be. So I don't feel right urging him to spend all that extra time. And that's the case with every UA-cam channel I follow (far too many, actually). If they post a video, I'll probably watch it, and I'll probably enjoy it. But even when I support them on Patreon, I'm just going to accept what they have time to do.
You actually don’t need his wisdom. You need more experience which is actually why this statement is indeed so troubling. Your need to engage in this type of communication, which in this case is unidimensional btw, is something that should be getting filled in your daily life. Consequently, Either one of two things is happening you are either cloistering yourself off from the people in your life who are willing to have these types conversations with you for whatever reason. Or you are not disclosing yourself, or at least this aspect of yourself, to those that are willing to have these conversations with you. Either way if a need isn’t being met you will look or hunger for a way to fill it, but this is actually the lowest form of filling that need. It is like a person who has learned to live off of smelling food rather than eating it. It’s good you found these videos but now it’s time to start sharing what your thinking and presumably learning about yourself from watching these videos. Your actually in a better position now that he isn’t uploading because even in best case scenario where you guys become pals and start doing this stuff on a daily. You will always see him as above you like a guru and mentor and you won’t grow into your own self, but will become, by admiration and lack of experience, a clone or a pawn of his. It’s actually kinda religious, but Jesus is not a bad guy for that to happen with cuz He’s been through it all and knows it all, but even in that case you would still need to have your own dream and stand on your own two feet with his help to accomplish it. Obviously with His help it’s impossible without His help. You ever seen berserk at least the first arc it’s very applicable here. I hope you get what you need. I’ll pray for a you deenloon
OMG, it’s so good to have you back uploading videos! Thank you! You have the gift of clarity when you explain complicated ideas. You’re the envy of teachers and professors everywhere!
unicorns are by definition the cutest conceivable being. unicorns exist in the mind. it is cuter to exist in the mind and in reality than in the mind alone Therefore unicorns exist in reality.
That would be the original ontological argument. M.O.A. adds an extra step of translating this bs into the terms of modal logic to obfuscate the fact that it's useless and also sucks.
@@blakeavila4409 Well, be fair, I would have being empirically observable as being more perfect than not being emperically observable. Definitions are tricky beasts.
I've never heard an argument for God's existence that I found convincing, but I still like to hear them because they usually lead my train of thought down some philosophical rabbit hole that ends in a greater (more groovy?) understanding of something.
You never will hear a convincing argument for God's existence. Anytime you hear an argument which is convincing will simply prompt you to redefine convincing. People today who don't believe in God are making a choice not to believe. All of our intuitions and scientific discoveries point to God's existence. What you should be doing now is questioning yourself.
"The Greatest conceivable being" is an absolute misnomer of the highest degree if we're talking about that Old Testament God.. even his son has major flaws. I can conceive of a far greater being in my head who is cool with everyone and makes an appearance now and again... not to smite enemies, but to make everyone feel fricking fantastic when we see him.
It’s very easy to imagine a being that is greater than the abrahamic god. The god of the Bible looks more like a maximally incompetent being... but I doubt that this makes his existence necessary.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 I agree Rami. humans dont need a supernatural being to tell them how to behave, we've had thousands of years of evolution to work out a system of how to live together in relative harmony.
You have to keep in mind that there is and mental and intellectual disconnect between what "sophisticated theologians" are referring to as "God" in their arguments and what is believed in. In an intellectual, philosophical discussion the latter is completely irrelevant when talking about these arguments. If you mention the latter then all you're doing is strawmanning.
John Doh Well, sophisticated theologians only seem to make philosophical arguments for a deistic god and then dishonesty pretend that this proves the existence of nonsense like the ridiculous god concept of Christianity.
Well, if gods existence really is necessary it will be a loaded question. Like asking if numbers exist. That you can ask the question implies a yes. But it does seem to work. There must be an omnipotent being if omnipotence is possible since full omnipotence would require necessary existence. Omnipotence also seems to imply omniscience and omnibenevolence since in order to exceed use complete power you would need to know all and nothing which you did not like could exist unless it was necessary to create things you like. If omnipotence seems impossible, recall Descartes’ demon
I hate the ontological argument. It's just a way to make "I define god as existing therefore he exists" more convoluted so people don't realize you're just defining god into existence.
why do you guys think that academic philosophers, atheist and theist alike, take this argument seriously and there's a huge literature of disagreement over even why atheists think it's wrong, but you guys can think about it for 5 minutes and the first thing objection that pops into your head must be correct and prove dissenters to be idiots? It's a bit arrogant.
Welcome back man, I missed your reflections on BS, where you manage to both explain the original argument in a way that doesn't just cause a syntax error in my head, and show why it's BS. You inspire me to shut up up more, and reason better. Thanks.
Dude you're an absolute beast at straight to camera. Your new video (10 questions 2021) has me going back through the classics. Are very few instances in which I value the presenter of information as much as the information i.e. being a 'fan'... but your channel definitely qualifies, still crushing it man, I hope you're back for good.
Hi, Scott! I have to say, I saw you on The Atheist Experience on 7/19/20 and absolutely LOVED what you brought to it! You and Matt Dillahunty have wonderful chemistry, and your contribution to the show was smart, vital and relevant. Plus, you revealed great warmth which balanced everything beautifully! All of us who are devoted to The Atheist Experience so look forward to seeing you there as often as schedules allows. You are part of the family now, and I am sure you will have a ton more subscribers as a result --- myself definitely included!!! I must admit, I had no idea who you were until Matt mentioned what you did for a living. As a gay man, I gotta say, you might be bold but you sure are beautiful!!! We love you, Scott!!!
My issue with this argument is the first premise: _"It's possible that a Maximally Great Being exists."_ My question is why does imagination require possibility? Why does something simply being perceived make that necessarily possible? By that logic, EVERYTHING that is imaginable necessarily makes those things automatically possible. Just because a person IMAGINES that a "Maximally Great Being" has the properties that theists attribute to their god, how do we get from that to a "fact" that the Maximally Great Being actually HAS those properties? That seems like a non-sequitur to me.
@@TheloniousCube I don't see your point. I don't see how something is automatically "possible" just because it is "conceivable". As for the "possible worlds semantics" theory, I don't really care because we have no idea what "possible worlds" there are. We know about THIS world, THIS reality. Someone can speculate all day long about other "possible" worlds, but that is meaningless until you can show that they are, in fact, possible. I'm not impressed with unfounded guesswork.
@@dienekes4364 You're missing the point - Possible Worlds Semantics is (as the name implies) just a way of talking about what's possible - it does not commit one to belief in any worlds other than this one (which is already explained in the video). Conceivability, logical possibility, etc. are terms used therein. It's not about guesswork - it's a framework for talking about the very sorts of issues in the video. If you don't want to learn, no one can force you
@@TheloniousCube _"just a way of talking about what's possible"_ -- You think I'm missing the point because you can't stand the thought of being wrong and no one who disagrees with you could possibly ever be right. That is an extremely sad state of affairs for you. Something that is self-contradictory can't possibly exist in any world. If it can, then it is completely useless to think about such things. See how that simple logic works, dumbass?
While I was studying, there was a church of some kind near the college that had members who'd try to talk to people on the street. Nice enough people, so I didn't mind. One of the arguments they came up with a variant of was this, though they didn't phrase it as formally as a professional appologist would. Instead of letting them sneak in that hidden premise, I stopped them when they asked if it was *possible* that god exists to simply ask them if they meant possible in the sense that it can be imagined, which has no bearing on reality, or if they meant possible in the sense that we have a good reason to think a god existance could be empirically demonstrated in some way or another. To drive the point home, I added a pink unicorn walking up to us as an example of the first. And Dark Matter & Energy as examples of the latter, as it is something we only know of indirectly.
This is a good way to approach this. You didn't let the idea of *possibility* float by unclarified. I have noticed a similar issue with "possibility" when speaking to theists but I hadn't yet thought to clarify the issue so directly as you have. I'm curious: How did they respond to your questions about possibility?
"possible in the sense that we have a good reason to think a god existance could be empirically demonstrated in some way or another." that isn't what possible means in this context though. You're making the switcheroo from logical to epistemic possibility
@@internetenjoyer1044 No, Tdroid isn't making the switcheroo, he's pointing out that the set up for the switcheroo is embedded in the ontological argument. He's deconstructing the equivocation before it's pulled off. OA purveyors are employing the term "possibility" without disambiguating it.
@@donnievance1942 its really the opposite. People often assume that thr wore possibility must be used in bad faith by those proposing the OA, but this is just ignorance of the fact that in the academic context in which of was formulated, everyone is on the same page as to what possibility means
It bothers me when so many religions base their doctrine on faith, and then try to make logical arguments for why they are right. The fact that you *could* be wrong has already been admitted to by admitting faith is necessary.
@@Giorginho We don't prove them. We accept axioms because they work and we have to have them to think. No formal system can be self justifying. Certainly without an assumption of the validity of logic, no theistic or atheistic argument can be made. We don't accept axioms on faith, we accept them because they have been shown empirically in experience to work.
The claim of, "a being exemplifying maximality" or, "that being than which none greater can be conceived.", is already incoherent. ... It is the equivalent of, "A number than which none greater can be conceived." Enter the Sophisticated Theologians. They're no longer talking about a number but the number line itself. Not "a Being" but, "The Ground of Being or Being Itself." Seems to me that at this point we have left the arena of hypothetical gods and entered the realm of "sexed-up atheism".
Maybe you should study a bit more the argument. Attributes and numbers are totally different, attributes are limited unlike numbers. And also you can without problem conceive a being as great as possible with the possession of all the attributes.
@@MegaDocalex Maybe you should study theistic claims a bit more. One of the points of theism is that divine attributes are NOT limited. But we also know that infinities have different sizes, so this is no help for theism. Also, if you can conceive of a being than which none greater can be conceived you've already failed, because such a being, almost by definition, must be greater than your ability to conceive. (A paradox). So you can't make any theistic claims about it. "And also you can without problem conceive a being as great as possible with the possession of all the attributes." This claim is incoherent (which is a fancy way of saying false) because 1) You can always conceive of an even greater being. This can be argued quite easily: Alleged god(s) plus the universe are greater than god(s) alone. Therefore, natural reality is greater than gods. 2) "... as great as possible" strictly implies that there are set of rules that logically antecede any god(s) and define what is and is not possible. (We call this "nature" or "reality" - The set of all possible worlds including this one). 3) There are a whole host of arguments showing that traditional theistic attributes are contradictory. You should be able to find some on your first UA-cam search.
@@VeridicusX With all due respect, your reply is embarrassing. I have read enough metaphysics in my life to know what classical theism is and what it is not, you should know there is not only one form. The attributes are limited in number, there is not an infinity of attributes possible, they really are limited in number, God cannot have both goodness and evil as attributes. You said here : « Also, if you can conceive of a being than which none greater can be conceived you've already failed, because such a being, almost by definition, must be greater than your ability to conceive.» Not at all this is exactly the point, if you conceive a greater therefore it was not the greatest. You said here : « 2) "... as great as possible" strictly implies that there are set of rules that logically antecede any god(s) and define what is and is not possible. (We call this "nature" or "reality" - The set of all possible worlds including this one).» Again this is false, according to classical theism the rules are according to the will of God, and the will is nothing else than his own nature, this is what we call divine simplicity plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/#IdenDiviAttr You said here : «3) There are a whole host of arguments showing that traditional theistic attributes are contradictory. You should be able to find some on your first UA-cam search.» This subject was analyzed by philosophers by far smarter than you, I and your uninteresting youtubers don’t you have any self-esteem to send me listening such pitiful thinkers?
You were very kind to this argument to give it so much time. For me, the moment the argument uses “God is a maximally great being” as a premise, then they say a property of greatness is existence, the argument is done. Another way of stating that is “God definitely exists”. The rest of it is meaningless because that right there is the conclusion, listed as a premise. Without any loss of meaning or fidelity, this entire argument simplifies down to “God exists”. If you don’t find that statement to be a compelling argument, then you shouldn’t find the ontological argument to be any more compelling. It’s just another example of “If I use enough obfuscation I can hide the fact that I’m just assuming God exists as a premise”.
Thank you for boiling it down to a simple circularity. This whole discussion makes my brain ache. By the time I get any where in it, I'm having trouble keeping all the special meanings for terms straight. Meanwhile my brain is screaming, "You can't prove the existence of any substantial thing by juggling abstractions in looping, self referencing syllogisms. I feel that the level of abstraction is so great that the field for unspotted equivocation is wide open.
@@donnievance1942 I get it. A lot of theist arguments are the same. Some (like TAG by Matt Slick) seem intentionally this way to obfuscate the logic jump. It’s a common experience to feel as though an argument is wrong, but not be able to put your finger on why. If you can’t at first see where an argument fails a good strategy is to replace “god” with something obviously wrong and see if the argument works the same. With the ontological argument, you can “prove” a maximally great unicorn, or a maximally great teacup exist. That’s a problem. In the case of the ontological argument you can just as easily use it to prove that God must not exist. If we use non-existence as a property a maximally great thing has then we can prove God is non-existent. Many other theistic arguments use equivocation of terms. Kalam is a good example of this. It uses simple language, but relies on equivocation. For some strange reason Dr Craig won’t re-word the argument to remove the equivocation. Funny that. It’s almost as though he knows the argument fails if he defines terms.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I have an idea for recognizing a new (maybe it's new) type of fallacy: If an argument, like the ontological argument, consists entirely of formal abstract premises with no statements about phenomena in the actual, substantial world, then the argument must be considered unsound in establishing any conclusion about the actual world, irrespective of its semantic validity. This judgement applies prior to any analysis of the details of the argument. If all premises are conceptual abstractions, then the only way that a conclusion about the actual world can be reached must necessarily be through some type of equivocation, even if we fail to root it out. It's analogous to the is/ought conundrum in moral philosophy. The only way an "ought" can be reached is through an "ought" in the premises. The premises of an argument must tie in to the phenomenal world at at least one point in order to reach a conclusion about the phenomenal world. Otherwise, it's a semantic game whose terms must be ambiguous since they cannot be identified with any demonstrable real item. I know other people besides myself have had the general idea that you can't prove anything substantial by playing word games, but it recently occurred to me that it could be established as a formal, enforceable principle. What do you think? Perhaps it's already been done? It could be called the Real World from Abstraction Fallacy.
@@donnievance1942 Yeah I’m in strong agreement that the way to demonstrate a being exists is with evidence. I think there is a small amount of wiggle-room for the theist though. I think a reasonable probabilistic argument can be made based on expectations. That is, if we look at the world there can be unexpected situations or outcomes… things we can’t explain with our current level of knowledge or evidence. And we can make reasonable inferences from these. An example is the hypothetical ninth planet in our solar system. It’s hypothesised based on gravitational behaviour in our outer solar system that isn’t explained from the known planets. This of course does tie to real world observations. But the theist would say the same thing about the ontological argument. Even things like their understanding of “possibility” is based in experience of our world. The big, common problem for theists of course isn’t identifying things we can’t currently explain about our world. There are plenty of those. The problem is God is defined as being able to do absolutely anything, so God can be proposed as an answer to any phenomenon. Which makes it a useless answer. It’s functionally equivalent to saying “magic dunnit”. Nobody thinks labelling something as magic is an answer. We keep looking until we have an actual answer… an answer that actually explains how the phenomenon happens. I’ve described the God of the gaps above. But to circle back to your point, I think it is possible to have an argument that looks at the universe and makes a reasonable probabilistic conclusion about things we can’t see. The multiverse hypothesis is another example. I used to think of this as a useless idea, but when I looked into it a bit I found there was a flat spot in our universe. The hypothesis was it was flat because this is where a neighbouring universe was pushing up against ours (similar to how pushing two balloons against each other will create a flat spot in each). It turned out that hypothesis was wrong, but it opened my eyes to the possibility of having evidence for things outside this universe being available to us within this universe.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I have no problem with reasoning from observations within our universe (meaning the spacetime matrix we can observe and make straightforward inferences about) to acceptable hypotheses about possibilities outside the universe. In your example that reasoning is grounded in observations of real phenomena. I'm objecting to the case of the ontological argument, or any other case that argues from abstract principles of pure reason to conclusions about the phenomenal world with no premises that are statements about phenomenal reality. I'm proposing a general concept to strike down such arguments prior to detailed analysis of their specifics, apart from a examination of the argument to confirm that it has no premises of accepted substantial empirical fact. So here goes-- Donnie's Lemma: To be sound, an argument, purported to conclude with a truth about the substantial phenomenal world, must contain, as a necessary non-contingent premise, at least one accepted true statement of the existence of a specific substantial phenomenon. I'm going to call the failure to meet this standard The Real World Derived From Abstraction Fallacy. I'd be curious to know if anyone's ever heard of a previous equivalent formulation.
Nice work. I especially enjoyed the end and the way you highlighted the "all-in"-nature of the Plantingas argument. Not that they would "necessary"😉 be of great importance for the discussion, I would like to remind of the "existence" 😜of non-eucledian geometry and on the other hand of Quines critique of analycity of arguments in handling the examples used.
My hat goes off to this guy for admitting for the sake of the arguement (and to avoid any false misconceptions about his formal education) that he's a high school drop out. So am I. It's a relief to me, because I feel very overwhelmed when speaking to anyone, whether theist or atheist, when the question of education is brought up. A lot of people tend to dismiss someone (though they've done their research) just because they don't have a PhD attached to their resume, so to speak. And most of the atheist content creators I've found speaking on religious topics are highly educated individuals. This is not to discount education, but I'm just relieved to find I'm not the only high school drop out interested in nuanced discussion of religion 😆
One thing to remember: if you look up 'theology', it has 2 distinct definition. One is the study of religious belief, and the other is the study of the nature of God. Knowledge of religious belief could tell you how the Arian heresy differed from Roman Catholicism, and such like. In short, historical trivia, centered on religion. And at that, it usually concentrates on the theologian's own religion, with fairly superficial knowledge of others. Theologians will then use their degrees in *that* to argue that they have some knowledge of God's nature. They don't. They have a bunch of assertions, but no data to back it up. My point is, don't fret about not having a degree in theology. It really adds little to the discussion. Theologians also like to call themselves philosophers, since school generally place their degrees under the philosophy department. And no doubt, they do take courses in philosophy. But as Plantinga's 'specious bullshit' demonstrates, *knowing* philosophy is a far cry from *using* philosophy.
Welcome back. Last time I saw your beautiful face, I was in a way different time in my life, in a different geographical location, with a significantly different moral system, and a different school of thought...
Oh man I was just remembering your "what if I'm wrong" video I had favorited in my atheist playlist 10+ years ago (wow btw) and was wondering what you are up to these days. I stop by and you're still grinding away at this topic. LOVE IT. In all of these "God exists because ABCDE or XYZ" type of arguments, you have someone who WANTS God to be real from the outset and then uses a sequence of clever and seemingly consistent axioms to arrive at the conclusion that they had already made prior to the start of the argument. That's your first hint that something is wrong with it. The second hint is that the same approach "works" for ANYTHING that resides within the domain of the inaccessible. "A purple unicorn is by definition purple and pointy. Therefore... " blah blah blah. It's just a language/logic gimmick in lieu of any actual evidence and if you can "prove" the existence of any exotic invisible thing you want this way, then you can prove nothing.
I would absolutely love to see an update to your "Treatise on Morality" as it's something I watched at least 20 times. Any chance you'll revisit one day?
I just watched Martymer's video on this which was good but came from a different angle and a thought occurred to me. The modal ontological argument is incompatible with apologists defences against the argument from evil. Obviously there are logical and evidential arguments from evil, but at root they consist of how could a morally perfect or all loving or maximally loving God allow needless suffering. The unsophisticated defence tends to be that it's all part of God's plan, whilst the more sophisticated tends to be that some set of conditions either in the logical structure of the universe or in allowing freewill means that some suffering is inevitable (indeed necessary). However, is there a possible world in which humans suffer far less than they do in this world? Yes we could possibly have discovered a cure for HIV (or whatever disease you care to name) years ago. Could there be a possible world in which humans suffer far more? Yes; the Nazis could have won world war two, someone could have dropped the bomb, COVID-19 could be twice as deadly. If God necessarily exists in all of these possible worlds and yet they have different levels of suffering then some of those worlds include a level if suffering which is not necessary and which God could choose to stop but refers to allow. In such a possible world God is not morally perfect and therefore cannot meet the criteria of maximal greatness. I am sure that needs some tidying up, but I think it works as a refutation.
5:48 From the perspective of partially ordered sets and Zorn's lemma, this argument is deeply flawed. Suppose you have a set of attributes on which you're basing the definition of greatness, and for each, a numerical measure of the degree of that attribute (with higher numbers being greater). Define a partial ordering by: x is greater than or equal to y if x is greater than or equal to y in every attribute. I'll go through the steps, as I see them: 1) Fine. Assuming some possible worlds have finitely many beings, every greatness chain will have an upper bound in those worlds, so by Zorn's lemma, a maximal element exists in each such world. 2) Fine. Same as above. 3) Questionable at best, assuming the conclusion at worst. If it said "In every possible world, a maximally great being exists", it'd be more likely to be correct, but still not certain. Is there a possible world with infinitely many beings, in which some greatness chains have no upper bound? We don't know for certain whether our universe is infinite or not (our observable universe is finite, but we don't know what's beyond that). Even if ours is finite, we don't know whether there can be other universes which are infinite. But it says "If a maximally great being exists in one possible world, then that same being also exists in every possible world". This is complete nonsense. Consider the possible worlds, listed by the beings contained within them: W={A,B,C}, V={D,E}. Suppose B is maximal in W. This doesn't make B exist in V; B doesn't exist in V. Even if B did happen to exist in V, it wouldn't have to be maximal in V. For 3 to make sense, it seems that we are making existence in every possible world a condition for their definition of a maximally great being. Whereas a maximal element is an element which is not less than any other element in its possible world, one could define a maximal+ element as an element which exists in every possible world, and is maximal in all of them. Then by definition, any maximal+ element exists in every possible world. So now that we've defined it, what elements are maximal+? None. As seen above, worlds W and V have no elements in common. To salvage the argument, one could say that any world without a maximal+ element isn't actually a possible world (that the intersection of all possible worlds is nonempty, and the intersection contains at least one maximal+ element). But then we're assuming the conclusion. 4) Fine. It'd be quite surprising if the world in which we find ourselves is not a possible world. 5) Fine, if we accept the premise that a maximal+ element exists. Not fine if we don't. C) Not fine. The maximal+ element(s) we're asserting the existence of needn't be a given being's version of a god or gods. They could be exceptional polymaths, athletes, chefs, artists, etc. Depending on what attributes you include in your definition of greatness, seemingly ordinary people could also be maximal elements. Remember that a maximal element doesn't have to be better than every other being in that world in every measured attribute for greatness. It is just required that no other being in that world be at least as good as them in all attributes, and better than them in at least one.
I like this line of thinking. It seems to take the purported attributes of God and conceptualize them in a way that we could grasp them in terms of specific things we are capable of discriminating - makes the concepts more "concrete" so to speak. As soon as we do this, however, theistic arguments seem to fall apart.
"But then we're assuming the conclusion." Yes, that's actually the point of the argument; that premise 1 necessarily entails the conclusion. All the other premises are just there to guide the reader as to why. The argument uses S5 of modal logic, by which to say that "X possibly necessarily exists" is an equivalent sentence to "X necessarily exists", which by definition entails "X exists". That's because S5 prunes strings of modal operators to the one closest to the proposition they're attached to. So [][]P becomes []P (necessarily necessarily P becomes necessarily P), []P becomes P, (necessarily possibly P becomes possibly P) and []P becomes []P. This is counterintuitive at first, but it makes perfect sense in the modal context S5 describes. Simply put, it's talking about contexts where the possibility and necessity operators quantify (might not be the technically right term, i cant remember) over every possible world. That is, "possibly P" is true for some given proposition if P is true on any possible world, likewise for "necessarily P". This is in contrast to weaker modal logics that cut out some possible worlds from discussion; you could have a modal logic that only talks about a given subset of worlds S, whereby P's truth on some world outside of the set doesn't imply P's possibility with respect to S. S5 is thus the preferred logic for talking about logical truths on the broadest possible scale; it's the only logic that can be used if you want to discuss things that are true in every world world, or "logical necessities". In that sense, if P exists on some world W, and P is necessary, then it must exist in all worlds. Why? Because necessity means existing in all worlds; P couldn't be necessary in W unless it necessary in all worlds. It's all or nothing. So, you're missing the point a bit when you say "To salvage the argument, one could say that any world without a maximal+ element isn't actually a possible world" because that was the argument all along. Is it presuming the conclusion? Well, yes, because accepting premise 1 means that you accept there are no worlds where this Maximally Great Being (mgb) doesn't exist. If that's not intuitive yet, consider this argument that lays it out: 1) A mgb is necessary. 2) For any x, if x is necessary, then for any world w, if x exists in w then x exists in every world. 3) a mgb exists in some world w. Those 3 are what you sign up to when you agree to premise 1, and they jointly imply the ontological argument's conclusion. It absolutely entails that it's the same mgb, not a different mgb in every world. What a lot of people get confused by is that the truth/falsity of premise 1 (of the ontological argument, not my bit above) directly determines what logical space there is to play with. It's not that there just so happens to be no worlds without what you're calling a maximal+element (im taking that as a mgb), but that your answer to whether there's a mgb in any world whatsoever entails that worlds where a mgb doesn't exist are logical impossibilities. You basically confused the issue of whether one mgb exists in all the worlds, or whether every world has a maximal element, as you've defined it. But the latter conceptualization isn't what's going on in the argument. Other than that explanation, I wonder why you;'re using a partial ordering not a total ordering? It's immaterial, but it struck me as strange. I guess you just wanted to say that "every world has a maximally powerful being defined as being the most powerful in that world"? if so, then you;ve defo made the confusion I've pointed out. it was an interesting argument to think about tho.
@@internetenjoyer1044 Hi Daniel, a bit late to reply, maybe you have lost track of this comment already :D But I wonder, considering what you laid out for the first premise (the only thing really important for the whole argument) isnt there a moment of obvious circular logic? I mean, your number 2 - For any x, if x if necessary, than for any world w, if x exists in w, then x exists in every world... aaaand, now thinking about it, its actually not circular logic... anyways, that makes it hard to accept as a premise - the possibility of a being, that is basically defined as existing... This really is wordplay isnt it? It really is DEFINING God into existence, by giving him a property within the definition, that makes it absolutely necessary for it to exist... :/
@@psychepeteschannel5500 Well, the argument draws out a logical equivalence between the first premise and the conclusion which is non obvious. So maybe the fact that the premise and conclusion are equivalent makes the argument circular, but if, like most people, you don't know the equivalence is there, the argument succeeds in giving you new information by way of accepting the first premise and following the middle premises to the conclusions. Having done that, you might think "well, i don't accept the first premise after all" but you have to argue for that. There are circular arguments and viciously circular arguments,m and the ontological argument isn't the latter.
@@internetenjoyer1044 You are right of course, actually in responding to you (during the typing) I realized, that it is not "really" circular - but it made me realize another thing... that an argument like this, can only ever hope to prove 2 things - either, that the logic system itself is flawed, or that a mistake has been made - a word changed definiton at some point, axiom is flawed... something must be wrong... Because if anyone manages to logically prove, without any necessary empirical information, that something can be litterally defined into existence, if the correct premise and context is used... you can check this conlcusion empirically and prove it to be logically incoherent - as it wont happen. Unless you are prepared to have a philosophy just disconnected from reality, which would just be meaningless. I mean, if this argument was working, I am sure we can manage to assign any attributes to this "thing" that necessarily exists. Like for example, being in my room right now... And I can check if it worked right away. Exampe - a maximally cool unicorn is possible... - the contents of "cool" in this case are, that it is maximally great (just like God) but ALSO appears in my room on this night, in exactly one minute. I am only asking if that is POSSIBLE. Granted? It should be granted the same way the maximally great God would be granted... And as I am typing the last sentence, it has been a minute already... so, no... no unicorn. Clearly, that suggest something has gone wrong in my process of defining that unicorn... And I dont see the realy difference between that unicorn and the maximally great God, except for the fact, that my unicorn has a built in logical selfdestruct.
The great thing about the ontological argument is it fails at the first premise. Possibilities and impossibilities have to be demonstrated. Easiest argument to defeat in my opinion. Premises also have to be validated and the possibility of a God cannot be validated.
J. H. Wrong. It is logically coherent to say a human being could grow a 5 foot arm. It’s not logically contradicting it’s something of a deformity that could possibly happen. And we would never know, but maybe it has happened in our past. But that doesn’t mean it ever existed in reality. You are incredibly wrong. You cannot defined something into existence. Having a valid syllogism is an incredibly good start. But it doesn’t make it so. All the work is still in front of somebody to prove it actually exists and all the premises are true. As I pointed out before. Possibility and impossibility have to be proven. Which is why I said I love the model logical argument because it fails on the first premise because it makes the believers have to do something they’ve never been able to do. Prove the possibility of a God or that God exists. They love talking and they love using fallacies. They don’t love proof, and proof is what rational people need to be justified in a belief. See the thing is there’s likely no God. Extremely likely. It would be easy to test. People would be able to hear him we would have recordings we could see him. Prayer could actually work there could be 1 million ways for this invisible God to show he is real. But none of that ever comes to fruition like you guys have to rely on words and philosophy at best. Unfortunately that doesn’t work because it’s full of fallacies and improvable things. And if you want to be rational and you want to have justified believe in those things need to be sure to be true first. Otherwise you are definitionally irrational. You might be happy with it you might be able to live with it it might even give you some sort of peace. But you are in fact irrational.
Daniel Prendergast Possibly. If you were to say to me a God is real. And I said no it isn’t. And you said prove it yes I would not be able to. But who cares. I can make any noise with my mouth and nobody would be able to prove it’s not real. The thing is believers always think they know something about this. As soon as you start climbing things you know it becomes easier to disapprove. And I find anytime somebody thinks they Have a justifiable reason to believe in a God it always comes with an untruth or fallacy in the argument. I mean let’s be honest. The only possible way for a believer to come away from a rational argument about God has to say I just take it on faith and that’s the end of it. There is no valid argument for God. There is no power for belief. I wish Christians would just suck it up and admit that they have no reason to believe other than complete faith. Just quit acting like a justified and rational. The problem is he didn’t want to be justified and rational. Because it works every time and every facet of our life. But when you’re in doctor needed and want to believe something can’t be validated you know there’s something wrong. But you’re also afraid you’re going to go to hell. Just ditch is ridiculous please. Study biology study human beings and just be comfortable with the fact that we are emotional creatures that don’t want to die someday and it’s been in doctor needed you there at a young age we are simply still coming to wishful thinking about a possible future. Grow up be a modern-day person and just live in reality and be happy you’re here for now. And if you wanna hope that there is an afterlife fine. Maybe I hope there is too. But believe it, I actually think it’s gonna happen is irrational.
_Possibilities and impossibilities have to be demonstrated._ In the real world, I agree. In the world of philosophy, I have no idea, because I'm not a philosopher. But, for example, is it possible for a disembodied mind to exist? Is it possible for a mind to exist, absent some kind of physical brain? I'm not going to say that it's possible, because I don't know whether it's possible or not. From everything I've experienced, it doesn't really _seem_ possible. But, of course, I can't demonstrate that it's impossible, so I don't make that claim. But if someone else claims that it _is_ possible, I'm going to need evidence that it's possible before agreeing with them. After all, I don't have to claim that something is impossible. So "I don't know" is all I need, unless I'm trying to demonstrate the impossibility of something. But if someone else claims that something _is_ possible, they've got the burden of proof. If they can't demonstrate - in the real world - that it's possible, then I'm not going to agree with their premise. Again, I don't know how philosophers see this stuff. That doesn't always seem to have much connection to the real world. :) But maybe that's just my ignorance talking?
@@fishtailfuture You don't understand what possibility means in this context. Someone growing a five foot arm, lets grant, never happened in reality (ie this world). In fact, lets say that it's impossible on this world (suppose it contradicts our biological laws, say). It's still possible, in the sense relevant to the ontological argument, because there's some possible world, ie some non logically contradictory way reality could have been, where people grow five foot arms. Now, that doesn't mean five foot armed people exist on our world, because such people aren't logically necessary. But God is, by this definition. And it follows from S5 modal logic that if something is possible necessary, it's necessary; that it;s it exists in all worlds. I would explain why, but that's a lot of effort and you wouldn't read it. I can provide links yif you ask me though. Basically, you're unfamiliar with the system of modal logic this argument uses, but you're dismissing it as stupid before working to attain such an understanding. It's like someone dismissing mathematical concepts without ensuring they understanding the relevent field they're talking about. Silly arrogance, in other words. And is that, "acting like a justified and rational."?
Wow, it's been a while since I have seen one of your videos. I remember loving to watch you, dasamericanathiest, Avi and the like debating. Good times!
Another way to think about it would be - If we agreed apriori, that "a being cant be granted the attribute of being capable to do all things...." Lets assume we both agree for some reason or another. Now you say: "Is it possible, that a being, that can do half of all things, can do the OTHER half of all things?" What can I do? I have to grant the possibility of a being doing the OTHER half of the things - I dont have grounds to say, that someone cant do half of all things. Neither do I have grounds to say, that someone cant do the other half of all things... So do I just concede and grant it, thus proving that a being, that can do all things, is possible? I think it is clear, that the general rule necessarily must be, that I CANNOT grant an atribute to something, without taking into consideration what it is. Sure I can grant half of the things to Joe. And the other half to Betty. But if you ask me, if I grant the other half to Joe, who is already granted the first half, that is illogical for me to do, since we established that both halves cant be granted to a single being at the same time... In the same vein, I can logically grant possibility to some God. But I cant grant possibility to a necessary God, knowing, that granting this final "piece" is effectively granting the atribute of existence. Which is impossible. - Just like a God that can do both halves of all things, means it can do all things - a god that neceserilly exist being possible, means it exists... It is logically equivalent.
You're so incredibly gifted! Articulate, well spoken, coherent. You dropped out of highschool, but so did Bobby Fischer, and his IQ was 187! Keep up the good work!
@@TheDevestatorX Possibility has to be demonstrated. So does impossibility. I can do neither. Now, as I originally requested, can you demonstrate your premise?
@@cmack17 Is it so? Genuine question, I dont know what is accepted in "mainstream" philosophy, im just a laymen fan :D Is it necessary to DEMONSTRATE possibility? I mean, how would you demonstrate the possibility of... a person having a different haircolor? I think that is philosophically "possible" - so how would we go about demnostrating it? Like... that he/she could have been born with different genes if something happened differently? Is that enough though? Could I just continually force you to provide demonstrations for "why is it possible that something could happen differently" ad infinitum?
@@psychepeteschannel5500 For your specific question, what do you mean by it being possible "to have a different hair color"? Do you mean "genetically" or by artificial means?
@@cmack17 I mean specifically genetically, yes. The artificial change I can see being easily provable, because it is something that can be demonstrated empirically... Unlike different genetics in a particular person.
Ok so this is my best chance I've found of finding what I'm looking for. Scott made a cd called untitled and had a song called untitled a long time ago. I cannot find that song or cd anywhere. I'm willing to pay money for it. Does anyone know where I can listen to and or find this song!!!!
The need for apologists to resort to such ridiculous sophistry equals admitting defeat, especially when this garbage comes out of the mouth of christians who claim to have a loving god who wants a personal relationship. These people are a joke.
Here is an argument for God: Change occurs. Change can only occur if there is some thing or substance that changes. Change is the actualization of a potential. Things or substances that change have potential for existence, since they can potentially exist in many other ways or potentially not exist at all. So, they require an actualizer of their potential for existence at any particular moment at which they exist in the here and now, according to the principle of causality (which states that a potential can only be actualized by something already actual). But, if that actualizer also has potential for existence, then it will also require a simultaneous actualizer of its existence here and now. This will lead to a causal regress that is hierarchical in nature, and so, cannot regress to infinity. Thus, it must terminate in a first actualizer that is purely actual devoid of all potentiality; otherwise if it had some potential for existence, then it would require some further and more fundamental actualizer. But then it wouldn’t be the first actualizer. Thus, the first actualizer cannot have any potential for existence and must exist in a purely actual way. So, the occurrence of change and the existence of things that undergo change presuppose the existence of a purely actual actualizer.
@@anonymousperson1904 Man y'all are really fucking reaching huh. So.. what is the unactualized actualizer... actualizing? See this argument makes the same woefully apparent error as every other argument from causality or contingency. Something that doesn't exist isn't contingent on anything. If you're arguing that the "unactualized actualizer" actualized the universe, then your argument falls apart. All of your first premises require a causal relationship between things that already exist. Pre-existing material. Yet your conclusion demands we accept the logical absurdity of change happening to something that _doesn't_ exist. So try again.
@@anonymousperson1904 Actually don't. Don't try again. Instead, I want you to grow the fuck up. The very fact that you have to use such specious bullshit to defend your god should be evidence enough that your god doesn't exist. Grow, the fuck, up.
@Najawin lol i read that recently. The paper states that the flaw was fixed in other people's versions of his proof though, and that many people in repeating his proof made the premises consistent "because that's what he probs meant" iirc
@Najawin Indeed. Not gonna lie i've only scratched the surface in terms of understanding that family of arguments. I wish people weren't so dismissive of ontological arguments. Whether they're right or wrong, they so interesting, and trying to show why they're wrong has a long history of illuminating philosophical insights (eg, what actually is a "property"?). Any argument that is still being discussed 800 years later isn't something you can just dismiss as stupid.
@Najawin Rationality of belief is useful to be fair. I do think that it's really hard to asses whether the definition of a maximally great being is possible. I should brush up on Oppy and Kant here tho. My main angle in talking about ontological argument on youtube is basically that i hate seeing the argument dismissed in some niave and flippant ways by people who don't understand it fully. I want to shake people and say "bro im not saying the argument works, but theres so much stuff here you're missing"
I think I understand the first but how can "A being who exists in all possible worlds, if he exists does not exist" not be a contradiction?? Can someone help me?
7:40 My problem with this argument is that it has nothing to do with the properties of the thing it is arguing for. You could replace "maximally great being" with anything and it would still be true. So it is arguing that everything is logically necessary and therefore exists in the actual world, unless it is logically impossible. The argument from absurdity seems to write itself. It could possibly lead to contradictory states too.
You just blew me away with how smart you are. Always knew it, but that was very deep. Always a plesure to hear you speak. I also confess that I do watch the B&B. Stay safe and take care.
Okay, hold up. How did you re-edit that so smoothly? How much later did you re-record the correction? Clearly there's no natural light coming into the room. And clearly your camera wasn't moved in the process. But your shirt is sitting on you the exact same way, and it kinda looks like you may have an extra strand of hair showing on your right side (screen-left). But I think I'm wrong about that. Seriously. How? for those curious, 13:17 to 13:27 is the altered portion. Seriously. How?
Haha, I didn't have to re-record anything. All I had to do was fix the text onscreen and then make a cut from right before "If God exists..." to right after. If you watch closely, you'll see a sort of 'glitch' at 13:17.
Super fascinating video so far (13 minutes in). Do you think the law of non-contradiction is possibly false in some possible worlds? If you answer "no" I think this will cause a potential issue with something you say at 12:48.
My biggest issue with this argument is statement 2: "A Maximally Great Being exists in some possible world." I understand how introduction of the possible worlds concept can be useful to logically consider stuff that could happen in some scenario. But the Maximal Great Being is not defined by the properties enclosed in a single world, it's kind of meta-definition that talks about all the worlds at once. Sentence "MGB exists in some possible world" makes no sense, it's like saying there is a country in which you are the president of the world. MGB can't just exist in some possible world, the concept just not fit. It exists or not, but considering single world is useless. Saying "there could be horses with horns" is the same as saying "horses with horns exist in some possible world". But saying "there could be MGB" is *not* the same as saying "MGB exists in some possible world", the argument is worded in a clever way so the the latter have the same grammatical form, but logically it's different thing. EDIT: considering single world is not useless. Showing a being is necessary in a single world is useless, but showing a being is not necessary in single world proves it's not maximally great. As you said argument is a bet.
Maybe I am dense, or undereducated. It just doesn't seem like a stretch to object to premise one. How do we know that it is possible for a maximally great being to exist?
My favourite question to bring up with the definition of a perfect being is why the theist gets to assert existing is a "better" property and therefore the being in question must have it. Demonstrate existing is better than not existing. Pro tip, you can't. You can only compare existing and me ceasing to exist as to even consider the thought I must already exist. Not existing to begin with may in fact be better.
Basically theists need a deity for the existence of the universe right? If we come up with another method for creating our universe then deities no longer become necessary. Is my thinking okay here?
Well they typically just say that they call the thing that created the universe god. So whatever other "method for creating our universe" you come up with, you could expect them to call it god by default. You would need something about it that makes theists not want to just label it god. The best apologists will admit that arguments for a first cause of the universe don't actually argue for a god. They will go on to make _other_ arguments for why that first cause would have the kinds of characteristics they want their god to have. So coming up with "another method for creating our universe" would conflict with _those_ arguments, rather than the arguments for a first cause
Please forgive my simple thinking, but I'm not getting why we cannot point to the fact that God being a necessary being may only be that the "concept" of God is what we are really talking about?
Premise 1 breaks the argument off the bat. Greatness is inherently relative. I have a spoon that is maximally great for eating ice cream. *For* eating ice cream. Not maximally great in its own right. Only in the specific context of eating ice cream. It is not maximally great in every other context. Greatness, awesomeness, grooviness even, are all relative to context. 😩 And the same thing applies for maximally excellent cause for real wtf ever
*The argument is uninteresting wordplay in modal logic that tries to disguise a strong claim as being a modest claim.* At 6:31 premises 2 through 5 are true based on the meaning of terms in modal logic; they follow from how "maximally great" is defined at 4:42, particularly the definition of "necessarily-existent" that's included in the definition of "maximally great" as a "necessarily-existent all-powerful all-knowing all-good". So the entire argument hinges on premise 1. Premise 1 is logically equivalent to saying it is impossible for an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not to exist. To put it another way, all of the following mean the same thing in modal logic: 1A) necessarily-existent X is possible 1B) it is impossible for X not to exist 1C) X necessarily exists An analogy might help. "It is possible for cats to exist" is a *modest* claim; all you need to do to support it is show the non-existence of cats does not imply a contradiction of the form "X and not-X". In contrast, saying "it is impossible for cats not to exist" is a really *strong* claim; you would need to show the non-existence of cats implies a contradiction. Obviously it does not imply a contradiction since 4 billion years ago no cats existed, so there are non-contradictory scenarios with no cats. *You can't make "it is impossible for cats not to exist" (1B) a modest claim by re-phrasing it as the equivalent claim "necessarily-existent cats are possible" (1A). Both are still strong claims and so you still need to show cats not existing implies a contradiction. Similarly, you can't make "it is impossible for an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not to exist" (1B) a modest claim by rephrasing it as the equivalent claim "necessarily-existent all-good all-knowing all-good being is possible" (1A). Both are still strong claims and so you still need to show an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not existing implies a contradiction.*
So doesn't that mean there are possible worlds where god has an equal in that it is just as powerful as him but just not existent in all possible worlds?
Рік тому
Plantinga's Argument simplified: This is the version that Scott refers to. P1: It's possible that a maximally great being exists. P2: If it's possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. P3: If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in all possible worlds (as it's maximally great, and existence in all possible worlds is greater than existence in just some). P4: If a maximally great being exists in all possible worlds, then it exists in the actual world. C: If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being (God) exists. Scott Clifton's Argument: P1: It's not possible to have the property of existence. P2: The property of "necessary existence" entails having the property of existence. P3: From (P1) and (P2), it's not possible to have the property of necessary existence. P4: By definition, God is a being that has the property of necessary existence. P5: From (P3) and (P4), it is not possible that God exists. C: From (P5), God does not exist. Definition: Using Immanuel Kant's definition of existence. Existence - is not a property, but a precondition for having properties. Scott Clifton's argument attempts to refute Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument by challenging the notion of existence as a property. Clifton's argument is grounded in Immanuel Kant's view that existence is not a property, but a precondition for having properties. While Clifton's argument presents an interesting counterpoint, it doesn’t fully refute Plantinga's argument. Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument is based on modal logic and the concept of possible worlds, whereas Clifton's argument is based on Kant's philosophical view of existence. Additionally, Clifton's argument focuses on the property of "necessary existence," but Plantinga's argument is centered on the concept of "maximal greatness." So, it's important to note that both arguments operate within different philosophical frameworks, and their conclusions are not directly comparable.
It is indeed very similar. Since it's formalized Gödel's argument also makes it clear that it requires the axiom of necessary existence being a positive property.
It's obvious that Plantinga is trying to work backward from his desired conclusion. What gives the game away is the inclusion of moral perfection in the definition of a maximally excellent being. One could replace that with the absolute antithesis of moral perfection, and it would not affect the soundness of the argument at all. So now I'm off to read Plantinga's exploration of the implications of the simultaneous existence of both good and evil omnipotent beings. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath either.
I believe in the existence of God, and I appreciate your video immensily. This arguments is what we need. You claim that the proposition: God doesn´t exist, does not contraddicts itself like circles are not round would. Min.14.50 But when you say the word God and right after you say " does not exist" don´t you think that it is like saying: " The existence does not exist " ? And doesn´t that proposition contraddict itself ? The negation of God existence is a contraddiction, because God ( not necessarily the name itself ) is.... God is... whatever you are refering to that does not exist is obviously not God, because God means existence among other things. Have a nice evening.
There is something else I take issue with: moral perfection. What does that mean? Does it mean omnivolence or perfectly evil? AfaIcs it can mean both. In both cases it's possible that a Maximally Great Being exists. Accepting the Modal Ontological Argument means that MGB (also known as God) is both omnivolent and perfectly evil at the same time. That's a contradiction, hence God does not exist in any possible world, let alone the actual one. To understand what happens here it's handy to use a mathematical tool: the number line from negative infinity via 0 to positive infinity. Let's look at a few properties that are important for every single Ontological Argument. 1. Omnipotence: the opposite of infinite power is zero power. 2. Omnipresence: the opposite of being present everywhere (infinite presence) is being nowhere, ie not existing (value 0). 3. Omniscience: the opposite of knowing everything (infinite knowledge) is zero knowledge. 4. Moral perfection: the opposite of omnivolence (being infinitely good) is perfect/maximal evil. The first is positive infinity, the latter negative infinity. The value 0 refers to moral indifference, like the morals of grass. This is why every single version of the Ontological Argument results in two Maximally Great Beings (an omnivolent one and a perfectly evil one). That contradicts omnipotence. The alternative is an MGB having both properties and that's a contradiction too. Theists should thank you that you deconstructed the OA or they would have proven the impossibility of the omni-everything god. It should be noted that such arguments do not apply to polytheism.
The problem with the argument is that the properties of this god thinkgy are claimed but not shown. Then, after the argument, they fail to show that it is true by real life sightings.
Its a transcendental argument, not an evidentialist argument. Its a theist using logic, that God is logically a necessary being. Its a philosophical argument (though it fails), not a scienctific one. Though scientific methodology is not the only way to truth. Just one way
My frustration with the au-water argument for semantic externalism is it runs counter to our historical experience. Suppose there are two substances that are clear, potable, polarised molecules, etc, that we find occurring naturally in nature. One is H2O and the other is XYZ. Before we understood the molecular structure of these substances, they would be indistinguishable from one another. Because of this, Fred the Farmer would call H2O water and he would call XYZ... water. So would everyone else who speaks English. Now two hundred years later we discover molecular composition, and find out that some of the liquids we were calling water are made of H2O and some are made of XYZ. Would we suddenly, under semantic externalism, understand that XYZ is not, in fact, water at all? No, I don't think I need to explain why that would be silly. What we thought was one _kind_ of water we would now understand is two _different kinds_ of water. We might start referring to them as H2O-water and XYZ-water where relevant, but to the world at large, water would simply be a generalisation of all clear, potable, polarised molecules which includes at least H2O and XYZ. If we build transdimensional travel and visit the alt universe where all stuff called water is XYZ, we couldn't tell them they're "wrong" for calling XYZ water, since that's the arbitrary label they gave to the thing that looks, smells, tastes, hydrates, and behaves exactly like water for all their intents and purposes. We'd need to recognise that in one world we have water made of H2O, and in the other they have water made of XYZ. Again, if these two kinds were to have any sort of intersection, we'd simply refer to them as H2O-water and XYZ-water. There would be no convincing XYZ people that they're not dealing with water any more than they could convince us that we're wrong to call H2O water.
Consciousness is pretty much the brain's continuous feedback loop of modeling its inputs in order to navigate. The sense of self-awareness is the brain watching itself at work in order to micro-adjust for the continuously changing environment.
"A being who's nonexistence is self contradictory if it exists, does not exist" If my nonexistence is selfcontradictory, then I cannot fail to exist, I must exist if I obey logic. If I then exist, I obey logic, and must go on existing. How does this statement conclude that this being doesn't exist?
So, let me get this straight. The sentence "Water is an element" is self-contradictory? I thought it was merely false... (unlike "Water is a compound", which is true)
FYI: This video is a re-upload containing an important correction. (See the footnotes in the description box for details and a link to the original video.)
You really could've just made a pinned comment with the correction, but thanks for the video anyways.
Thanks, regarding "existence is not a property", am I right that the philosophical meaning of existence used here doesn't mean to exist in the real world (as opposed to being imagined) but rather just to be itself. Because the former would be a property while the latter meaning of existence applies to any concept that is not incoherent/self-refuting, I guess.
So any logically valid concept "exists". But having a concept does not mean that there's an instantiation of that thing floating around somewhere in reality. So how does the theist make the jump from concept to reality?
How would you argue against someone who uses the ultimate foundation argument
@@BooshMasterOriginal Every "worldview" requires basal assertions. No amount of theological philosophy can change that. All that believers can do is add additional unjustifiable assertions that weaken their position automatically.
This is a more interesting critique of the ontological argument than most on youtube. I thank Theoretical Bullshit for not coming out with "lolololol imagine a perfect cheeseburger i win THEISTS ARE SO DUMB" and instead coming up with a more thoughtful contribution I don't think it works however. I love this video barbecue it shows how great a tool for analaysing our reasoning the ontological argument is, regardless of your stance on it. The question "What fact, in reality, makes it such that God is necessary" doesn't do the work he thinks it does; it's in fact a linguistic error. I was quite confused by the question initially, it seems that the answer is simply that God couldn't be maximally great unless he had necessary existence by definition, and we're only considering a definition of God where God is maxximally great. The first premise of Plantinga's argument is:
1) On some possible world x, a maximally great being M exists.
Premise 1) is coextensive with:
2) On some world x, God exists.
Given that we're defining God as a M at the outset. Thus is follows from both that:
3) God exists necessarily on x.
Just in virtue of definition. The question of "what makes God on that world necessary" is redundant, either M is on x or not. If the definition of a maximally great being isn't contradictory, there's a world where a being with that definition exists. "what makes it so" is completely irrelevant, all that matters is if it's possible. But what I think he means is this, "okay, God exists on some possible world, but why is God a maximally great being there, rather than, say, just an maximally excellent being". This makes sense of an otherwise puzzling distinction he makes between the the being M defined and used in the argument, and "what God, if he exists, would actually be like". This distinction doesn't work because the only thing at issue for the question of whether M exists at some world is whether it's possible for a being to be M. Unless it's impossible, there's some world x where M exists. "How" is just a meaningless question, it's either possible or not, and if it is, its exemplified on a possible world. But theoretical bullshit seems to be asking why the premise "God exists in x" MUST imply "M exists in X"; after all, if God exists, we could be wrong in our theology; God is merely maximally excellent after all. He's making a very interesting linguistic mistake; he can think of referents to the word God other than M, so premise 1) and 2) aren't equivalent. But, to use his Santa example, he's saying:
4) Okay, I accept that on some world x Santa exists, but I don't accept Santa has property P on x.
The Santa-theist, however, is saying:
5) No, I'm not saying Santa exists on x independent of his properties. I'm saying Santa, who has property P, exists on x.
Applied to God, if you think it's possible that M exists, you think M exists on some world x. If you say God exists on x, but God isn't M on x, you haven't accepted the first premise. Fair enough says the theist, but to deny the first premise you have to show it's IMPOSSIBLE for M to exist, you can't get around it by saying that it doesn't follow that God is M on x from saying God exists on x when, for the purpose of this argument, we're defining God as M.
Now onto his next argument:
1) God is a being such that if God exists, the negation of the proposition "God exists" is self contradictory.
2) If God exists, the claim "God does not exist" is not self contradictory.
Conclusion C): God does not exist.
Firstly, the proposition "God does not exist" is meaningful, coherent, and self consistent "whether or not God exists". Now, this is true if by "God" we're not restricting ourselves to the maximally Great being M, ie committing the mistake I argue he is above. But we are only considering God as defined by being M, so we're really discussing the proposition:
4) A Being M who exists in every possible world does not exist in world x.
If M is impossible, that's of course non contradictory, but if M does exist, then you're saying:
5) Being M, who exists in all worlds if it exists in any world, exists in our world W, but doesn't exist in some world x.
On the face of it, that's self contradictory, but let's consider his further arguments. He takes up the definition of God as being M, and says:
6) The proposition "A being whose nonexistence is self contradictory if it exists, doesn't exist" isn't self contradictory.
And runs this argument:
7) M doesn't exist in possible world W1.
8) If M exists in any world x, M exists in W1
And therefore by modus tollens:
8) M does not exist in any world x.
Now, 6) is only true if M is impossible, that is, exists in no possible worlds. So 6) really says:
9) M exists in no possible worlds.
So the argument here is that it's self consistent to say that M is impossible alongside the claim that if M is possible, M exists. Fair enough, it doesn't seem like I'm contradicting myself when I say that "sure, if all lemons are yellow and also not yellow, frogs are fish (this actually follows by the principle of explosion; all things follow from a contradiction), but frogs aren't fish". But we have to look closer at the meaning of "self contradiction" here. We're, by assumption, uncertain whether M is possible. The truth conditions of 6) are as follows:
10) 6) is true only if M is impossible.
Now, if I believe M is impossible, I'm certainly epistemically non contradictory. It's consistent with my prior beliefs that M isn't possible. But that's rather uninteresting; the fact that I don't know I'm not self contradicting has no bearing on whether I am or not. We're talking about logical self contradiction, given the facts which obtain. And theoretical bullshit's argument is that, regardless if M is possible or not, denying that M exists is self consistent. So, suppose that M exists; that M is possible. Then 6) is necessarily false, by the laws of modal logic. That is, given M exists, M exists on all possible worlds, and so there's no possible way for 6) to have been true (because there are no possible worlds absent M, but for 6) to possibly be true there must be some). It follows that, under the assumption that M exists, it's impossible for 6) to be true. To clarify my reasoning:
10) 6) is true only if M is impossible.
11) If M is possible, 6) is false necessarily.
12) A necessarily false statement is self contradictory.
13) 6) must be non self contradictory even when M is possible to be an instance of 2).*
14) 13) is false by 11) and 12)
*(recall; 2) is that denying an existent M is non self contradictory). Now, clearly Theoretical bullshit wants to deny 12). But how can he? It can't be merely epistemic; consistency with your belief that M is impossible doesn't make the claim that "M doesn't exist" non self refuting if M is possible. But I don't think he's making an epistemic/ontological slip here. His mistake, if I'm right, is far more interesting. I suggest he thinks something like: a self contradiction must be an internal contradiction, ie not false in virtue of contradicting any other statement. 6) is false is M is possible, but that's just saying "God exists" contradicts "God doesn't exist". He then says that because 6) therefore doesn't self contradict, there's a possible world where M doesn't exist, and so M isn't possible. This is deeply confused. If 6) is false because M is possible, then it's not merely contingently false, it's necessarily false. If M is possible, then by definition, there are no possible worlds where M doesn't exist. That means, there's no possible world in which 6) is true. 6) would therefore not merely be false because it's contradicted by M on the actual word, but that there is no logically possible way for it to be true. He's missing that the modal logical space changes whether dependent on whether we accept M is possible; if it is, then there are no possible worlds that could make 6) possibly true. 6) is always false.
I can't see why 12) isn't true. But if it isn't, I can't see why we shouldn't reject one. Surely "rejecting M is necessarily false if M exists" is true, and if that doesn't count as self contradiction, why accept 1)? What motivates 1) if the preceding formulation won't do?
I should really stop, but one more argument:
He makes the same mistake as I pointed out at the start regarding white unicorns. When someone says "All Unicorns are necessarily white", and someone asks if a non white unicorn is coherent, they're talking about different definitions of unicorn. Any argument that used the definition of unicorn as necessarily white would stand and fall based on that concept of unicorn alone. The fact that other unicorn concepts use the same world is irrelevant. You can't vary the object, in the ontological argument this being God, with various different definitions of it, when discussing whether an argument using one of those definitions holds. All talk of "confirm or discomfirm" is irrelevant, those are empirical concepts. We're talking about mathematical definitions here. It's like saying "how can I confirm that sets can have infinitely many elements".
Scott is proof that even dropping out is a more useful education as compared to following through with a degree in theology.
Scott, I don't do Twitter. Please spend more time here on UA-cam, if you can find the time. Please. I know the platform is broken but, I'm certain that there are still myriad people like me who haven't switched media and who need to hear your wisdom again. Your uploads from years back taught me so much and went straight into my 'favourites' folder. Apologies if this comment reeks of fanboy/sycophant/desperation.
I agree,... except that Scott noted how much time these UA-cam videos take, especially compared to Twitter. Much as I enjoy his videos - and I'm a guy who has _never_ been interested in philosophy (although I do enjoy exercising my brain) - I understand how busy people can be. So I don't feel right urging him to spend all that extra time.
And that's the case with every UA-cam channel I follow (far too many, actually). If they post a video, I'll probably watch it, and I'll probably enjoy it. But even when I support them on Patreon, I'm just going to accept what they have time to do.
You actually don’t need his wisdom. You need more experience which is actually why this statement is indeed so troubling. Your need to engage in this type of communication, which in this case is unidimensional btw, is something that should be getting filled in your daily life. Consequently, Either one of two things is happening you are either cloistering yourself off from the people in your life who are willing to have these types conversations with you for whatever reason. Or you are not disclosing yourself, or at least this aspect of yourself, to those that are willing to have these conversations with you. Either way if a need isn’t being met you will look or hunger for a way to fill it, but this is actually the lowest form of filling that need. It is like a person who has learned to live off of smelling food rather than eating it. It’s good you found these videos but now it’s time to start sharing what your thinking and presumably learning about yourself from watching these videos. Your actually in a better position now that he isn’t uploading because even in best case scenario where you guys become pals and start doing this stuff on a daily. You will always see him as above you like a guru and mentor and you won’t grow into your own self, but will become, by admiration and lack of experience, a clone or a pawn of his. It’s actually kinda religious, but Jesus is not a bad guy for that to happen with cuz He’s been through it all and knows it all, but even in that case you would still need to have your own dream and stand on your own two feet with his help to accomplish it. Obviously with His help it’s impossible without His help. You ever seen berserk at least the first arc it’s very applicable here. I hope you get what you need. I’ll pray for a you deenloon
@@alejandromagnobarrasa9244 Interesting swerve to Jesus right at the end of that paragraph. Too bad (for your claim) that we don't believe in him.
Especially now that Twitter is super turbo charged hot garbage
OMG, it’s so good to have you back uploading videos! Thank you! You have the gift of clarity when you explain complicated ideas. You’re the envy of teachers and professors everywhere!
unicorns are by definition the cutest conceivable being.
unicorns exist in the mind.
it is cuter to exist in the mind and in reality than in the mind alone
Therefore unicorns exist in reality.
They are both pink and invisible. It's a mystery!
Hmm...yes, yes this is sound.
That would be the original ontological argument. M.O.A. adds an extra step of translating this bs into the terms of modal logic to obfuscate the fact that it's useless and also sucks.
Unicorns are not by definition the cutest conceivable being though
@@blakeavila4409 Well, be fair, I would have being empirically observable as being more perfect than not being emperically observable. Definitions are tricky beasts.
Hey man, you and other UA-cam atheists (during the good ol’ days) where crucial for my intellectual development. Just wanted to say thanks.
As a theist, I find the ontological argument objectively the weirdest argument for anything ever.
Agreed.
As an atheist looking for more (better) arguments for the existence of God, what convinces you? Or is it pure faith for you?
I've never heard an argument for God's existence that I found convincing, but I still like to hear them because they usually lead my train of thought down some philosophical rabbit hole that ends in a greater (more groovy?) understanding of something.
That's exactly why I'm here. It's an easy argument (which one is undertaken) to learn about fallacies and logic in general.
You never will hear a convincing argument for God's existence. Anytime you hear an argument which is convincing will simply prompt you to redefine convincing. People today who don't believe in God are making a choice not to believe. All of our intuitions and scientific discoveries point to God's existence. What you should be doing now is questioning yourself.
"The Greatest conceivable being" is an absolute misnomer of the highest degree if we're talking about that Old Testament God.. even his son has major flaws. I can conceive of a far greater being in my head who is cool with everyone and makes an appearance now and again... not to smite enemies, but to make everyone feel fricking fantastic when we see him.
It’s very easy to imagine a being that is greater than the abrahamic god.
The god of the Bible looks more like a maximally incompetent being... but I doubt that this makes his existence necessary.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 I agree Rami. humans dont need a supernatural being to tell them how to behave, we've had thousands of years of evolution to work out a system of how to live together in relative harmony.
You have to keep in mind that there is and mental and intellectual disconnect between what "sophisticated theologians" are referring to as "God" in their arguments and what is believed in. In an intellectual, philosophical discussion the latter is completely irrelevant when talking about these arguments.
If you mention the latter then all you're doing is strawmanning.
John Doh Well, sophisticated theologians only seem to make philosophical arguments for a deistic god and then dishonesty pretend that this proves the existence of nonsense like the ridiculous god concept of Christianity.
@@ramigilneas9274 Sure, but these are separate issues that have no bearing on the modal ontological argument itself.
The modal ontological argument struck me as a loaded question. This helped clarify it.
Well, if gods existence really is necessary it will be a loaded question. Like asking if numbers exist. That you can ask the question implies a yes. But it does seem to work. There must be an omnipotent being if omnipotence is possible since full omnipotence would require necessary existence. Omnipotence also seems to imply omniscience and omnibenevolence since in order to exceed use complete power you would need to know all and nothing which you did not like could exist unless it was necessary to create things you like.
If omnipotence seems impossible, recall Descartes’ demon
I hate the ontological argument. It's just a way to make "I define god as existing therefore he exists" more convoluted so people don't realize you're just defining god into existence.
The most low effort response to the ontological argument has got to be "it's just a way to define God into existence...".
Sinclairelim
It’s one of the weakest arguments for the existence of gods and on the same level as "look at the trees“.😂
@@ramigilneas9274
In simple terms god exists because my book says so, LOL!!!
@@Poseidon6363 no god exists because I'm him. ---the plot thickens---
why do you guys think that academic philosophers, atheist and theist alike, take this argument seriously and there's a huge literature of disagreement over even why atheists think it's wrong, but you guys can think about it for 5 minutes and the first thing objection that pops into your head must be correct and prove dissenters to be idiots? It's a bit arrogant.
Welcome back man, I missed your reflections on BS, where you manage to both explain the original argument in a way that doesn't just cause a syntax error in my head, and show why it's BS. You inspire me to shut up up more, and reason better. Thanks.
This is getting out of hand, now he's uploaded two of them!
Dude you're an absolute beast at straight to camera. Your new video (10 questions 2021) has me going back through the classics.
Are very few instances in which I value the presenter of information as much as the information i.e. being a 'fan'... but your channel definitely qualifies, still crushing it man, I hope you're back for good.
Hi, Scott! I have to say, I saw you on The Atheist Experience on 7/19/20 and absolutely LOVED what you brought to it! You and Matt Dillahunty have wonderful chemistry, and your contribution to the show was smart, vital and relevant. Plus, you revealed great warmth which balanced everything beautifully! All of us who are devoted to The Atheist Experience so look forward to seeing you there as often as schedules allows. You are part of the family now, and I am sure you will have a ton more subscribers as a result --- myself definitely included!!!
I must admit, I had no idea who you were until Matt mentioned what you did for a living. As a gay man, I gotta say, you might be bold but you sure are beautiful!!! We love you, Scott!!!
I love that you bring semantic externalism into this.
When I rejected that view, to my surprise, it influenced a ton of different things.
My issue with this argument is the first premise: _"It's possible that a Maximally Great Being exists."_ My question is why does imagination require possibility? Why does something simply being perceived make that necessarily possible? By that logic, EVERYTHING that is imaginable necessarily makes those things automatically possible. Just because a person IMAGINES that a "Maximally Great Being" has the properties that theists attribute to their god, how do we get from that to a "fact" that the Maximally Great Being actually HAS those properties? That seems like a non-sequitur to me.
I think you're just misunderstanding "possible worlds semantics" here. You want to look at the relation between "conceivability" and "possibility"
@@TheloniousCube I don't see your point. I don't see how something is automatically "possible" just because it is "conceivable". As for the "possible worlds semantics" theory, I don't really care because we have no idea what "possible worlds" there are. We know about THIS world, THIS reality. Someone can speculate all day long about other "possible" worlds, but that is meaningless until you can show that they are, in fact, possible. I'm not impressed with unfounded guesswork.
@@dienekes4364 You're missing the point - Possible Worlds Semantics is (as the name implies) just a way of talking about what's possible - it does not commit one to belief in any worlds other than this one (which is already explained in the video). Conceivability, logical possibility, etc. are terms used therein. It's not about guesswork - it's a framework for talking about the very sorts of issues in the video.
If you don't want to learn, no one can force you
@@TheloniousCube _"just a way of talking about what's possible"_ -- You think I'm missing the point because you can't stand the thought of being wrong and no one who disagrees with you could possibly ever be right. That is an extremely sad state of affairs for you. Something that is self-contradictory can't possibly exist in any world. If it can, then it is completely useless to think about such things. See how that simple logic works, dumbass?
Is this groundhog day? Oh god if I'm stuck in a loop of hearing the ontological argument I'm going to off myself lol
If its like groundhog day, offing yourself won't help.
It's Maximally-Great-Groundhog Day.
I'll give you the bullets... Just return them when you get back...
When you said Betty White is a maximally groovy being, I laughed so hard I cried. We’ve missed you! 😘
he is on tv.Not Scott but his character.
Wait.. another video??? Good to have you back for now, Scott! Love the videos.
it's a reupload :/
While I was studying, there was a church of some kind near the college that had members who'd try to talk to people on the street. Nice enough people, so I didn't mind. One of the arguments they came up with a variant of was this, though they didn't phrase it as formally as a professional appologist would.
Instead of letting them sneak in that hidden premise, I stopped them when they asked if it was *possible* that god exists to simply ask them if they meant possible in the sense that it can be imagined, which has no bearing on reality, or if they meant possible in the sense that we have a good reason to think a god existance could be empirically demonstrated in some way or another.
To drive the point home, I added a pink unicorn walking up to us as an example of the first. And Dark Matter & Energy as examples of the latter, as it is something we only know of indirectly.
This is a good way to approach this. You didn't let the idea of *possibility* float by unclarified. I have noticed a similar issue with "possibility" when speaking to theists but I hadn't yet thought to clarify the issue so directly as you have.
I'm curious: How did they respond to your questions about possibility?
"possible in the sense that we have a good reason to think a god existance could be empirically demonstrated in some way or another." that isn't what possible means in this context though. You're making the switcheroo from logical to epistemic possibility
@@internetenjoyer1044 No, Tdroid isn't making the switcheroo, he's pointing out that the set up for the switcheroo is embedded in the ontological argument. He's deconstructing the equivocation before it's pulled off. OA purveyors are employing the term "possibility" without disambiguating it.
@@donnievance1942 its really the opposite. People often assume that thr wore possibility must be used in bad faith by those proposing the OA, but this is just ignorance of the fact that in the academic context in which of was formulated, everyone is on the same page as to what possibility means
Slam Dunk at 27:37. I said "bingo" out loud in a room by myself. "Feeling cool" at that moment felt very self-contradictory.
It bothers me when so many religions base their doctrine on faith, and then try to make logical arguments for why they are right. The fact that you *could* be wrong has already been admitted to by admitting faith is necessary.
Anything that is a fact or true doesn't need faith
Nicely put.
Prove induction, rationality, laws of logic, mathematical axioms... etc, without faith
@@Giorginho We don't prove them. We accept axioms because they work and we have to have them to think. No formal system can be self justifying. Certainly without an assumption of the validity of logic, no theistic or atheistic argument can be made. We don't accept axioms on faith, we accept them because they have been shown empirically in experience to work.
@@donnievance1942
So you have faith in empiricism and in logic, cool
The claim of, "a being exemplifying maximality" or, "that being than which none greater can be conceived.", is already incoherent.
... It is the equivalent of, "A number than which none greater can be conceived."
Enter the Sophisticated Theologians.
They're no longer talking about a number but the number line itself. Not "a Being" but, "The Ground of Being or Being Itself."
Seems to me that at this point we have left the arena of hypothetical gods and entered the realm of "sexed-up atheism".
They have no other marketable skills, so what do you expect?
Maybe you should study a bit more the argument. Attributes and numbers are totally different, attributes are limited unlike numbers. And also you can without problem conceive a being as great as possible with the possession of all the attributes.
@@MegaDocalex Maybe you should study theistic claims a bit more. One of the points of theism is that divine attributes are NOT limited. But we also know that infinities have different sizes, so this is no help for theism.
Also, if you can conceive of a being than which none greater can be conceived you've already failed, because such a being, almost by definition, must be greater than your ability to conceive. (A paradox).
So you can't make any theistic claims about it.
"And also you can without problem conceive a being as great as possible with the possession of all the attributes."
This claim is incoherent (which is a fancy way of saying false) because
1) You can always conceive of an even greater being.
This can be argued quite easily:
Alleged god(s) plus the universe are greater than god(s) alone. Therefore, natural reality is greater than gods.
2) "... as great as possible" strictly implies that there are set of rules that logically antecede any god(s) and define what is and is not possible. (We call this "nature" or "reality" - The set of all possible worlds including this one).
3) There are a whole host of arguments showing that traditional theistic attributes are contradictory. You should be able to find some on your first UA-cam search.
@@VeridicusX
With all due respect, your reply is embarrassing.
I have read enough metaphysics in my life to know what classical theism is and what it is not, you should know there is not only one form.
The attributes are limited in number, there is not an infinity of attributes possible, they really are limited in number, God cannot have both goodness and evil as attributes.
You said here :
« Also, if you can conceive of a being than which none greater can be conceived you've already failed, because such a being, almost by definition, must be greater than your ability to conceive.»
Not at all this is exactly the point, if you conceive a greater therefore it was not the greatest.
You said here :
« 2) "... as great as possible" strictly implies that there are set of rules that logically antecede any god(s) and define what is and is not possible. (We call this "nature" or "reality" - The set of all possible worlds including this one).»
Again this is false, according to classical theism the rules are according to the will of God, and the will is nothing else than his own nature, this is what we call divine simplicity plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/#IdenDiviAttr
You said here :
«3) There are a whole host of arguments showing that traditional theistic attributes are contradictory. You should be able to find some on your first UA-cam search.»
This subject was analyzed by philosophers by far smarter than you, I and your uninteresting youtubers don’t you have any self-esteem to send me listening such pitiful thinkers?
If you are a high school dropout...then college missed out on a brilliant mind with which to endow a diploma. Your are a genius in my book.
You were very kind to this argument to give it so much time. For me, the moment the argument uses “God is a maximally great being” as a premise, then they say a property of greatness is existence, the argument is done. Another way of stating that is “God definitely exists”. The rest of it is meaningless because that right there is the conclusion, listed as a premise. Without any loss of meaning or fidelity, this entire argument simplifies down to “God exists”. If you don’t find that statement to be a compelling argument, then you shouldn’t find the ontological argument to be any more compelling.
It’s just another example of “If I use enough obfuscation I can hide the fact that I’m just assuming God exists as a premise”.
Thank you for boiling it down to a simple circularity. This whole discussion makes my brain ache. By the time I get any where in it, I'm having trouble keeping all the special meanings for terms straight. Meanwhile my brain is screaming, "You can't prove the existence of any substantial thing by juggling abstractions in looping, self referencing syllogisms. I feel that the level of abstraction is so great that the field for unspotted equivocation is wide open.
@@donnievance1942 I get it. A lot of theist arguments are the same. Some (like TAG by Matt Slick) seem intentionally this way to obfuscate the logic jump. It’s a common experience to feel as though an argument is wrong, but not be able to put your finger on why. If you can’t at first see where an argument fails a good strategy is to replace “god” with something obviously wrong and see if the argument works the same. With the ontological argument, you can “prove” a maximally great unicorn, or a maximally great teacup exist. That’s a problem. In the case of the ontological argument you can just as easily use it to prove that God must not exist. If we use non-existence as a property a maximally great thing has then we can prove God is non-existent.
Many other theistic arguments use equivocation of terms. Kalam is a good example of this. It uses simple language, but relies on equivocation. For some strange reason Dr Craig won’t re-word the argument to remove the equivocation. Funny that. It’s almost as though he knows the argument fails if he defines terms.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I have an idea for recognizing a new (maybe it's new) type of fallacy: If an argument, like the ontological argument, consists entirely of formal abstract premises with no statements about phenomena in the actual, substantial world, then the argument must be considered unsound in establishing any conclusion about the actual world, irrespective of its semantic validity. This judgement applies prior to any analysis of the details of the argument. If all premises are conceptual abstractions, then the only way that a conclusion about the actual world can be reached must necessarily be through some type of equivocation, even if we fail to root it out.
It's analogous to the is/ought conundrum in moral philosophy. The only way an "ought" can be reached is through an "ought" in the premises.
The premises of an argument must tie in to the phenomenal world at at least one point in order to reach a conclusion about the phenomenal world. Otherwise, it's a semantic game whose terms must be ambiguous since they cannot be identified with any demonstrable real item. I know other people besides myself have had the general idea that you can't prove anything substantial by playing word games, but it recently occurred to me that it could be established as a formal, enforceable principle. What do you think? Perhaps it's already been done? It could be called the Real World from Abstraction Fallacy.
@@donnievance1942 Yeah I’m in strong agreement that the way to demonstrate a being exists is with evidence.
I think there is a small amount of wiggle-room for the theist though. I think a reasonable probabilistic argument can be made based on expectations. That is, if we look at the world there can be unexpected situations or outcomes… things we can’t explain with our current level of knowledge or evidence. And we can make reasonable inferences from these. An example is the hypothetical ninth planet in our solar system. It’s hypothesised based on gravitational behaviour in our outer solar system that isn’t explained from the known planets.
This of course does tie to real world observations. But the theist would say the same thing about the ontological argument. Even things like their understanding of “possibility” is based in experience of our world.
The big, common problem for theists of course isn’t identifying things we can’t currently explain about our world. There are plenty of those. The problem is God is defined as being able to do absolutely anything, so God can be proposed as an answer to any phenomenon. Which makes it a useless answer. It’s functionally equivalent to saying “magic dunnit”. Nobody thinks labelling something as magic is an answer. We keep looking until we have an actual answer… an answer that actually explains how the phenomenon happens.
I’ve described the God of the gaps above. But to circle back to your point, I think it is possible to have an argument that looks at the universe and makes a reasonable probabilistic conclusion about things we can’t see. The multiverse hypothesis is another example. I used to think of this as a useless idea, but when I looked into it a bit I found there was a flat spot in our universe. The hypothesis was it was flat because this is where a neighbouring universe was pushing up against ours (similar to how pushing two balloons against each other will create a flat spot in each). It turned out that hypothesis was wrong, but it opened my eyes to the possibility of having evidence for things outside this universe being available to us within this universe.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I have no problem with reasoning from observations within our universe (meaning the spacetime matrix we can observe and make straightforward inferences about) to acceptable hypotheses about possibilities outside the universe. In your example that reasoning is grounded in observations of real phenomena. I'm objecting to the case of the ontological argument, or any other case that argues from abstract principles of pure reason to conclusions about the phenomenal world with no premises that are statements about phenomenal reality. I'm proposing a general concept to strike down such arguments prior to detailed analysis of their specifics, apart from a examination of the argument to confirm that it has no premises of accepted substantial empirical fact.
So here goes-- Donnie's Lemma: To be sound, an argument, purported to conclude with a truth about the substantial phenomenal world, must contain, as a necessary non-contingent premise, at least one accepted true statement of the existence of a specific substantial phenomenon.
I'm going to call the failure to meet this standard The Real World Derived From Abstraction Fallacy. I'd be curious to know if anyone's ever heard of a previous equivalent formulation.
Nice work. I especially enjoyed the end and the way you highlighted the "all-in"-nature of the Plantingas argument. Not that they would "necessary"😉 be of great importance for the discussion, I would like to remind of the "existence" 😜of non-eucledian geometry and on the other hand of Quines critique of analycity of arguments in handling the examples used.
My hat goes off to this guy for admitting for the sake of the arguement (and to avoid any false misconceptions about his formal education) that he's a high school drop out. So am I. It's a relief to me, because I feel very overwhelmed when speaking to anyone, whether theist or atheist, when the question of education is brought up. A lot of people tend to dismiss someone (though they've done their research) just because they don't have a PhD attached to their resume, so to speak. And most of the atheist content creators I've found speaking on religious topics are highly educated individuals. This is not to discount education, but I'm just relieved to find I'm not the only high school drop out interested in nuanced discussion of religion 😆
One thing to remember: if you look up 'theology', it has 2 distinct definition. One is the study of religious belief, and the other is the study of the nature of God. Knowledge of religious belief could tell you how the Arian heresy differed from Roman Catholicism, and such like. In short, historical trivia, centered on religion. And at that, it usually concentrates on the theologian's own religion, with fairly superficial knowledge of others.
Theologians will then use their degrees in *that* to argue that they have some knowledge of God's nature. They don't. They have a bunch of assertions, but no data to back it up.
My point is, don't fret about not having a degree in theology. It really adds little to the discussion.
Theologians also like to call themselves philosophers, since school generally place their degrees under the philosophy department. And no doubt, they do take courses in philosophy. But as Plantinga's 'specious bullshit' demonstrates, *knowing* philosophy is a far cry from *using* philosophy.
Welcome back. Last time I saw your beautiful face, I was in a way different time in my life, in a different geographical location, with a significantly different moral system, and a different school of thought...
Oh man I was just remembering your "what if I'm wrong" video I had favorited in my atheist playlist 10+ years ago (wow btw) and was wondering what you are up to these days. I stop by and you're still grinding away at this topic. LOVE IT.
In all of these "God exists because ABCDE or XYZ" type of arguments, you have someone who WANTS God to be real from the outset and then uses a sequence of clever and seemingly consistent axioms to arrive at the conclusion that they had already made prior to the start of the argument. That's your first hint that something is wrong with it. The second hint is that the same approach "works" for ANYTHING that resides within the domain of the inaccessible. "A purple unicorn is by definition purple and pointy. Therefore... " blah blah blah. It's just a language/logic gimmick in lieu of any actual evidence and if you can "prove" the existence of any exotic invisible thing you want this way, then you can prove nothing.
Watching you live on TAE Right now and damn you’ve been awesome. Subbed immediately, man! Crazy impressed
I would absolutely love to see an update to your "Treatise on Morality" as it's something I watched at least 20 times. Any chance you'll revisit one day?
I just watched Martymer's video on this which was good but came from a different angle and a thought occurred to me. The modal ontological argument is incompatible with apologists defences against the argument from evil.
Obviously there are logical and evidential arguments from evil, but at root they consist of how could a morally perfect or all loving or maximally loving God allow needless suffering. The unsophisticated defence tends to be that it's all part of God's plan, whilst the more sophisticated tends to be that some set of conditions either in the logical structure of the universe or in allowing freewill means that some suffering is inevitable (indeed necessary).
However, is there a possible world in which humans suffer far less than they do in this world? Yes we could possibly have discovered a cure for HIV (or whatever disease you care to name) years ago. Could there be a possible world in which humans suffer far more? Yes; the Nazis could have won world war two, someone could have dropped the bomb, COVID-19 could be twice as deadly.
If God necessarily exists in all of these possible worlds and yet they have different levels of suffering then some of those worlds include a level if suffering which is not necessary and which God could choose to stop but refers to allow. In such a possible world God is not morally perfect and therefore cannot meet the criteria of maximal greatness.
I am sure that needs some tidying up, but I think it works as a refutation.
You are back! Missed your mind here on youtube!
Came here from Athiest Experience, really surprised you have such long times between videos. Not many over 10 years!
I simply reject the idea that existence is a "greater" property than non-existence. That alone seems spurious to me.
As a furry, I can tell.
Good video. Thanks for sharing this with us. Your efforts are appreciated.
Very glad to have you back
5:48 From the perspective of partially ordered sets and Zorn's lemma, this argument is deeply flawed. Suppose you have a set of attributes on which you're basing the definition of greatness, and for each, a numerical measure of the degree of that attribute (with higher numbers being greater). Define a partial ordering by: x is greater than or equal to y if x is greater than or equal to y in every attribute. I'll go through the steps, as I see them:
1) Fine. Assuming some possible worlds have finitely many beings, every greatness chain will have an upper bound in those worlds, so by Zorn's lemma, a maximal element exists in each such world.
2) Fine. Same as above.
3) Questionable at best, assuming the conclusion at worst.
If it said "In every possible world, a maximally great being exists", it'd be more likely to be correct, but still not certain. Is there a possible world with infinitely many beings, in which some greatness chains have no upper bound? We don't know for certain whether our universe is infinite or not (our observable universe is finite, but we don't know what's beyond that). Even if ours is finite, we don't know whether there can be other universes which are infinite.
But it says "If a maximally great being exists in one possible world, then that same being also exists in every possible world". This is complete nonsense. Consider the possible worlds, listed by the beings contained within them: W={A,B,C}, V={D,E}. Suppose B is maximal in W. This doesn't make B exist in V; B doesn't exist in V. Even if B did happen to exist in V, it wouldn't have to be maximal in V.
For 3 to make sense, it seems that we are making existence in every possible world a condition for their definition of a maximally great being. Whereas a maximal element is an element which is not less than any other element in its possible world, one could define a maximal+ element as an element which exists in every possible world, and is maximal in all of them. Then by definition, any maximal+ element exists in every possible world. So now that we've defined it, what elements are maximal+? None. As seen above, worlds W and V have no elements in common. To salvage the argument, one could say that any world without a maximal+ element isn't actually a possible world (that the intersection of all possible worlds is nonempty, and the intersection contains at least one maximal+ element). But then we're assuming the conclusion.
4) Fine. It'd be quite surprising if the world in which we find ourselves is not a possible world.
5) Fine, if we accept the premise that a maximal+ element exists. Not fine if we don't.
C) Not fine. The maximal+ element(s) we're asserting the existence of needn't be a given being's version of a god or gods. They could be exceptional polymaths, athletes, chefs, artists, etc. Depending on what attributes you include in your definition of greatness, seemingly ordinary people could also be maximal elements. Remember that a maximal element doesn't have to be better than every other being in that world in every measured attribute for greatness. It is just required that no other being in that world be at least as good as them in all attributes, and better than them in at least one.
I like this line of thinking. It seems to take the purported attributes of God and conceptualize them in a way that we could grasp them in terms of specific things we are capable of discriminating - makes the concepts more "concrete" so to speak. As soon as we do this, however, theistic arguments seem to fall apart.
"But then we're assuming the conclusion." Yes, that's actually the point of the argument; that premise 1 necessarily entails the conclusion. All the other premises are just there to guide the reader as to why. The argument uses S5 of modal logic, by which to say that "X possibly necessarily exists" is an equivalent sentence to "X necessarily exists", which by definition entails "X exists". That's because S5 prunes strings of modal operators to the one closest to the proposition they're attached to. So [][]P becomes []P (necessarily necessarily P becomes necessarily P), []P becomes P, (necessarily possibly P becomes possibly P) and []P becomes []P. This is counterintuitive at first, but it makes perfect sense in the modal context S5 describes. Simply put, it's talking about contexts where the possibility and necessity operators quantify (might not be the technically right term, i cant remember) over every possible world. That is, "possibly P" is true for some given proposition if P is true on any possible world, likewise for "necessarily P". This is in contrast to weaker modal logics that cut out some possible worlds from discussion; you could have a modal logic that only talks about a given subset of worlds S, whereby P's truth on some world outside of the set doesn't imply P's possibility with respect to S. S5 is thus the preferred logic for talking about logical truths on the broadest possible scale; it's the only logic that can be used if you want to discuss things that are true in every world world, or "logical necessities".
In that sense, if P exists on some world W, and P is necessary, then it must exist in all worlds. Why? Because necessity means existing in all worlds; P couldn't be necessary in W unless it necessary in all worlds. It's all or nothing. So, you're missing the point a bit when you say "To salvage the argument, one could say that any world without a maximal+ element isn't actually a possible world" because that was the argument all along. Is it presuming the conclusion? Well, yes, because accepting premise 1 means that you accept there are no worlds where this Maximally Great Being (mgb) doesn't exist. If that's not intuitive yet, consider this argument that lays it out:
1) A mgb is necessary.
2) For any x, if x is necessary, then for any world w, if x exists in w then x exists in every world.
3) a mgb exists in some world w.
Those 3 are what you sign up to when you agree to premise 1, and they jointly imply the ontological argument's conclusion. It absolutely entails that it's the same mgb, not a different mgb in every world. What a lot of people get confused by is that the truth/falsity of premise 1 (of the ontological argument, not my bit above) directly determines what logical space there is to play with. It's not that there just so happens to be no worlds without what you're calling a maximal+element (im taking that as a mgb), but that your answer to whether there's a mgb in any world whatsoever entails that worlds where a mgb doesn't exist are logical impossibilities.
You basically confused the issue of whether one mgb exists in all the worlds, or whether every world has a maximal element, as you've defined it. But the latter conceptualization isn't what's going on in the argument.
Other than that explanation, I wonder why you;'re using a partial ordering not a total ordering? It's immaterial, but it struck me as strange. I guess you just wanted to say that "every world has a maximally powerful being defined as being the most powerful in that world"? if so, then you;ve defo made the confusion I've pointed out. it was an interesting argument to think about tho.
@@internetenjoyer1044 Hi Daniel, a bit late to reply, maybe you have lost track of this comment already :D But I wonder, considering what you laid out for the first premise (the only thing really important for the whole argument) isnt there a moment of obvious circular logic? I mean, your number 2 - For any x, if x if necessary, than for any world w, if x exists in w, then x exists in every world... aaaand, now thinking about it, its actually not circular logic... anyways, that makes it hard to accept as a premise - the possibility of a being, that is basically defined as existing... This really is wordplay isnt it? It really is DEFINING God into existence, by giving him a property within the definition, that makes it absolutely necessary for it to exist... :/
@@psychepeteschannel5500 Well, the argument draws out a logical equivalence between the first premise and the conclusion which is non obvious. So maybe the fact that the premise and conclusion are equivalent makes the argument circular, but if, like most people, you don't know the equivalence is there, the argument succeeds in giving you new information by way of accepting the first premise and following the middle premises to the conclusions. Having done that, you might think "well, i don't accept the first premise after all" but you have to argue for that. There are circular arguments and viciously circular arguments,m and the ontological argument isn't the latter.
@@internetenjoyer1044 You are right of course, actually in responding to you (during the typing) I realized, that it is not "really" circular - but it made me realize another thing... that an argument like this, can only ever hope to prove 2 things - either, that the logic system itself is flawed, or that a mistake has been made - a word changed definiton at some point, axiom is flawed... something must be wrong...
Because if anyone manages to logically prove, without any necessary empirical information, that something can be litterally defined into existence, if the correct premise and context is used... you can check this conlcusion empirically and prove it to be logically incoherent - as it wont happen. Unless you are prepared to have a philosophy just disconnected from reality, which would just be meaningless.
I mean, if this argument was working, I am sure we can manage to assign any attributes to this "thing" that necessarily exists. Like for example, being in my room right now... And I can check if it worked right away. Exampe - a maximally cool unicorn is possible... - the contents of "cool" in this case are, that it is maximally great (just like God) but ALSO appears in my room on this night, in exactly one minute. I am only asking if that is POSSIBLE. Granted? It should be granted the same way the maximally great God would be granted... And as I am typing the last sentence, it has been a minute already... so, no... no unicorn. Clearly, that suggest something has gone wrong in my process of defining that unicorn... And I dont see the realy difference between that unicorn and the maximally great God, except for the fact, that my unicorn has a built in logical selfdestruct.
Woah. Long time no post. Guess quarantine has got you back on UA-cam. Glad to see you again.
Wow, incredible breakdown of the modal ontological argument. I think I finally understand it.
The great thing about the ontological argument is it fails at the first premise. Possibilities and impossibilities have to be demonstrated. Easiest argument to defeat in my opinion. Premises also have to be validated and the possibility of a God cannot be validated.
By the same token, the impossibility of God cannot then be demonstrated?
J. H.
Wrong. It is logically coherent to say a human being could grow a 5 foot arm. It’s not logically contradicting it’s something of a deformity that could possibly happen. And we would never know, but maybe it has happened in our past. But that doesn’t mean it ever existed in reality. You are incredibly wrong. You cannot defined something into existence. Having a valid syllogism is an incredibly good start. But it doesn’t make it so. All the work is still in front of somebody to prove it actually exists and all the premises are true. As I pointed out before. Possibility and impossibility have to be proven. Which is why I said I love the model logical argument because it fails on the first premise because it makes the believers have to do something they’ve never been able to do. Prove the possibility of a God or that God exists. They love talking and they love using fallacies. They don’t love proof, and proof is what rational people need to be justified in a belief.
See the thing is there’s likely no God. Extremely likely. It would be easy to test. People would be able to hear him we would have recordings we could see him. Prayer could actually work there could be 1 million ways for this invisible God to show he is real. But none of that ever comes to fruition like you guys have to rely on words and philosophy at best. Unfortunately that doesn’t work because it’s full of fallacies and improvable things. And if you want to be rational and you want to have justified believe in those things need to be sure to be true first. Otherwise you are definitionally irrational. You might be happy with it you might be able to live with it it might even give you some sort of peace. But you are in fact irrational.
Daniel Prendergast
Possibly. If you were to say to me a God is real. And I said no it isn’t. And you said prove it yes I would not be able to. But who cares. I can make any noise with my mouth and nobody would be able to prove it’s not real. The thing is believers always think they know something about this. As soon as you start climbing things you know it becomes easier to disapprove. And I find anytime somebody thinks they Have a justifiable reason to believe in a God it always comes with an untruth or fallacy in the argument. I mean let’s be honest. The only possible way for a believer to come away from a rational argument about God has to say I just take it on faith and that’s the end of it. There is no valid argument for God. There is no power for belief. I wish Christians would just suck it up and admit that they have no reason to believe other than complete faith. Just quit acting like a justified and rational. The problem is he didn’t want to be justified and rational. Because it works every time and every facet of our life. But when you’re in doctor needed and want to believe something can’t be validated you know there’s something wrong. But you’re also afraid you’re going to go to hell. Just ditch is ridiculous please. Study biology study human beings and just be comfortable with the fact that we are emotional creatures that don’t want to die someday and it’s been in doctor needed you there at a young age we are simply still coming to wishful thinking about a possible future. Grow up be a modern-day person and just live in reality and be happy you’re here for now. And if you wanna hope that there is an afterlife fine. Maybe I hope there is too. But believe it, I actually think it’s gonna happen is irrational.
_Possibilities and impossibilities have to be demonstrated._
In the real world, I agree. In the world of philosophy, I have no idea, because I'm not a philosopher. But, for example, is it possible for a disembodied mind to exist? Is it possible for a mind to exist, absent some kind of physical brain?
I'm not going to say that it's possible, because I don't know whether it's possible or not. From everything I've experienced, it doesn't really _seem_ possible. But, of course, I can't demonstrate that it's impossible, so I don't make that claim. But if someone else claims that it _is_ possible, I'm going to need evidence that it's possible before agreeing with them.
After all, I don't have to claim that something is impossible. So "I don't know" is all I need, unless I'm trying to demonstrate the impossibility of something. But if someone else claims that something _is_ possible, they've got the burden of proof. If they can't demonstrate - in the real world - that it's possible, then I'm not going to agree with their premise.
Again, I don't know how philosophers see this stuff. That doesn't always seem to have much connection to the real world. :) But maybe that's just my ignorance talking?
@@fishtailfuture You don't understand what possibility means in this context. Someone growing a five foot arm, lets grant, never happened in reality (ie this world). In fact, lets say that it's impossible on this world (suppose it contradicts our biological laws, say). It's still possible, in the sense relevant to the ontological argument, because there's some possible world, ie some non logically contradictory way reality could have been, where people grow five foot arms. Now, that doesn't mean five foot armed people exist on our world, because such people aren't logically necessary. But God is, by this definition. And it follows from S5 modal logic that if something is possible necessary, it's necessary; that it;s it exists in all worlds. I would explain why, but that's a lot of effort and you wouldn't read it. I can provide links yif you ask me though.
Basically, you're unfamiliar with the system of modal logic this argument uses, but you're dismissing it as stupid before working to attain such an understanding. It's like someone dismissing mathematical concepts without ensuring they understanding the relevent field they're talking about. Silly arrogance, in other words. And is that, "acting like a justified and rational."?
Wow, it's been a while since I have seen one of your videos.
I remember loving to watch you, dasamericanathiest, Avi and the like debating.
Good times!
I missed you. Watched your videos when I was a teen. They really helped me. Glad to see you doing what seems to be well!
No call? No note? No closure?!
How could you?!
Is there any evidence of other possible worlds?
Evidence is not relevant for the Ontological Argument.
Another way to think about it would be - If we agreed apriori, that "a being cant be granted the attribute of being capable to do all things...." Lets assume we both agree for some reason or another.
Now you say: "Is it possible, that a being, that can do half of all things, can do the OTHER half of all things?" What can I do? I have to grant the possibility of a being doing the OTHER half of the things - I dont have grounds to say, that someone cant do half of all things. Neither do I have grounds to say, that someone cant do the other half of all things... So do I just concede and grant it, thus proving that a being, that can do all things, is possible?
I think it is clear, that the general rule necessarily must be, that I CANNOT grant an atribute to something, without taking into consideration what it is.
Sure I can grant half of the things to Joe. And the other half to Betty. But if you ask me, if I grant the other half to Joe, who is already granted the first half, that is illogical for me to do, since we established that both halves cant be granted to a single being at the same time...
In the same vein, I can logically grant possibility to some God. But I cant grant possibility to a necessary God, knowing, that granting this final "piece" is effectively granting the atribute of existence. Which is impossible. - Just like a God that can do both halves of all things, means it can do all things - a god that neceserilly exist being possible, means it exists... It is logically equivalent.
It's great to see you back at it
You're so incredibly gifted! Articulate, well spoken, coherent. You dropped out of highschool, but so did Bobby Fischer, and his IQ was 187! Keep up the good work!
>"it's not a real thing"
Modal realists are seething.
So damn glad to see you back!!!
"A maximumly great being possibly exists."
Can it? Fully demonstrate this premise please.
Game over.
Its within the definition of possibilty. Can you prove that a maximumly great being possibly exist and can you disprove that it does not?
@@TheDevestatorX
Possibility has to be demonstrated.
So does impossibility.
I can do neither.
Now, as I originally requested, can you demonstrate your premise?
@@cmack17 Is it so? Genuine question, I dont know what is accepted in "mainstream" philosophy, im just a laymen fan :D Is it necessary to DEMONSTRATE possibility? I mean, how would you demonstrate the possibility of... a person having a different haircolor? I think that is philosophically "possible" - so how would we go about demnostrating it? Like... that he/she could have been born with different genes if something happened differently? Is that enough though? Could I just continually force you to provide demonstrations for "why is it possible that something could happen differently" ad infinitum?
@@psychepeteschannel5500
For your specific question, what do you mean by it being possible "to have a different hair color"?
Do you mean "genetically" or by artificial means?
@@cmack17 I mean specifically genetically, yes. The artificial change I can see being easily provable, because it is something that can be demonstrated empirically... Unlike different genetics in a particular person.
Glad to see you back.
Well holy shit. Hes back! Welcome back!
Excellent video!! You've been missed, greatly!! Please, upload more soon!
Ok so this is my best chance I've found of finding what I'm looking for. Scott made a cd called untitled and had a song called untitled a long time ago. I cannot find that song or cd anywhere. I'm willing to pay money for it. Does anyone know where I can listen to and or find this song!!!!
Happy to see you back :)
Hey Scott... where ARE You?
Wonderful video :). Really glad you mentioned it in the AXP episode a month ago
The need for apologists to resort to such ridiculous sophistry equals admitting defeat, especially when this garbage comes out of the mouth of christians who claim to have a loving god who wants a personal relationship. These people are a joke.
Here is an argument for God:
Change occurs. Change can only occur if there is some thing or substance that changes. Change is the actualization of a potential. Things or substances that change have potential for existence, since they can potentially exist in many other ways or potentially not exist at all. So, they require an actualizer of their potential for existence at any particular moment at which they exist in the here and now, according to the principle of causality (which states that a potential can only be actualized by something already actual). But, if that actualizer also has potential for existence, then it will also require a simultaneous actualizer of its existence here and now. This will lead to a causal regress that is hierarchical in nature, and so, cannot regress to infinity. Thus, it must terminate in a first actualizer that is purely actual devoid of all potentiality; otherwise if it had some potential for existence, then it would require some further and more fundamental actualizer. But then it wouldn’t be the first actualizer. Thus, the first actualizer cannot have any potential for existence and must exist in a purely actual way. So, the occurrence of change and the existence of things that undergo change presuppose the existence of a purely actual actualizer.
@@anonymousperson1904 That is not evidence for any gods let alone conscious beings.
@@inexpressibleislands3267 Okay, what premise in the argument do you disagree with.
@@anonymousperson1904 Man y'all are really fucking reaching huh.
So.. what is the unactualized actualizer... actualizing? See this argument makes the same woefully apparent error as every other argument from causality or contingency. Something that doesn't exist isn't contingent on anything. If you're arguing that the "unactualized actualizer" actualized the universe, then your argument falls apart. All of your first premises require a causal relationship between things that already exist. Pre-existing material. Yet your conclusion demands we accept the logical absurdity of change happening to something that _doesn't_ exist. So try again.
@@anonymousperson1904 Actually don't. Don't try again. Instead, I want you to grow the fuck up. The very fact that you have to use such specious bullshit to defend your god should be evidence enough that your god doesn't exist. Grow, the fuck, up.
i had no idea Chris Pratt does philosophy when he's not starring in blockbusters
Would be great to hear your thoughts on Godels ontological proof also.
@Najawin lol i read that recently. The paper states that the flaw was fixed in other people's versions of his proof though, and that many people in repeating his proof made the premises consistent "because that's what he probs meant" iirc
@Najawin Indeed. Not gonna lie i've only scratched the surface in terms of understanding that family of arguments. I wish people weren't so dismissive of ontological arguments. Whether they're right or wrong, they so interesting, and trying to show why they're wrong has a long history of illuminating philosophical insights (eg, what actually is a "property"?). Any argument that is still being discussed 800 years later isn't something you can just dismiss as stupid.
@Najawin Rationality of belief is useful to be fair. I do think that it's really hard to asses whether the definition of a maximally great being is possible. I should brush up on Oppy and Kant here tho. My main angle in talking about ontological argument on youtube is basically that i hate seeing the argument dismissed in some niave and flippant ways by people who don't understand it fully. I want to shake people and say "bro im not saying the argument works, but theres so much stuff here you're missing"
@Najawin meh, i dunno, i just think that an actual proof of god based on a definition is so cool lol
I think I understand the first but how can "A being who exists in all possible worlds, if he exists does not exist" not be a contradiction??
Can someone help me?
MOA: the best of all possible words.
Star Lord arguing against his dad’s existence
He does have that Chris Pratt / Ryan Reynolds vibe
7:40 My problem with this argument is that it has nothing to do with the properties of the thing it is arguing for. You could replace "maximally great being" with anything and it would still be true. So it is arguing that everything is logically necessary and therefore exists in the actual world, unless it is logically impossible. The argument from absurdity seems to write itself.
It could possibly lead to contradictory states too.
You just blew me away with how smart you are. Always knew it, but that was very deep. Always a plesure to hear you speak. I also confess that I do watch the B&B. Stay safe and take care.
Okay, hold up. How did you re-edit that so smoothly? How much later did you re-record the correction? Clearly there's no natural light coming into the room. And clearly your camera wasn't moved in the process. But your shirt is sitting on you the exact same way, and it kinda looks like you may have an extra strand of hair showing on your right side (screen-left). But I think I'm wrong about that.
Seriously. How?
for those curious, 13:17 to 13:27 is the altered portion.
Seriously. How?
Haha, I didn't have to re-record anything. All I had to do was fix the text onscreen and then make a cut from right before "If God exists..." to right after. If you watch closely, you'll see a sort of 'glitch' at 13:17.
@@TheoreticalBullshit ah yes. I was looking for something more blatant, and didn't bother to see that easy edit. Well done.
Super fascinating video so far (13 minutes in).
Do you think the law of non-contradiction is possibly false in some possible worlds?
If you answer "no" I think this will cause a potential issue with something you say at 12:48.
My biggest issue with this argument is statement 2: "A Maximally Great Being exists in some possible world." I understand how introduction of the possible worlds concept can be useful to logically consider stuff that could happen in some scenario. But the Maximal Great Being is not defined by the properties enclosed in a single world, it's kind of meta-definition that talks about all the worlds at once. Sentence "MGB exists in some possible world" makes no sense, it's like saying there is a country in which you are the president of the world. MGB can't just exist in some possible world, the concept just not fit. It exists or not, but considering single world is useless. Saying "there could be horses with horns" is the same as saying "horses with horns exist in some possible world". But saying "there could be MGB" is *not* the same as saying "MGB exists in some possible world", the argument is worded in a clever way so the the latter have the same grammatical form, but logically it's different thing.
EDIT: considering single world is not useless. Showing a being is necessary in a single world is useless, but showing a being is not necessary in single world proves it's not maximally great. As you said argument is a bet.
you should try contacting matt dilahunty and get on the atheist experience. you might like that kind of rapid fire debating.
I was picturing him as a host on the show the whole time I was watching this video!
@@edwardqueen5791 yeah it would be a good match up
It happened a few weeks ago. It was a great episode, although I think Scott was unprepared for the level of stupidity of some of the callers
Maybe I am dense, or undereducated. It just doesn't seem like a stretch to object to premise one. How do we know that it is possible for a maximally great being to exist?
My favourite question to bring up with the definition of a perfect being is why the theist gets to assert existing is a "better" property and therefore the being in question must have it.
Demonstrate existing is better than not existing. Pro tip, you can't. You can only compare existing and me ceasing to exist as to even consider the thought I must already exist. Not existing to begin with may in fact be better.
Basically theists need a deity for the existence of the universe right? If we come up with another method for creating our universe then deities no longer become necessary. Is my thinking okay here?
Well they typically just say that they call the thing that created the universe god. So whatever other "method for creating our universe" you come up with, you could expect them to call it god by default. You would need something about it that makes theists not want to just label it god.
The best apologists will admit that arguments for a first cause of the universe don't actually argue for a god. They will go on to make _other_ arguments for why that first cause would have the kinds of characteristics they want their god to have. So coming up with "another method for creating our universe" would conflict with _those_ arguments, rather than the arguments for a first cause
Please forgive my simple thinking, but I'm not getting why we cannot point to the fact that God being a necessary being may only be that the "concept" of God is what we are really talking about?
Premise 1 breaks the argument off the bat. Greatness is inherently relative. I have a spoon that is maximally great for eating ice cream. *For* eating ice cream. Not maximally great in its own right. Only in the specific context of eating ice cream. It is not maximally great in every other context. Greatness, awesomeness, grooviness even, are all relative to context. 😩 And the same thing applies for maximally excellent cause for real wtf ever
Oh cool putting asterisks around *for* makes it bold
*The argument is uninteresting wordplay in modal logic that tries to disguise a strong claim as being a modest claim.*
At 6:31 premises 2 through 5 are true based on the meaning of terms in modal logic; they follow from how "maximally great" is defined at 4:42, particularly the definition of "necessarily-existent" that's included in the definition of "maximally great" as a "necessarily-existent all-powerful all-knowing all-good".
So the entire argument hinges on premise 1. Premise 1 is logically equivalent to saying it is impossible for an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not to exist. To put it another way, all of the following mean the same thing in modal logic:
1A) necessarily-existent X is possible
1B) it is impossible for X not to exist
1C) X necessarily exists
An analogy might help. "It is possible for cats to exist" is a *modest* claim; all you need to do to support it is show the non-existence of cats does not imply a contradiction of the form "X and not-X". In contrast, saying "it is impossible for cats not to exist" is a really *strong* claim; you would need to show the non-existence of cats implies a contradiction. Obviously it does not imply a contradiction since 4 billion years ago no cats existed, so there are non-contradictory scenarios with no cats.
*You can't make "it is impossible for cats not to exist" (1B) a modest claim by re-phrasing it as the equivalent claim "necessarily-existent cats are possible" (1A). Both are still strong claims and so you still need to show cats not existing implies a contradiction. Similarly, you can't make "it is impossible for an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not to exist" (1B) a modest claim by rephrasing it as the equivalent claim "necessarily-existent all-good all-knowing all-good being is possible" (1A). Both are still strong claims and so you still need to show an all-powerful all-knowing all-good being not existing implies a contradiction.*
Wait? Didn't I watch this like a week ago? Is this a re-upload or something??
Read the description
It's a re-upload cause he misspoke somewhere.
So doesn't that mean there are possible worlds where god has an equal in that it is just as powerful as him but just not existent in all possible worlds?
Plantinga's Argument simplified: This is the version that Scott refers to.
P1: It's possible that a maximally great being exists.
P2: If it's possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.
P3: If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in all possible worlds (as it's maximally great, and existence in all possible worlds is greater than existence in just some).
P4: If a maximally great being exists in all possible worlds, then it exists in the actual world.
C: If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being (God) exists.
Scott Clifton's Argument:
P1: It's not possible to have the property of existence.
P2: The property of "necessary existence" entails having the property of existence.
P3: From (P1) and (P2), it's not possible to have the property of necessary existence.
P4: By definition, God is a being that has the property of necessary existence.
P5: From (P3) and (P4), it is not possible that God exists.
C: From (P5), God does not exist.
Definition:
Using Immanuel Kant's definition of existence.
Existence - is not a property, but a precondition for having properties.
Scott Clifton's argument attempts to refute Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument by challenging the notion of existence as a property. Clifton's argument is grounded in Immanuel Kant's view that existence is not a property, but a precondition for having properties.
While Clifton's argument presents an interesting counterpoint, it doesn’t fully refute Plantinga's argument. Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument is based on modal logic and the concept of possible worlds, whereas Clifton's argument is based on Kant's philosophical view of existence. Additionally, Clifton's argument focuses on the property of "necessary existence," but Plantinga's argument is centered on the concept of "maximal greatness."
So, it's important to note that both arguments operate within different philosophical frameworks, and their conclusions are not directly comparable.
I like atheist Chris Pratt better.
Is this argument structure the same as Gödel's _ontological proof_ or an essentially different structure?
It is indeed very similar. Since it's formalized Gödel's argument also makes it clear that it requires the axiom of necessary existence being a positive property.
Wait... Liam???
I must be having deja vu because I thought that this video was uploaded last week.
Check the previous one. He explains why the re-upload.
see top comment
A NATIONAL TREASURE HAS RETURNED TO US
Coming back to this video now, that Betty white comment brought a tear to the eye
Chris Pratt is always good for a surprise! Well done!
I would love for you to tackle the Trancedental argument for God
Watching this is like watching you untangle heavily knotted headphones.
Why does something being necessary in one possible world make it necessary in all possible worlds?
It's obvious that Plantinga is trying to work backward from his desired conclusion. What gives the game away is the inclusion of moral perfection in the definition of a maximally excellent being. One could replace that with the absolute antithesis of moral perfection, and it would not affect the soundness of the argument at all. So now I'm off to read Plantinga's exploration of the implications of the simultaneous existence of both good and evil omnipotent beings. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath either.
I believe in the existence of God, and I appreciate your video immensily. This arguments is what we need.
You claim that the proposition: God doesn´t exist, does not contraddicts itself like circles are not round would. Min.14.50
But when you say the word God and right after you say " does not exist" don´t you think that it is like saying: " The existence does not exist " ?
And doesn´t that proposition contraddict itself ? The negation of God existence is a contraddiction, because God ( not necessarily the name itself ) is....
God is... whatever you are refering to that does not exist is obviously not God, because God means existence among other things. Have a nice evening.
There is something else I take issue with: moral perfection. What does that mean? Does it mean omnivolence or perfectly evil? AfaIcs it can mean both. In both cases it's possible that a Maximally Great Being exists. Accepting the Modal Ontological Argument means that MGB (also known as God) is both omnivolent and perfectly evil at the same time. That's a contradiction, hence God does not exist in any possible world, let alone the actual one.
To understand what happens here it's handy to use a mathematical tool: the number line from negative infinity via 0 to positive infinity. Let's look at a few properties that are important for every single Ontological Argument.
1. Omnipotence: the opposite of infinite power is zero power.
2. Omnipresence: the opposite of being present everywhere (infinite presence) is being nowhere, ie not existing (value 0).
3. Omniscience: the opposite of knowing everything (infinite knowledge) is zero knowledge.
4. Moral perfection: the opposite of omnivolence (being infinitely good) is perfect/maximal evil. The first is positive infinity, the latter negative infinity. The value 0 refers to moral indifference, like the morals of grass.
This is why every single version of the Ontological Argument results in two Maximally Great Beings (an omnivolent one and a perfectly evil one). That contradicts omnipotence. The alternative is an MGB having both properties and that's a contradiction too.
Theists should thank you that you deconstructed the OA or they would have proven the impossibility of the omni-everything god.
It should be noted that such arguments do not apply to polytheism.
The problem with the argument is that the properties of this god thinkgy are claimed but not shown. Then, after the argument, they fail to show that it is true by real life sightings.
Its a transcendental argument, not an evidentialist argument. Its a theist using logic, that God is logically a necessary being.
Its a philosophical argument (though it fails), not a scienctific one. Though scientific methodology is not the only way to truth. Just one way
My frustration with the au-water argument for semantic externalism is it runs counter to our historical experience. Suppose there are two substances that are clear, potable, polarised molecules, etc, that we find occurring naturally in nature. One is H2O and the other is XYZ. Before we understood the molecular structure of these substances, they would be indistinguishable from one another. Because of this, Fred the Farmer would call H2O water and he would call XYZ... water. So would everyone else who speaks English.
Now two hundred years later we discover molecular composition, and find out that some of the liquids we were calling water are made of H2O and some are made of XYZ. Would we suddenly, under semantic externalism, understand that XYZ is not, in fact, water at all? No, I don't think I need to explain why that would be silly. What we thought was one _kind_ of water we would now understand is two _different kinds_ of water. We might start referring to them as H2O-water and XYZ-water where relevant, but to the world at large, water would simply be a generalisation of all clear, potable, polarised molecules which includes at least H2O and XYZ.
If we build transdimensional travel and visit the alt universe where all stuff called water is XYZ, we couldn't tell them they're "wrong" for calling XYZ water, since that's the arbitrary label they gave to the thing that looks, smells, tastes, hydrates, and behaves exactly like water for all their intents and purposes. We'd need to recognise that in one world we have water made of H2O, and in the other they have water made of XYZ. Again, if these two kinds were to have any sort of intersection, we'd simply refer to them as H2O-water and XYZ-water. There would be no convincing XYZ people that they're not dealing with water any more than they could convince us that we're wrong to call H2O water.
Consciousness is pretty much the brain's continuous feedback loop of modeling its inputs in order to navigate. The sense of self-awareness is the brain watching itself at work in order to micro-adjust for the continuously changing environment.
The infamous re-upload. :)
"A being who's nonexistence is self contradictory if it exists, does not exist"
If my nonexistence is selfcontradictory, then I cannot fail to exist, I must exist if I obey logic.
If I then exist, I obey logic, and must go on existing.
How does this statement conclude that this being doesn't exist?
So, let me get this straight. The sentence "Water is an element" is self-contradictory? I thought it was merely false... (unlike "Water is a compound", which is true)
21:30 ahh good. I thought you said bachelors are circle
Certainly married are square.